When the fog lifts

There is something known among some adoptees as the adoption fog.
It's the "Oh being adopted doesn't matter to me, all is peachy" sort of attitude.

Here's my thought on it.
If you're in the fog, and you're cozy there, then stay there. If it seems to be working for you and you feel like you are living your life in the happiest and healthiest way possible, then enjoy.

I was never in the fog. I wasn't graced with a period of time where being adopted didn't have a clear impact on my being. Being adopted is very much a part of what makes me who I am. There has never, in my own mind, been any denying that. Those around me may have denied it, and I often didn't speak out loud of it, but in my own mind a period of time never went by where I wasn't clear on how being adopted impacts my life.

The impact changes over time.
And so like any human being who tries to remain healthy, my own being changes.

As the week of depression surprised me to some degree since I usually don't have such strong bouts when the weather is nice and warm I can't help but to see how my depression has some effect in the same way as my being adopted does. It was a week of not having much to say, a week of setting aside doing anything of my "normal" routine. It was a week of trying to escape my own mind in books, movies, and sleep. It was not my roughest week, not by a long shot. Rather then thoughts of suicide there were questions as to why some things in my life are as they are, a general question of "What is my purpose?" In a parallel to being adopted it was a week of feeling like I was on the outside looking in, trying to function and fit in.

My conclusion as the depression fog lifted once again. Pretty simple really and possibly something others are aware of every day. My purpose is to be me.
Flawed in each of my own special ways = a very special me.

I often wonder, even on a good day, why people don't much like me. Not a self pity sort of Why me. It is a fact that people in person can only "Take me in small doses" (once said by a friend). I do have to ask my husband from time to time, what it is about me that people don't like.
I am typing it here as a reminder.

"I don't think it is so much that people don't like you. I think it has more to do with how they feel about themselves. You are honest and you have such a big heart. When you say it how you see it it's out of pure love or concern and that scares some people as it points out things they may not want to look at."

It is true. I don't have a filter but the good news on that is that because I have a big heart the words that come out are said in love, not spite or hate. The words may be misunderstood based on the person who is hearing them. I get to go to bed each night perhaps with a friend fewer but knowing that my heart is always in the right place.
This also means, for me, that there are times where I am pained by things others say or do and so working on my protection bubble is something I continue to focus on.
It's ok to be me. It's what I do best.