The core wound

I have been thinking, honestly I am tired of thinking about it. 

You know, what this healing thing continues to be about.

I've said it before and I will say it again…. I believe that healing is just the continuous journey of getting to  know yourself better. 

And I feel that it remains something that you need to keep going in. 

The movement is constant, and the way it looks depends on the moment in your timeline. 

Sometimes you are full focus, going to classes, therapy, workshops and then some. 

And sometimes it looks like locking yourself up in your home, ordering take out and binge watching love is blind. 

I do feel that the work needs to be done, and I feel that what the work exactly is, is sometimes still a bit vague. 

This is what I think about it.

Doing the work is connecting to the core wound and taking accountability for the choices I make and the behaviour I display. Simple as that. No big deal.  Without having a clear idea about what the core wound is, you are basically just cleaning up symptoms.

Let me say a bit more, let me tell you a little story. Remember that time I was in a cult?

Well there was of course a prelude to this whole event. 

Because before all of this happened another big event took place. 

I was 19, lived in Leeuwarden, I was finishing my school, and was working as an intern in an elementary school for ‘’the difficult to place kids”. 

At 19 years old, I did study, but I attended more parties than classes.

I lived in a student house with 9 other people, I was having the time of my life. 

I had fled my parental home at a young age. 

I never really felt at ease there. 

A detail you should know is that when I was 6 months old, I flew from Bogota to the Netherlands. 

Due to forced migration, in other words, the hell that adoption is. 

I was born in Bogotá and was adopted at 6 months old by a white family from Friesland, Netherlands. The contrast couldn't be greater. 

In the 70s and 80s, adoption was a trendy thing, many things went wrong. Maybe the biggest issue is the complexity of this entire system. 

The white saviour syndrome is of course real, and was already alive and kicking back then. 

The people who adopted (bought) me were a young family that already had two children, biological children. Their motivation was that they wanted to do something good for the world, so saving a poor brown child fit their picture. 

Later in my life, my foster mother told me that when she was growing up in the 1950s in Friesland, there were no brown or black people. And one day, as a little girl, she saw another girl, but this one was brown. And she found it so beautiful that she always remembered it and wished to one day have a brown girl close to her. You can have a lot of opinions about that, and I do too. Anyway… What they told me was that their biggest motivation was that they wanted to do something good. 

I grew up in this family where I felt out of place. I was not the sweet brown girl they had hoped for, and the relationship was difficult. I showed signs of insecure attachment early on, resisted intimacy, and always felt like the black sheep of the family. 

The only person I could really attach to was my foster mother's father. He was, in my opinion, the only person who understood me. He had a deep love for God, and I was already a fan of Jesus at a young age. We clearly had a shared interest. 

I would like to say that my foster family did their best. I want to say that their heart is in the right place. I want to say that if they could do it over again, they would make different choices. I want to say that they are good people who learned the lesson of their lives the moment they uprooted me. I want to say all of that, and one day I will, and I will truly mean it. 

In my youth, I experienced a lot of loneliness, isolation, displacement, racism, discrimination, violence, and abuse. 

But! I lacked nothing, I could participate in any sport I wanted, always had clothes and a roof over my head, and a full fridge every day. But I didn't feel at home. I struggled with my identity from a very young age. I grew up with two other brown kids at school, but came home and saw no one who looked like me. 

Not only in appearance, but my spirit was also so different from that of the average Frisian person. I noticed it every day, and every day it hurt me. 

I thought a lot about my biological mother and father, and where they were, whether I had brothers or sisters, and what my life would have been like if I had grown up in Colombia. Whether I would have been happy then. 

I longed for culture, for connection, for answers. 

And my most pressing question was that I wanted to know why my mother had given me up. 

I wanted to know what was wrong with me. Why didn't she want me? 

My whole life, I had the deep feeling that there was something wrong with me, that my mother didn't want me because of that, and that I didn't fit into my foster family because of that. 

My foster parents didn't understand me. It felt like they were more like an uncle and aunt. Nice people, but no connection. Not cut from the same cloth. 

From an early age, I had night terrors, slept with my eyes open, often felt anxious, had a lot of separation anxiety, and was very insecure. I lied a lot to make myself more interesting to my friends. And I rebelled against any form of authority I encountered. 

