www.lonelypirate.com/index.htmlLatest bLog entry!enmail@piratesteve.comCopyright 2005 Pirate Steve2006-04-30T17:15:20-04:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Sun, 30 Apr 2006 19:17:37 -0400mail@piratesteve.comWho Am I Blog2006-04-30T17:15:20-04:00www.lonelypirate.com/whoamiblog/whoamiblog.html#unique-entry-id-15www.lonelypirate.com/whoamiblog/whoamiblog.html#unique-entry-id-15
I am not "cured" yet. I don't know if anything can accomplish that. Early childhood abandonment leaves scars. But now I can see the scars clearly in how I relate to others. I still have abandonment issues, but I can easily recognize them as such now and can adapt my initial response to be more appropriate. The more I do this, the more natural it has become.

I have truly integrated the notion that my mother did not abandon me for anything I did. Her leaving was her issue, whatever it was. That was a hard concept to truly feel. I got it intellectually quite readily, but to actually feel it was a lot of work.

And I have come to relish in the impermanence of all things - relationships included. Nothing lasts forever, so there will always be separation (or abandonment). Even if my ex-wife, or my mother, or my daughter had stayed with me - one day something would have happened to either them or I and separation would have occurred. Certainly by death, perhaps by other means. But everything has a beginning and an end.

I have worked a bit in Hospice this year and found a particular talent for end-of-life counseling. Certainly my Army experiences lend a hand, but I think my best resource for helping those facing death is my own struggle with abandonment. Everything ends. It's how we look at it that determines how much that end effects us in a negative way. I spent my life fearing abandonment, avoiding abandonment, crying over past abandonments. Now instead I have learned how to enjoy what is without expecting it to last forever.

Things end. People leave. But new things come in their place too. And there are plenty of people out there to replace the ones who move on.

I have not dated at all for almost a year now. I had to properly grieve my ex. She was my best and closest friend, my lover, the mother of my daughter. For 19 years - that makes her the single closest relationship I have ever had in my life. I wasn't with my adopted parents 15 years. It is even likely I will never have the opportunity to be so close to anyone else in this life. Being 49 this year it is possible of course. I could meet a lovely new wife and live with her to a ripe old age.

But Lisa was my whole world emotionally for all of my adult life. And it ended. In retrospect, I am so completely glad it did. I learned so many crucial life lessons, and I was able to really find and work through this abandonment issue that had tainted my entire life. So in this case, without Lisa running off with another man (abandonment for certain) I could never have overcome my mother's abandonment so many years before.

That's not to say I am glad to be done with Lisa. I am not. I love her still with all my broken little heart. But I could not have found healing while clinging to her skirt like she was my long lost mommie. Once I figured out the lessons I needed to learn (abandonment, forgiveness, trust, love to name a few) I had a lot of hope God would bring her home so we could enjoy the deep relationship we had both struggled for all those years.

But no, there is no storybook ending for my little family. At least not that storybook. And I am OK with that. One of my lessons, perhaps the one that I enjoy the most, is finding that love is something I give - not something I get. Actually, this probably took more bite out of abandonment than anything. And once I learned to love and accept myself, I didn't "need" someone else to validate me with their love. Now I can love everyone freely, including myself. I have all the love I "need" in my life, I provide it myself. And it is so completely wonderful to give love away and expect nothing in return. I am now abandonment proof!

And so, when I start dating again in the near future I will be just fine. There are a lot of wonderful women out there, and I am interested in finding merely one of them to love. Two people that don't need each other, but choose to be together - choose to love each other. I am sure it won't be too hard once I start looking again. And if it doesn't last, it will be beautiful for however long I get to share myself with this wonderful woman to be.

Things end, people move on. It's not some great divine conspiracy to hurt me with more abandonment. It's just life.

