Mother Unknown

Time moves so slow and minutes last,
like hours passing never fast.
The days roll on, months seem like years.
I lose the count of falling tears.
An endless cycle of seasons flow.
Questions continually unanswered grow.
It never ceases nor does it stop.
I'm bound by calendar and clock.
While prayers and dreams have only grown.
For a mother never known.
Futile attempts to change this fate.
Though hope burns dim,
I still will wait.

Fourth adoption court petition and another month or so of waiting.  I guess the timing is either good or bad, either way it's tough.  And tough is a huge understatement.

People tell me I'm strong.  I guess they are right.  Yeah, I'm sure they are but it doesn't mean strong people don't break every now and then too.  Today is one of those breaking days.

But that's o.k. too 'cause that just means I'm in touch with what I am feeling rather than wandering around taking it out on everyone around me.  It's not that I need a mother anymore I just need to KNOW who my mother is!  How can you put things in the past when you are oblivious to what that past is.

I am really just looking for closure and a shot at some sibling communication.  I feel "blank" on days like this compared to others.  The lack of awareness about where you come from, and being blocked from that knowledge, it's more than overwhelming.

Do I hate the part of me that is weak enough to care?  Sure, absolutely so.  Do I know that denial can be protective and yet self destructive.  YEP.  So, I'm caught in limbo until the time the unknown becomes the known.

Color me incomplete.

Being adopted, for me, is like being the white crayon in a box of crayolas.

I actually read it as a joke somewhere about feeling as useless as a white crayon, and it struck me that was EXACTLY how I felt about being adopted.  Living void of natural family names, connections, and genetics trying all the while to blend in and all the while feeling so very different.  Blank, without color or use as others were.  Sure white crayons are good for accents, highlights, or as my dear friend Sarah said do well in mixing with other colors to make different shades of other tones.  Alone however, they lose their own individual significance and importance.  For me, that sums up exactly how I feel about being adopted and denied access to MY natural family information.


If you look at the photo and really "see" the difference between the white crayon and others perhaps you will get some insight into how adoptees feel.  Those of us without knowledge of our biological and genetic backgrounds.  Empty of any and all answers as we stare every day into the mirror wondering our features, our habits, and where it is we come from.  I'm almost 53 years old and I still feel incomplete.  Until I have the answers I am seeking I always will.

Adoptees often, and some of us always, feel so very different from others.  The fact is that we are.  In what capacity that difference exists varies from adoptee to adoptee.  I can't tell you in what capacity if any, but what I can tell is that knowledge is power for adoptees.  Whether is it physical, medical, or historical information, be it good, or bad, or ugly, it is ours to have.  No one has the right to deny us the right to our own information.  I'm still working on obtaining mine after 13 years.  Until then, I'm just like the second crayon from the right.


Incomplete


A missing sock whose mate is gone,
a former pair apart so long.
A rundown bridge never rebuilt.
Like patches missing from a quilt.
A letter thrown away and lost,
undotted I's and T's not crossed.
A phone line with connections broken.
Important words that can't be spoken.
We search the people on the street,
and in each face we hope we'll meet.
Someone resembling who we are.
These absent ties that seems so far.

Reflections of an Adoptee

Reflections

I see this person staring back at me and wonder who it is I see?
Are these her eyes?
Is the face the same?
Do I look like him?
What are their names?
Mirrors like pictures tell thousands of tales.
But the stories told me have always failed.
In lending me the slightest clues to endless questions and intangible truths.
For I feel just like a soul alone, in the dark no place called home.
Trying hard to light my way into the hope for another day.
Illuminating where I should go, and guide my steps through this unknown.
To discover trails back to where, I'll find this face that's in the mirror.

The confusing ambiguity in being adopted can take on in life is more than tough to explain to non-adopted persons.  Comprehension of the impact of that is something we long for others to realize in our quest for answers to the truth about our biological, genetics, and family histories.  Something we find ourselves continually explaining and defending over and over and over again.  Or worse hiding and concealing steeped in fear of further judgment, criticism, and ridicule.

Large chunks of who I am are still missing.  I've caught glimpses of them in my children, in my non-id, in the letter my mother sent via the adoption courts.  It's not enough, nor will it ever be.  I keep getting told that "family" is what you make it.  Stated for the most part by those who have never lost or been taken away from all of it.