I was sent to therapy at a young age because I kept dreaming that I was killing my foster parents. That was quite a problem, of course. 

Psychiatry, and eventually haptonomy, where I found someone who eventually suggested that I might have a dissociative identity disorder. 

Also here, at a young age, the general practitioner prescribed oxazepam to keep my anxiety disorder under control. Every time some form of diagnosis or clarity came about what was wrong with me, my foster parents let out a sigh of relief. Attachment disorder, giftedness, clinical depression, adoption issues, highly sensitive, brilliant, hyper intelligent, multiple personality disorder, It was clear, I was a problem. The negative self belief that something was wrong with me, and that that was the reason my biological mother didn't want me, was confirmed with every step. My identity and my negative self-image broke me at a young age. 

I pursued studies and barely managed to finish one or two. Even though I have always been very intelligent. Everything bored me, and I often felt I could outsmart any teacher I met. 

I wasn't interested in school, was usually under the influence, I only wanted to listen to music, write, paint, and philosophize with my friends about the emptiness of our infinite existence. 

In my teenage years, I experienced sexual abuse that pushed me over the edge, abuse that I only dared to tell other people about in my twenties. Abuse by boyfriends and an extended family member. I carried this alone. I didn't want to make more waves than I already did.  The constant response of people when they found out that I was adopted was : o you are so lucky, you must be really grateful. I have never felt that way.

Ultimately, this was the reason for me to spread my wings at the age of 15 and flee my foster parents' house. I found a studio somewhere, worked in the hospitality industry, and finished my school. 

I moved from a small town to a small village to the capital of Friesland, still small but with a bit more culture. There I found myself again in the student house. 

I was still depressed but also addicted, so I had found some sort of balance. 

One day my phone rang, it was my foster mother. A letter had arrived from KRO  and I had to come home to open it. 

I truly had no idea what this could be about and didn't feel particularly rushed either. 

A few days later, I traveled to my foster parents' village and looked for the letter. 

The letter was indeed from KRO, the media network. It came from the program, Spoorloos, a television program that reunited people with lost family members. 

They had received my letter, letter? Which letter? I started digging into my memory to recall when I had sent them a letter. They had received my letter and wanted to meet me in their studio in Hilversum to discuss everything. 

Discuss everything? Which letter? My foster mother was enthusiastic, I was mostly confused. 

Suddenly, it came back. Years earlier, after yet another escalation between me and my foster parents, I had written a desperate letter to Spoorloos asking if they could please find my real family, because I didn't belong here. Someone had to come and save me. 

And now, years later, they wanted to meet me. 

My heart skipped a beat, was this really happening?

A little while later, I was already in Hilversum and was screened to see how I performed on camera and whether I was somewhat normal. 

It went quickly and well, so well that shortly after I received the message that they wanted to film at our house. Well, preferably in my childhood home and preferably with the whole family present.

The film crew came to the family home and everyone was present. Everyone was well-prepared and played their role perfectly. Everyone was happy and content. At first glance, you would absolutely not say that everyone was actually unhappy. And no one really knew each other or was connected. Well played, just for the image. 

My foster mother had a home shop back then that she named Real Castillo, an ode to my last name, to me? I don't know.. Anyway, there we were in the beautiful perfect garden in front of my foster mother's shop, eating soup and putting on our best faces. 

I was asked to do something, what do you like to do? Uhm, smoking weed,... No, something more active. Yes, skating, my foster mother said, and so I put on my skates and set off through the village with a film crew on my heels. I did everything I was asked, I could sense the storm brewing, of course. 

When we returned to the house, an in-depth interview took place, and I did my best to come across as normal. 

Then they asked if I could show them my bedroom. Okay....

My old little bedroom was still fairly intact, and in that bedroom, I had a photo of my mother. It was a photo that had been scanned from a passport photo from my adoption documents. A heavily pixelated and unclear image of a Colombian woman.

The film crew stood in my small bedroom while the producer asked me if I wanted to say something about this photo. I said it made me happy but also sad, with well-founded arguments. I heard the camera zooming in, the producer took a deep breath and then said; well, good news, we found her and we're flying to Colombia in a week to meet her. My heart stopped for a moment, and I ran downstairs. I jumped into the arms of my foster mother, who was also shaking in disbelief with tears in her eyes. 