I am enjoying living it freely.]]>mail@piratesteve.comWho Am I Blog2005-10-08T02:09:00-04:00www.lonelypirate.com/whoamiblog/files/archive-5.html#unique-entry-id-13www.lonelypirate.com/whoamiblog/files/archive-5.html#unique-entry-id-13
So I have had a LOT of time to work, read, meditate and search my soul. I am coming to a place of acceptance and peace. I am sure it is merely a way-point on the new journey, but it is a welcome respite nonetheless.

I have worked out who I am vs. who I became to please my adopted parents. I find that I can integrate most of both into who I will be from now on. It seems the major loss was my artistic side. My adopted parents, my father in particular, was much too practical to encourage anything so frivolous. So I am consciously spending more time on artistic endeavors. I bought some art books and supplies and am excited to see where that leads.

I have already rebelled against most of the things my adopted parents foisted on me, or took away, other than the above mentioned art. Over the years I find that nothing I did to be what my adopted father wanted me to be got me any closer to him, so I had quit most of that and have been doing my own thing for years. That sure makes this easier!

I also researched the Elliott history. I may not know my immediate family history, but I darned well know the Elliott history. Interestingly, my history of fighting for my beliefs (really fighting, not metaphorically fighting you civilians) is in tune with the Elliott history. As is my gypsy nature. As are many of my other behaviors that are completely unknown in the "Hassel" world. So now I have, for the first time in my life, some roots. Feels damn good it does.

So soldiering, gypsying and philosophizing are not merely my own twisted affectations, but are in my blood. That is so cool! I have people. I have also decided to begin searching for my birth mother. I was hesitant at first, but now I see it is necessary for completing the process of healing. I have already begun the process, here is hoping it does not break me financially! I am also planning a trip to visit the Elliott clan homeland. That is immediately doable, and not even outrageously priced.

I have taken a number of psychological surveys this past few weeks to see where I am (I have a number of resources from prior jobs and volunteer work). Interestingly my self-esteem is not in the toilet as I had thought when I started this process. In fact, I am pretty healthy all around. Several things are in a bit of flux right now, but the core is actually pretty solid. That is comforting to me, as a couple weeks ago I felt like I was spinning out of control.

Turns out the major thrust of what has been happening is the opening up of repressed feelings. They were intense, but Sedona came to my rescue (as always!) Once I got my head above water, I started separating the feelings out and examined them with the Sedona method techniques. I accepted a few, let go of a few, and am better equipped than ever now for coping with life's little zig-zags.

Where do I go from here? Forward as always. I am continuing to examine feelings as they occur. I am, indeed, a much more emotional creature these days - but I found I was not unemotional before. I have always had and shown deep emotion - just not all of them. There was a big vacuum in emotions tied to the original abandonment and subsequent events.

Pandora's box is now open and they are out. An example? OK, I have always laughed loudly and easily, but I have never cried. My adopted parents told me I never cried even as a child. Not then, not since. I stuffed all those negative emotions and never let them see the light of day. Well they are bloody out now! It is a little disconcerting, because the negative emotions are not ones I am comfortable with yet, but I will be. I decided to not just let them go, but to keep them around a bit to learn from them, get comfortable with them, make them feel welcomed do to speak.

And the stuff about the ex-wife. It was a result of the abandonment issue as thought. She completely triggered my emotions - the ones I could not deal with because I had stuffed them my entire life. It was not about losing my true love for a completely unsuitable woman, it was about being abandoned by a surrogate mother figure (oh, I bet she would love that!)

The experience overflowed the deep crevasse I had the emotions from childhood stuffed into, and feelings and emotions I had no experience with - no understanding or even vague familiarity with - just confused the heck out of me. Once I identified and embraced the individual emotions, it was over. I said one last prayer for her and tossed that 20 years of misery right out of my psyche. May God have mercy on her tortured soul.

My soul, on the other hand, feels a whole lot less tortured these days. It was fun to be completely berserk for a few weeks. Now I know for many folks that seems a bit crazy. I admit it might seem that way to "sane" people, but remember I don't have that handicap! I have always enjoyed difficulty as much as ease. The best surfing waves are always preceded by deep valleys no? Cherish the times of preparation, because the harder they are the better the ride coming up next is going to be. So, I am looking forward to my ride.

