Superordinate theme Vulnerability

The second superordinate theme, in Table 16, that was created referred to the participants’ vulnerability within their self and lives. The four subordinate themes integral to this are: 1. Self as vulnerable, 2. Influential fear, 3. Hiding, and 4. My pain. These subordinate themes show the different aspects of how vulnerability existed within the participants’ worlds.

6.3.1 Subordinate theme - Self as vulnerable

All the participants expressed a sense of vulnerability within how they perceive themselves and their lives. Pan, Kim, Marty, and Cathy all stated an anxiousness of living and how this can relate to the perception by the ‘other’.

Vox and Noel expressed low self-worth and hopelessness at times in their lives, finding it hard to develop confidence.

Vox: ‘To this day I struggle with low self-esteem and sense of purpose.’

Noel: ‘I was ready to commit suicide, almost. I didn’t quite get to that stage but I did hit the bottom.’

Eva and Anna discussed vulnerability through the punishment and rejection by the ‘other’ and the distress and numbness this causes.

Eva: ‘I just shut everything down, emotions, feelings, everything because they were not being met, but they were also getting punished too.’

Anna: ‘I’m scared, too scared to ask them and contact her because I don’t want that rejection.’ David’s vulnerability expressed itself through his explicit need for love and acceptance, and how the ‘other’ is needed to satisfy this. This is similar also to Sam, although

161 Sam embraced his vulnerability and saw his ‘sensitive side’ as an integral part of self to cherish.

David: ‘I just take it day by day and just sort of go, I want to be loved.’

Sam: ‘I’ve got the scars to prove it, but I still have that sensitive side to me, and I don’t want to lose that it’s part of who I am.’

6.3.2 Subordinate theme - Influential fear/stresses

Fear and stresses emerged with nine of the participants. All these fears and stresses were dependent on the participants’ experiences of being in relations with another. Sam explicitly stated that he would fight to protect his ‘vulnerable self’ when threaten by the ‘other’.

Sam: ‘I mean I’d go the other extreme and fight to protect it, I’d literally fight, I know that’s not very sensitive but I would.’

Kim similarly would ‘lose her temper’ when her future plans were feeling threatened and her sense of control was feeling undermined.

Kim: ‘I lose my temper with the kids when they’re not doing something that I worry about – I always project into the future.’

Pan, Cathy, Noel, Eva, David, and Anna’s fear stemmed from a fear of rejection or dismissal by the ‘other’, if their opinions and actions didn’t meet approval.

Pan: ‘I attribute this to a fear; a pretty basic fear of rejection, which I think is understandable in an adoptee.’

Cathy: ‘I went through a phase of thinking my fear of having a relationship with a woman was because I would disappoint my adoptive father.’

162 Eva: ‘Everything was shut down, and I was in a bubble really. My teenage years were quite traumatised really.’

David: ‘I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise what we’ve got in that sense, as much as my imagination would tempt me.’

Anna: ‘I’ve made a conscious effort to move away from anybody that’s not a good influence or part of my life.’

Marty’s concern is based in his fear of the subject of sex, and how this creates anxiety within him.

Marty: ‘When they start talking about not having sex but anything in that area. I'm kind of, oh my god, I'm getting anxious - I’m uncomfortable.’

6.3.3 Subordinate theme – Hiding

Seven of the participants spoke of their vulnerability and how they hid this from others to keep themselves safe. Cathy discussed her hidden depths of self and how aspect of herself are still out of awareness.

Cathy: ‘I have really understood in the last decade how much of myself I just don’t understand - how many memories I hold, how my behaviours are a form of communication and what is really going on at the subconscious level.’

David expressed how he holds himself back in relationships, for fear of being disliked. David: ‘You don’t always give your true self over, getting back to this, how can I adjust myself? How can I camouflage what somebody might not want to see, in order to be liked.’

Noel talked of his hiding himself, so as not to be seen with fear of being hurt.

Noel: ‘That’s how I dealt with it, I’ve just pushed it away and said well what you don’t see, you don’t know.’

163 Kim conveyed how she would hold back information and avoid people to stay safe. Kim: ‘Like, secretive in a way, you know, just not ever being able to say what I was doing or where I was going and that kind of thing because they didn’t like the people I was with.’

Marty showed how his public persona is seen by others and how different he is inside. Marty: ‘I remember once years ago a colleague said to me, I was saying I kind of fancied someone or something, and they said, ‘really, I was convinced you are someone who was a-sexual. You're a 'something' but you don’t have a sexuality.’ And I just thought wow you know, oh god if only you knew.’

Pan confidently and explicitly made it clear how he hides and guards from others to keep safe in relationships.

Pan: ‘It’s easy to guard against it by not exposing yourself.’

Sam stated how he found it hard not to expose his vulnerability and hide, especially regarding sexual relations and feeling exposed.

Sam: ‘The sexuality was, it has caused problems sometimes. I’ve felt very vulnerable, unable to hide sexually and I don’t know if that’s to do with the adoption and it’s exposing me completely as a person.’

6.3.4 Subordinate theme – My pain

All the participants either explicitly stated or alluded to a personal pain or torment that they lived with throughout their lives. For Cathy it was the fear and pain of not being ‘good enough’ or ‘flawed’.

Cathy: ‘There is also something wrapped up in there about fear of not being good enough – that there is something wrong with me. I feel I project this sense of being flawed (a reject) on to my physique and you know I feel quite vulnerable about that.’

164 David: ‘I’m a one-off. I don’t mean that to be any sort of something special but I didn’t fit.’ Eva was still angry and her pain showed in her inability to be in relationship with her adoptive parents.

Eva: ‘I can forgive them for that but as you can gather I’m not in contact with them.’

Noel’s pain and anguish is embedded in his birth mother’s second rejection, when he tried to find her and have a reunion.

Noel: ‘Birth mother was totally against it and she almost, from what I understand, she almost held my aunt to ransom to say if you have anything more to do with him, I will cut you out, so unfortunately that was how the double jeopardy came in then.’

Kim discussed her need to have things ‘right’ and the torment and pain of having to accept life isn’t perfect.

Kim: ‘I suppose it’s accepting that life isn’t necessarily like that. It isn’t perfect.’

Anna’s pain is still with the birth mother she can’t contact and the fear of a possible second rejection.

Anna: ‘Constantly looking for that love and attention because it feels like it was taken away from you from an early age as babies.’

Marty is still angry with his birth mum, and feels the pain and guilt of these feelings. Marty: ‘The anger I had lots of people say that you're really angry with your mum. And I'm like no I'm not. But really I kind of got to see that I am.’

Pan expressed a ‘deep pain’ from being adopted and all that has come from this experience.

Pan: ‘A deep well of pain that has, you know, anger is its language of expression for want of a better channel.’

Vox is still longing for a resolve and peace regarding his adoption and his need to connect and know his ‘true self’.

165 Sam’s pain is reminiscent of his dad’s anger and pain that was directed at him, and his memories of it.

Sam: ‘My dad was one-person coz we grew up in an apartment and there was one person very much to the public, and he could be slightly different, I took the brunt of it really.’