How to be adopted

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I asked my mother when she met me

I asked my mother when she met me.

She couldn't remember.

"It was either day three or day five," she said, as though she was talking about going to the cinema.

I said, "Not to worry mum, it was a long time ago!"

Then I went for a drive in my car and shouted at some other drivers.

I parked my car, got out and kicked a bin.

I walked to a cafe and snapped at a nice lady serving cream teas. 

This is my story of a lifetime of treading on eggshells in order to keep my precarious place in my "forever family". My family may argue that my place has never been in doubt, but my nervous system says otherwise. The curious dichotomy an adoptee lives with is that of being "very, very wanted" and yet at the same time totally unwanted.

Until I had my first baby I was very much, "Oh yes, she did what she had to do. She was eighteen; this was the late 1970s for goodness sake!"

This is an example of what many adopted adults call 'being in the fog'. Once my little boy was placed in my arms, the truth lay heavy on my chest as I had never laid on my first mother.

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