I was fearful of the aftermath. Would revisiting these issues upset the tenuous peace that I had established with my biological father? Would reliving certain events from my past create tension with my mother? How would I be received by my family as I wrestled through these issues and worked to reestablish new boundaries?
Ultimately, I think Jacob and I wanted the same thing from God—the assurance that it was safe to return. Like Jacob, I honestly didn’t feel that this process would leave me unscathed. Jacob’s encounter left him with a limp, but he received a name change in exchange for the physical impairment. Jacob was commanded by God to return to the land of his father in order to receive everything God had for him. I was commanded to confront my past in order to build a productive and satisfying future.
In August 2017, I found myself in the office of Nichole Weiler, a licensed clinical social worker. I felt completely broken.
Although my failed marriage was the catalyst for my visit, I realized that my soul was sick. Honestly, I needed more than spiritual solace to process it.
I had reached a place where I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and sought professional help. I was filled with trepidation about the whole process because I was referred to her through my job’s employee assistance program (EAP). I tried counseling through EAP years earlier and the whole experience was lackluster.
My girls and I went as a family for the first couple of visits. On several Monday evenings, at five o’clock p.m., I found myself sitting on a beige microfiber sofa sandwiched between my oldest daughter—who is a clone of me, and my youngest daughter— who is a clone of her father. I remember being so worried about how this whole fiasco was affecting them.
It wasn’t long after our initial assessment that Ms. Weiler advised me that the girls would be better when I was better. They were just as worried about my well-being as I was about theirs.
This wonderful counselor introduced me to a therapeutic technique called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). In layman’s terms, this process mimics REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. You basically tap into your subconscious like you do when you are asleep and dreaming to reprocess traumatic experiences to ease the pain associated with them.
The counselor handed me two round discs the size of quarters. These discs were attached by two long black cords to a remote that she held in her hand. I was directed to place these devices beneath my thighs and she would use the remote to make them vibrate.
During this process, you have to be mindful of the physical symptoms you experience as a result of the emotions that specific memories bring up. I experienced tension between my shoulder blades or a brick-like heaviness in my stomach. I even had muscle spasms in my lower back.
I was encouraged to relive painful memories in order to change how they impacted me. I was prompted to console my younger self and to advocate for her. I was given the opportunity to articulate the emotions she was too afraid or too inexperienced to express.
Through a series of leading questions, I found myself in an unexpected place. Surprisingly, my first area of contention didn’t involve my ex-husband or even my father. My first real breakthrough in therapy was about a painful memory concerning my mother. This revelation was alarming to me.
I wholeheartedly expected to figure out why I would choose to marry a man who could have easily been a clone of the man who sired me. Instead, I found myself standing nose to nose with the one part of my life I considered normal—and safe.
I remember being about seven or eight years old, lying in bed as my mom packed her things to return to her life in Jackson, MS. As happy as I was to spend time with her during her visits, there was always a sense of trepidation for me because I knew in a few days I would have to say goodbye again.
On this particular morning, she had packed her things. We had said our goodbyes and, to my knowledge, she was about to leave.
I never showed anyone how painful those goodbyes were for me. I would hide beneath the covers, have a good cry and life would roll on. On this particular morning, my mom doubled back to the room, turned on the light and caught me crying.
“Are you crying?” She asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
She stared at me for a moment and turned and walked away. I hesitated to share this particular memory because for a couple of reasons. Initially, I was afraid of my mom’s reaction, and I really didn’t want to stir the pot so to speak. I also didn’t want anyone to think that I was trying to solicit sympathy. In fact, this may not even be a memory my mom has kept stored in her memory bank. I felt it was important to share because I found it terribly surprising that this was the first memory to surface during the EMDR exercise. At the same time, it explains so much about some of the choices I have made as an adult.
This memory made me face some difficult truths about my life. The first is the fact that I was adopted. No formal paperwork was filed and there wasn’t a hearing, but my physical custody was transferred to someone else besides my biological parents.
My grandparents raised me. In fact, they are who I call Mama and Daddy. I have always watched movies where adopted children were placed in stable, loving homes but longed to know where they came from. That is similar to how I felt back
