Baby Rage

  
  I have tried to understand what exactly it is about my being adopted that rankles so bitterly. Adoptees out there would know, the feeling is hard to describe. It's like trying  to explain why getting your socks wet is so annoying. Socks apart, I read an interesting theory in The Primal Wound - Understanding the Adopted Child Dr. Nancy Verrier (I am deeply grateful to her, her books have been of immense comfort to me when I had no one else, and the the enlightenment I received lit up those times.)

  The concept of 'baby rage'

  She says, inside each adoptee, there is an infant self. This 'baby self' has no reason, and it is responsible for the immense rage some of us tend to feel about our adoption. (I'm not suggesting that all adoptees are an angry lot, but some of us are a little annoyed, no doubt) The key is to placate this baby self by reassuring and affirming it but at the same time firmly taking control of our own life. She explained that when we act out of this rage - distancing ourselves from loved ones, taking out the anger on them etc, it is actually the 'baby self' in control.
  This baby is actually a psychological manifestation of the babies we were at the time of our abandonment. That sad, angry and helpless baby, in a way, lives on in our psyches.

  It is a scary thought to have an angry baby in control, at the same time, it is so difficult to get past the rage that consumes me when I think of being abandoned by my birth mother. The unfairness of it stings. I admit I experience a lot of self-pity. It is a tough situation to be in.

  What is your take on the baby rage issue? Does it make sense? It makes sense to me, albeit in an annoying academic fashion. It reduces very real emotions to abstract theories and concepts, I'm not sure I like that. That being said, I have nothing but immense respect for Dr. Nancy Verrier.