The Stories I Tell Myself

Hello. My name is Marie, and I'm an adoptee. I'm officially a member of blogville's AA: Adoptees Anonymous. Here everyone caught in the adoption machine can connect to talk truthfully about their lives and experiences and grope for some kind of existential sanity.

Yesterday I was about to toss my teabag, when I glimpsed at the slip of paper attached to the end of the string with words that said, "You must first believe in yourself before others will believe in you." I tore the tag off the string and added it to a jar of them next to the stove. I'm not sure why I kept that one, exactly. Guess I thought it just sounded nice. Like a blind person finding a pair of glasses and pocketing them just because it reminds them of what it could be like.

I'm always on the lookout for something that I could belong to (so far, except for the aforementioned AA, the list has nothing on it), or at least could help to explain my behavior, my outlook on life, or all the other things that I chatter about relating to being adopted that cause people to either back away and flee or to roll their eyes in exasperation and quickly change the subject. Sometimes I tell myself that everyone experiences what I do. Last week I found a new categorization to play with in my head. I've seen the term "Indigo Children" tossed around the New Age bandwidths. Wikipedia says that

Indigo children" is a New Age term used to refer to a set of children having certain special psychological and spiritual attributes. The indigo child concept was first publicised by the book The Indigo Children, written by the husband and wife team of Lee Carroll and Jan Tober. Carroll insists that the concept was obtained via conversations with a spiritual entity known as "Kryon". The adjective "indigo" is used because it is claimed these children appear with an indigo-hued aura.

Now, apparently, there's a consensus among Those Who Know About These Things (TWKATT) that there can be Indigo Adults, too. That's wonderful, I tell myself. Now I can belong to a special group of people outside the label of being a special chosen baby. Now I can be a special chosen adult. One of the members of TWKATT says that you can recognize if you are an Indigo Adult if you have all or most of these 27 characteristics, that you:

-Are intelligent, though may not have had top grades.
-Are very creative and enjoy making things.
-Always need to know WHY, especially why they are being asked to do something.
-Had disgust and perhaps loathing for much of the required and repetitious work in school.
-Were rebellious in school in that they refused to do homework and rejected authority of teachers, OR seriously wanted to rebel, but didn't DARE, usually due to parental pressure.
-May have experienced early existential depression and feelings of helplessness. These may have ranged from sadness to utter despair. Suicidal feelings while still in high school or younger are not uncommon in the Indigo Adult.
-Have difficulty in service-oriented jobs. Indigos resist authority and caste system of employment.
-Prefer leadership positions or working alone to team positions.
-Have deep empathy for others, yet an intolerance of stupidity.
-May be extremely emotionally sensitive including crying at the drop of a hat (no shielding) Or may be the opposite and show no expression of emotion (full shielding).
-May have trouble with RAGE.
-Have trouble with systems they consider broken or ineffective, ie. political, educational, medical, and legal.
-Alienation from or anger with politics - feeling your voice won't count and/or that the outcome really doesn't mattter.
-Frustration with or rejection of the traditional American dream - 9-5 career, marriage, 2.5 children, house with white picket fence, etc.
-Anger at rights being taken away, fear and/or fury at "Big Brother watching you."
-Have a burning desire to do something to change and improve the world. May be stymied what to do.
-May have trouble identifying their path.
-Have psychic or spiritual interest appear fairly young - in or before teen years.
-Had few if any Indigo role models. Having had some doesn't mean you're not an indigo, though.
-Have strong intuition.
-Random behavior pattern or mind style - (symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder). May have trouble focusing on assigned tasks, may jump around in conversations.
-Have had psychic experiences, such as premonitions, seeing angels or ghosts, out of body experiences, hearing voices.
-May be electrically sensitive such as watches not working and street lights going out as you move under them, electrical equipment malfunctioning and lights blowing out.
-May have awareness of other dimensions and parallel realities.
-Sexually are very expressive and inventive OR may reject sexuality in boredom or with intention of achieving higher spiritual connection. May explore alternative types of sexuality.
-Seek meaning to their life and understanding about the world. May seek this through religion or spirituality, spiritual groups and books, self-help groups and books.
-When they find balance they may become very strong, healthy, happy individuals.

We are encouraged to note that anyone could have a few of these traits, but Indigo Adults have most or all of these 27 characteristics.

Gee. I must say I was pleasantly surprised to find that I do in fact belong to this ephemeral group of human beings walking the planet right now. I fit the profile (well, the final characteristic does seem a little problematic).

{Sound of cracking whip}: Back, Marie! Back into your corner, and wipe off the drool. Duh. Who on the freaking planet wouldn't say they fit this profile? Hmmm. Well, maybe not. Oh yeah, I get it. I meant to say, What adoptee wouldn't say they fit this profile?