Bad Robots, Wolves and Monsters
Trigger warning: abuse
Hello world
Being a gay, disabled, bastard, abomination who always believed in aliens and used cannabis for a medicine for decades before getting it legally with a private prescription in 2022, I think it's safe to claim that I've had a bit of a rocky ride and bump start of a very different kind.
Although very challenging and intensely painful, it's also been a colourful, interesting and most enlightening experience and occasionally finding beauty in the darkest of places and I genuinely believe that it was the unacknowledged pain and trauma from my adoption that fortunately provided the strength and resilience that was necessary to survive the incredible misfortunes that I inevitably would and did go on to endure.
Bad baby, bad blood
Born in the 1960s, relinquished at 12 days old and didn't stop crying until about 1972 (not joking), a garden variety standard closed adoption as my birth parents were under age and still at school when I was conceived and only just 16 yrs when I was born. My adoptive parents had two boys of their own and wanted a girl after learning that they could not have any more children naturally.
My parents, as did everyone in those days, believed in the proverbial myth or fairytale ending that finding a family and home for the baby would solve the problems all round. Great intentions and an act of love that unfortunately turned into a dystopian nightmare that truly was stranger than fiction and had only just begun!
Not only did I not stop crying, I had difficulties being fed as a baby and often tipped my dinner over my head as an infant along with never being able to sleep and kept the whole family and neighbours up at night for years, so really, really not a ‘good baby’ because the trauma was not recognised so everyone suffered without any help, support or relevant knowledge.
Brave new world
My parents told me that I was adopted as soon as I was old enough to understand. I was 5 years old and all I remember is that they explained that they were not my real parents because the people that made me couldn’t look after me because they were too young and still at school. They also said that I was special and lucky because I had been chosen and then sent me to my room to think about what they had said. I sat on the edge of my bed and just looked out of my window. I think my heart, brain and mind went supernova at that moment, like a quantum shock that I felt as it resonated through my mind, body and spirit. That memory is still incredibly vivid because the intensity of loneliness that I felt was so profound. One of my two older brothers came in my room, sat beside me on my bed, reached his arm out and softly said “its ok, you will always be my sister”, unfortunately, because his skin complexion was fairer than mine, his blue veins stuck out and looked like wires under his skin, so of course, I thought he was a robot and let out a sudden and blood curdling scream that was probably heard in Watford. I think my brother may have run out of the room at that point and probably screamed himself! I don’t remember anything more, to this day.
I did have an infant inkling that something was wrong as I started to run away quite literally as soon as I could walk. A runaway and as a toddler, just round the block and found at the shops more often than not, I ran away from primary school and rather proud to of gotten over such a high gate at such a young age, even the teachers were impressed with that one and then at age 10, I managed to get all the way to London and all I got for that was a severe telling off by my parents and the police, can’t say that it helped even though a social worker visited afterwards but I was not allowed alone in the room with her at home and I was full of too much toxic shame to contact them afterwards and unfortunately, the amazing Dame Esther Rantzen’s ‘childline’ came too late for me as I was a teenager by then and I really didn't think anyone would or could believe me.
Doodle bugs and apple crumble
Despite a rather turbulent and toxic relationship with my adoptive mother, we did love each other in our own way and did have our moments, in between rows and general merry hell, I was one of the few people who could make her laugh, which indeed was an accomplishment in itself and provided moments of much needed connection, for us both. Although we were diametrically opposed on all levels and being a formidable character I was terrified of her but she did have a very decent side with impossibly high standards, which I now appreciate, she kept impeccable homes and immaculate gardens, she was well educated and had a good job and was very well spoken and presented. She also had a harsh and intensely strict upbringing that would have made ‘Nora Batty’ shake in her boots and she survived the blitz and the harrowing post war times that are unimaginable to me and with no support, so I can see why she couldn't cope with me being afraid of the hoover when I was little after dodging doodlebugs at the same age and found me so very difficult from the off.
I remember that she told me about the strange whistling sound that the doodlebug bombs made when they were raining down from the London sky and knowing when and roughly where they were going to hit due to them falling silent just before impact. I still cannot imagine how terrifying that must have been for the adults let alone the children and then not knowing if your home or school etc had been hit until you re-emerge from the underground after the bombing raid and find out!
