pull the trigger(ed)

Triggered. I've only recently come to understand how this word is used in association with a deep psychological issue, and it's spot on. Perhaps it's because I live in the south, where progressive thinking is slow to come, if at all. Maybe I just haven't paid attention-which would mean I am paying attention now. Whatever the case may be, I now have a word to describe what happens to me (to all of us) when just sitting around minding my own business and bam, I'm destroyed by an offender.

I'm not really sure why the social worker deemed it necessary to write some of the things she did in my non-identifying information. What was left out from a few posts before was the emotional things she typed and gave me. (According to those in the know, what I received COULD be all lies. Where does that leave me? I don't know.Maybe lies are all I'll ever have.. Are lies better than nothing at all? Lies on paper are AT LEAST tangible.)
Four things (maybe Five or Six, we will see):
1. "your birthmother didn't EVEN name the father on the bc." (that 'even' part just pissed me off)
2. "your birthmother didn't EVEN want to see you." (again..could she have at least refrained from typing that word? Why was it necessary to EVEN put that [see? its just a word that could technically just be 4 exclamation points] in the mix?) (Try doing a diagram of THAT sentence.)

I digressed. I usually do.
According to the lies (or truth) of the tangible evidence I do have, though, something incredible has come out of it-but it's left me distraught, like a child, wondering how in the world to change my thinking. Perhaps I shouldn't change my thinking just yet, but how can I not think about it? Wrapping my brain around these whammies leaves me anxiety-filled. I don't know what to do.
You would think these are bad things I am talking about-not at all, if they are true.

The first significant positive was that my ffather wanted to marry my fmother when he found out she was pregnant. She blew him off. He moved out of state. That made me cry. Not for the loss, necessarily, but because he actually KNEW (and knows.. ) that I existed. I'm not a huge proponent of getting married "just because of a pregnancy," so an 'atta girl to my fmother for that one-again, if it's true. Just to know though, that he knows about me fucks my head all up. I've ALWAYS been under the impression that he "probably" didn't even know. If he did know, he "probably" didn't care.

Second was a story about the foster (father? not really sure what to call him..) who took care of me in the 6 weeks my fmother had to change her mind about giving me away. The day he and his wife were taking me to meet my "parents," it said he was quiet and had no words to describe how he was feeling. It said he was gentle as he placed "the baby" in the carseat and said "they better do right by her." That made me cry.

Third, and perhaps most important, although, I really don't know why it's important to me, because I know my dad loves me is that on the day before my parents took me home, they came and "met' me. "They each held her in turn, and her adoptive father found it hardest to let her go." That was really heartbreaking to hear. My dad has never ever been emotional with me except maybe once or twice, or when a Little House on the Prairie episode makes him cry. He's stoic. He's unemotional, to a point where it's always been maddening for me. Absent, a lot of my life-his career was most important. He was gone a lot. He would do TDY in Korea for a month at a time. He always came back and it would freak me out.
Once, I got off the school van when I was in Pre-K in Myrtle Beach, SC. I was 4. A man who looked like my dad was standing across the street, but how could it be him? He had a mustache and he was tan and smiling. He scared me, I had never seen him with a mustache. I was shy-why I remember that, I don't know.
I always had issues with my dad growing up. He's a brilliant, brilliant man. He is so incredibly brilliant and the way he interacts with people is condescending. I don't think he knows he does it-but if I didn't understand something he was trying to teach me, he'd get the little baby voice that's slow and try to explain it. Like that helped. That just made me feel dumber than I already felt. "Now, Rachel..."
In my teenage years, when I needed my dad the most, I felt like he wasn't there. I felt like he was ashamed of me. My sister (in my mind-people try to tell me even now that it was just my perception-I don't believe it to this day) was the goddamned golden child. Everything she did was gold. Everything I did was tarnished brass. I try to shock people to this day, especially the family on my mother's side by referring to myself as the black sheep of the family. I WANT them to know that I KNOW.
Anyway, I love my daddy in spite of all of this. I try to put myself in the "daddy's girl" category but somehow always fall short of actually feeling it. I know he loves me. I know he loves my kids. He just has a weird, harsh way about him, unemotional. I hate that.

