The Alien Chameleon asks, “What do you want me to be?” - guest post by Roz Munro
One fundamental problem with being adopted is no one understands how much it feels like you are an alien. The writer and fellow adoptee, Anne Heffron puts it very simply, “You want to hear my generalized story of the adoptee in six words? ‘Something is wrong. No one understands’.”
Possibly if adopted as a young child rather than as an infant, then people would see that you had a history with your parents or foster parents, or in an institution of some kind, but I was placed for adoption in the UK immediately, with the gap of only seven weeks between birth and relinquishment and no one in those days (1967) thought that was enough time to have a history. I don’t know when it was felt that having a history started; my brother was three months old when he was placed for adoption and no one thought he had a history either, even though he had been with his first mother all that time and cried for a full day when first he came home with our adoptive mum and dad. He cried until he was exhausted and then was fractious, but no one thought about the trauma to him of losing his mother, suddenly and completely.
Another point made by Anne Heffron is this; imagine being suddenly removed from one life completely then confusingly placed somewhere unknown randomly and told to get on with it with people you do not know, where you can have no contact with your previous family or life, where if you are upset by this they simply don’t or can’t understand why. Now imagine this happening to an adult. It is called kidnapping and is a criminal offence! But that is how closed adoption works, where files are sealed, and no contact or correspondence is allowed. I know it’s different now in many modern cases, but this is how it was for my adoption.
By the time I reached mum and dad at seven and a half weeks I was on my third mother as I had been in foster care for four weeks, so the alien syndrome was already present. It is now known that new-born and young babies are responding to their mother, and she mirrors them, she smells right, and she has the other half of the bond they share, fixed before birth in the womb, the biological bond that is our animal heritage birth-right. Of course, an adoptive mother, even if she is the most loving and devoted parent can have none of these advantages, she is on the back foot before she begins.
Our biology also involves the limbic regulation that a mother provides to her baby, to soothe and to give a feeling of security - the attachment bond. This begins as part of a neurochemical hormonal bond in the womb and without it the child feels overwhelmed. It is this devastating loss at the start of life that causes a large part of the traumatised response induced by maternal separation. I imagine my little mind was full of confusion and terror, the limbic overload of trying to mirror and connect but not getting the right signals, maybe not any signals given my adoptive mum was not a cuddler or an empathetic mother and suffered with clinical depression all her life.
My baby-self needed to connect to stay alive, literally, the baby is helpless and all they have is this connection; it is a matter of survival. The baby’s responses are elements of the adaptive behaviours that adoptees use as attempts to get their needs met, they are survival responses to the relinquishment trauma suffered on loss of our mother. Nancy Verrier writes in “Coming Home to Self” about the two modes of coping that adopted children implement to manage the alien situation: acting out and acting in, i.e., defiance or emotional shut downness. She also distinguishes between these behaviours, which can define a child early on, and their true personalities that are hidden under levels of management of self: to fit in or to radically object.
Either way it is not the true self that is known to the family, or to the individual. I became a compliant baby - a “good” baby, mum said. When the Adoption Society conducted a welfare visit I was reported to be on three meals a day and sleeping through each night. I was 15 weeks old. The reptilian brain works very basically: Do as they want, and this will not endanger me. This translates in my adoptee brain as “do what is asked of you and be safe, anything else and they too might abandon you.”
This layering of behaviours and coping strategies add further silt to the difficulty of knowing, or being, oneself after the trauma and resultant brain changes of being relinquished as a baby and adopted into a biological strangers’ family. I conformed and turned into a very proficient chameleon. I continued to be a compliant and quiet child. The chameleon who asked unconsciously in every interaction or relationship “What do you want me to be?” In essence, I wanted to know what you needed me to be, so I best ensure that you stay happy, and I remain “good enough to keep”. My mum said I was easy as a younger child and young teenager; it was when I left home that I “became difficult”! I feel I was attempting to exert my independence, be myself, but that was not welcomed.
I was into my forties before I began to unravel this chameleon feeling as I worked on myself in therapy. It is a strange experience when something that feels as natural as breathing becomes obvious to you, a behaviour you previously didn’t see becomes visible - or more than that, becomes visible and feels odd. The sensation felt like I was acting outside myself; I was watching myself during interactions and I did not have control over my reaction. I literally didn’t know myself.
Much of my learning about emotional self-care has come through personal therapy. I know now I was brought up with physical care (being clothed, washed, fed) and educational needs provided, but emotionally was neglected. I am now on an ongoing path of discovery about my needs for nurturing and am trying to reparent myself and accept all the disparate psychological parts of me that formed during the early years to help me to survive the traumas and dramas of my life.
I find the early development trauma research and theories are pertinent and resonate strongly, helping me to understand my history and my reactions. For example, I discover I have lived my life in a constant state of nervous system dysregulation. (Stephen Porges and his Polyvagal Theory) This is a result of the primal wound, (Nancy Verrier) which is formed because of the separation from my first mother. Now it is more accepted that relinquishment is a trauma (Gabor Mate, or Paul Sunderland) and losing the first mother catastrophic to a baby. I have been hypervigilant and overanxious and felt the need to control my environment extremely tightly. This hyperarousal is a symptom of an overactive sympathetic nervous system and it being constantly in fight or flight. Then there is the Hypoarousal of freeze, or in the case of the chameleon the fawn response is prevalent too. These are biological responses that are triggered by early trauma (Pete Walker, 4Fs in his book Complex PTSD) and, unless mitigated with attunement to the child by the care giver, or later in therapy, remain out of conscious awareness and can ruin lives. In the dysregulated system a sense of ease or feeling safe is fleeting, and moments of connection with others are brief and feel tenuous. This is an exhausting and debilitating way to live.
As this was the water I swam in for all my life it has taken until just very recently, and with the help of a trauma informed therapist to help me, to remove my silt layers, and I am starting to break free and change these ancient habits and reactions. I am questioning my need to be quiet and pleasing, I can now choose discernment and embrace the freedom of preference; I can release the quietness that went along with the need to supress my true feelings and I am learning how to speak my truth; I am discovering more about my biological and limbic systems, and how I can learn to self-soothe and to self-regulate my emotions so I don’t remain hypervigilant and “on” for ever.
Now, I strive to keep a level of awareness that enables me to question myself and my motives for acting. I still fail spectacularly sometimes. I will find out halfway through an activity or event when I notice that I am feeling resentful. I know it’s a red flag that a part of me doesn’t want to be there.
Sometimes I will notice - a plan will be made, and I feel scared or anxious about it, then I know I am triggered by the thought of the plan somehow, and I look to spend some time reviewing what is my wish, how do I work with my anxiety and, what do I want to do? This is a work in progress.
Only now, into my fifties, can I begin to see what I need to do to honour my own wishes and move beyond my alien chameleon part. Now I can start to ask myself, “What do I want me to be?”
Image credit: the artist Becca Smith
