Briar

Reunion with brother after 32 years!

2010-12-06T03:01:00.000-08:00

Completely crazy. I've known for a few weeks that he is coming but have found it easy to just not think about. Suddenly, his visit is imminent - Friday! I'm so excited. Not nervous, though I wonder if it will be a bit awkward, us being all grown up now and totally different people.

I never stopped thinking about Ian, and Steve, as my brothers. Steve is youngest, and doesn't remember me and isn't bothered. I understand and that is fine with me. I loved him with passion when I was 7 and he was 5. I have lots of sweet little memories with him in.

When I first got on the internet, in 2006, One of the first things I did was Google Ian's name, because I seemed to remember being told he was a lawyer. Lo and behold, he came up on the first page. I clicked to see a picture - and there he was! Totally recognisable after all those years.

I tentatively made contact, fully convinced that he wouldn't want to know me at all. But I was wrong! Since then, we have had some intense phases of exchanging emails. Not all the time, we have big gaps, but I'm sure we will stay in contact forever now.

Bit of explanation. We, and Steve were each adopted from different families as babies. Until I was 10 and put back into Care for being some kind of evil devil child. Or something. Ian and I have had to agree that it's an unsolvable mystery.

That is the best bit about the whole thing. We have been able to discuss things that have been bothering us all this time and get some kind of perspective and understanding about what was going on. I learned, for instance, that the pike didn't really pull him into the river, he had just waded in and didn't want to admit it. I also learned that I hadn't really tortured the dog and caused it to be put down. It had actually gone to a farm to live because it was too big.

Ian, I hope, has learned that he was just a little kid too, and none of it was his fault, any more than it was mine. After all those years, I rediscovered a sense of solidarity against adversity with my brother. Which I had forgotten.

And beyond all that, it has been a delight to begin to get to know the man version of the child I knew.

Something is happening

2010-09-06T05:25:00.000-07:00

I had an email from my brother, my real one, my birth mother's son Jon. My mother has had another operation to remove cancer. Apparently it was successful and she will be ok, but I am worried because she's had lots of operations, is not well at all and I'm scared I will never get to meet her.

I'm going to open a special bank account and start hassling all my friends to put a couple of quid in so I can make the trip.

Of course the whole possibility of actually going to Canada has thrown things up in the air in my head. I've been having nightmares. I just have to accept that it's time to start processing again. It's not going to be just about meeting the birth family, but also about revisiting, remembering, trying to make sense of what happened in those early years.

Just in case anyone is interested, and also to help me with the processing, I'm going to start filling in some of the back story.

The problem with that, is how can we really trust our memories? I was looking at the earliest home I can remember on google street view, and God, that was wierd. For one thing it is not quite how I remembered it, unless it's all been changed quite radically. I don't think so. The house is a bit like I remember, but alot smaller. In fact the whole area seems really tiny. That is to be expected of course, I was only a little kid then. But I'm sure the front lawn was bigger and more sloping and I didn't realise that there are hardly any windows on the house!

With Street view I was even able to have a bit of a nose around the back of the house. That was a bit sicky, because it just reminds me of all the time I spent looking out of my window when I was locked in my room. It's no wonder no one knew what was going on in there, all the fences and blank walls.

Set me off remembering about being in court when I was 11 being made a Ward of Court. I went with a social worker and sat on the other side of an aisle from my parents. I had a present for the mother, but she wouldn't take it. They wouldn't even look at me. I seem to think that I was actually asked questions in court but I don't remember what they were.

I didn't really understand anything that was going on or what was said. I went kind of blank. So blank that I really thought I felt nothing. It came as a surprise when afterwards, in the car park with the social worker, I burst into tears and cried for ages. But inside I felt nothing at all and couldn't understand why I was crying.

Right at this moment, I feel really sick with it. The hearing was all about how crap I was and how the parents couldn't cope with me any more and how I'd tried to change but it hadn't been enough.

I guess I was a bad kid. But actually, since I found my adopted brother again (on the internet, after 30 years -what an experience that was!) the stuff that he tells me he and my other brother got up to were loads worse. I'm still trying to figure out what I did that was so wrong. She just didn't like me I suppose.

But then there are these nightmares. I always used to think that there was an event, a specific something really awful that I did that I could never be forgiven for. The nightmares suggest that there was something...

I'll talk more about this another time.

Moving to other blog.

2010-03-12T14:45:00.001-08:00

I'm going to stop writing in this blog now, unless something actually happens with regard to my birth relatives. I'll continue my navel gazing under my other title 'The Life of Briar'.

2010-03-12T14:37:00.000-08:00

I don't feel any less fucked up over this thing than I would have if we'd been lovers and he dumped me. We had so much fun together, good times. And we could talk to each other, and mostly were very comfortable together.