She was traditional in every way and her apple crumble was superb and always served with proper custard of course, none of that instant fandangled stuff, whatever next and not on the dinner table, alongside elbows! My father always said “all joints on the table will be calved”. He was also quite reassuringly terrified of her at times himself and yes, he survived the blitz but as the running family joke goes, because he had an Anderson Shelter in his back garden, he was the posh one and didn't get much sympathy even though it really was just a hole dug out of the lawn with a piece of corrugated metal over the top and also completely useless in the winter or rain, so under the dinning table against a wall or under the stairs indoors for most of it anyway!
Pole position for Pa
Being a tomboy and unable to relate to anything feminine and because of his calm and fair nature, I got on with my adoptive father better than anybody else and it did cause a few problems for everyone but the family dynamics were rather complex as ever and for most families in general as well of course, so no surprises there. He was not popular when sticking up for me on occasions and also got into a lot of trouble himself with his impulsive humour and antics which to be honest were probably fuelled further due to an environment of constant criticism and toxic atmospheres, he was indeed a constant mediator within a symphony of emotional chaos, which was indeed mainly anger. Consistently blaming the dog for his flatulence really didn't help matters either but was indeed utterly hilarious on every occasion.
The jelly incident of 83 is a classic example when an impromptu physics experiment alchemised into pudding hellfire, basically my father couldn't resist as the jelly was fascinatingly loose because it had not set properly (not that anyone dared to complain), so using just pure suction rather than putting the spoon in his mouth, the jelly flew in a tiny lime green and rather impressive vortex, straight off the spoon and into his mouth without spilling a drop. My mother went from ballistic to nuclear in slightly less than the speed of light or maybe a nano second, there was no time to calculate. This lead to the banishment of jelly until two decades later with a large bowl of strawberry jelly (perhaps raspberry, I didn't have the courage to go near it) for the ruby wedding anniversary and nothing since up until and including their diamond wedding anniversary another two decades later, thankfully, that one was at a restaurant and no jelly on the menu, phew!
My lifelong love and insane enthusiasm for motor sport, motorbikes and racing came from my father. I am super crazy bonkers about electric powered vehicles and new classes of racing as they evolve also and with such passion. It feels like it's in the blood but perhaps as far as I know maybe it's in the nurture and I am not complaining as I feel like I am a bit of a cocktail, well shaken but sometimes stirred and always my own unique bitter-sweet blend.
Never the twain shall weep
As for my two brothers I was the most unlikely sister imaginable and a frightfully noisy one to say the least. Misunderstood and so very different we struggled to relate to each other and I was obviously a nightmare at times and this was a barrier because they managed to ‘toe the line’ and were sensible with me being the wild child in comparison but not by today's standards I may add, nothing bad or nasty I was just perceived as naughty, cheeky and yes, a bit much compared to the norm in many ways.
They had a lot to deal with and the world was not as friendly towards gay sisters compared to married or hetrosexual ones, plus I walked a very different path with the invisible disability of chronic pain even though I had surgery on my lower spine twice in my lifetime as well as my otherness. I went off to pubs and clubs, liked weird music, motorbikes and moved home about 19 different times over my lifetime, to date, not normal and not stable but I never ended up in trouble or the wrong side of the law either as I am quite respectable in the most important ways and never forgot the standards that I was raised with (well, most of the them). Ok yes, maybe a few parking fines, a bit of speeding and the wacky baccy but hardly the crime of the century at any given moment.
My brothers did not escape from the restrictive conditioning of the times and mother of course, unhappy experiences and effects from the generational trauma no doubt as well as their own fears and insecurities to say the least. But they fared better and have great careers and yes impeccable homes and gardens where relevant and well educated, well presented etc, sound familiar! It's quite remarkable considering all the stigma and despite our differences and challenges, including resentments and limitations within our relationships that we are all still in contact and polite to each other.
Born free and a bit wild
It's no wonder that my favourite film as a child was ‘Born Free’ the true story of Elsa the lion who was orphaned and rescued by a couple in Kenya and then sadly were forced to be released back into the wild against the owners will, but she survived despite being domesticated and continued to visit on many occasions over the years, even with her cubs. I guess it resonated so very much with me because I felt a bit wild myself, being brought up by strangers and having no contact or knowledge of my birth family, so the upside of not truly belonging anywhere for me was the sense of freedom, wild and free just like Elsa the lion but also to have such a strong attachment and rare bond between humans and a lion is incredible and therefore so very special and I guess feeling so alienated and lonely it made any connections that I had even more important and special for me. Not forgetting of course the wonderful theme tune, I still find it so moving and beautiful to this day.
