I’m a pretty positive person. I am thankful every day I’m able to HEAR the alarm, SEE the clock, and my feet are PHYSICALLY able to hit the floor. Not once in a while, but every day! When you care for elderly who are more than humble with physical limitations it helps you see what many people take for granted. I don’t take those simple things for granted. When I arrive at my home on a cold winter day, walk inside and the warm air hits my face I’m humbly reminded that so many don’t have a home to go to, let alone a warm one. Bottom line is, I’m thankful.
Most of my heartaches in life I save to share here in my blog, and at Celebrate Recovery, (CR). At CR I share some of my biggest hurts because it’s a safe place where I’m able to do this without judgment and condemnation. My blog is also a safe place for me, because no one tells me how to feel here. It’s all me, my feelings based on my life’s experiences.
As I pray and ask God to REVEAL things to me, that I need to work on one thing that God has brought to my attention this past week is that I’m operating in complete FEAR of abandonment & rejection based on my history and the things I’ve been through in life. It’s been a “AH-HA” week for me, and a rather emotionally exhausting one. I have always said, “I don’t live in FEAR because I have FAITH”. Well that is a lie. I uncovered some truths about myself and why I am the way I am, and living in FEAR is a big part of my life. I never realized it until now. I know this is in part because I spend my whole life numbing my pain with alcohol. From 12-37 I drank to cope, and on August 12, 2012 I started a recovery ministry. I have 2 years sobriety now and feelings are REAL! Feelings I never felt before because alcohol was a big part of my life. I never faced my issues until I stopped drinking. Many people, and adoptees depend on substances to numb the pain! This is hardcore deep rooted pain we experience!
You see, when we start a recovery journey it’s like peeling back layers of an onion. But we have to recognize how those layers got there. One by one, event after event, the layers built up over time, over our lives and we have YEARS OF LAYERS to work through. This is no QUICK FIX. The first 2 years of my recovery journey I worked on forgiving my birth mother, accepting my adoption experience, and forgiving my adoptive parents for lying to me my whole life. I still have work to do, but it took me 2 whole years just to address those few issues. I’m just now healing at 40 years old because I spent 38 years being told I should be grateful for being adopted. Because of this I always feeling like something was wrong with ME because I was far from grateful for losing my first family and my history. So here I am, healing slowly. After I processed much of my feelings the first 2 years, and asked God to come in and heal me by working the 12 Steps in Celebrate Recovery (similar to AA but biblically based) God began to reveal more to me. Little by little he keeps revealing more. He knows I couldn’t handle it all at once! I also heard Joyce Meyer say in a CD series I’m listening to about fear, “When God takes you to a new level, you’re about to see a NEW DEVIL!”. Satan is out to steal, kill and destroy so he doesn’t want to see us overcome! He doesn’t want us to HEAL! He will throw as much FEAR at us as possible! So it’s critical to recognize it and WORK ON IT! I don’t know about YOU, but I’m TIRED OF LIVING IN FEAR!
By God revealing that I am living in FEAR it’s opened up the door way for me to step on into a place of processing WHY I’m in FEAR and acknowledge that my FEAR is NORMAL for a life that has had some things happen that are NOT NORMAL. Let’s me be clear, HEALING IS ON MY MIND! I’m not going to sit up here and write in this blog and be ALL NEGATIVE about my PAST HURTS, without healing in mind. I’m sharing my feelings because I need this place for validation, and a release. I also want other adoptees to know they aren’t alone.
I KNOW GOD HEALS!
Now you may ask what am I in fear of? I will go in more details in some of my next posts, but I’m in paralyzing FEAR of people abandoning me! I’m in FEAR of people rejecting me! I’m in FEAR of people HURTING ME! I know, I know… Many people might say, “We all live in FEAR of some kind.” I believe you are right, but the difference is I REFUSE TO CONTINUE TO LIVE IN FEAR FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE! These fearful CRAZY episodes are WAY TO MUCH FOR ME TO HANDLE. I do NOT want to live the rest of my life in bondage from FEAR based on my past situations. It’s critical I learn the triggers, and there is a list a mile long!
I will write in my next blog post about what this fear feels like to me. The fear from abandonment & rejection that have impacted EVERY AREA OF MY LIFE are ROOTED from being given up for adoption at the beginning of life. It’s rooted in being rejected by my birth parents, and when I found them they rejected me again. This is where my root issues stem from. In Celebrate Recovery we get to the ROOT ISSUES, so we call PULL THEM UP and ask God to heal them and move forward.
I’m also suffering with a increased desire to control my life, and it’s having a negative impact on me so that’s something else I’m about to work on and write about. When adoptees go their entire lives controlling NOTHING about decisions that were made for our lives THAT IMPACTED SO MUCH we want to CONTROL. The biggest thing I’ve noticed lately that’s having a negative impact on me is TIME and PLANNING. Surprisingly, I can also discover this having a root issue from my adoption experience. I WANT TO CONTROL EVERYTHING ABOUT MY LIFE! ADOPTION CONTROLED EVERYTHING, NOW IT’S MY TURN!!!!!!!!! But as you can imagine, this has negative side effects. I will be sharing some in future blog posts.
I’m thankful for God bringing these things to my attention, and for the strength to share some of my struggles. Fear, Control, Abandonment & Rejection are tactics from the devil. He doesn’t want me to be free, but I’m determined to break out of these negative and dysfunctional thought patterns that have developed from my adoption experience & lifes experiences. It will take time but I’m excited to share my journey with you!
For the adoptees here, have you discovered you operate in FEAR? Or am I alone here?
-Adoptee In Recovery
**Adoptees will never be able to HEAL unless they DISCOVER their TRUTH**
Pamela Karanova 