Nature Vs. Nurture.

All good things come to an end.

While in therapy, I learned some very important things about myself. It was like each session was a breakthrough, and if I didn’t spend a good portion of it fighting through tears, then it wasn’t working.

One of my first mantras I learned was: “If I’m not in control, I’m not lovable.”

Which basically breaks down to why I freak the fuck out every time I can’t control things. It means I’m going to mess up, and then I’m going to get punished.

My mom used to do this really neat thing where, if it wasn’t screaming, it was silence.

I’d piss her off so badly just from being alive that she’d go weeks without talking to me. I’d be an inch from her face, crying and pleading for her to acknowledge me, and she’d act like I wasn’t even there.

I’m not even going to try to break that down into digestible parts because I’ll still never understand it.

So here we are.

Your brain tells a lot of lies. That’s the beauty of perception.

We worked through the mean things I’d tell myself, and I learned about not judging my emotions, but paying attention to facts. Which is super mind-blowing when you realize you don’t have to hate yourself for feeling a certain way in response to how you perceived something.

I also learned that you can control everything in life with mindfulness and grounding.

Dissociating? Find every red object in the room!

Hate being alive? Make a gratitude list!

As I said before, during my first session with this new therapist, I made a list of every fucked-up part of my life. It was like a list of car crashes. A lifetime of trauma fit perfectly on a 4×6 index card.

I’ve already talked about a few of those things that were on that list.

The list looked something like:

• finding correct diagnosis

• friends, or lack thereof

• being adopted/finding biological family

• running away/moving

• Aunt [redacted]/everyone hates me ALL AT ONCE

• religion

• mom — breaking the cycle

• sexual abuse

• sexuality

• managing current depression/anxiety

• my marriage

The first hour of meeting this stranger, I curtly projectile-vomited a lifetime of curses and finished strong with:

“Please help me.”

She looked at me, pretty shocked. Or at least as shocked as a therapist CAN act within their professional code of acting like you aren’t actually that fucked up.

Then she said, “Let me take some notes, and I’ll get this better organized for the next time you come.”

I felt relieved to have it all out on the table.

I didn’t want to waste another second carrying around all those burdens.

The next visit, I was ready to dive in.

She dug in the proverbial heels of my healing, and we started with my first memory. She said the rest would come when it was supposed to.

That’s the thing about life.

It’s not linear, and it doesn’t go how you want it to.

So after the first memory, and the mom stuff, we talked about me being adopted.

I fucking hate being adopted.

I was always treated differently growing up when people found out, and my mom would tell me it was because the kids were jealous.

I was hand-picked.

I was a gift.

I was also militarized.

When you’re adopted, you’re lucky if you’re loved unconditionally. I was loved when I was performing as expected. I was loved when I was excelling, which led to an obsessive need for constant validation.

Any lack thereof meant I was a failure undeserving of life.

Not to sound dramatic.

The celebration of my gifts was also conditional because eventually it became expected.

Good grades?

That’s just what you do.

Hobbies?

Great!

Until they stopped “getting it.”

Art became a respite for me, and I quickly quit creating when people quit understanding it. If they didn’t understand it, it wasn’t worthy of praise.

And praise was the only high I chased.

Validation.

Being adopted is also a double-edged sword because, depending on what kind of adoption you’re a part of, there’s a chance you have little to no family medical history and you’re just a human grab bag of mystery illnesses.

Every time you go to the doctor, you’re reminded that being adopted means you don’t know if Aunt Debra has heart disease, or if your anxiety is hereditary.

And then there’s the nature-versus-nurture debacle where you’re like:

Am I fucked up because of X or because of Y?

Growing up Catholic was also a big old twist in the entrails because naturally, Catholics are pro-life.

But how many people who call themselves pro-life are also pro-adoption?

I’m a firsthand account of people not caring what happens after the fetus is earthside.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my parents.

In this exact moment, I don’t regret being born.