And let's see. It is October already, so only one more month of hurricane season. Then my inner gypsy gets to do what it likes doing best. Yes, 2006 will go down in history as my very best year. I suspect that I will find four supermodel wives in Morocco, win 2 or three major lotteries, find my birth mom, end world hunger and bring peace to the middle east. Stay tuned!

Ooooh! Early morning realization! I am fighting to identify self. As a Buddhist, I have spent many, many hours letting go of self (or the self I thought I was). I am only now realizing that perhaps it is a divine gift to have no definitive self to start with. What seemed a curse may be a complete blessing in disguise! Perhaps it is the wrong path entirely to seek self.. Well, here comes some meditation and prayer I can tell you!

.]]>mail@piratesteve.comWho Am I Blog2005-09-20T21:14:00-04:00www.lonelypirate.com/whoamiblog/files/archive-3.html#unique-entry-id-12www.lonelypirate.com/whoamiblog/files/archive-3.html#unique-entry-id-12
So early on I decided to make a tough day worse and worked some more in my Adoption Healing book. Wow, what a catastrophic mistake! I was probably just too wiped out to realize what I was doing. From the book, "In terms of fear of abandonment, the average adoptee can feel rejected by a street lamp. The fear of abandonment is so ingrained in the adoptee's personality that it can show up for no apparent reason."

And then a reason shows up. Today I lost my best and only real friend here on the beach, a man I trusted and admired more than any other. I have given so much to him over the last year because his marriage gave hope to all the dreams I had shattered in my own - and I needed so much to believe that true love does exist. Somehow his perfect wife thought I was after her man! How in Jehovah's name did I send that signal? Paint me shocked and speechless. I must be completely stupid.

From Adoption Healing again;

"Because they suffered the trauma of the separation from their birthmothers, it is very common for adoptees to navigate their lives by walking on a tightrope that they cannot see. As is common with trauma victims, the adoptee often feels like the initial trauma is going to happen again. After all, it happened once and she knows not why. To protect herself, she walks the tightrope. But, where does she put her foot next? She thinks and she 'knows' she caused the initial disaster, but not how she caused it. She asks herself what she did wrong and how can she avoid doing it again? She must conduct her life in a manner to avoid doing it again."

Well, today I fell off the damn rope again. AND IT HURTS PLENTY I CAN TELL YOU. I lost my friend and all I can think of is what I did wrong. I want to believe it wasn't my fault, but I sure feel like it is. Every time I lose someone I care about, I feel it is my fault - that I have somehow "done it again" and caused yet another cherished soul to run away from me. The book says I should be focusing on feeling the emotions, but my mind just wants to analyze the thing and figure out exactly what I could have done better so it won't ever happen again. That and try to figure out what can I possibly do to fix this mess so everyone can be happy. I just feel this whole thing is some gigantic misunderstanding that should be fixed so everyone can be blissfully happy again. Brutal experience has already taught me the fallacy of those thoughts, and yet I still have them. Why? Why is it my job to fix anything?

I feel like my life has been a series of letting go of those I care most about. Usually I just let them go and move on myself. Someone told me once that true love was worth fighting any battle for - even unto death. So I fought hard to keep Lisa in my life, and lost both myself and her in the process. In the end, I was so focused on working through my own pain that I did not even see hers. And when I got through my pain to the other side, and was ready to give her anything/everything she ever wanted and needed - she was already getting all that from someone else who didn't have to do any of the work.. Now I am confused. Was I fighting for love, or was I fighting to not be abandoned? Well, anyway I am done with fighting. If they want to leave, they can leave. Goodbye my friend, I am sorry I failed you.

