- A Question of Trust
- Intro: The Birth of a Blog
- You and Me Could Write a Bad Romance: Part I
- Bad Romance, Part II: The Couch
- Bastard Package #1
- Hallelujah
- Born This Way
- Baby Girl X
- Another Victim of Love
- True Life
- The Girls Who Went Away
- Love and Other Drugs
- 11 Things Adoptees Love to Hear
- Uh, Never Mind
- Adoptee Kid Lit
- Bastard Princess and the Search for the Holy Grail
- MYOFB
- Awkwardness
- Baby Steps
- Faith, Hope, and Catholic Charities
- Special Delivery
- Green-eyed Monster
- !@#$
- Pandora
- Fantasyland
- Adoptees You May Have Heard Of
- Big MAC Attack
- Material Girl
- VISA and Mastercard Accepted
- Don't Hold Your Breath
- Our Love is Like a Constipated Cat
- A Question of Trust
- Adoption, Hollywood Style
- All in the Family
You and Me Could Write a Bad Romance…Part II: The Couch
When our marital crisis hit, my first instinct was to start an Internet search for a great local marriage counselor. I found a few and spoke with one recommended by our church. Ultimately, going on instinct, I chose Mark. He described himself on his practice’s website as abrasive and direct—just the badass I needed. His photo reminded me of Jim Cramer, that angry financial guy on TV, so for some reason I assumed he’d act that way, too.
I was both surprised and relieved to learn that no screaming would be involved. Mark’s approach, apparently considered a bit radical by some of his local peers, is to identify and address the husband and wife’s individual issues before their marital issues; otherwise, the same root problems are guaranteed to surface time and again, even if new partners eventually rotate into the game. Makes sense, right? Your current psychological issues—and yes, you have lots of them, whether you recognize/acknowledge them or not--can be traced back to your childhood and through several generations of family members—simply put, the sins of your great-grandfather are still affecting YOU, even if it’s indirectly. Mark’s fond of drawing circles on a whiteboard to represent various relevant concepts: emotional enmeshment, disconnect, and breaking down emotional walls. He brings up these concepts often, which, frankly, gets on my nerves. I’m praying that his expertise extends beyond drawing geometric figures and hope he’ll give us something we can use.
After in-depth analysis of our psychological family trees, Mark performed what he called “psychological surgery without anesthesia,” his family tree analysis and identification of our most dangerous issues. He concluded that most of Jeremy’s problems are related to learned passive-aggressiveness tied to his strong-willed mother and quiet dad, while mine were–not surprisingly, considering my adoptee status—ALL about abandonment, shame, trust, and loss of control. Pretty much every single negative thought or experience I’ve ever had, he told us, can be traced back to my adoptedness. My brain is wired to see my world through adoption-colored glasses, whether I realize it or not. The good news: He was certain that our marriage could be saved. I was assigned two Herculean tasks: (1) wean myself off my longtime antidepressant cocktail so that I could get in touch with my pain, and (2) initiate the search for my birth mom in order to fill in the gaping holes in my life and learn to see myself as a complete person, thus eliminating the depression itself.
I was already in the process of writing a book about equestrian sports when the shit of reality hit my clueless fan, and I quickly realized that this project—the painful one—was the one I was supposed to be doing—the one with the potential to heal.
I was both surprised and relieved to learn that no screaming would be involved. Mark’s approach, apparently considered a bit radical by some of his local peers, is to identify and address the husband and wife’s individual issues before their marital issues; otherwise, the same root problems are guaranteed to surface time and again, even if new partners eventually rotate into the game. Makes sense, right? Your current psychological issues—and yes, you have lots of them, whether you recognize/acknowledge them or not--can be traced back to your childhood and through several generations of family members—simply put, the sins of your great-grandfather are still affecting YOU, even if it’s indirectly. Mark’s fond of drawing circles on a whiteboard to represent various relevant concepts: emotional enmeshment, disconnect, and breaking down emotional walls. He brings up these concepts often, which, frankly, gets on my nerves. I’m praying that his expertise extends beyond drawing geometric figures and hope he’ll give us something we can use.
After in-depth analysis of our psychological family trees, Mark performed what he called “psychological surgery without anesthesia,” his family tree analysis and identification of our most dangerous issues. He concluded that most of Jeremy’s problems are related to learned passive-aggressiveness tied to his strong-willed mother and quiet dad, while mine were–not surprisingly, considering my adoptee status—ALL about abandonment, shame, trust, and loss of control. Pretty much every single negative thought or experience I’ve ever had, he told us, can be traced back to my adoptedness. My brain is wired to see my world through adoption-colored glasses, whether I realize it or not. The good news: He was certain that our marriage could be saved. I was assigned two Herculean tasks: (1) wean myself off my longtime antidepressant cocktail so that I could get in touch with my pain, and (2) initiate the search for my birth mom in order to fill in the gaping holes in my life and learn to see myself as a complete person, thus eliminating the depression itself.
I was already in the process of writing a book about equestrian sports when the shit of reality hit my clueless fan, and I quickly realized that this project—the painful one—was the one I was supposed to be doing—the one with the potential to heal.