But I'm not going to fall into the temptation of trying to demonise him, or in some other way twist the truth to make it easier to bear. It's just a very sad situation and I just have to get through it.

I've got myself into this situation because of being 'overly' friendly and interested in the people I've been meeting. I like to try to make people feel good about themselves. It's just unfortunate that in our culture, this is automatically interpreted as a come on, and people have strong reactions because they are just not used to it. I guess I have to tone it down a bit, but I don't want to, don't see how I can. I really believe that if we were all more open with each other, we'd all be less fucked up. It's the hiding and the avoiding of pain, rather than going through it, that leads to all the problems, I'm sure of it.

More on the dangers of surrogate families

2010-03-11T06:10:00.001-08:00

It's been a long time because my life appeared to take a different turn there for a while. Back to square one now it feels like.

I moved into town for the first time in adult life. Made several friends very quickly, mostly with other musicians. Thought that things were going to be different. But it's all gone wrong. At the moment I feel completely bereft. Unfortunately, my best friends, who I've gotten very close to, are male. So it's all gotten really complicated and painful. My very best friend over the last few months has been an older man, a guitarist. We were doing great music together (well, we thought so anyway). He never made a secret of the fact that he is attracted to me, in fact, the opposite. But he gave me the impression he was cool with it. Over the months I let him more and more into my life.

He was very helpful, would come over and cook me a meal when I was tired from work. Would bring boxes of shopping and give the kids pocket money. Flowers, presents etc, etc. We, my kids and I, had never had anything like that before, we are pretty nearly alone in the world. It was too easy to like it. It felt healing. I don't know how I could be so stupid. I was always quite clear, blunt even, about the fact that I am not attracted to him in the same way although I became very fond of him as a friend. Why do people say "We're 'just' friends" as if there is something inferior to a friendship just because there is no sex in it? He had me believing that he just cared about me and wanted to help. He told me his daughters have rich husbands so he was giving me some of what I'd missed out on as a child instead. I really believed him.

I can't say that it was always easy, but he became very dear to me and we really had some good times. Until I started to get something together with someone else. Incidentally, a close friend to both of us. Our bass player in fact. He's my age and gorgeous and I can't help being very attracted to him. So now the older guy has said goodbye. Doesn't want anything more to do with me. Doesn't even want to play music any more even though we have worked so hard and it seemed to be coming together.

I am absolutely fucked up by it, a full on downer. Can't stop crying. Can't be bothered to do anything. It seems irrational and I realise that it is because it chimes in with all the other instances of abandonment I've experienced in the past. But he could never be my father any more than I could be his lover. So I just have to get over it.

Of course, anybody reading this won't know what I'm on about because this has not been a life story blog. But I think I need to get my story out there. It might help me to work through the stuff and to keep me from setting myself up like this in the future.

Excuses, excuses

2009-06-22T00:31:00.001-07:00

Well, been very busy trying to get enough money in to pay the bloody rent. Etc, etc etc. I saw that game show Deal or No Deal the other day and thought maybe I should write to them because there is no way I will ever have enough money. I'm scrambling about working my ass off just to pay the minimum I have to pay to be allowed to be alive. It would just be really nice to see my mother's face for real. Just once would do I reckon.

Anyway, still no movement from either side on the communication thing.

It worked

2009-06-03T15:41:00.000-07:00

You would think that, if someone was sussed enough to be able to pull themselves out of a depression,they also wouldn't be so chicken shit about communicating with people who took so bloody long to find. But this will be a boring blog if nothing else happens apart from my whingeing. (Actually, it was an opulent day yesterday. Burgeoning. Extremely helpful. Anyway...) I'm going to make a pact with myself (and my imaginary readers) to do something, very soon. Haven't decided what yet, but I will. Definitely. Any day now.

Connection

2009-06-02T05:01:00.000-07:00

I wonder if anyone really feels connected or whether we all feel isolated. With birth families, I see them all the time where they have nothing in common and where they actually don't get on. Awkward family occasions where everyone is there because they feel they should be but they actually can't wait to get away. It's a bit like that with my birth family. They don't actually have that much to do with each other. Strangely my two ex-adopted brothers go on holiday together and their kids are friends.

When I was a little kid, still with those two adopted brothers, before I went into Care, we had lots of pretend family. The parents friends were aunties and uncles, their kids were cousins. I've done it throughout my life, trying to acquire a family. It never works. Not for very long. Perhaps if you don't have that as a kid, it is hard to recreate it later. Or maybe everyone does it, I don't know.