I am so tired of being in my own head. So tired of analyzing my feelings. So tired of feeling them. I can see why we adoptees just stuff it all inside. Focusing on me seems so completely narcissistic, and frankly it is more fun to see the rest of the world than it is to look in a dark mirror. Emotions are incredibly strong, and completely uncontrollable (at least for me). I am not even sure which emotions I am feeling (actually, I just had a flash of Spock in the Star Trek episode where he was consumed by emotion - I feel like that really. Crap, am I really an emotionless, logical Vulcan?) The Adoption Healing book says I am probably feeling all of my emotions at once, because I never learned how to separate them;

"At the core of the adoptees emotions is a giant ball of intertwined, indistinguishable feelings. These feelings terrorize the adoptee because they are so pervasive and interwoven, difficult to separate into individual feelings like pain, anger and sadness. The adoptee may feel like she is experiencing 17 different feelings at the same time and she won't be able to recognize the individual feelings because they are intertwined, and experiencing the feelings all at once is just too much for anyone to handle."

It feels like that may be true. Like one trigger (losing a friend) turns into all the pain I have suffered in my entire life at once. I want to just stuff it back inside, but I am determined to get through this and become a "real boy" so I am going to spend tonight (and however long it takes) picking through this agonizing knot of pain and sadness and trying to get some idea of what is really there. I am going to look at each and every feeling and try to figure out just what it is. It is here now, for good or bad. I am going to use this opportunity, no matter how painful or frightening, to try to move ahead. I am not a little bit afraid.]]>mail@piratesteve.comWho Am I Blog2005-09-19T12:21:00-04:00www.lonelypirate.com/whoamiblog/files/archive-3.html#unique-entry-id-8www.lonelypirate.com/whoamiblog/files/archive-3.html#unique-entry-id-8
So, working through this is even harder than I had initially hoped. I am really unsure of who I am right now. I have realized that the person I have become was initially a construct meant to please my adopted parents. When that failed, I just was stuck in it. So now I am having to do some hard soul searching. Much of what I have developed over the years has to be me, but separating that from the construct is not as easy as it may seem to be.

For instance, I know the water is ME. Sailing, swimming, surfing, canoeing. And the drive to explore is me too. No Hassel's were ever Buddhists either. And let's not forget vegetarianism! Neither of my adopted parents - indeed nobody in either of their family history - have any of those characteristics. So I start there. I am a gypsy of the sea, a Buddhist & vegetarian, an explorer, an archaeologist at heart. But what else? Is my morality mine or theirs? My thought process? And there is a lot more.

I figured I would do the workbook and be on my way to a happier life lickety-split. OK, I AM actually on my way to a happier life, but not in the way I envisioned. I can see already (half way through the book) that I am going to HAVE to find my birth-mother. I will never have closure otherwise. This could really effect my world sailing plans. Oh well.

I am having difficulty picking the damn book up lately. There are so many emotions that completely consume me every chapter, even every page. It is quite unlike any experience I have ever had. I have joked for years that I have been shot, stabbed, blown up and gassed (which indeed I have). But this is much worse than all of that. Apparently I have learned how to stuff emotions since abandonment, and now I am letting them out of their cave. Eeek.

Is this how others live? Emotions everywhere, all the time? I am not equipped for this, truly. I am good at escaping though, so I went to Orlando for the weekend. Had a nice time with my buddy Ken, and on my way back to the dive hotel I stay in on I-Drive I found a place that has latin dancing Saturday night. I sure love to dance (and latin most of all) and I am getting good enough that even the Puerto Rican girls are approaching me to dance with them. So I had a blast.

And on Sunday I found a great vegetarian restaurant and made some new friends there too. So I got to get out of my head for a while this weekend anyway. But now I am back at the grind. It is raining here today, and I got rid of the Jeep and only have the bike now so I am stuck on the boat. No excuse but to do more workbook...]]>mail@piratesteve.comWho Am I Blog2005-09-10T14:23:00-04:00www.lonelypirate.com/whoamiblog/files/archive-1.html#unique-entry-id-6www.lonelypirate.com/whoamiblog/files/archive-1.html#unique-entry-id-6
Hopefully, I will get through this and emerge a more complete person. Either that or I will just crumble completely. Frankly, I am a bit scared, as well as a bit excited. If you don't hear from me for a while, you should just figure I am hiding from the world while I get through this stuff.

