Shownotes
Marcie finally felt plugged into her biological family after years of divisive behavior from her adopted mother. Her mother never nurtured a bond between Marcie and her adopted siblings and had a hard time overcoming some of her own childhood issues. In reunion, Marcie connected with her biological father who amazingly helped solidify a deeper connection to Marcie’s aunt, his sister. Marcie and her aunt both share an innate connection to their own spirituality. Even though her biological mother was not in a place to be part of Marcie’s reunion with her father, she was able to make a really good connection with another aunt on her maternal side of the family.
In hindsight Marcie wishes she had been true to herself throughout her journey, reaching out sooner and making sure to meet her relatives when the opportunities presented themselves. She admits that sometimes it’s okay for each us to be selfish along our journey as long as it is done with kindness and compassion for others.
The post 021- With Every Heart Break, My Heart Gets Bigger appeared first on Who Am I...Really? Podcast.
Marcy (00:06):
I think it was painful as a woman, having a child, knowing that somewhere my biological mother went through a pregnancy with me and pushed life out of her, into me and then had to leave me. And the whole experience is esteem now of what my body went through for those nine months and the trauma that your body goes through in order to create the healthy beautiful environment for this beautiful thing, growing inside of you. I had real mixed emotions about it.
Voices (00:50):
Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?
Damon (00:57):
This is Who Am I Really? A podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I'm Damon Davis. And on the show today, you're going to hear from Marcy. Marcy grew up with two older adopted brothers in a home she says, was filled with parental narcissism. That environment made her struggles with her own identity, even worse as a teenager, her upbringing exacerbated deep unrest within her. In reunion, she found her father who laid a path for Marcy to find a kindred spirit in his family. Her story begins in Michigan when she was a child.
Damon (01:52):
Marcy has always known she was adopted, but she doesn't really remember actually talking about adoption. Marcy says she had a little trouble navigating her mother's emotions and she couldn't really figure out if things would've been different if Marcy had been her biological daughter.
Marcy (02:06):
I really know if we did talk about it. I don't really remember. I know, you know, I grew up in a home where my mother, for whatever reason, couldn't have children. Um, and we constantly heard about all her failed pregnancies and her female problems. And, um, you know, I think sometimes those are really big shoes for someone like me to fill. You know, I think that she, as much as she enjoyed having children, I don't know really how much she enjoyed having children. Does that make sense?
Damon (02:44):
Interesting. Why do you say that?
Marcy (02:46):
She, in my experience, um, is, or I should have say has since I'm not a doctor, but she has extreme narcissistic, um, personality traits.
Damon (03:00):
Yeah.
Marcy (03:01):
And you know, like my older brother, he was adopted first and my dad had gotten shipped off to Vietnam and you know, her and my brother were really bonded and, you know, he was like the golden child. And then trying to fill in those shoes of him was always very difficult. I was also a girl. And I think that she had some slight jealousy issues with my father and my relationship. And so I think, I don't know if it's normal, if I was adopted or if I was from her, you know what I mean? Like I don't, I see it from being adopted. I can't see it being from her flesh and blood. If I was her own natural child, if the treatment would be the same or if it would be different or indifferent, I only know it being adopted and more times than none, it didn't feel so great.
Damon (04:00):
Yeah. That's the only lens that you can see it through is the lens of an adoptee and, and the way you are treated in narcissism. That's fascinating. Were you, uh, an only child?
Marcy (04:13):
No. I had two brothers and all three of us were adopted. We were adopted into a Jewish professional home that was always told to us. I came with a piece of paper where I am Catholic blood and my biological mother wanted me adopted into a Jewish professional family, which is where I was placed.
Damon (04:35):
Gotcha. So you've kind of stated that the home is full of narcissism. How did that impact you as an adoptee? You know, you're growing up as a teen, you understand fully and clearly that you're adopted, but the, the perceived, um, sort of the narcissism and the focus on one's self would be impactful on the teen who is trying to understand her own identity. What do you remember about how that was impactful to you?
Marcy (05:01):
I truthfully had a very difficult time with it and tried taking my life a couple of times to be very frank and honest. I had always this inclination of watching and looking at people because I really believed in the threads of my being that I was brought here out of love. I always believed that and that I deserved that love. And so I was the type of child, very happy go lucky, always very spiritual. You know, I didn't feel like this Jewish environment was a, um, a nurturing part of my soul. I had embraced that aspect of this religion that was given to me, and I absolutely loved the pieces of it. Um, but I was always very spiritual and I always had identity problems because what was expected and demanded of me, I had a hard time giving up for, you know what I mean?