I can now understand at a much deeper level why this film touched me so very much as it's all about freedom, wilderness, wildness and bonding, these days I listen to the theme tune in my car at full volume, windows down and without shame, like a true old fart, it’s a wonderful rush and still evokes such a happy, wild feeling of aspiring freedom, right up until I get stuck in a traffic jam and my wonder-bubble is truly burst and reality smacks me in the chops again.
Schools out and ouch
Secondary school was less than productive and I left with 3 rubbish CSE’s but a whole load of painful but useful human experience, ultra alienation, extra inferiority, more toxic shame, how to skive off and learn about alcohol, drugs and great music, to name a few basics. At 11 years, the first year as it was back then, I was sent for the cane, which the girls received on the hands, for smoking, it hurt but I didn't cry and yes it stung like, well being whacked with a stick, but I didn't cave in, I am used to punishment and don't like to be beaten when I am beaten. When I got the cane again in the second year for smoking, I asked if they would not inform my parents this time as I received a bigger punishment for it at home, they were good and didn't send the letter. In the third year I got the cane again, yup, smoking, again, no tears or letter, this time. Finally in the 4th year, when sent for the cane again, yup, smoking, I remember the deputy headmistress asked if I was going to stop smoking and I replied “No Miss” she then stated that there was no point in caning me again as it simply hadn't worked. I thereby quite unintentionally declared and proved beyond all doubt that corporal punishment was absolutely ineffective and completely pointless, thankfully it was banned a few years later and many years too late as the boys received it across their backsides and could and did on many occasions cause damage to the reproductive organs as well as the emotional damage for all.
I was teased now and then because of my adoption and excluded from a childcare lesson on adoption and fostering also, as well as being bullied but standing up to and befriending the worst bully, as she was being bullied at home also, it works both ways, another non curriculum lesson that I appreciated. Whenever I did speak out or had an inquiry or emotional need concerning my adoption or birth family it was always squashed with that old favourite ‘You’ve got a chip on your shoulder’ followed by the obligatory, 'you're so lucky and where would you be if you weren't adopted? Also of course ‘you can't miss what you never had’ and ‘you were too young to remember’? I disagree, considering I did, and I actually think that not getting what you needed makes you miss and want it even more!
I would now say that it's not just a chip on the shoulder but a whopping and stomping giant potato with an almighty gravitational pull on my heart that's a stronger energy than the gravitational pull that's keeping my feet upon this Earth at times and yes I wouldn't have these problems to feel so lucky about if I had not been relinquished and adopted in the first place, in fact I couldn't agree more!
I ended up getting expelled from school, in the final year a few months before I was due to leave anyway because I continued to wear trousers and my Parker after an ultimatum with the deputy headmaster. I was a mod in those days and always having been a tomboy, the modette lifestyle didn't suit me at all and I couldn't bear to wear skirts and dresses at the best of times. I felt like a man in drag and found it unbearable. I didn't tell my parents and pretended to go to school every morning as I was well practised after all.
Bad robots, wolves and monsters
I continued through life with my own educational system which was to learn how to survive and navigate around bad robots, wolves and monsters of the human variety and then eventually discovered further education as an adult and to be honest it was the best time for me to learn anyway and a whole lot easier to manage than school.
I felt like a robot that is programmed and conditioned to never complain or hurt others, stand up for myself or make any demands and due to the adoption issues I as many have fallen prey to victimhood at times and had to negotiate and navigate amongst bad robots, wolves and monsters and never feeling good enough to be worthy of nice people. Bad robots mean well but they don't have the lived experience to see through the bullshit and hurt you without knowing and without intention, wolves will see your kindness as weakness and hurt you while walking away laughing at you every time and well, we all know what a monster is and abuse happens in many forms and in many extremes, not always hidden and often by the nearest and dearest themselves.
