Empty Cereal Box

Views From Inside an Adoptee

April 16, 2006

Panic Mode

I'm in permanent panic attack mode, so terrified that something could go wrong, a deep uneasy sense that has something to do with abandonment and loss again. It devours me every time someone I care about leaves the house, goes on a trip, changes lifestyles. I used to come home from school and if I didn't see my amother immediately, I'd panic and run around the house nearly blind with terror crying until I found her. But as an adult, I push it down and keep it to myself because running around crying and hyperventillating would be "childish." Because I would never dream of hampering anyone's life plans. And anyway, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't understand if I said what I go through. It's a sick feeling that tightenes the whole center of my being, as if I'm about to turn inside out.

When those in my family aren't home and I hear a siren, the same things happen. I fear the worst. And nothing anyone says or does can take it away, not comforting, not reason, nothing. Until I see or hear from the missing person agin. It's like I go into suspended animation, barely able to breathe. It's not a nice way to live, but it's all I know.

I just talked to my older daughter K on the phone. On June 6 she is flying to Guatemala. She will stay there until July 27 working at Ix Chel Farms with medicinal plants and learning traditional Mayan natural healing. She's in the process of getting her master's degree in ethnobotany, or medical anthropology. She wants to study indigenous plant medicine for women's health, particularly menstral dysfunction and pregnancy. She will finish her degree in about two years, where the program will also award her Ph.D. I'm so proud of her because she's done most of the hard work and financing on her own. My guts are twisting and I just think I'm gonna barf.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

First time I've ever been here... found your site through my stats...

What a painfully poignant post this is... siiggggh... as a fellow adoptee... I know only too well, the pain of reliving separaration anxiety.

I don't know how to fix it... I wish I did... all I know how to do is reach out through the blogoshphere and send you my understanding.

Much affection...

16.4.06  
Blogger Marie said...

Thanks for your comments Manuela and Kippa. It's really a crappy way to live. Why do I have this idea that this separation anxiety can be clinically "treated" in nonadoptees yet adoptees are pretty much ON THEIR OWN. I wonder how we can we separate what's a common tendency in a lot of people and what's particular to being part of the adoption triad?

17.4.06  
Blogger Marie said...

Kippa-
I'm just now reading Peter's Acts of Resistance blog and the feelings that his words stir up make me shake. Like I'm reliving my own past in technocolor. I can't begin to express my appreciation for your insightful comments and for the presence of others in the triad in the blogosphere.

17.4.06  
Blogger Cheryl said...

Your daughter's study program sounds amazing. I have the same thing with sirens, I always wonder if they're for someone I know...

19.4.06  

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