What I’ve Not Been Telling You

♪♫ Marco Polo – China Lane ♪♬

I’ve neglected this blog and my little space on the internet ever since second year started. And it’s not just because the workload has more than doubled. I’ve said it before, but it upsets me to see my drafted posts sitting there unedited and unpublished; it upsets me to see my blog lacking recent posts; it upsets me to see my traffic going down when I have so many ideas for blog content. But it’s time to put my thoughts into words. It’s time to tell you what I’ve been avoiding telling even myself.

I’ve been totally wrapped up in the Oxford bubble and the Oxford workload that I almost forgot about my wellbeing this term. I haven’t been in the mood to write blog posts, nor really in the mood to edit my videos for YouTube (though I’ve managed to maintain my weekly uploads). It saddened me that I even considered stopping YouTube and giving up this blog entirely. I’ve just not been in the right headspace.

It was only when I made the totally unexpected (and spontaneous) decision to go home during the term that I realised something was wrong. I didn’t go home once during first year; I didn’t want to. Finding myself searching for last-minute trains one Saturday evening shocked me: it signalled that I just wasn’t okay. I’d always thought that the reason why I was uninspired and didn’t want to write on my blog was because I was too busy and too stressed out to enjoy anything. But that wasn’t it. I just wasn’t, and haven’t, been feeling myself lately.

Here goes…

It’s been tough to get my head around and something which I’ve been internally struggling with. I’ve found that I’m far more affected and ‘triggered’ by things at university which are linked to adoption than I ever have been in my entire life. Or rather, things which lead me to think about my own adoption. It’s not university itself – it’s just that the self-reflection and self-development period of your life happens to coincide with this stage of life. And even as I finally write this now and get it off my chest, I automatically feel stupid. From the outside, adoption doesn’t appear to have any problems: why should there be? It’s an incredibly all-round happy situation… right? Anyone who has anything to do with adoption, or is linked to adoption in some way, would (I hope) disagree.

I can’t speak for other adoptees, but I think I’ve come to realise that I will always have this personal struggle. And I realise that my description is very vague, but it truly is difficult to put into words. The episode that happened this time last year (and which prompted this post) should’ve been the lightbulb moment. An exact year on and I’m sitting in another café in Oxford – this time with snow falling outside – writing another post about my feelings.

I’ve always been the type of person to internalise my emotions and try and deal with them myself. If I need (and want) to talk things out, then I will. What’s hard is that at university I’m surrounded by people who just don’t “get” adoption. While it’s not their fault at all, I find myself recoiling even further and suppressing feelings that need to be spoken about. I get scared that they’ll think there’s something wrong with me. And even if I have someone there ready and willing to listen, I’m either not in the emotional state I need to be in to talk about whatever it is, or I just don’t have the time. I hadn’t spoken to my mum for almost an entire month by the time I went home. Crazy.

It’s complicated.

What also makes it incredibly difficult is the fact that I don’t even understand these feelings or emotions myself. Half of the time when I see something that either upsets or angers me, I can’t even explain why. Think about that, and then think about how I’d go about explaining that to somebody. Think about how tough that would be for someone who doesn’t even understand all the adoption stuff.

I’m not trying to justify the way I feel (because I don’t think I need anyone to validate my feelings), but I want to educate others more on adoption. I want to voice what I’m sure many other adoptees feel and I want to feel more comfortable allowing myself to be vulnerable. I want to be more open on my blog. And it’s strange, because as I type the word ‘adoption’, I don’t even think that’s exactly what is getting to me. I guess it’s more to do with thinking about my identity and who I am as a person. Regardless, with National Adoption Week in October and World Adoption Day in November, I’ve now realised that adoption and the issues that come with it really aren’t talked about. And they should be.

Here’s to the personal posts to come as I try and figure everything out.

Thank you for being here for me, I love you all.

Peace and love,

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