I learned some interesting stuff this week. Like why I hate birthdays (it is also the day I was torn from my mother). I found a link to a site that has a complete listing of adopted people who are famous for something or other. Click here to see it. It's amazing. Some of my most favored icons and most of those I have admired my entire life are on this list. Aristotle, Steve Jobs, John Hancock, the list is amazing. I have a pretty interesting extended family!

A good friend has informed me I may have been giving too much credence to Lisa last rant. He thinks Lisa merely triggered my original abandonment issue. He also figures she kept me in a more or less constant state of acute abandonment fear for many years. Eeek. I figure he is about right. I am still in the anger stage on that one, and enjoying it thoroughly I might add.

It is a beautiful day here today, I'm going up on deck to begin my book. Oops. It is now 3 hours later. Marinas are unbelievably social places for those that don't know. I didn't even make it on deck, or get this posted before I was interrupted to go socialize with the neighbors. Ah, it is the life! OK, so I will NOT try to read on deck so as to remain better hidden.

7pm - I have read a few chapters, done a bit of crying, completed some healing exercises, and here are some interesting quotes I wrote down. In his book, Joe Soll says,

"During the ages of six to eight... the child's running internal tape will be, 'If she REALLY loved me she would have kept me. I must be defective and my defect is that I am not lovable.'... This playing of the tape (and the resultant feelings of unlovability) as the third trauma (first is abandonment, second is finding out he is adopted) and what I call fracturing of the personality... The individual feelings of pain, anger, and sadness get woven together into one enormous but indistinguishable emotion which you might call the 'loss of mother' emotion. This emotion must be repressed for the child to survive. As a result, the child is likely to repress other parts of her childhood along with this interwoven 'emotion' as she cannot repress the emotions without substantially losing some of the memories of this time of her life."

"Any time an adoptee experiences any sort of loss, it is likely to touch upon the pain of losing her mother at the beginning of life. If this pain is not acknowledged or resolved, each loss will compound the pain of that original loss, so the adoptee feels an overwhelming feeling of pain even if the trigger is minor. It is common for an adoptee experiencing a break up in a relationship to feel as though she will actually die as a result of the loss. As stated earlier, this feeling relates back to the loss of her birthmother, which is why the rejection of a lover feels more devastatingly painful than one might expect."

"The apprehension related to developing intimate relationships is also linked to the fear that someone will see a defect in her. This fear, often unconscious, is due to the adoptees firm belief, formed just before the fracture (age 6-8), that there must have been a defect that caused her to be given up at birth. Often, adoptees feel that they do not deserve to be loved because there must be something inherently wrong with them if their own birth mother did not want to keep them."

"...adoptees often end up in relationships that are abusive to varying degrees. They feel that they do not deserve anything better, and that this may be an appropriate 'punishment' for the defect which they surely possess."

"As is often the case in abusive relationships, the abusive partner is emotionally unavailable to the partner being abused. Adoptees are attracted to these individuals because it coincides with the adoptee's desire to find an individual who truly represents her birth mother, who is the epitome of unavailability... This means that an adoptee will actually find individuals who are sure to leave."

OUCH! OK, it feels kind of frightening to be following a known script so closely. Nice to know I pick really observant and intelligent friends though. I do indeed have no memories before the age of about eight. I always thought this was weird. My shrink John used to query me about this time a lot and I always came up blank (to which he always said "abandonment issues" to which I always said, "Nah, can't be," - bugger, I can sure remember his shaking his head and smug look!)

And Lisa, well. So I am completely predictable (just read this book!). And completely screwed up too. Ah, but I have not spent the past 20 years spinning my wheels. I have recognized and worked very hard on many of these individual symptoms, and now dealing with the underlying cause is the natural conclusion (and I have the tools and knowledge to accomplish it). I am doing the book's exercises, and while they are emotionally draining, I am feeling some really powerful changes already. Knowledge is power, and I am getting stronger than ever!

