Health issues don't have to make sense, do they? My mother's breast cancer doesn't make sense. My own kidney disorder doesn't really make sense. My daughter's Dad is sick and, you got it, it just doesn't make sense. Sometimes there seems to be a lack of rhyme or reason behind health related issues.

Which is why I found this article out of Cincinnati to be so intriguing!

I am a believer that the emotional aspects of our life can make us sick. If you know anything about depression (or its similar counterparts like anxiety), you know that negative emotions can physically wear us down. Big time! So I don't know why this article was surprising to me. Or, perhaps it wasn't surprising. Perhaps I was more surprised to see the topics of emotional blockage causing an outward manifestation of an illness combined with adoption in the media. Good stuff!

Long story semi-short: an adoptee was told that her birth parents couldn't raise her because they didn't have the money. The adoptee went on to have a successful (rather lucrative!) career along with a husband and one child. Upon reuniting with her birth parents, they invite her to go on a cruise. And then things get kind of blurry.

Literally.

The adoptee had some vision problems. Upon seeing a mainstream doctor, she was told that she had a "twitch in her eye muscle." Some kind of medication was suggested but, instead, she decided to visit an energy healer. The energy healer got the adoptee to admit that she was harboring negative feelings towards her birth family related to their inability to parent due to financial issues coupled with their recent invitation to take her on a cruise.

Upon admitting this to her birth family, her vision cleared up. They also accepted her with love. Happy ending.

I was pleased by the story, even if I don't know what an energy healer does or any of that jazz. The story is actually featured as an essay in a new book on shelves earlier this week. It's actually part of the Chicken Soup for Your Soul series! The book is: Chicken Soup for the Soul: Life Lessons for Loving the Way You Live: 7 Essential Ingredients for Finding Balance and Serenity. I'd be interested in actually reading the entire essay (as opposed to the blurb in the article) to see if anything else is said about the birth family's reaction to such a statement.

It might not be an easy thing to hear from the child you relinquished. "Yeah, so, remember how you couldn't parent me because you had no money? And now you want to give me an expensive vacation? Well, it's really flipping me out and, quite frankly, it's screwed up my vision. And that makes me kind of mad." I'm sure it wasn't phrased in that way but that's how my own first mother ears would hear it, of course. I wonder if they felt guilt. I know that I, personally, feel a lot of guilt regarding the financial aspect of my adoption decision. Young and naive, I didn't realize that financial problems are, most often, temporary. I was on my feet in less than three months. I know I'll be faced with questions regarding that aspect of my decision to place someday when the Munchkin begins to put a time line of events together. Thinking about being asked such a question actually makes my vision kind of blurry.

Anyway, while I didn't mean to get off on a personal tangent, I think it's an interesting angle for birth parents, adoptive parents and adotpees to consider. Are your adoption issues adversely affecting your health? If you were to work through those issues (anger, depression, guilt, fear), would you feel a relief in even just your stress level? Can you do something about those things today by having a non-confrontational conversation with the involved parties?

Here's hoping for non-blurry vision for all of us in the near future!

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For more, read:

1. Revisiting Places.

2. Healing: Do You Have Something to Say?

3. Please Share Your Story on October 24th.

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