How to not think about being Adopted - NOT

It's there no matter how you try and avoid it all the time.  Most adoptees do try but quickly realize it's futile.  Adoption is everywhere it seems.  Below are some of the ways, in no particular order, that it's nearly impossible to put being adopted aside for any length of time, despite what others believe it's possible for adoptees to do.

1.  General daily conversations - Between various people talking about their "Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, Grandparent" etc...and thinking about how you have two sets of parents and grandparents to deal with along with doubles of extended family member, the complication from all of that, and all the missing people you have never been able to find, might not ever be able to find, or who passed away or will pass away without you ever having the chance to meet or know them.  And, how no one around you can understand the complications being adopted brings to your life.  Sometimes I almost can not bear to hear what others can have and take for granted, that is denied me every single day.

2.  TV/Movies/Commercials/Social Media -  It's enough with the "bad" adoptee themes, killer adoptees, stalker adoptees, vengeful adoptees, the stereotypes are maddening to say the least.  Soap operas are filled with themes of adoption long lost children, baby selling plots, and mothers with amnesia however this is probably the most realistic of the TV/Movie adoption story lines, still hard to watch sometimes.   I SWEAR I have contorted my aging body in ways I never thought possibly in the last few months to mute the Ancestry.com commercials.  I will dive over couches, leap coffee tables, and if they continue I see a real possibility of a broken pelvis or a dislocated hip in my near future.  Facebook is FILLED with adoption agency agendas and blatant promotion of adoption but only the hearts, love, and teddy bears side without allowing adoptees to voice the most intelligent arguments otherwise.  Even one of my favorite hangouts Pinterest has Pro-Adoption related photos and quotes so escaping there to get away is not an option either. 

3.  Holidays - All of them.  My favorites are Valentine's Day, May Day, and Fourth of July.  Non family related celebrations.  Helps to avoid all the triggers and hide from the festivities you do not belong to in either family or relative you are not accepted by.  And, if you do belong to both how to play diplomat to each by dividing time equally and fairly without pissing off a multitude of different people. 

4.  Search - For many adoptees search is a life long journey to find names and the people who were hidden from you by altered and falsified government documents, also called ammended birth certificates.  Endless preoccupation with ways to find your biological roots, patiently awaiting government and agency adoption documents and the results of court petitions for identifying information, or for responses from family members located by email, phone, or letter is nerve wracking and nail biting and can send the strongest adopted person to the nearest liquor store, pharmacy, or  into a carb or sugar induced coma and addiction to soothe the over loaded brain and nerves.

5.  Adoption Billboards, Signs, and Bumperstickers - These are everywhere in Texas.  Adoption is big business here, literally.  Beside Freeways, on Church lawns, and on cars of all kinds the promotion of adoption is blatantly promoted everywhere.

6.  Birthdays - One of the biggest adoptee triggers ever.  Our birthdays are not about a celebration of life they are often about mourning the loss of knowledge, family members, and the separation from your family of origin.  And, nonadopted persons don't get this without lengthy explanations so instead we usually just plaster on the mask, it's easier than explaining.

7.  Your children's school family tree projects - It was tough enough enduring them when you were child and being told to "lie" (which it was) and use your adoptive family's background, but now you have to explain (if you are into truth telling and as adoptees we mostly HATE lying to anyone let alone people we love because it's been done to us and we know the damage it does) to your children about adoption, what it means, and how it affects them.

8.  Mirrors, Photos, and Belly Buttons - Sounds silly doesn't it?  It's not, it's our life peering into mirrors, searching photos of ourselves for resemblances and biological family members.  Growing up and even now not knowing who the person is who carried you inside her, who you were connected to for nine months, and who gave you life.  It's just surreal and weird to say the very least.

9.  Children and Grandchildren - Some adoptees only have their children and grandchildren to see any recognition of themselves in. I am in that category and may remain there for the rest of my life.  It's almost inconceivable if it weren't so true.  Sometimes I stare at my children, armed with only with the scraps of information I have received about the physical traits of who I came from, and pick out the similarities.  It's a constant piecing together of a never ending puzzle.

10.  Waking Up - That's all it takes to start the above nine items I have mentioned running through adoptee's minds.

These are just ten I thought of I'm sure there are more but seriously, I am exhausted from thinking about it....at least for the next three minutes anyway. ;)

An Adoptee's Hidden Past

 

Hidden Past

How do I see my future when I can not find my past?

