Everyone who knows about the adoption (especially my parents and siblings, my friends to a lesser extent) asks me about it. Have I heard from the baby’s parents lately? Do I have any new pictures to show them? Will I have another visit soon?
If I haven’t gotten pictures, it reminds me that I haven’t gotten pictures and I don’t know if or when more will be coming. And I wonder and worry if there will be more and it doesn’t help me at all to be consumed by those worries. I have to believe they’ll come eventually and that’s it. It’s out of my control.
If I have received new pictures, I might not be ready to share. I hoard them for the first week or two. They’re all I have and I just want to keep them just mine for a little while. I do share eventually but I hate when people pressure me to share before I’m ready. I need to see them a few times when I’m alone, desensitize myself to them until they no longer have the power to bring me to tears. I need to go over the visit and let it settle in my head before I tell people about it so I can be calm about it instead of crying.
I’m grateful for the support people have given me. I’m not sure I could have gone through with the pregnancy without their support. But sometimes I just wish I had kept the whole thing a secret because then, no one would ask if I’ve gotten pictures or had a visit.
Has anyone else been through this?
How do I gently ask people to not bring up the topic?
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Although I am not in your exact situation, sometimes things come up in all of our lives that we need to cope with or handle on very specific ways. I am pretty honest with people, and just say “I am not ready to discuss that now” or “I need to bring that up on my own time my own way” or whatever suits the particular situation. You can soften it by saying “I really appreciate your support and interest, but this is really emotional and it would help me if you let me be the one to bring it up”
Best wishes to you
I so so totally understand and have experienced what you describe.
My solution is to tell people that the adoptive parents closed the adoption, even though it is an out-right lie. I only do this to the annoying people, the people who ask me other inappropriate questions as well like ‘what does your Dad do for a living?’ when I have told them many times that he died eight years ago. The people who are smart enough not to ask inappropriate questions I am very very very blunt to. I tell them straight that I don’t want to be asked, that if I want to tell them I will.
Only two or three people get to ask me anything anytime and they know me well enough to bring it up in an open-ended way.
Sometimes I actually completely ignore people who ask me questions I don’t want to answer and just make some kind of random excuse and a rapid exit.
I have had mercy on some people because I know that most people don’t understand how I feel about it all and need me to ‘educate’ them.
I know you want to be respectful to others but you need to let them know you need their respect as well. I used to put up with people being in my business but nowadays I just have decided to ‘protect’ myself because I know that I have to to remain mostly sane
Could you write them a letter or an e-mail telling them what you just said here? I would guess they probably don’t understand and if they did they would back off, since they seem to want to be supportive of you.
Ah, the sharing of the pictures and the experience…..I SOOO know what you mean about hording the pictures! I have a visit tomorrow, and since I blog, I usually tend to write about the visit fairly quickly – but the real development of the visit takes a while. The first day it might just be the initial thoughts, reactions, where I am. It usually takes a while for me to process and actually talk about things – REALLY discuss them. And this is just through the computer. One on one? Takes even longer. I just need to sit with my thoughts. The same with pictures. I love sharing them, but I also find that sometimes I need them to be just “mine” for a while. So little gets to be “mine” in this situation, so the little discoveries on visits are deeply cherished.
I’ve written about this on my blog before, and all of my cyber friends (and now friends in real life) are very understanding of my need to “own” that visit, those pictures, and to process them on my own time before sharing.
The interesting thing, is that talking to them about that has seemed to lessen the time I need to be with the pictures before sharing them. The feeling that I’m not being pressured is greatly freeing.
I hope that you can find the words that will work for youf family (((((hugs)))))
i definitely hoard my photos until i’m ready to share them as well. like Thanksgivingmom, i have so little that’s solely “mine” in this experience – i understand very well where you’re coming from.
and even though its been 2 years since i’ve received an update/pictures, i still have a few family members that ask periodically if there’s been any word. i’ve learned that simply saying “i’m not comfortable talking about this right now” works.