The details were discussed, the camera was turned off, and that was that. My life had changed forever in a very profound way. 

Time flew by.

The morning of departure, I stayed overnight at my foster parents' house, as I was allowed to take someone with me to Colombia, and I had chosen my foster mother. I thought it was quite poetic; she was also the one who had picked me up 19 years ago, so now she could take me back.

When I woke up, I had decided not to go anymore. I was paralyzed with fear. I hadn't even packed my things yet. I didn't want to anymore. 

My foster mother walked into my bedroom and said, "Everyone is counting on you,  you have to go, we're leaving, pack your things in the car in 15 minutes!" 

I pulled myself out of bed, swept a clothing rack into a bag, and made my way downstairs. The flight from Amsterdam, to Spain, to Colombia took about 300 years. The longest journey of my life, during which I alternated between blind panic, joy, disbelief, and just straight-up dissociation. 

I remember having a panic attack on the flight from Spain to Colombia, my foster mother told me that sowing panic was pointless, and that was the end of it. 

I started writing. All the questions I had for my mother. 

To the woman I had missed my entire life and whom I had always longed for so deeply. 

When we finally arrived in Bogota, it was chaotic. The culture shock was real. 

The sound of honking cars pressed on my eardrums, the smog filled my lungs, the heat pressed on my chest, my eyes blinded by all the people.

And immediately, the first confrontation I belonged here was upon me. 

You see, our luggage wasn't there, we were only going to stay for 5 days, but it would still be handy to have something with us. 

My foster mother walked up to one of the airport staff and tried to explain in broken English that our luggage was missing. The man looked her up and down and then looked at me and started talking to me. 

He thought I spoke Spanish, he thought I was Colombian, which I am, but this interaction immediately put me on edge. Fuck, I'm home, I belong here.

All the people were brown and small, busy and loud. I was like them. On the street, I didn't just look at people's backs, but looked people straight in their eyes, all brown eyes looking back. 

We made our way to our hotel. I decided to go across the street to get some underwear and toothbrushes for us. 

While I was at the market, I noticed that I no longer stood out. I cried with joy, and a kind woman began to comfort me. I thanked her and pointed to a few toothbrushes. Suddenly, I heard loud gunfire and police sirens, and I saw someone being shot and taken away. No one at the market was surprised. Not really, and me neither. It was a strange sensation. I understood everyone but couldn't say anything back. It was poetry once again. 

We had a day and a night to land in this country, my country. 

The next day, we met the film crew in the hotel lobby. Time for another in-depth interview. I was allowed to sit on a couch where a laptop was pushed in front of me. Someone pressed play and there she was. My mother. My heart broke, my heart broke open. 

Yes indeed, this was her, Gloria, my mother. The video was about her and my sister and my brother. I had a sister and a brother. My sister lived with my mother and my brother lived in prison for a while. Clearly a real criminal, and clearly that was in my genes. All that time. It explained a lot. 

I watched the video without blinking once, I didn't want to miss a moment. 

When the video ended, I became aware again of the completely bizarre situation I was in. A camera was pointed at me and the question came, and? 

I just said; I want to go there! 

So we did, but because my family didn't exactly live in the safest neighborhood of Bogota, we had to wait for the army for a bit. 

Men with large machine guns escorted us into the ghettos of Bogotá. 

On the way, I bought a flower and mainly tried my best to keep breathing. 

When we arrived, I was given a microphone and clear instructions were given on how this was supposed to look. 

If you turn the corner there, your mother will be standing there. She is waiting for you. 

I felt like a racehorse, eager at the gate, ready to go.

Still, I felt momentarily nailed to the ground. 

Okay, this is it, here we go, no way back. 

I started walking, around the corner, and there she was. My mother. 

A small woman, with short hair, she was missing quite a few teeth, but had a big smile on her face. She was crying and had her hands folded in front of her stomach. 

I walked up to her, I heard the sound of my heels echoing through the neighborhood, nothing else. There was nothing else, only her and me. 