I am more than frustrated by a life time of searching for my biological connections and thirteen years of petitioning adoption courts.  Few facts, or leads, and not enough detailed information added to secrets, lies, and cover ups in my adoptive situation make it impossible to find.  I'm not looking for fairy tale endings, or to be welcomed anywhere with open loving arms, I simply want to know who I am and to have some closure.  And, I refuse to listen to the naysayers who tell me "it doesn't matter.

"If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life." ~James A. Michener~

Why So Many Adoptees Don't Love Adoption!

Why do we not love adoption?  Ohhhhh let me count the ways.  No really please LET ME. 

Well beside the uneducated advice and opinions of those "well meaning" people who dictate to us how thankful and grateful we should be someone wanted us, and how lucky we are we weren't tossed in a dumpster or aborted, there are so many other points to cover on why adoptees do not love adoption.  So many of us do not fit into complete opposite biology from our own in our adoptive familes.  So many of us are then further rejected after the cute baby adoptee grows into the genetic person they are.  Then, so many of us encounter much to our dismay the fact that we are treated like commodities subject to government rule and regulation.  Shocking, untrue, and unfounded you say, how could this be adoption is wonderful?!  Just wait it gets even more unbelievable.

Let's begin with the religious entities that govern and facilitate adoption and the fraud and corruption within them, that also involves a great deal of immorality and lack of ethics.  I'm not a full blown search angel but I do help others and try and guide adoptees as to where to go, who to talk to, and where to start searching.  In the last year, and especially in the last month, I have been in touch with several adoptees I tried to provide help for that aren't "found" in the system of adoption.  They hold ammended birth certificates and have adoptive parents who have given them identifying information including birth names, and some even have adoption paperwork in hand.  STILL no one can find them and they are told they don't "exist" in the system.  There is no recourse for information, family history or background, let alone the chance to obtain current family medical history for themselves or their children.  Many search with that little they have for years without ever finding biological family.  Try "finding" with last names that are 20-30 or more years old like Smith, Jones, or Miller and first names of Jane, John, or Bill and mothers who have married and remarried and changed their original last names.

Other adoptees, too numerous to count, have registered with state and local adoption agencies looking for information and or connections to their biological families.  Many biological families have contacted the previous mentioned looking for the same.  Both sets of people are turned away told that no one has contacted them, or they are not entitled to that information, or no matches have been found for them.  Later, sometimes years later they find one another outside of these systems only to realize they were given incorrect information or NO information pertaining to the fact that these people were desperately attempting to reconnect.  And sadly, more than sadly, many find they are too late and one or MORE of the parties is deceased and the chance at reunion and relationships have been lost.  The damage and fall out from this can be devastating I know, I lived without much of that information that could have changed and saved parts of my life for decades.

The majority of these religious entities, and there are hundreds registered as non-profits and are tax exempt take in large amounts of money beyond the non-adopted persons true comprehension, who continue to profit off adoptees in post adoption situations such as Confidential Intermediary programs, the request for non-identifying information, or for reunion services.  Private adoptions in Texas via lawyers can operate under the table and without scrutiny and transparency making them much more fraught with illegalities and at risk for young woman and children being taken advantage of.   More recently International Adoption fraud has been in the news in countries such as Australia, Spain, and China just to name a few.   The much loved Gladney Center for Adoption has been sued several times over including a class action suit brought by adoptive parents for lack of disclosure to pertinent and accurate information about the children they adopted and their biological family background.  Settled out of court....of course.

What we as adoptees here in the United States know all too well is how rampant it runs within our own country's system of adoption.  Most adoptees don't have the time, energy, or are monetarily equipped to go up against these adoption agencies, parties, and entities legally because these large wealthy non-profits and government institutions DO have plenty of time and money to keep anyone accusatory tied up lengthy legal battles.  However, some adoptees have sued and won, or even had their adoption reversed and declared illegal.  I could state case after case but there is google for that if you don't take my word for it.  Or, contact me privately and I'll give you an ear full.

What is so very disconcerting and disgusting is the propaganda by which these agencies are allowed to advertise children complete with price lists and legal costs to adopt babies still yet unborn still in the womb!  Crisis pregnancy billboards, bumper stickers, and even posters on the walls of planned parenthood expounding on the virtues of adoption are prevalent here locally.  Pregnant girls and woman are continually being primed for sainthood for unselfishly giving up their children into better circumstances and then kicked to the curb and their open adoption promise closes when the ink on the relinquishment papers dry, and the door to contact with their child is shut tight on them.   All of this done in the name of creating families but in reality it is child trafficking. 