Recently, while waiting for the non-id stuff to get here, I was having lunch with my family. I had assumed (not really sure why) that my fmother all these years had been 17. My mom got indignant with me that day saying she was 19 and why in the world would I think she was 17? Like I was a crazy person (well, this remains to be unproven..). Anyway, I just couldn't believe, when my dad shrugged his shoulders in an exaggerated fashion, threw his hands up in the air, and said "I don't remember" when I started asking questions about what the social worker had actually told them. How could he NOT KNOW that this was important to me? How in the FUCK could he think that those memories shouldn't be important?
I ran out of the restaurant in tears. Ten years ago, I would have walked back into the restaurant, gathered up my kids and haul ass back home. That day I didn't, maybe I'm growing up. Who knows. When I got back to the table, he apologized, told me whenever I was ready he would tell me what he DID remember from that day. That surprised me, my dad has never been one to apologize.

I'm making my dad out to be some monster. He isn't. Before I actually put a label on all of this emotional turmoil in my life, I really did think that a lot of what I did, and the choices I made were because I didn't have the emotional support from the man in my life, my dad. I've always thought teenaged girls (most importantly) should have a strong father, to show them the way, to show them that they are special, and worthy. While he would meet dates at the door and scare the living hell out of them (boys always were scared to ask the Thornburgh girls out on dates, they had heard..stories), he would also be the one sitting in the chair in the living room with a baseball bat waiting for me when I would sneak out of the house citing "Well, you never know who youre going to try to sneak back in with." Which was just an asshole thing to say, in my very humble opinion.
I could go on for hours, but I won't.
My point is this: When I got the info I realized (again this being my truth for it's all I have right now) is that the first THREE men in my life(although, the first, at least thought I was important enough to marry some fat chick who was apparently a bitch to him according to this bitch of a social worker who deemed it necessary to put her two cents in) apparently thought I hung the goddamned moon. I have been oppressed in some relationships (one particularly..) because I am a very weak woman. I've always attributed that to the fact that I felt like no man should love me, because I'm a royal fuck up. What do I do with all of this now?
The one sentence about my dad just broke my heart, and I don't know why. I feel like I've lost years with this man who found it the hardest to let me go back to that social worker. I want to believe that is how he still feels.
I'm sobbing as I write this, and I don't even know where the hell it's coming from. I have a picture-of me when I was about 1, a tiny little baby..15 pounds at a year, on my daddy's shoulders. It personifies what a relationship should be like for a little girl and her dad. It's so false, to me, but I cherish it. I think because I WANT so bad to believe , I want so bad to have that bond with my parents. I just don't. I want it so bad, I can't even explain how much I do. I just feel like I can't though,not really, because it's not a natural bond. If I ever find that first guy, will I automatically have a bond with him? I've heard conflicting stories-the jury is still out. I don't know if the jury will ever actually walk in the room and give me my verdict. Am I strong enough to handle it if they come back in and tell me I will never ever have a bond with any of my parents? Am I royally fucked by this game called adoption? Do I NEVER get a bond with anyone? I'm 37 christ killing years old and this shouldn't be an issue-I'm an adult. Inside, though, I'm still dealing with that oppressive, night-marish feeling that I just can't shake.

Whatever the reason for the trigger-it started sometime yesterday afternoon- I'm in a funk. That picture of my dad holding me is blown up to an 8x10 and sitting on my kitchen table in a beautiful frame ready to be mailed. In beautiful calligraphy on the mat " Each held her in turn, but her adoptive father found it hardest to let her go."
I hope it makes him cry. I need him to cry for me.
Since I've started the process of finding out all my truth, I have a hard time, because I've always suppressed my emotion-buried it.. never dealing with it. This is such a foreign thing to me, to be dealing with it , talking about it, FEELING all of it . I am living with this pain , 37 years worth is finding it's way out of me, so quickly. It wears me out. It is prohibiting me from lending emotion to anything else in my life. I can't seem to make anyone realize how much I need to do this. However, I can't do this AND be expected to be in the present with all of the regular day to day stuff that needs my attention. I feel like I'm between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Do I address this pain, emotion, with everything I have, or do I take care of those around me? I just have a hard time doing both. While my usual take on life is to just cross the bumps in my road with very little thought, just take it for what it is and keep moving, I can't do that this time. Deal with it now, or deal with it later. The dealing with it now thing has never happened before, so this is all a different concept to me.
I'm in a vast ocean, it is dark. My sail is broken, I have to get out of here, I need to be rescued. There are sharks in the water;I've hit an iceberg;I have no way of calling out for help;I have no emergency beacon.
This is the first Father's Day that I realize I actually do have a 'real' father, and another 'real father." What the hell am I supposed to do now?