I was going to go out dancing tonight, and socializing with pretty girls would likely be very pleasant after all this emotional turmoil - but frankly I am completely drained. I just made some soup and ate some lovely hummus, pita and oil soaked black olives with it. I think I will just go up on deck with a beer and look at some stars, birds and dolphins before hitting the sack. Tomorrow is another day...]]>mail@piratesteve.comWho Am I Blog2005-09-05T22:09:00-04:00www.lonelypirate.com/whoamiblog/files/archive-1.html#unique-entry-id-1www.lonelypirate.com/whoamiblog/files/archive-1.html#unique-entry-id-1
I had a rough weekend, battling all my ghosts. I don't know why, but holidays seem to bring out my Army nightmares. I miss my friends. Lonnie in particular. (I go to matinees he would like and eat popcorn and Goobers in his memory. Sometimes, I can even feel like he is there laughing with me. I like that a lot). The nightmares were particularly bad though. I really hate being alone for those. Really hate that I do.

I also realized this weekend that I have been subconsciously holding myself back for Lisa (damn my over-active subconscious!) I have always seen her as a broken soul like me, and wanted to protect her from the solitude I fear so much. I know the particular path she chose when she left would be a very difficult one, so my subconscious has held me back so that I could still be available to protect her if she needed me. I know what she really wants is to be loved, and she thought I didn't so she split me before she thought I would split her. Poor kid, I would never have abandoned her - I couldn't. Aside from the fact that I really did love her, I knew what abandonment felt like. It really sucks.

Anyway, it's been almost 2 years - like hello! Anybody home in that twisted psyche? She ain't coming back you moron underdeveloped ego...

Abandonment issues. I can't leave her behind even though she abandoned me, brutally I might add. Once I realized this I found I have not yet grieved for the loss of her love, so I am forcing myself through the steps now (I thought I had, but once again my conscious self was easily fooled by the practiced ego). I was stuck in depression, now I am forcing anger. Feels kind of good too. She really treated me like dirt. And I DO deserve way better than I ever got from her. (Anger can be fun!)

And I am re-aligning my thoughts so I do not recognize letting her go as abandonment. Time to move on and really enjoy this wonderful new fun-filled life. Crap, I live on a boat, dance, ride a bike, am handsome, am great company and am the life of every party. Women, lovely, wonderful, loving and kind women actually want to be with me. As Freddie Mercury sang, "The show must go on!"

I wonder if my real mom was like Lisa? Somehow, I kind of think that's likely. It would explain a lot I think. I am not going to dwell on that though because frankly I am putting all things Lisa out of my mind for good. Too much time wasted on that sad chapter of my life already I think. To that, and other ends, I have made up some new affirmations and started them morning and evening this week. Also spent a lot of time in prayer.

A bunch of books I ordered at Amazon about coping with adoption issues arrive this week too. After a weekend of ghosts and grieving, I look forward to positive movement in a healing direction. I am going to annihilate that damn immature, still-born soldier-ego and his subconscious trickery. And I am going to replace him with one that actually lets me have a real life. I will not rest until I do. Stephen must die. Viva la Revolucion!]]>mail@piratesteve.comWho Am I Blog2005-08-31T08:47:00-04:00www.lonelypirate.com/whoamiblog/files/archive-0.html#unique-entry-id-0www.lonelypirate.com/whoamiblog/files/archive-0.html#unique-entry-id-0
But what effects have this had on Addie? I have always felt she parented her mother (a Borderline Personality), and was blind to the notion that she parented me also. I feel so guilty to have laid such a heavy burden on such a small child.

Will she forgive me? And if she does, will she help me grow up now like I tried to do with her? She has become wise beyond her years, and she also knows a whole lot about childhood. So I am excited, and scared all at once.]]>