I've only touched the tip of the proverbial ice berg here in regards to the lack of ethics and morality and fraud in adoption.  And most of the time it's not going to be broadcast in head line news, in workplace conversation at the water cooler, or in friendly conversations.  It is best known and lived in the hearts and souls of adoptees.

The Powers That Be

You took away my family.
You took away my home.
You erased away my history and most of it is gone.
What gives to you the right to do this injustice unto me?
How can you be so blinded?
How is it you can't see?
You're stealing from the innocent are you so unaware?
You're playing God with all our lives, did you think we wouldn't care?
Who gave to you authority to decide how we should live?
Who granted you this power?
It was not theirs to give.
You treat us as possessions.
We are not yours to own.
How did you get the notion you can tell me where is home?
Do not dictate to me about how I should live my life.
Or who I can call mother.
Then take away my rights.
The answers to life's questions you say I need not know.
You're asking the impossible the questions only grow.
What it is I'm asking for is for you to understand.
Until I have those answers I can not know who it is I am! 

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




 

Adoptee Tales from the Darkest Side

Over Cast

A gloomy gray surrounds my soul and covers hope from which life grows.
With murky tints in hues of black and darkened tones where colors lack.
I know no sun or sky of blue eternal night my only view.
In shades of doubt my heart beats on where I exist but don't belong.
Lost chances and unrealized dreams paint the landscape that I see.
Defeating endeavors to escape the desolate hours that are my fate.
Upon the surface all is well most never see my private hell.
I struggle daily to survive and squelch the anger deep inside.
I try before it is too late to douse these fires of raging hate.
That burn eternal flames that kill my hope, my prayers, my very will.
Can't seem to win or too succeed exiled from life that others lead.
I wrestle with the endless doubt that I will find my way back out.
Where one day I will hope to find a peaceful and unburdened mind.

I wrote this a little over ten years ago when I was rejected by my biological parents, found out my adoptive parents had been withholding pertinent information to help me obtain crucial current family medical history for doctors (and had been for years), battling multiple health issues, single mother struggling to take care of her children alone, lost, and depressed.  I am not suicidal, although I have been at points in time in my life.  I look back now and how far I have come a long way from the lost, hurt, angry person I was.  However, adoption "stuff" can hit you when you least expect it, out of the blue, and slam you down to the ground so hard you think you'll never get back up.  The above poem cries out with the depths of despair adoption issues can bring you to.

I've spent a lot more time than I'd like to reflect on living in very dark places.  Feeling like a huge cosmic mistake born to one set of parents who gave me away and now want no contact with me let alone to release their names or to tell my siblings I even exist.  Adopted by two parents who obviously couldn't bond with who I was our genetics so extremely opposite, abused, and rejected.  Existing for my children but going through the motions in life and numbing out when and where I could.  Languishing ill in and out of doctors and hospitals battling for my very life and still, no one there to really care.  A good majority of my life has been a nightmare a black hole sucking the very energy and will to live right out of me.

Fortunately in part due to a counselor well versed in adoption issues and largely to so many adoptees who are supportive and understand I am a different person today.  I bounce back a lot more quickly when struck by the pain and loss adoption brings to my life table.  I write, I support other adoptees in the search and healing, I work in adoption reform and education when and where I can and implement coping tools shown to me by other adoptees.  I've become more stubborn and hell bent not to allow my adoption situation to destroy me, or any other adoptee, and continue on as a survivor.  I strive to be everything my adoptive and biological parents are not.  I refuse to be a person that continues to bury their head in the sand and ignore the truth.

People are quick to judge and label adoptees when they have no comprehension of the depth of what has happened to them, nor do they seem to want to, because of adoption.  They believe adoption is a wonderful solution to a "bad" situation.  You just take a baby whose parents are in a difficult situation i.e. young, uneducated, impoverished, and you transplant them into a family who wants a child right?  WRONG!!!

It is complicated for all parties involved, but mostly for the children who are separated from their biological families.  And when these difficult issues for adoptees are ignored and shoved under the rug all kinds of problems can occur.  It is well known and has been widely published that adoptees are over represented in psychological settings and rehabilitation centers.  This is unacceptable.  It must be changed and more importantly PREVENTED.  You don't "get over" being adopted.  Adoption is not a one time transaction it is a lifetime event.