The Abyss
Philosophy rocked my boat and in a good way, as Nietzsche said, ‘if you stare into the abyss…the abyss stares back’. This really resonated for me and it seems like a wonderful analogy for the journey and mystery of life for an adoptee, feeling dazed, lost, confused, constantly searching for answers with all encompassing self-reflection and analysis, whilst navigating through our overly complex lives and trying to find a reality that I could understand and that made sense. The darkness of depression can be all consuming at times, devouring all the positivity but still trying to avoid the primal wound that's lurking in the depths and always swallowed me up in the end. With deep rooted and overwhelming feelings of loss, intense loneliness, inferiority, obliterated self worth, guilt, shame and much confusion around identity and purpose. At my worst I literally feel light years away from love and that I truly do not belong because I was never supposed to have been here, a profound logical truth that I could never deny, and as for the fear, I felt it to some degree, everywhere and in every cell in my body, it felt inescapable and a natural biological state because I am just a big baby and can't cope like normal people and it was just another secret, why not, at least this secret gave me some control.
My Primal Wound
There are not enough words in any language to describe the unbearable pain of the primal wound. Once triggered it is a vast and bottomless hell pit of all the most negative aspects and emotions that the human mind can produce, it sucks you down and buries you under the weight of every single wound that you have ever suffered, like a human fruit machine, lighting up and hitting every jackpot of trauma, paying out an ever increasing weight of, loss, heartbreak and despair, loneliness, rage and fear. It destroys all the positivity, meaning and self worth and then when there is nothing left inside to feel at all, its presence still leaves a heavy, ugly worthless and guilt riddled shadow just to keep you pulverised, let alone broken.
The only thing that pulls me out, every time, is simply every kind word anyone has ever said to me and quite a few, wonderful, deep, astute and profound quotations from an awry of inspirational people, past and present. It is only the power of the mind and the power of good that people can do along the way that can help because there are no mental ledges, lifeboats, ropes, floats, steps or anything in a void like that which can pull you out or even stop you falling further, just words, but words have power, much much power and for me the ones that pulled me out more times than any were the ones spoken to me at 17 yrs by a wonderful senior psychologist, Sue Kerfoot, and she said, and I quote, there is no such thing as a ‘bad baby’! That one saved me many times and all the kind things that have ever been said to me I am truly thankful for and the strength and courage that it took to cope I could never truly express just how crucial they have been, again there really are not enough words in any language for that one apart from the love reached no bounds and I am only here because of them all, however small, however casual, and sometimes, yes, however drunk or high, kind words always have a huge and lasting impact.
The adoption fog
I like the term coming out of the fog as for me it serves as a great visual and tangible analogy that helped me to break free from the enforced and naive narrative that adoption apparently fixes all and the unrealistic expectations that were impossible to live up to for all involved. This put me in the position of being seen as privileged and having to feel grateful, because I was chosen, lucky and special, so the obligation and responsibility of having to appear happy otherwise the adoption wouldn’t be successful and it would be all my fault, was a huge burden that weighed heavily and with a massive guilt trip just for good measure. I also lived with such an insurmountable fear of rejection that I always and often ended up getting rejected anyway, and still do sometimes.
Birth mother and beautiful enigma
My birth mother was only 15 when she fell pregnant and of course with no contraceptives available back in those days it was a classic love baby scenario where the kids had a kid and she was only just 16 years by a few days at the time of my birth. The world was a different place of course in the 1960’s it was openly misogynistic, racist, homophobic and where children were supposed to be seen and not heard and expected only to talk when spoken too, practically dickensian by today's standards, and my birth parents had broken the law by having sex under the legal age of consent, it's no wonder they ended up in so much trouble and strife. I was not named at birth as it was thought that it would be nice for my adoptive parents to choose a name rather than have it changed. Although well intended, I always had secret mixed feelings about this and couldn't help but wonder what name I would have been given.
My birth mother was too far gone in the pregnancy when abortion was legalised that very year so it was decided that if I was a boy I would be kept and raised by my maternal grandmother but I popped out female so adoption was the only other option. My adoption was however contested by my birth fathers family at the time as they wanted me to be raised by my paternal grandmother but they were deemed unfit for reasons that they would not have been today and lost.
