daily check in for women

Doing fine this morning. I have my slider open and I'm getting fresh air. It feels awesome!

at the top of the forum (notifications), their is section called "mentions".

if someone's used your name, it will be listed in their

another option (and the option I personally prefer), is to subscribe to email replies for that thread, so you can see if someone mentions you (they don't always use the mention command), so that way's probably easier too

I am glad the interview went well.

fresh air is always nice!

I'm up early. I was a little irritable but I'm starting to chill out now. Looking forward to a relaxing day. Hope everyone one is doing well this Sunday!

I don't really like sundays

they always seem so depressing and lonely (which I never understood that, every day for me is lonely)

I am just sat here posting on the forum watching " the apprentice"

in fibro pain today too

I'm the same way. Sunday always seems to be the hardest day. I hope you enjoy your show and that your pain eases up. Have you ever tried CBD Oil? It's supposed to be helpful with pain. Don't know if they sell it where you are. I use it to help me relax.

I love the apprentice

pretty sure you have it too, it's where people go on to try and win shares in a company (I want to say donald trump had something to do with it, but I could be wrong.)

what's " shark tank". pretty sure we have something like that, too (it's to do with companies, right?.)

I hope my pain eases too, though at the moment I think their's more chance of life on mars

don't know why pain needs to be so difficult

Is there a forum here for women who have given their children up for adoption? I could use the support.

I gave my daughter up for adoption (willfully, without any interference from any system), largely due to my disabilities and wanting a better life for my daughter.

I've never healed from that. When asked by the lawyer, since it was in the clause of the open adoption, I decided to have the adoptive parents give the money I would have had for treatment/healing to my daughter instead. I wanted my daughter to have everything she could possibly need for a good upbringing.

I wanted to be a mother and have a family, but my PTSD and DID conditions (the DID I didn't know I had at the time) made it impossible for me to provide my daughter with the right parenting she needed to grow and thrive. I'm still connected with my daughter's adoptive mom, and I will always love my daughter. I cannot wait to hopefully meet her and reconnect in a few years, but I will leave the decision up to my daughter and what feels safe for her in terms of me being the bio mom. I wrote a post about a recent nightmare I had in the Sleep/dreams forum somewhere on PC. I explained more there, though it is a highly triggering post, so read with caution or don't read it if it is too much.

I rarely see such support on forums like these, but I think it is a need for a lot of people.

I also see a need for those who were adopted or grew up in foster care; they may need their own support group, too. Maybe also for adoptive parents, too.

Anyway, when it comes to women's stuff, I'm dealing with my being a bio mom, a failure at motherhood.

@raging vortex Feel better!

@Deilla I hope you were able to relax.

@lillib It sounds like you are suffering from some grief so perhaps the grief and loss forum would be appropriate? It's located here:
https://psychcentralforums.com/grief-and-loss/

I had a good day. I celebrated my dad's birthday today.

@lillib I'm sorry you feel bad about giving your daughter up. I don't think it makes you a failure to give your daughter to people who were more capable of supporting her than you were. Honestly, I think lots of people have and raise children when they aren't really ready or fully capable of it, and it's the children that suffer in the end.

My mom told me she didn't want kids, but I am her biological kid. I used to wish she had given me up for adoption to a family who really wanted kids.

@everybody - I hope you're feeling better today!

@88Butterfly88 - Thank you! I suppose I drew a blank as to what forum to describe my adoption issues when I'm ready. Yes, I am dealing with grief and loss. Oh, and I'm so glad you had a good day celebrating your dad's birthday! Yay!

@Deilla - Me, too - I hope you are able to relax today.

@raging vortex - I hope you feel better. I'm so sorry you're struggling.

- Safe ((((hugs)))) for everybody.

