I don't quite fully understand that statement. When T said her "because I want too" statement, and I replied that I just don't get it. she then went onto say that when I was a baby, those couple of weeks between birth mother and adoptive mother, where I spent the time in the hosptial nursery, instead of feeling like I was the most important person in this world, like a newborn would feel naturally with a good mother/baby bond and those precious early times together, I didnt get that, and now part of my identity has become to feel, abandoned, not wanted, not good enought.

But can a baby have these feelings before able to think? Is that just what it would have felt like, accept one wouldn't realise it was the situation outside of me and not me, unyet not getting my needs met in those early days, its became internalised??? It became me??? I am not a baby abandoned by her birth mother, I am abandonable? not important? Is this what my brain has come to learn???

But if its become part of my "make up" how the hell does one change? can one change one's Identity???

i guess we don't know what your time was like in the hospital. we don't know how much time the nurses were able to spend holding you and soothing you and touching you and stuff like that. i guess it would have been a bit distressing 'cause babies show preferences for their mothers right then, so i guess you would have known that the different nurses were different... when a baby cries it also tends to set off other babies. don't know how many other babies were in the nursery and whether some of them (or whether you) cried a lot... i'm not sure how much of an impact that would have had... not bonding particularly well with your adoptive mother would have been hard... and that would have affected the quality of the attachment etc etc etc...

i think that a baby can feel distressed before it has words for its distress and before it knows precisely what the problem is. that distress... is a brain circuit, basically. a hebbian learning principle is that 'neurones that fire together wire together'. if you spend a lot of time in a distressed state that isn't adequately regulated (by (m)others) then that distress circuit is strengthening... and one can surely experience that later in life.

thats kind of how i conceptualise what is wrong with me. part of the story at any rate. between the ages of 7 and 14 and beyond... i had that distress circuit running every night when i was trying to get off to sleep. it would start up during the day too. often i didn't know what i was distressed about. didn't know what was wrong. but didn't know how to feel better and nobody was there to help me soothe it.

how does one change?

my current theory... is that feeling the distress (a little) in the presence of a benovelent and soothing other (ones therapist)... helps. then when that distress occurs to you when she isn't there... you try and remember her soothing words / actions / gestures / face... and manage to soothe it that way. time sweetie... takes some time for the neurones that disrupt the circuit to wire together...

wow AK, you put it in a way I can "get it"!

Gotta go think about this, thanks.

I think its an inablity to "take for granted" Take for granted that T will return..I'd had that innocentnce removed before I can't begin to even understand...T is teaching me its ok to take her for granted...

[Perna]

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mouse_ said:
But can a baby have these feelings before able to think?

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I don't think it's about feelings and thinking, it's about "identity." You know the studies of people raised in the wild, by wolves, etc.? They don't learn to speak because they weren't around human speech at the "right" time? That's what happens to us. There's windows of opportunities for certain development/identity steps, built into being human/one's DNA/genes/attributes and if one doesn't get what is needed to develop with that "attribute" during that window, it's like any other development problem; being hard of hearing or eyesight, having some other mental retardation or similar problem.

Can you go back and become an unmarried, single woman with a career now? No, not just because of lack of opportunity but because you've already had the experience of having married and/or had children. The window to not have children has closed for you.

But, as you see in the above scenario, there's nothing "wrong" with having chosen/had a different route and that's what has happened with your identity. There's no place in my identity for being a mother because I'm through menopause and didn't have children. I can understand the "concept" of motherhood having had a mother and looking at other mothers around me, etc. You will be able to understand the concept of "T-as-an-individual-not-Me" and even "accept" it/what you know and be comfortable with yourself for wishing/feeling T should be part of you, that whole "package" being part of who you "are"/your identity (much like you identify now with having been an adopted child). The "package" will become less stressful/a main focus over the years, you'll be able to move to other larger packages in your identity that you choose to "see" as yourself more often, etc. but you won't be able to "fix" or change what happened (having been abandoned by birth mother) and how that has changed your identity. Remember, it's not a "bad" thing! Think of a tree growing and how many branches it developes; at first it's just one single "stick" but then branches go one way or another; if it's in a windy environment the main trunk may "bend" in the direction the wind blows or if it's got too much/too little sun or water it may be smaller or sickly but that doesn't alter its "treeness" and who it is, "Harold," the tree :-) It just makes it more "interesting," more "itself". There's no such thing as a perfect tree, just like there isn't a perfect human.

I love Carly Simon's lyrics from "Didn't I":

Sorry that your mother dropped you on your head
Maybe her mother dropped her too
In the end we all get dropped
We all get black and blue

i wonder how many times you approached your adopted mother with glee or enthusiasim or excietment and found her to be cold. to push you away.

i don't know where they got this figure from... but someone or other said that "good enough" mothering was something like 30% responsive. no idea where they got that figure from. point is that we don't need ALL our needs responded to on demand to have good enough mothering...

the loss and abandonment that you feel... could have arisen during seperation individuation (of your adopted mother rejected you when you started asserting your own identity) or it could have arisen when you were really very young as a result of your birth mother leaving, as you say. one could have compounded another. maybe you and your birth mother never really bonded or maybe something interrupted that bond.

who knows.

doesn't really matter for the purposes of working through / resolution

AK, your post hits it squarly on the head...my mother always pushed away emotionally...I see that now, I feel that now and alas I see how I've actually done it with my own children...its like a feeling of deep upset inside me now feeling this rejection...its something that really needs to be talked about in T next week..its actually a very crucial realisation...that not being able to take for granted that your caregiver will be emotionally there for you on your return..whether it be from returning from havingn been playing in my bedroom, to having walked outside to take my plate out...there never was the same person waiting...there was a stone wall...a mother lost behind her own grief..how awful her life must have been also...this morning I sat and spoke to my twin 14yr old daughters telling them that the times it has appeared that I have been unhappy its never been about them...and I hope they know that...I cant go back I can only allow them their suffering..let them know that I know I haven't always been a good enought mother..it hurts to see how ones childhood effects ones children...but the rot stops with me...