When I reached her, I held her tight. I held her. We cried together as our hearts came together. After 19 years, we were together again.

Before I knew it, some little ones came running towards me and hugged me, my nephews. The sons of my sister. And my sister. She was standing at the door of their house with another little girl. The most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my entire life. Beautiful dark skin, jet-black long hair, and eyes in which the universe could be seen. 

"This is your little sister," I was told. I had another sister, a little one, the most beautiful in the world. 

When I picked her up, I felt my heart shatter. She was the most important, I felt it in everything.

We entered their house, it was a small house where many people lived.

My foster mother was brought in, and she was able to shed some tears too. 

The people from the program were still there, security, and an interpreter.

We held each other, tried to communicate with each other, but mostly looked at each other. Comparing our hands and faces. Laughed at each other and cried together. 

We stayed for a few more days where we tried to get to know each other. 

All the practical matters were discussed, and soon the topic of money came up. Without a doubt, we arranged everything—school, insurance—and they had to move as soon as possible. Away from that ghetto. I did everything on autopilot. The days flew by and I was completely out of myself. I had to go back to the Netherlands, I didn't want to go back to the Netherlands, I didn't know who I was anymore. 

But still, we had to, and still, we went. 

What followed is also a blur for me, who picked us up from the airport, who was at home, which friends I called. I don't remember anymore. The entire period of coming home is a blur. What I do know is that since that moment, I haven't slept well at night. It was all too much for me. 

I communicated with my sisters via Facebook chat and tried to arrange everything properly for them. My foster family helped with this, they gave money, they raised money. Another nice moment for the white saviour but different, or maybe not. Anyway.

Time passed again. And I had found my family, but now I was perhaps even more lost than before. The feeling of not belonging that I had always felt in the Netherlands had multiplied a million times. The contact with my biological family became too much for me every time we spoke. I became sad. They wanted help, and I was their help. But I also needed help, I felt like I was starting to spiral. In my thoughts, and my depression was back. 

There wasn't really any aftercare from the TV program, I think the broadcast went well and that was it. 

I still remember that my entire student house had gathered together the evening of the episode to support me. It was all so bittersweet. 

After all, this was what I had always wanted. Finding my family, and knowing my mother. 

But the sky-high expectations had created disappointments. My mother was not the superwoman I had wanted. She didn't want to tell me anything about my father. Most conversations were about money, and even though I was warned about it, I couldn't and can't blame them. And I still don't. 

Time passed again and my restlessness began to grow once more, I started brushing off my family's requests for conversations. It affected me too much and I didn't want to face it. I wanted to go back to who I was, but that person was gone. My life has changed forever.

Now you want to talk about core wounds, this is mine.

The whole story of me being adopted, and me growing up the way I did, and then finding my family back, only to be more lost than ever. 

I was just a child, and there was no support system to help me through this. 

So you can imagine that after this whole story, I ended up in the cult, and you know that there is a whole other story that came after that. 

Ill tell you about that later, i guess what i want to say for now is;

This core wound is something that I had to awaken in. And I did, the hard way. Being in the cult was not really the start of this, but I was a big push forward. Because you have to wonder, why would anyone stay in a complete insane place like that, voluntarily.

Connecting to the core wound is a big deal, if you really allow yourself to feel what this has ment for you. And up until the day of today this is still a topic that I have to work on, it changed of course, but I guess this is the part of the healing thing, that makes it a journey.

Finding my mother did not heal my wound, it just opened it. 

To awaken in this story for me, was to not only go back through every choice I ever made out of this core wound, but also to change my behaviour, go through all the judgements and go through my self belief system. To take full accountability for everything that I had chosen. I had to rewrite all the attachments I had to this story. 

And this is an ongoing thing. Some days it's amazing, some days I want to set the world on fire. It's a fine line. 

The core wound might be the event that happened, but it was the story I kept telling myself about it, the way I was attached to being a victim of my life, that is what kept me asleep. That was and is the work. 

Everyone has a core wound, and it doesn’t always have to look like this story. It can be small or big, it doens’t matter. We are not comparing issues. But we are all attached to some story. So what’s yours?

And we haven't even discussed my view about how this whole story is just a part of my karmic imprint. 

But maybe that's a story for another time.