However, I was raised to be scared shitless of intimacy and sex, while also being a by-product of an adoption that could’ve gone better.

So I think the entire system is fucked, and I’m very anti-pregnancy because I feel like there’s no such thing as a happy outcome.

I’m an elder millennial and at childbearing age, where it’s no longer considered shameful, and as my friends get pregnant and are ecstatic, I ask myself:

“Oh shit, Helen, what are you going to do?”

I’ve always been made to see children as a burden because I was a burden.

How do you not instill that into your child?

The thought of being a parent terrifies me because any little thing you do or say can lead them to the unfuckening.

And that’s the beauty of perception.

And BPD.

You have to live life so intentionally because when you say something reactionary out of rage, it comes out as malice. And it’s so insignificant to you that you don’t even pay attention to what you said.

Then that’s another stamp on your “forever alone” passport because you’re too goddamn mean and you don’t even realize it.

And now Helen is in her own therapy session because you offhandedly told her that her child will be as fucked up as she is.

So let me tell you about my other mother.

My entire childhood, I held on to being adopted as a badge of honor.

I didn’t know I was allowed to hate it yet.

The paperwork I had and the letters my other mother wrote me made it seem like I was very loved and wanted, but life was just unfair.

Fast-forward to being twenty-one, and finally opening that jar of moths, because maybe, just maybe, there’s a normal mom in there who will fulfill everything you missed out on.

Like everything else so far, this only led to more tragedy.

My biological mom had gotten married, and I had two half-brothers.

That’s fine.

That’s expected.

She told me I had a sister from my biological dad’s side. I found her, she didn’t believe me at first, and I still don’t think she does.

She told me that our biological dad had like five other kids with his current wife. I couldn’t find anything to back up that claim, but regardless, I went from being an only child to having eight half-siblings overnight.

I was ecstatic.

I had always wanted brothers and sisters.

I corresponded with my other mother via Facebook after I had connected with her through an adoption website. I was thrilled that my amateur detective work paid off.

I’m not sure what I wanted.

I mostly wanted closure, family history, an inkling that I had a purpose, and proof that I wasn’t a mistake.

That’s not what I got.

My biological mom is very mentally ill.

Not just an observation—she told me.

I was her emotional pack mule, her first and only daughter.

She wanted to raise me, but I was already grown.

She detested the fact that I was bisexual, which came up in passing conversation.

She told me about her mental and physical illnesses, her current financial struggles, our family history of violence, and lastly—

that I was unwanted.

My origin story became unwoven as she told me my biological father ditched her at the ER and she gave birth alone.

I was a secret, which I already knew, because she had taken no prenatal vitamins.

She also told me that when I was taken three days later, the stress of that moment was the beginning of her lifelong health struggles.

I spent a long time feeling like I had indirectly caused her a lifetime of anguish.

Eventually, I decided to let her go.

And she made sure to tell me she resented me for that before I blocked her out of my life.

This was just another thing I had to survive, compartmentalize, and then file away.

Being adopted is one of those big self-facts.

Sorta like being an INFJ and a Scorpio.

Even though it’s painful, it’s a fact, and it’s part of who I am.

Quantifying who you are is different for everyone.

It’s another one of those things that’s easier when it comes down to straight facts.

I explained to my therapist that I still wasn’t sure who I was outside of the trauma, and that it made it difficult for me to maintain relationships.

I feel as though I’ve always lived authentically, and now that I’m older, I definitely don’t live to please as much.

I still use humor as a coping mechanism, and that’s what bridges the divide for me a lot of the time.

Nothing is more relatable than joking about your trauma.

I told her I wanted to take the 23andMe home test for genetics and medical history, but she pointed out that those things aren’t what make a person.

I’d still like to know what my heritage is, or what might be hereditary when I have kids, but it felt nice to know that those things aren’t the only things that count when writing an About Me.

So, back on the topic of difficulty maintaining and establishing relationships, let me tell you about my friends.

Specifically, the ones I’m no longer friends with.