@downandlonely

(((safe hugs))) I'm so sorry your mom said that. I grew up with my parents who remained married the entire time, until my father passed away. At the age of 13, I ran away and then tried to tell the police about my father harming my mother, and I wished they would have removed me and placed me in a new home. I wished many times that I were adopted. Little did I know that my half-siblings were removed from my father and their mother, but they didn't have a healthy lifestyle in foster care. Only my dad's twins were adopted straight from birth (I have a half-brother and half-sister, both are twins born from a different mother). My dad's twins were the only sanest ones in the entire family; the rest of us have mental illnesses of some kind. Interestingly, three of my dad's kids served in the military - me, my half-brother from my dad's first wife (who was in foster care and then later served in Vietnam), and my half-brother from my dad's second wife, I believe (the one male twin who was adopted). I think my father and mother wanted us kids, which is different from being told that your mom didn't want to have children - what you went through seems really painful!

Thank you for saying that I'm not a failure. I try to not mean it in a negative way, but it comes out that way for me and to me. However, I don't want to be like all the other moms who make excuses and minimize their children's pain. I want to own up to the fact that I wasn't able to be my daughter's mom, and even though I did what I could, I cannot undo the pain that I caused her because I couldn't be there for her in the way she needed and deserved. I want my daughter to feel validated, heard, and authentic with me; I do not want my daughter parentified or feeling sorry for me; I want my daughter to be strong and honest with herself, and if she feels safe, with me. My daughter can yell at me in the future if she wanted to, and I will hear every lament she has to say to me because I love her enough to hear her pain and take responsibility for that. I'm not sure how to do that without beating myself up, but I will try to enjoy life for myself while also loving my daughter and being open to whatever she has to say to me. I wished more moms did that so that they can finally apologize for their harming their children; I hear too many moms gaslighting their children, and I don't want to be one of those.

I once volunteered in a clinical psychology lab that studied youth in foster care. It was really tough for me, but I did the work required of me. Over time, however, I would hear my professor/mentor or the students speak negatively about the mothers, in particular because the mothers were largely the parents whom the children were removed from - as opposed to any fathers or absent fathers who were barely coded, if at all. When I coded in variables that dealt with barriers to placement, such as mental illness, I felt like a hypocrite working in the lab with a mental illness.

Then, one day, I made the mistake of answering my professor's questions. He asked me to send him emails about my trauma. This was all in response to my wanting to know what clinical training was like, and if I could successfully complete clinical training, given my disabilities. After about three years of these email exchanges, I realized that I wasn't getting an answer. All I wanted was a simple answer, not me disclosing all of my traumas. I felt the transference thing happen between us, mentor to mentee, where it felt more like a therapeutic relationship than a professional/academic one. I was NOT in clinical training, but I wanted to self-screen myself to see if I were capable. I believe that I am NOT capable of handling that kind of training, though I was doing well with the research stuff I had to do, and my graduate peers (I was not a grad student) were pleased with my work, as was my professor/mentor. But all that time was wasted because of disclosing my personal information and not getting a recommendation letter for any graduate program outside of clinical work - just research only. My professor/mentor also admitted to me that I reminded him of his early childhood trauma experiences, and so I felt he was somewhat codependent on me and my authentic feelings while, at the same time, me transferring our relationship to that of a therapeutic one and a twisted enmeshed one. We didn't end our relationship well, and we both had some nasty words exchanged between us. I couldn't believe that he, a psychologist and my professor/mentor, would act so unprofessional. I had three different therapists (all at different times) during the three years I was in that lab, and they all said that his statements and asking me to email him my traumas were unethical.

My unresolved traumas resurfaced from having emailed my professor my traumatic history, or my emotional processes, or my DID (he didn't believe in DID) symptoms for nearly three years. I wanted to leave on so many occasions, but I felt I couldn't when he told me that no other mentor would offer what he offered me. It felt like I was in a bad relationship. And when I finally left, it felt like a breakup. I was attached to him and yet wanted so badly for our relationship to be professional. I had worked with one mentor (a social worker in the criminal justice dept.) before him and have never had those issues, and have remained in contact in a healthy way with my first mentor. My mentors after the clinical psychologist have also been starkly more professional and helpful, one being a clinical psychologist. It was only that one clinical psychologist whom I had a problem with, and it was primarily because he created a therapeutic transference between us, not me! I never felt the need to disclose any of my traumas with any of my other mentors, with the exception of stating that I was disabled and am trying to rehabilitate professionally.

