a local couple counsellor, to help us part in a civilised fashion and with no unfinished business.I think I always knew I was on shaky ground emotionally. I was, at one time, quite paranoid in my mistrust of people’s motives towards me. But as long as I had a partner - someone to care for - and a busy life, I felt reasonably strong and OK.
But because of my background as an adoptee, and because of my wartime experiences of our house being twice bombed, I tended sometimes to think of myself as being War Damaged. Or like a house without foundations ......
Left: our house after the first bomb, 1941-2
Right: the street just behind us
Such foundations as I did have finally collapsed a couple of years ago.
After about 14 years, my partner and I had decided we should separate, and we went to see
a local couple counsellor, to help us part in a civilised fashion and with no unfinished business.
A nice woman, this counsellor. I really liked her
and she was skilled and helpful. But towards the end, after half a dozen sessions, I started to feel very upset indeed at
the thought of never seeing her again. A dreadful sort of "neediness" seemed to well up out of nowhere – something I had
not experienced before, and the strength of which went far beyond what might have been expected in the circumstances.
I found myself crying throughout the night, unable to sleep, absolutely desperate to see her again. I had heard of
transference and I thought "this must be what it is".
in the grip of a totally unfamiliar emotion, overwhelmed with grief and loss. I thought I was about to have a nervous
breakdown.
I became convinced that these feelings could only originate
from some earlier separation that I had never come to terms with – that is, the anguish I must have felt as a tiny baby,
when I was given away by my mother to strangers.
I sought,
and got, help from a very sympathetic and sensible doctor, who sent
me to a therapist, after I declined to use pills (which might have worked well, only I felt
they would merely sweep everything back under the carpet again).
I believe that because I was already upset by the separation from my partner, something about the couple counsellor had triggered a somatic memory of my mother, and my parting from her. My grief and despair were reactivations of my original grief and despair. Two and a half years on, and I am now seeing a humanistic psychotherapist. The therapy, and setting up this website, have helped me a great deal, and I feel I am at last moving towards the end of my journey into sorrow.
I now have a much better understanding of how I have coped, or rather not coped, with separations in the past, and how to manage in the future. The answer is actually quite simple: pain must not be avoided. We cannot heal old wounds unless we acknowledge the cause, relive the experience, and allow our feelings to be fully expressed.
A good friend of mine who was in a home for unmarried mothers in the ‘60s, tells me that the babies who were going to be adopted cried all the time. They lacked the secure bonding they should have had, and must have picked up their mothers’ anguish at the impending separation. But although they could express their feelings, they had no way of understanding what was happening. And conversely when we are grown up, we may understand the intricacies of a situation, but have been so rigidly conditioned that we can no longer fully express our feelings of pain, anger, or fear. We must learn to work through these emotional blocks.
Had I not met my counsellor when I did, I would have spent the rest of my life still believing that adoption had done me no harm. I’m not sure yet whether I feel happier for that new knowledge, but I have a sense of relief in knowing that the things I had felt were “wrong” and in some way my fault, were not in any way caused by me and could not have been my fault. Something disastrous happened to me and I am living with the consequences. I can cope with that.
