Introductions are terribly traumatic for me. It is an opening salvo a machine gun litany of questions to which I don't have answers I have to endure every time I have to face someone new. "Hi. What is your name?" "Where are you from?" "What do you do?" "Who are your parents?" "How old are you?" Basics. But these seemingly simple innocuous questions are like nuclear detonations for me. They are extremely upsetting because they remind me that I am not convinced by the answers I do have and I don't have answers that satisfy me.
My husband points out to me that I am a very angry woman. I was upset by such an unflattering characterization. More to the point, I don't even recognize I am angry. But yesterday I finally saw myself as angry.
I am constantly engaged in a fight. I am a very opinionated person. I have views about practically everything. These views more often than not do not mesh nicely with what is the general, prevailing view. Hence it seems I am at loggerheads all the time over the silliest things. But I have finally realized that the points of conflict that I constantly endure, live through each day can really be organized around a few key issues:
"I really want S." This really means "I want to go home." "I want my Mom and Dad."
"You are wrong. This is the correct..." This really means "You people are not my parents." "This is not my home. "
I have a difficult time accepting my life. I don't accept the fact that I am fighting. I am tired of fighting. Yet I don't know what it is I am fighting. I am fighting the truth of my history, of my existence, of having questions about my identity and parentage. At the most basic level, this is a conflict of acceptance: I deeply and sincerely and most emphatically am convinced that the people I grew up with are not my biological parents. This is the truth as far as my body is concerned. I do not accept the people I grew up with as my parents. This denial is in the very marrow of my bones, in my blood, in my guts, it transcends every sort of rationalization I have attempted, every mental habit I have tried to assume to quiet and shut this voice up. I am engaged in a battle with myself one side proclaiming these people who label themselves as my parents are not my parents and another side saying that they are, especially in light of the fact there doesn't seem to be any contrary evidence. What constitutes evidence? I don't know.
I find it vaguely unsatisfying and am defensive when I say I am housewife/homemaker - it is not exactly the most prestigious of job titles. Most people can't imagine what I could possibly do all day long. They think because I am not going outside the house, getting a paycheck the work I am engaged in is trivial and unimportant - not a legitimate expenditure of my time or efforts. They think I don't do anything of use or importance and sleep all day. They think I am a bum. This despite the fact that there is quite a bit of work involved in running and maintaining a functioning home. I am busy from well before sun-up to well after sundown. In addition to all the jobs that need to be done to run a home, I am also variously engaged in reading, writing, reseraching, painting, playing musical instruments and musical composition. Many people make a full-time job out of any one of the things I do for a fraction of my day. People call themselves chefs, musicians, writers, artists, servants, cleaners, maids, accountants. They have a job title and a paycheck. This makes their job/activities legitimate. I usually get attacked when I say I am a homemaker/housewife and therefore am a bit nervous and defensive about saying this. But saying that I am a housewife/homemaker is nowhere near as difficult as trying to answer the question "Where are you from?" "So, what do your parents do?"
It seems like I live two realities. On the one hand I think I am living my life - eating, cooking, etc. But this just seems to be a surface gloss. The reality that truly animates me is absolutely, wholly absorbed with the questions "Who are my parents? Where am I from?" Because I am opinionated, every opinion becomes a proxy battle for the real battle I am waging with myself: The people I grew up with are not my parents. vs The people I grew up with are my parents. In other words, every opionion of mine insofar as it differs from the prevailing views becomes something I fight over at an epic level. The fight over the identity of my parents is recast as a fight over my opinions. I believe I am fighting some unknown entity over how I should dress, or what I should eat etc. Life is nothing but an endless fight from the moment I open my eyes to the moment I fall asleep. Another unending face of this battle is my unflagging whine: "I want to go home." This is the only thing I want at some level of me. Unfortunately, I don't know where home is, how to get home. I am always left with the feeling of being unable to meet my needs, being able to deal with myself. Because I want various things in the course of the day, each want becomes a desperate battle for something I cannot have, something I can never satisfy. This contributes to a constant sense of failure. On the one hand I know the people I grew up with are not my parents. On the other hand, I don't know how to get to my real parents, how to get home. Even if I successfully establish for the moment the issue of my parentage, I am stymied by the question of how to get home, how to get to my parents, how to find out who my parents are and resolve this question of identity.
Until yesterday, I didn't see all this. I certainly don't live with this truth, this reality all the time. Until yesterday I couldn't even see that this was my fundamental problem, the source of my existential angst. I didn't see my rage. I didn't see the enormous, life-and-death importance the proper identification of parents has for me.
I am angry. I am angry that I even have this question, this issue. I am angry that I am not with my parents. I am angry that I have had to suffer what I have suffered. I should not have been separated from my parents - my Mother. I don't accept the events of my life.
All this unacknowledged rage is toxic. If I think there is rage everywhere, well I am contributing to the general problem. If we look at recent world history, there is good reason for a lot of people to be enraged. Every nook and corner of the globe is either presently experiencing and/or recently have experienced bloodbaths galore. There are extremely evil actions be perpetrated on every segment of the general population and planet Earth herself. There are a lot of things going on in everybody's life that they cannot possibly be happy with or accept. All this contributes to a soup of rage. The biggest problem with this rage is that it is burrowed away in each person. The person has no access to their own rage, they can't see it, can't understand why it is there, can't see a way out.
In my case, I was brutally forced by the people I grew up with to not express my doubts, to deal with these issues in an open and rational manner. So the battle has become internalized and gone underground. I was called "crazy" for saying "I want to go home." "I want my parents." "You are not my Mother and Father." This battle is so old, so longstanding, I don't even notice it anymore. I don't remember when it started. I didn't even know until recently the shape of this argument. All of these questions didn't disappear because of the training achieved through brutal physical abuse every time I voiced a question. These questions and the attendant fight went underground, went inside of me. This battle and the attendant effects of battle are all occurring within me. It has taken many years to re-access the original questions. To give myself a voice.
I think the beginning of the healing process is marked with painful questions. Certainly I have struggled and suffered as I have tried to understand myself, to be well, to achieve peace. I have yet to accomplish these things. I guess what lies ahead is trying to spend time experiencing the battle and want in their original shape. Until recently, my opinions and daily wants have transformed the original issues. It will take time to accept the original issues and to also accept the fact of their existence and integralness to my personal history.