How can I build foundations that I know are going to last?

With bits and pieces missing and secrets kept from me.

How do I stop the questions, and find serenity?

My mind is always traveling down roads that I create.

Where quests are finally finished, and much sought answers wait.

Scenarios repeat themselves with solutions changed each time.

I roll the imaginary film and all endings I could find.

My head is always in the clouds my feet not near the ground.

Can you hear my constant secret prayer the song that has no sound?

My heart will always be tied to another time and space.

Until I find the passage to the secluded hidden place.

Where it started long ago, or once upon a time.

Each day until I find my way I'm searching for those signs.

The ones that will point out the way the direction I should go.

To solve this life long puzzle and the past I need to know.

Adoption is a life long journey, one that never ends especially as an adoptee.  And unfortunately in being adopted, these emotions and issues are not addressed or discussed, allowed to be acknowledged for the most part, or ever understood by adoptees themselves.  Living a life under the weight of nondisclosure, secrets, and lies can impact an adoptee in a great variety of ways.

For me it's not just about my biological parents who want nothing to do with me in their lives and no relationship.  I got over the need to be a wanted child long ago I am an adult now.  But I am continually reduced to being treated as an unworthy child by the actions of adults who with hold vital life altering information from all of their children, not just the one they relinquished.

It's not just about the separation from the parental factor in adoption most people who are not adopted think about.  I  have grandparents, great grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, but most important to me are the siblings who have never been told I exist.  Have we ever crossed paths, has their FB profile blinked across the screen at one point in time, do we have mutual friends, and what would they do if they were told about me?

These decisions that are OURS to make have been taken from us and are being controlled by people without our consent or say.  Our rights are being trampled over and on continually.  And, when will it be too late?  There is no guarantee of reunions decades from now life happens and it happens in adoption each and every day as people are losing one another, the knowledge of each other, and the chance to FIND one another.

When abandoned and rejected by family, friends, and significant others  in life, even if not intentionally done, there are several choices one can make.  Long ago the choices I made were forced denial, suppression of emotions, addiction, and codependency.  Now I speak, I write, I talk, I promote adoptees rights when and anywhere I can and hopefully help other adoptees in their journey and in healing.  I also cry, my heart bleeds, and I quietly and internally pray that someday and somehow I will find the people who are the answers to my questions and connect my past to my future with whatever time I have left.

“Lying is done with words, and also with silence.” ~Adrienne Rich

Silencing Adoption Reformers - What the Industry of Adoption doesn't want you to hear

Today on my Facebook news feed I saw an adoption agency FB page posted by an adoption reformer friend (Not naming site names there are too numerous to count).  They had postings for babies available for adoption listing PRICING in dollars along with their "ads" and the usual promotion of how wonderful adoption is.  Wonderful maybe to those who have not been involved with it firsthand.

The Adoption Industry does not want anyone knowing how much money they are making, that they are selling adoptees back their own information in post adoption services, and how much fraud and corruption is involved in adoption.  A system of adoption that was initially supposed to provide children with homes and has turned into blatant human trafficking.  Human Trafficking strong wording you think?  YEP and very necessary to truly describe adoption these days.

Not only were our comments about our experiences and knowledge of adoption deleted but we were banned from posting further.  None of my comments contained cuss words (only in my head lol) or were attacking anyone on the page.  Numerous other adoption reformers were silenced in the same way.

The Adoption industry is silencing us all the way to the bank.  They don't want the truth about adoption to be known, only the propaganda they spew that keeps them in business.  They are "banking" on the fact they can keep the public in the dark to the realities of adoption so they can continue to profit.  

If this were the first time, or if it were a few times, I've witnessed this activity I could chalk it up to a handful of unscrupulous adoption agencies.  Unfortunately advertising in adoption is way out of control and babies are now being marketed with dollar signs next to their profiles.  It's running rampant in adoption because the availability of newborns being placed for adoption is at an all time low and the amount of parents wanting to adopt continues to rise.  It's supply and demand and adoption agencies are having to go to extreme measures to coerce pregnant woman in delicate and difficult and often TEMPORARY situations to get their hands on their children.  The Billboards, crisis pregnancy bumper stickers, and now online and social media advertising are drawing in more and more innocent victims into the web of adoption industry lies.

