Being adopted - Emotional Homelessness

I remember watching this as a child and relating to Marilyn on the show well.  She seemed to handle being so different in a very scary family with ease.  I always wondered if she was pretending as I was in my adoptive family, or if she really did blend in well.  And if it was the latter just HOW did she do it???  Inquiring adopted person wants to know!

I am pretty much nothing like my adopted family I even go so far as call it 99% the exact opposite.  Since our genetics in every way were and are so different, and people didn't talk about adoption and the issues it brought into family situations, I was always the one at fault for not fitting in.  Throughout my childhood and teens years it was evident everything about me was wrong according to what expectations were of who I was supposed to be.  I wish I could say that I was one of the few adoptees who experiences this but I am far from it.  There are so many of us out there who are rejected by not one but two families for simply doing nothing else than losing at the adoption "lottery".

Lately, it has gotten to where I can't talk about the recent developments in my adopted situation with anyone but other adoptees.  No one gets it, and I know they can't, but the fact that comparisons are made frustrate me.  I realize people feel they don't belong in their families, or they are not accepted as they are, or they are rejected by blood relatives.  But they know where they came from, they were not cut off from their biological roots and birth, and they at least had some kind of bonding in some capacity with people they share genes, family history, and genealogy with.  I'm really growing weary of trying to put the two into the same category.  I'd say it's like comparing apples with oranges but it's not.  It's more like comparing apples to a huge steaming pile of crap.  The big steaming pile of crap to many adoptees is adoption.

Ever since I can remember I've tried to figure out how to be someone else that was acceptable.  I've had to lie and cheat and steal.  Lie about who I am, cheat myself out of trusting who I really was, and steal identities and the traits of others to create myself throughout the years.  I had to wait until 39 years of age to get a glimpse at my biological family information and at 52 and three court petitions, one in progress, I STILL do not have names, cities, or states where my natural parents are, nor do I have the ability to tell my blood siblings I exist.

It's not just me who has suffered but my children as well.  They lost out on a whole other side of a family too.  "Family" is what you make it but it never replaces what was lost.  There are people who have lost the use of their legs and are glad they still have arms but that doesn't mean they take the place of the legs that they no longer have use of.  Even the great spiritual guru and leader Wayne Dyer talks of growing up in orphanages and the long search for his biological father and in finding a grave he at last found peace and closure.

Losing ties to your own, biological and or adoptive, parents can bring even the strongest and greatest person to their knees.  I harp on this a great deal but it's true.  There are two things that are important in life family and health.  When you lose both as I have, you can lose nearly everything.  Not only income, or careers, or educational opportunities, homes, and relationships but when you are adopted and have lost not just one but two family connections you not only can become physically homeless, but emotionally too.  For me, the latter has been worse.

The value of identity of course is that so often with it comes purpose.  ~Richard Grant