Anyway, I was deeply hurt and torn. I've worked on similar variables with other mentors, regarding childhood trauma and juveniles and child welfare; other mentors created a safer atmosphere to work in, but that one mentor made me relive my traumas as if that were supposed to help me get better. I couldn't process everything I wanted to with my own private therapists at the VA, and I certainly couldn't process all of these things with my mentor at the time. It was the most painful mentor-mentee experience out of the four mentors I had worked with, and it caused me to lose concentration, lose focus, and worsen my chronic fatigue syndrome. I've only worsened and become afraid of grad school, mentors, and therapists since.

And all that reinforced my failures at motherhood. I failed at that, therefore I'd fail at helping others. So, I'd rather do behind-the-scenes work with research than do any hands-on helping, even outside of clinical areas. It is hard to approach helping first-hand when I've had negative reinforcements about my mental illness, despite other mentors telling me that my work was great and my engagement with them and my peers were great (or at least good enough, "normal").

It's the anniversary of my daughter's birth soon - this month, and one month or two months ago was the anniversary of giving my daughter up for adoption. This season is hard for me. I will get through it though. November and December are bittersweet, but I do love Christmas. Thanksgiving, not so much (even though I am thankful, and I often connect with others who have no family to go to on Thanksgiving).

I think you have some really good ideas (in terms of adoption forum)). it may be worth posting in the feedback section and asking for people's thoughts about that

I am sorry you feel like a failure as a mother. I'm sure you're not. I'm sure your daughter has a great life, and a happy life, and if the time comes when she chooses to meet with you, then that will be wonderful, and if not, well.... these things can be confusing.

I watch a show in england called long lost family (about people searching for their birth parents), some of those stories involve adoption, and a lot of those stories are sad- the parents feel terrible for giving them up.

you shouldn't feel like that. you gave her up because you didn't really have a choice. it's diffrent than say, giving her up because you don't want to be a mom

@raging vortex

Thank you!

PS: I took your advice from another thread and found my subscriptions and deleted nearly all of them. I think I'm going to delete them all and start over, LOL. I am pretty sure I can still find my original posts through my profile page with the statistics links. I was able to just delete all the emails I got. I'll figure out in time who replied to my posts. This is my new check in for this morning: Cleaning up emails and PC subscriptions. LOL.

@lillib sorry you had to through that. I know it's very painful. I had a similar situation with my girls. I was manipulated into giving my ex husband's wife legal rights. I lost all mine. My ex said I would still be in there lives. He promised. But 2 weeks after the adoption was final, he told me, "Don't write, don't call and don't come by." Today my children are grown. I have contact with the oldest, which is good. The younger one won't speak to me.

I hope you find what you're looking for. A forum is a good idea.

Today I'm doing Okay. I'm a little tired and anxious. I don't think I got enough sleep last night. Will try to take a nap soon. Wishing everyone well!

@Deilla

I am so sorry that you dealt with the custody battle thing, and that you weren't able to form a relationship with your children. That must have been the hardest! To be lied to, and then possibly experience "parental alienation" (unless that is what that was called, not sure about that definition yet, but I've heard about it) - those things are the most heartbreaking experiences! ((safe hugs)). There may still be room to build a relationship with your children in the future. It's not an easy loss to go through, and can be especially stigmatizing to us women. I'm sure some fathers have experienced that as well.

Also, for today, I'm sorry to hear that you are tired and anxious. Those must be difficult combos to deal with. I'm glad you are doing okay though.

Thanks for replying to me and understanding what I've went through.

I just ate dinner.

I had a "dry pie". (I had too.)

it didn't taste that nice

what is a dry pie?

@raging vortex

I'm not sure what a dry pie is, but I had baked a soggy cake once. Needless to say, I cannot cook. It was supposed to be one of those pink cakes with yummy pudding. I may have put in too much pudding or something. It was gross, so I had to throw it away.

I recall watching "Waitress" many years ago, and the pies that fictional character baked looked so yummy. I also remember watching "MIB" 2 or 3, and the pie suggestion from the star of the show made me hungry.

Now I want pie. I'll settle for cheesecake though. I have cheesecake in the fridge. I ordered it the other day from Jack in the Box.