Connection

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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.