I find it strange how much you can be holding back without even knowing it and it comes out when you least expect it.

Like, my issues usually come out when someone on TV or a movie has experienced the same thing I have (whether I remember it or not).  I will freak out, usually start crying (only when alone, I don't cry around people), or just have a feeling of uneasiness or even sometimes, a full-blown panic attack.

Today I was finishing up my movie I was watching on Netflix called "Daughter".  It's Australian (with some American actors, too) and it was really, really good.  The whole movie is based upon the idea that every single character's happiness depended upon another human being.  And this movie shows what happens when you live like that, because those people?  Will always, always let you down.  Not because they are bad, but because they are human.

So there's this scene (I won't give it away) between a dad and his daughter, where he broke her heart so badly she just crumpled to the ground in a heap.  He broke her.  I've been broken before.  I knew exactly what it felt like to be her.  To have my parents brake me into pieces so small that I felt like I could never be put back together again.  To feel abandoned, alone, and thrown away like a bag of garbage.

I watched this girl lay on the ground and brake into a million little pieces and I just started bawling my eyes out.  I couldn't handle it.  The thing is, I've never forgotten what that feels like.  I have dreams about it.  All of my daydreams end that way: abandoned and forgotten.  I feel like a jackass, like I am searching for attention in my own daydreams, but I just can't control it.  And just like in real life as a child: nobody ever comes to save me.  I just lay there, broken.  And I stay that way.

Deep down inside, I guess I just can't shake that feeling.  That I have no parents.  I have no family.  I have nobody.  But when I snap out of it I realize I do have a knight in shining armor: my wonderful husband.  He'd never let me stay broken.  He'd never abandon me (on purpose).  And I do have family: my beautiful children.  They are always there for me and my husband, as we are for them.

But just like in the movie, I cannot rely on my family to be my only source of happiness.  Because one day, my boys will get married and have kids and lives of their own.  And one day, my hubby and I will grow old and, well, you know where I am headed with that.

My point is: I need to find a way to get over my own abandonment issues (which started when I was a baby--given up for adoption at 6 months old, then put into two foster homes, and then finally adopted--four homes in one year) and find happiness in just being me.  That my search for a family member to love me as much as I could love them....is just not working out.  I've reached out to my possible birth father (I am adopted) and he wants nothing to do with me.  I reached out to his daughter, my possible sister, and she couldn't give to two shits (she literally told me she was searching for another possible sister she may have and doesn't believe I am related to her).  And you already know the situation with my own estranged family.  And while my birth mother's family is pretty great, I just don't feel like their real family (I really like them all, but I always feel like an imposter around them, like I am taking up space where their real family could be--we all act like friends, and not actual family--which is okay, it's a complicated situation).    I am always looking to replace the family I never really felt like I had when I was growing up.  And it's just not working out.

I need to stop.  I need to be okay with people walking away from me (whenever I've had friends do this, I've really, really overreacted).  Because people leave.  That's a part of life.  And I need to stop feeling like there's a void to fill.  I need to fill up that void with my own love, instead of seeking out other people to do it for me.  I need to find a way to heal that unloved inner child, the one nobody ever wanted.  Because nobody can fill that void but me. 

The same goes for any of you out there reading this:  your mother didn't love you, and your father supported your mother.  And this most likely left a void inside of you, a feeling of abandonment, of being unloved and unlovable.  Instead of seeking someone or something outwardly to patch up that wound, do some inner work instead.  Find out the core of that wound (mine, as I found out today, is a feeling of abandonment) and go from there.  Do some journaling, or whatever you can find that speaks to your soul.

The real issue is that you can't take your power back if you are constantly giving it to others to fix you.  Your power is yours.  Your mother tried to steal it.  Your father supported her.  And maybe they succeeded?  I know mine did.  But now it's time for you to take it back and reintegrate it back into your being.  Meaning: healing your broken inner child rather than trying to ignore it, bandaid it, or give it's power away to someone else to try to make them heal it with their love or approval.  Because that just doesn't work.  Yes, finding someone who truly loves you and treats you well will help heal it, but the real work?  That's only something you can do.

I will be sure to find some exercises you can try and post them here and on my Facebook page when I find them.  I will do them too and post what I find as I go. 

For as much as I think I am healing, there's always something that comes up to show me "Hey!  You've still got work to do!"  *sigh*  Well, time to get to work.