Andie.ink

Origin Stories are not just for the superheros and the villains. There are children and grown children out there everywhere today that don’t know their origin story. Many of us have this privilege, but more of us do not.

So many adoptees have entire childhoods that remain a mystery… the stories lost forever, but memories that their bodies have kept record of. They live in chaos every day trying to manage these somatic responses they can’t nullify or rectify within themselves. Tethered to stories they won’t ever know.

I sit in an odd place where I have access to my birth stories. However, I’ve been told about seven different versions of my birth story from about ten different people. I’ve had to piece the story together taking out what seems far-fetched and fitting together what seems plausible. Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, parents… every one tells me a different version.

Even in the hands of the people that where there, the depth of the trauma my origin story caused has muddled and messed with the memories and stories of the people present for my story.
Last week after a text from a parent, I had to come to grips that I will never know the truth of my origin story because it is lost in the primal part of the brains of the people involved. A memory that may never be recovered because of the portion of the brain it was saved in for that parent. Today I sit grateful for what I know. I sit with a broken heart that my very conception caused trauma to those who were involved. My origin story didn’t just change the trajectory of my life, it changed the trajectory of all of our lives. I sit having to play on repeat the recording that I am not responsible for the trauma my origin story caused.

There are no heroes and villains born or created in an adoption origin story.

There is just a bunch of people who now have trauma… and we can’t even get the stories straight.