I have always felt an immense loneliness.The feeling that my life is a mistake and that I should never have been born has haunted me from a young age. I remember that sometimes at night I prayed to God to take me away and at the same time not wanting my family to know this, cause I didn’t want to make them sad. I never questioned myself feeling this way until I was 17. That's when I asked my parents if I could go to a psychologist and basically I have been in some kind of therapy since then. Being a patient has been part of my identity, as one of my best friends would say. Yes it's true. What else would I be if I wasn't just that? Forever broken, forever to be mended. Forever wanting to be someone else. The problem has always the same: my self-esteem. But how did I get here? What happened to me that turned me into this? Or could it be that I chose this role, to be the eternal victim? I mean, sure, we're all a little damaged as a consequence of living on planet Earth, but what has always bothered me the most about my traumas, is having those inner voices that debilitate me every day and make me take decisions that continue to keep me  in a place where I am subjected to some sort of abuse. And of course at the same time knowing that it is up to me to remove myself from such a position but still somehow not being able to. Sure, at this point I feel much better than I did a few years ago, healing slowly but surely, one day at a time. But still, I can get so annoyed at myself from time to time and my self-hate sometimes gets a free pass when I can't see the good in me, and when I keep on getting into relationships and situations that confirm that I'm not worth anything. It is frustrating to say the least. All this came to a peak in 2008. I had fallen victim to an obsession with a person who realized how much I admired him and he took the opportunity to suck out all the self-love I had.I felt like he really saw me, and the part of me that had been hiding came finally out into the open to receive love. Of course, all this had to do with music, I finally felt seen. Music, that forbidden place in me that had been systematically criticized by my family, and that had saved my life so many times. Music, my salvation, the only place that for years had helped me escape my reality, until the day I could finally get away for real, when I left for Sweden to start a new life. But by 2008, and so many years of therapy behind me, plus reading the book "Women Who Love Too Much", I had come to the realization that I was powerless and didn't have the ability to get out of the situation I was in. I was very clearly my own worst enemy and did not have any kind of power over my behavior. So that's when I, in August 2008 started attending 12-step meetings. Very… but very slowly, I began to dig into this entanglement of thoughts, feelings and guilt that I carried inside. Although I had already been in therapy many years before, I still hadn't processed so much. Slowly and carefully I broke the denial and saw what was really underneath. But very slowly. Because what lies behind addiction and codependency are monsters with big teeth and sharp claws, followed by the destructive voice of guilt. In Gabor Maté's words "don't ask yourself why the addiction, instead ask yourself why the pain". It's really annoying to see oneself reacting as a co-dependent. It's as if another being suddenly takes control over one's body and before one has time to stop it, it already says words one didn't want to say and moves ones body where one didn't want to move it. When I find myself in what is called "in the race" in the 12 step program, it is very difficult to get in touch with my truth, know what is happening inside me, make decisions, set boundaries or remove myself from abusive situations. The fear of losing the people around me makes me panic and transforms me into the perfect victim. "I just want them to love me and stay by my side", says my inner child, ready to pay any price. The worst part is that she, my inner child, always finds people who remind her of the family she grew up with to see if she now will  finally win that love she never got as a child. And always, but ALWAYS loses the game. Because the past has already passed. The only thing I can do is accept it. Accept the reality, the pain and allow myself to cry.This existential loneliness is not only found in us adoptees. Everyone carries it inside. We were born alone and we die alone. And we are the ones who have to see ourselves, feel compassion for our history, give ourselves time to process it, slow down every day for a little while and ask ourselves how we feel, to cure that loneliness. Meditation for example helps a lot.To participate in groups with people who have had or have the same life experiences as well. We have to break the silence. Break the shame of what we feel and think so it doesn't eat us from the inside. After all, we all want to be seen and loved for who we really are. That is universal.But how did it go for us adoptees? Since no one really knows what the human soul is made of, or what our inner core and identity actually consists of, that is, there are many theories but no absolute truth, it is difficult to say how a person is shaped by adoption and how such a process will land in us. Especially nobody knew when I was adopted. It was assumed that it was simply to receive a girl and raise her in a context and that she, like a blank slate (tabula rasa), would grow up to be identical with her adoptive family or at least to become a natural part of it. The first problem probably started already when they went  to collect me at the doctor who had me for sale Dr. Celestino Bartucca. According to what my mother told me, they had been promised a blonde girl, but when they came to pick up the baby, it was me instead, brown skinned and black haired. She always said it to me like it was a huge disappointment. How ugly I was. The racism was unbearable.Years later I found out that the day after they bought me, she took me to the neighbor and asked if she didn't think I was "too dark". The neighbor was horrified and told my other neighbor, who has been like an aunt to me, who then told me this story in 2010. And thank God for that, because sometimes I think I made this all up,this racism I was constantly exposed to. I was a blank slate, but with one small detail: my genes. Genes, as I was repeatedly told by my surroundings and family, originated in the slums. An assumption full of racismAnd it is clear, according to the society's values based on class and racism, that they are the worst genes in the gene pool. On top of that, of course it didn't help to have grown up in the German society that blossomed in Buenos Aires after World War II.But the past must be accepted. And I traveled to Buenos Aires in June 2022 to knock on doors, behind one of them could belong to my biological mother to do just that. To see if I could accept my reality. To see if I could stop blaming myself, to see if I could understand what was happening inside me and why I carry this endless loneliness that brings me to my knees before my co-dependency. I went to Buenos Aires to see if I could repair that part of me that I hadn't been able to embrace, because I always felt it was my fault that I had been given away to another family. That I was a mistake, unwanted. I should never have been born. I appeared in this world and since then I have tried to be someone worthy of being loved. I'm trying to prove to everyone and everything that I didn't come here to take someone else's place.That I am a good person, and above all loyal. I don't give up on anyone or anything. Never. I stay until the end even if it destroys me. The Titanic is sinking and I will be the one left in the band playing. And that's why it's worth staying by my side.Because…“Please stay by my side.Please don't let me go mom, this world scares me.Please mom, what lies ahead is going to be very difficult.I promise to be the best daughter if you let me stay by your side."And here I could end this chapter of codependency.But on second thought, I'll give it a few more minutes. Not long ago, I read an article about the relationship between adoptees and substance abuse, depression, suicide or attempted suicide, divorce, the inability to maintain functional emotional relationships, and the onset of certain diseases.Our self-destructive tendencies are obvious. There is a noise within us that we cannot calm or silence. As if we had a cry inside that is inconsolable. But because it's so hard to identify it, accept it, talk about it, the noise becomes a heavy and static void.Of course, we are not all the same. Not all of us feel or experience the same thing. Much depends on the family that adopts us. But the statistics speak for themselves.Pain is inevitable. In this life we ​​will all feel pain at some point. But suffering is not necessary. I found relief in the Codependent Anonymous twelve-step program. And even though my codependency still dominates my days, I try to find love for myself and understanding for that little girl who longs to be loved and will do anything to get people to stay by her side.One day I might be free.In the meantime, I pray the serenity prayer

God grant me the serenity 

to accept the things I cannot change, 

courage to change the things I can, 

and the wisdom to know the difference

Thank you