Mirrors- Looking for the Self

And since you know you cannot see yourself,
so well as by reflection, I, your glass,
will modestly discover to yourself,
that of yourself which you yet know not of. -William Shakespeare

We’re all "living mirrors," interacting and reflecting to one another the entire range of interpersonal emotions, such as love, affection, envy, and desire. These relationships are what give us our lives. There is truly no such thing as a “me” without a “you.”

Adoptees are deprived of mirroring from their birthmothers at the beginning of their lives. Researchers believe that there is a primal mirroring between infant and mother which can only occur between the two, and that only the birthmother’s mirroring has the capacity to provide the infant with a genuine sense of wholeness and self. [See the research of Donald Winnecott to learn more.] Without the experience of this primal mirroring, adoptees are left forever looking for Mother and therefore seeking themselves, and with a deep sense of anxiety and existential urgency.

The search for self is lifelong for adoptees. Thinking of the search's manifestation in my own childhood, I think of characteristics that I singled out as reflecting my adoptive status. I remember identifying two very concrete things. First, I was the only member of our family- or of anyone I knew, for that matter- who didn’t have a middle name. (I gave myself one later, but that’s another story...) Second, I was the only member of my family with brown eyes.

I thoroughly fixated on these two “problems.” I noted them frequently and was given reassurance that brown eyes, and having no middle name, were perfectly nice things. They weren’t nice to me. They corroborated for me that I didn’t, by nature and by devise, “belong” in my adoptive home.

It occurs to me now that, although these practical aspects of life were the kind of concrete factors a child might focus on, they were also deeply- and perhaps not coincidentally, symbolic. I perceived I was robbed of a name, in this case a middle name. In reality, I had been robbed of a “first name” my birthfamily's name. Additionally, my adoptive families’ blue eyes were substantiation to me that I was not looking into the eyes [mirrors] I most needed. I was being robbed of my sense of self.

Do you remember any facets of your childhood that reminded you that your adoptive family were actually your “second” family?