The last few days I have felt very down and lost and unable to feel the benefit of the affection around me. There are days when everything beautiful seems like a thin pane of coloured glass over reality, which is actually deep and dark and painful.

I'm countering it by making myself do useful things, but more importantly doing things I enjoy and most of all which work my muscles. Later on, I'm going up to do some gardening in the hills. I really believe that negative hormones, or whatever, can be worked out this way. And at some point I will actually be able to feel what a gorgeous day it is today and everything will be good again.

2009-06-01T01:16:00.000-07:00

Well, Richie.

I had no idea that it would be possible to find my blog like that. It's scuppered me a bit because I'd decided I was just going to start on my life story! It's not like I'm doing it anonymously anyway, but I hadn't thought about people who actually know me reading it!

But then, I've found in the past that when I start talking about my stuff, it empowers others to do a bit of it as well, and I've seen waves of catharsis and healing sweep through groups of people, because one person decided to get brave.

As to the birth family thing. I really really want to see what my mother looks like. But I'll never see her how she was when I was growing up. That's all gone. I sometimes wonder if I've been sabotaging myself. I still haven't got a passport even. (There are some difficulties with that, but probably not insurmountable) Why do I struggle to keep 2 vehicles on the road? If I was really determined to go, of course I would find a way. So maybe there is something going on in my head that is actually stopping me. Yes, definitely. As I write there is this big ache in my chest. Fear of rejection I guess. Or fear that there just won't be anything there. No sense of connection after all.

Birth family still out of reach

2009-04-28T01:39:00.000-07:00

I don't know. I didn't manage to save enough to go to Canada and have had to give up on it for now. I am in touch with them all via the internet but somehow we just don't get round to doing any talking, hardly ever. For some reason my ex foster brother is easier to connect with. We at least have some shared memories.

I wish I could do something about this. My daughter is experiencing some of the same emotional difficulties as I did at her age and I suspect there is something genetic in it. I don't know what keeps me from striking up conversations with my mother, my sister and my brothers. I do believe it's because internet is not enough. I want to see what my mother looks like.

Scared or what?

2008-09-28T20:31:00.000-07:00

My birth family has started posting things on myfamily.com, photos and discussions etc. This is great because it allows me to peep around the curtains at them without having to go right out into the middle of the room. My sister sent me an email because she wants to talk to me more drectly. I want to talk to her too. But when she was on msn the other day, I couldn't do it. I don't know why. I sat in front of the computer and couldn't type anything. I bottled right out. No idea why. Am I scared? What of?

Not gonna happen

2008-09-25T04:38:00.000-07:00

Well, despite working my ass off all summer I find I'm still skint. So I won't be going to Canada this year. However, I have started making more contact with my family and have just begun to communicate with my little sister. That is so incredibly wild. We've been posting photos and we do look very similar. Maybe a bit more time getting to know each other will be useful. There has been no direct contact yet from the older of my two brothers. I'm going to start making time to get to know them if I can.

It's compulsive stuff, not like meeting and getting to know strangers. I see similarities between them and my kids. I keep getting glimpses of what it would be like not to be so alone in the world. Of course nothing will take away all the previous years of aloneness, but maybe I don't have to continue being innately alone. The perception shifts in and out of focus and sometimes is a bit overwhelming, but I think it is a process I can go through.

Even more long lost people found

2008-07-13T02:42:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to save up for my trip to Canada for about 4 years now. The flights aren't too bad, but the somewhere to stay and spending money is something else entirely. I don't feel I will be able to cope if there is nowhere I can go to get away from the emotional intensity that is bound to ensue.

I'd almost given up hope until I found a foster sister of mine on Facebook and her parents have offered me a room to stay in! So I'm really, really excited. I'm aiming at meeting my birth family in October, as well as seeing my adopted brother and my foster family. It's a nervous sort of excitement. What will my mother be like? Will we get on? Will we have anything at all to say to each other?

Finding long lost family and friends

2008-07-08T16:09:00.000-07:00

I've had a strange life. So strange that I have trouble remembering things, and I mostly only remember the bad things. Of my early childhood, for a long time all I could remember was being locked in a bare room and being so bored and lonely and thirsty.

I was adopted as a baby. For ten years I lived with a family and I had two adopted brothers. This was in Canada. The mother of that family didn't like me very much and I was put back into Care when I was 10. Eventually I ended up in England.

Well, 30 years passed, and plenty happened and then last October I got Broadband. One of the first things I did was look up my older adopted brother. We have been talking and it is so wonderful to have found him after all this time. You wouldn't think it, as he is not biologically related, but it is filling a gap that I'd forgotten was there.

He is in Toronto, as is my birth mother who I first contacted about 4 years ago but have never seen. I'm trying to save up to go over and visit them.