Marcy (06:09):
Like it was hard to fill these accommodations of somebody that I didn't fully believe in. And so I had a religious identity. I had a spiritual identity crisis. I had very mental identity problems, you know, looking at these people and not seeing anything of me in them. You know, um, even at times when it was very warm and very loving and very, you know, nurturing it, there was a lingering feeling for me. I can't speak about my brothers. I can't speak about anybody else, just for me. I always had the need and the desire to search. And I think part of it is the unsettling feeling I had in my soul of where I was and whether it was supposed to happen for all the lessons I've gained in this life or whatever the reason was like, it just continued to inspire me to be a voice greater than the one that I was silenced from. You know what I mean? Does that make sense?
Damon (07:17):
Yeah, it does. It does. It sounds like you had this innate disconnect with the environment that you were in religiously, spiritually and mentally, as you've said. And then, you know, just knowing and physically. How so?
Marcy (07:35):
Um, I'm very petite. I've always been tiny. I'm size four. I'm a very slender build. I am not anything looking like my mother. She's always struggled with her weight. I think that my features, um, were very delicate and, and nice, and she struggled with her own physical beauty and identity. And that was very hard for me because I, you know, trying to keep up with that or compete with it or feel like I needed to, or, you know, to be discredited all the time or to be, it was very difficult. It's very difficult when you know, it's hard enough again, when you are naturally connected biologically to somebody and you have struggles. I think the extra layer of being a child, a girl with a mother who has her own set of identity issues, being adopted was even harder to find. I had nowhere to plug into.
Damon (08:38):
Marcy's mother created a difficult environment for the kids to connect with her. She frequently used bits and pieces of their respective early history before they joined the family to drive wedges between the children. Unfortunately that prevented them from bonding as deeply as they probably could have.
Marcy (08:54):
She also constructed us as siblings to not ever really, it was never the siblings against the parents. She played each one of us against each other at different times. So our relationship within each other was sometimes very difficult, cause we didn't know our place with each other and we didn't have that bond on top of it. When you have that sibling bond with somebody, I'm going to assume that even with distraction and disturbance, and you're able to find that connection, we didn't have that biological connection. And the disturbances in our surroundings didn't allow us all the time to connect too.
Damon (09:42):
Marcy's father was also part of the problem in their house. She loved her dad, but she only felt his love when he could express it covertly. That didn't sit well with Marcy at all as she looks back.
Marcy (09:53):
He didn't have a backbone. He didn't have a voice. He did but he chose to, he couldn't deal with her. I don't, I think it was much easier to go along with it. They've been married for 50 years. And I think that when you come damaged too and someone nurtures you and puts their poison into you and you become poisonous yourself. And so his love was shown to me at the end of the evening when I was in bed. And he would come in on his way because he didn't sleep with my mom. They slept in separate bedrooms because he snored and he would come in and hugged me and snug me and tell me how much he loved me. But during the day it was never, he was incapable or wasn't allowed to, or would be punished or shamed to show me the affection I saw behind the door.
Damon (10:47):
In your own bedroom.
Marcy (10:48):
That's how I received my love.
Damon (10:50):
Mm wow.
Marcy (10:51):
There were times when it was really, um, when it was really good for them, you know, and narcissist, when it, when it makes them look good. When we were at temple, you know, she out in public, adored us. It was behind the closed doors that it was, you know, horrible
Damon (11:08):
Marcy recalls wanting to search for her biological family from when she was little, of course, the way things were going in her home, the idea she would want to look for other parents was a topic that wouldn't be well received at all. And she was scared. It wasn't until she was an adult that she kind of ran away from everything. Then Marcy had her first daughter and everything changed.
Marcy (11:29):
It wasn't until I delivered at 25, my first daughter, that I thought, I really need to know who I am because I'm looking at this child that's flesh and blood of night that no one is ever going to take away from me. And I need to find out who I am because I have no clue who I am right now. And looking at her, it makes me cry with the most painful moment, but the most beautiful moment in the same breath, you know,
