So, then what happened?

The rest of the story is what most of you know. I went back to college and graduated. I travelled a bit and worked for awhile. I met a wonderful man to whom I've been married for 20 years. I went back to school early in our marriage and became an RN. We have been blessed with 2 amazing kids and have a beautiful home. And yet, with all that, and although by appearance I seemed fine, something was not right for me - I struggled with depression, anxiety and compulsive overeating over the years.





It was within the last year's time - after 2 years of counseling - that I discovered that the adoption is part of why I eat to bury emotions. Heck, it was in the process of counseling that I discovered that those deeply hidden emotions even existed! I still do not consider my choice a "bad thing" that happened to me. Far from it! The part where I began to bury things is rooted in the fact that it was all veiled in secrecy. Never being able to talk or share about an event of such magnitude was detrimental to me, even though I wasn't aware of it.





As I look back over the last decades, I think my pain began to affect me when my own children came along. I think my "mommy heart" subconsciously realized that having had a child before and allowing them to be adopted was actually painful, something that was deserving of a proper grief time. And yet, in the amazing moments of becoming a parent and being so happy to have my own children, it was automatic to stuff that pain and grief away. After all, I had moved on, I had a wonderful life! (I did, and I still do!)





So in the 16 1/2 years since I became a mom, blessed with 2 amazing children, I have kept an unidentified emotion tucked deep and far away. It started to manifest itself in depression followed shortly after by compulsive overeating. And, it wasn'tuntil I decided that I had had enough with depression and enough with abusing food, that I discovered the pain hidden so far away within my being. I've worked through that pain - from being unaware, to identifying it, to letting my real emotions over the event to surface, to the joy of sharing the "secret" with my children (yes it was a joy - to have a secret from them was destroying me), to hope of one day reuniting with that child, to finding freedom from the pain after 28+ years.



Freedom has given me strength. Freedom has given me hope. Freedom has allowed me to love myself again. Freedom is letting me discover who I am. Freedom is bringing me closer to God. It is such a blessing to be free.



Onward!

A long time coming

It has been awhile since I've posted. It hasn't been writer's block, it has been courage block.




You see, weeks ago as I prayed about my next entry, the Lord asked me to talk about the reasons why I have buried "stuff" with my eating. "What else ya got, Lord?"..... silence. I've spent weeks putting it off, attempting to write about other subjects (nothing comes or it all seems dreadfully empty). And then He reminded me about submission. It isn't on my terms.




Most likely this won't be one post, but a series of posts. I don't know where the Lord will lead me to write or how long it will be. Yet I pray, it will provide you encouragement.




PAIN




Everyone experiences pain. It is a fact of life. Some experience pain more than others. Some have physical pain, others emotional pain. Some have both. Some embrace it when they can, others deny it when they can. Physical pain may be difficult to ignore, emotional pain may be easy to bury.




After many years of battling depression which eventually led to physical pain and my desire to overeat, I was finally able to identify a source of emotional pain. When I tell the story it may seem brutally obvious to the reader, however through denial and a desire to appear "normal" or "OK", I was able to bury the pain, and bury it deep.





I suppose if we could really bury pain on our own, it would just be buried and not influence our life in any way. However, we are not able to bury our pain. Oh, we try to push it aside, ignore it, skirt around it, focus on others worse off than ourselves, etc - but the pain is there. It lingers. It eats away at us. It triggers behaviors and feelings in us that lead to other issues in our life. Issues like compulsive overeating.







I was so able to put my own pain aside that even when God gave me a gift of discerning others' pain, I was not able to identify my own. You may wonder why I call it a "gift" to discern that others are in pain, as that seems very morose. Yet it is a gift - it gives me the opportunity to love others as Christ loves and to hopefully, ultimately help them out of pain. And yet, with that, I was still in denial, still making attempts to not let anyone know (especially myself!) that I had a broken heart in desperate need of healing.




Birth of Buried Pain

(You may want to grab a cup of tea and put your feet up... this could be awhile)

At the age of 17, at the end of my Senior year in High School I became pregnant. It is there that denial began in my life and in this story. I was in complete denial. I really hoped it would just "go away". Yeah, funny thing, it didn't. And while the pregnancy didn't go away, my boyfriend didn't stay. He bolted. He had a new girlfriend (if he were honest I would probably find out that we over-lapped). He wanted nothing to do with me or with the child I was carrying.

Today, 28 years later, and after years of therapy, I can see that this is where I first started to tuck my pain away. Nice and neat - tucked away for no one to see. I was strong and I was determined. And, I was still in major denial. When he bolted I felt completely alone and had no idea how I could possibly tell anyone, let alone my parents. I knew I had disappointed them and hoped for a way out without them ever knowing (yeah, at 17 you really aren't mature no matter what you think).

So I did what any reasonable person would do: I didn't tell them and went off to college as planned. After all, maybe this would all "just go away". I told no one, and I hid my growing tummy.

I remember a moment at college that Fall when it must have finally sunk in that this was very real and happening to me. I sat and sobbed and held my pregnant belly and said to my unborn child "we will get through this together". In that moment I chose to have the child adopted and I had no clue what to do, but in that moment I knew it would be ok. In my wildest dreams I would never have known that "ok" for me would come almost 3 decades later (and, one day at a time at that!).

My parents, who have always let me know I am loved, never expressed the disapointment I felt I deserved. No, instead, they loved me through a very difficult situation. My mom was gentle with me when I spilled the beans, concerned mostly for my health. When she said she was going to the other room to tell my dad, I cried "He is going to kill me!". My dad came into the room, said "I love you" and held me while I sobbed. Immediately they went into action deciding how this would be handled. You see, it was 1981, a time when a pregnant daughter from a "good family" was something to be kept secret. And while this made sense to me from a social norm and from my parent's viewpoint, I see now that this was the next step in burying pain. Just tuck the shame right down there with the pain, and keep up appearances. I don't blame my parents, it is just how this situation was handled in that era.

I was sent from Washington State to live with close friends in Arkansas. The baby was born on March 25, 1981. The events surrounding the birth and relinquishment are very surreal. I was placed in a sleep state and remember nothing of the delivery. I did not see nor hold my baby. I was not told if it was a boy or a girl. The following day, papers were placed before me, I was asked to sign and it was done. I put on a brave face and moved on with my life. It was never talked about again in my family and I was never offered any ongoing emotional support. This, again, is just "how it was done" at that time. Keep it a secret, get it over with, move on and don't speak of it again.

Now, don't get me wrong. My life since that time has been incredibly blessed. I met and married a wonderful man, I have 2 amazing children, a beautiful home and a really cool career. Ten years ago I learned that Jesus wanted a relationship with me, that he died for my sins and I chose to follow him for the rest of my life. But Jesus can only deliver us from that which we acknowledge and confess to him, otherwise we are hanging on to it. That is the case for the pain of my adoption story. I was in so much denial about that pain (to the point where I believed that it wasn't painful!). I buried it so well, that it became invisible even to me - except for the fact that I was compusively eating. Even I did not know why I ate, I just knew I was out of control and felt helpless in this one area of my life. I had periods over the last 15 years or so when I could control my eating for a time, but that was soon followed by eating more and gaining more weight. If stress came my way, so did eating.

More later.....

ONWARD!!!