I am a much-loved adopted child. Both my adoptive parents died several years ago. I was told that my birth mother apparently loved me so much that she could not bear to touch me or hold me before giving me away. How could that be an expression of love? I understand her choice intellectually but it’s hard to face up to the anger I feel. So now I think I’ve turned all of that anger on to myself.
I can’t tolerate intimacy, and I think that may have been caused by that choice at my birth. I have thought for a while that it is the equivalent of having been deprived of oxygen – the damage is permanent. I have been unable to sustain intimate relationships and it seems as though the more I love someone the more intolerable for them my love becomes – more than one person has ultimately told me that I’m too needy. The terrible irony is that this only happens after I’ve finally relaxed my defences enough to allow myself to love them.