Are there children in need of good homes, absolutely.  Is adoption the cure all solution these agencies want you to think it is, NO.  They want you to believe that adoption is the fairy tale ending to a bad situation for a child and its parents.  It is far from that.  I read it in my Adolescent child psych book in college "Orphaned, neglected, and adopted children often have the same issues of abandonment and rejection".  The system of adoption does adoptees no favor too in adding to these issues by putting a price tag on our head, placing us into the lottery system of adoption, selling us back our own family information later in life in post adoption services, and sealing our original birth certificates from us.

Many adoptees are further rejected by their adoptive families.  Babies and children are cute but they grow up and into their own genetics, often very very different from that of adoptive families physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Adoptees are not chess pieces to be played by others and then expected to be grateful for it.  We are human beings with voices that won't be silenced about what has happened to us because of adoption.

By trying to silence us the Adoption Industry is only really revealing the depths of their fear that their control over the profits from adoption will disappear.  I wonder how many of these non-profits and pro-life/pro-adoption agencies will continue on "for the sake of the children" once their large incomes and salaries are diminished and cut back.  Rhetorical there.

We won't back down.  We won't stop speaking out.  We won't be silent.

"Never be bullied into silence.  Never allow yourself to be made a victim.  Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.  ~Harvey Feirstein

Adoptee Roots

 

People really have little idea how much of their lives, thoughts, and communications revolve around family.  Family that is living and those who have passed away or previous generations.  The recent genealogy fervor is proof of that.   Many adoptees are all too aware because of the lack of having it.

Adoptees recognize and understand this behavior in others, as they long for it themselves.  Habits, hobbies, careers, physical characteristics are passed along from generation to generation, and parent to child.  Over the years of watching reunions between adoptees and their families I have heard countless remarks such as "We both bite our nails the same way", "We both gesture with our hands exactly the same way", "Now I know where I get my love of such and such" comes from and the evidence is overwhelming that genetics DO make us who we are.  Just as nurture impacts who and what we are, so does nature not just in physical characteristics like hair and eye color.

I found out at age 39 that my dream of becoming a Prima ballerina or a concert pianist was inherited.  My mother's favorite past time is dancing and my biological great grandmother was a concert pianist and music teacher.  I was teaching children and music privately while pursuing a degree in dance and music therapy before I found this out.  I've always been a high strung person (NOOOOO say it isn't so lol) and found out in my information taken about my biological family before I was born my grandmother was described as a very anxious and nervous person.  It's not a character flaw it's in my GENES!

My biological mother sent a letter to me through the adoption courts describing in detail everything she could about her without giving away her identity.  My friends cried upon reading it stating "Karen if I didn't know better I'd say you wrote this yourself".  My exhusband noticed even our handwriting was the same. 

Adoptees should not have to waste time, energy, and money to find out where they came from.  We should not have to grow up or spend our lives guessing, imagining, and navigating life without pertinent and life affirming information.  Rights and reunions are two separate issues.  I have a right to my family history just as others do, even those who search via genealogy records.  People who say being adopted doesn't matter don't know how much it DOES matter.

Only in adoption are genetics whitewashed as unimportant.

Adoptees Denied

DENIED - By The Government

I plead though they ignore my cries.
The record's sealed is their reply.
Time and time again I ask.
I'm told to put it in the past.
I can't get them to try and see.
They have what belongs to me.
I beg for truth but no one hears.
It only falls upon deaf ears.
I get no matter how I try.
The same stone cold response DENIED.

Before the days of internet and social media there were not any other adoptees I knew and no one that understood anything about adoption.  It was back in the days of hush hush, keep it behind closed doors, and don't air your dirty laundry in public, including the shame and stigma of where adoptees "came from".  I understand those times just as I remember the days of pregnant girls being sent away.

In those days the subject of out of wedlock pregnancy was never broached except some whispers in the hallways and quiet conversations between friends beginning with the usual "Did you are about (so and so)".  Girls would come back from school as if nothing ever happened as if there was not this child out there somewhere.  We just assumed it was gone, along with the "problem".  No one discussed it and everyone pretended it wasn't happening.

This is a different time, world, and age now.  With public records, media, camera phones, anonymity has almost become a thing of the past.  Celebrities and public figures do their best to hide, some do not, but it has become big business for TV, movies, print, and literature.  Hollywood figures are adopting even as single parents and it's become a fad to want to adopt.  My point is that adoption is out in the open and public information blazed across magazine covers, TMZ, and the subject matter of current talk shows.

So why are adoptees still not allowed by law to information that is THEIRS?  Why are our records sealed by the government and hidden like some secret confidential matter that if released would bring families and the world to their proverbial knees?  There is big money in post adoption services for the government and nonprofit adoption agencies, and plenty of job security based on this system too.  The system of adoption has commodified children by putting a put a price tag on their head, and sold their rights for great profit.

There are stalking laws already in place for people who don't want contact with one another.  In states like Tennessee where adoptees can access their OBCs upon adulthood, a biological parent can file a contact veto which is punishable by law to the tune of large fines and jail time IF you contact that biological parent and OR any other family member.  No other adult citizen in the country can be legally forced and kept away from adult biological family members by ANOTHER adult family member.  No other citizen in the country has the legal right to keep family members apart.  ONLY in adoption is this law of inequality present.

I have petitioned the adoption court four times and shown "just cause" to receive identifying information about my biological parents.  They have denied my request over and over.  My biological parents relinquished any rights to me decades ago, why do they hold my rights in their hands now?  It is unconstitutional.

No other person in this country is legislated against in these ways this way but adoptees.  It is discrimination.  It is an adoptees civil right to have access to their original birth certificates.

Adoptee Masks

Masked

They perceive this shell but can not see, deep inside the real me.

The one who's lost, afraid and weak, things I dare not reveal or speak.

They think I'm really someone else, this front, facade, false prided self.

Little is the world aware what slivers of my soul I share.

I keep it hidden very well behind the safety of this shell.

Protecting weaknesses unknown the sealed off part of me called “home”.

For like chameleons who hide beneath the camouflage unspied.

I cover up what I can't show with secret masks concealed below.

The naked eye can not detect these fortress walls built to protect.

Within my dwelling unrecognized a stronghold they can't criticize,

nor ridicule, or realize, or know how much that I despise.

This vulnerable person that I am, so alone in alone in silent pain I stand.

I picked the photo above out of a long list of available choices because it really symbolized to me the blank feeling you can have about yourself as an adoptee, and the different masks we often hide behind.  This is not a self protective characteristic only adoptees utilize to cope in life but we can often feel further displaced because we have been separated from our origins.  Too often too when we speak up, ask questions, or express our inner angst about being adopted we are told "it doesn't matter", or "to get over it", or a myriad of other judgments and criticisms regarding how we "should" feel.

Growing up detached from biology and genetic roots leaves us much of the time to create and outer personna to hide behind.  We rely on a plethora of personalities we've gleaned from our family, siblings, and or peers, sometimes good and sometimes bad but the reality is they are usually not "ours".  Because, if we don't "act" our parts as good and grateful adopted children, do we risk being rejected and given away again?

It magnifies our separation anxieties and intensifies our need to fit in, and can severely compromise our development into a solid sense of self because we have little or no knowledge what that really is.  We are genes, habits, hobbies, and physical components of other people who are unknown to us.  We are navigating life from birth without important information other people have.  We fill all that in with masks we create to cover up our fear and we quickly learn to shut down and become introverted about our adoptive experiences, internalizing how we really feel rather than to risk further condemnation and or misunderstanding.

It took me until the age of 39 to be able to obtain information about my biological family that I was able to identify with, relate to, and understand who and what was really "me".  It changed my whole life and who I have become now.  Adopted children have a different set of circumstances upon birth than other children and when recognized and dealt with in an open and honest way it can make all the difference in their lives.  Including; the right to ask about being adopted, the right to speak out about being adopted, and the right to know where they came from. 

“We understand how dangerous a mask can be.  We all become what we pretend to be.” ~Patrick Rothfuss "The Name of the Wind"

Adoptee Facepalms

,

There are times I seriously do this when hearing people talk about adoption and adoptees.  So, I want to address some remarks about being adopted that often make adoptees not only cringe, but writhe in sheer frustration.  Most of these comments are innocently stated but also mimic the propaganda that has been spewed by the adoption industry, agencies, and social workers for decades, brainwashing the general public into the belief system about adoption that is so staunchly held in place in this country.  Adoptees, now grown up, are speaking out to dispel these myths and false beliefs and replace them with the truth.

If any of my friends recognize themselves in any of the below statements please know I truly appreciate the years you have listened to my adoption soapbox and I know you have done your very best to understand my plight in life being adopted.  In fact recently my adoptee “lite” husband remarked “I wish I was an anonymous person” after a particularly hurtful family “feud”.  I sat in shock while my head nearly rotated off my shoulders trying to grasp his statement.   I've been with him for 10 years and he has been by my side through years of searching, publishing my adoption poetry book, having his coworkers listen in when I did radio and public speaking on adoption, he has even participated in an adoption rights rally with me.  And yet  still, people often forget the importance of the knowledge of who you are and where you come from.  Only when it has been lost can you truly understand the depths of it.

You should be grateful you were adopted and not aborted, left in a dumpster, neglected/abused instead.  Why should this apply only to adoptees?  Shouldn't nonadopted people be grateful for the same thing?  I'm certain a good amount of adoptees are thankful for their adoptive families but not grateful for the issues that adoption brings to the family table, or the lack of rights they have to access information about their family roots. 

I wish I had been adopted.  As if this is some instant cure for being born into a dysfunctional family.  ALL families are dysfunctional in some capacity including adoptive families.  Adoption does not allow you to escape abuse, neglect and take you to a special land of love, teddy bears, and unicorns.  There are no magic carpet rides to a better world.  Every adoption is different just as every family is different and adoption does not solve all family problems

Your are better off being raised by two parents than by a single parent.  This stems from the fallacy that all relinquishing parents are impoverished and unable to care for their children.  My biological parents were not poor.  My biological mother stated in her non-id letter to the adoption court her parents were business leaders in the community and still are.   It was the shame and stigma of pregnancy out of wedlock that separates families, along with the belief that "stuff" gives children a better life.  The rates of divorce apply to adoptive parents too and quickly a two parent family can change into single parenthood and struggles financially.   Children need love first and foremost.   Adoption does not always guarantee a child that either. 

I feel adopted too because I didn't fit into my family.  I hear this OFTEN and it is frustrating.  I always come back with "Were you taken from your biological family?" "Do you know who your parents are?" "Was your identity taken by the state and sealed and your birth certificate is now government property?” Yeah...not even close.

You won't ever have to feel the loss of your parents dying.  WRONG I feel that loss every day because they were taken from me at birth.  Children who lose a parent young before they have memory of them mourn that loss and are allowed to do so.  Why shouldn't adoptees?  I'm not saying one is harder or easier than the other just saying that loss is loss no matter what form it comes in.

You are being disrespectful to your adoptive parents by searching.  Why? Children of divorce are allowed to have two families and aren't forced to chose between the two by good parents why should adoptees have to?  Why is the genealogy fervor today widely practiced and recognized not only denied but also frowned upon for adoptees?  Lastly, why should adoptees continually be held to different standards in life that other nonadopted persons?  Rhetorical there.

Be careful what you wish for if you search it could turn out really badly.  Sure it could but that is life and that should be my right to chose it.  The truth I believe is always better than the unknown or the myths and mysteries adoptees are often required to live with, along with the falsification of records.  Truth and closure are healthy avenues to pursue as was encouraged by a marriage counselor I had years ago,who was also an adoptive mother well versed professionally and personally with her own adopted daughter.

Your parents gave you away why would you want to find them?  Once again, to hold MY truths in my own two hands.  Many families are separated for reasons that can change over time.  Divorce, illness, poverty, and addictions, are often temporary situations.  Adoption is a permanent solution to what can change in family situations and often quickly.  Many relinquishing parents still believe giving up their children will give them a better life, not because they are not wanted.  My adoptive brother has never desired to search.  That is his right just as searching should be mine.  Neither are wrong they are just different emotions.

You need to get over adoption.  You never get over being adopted.  It is something you live with for your life. How you react to it yes, you are responsible for.  That is why so many of us have joined ranks with adoption activism, reform, and education, to bring awareness to the issues and change the lives of other adoptees and the system of adoption itself.  It often is a healthy tool for coping and healing.   Facilitating change for others is empowering and helps take one from victim to survivor.

You are obsessed with adoption.  YES! Yes I am!  As I stated above people are unaware for the most part of the realities of adoption. The blatant illegalities, fraud, and corruption that adoption is wrought with have long been covered up and swept under the rug, along with adoptee's rights.  Adoption is a booming multi-billion dollar per year industry that has for far too long been allowed to function without any strict regulation.  The time has come to bring adoption into the 20th century and radically change the system to do away with the archaic and discriminatory laws that govern only adoptees.

If you have read this far again, I thank you.