Were you a thumb sucker? For me, it was a knuckle, specifically the middle one on my left index finger with my finger folded over into a square shape. I remember how it felt to stop sucking my finger. Around the age of six, I was told, I made the decision that I would break this habit. In retrospect, I wonder if it was really a choice or if I had been shamed into the celebrated milestone. I remember the story being re-told countless times about how I cried and protested over how my finger felt. My mother would laugh hysterically when she recounted the tale. I personally remember what room I was standing in, how hard I was crying, and the tactile sensation in my finger. It ached. It physically tingled. That finger wanted desperately to be in my mouth where it would be soothed. But no, that could no longer happen. Such behavior was too infantile for a child of my age and it had to stop. I think this is when my blanket went away, too. I don’t remember having it after I stopped sucking my finger.
I am seeing this event with new eyes. My finger sucking was the one thing I had that I carried with me from my infancy. It came from me. I had learned how to soothe myself in a world that felt foreign and unsafe. My finger and I, we were tethered. We could not be disconnected from one another. I could trust my finger to be there. Together, we would sink into the deep quiet. I felt grounded and safe. When the finger sucking went away, so did my ability to self-soothe in a healthy manner. There was no comforting I was willing to accept from my mother. It felt unnatural to both of us. As hard as she may have tried, I was unwilling to accept her physical touch. By the time I was giving up the finger sucking, I can’t remember her hugging me. I don’t know if I wanted her to. My original adoption file contains a letter from my foster mom stating that I didn’t like to be rocked. I preferred to be laid down alone in my crib. I think that’s where my finger and I connected, away from all the people and things that weren’t inherently mine. We knew each other from the beginning, and I found safety in the world’s chaos- alone, with my finger. I haven’t restarted my finger-sucking habit, nor do I intend to. But I have gone back to tell my six-year-old self that the intense feelings in my body, specifically my finger, were real and that they were nothing that should have been laughed at. Loss hurts, even when other people can’t acknowledge that what you’re experiencing is legitimate loss.