I truly believe that it's not what happens to you it's how you deal with it.  But, for far too long adoptees have not been able to voice their pain and angst over the issues adoption brings them.  Or worse, their voices are stifled and quieted by a society and industry that dismisses them or worse, shames and blames them for simply feeling what they feel.  Adoptees are now speaking out, writing, and joining the effort for reform and education in adoption to end the silencing of these voices of reason.  The days of hiding in the dark, in fear, afraid to speak out well that time, is now over.

"When I stand before thee at the day's end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing." - Rabindranath Tagore

Adoptees and the Facts of Life

'You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have The Facts of Life, the Facts of Life'.

And that was what came to mind when I was thinking of recent events that have taken place in the adoption community.  After 13 years being involved in it, watching, learning, and advocating I feel somewhat educated enough to throw my opinion into the arena.  And all the time remembering too what they say about opinions.  So, here goes.

The adoption community is multifacted melting pot of differing religious, political, ethnicities, egos, ages, and genders.  Adoptee's stories while having amazing similarities are as unique to the individual who experiences them.  There is one binding factor I find in most all adoptees that we are instantaneously understood by most immediately without hesitation, accepted for the adopted persons we are.  It IS a pack mentality and maybe the first and only one adoptees ever feel they really belong to.

We fight to expose the dirty, corrupt, and fraudulent underbelly in adoption that exists in ways only we bear witness to every day.  We work to educate the world on the plight of adoptees, NOT what the system of adoption tells the world it is, and bring our voices to change the system that has functioned without listening to us.  The process of adoption and how it functions as human trafficking great disturbs me, hell it out right PISSES ME OFF.  If you knew babies and children were being treated as commodities for profit in the name of adoption it would piss you off too.

Pack mentality is what has changed the world for hundreds of years, even longer.  Pack mentality is what has created numerous grassroots organizations all over the world, and in adoption as well.  Pack mentality is what started adoption reform and created the first progress towards adoptee access to OBCs.  That said there are also varying versions of pack mentality within adoption and all groups have their varying reasons for functioning and operating and how they see and view the issues.  As much as we can agree with any adoptee on how to proceed in adoption education and reform, we can also find ourselves as polar opposites. 

Do I support hate speech, or personal or private attacks, and revenge NO I do not.  What I do support is an adoptee's right for once in their lives to stand up and speak out against the horrors of adoption and the very people who are promoting the industry.  When we try to get people to conform to our idea of how this should be done we once again control them and or label them.  That has been done enough as it is already.

I watch and witness constantly the battle between pro-adoption and anti-adoption.  We as adoptees find our place in the battle to educate and reform.  I have found it therapeutic and empowering to change the world and the lives for others.  While I may or may not agree on how one group proceeds if I don't like it I can certainly state my opinion and walk away and simply not take part or get engaged in certain ideas or behaviors.  Just as there are far left, middle, and right winged politicians so there are adoptees working within legislative and educational activism.  No movement as large as this is ever going to be on the same page at the same time.

The depths of emotion that we carry as adoptees goes beyond explanation even for us much of the time.  We are navigating VERY uncharted territory.  There is going to be controversy, and disagreements, and blatant dislike between individuals and unfortunately groups.  Just as there is in any other "family" type situation.  It's how these differences are met and dealt with that make the difference.  Have I spoken out and gone too far YOU BET.  And, when I have been wrong I have taken responsibility for it.  We ALL have done it and it goes with the territory.  More importantly the old adage "It's not what you say it's how you say it" comes into play here.

I don't agree with everyone or every action I never will.  You can aim and shoot the messenger but really the messengers are numerous and on going and always will be.  What I take issue with is public shaming and blaming and singling people out and making them scape goats and turning on one another.  And this is no passive agressive type statement directed towards anyone.  I feel we are all parts of a whole and when any one of those parts is damaged or breaks it hurts.   It is what the industry counts on is our weak wills and inability to come together to facilitate change.  And those are the facts of life in adoption and what adoption reform and education is about.  Adoptees deserve to regain the very facts of life AND rights that have been stripped from us by the system of adoption.

"Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno".  All for one and one for all!