Secret Sherlock and a little magic
It took two attempts by two different social services in neighbouring counties to get my birth records, even though I already knew some information after galavanting to the London records offices as soon as I was 18 years, like a private detective going undercover and thankfully not needing to be a genius either with no DNA in those days and no help (although it's still far from easy these days and for many reasons). I did beforehand, ask my adoptive family if they wanted to be involved as I felt it was disrespectful to search for my birth parents in secret but they didn't agree and thought I was being selfish and could hurt a lot of people unnecessarily, and although it was unsupportive, they genuinely thought it was the wrong thing to do but of course the not knowing was unbearable and my whole identity was affected and fragmented, I felt lost and void of the most essential aspects of self, to say the very least. I never spoke to my adoptive family about it again and they never asked.
I used the social services mediation services and although my birth mother was not able to have any contact (for understandable reasons) I did write to my maternal grandmother for many years, just over two wonderful decades, a distant connection that was never meant to be, so special and as she said, writing harms no one and we have a right to a relationship as I was her grandchild. It was in secret as that's just the way things were and it was safer for everyone emotionally for a multitude of reasons. We even met on a few occasions after many years, with my secret great uncle 006 (not 007 but a secret agent of love), whom I had an annual and lengthy new year chats with on the phone for many years and in many different phone boxes until I finally got a landline, a most wonderful way to start any year. I also met one of my aunts and I even got to meet my birth mother on one occasion after asking to meet me, which was the only way and where the impossible became possible, even if for just one beautiful day. Quite incredible and yes all in secret for the main part but because of love, protection, fear and so many complex circumstances but worth every moment.
Reunion city blues
Yes this is a tribute to the wonderful adoptee, Debra Harry (Blondie)
I was also lucky to have a reunion with my birth further getting in contact when I was 40 years old. I wrote 2 identical letters to two different house numbers in the same street as I couldn't make out the number clearly on the birth records. I wrote the letters and posted them on my birthday as it was the only day of the year that I didn't feel guilty or ashamed about thinking of my birth family and I knew if I left it until the next day I probably would not have posted them.
My Birth father had emigrated abroad about a year after my birth but I did get to meet everyone in the family over the course of a couple of years and all though we didn't remain in contact, I think that we are all better off for having met and the pain of living with not knowing for all who knew, was at last, finally over and again in secret for the most part with me but nothing short of a miracle in reality.
My most significant and fondest memory of my birth father was sitting on Southsea beach and asking him as to why massive and very heavy metal ships don't sink? I just never understood it! Being a yachtsman, he explained the buoyancy principle perfectly, basically if the air underneath is always bigger than whatever is on the top, anything should float! Not only a wonderful father daughter moment and gift of knowledge but that experience lifted me up and left a soft fluffy cloud of love and happiness in my heart forever.
So I guess I didn't do too bad at all for a closed adoption, it was so important for so many and I am happy and better off for having the contact, lasting or otherwise and just in the nick of time for my paternal grandmother as she had cancer and thankfully, didn’t die never knowing what happened to her first grandchild as it was the only thing that she couldn't find closure or peace with. I went to her funeral and they even put my photo in her coffin with all the other family members, a magical and special goodbye, because it was never meant to have been possible to have ever met in the first place, we were exceptionally lucky.
Finding peace with Nemo
And finally after a lifetime of searching for sense, reason and purpose to all the pain and injustices that my adoption and relinquishment created for everyone involved at some degree or point, unwittingly or otherwise, is that, every living thing on planet Earth is here for a reason and that reason is that they are supposed to be here, otherwise they wouldn’t exist in the first place. I have to learn to incorporate and wholly accept this simple but solid logical truth, we all deserve to belong and find home in any place and anything and with anyone that's suitable and to feel truly safe, it's just human nature.
Even my ego knows, logic dictates that we can’t change the laws of the universe and everything within it! So I just want to feel part of it moving forward and embrace the rest of my life as the best of my life while continuing to shed as many narcissistic shackles, remnants of utter emotional hell and free myself from the mental cages, prisons and a few mighty dungeons, gaining as much inner peace as possible, as this is freedom, real freedom, so bon voyage and may you all find a mighty beautiful and super sturdy mental ship to sail on through the choppy turbulent waters and vast, powerful oceans of life and I hope you find a few desert islands and a slice of paradise or two along the way because we all, truly deserve it and life is the greatest adventure that the cosmos ever created, even for the aliens.
Much love xx
Read Helen’s previous blog Flying Above The Adoption Fog
Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash
