Unclaimed - Adoptive and Birth Parent Rejection

Unclaimed

Never wanted, never named.
Long forgotten, never claimed.
Forever hidden, always rejected.
Held a secret, never accepted.
Unacknowledged, left alone.
Disregarded, kept unknown.

I wrote this poem last night it wraps up the words that come to my mind being twice rejected by adoptive and birth family.  I wish the nonadopted world knew how much every conversation, comment, day, hour, is filled with family terms.  Mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, cousin, and grandparents, daily conversations revolve around subject matter regarding family plans, future, holidays, and history.  I told my friend who I have been preaching to who is attached at the hip to her family, and yes I know this can also by extremely painful and exhausting too, the total opposite is the worst hell and pain I could almost believe anyone could bear.

Many Adoptees can have such a hard time feeling they belong many times caught between two worlds.  One we don't feel familiar with and another totally unknown to us.  We are not blank slates waiting to be written on we are hereditary creatures formed from biology and then shaped by our environment.  Only in adoption are genetics white washed as unimportant.  We are made to fit into nurture which our very nature can disagree with so much of the time.

"The need to identify with someone, to feel a part of something, to belong somewhere, is one of our most basic needs."  John Bradshaw

Let's conduct an experiment.  Let's have everyone carry around a pad and paper that tells us it doesn't matter, don't think about it, move on with our life and have them place a mark for every time in a 24 hour period a family member came up in their daily conversation, thought, and experience.  Then have them do the math on 24-7-365.  I think this could be quite eye opening.


For many of us this is a double whammy rejected by both our adoption and birth families.  My birth family feels my adoptive family is my family and don't rock the secret that is my existence.  And, my adoptive family feels I've betrayed them by becoming the exact opposite of nearly everything they believe in and wanted me to be.  Parental Rejection...it rocks the foundation of what nearly every individual's life is based upon, family connections and relationships and leaves us watching with unfathomable sadness through a window from outside into a world where we don't belong.