Damaged Adoptees

Damaged people come mostly in two forms, victims and survivors.  I am glad to have made it from the first into the second category.   Adoption can and does damage people that is a fact no arguments on that will be heard by me I know better, WAY better.  I am not here to stand in judgment, only in experience.

I am adopted.  I don't know who I really am, or where I came from.  Without bonding to my adoptive family I have always felt a loner, an orphan, and a misfit. It's a pain I would never wish upon anyone.   So, I try to be the cohesive glue within the adoptee community to bring people together, and a voice for the under dog who hasn't found theirs yet.

I was semi-shocked yesterday when I was told I was an angry person living a “Defeatist life”.  Now, when it comes to adoption I am used to being judged, condemned, and labeled by those who have no real or true understanding of who I am and what happened to me because of adoption, but not usually by others adoptees.  That tends to sting more as I can usually chalk nonadopted person's judgment into the same category as I do of those who just haven't worn or lived in our shoes.  They simple can't know.  What is sad is some damaged adoptees never get better, recover, or even realize there is anything wrong with them.  We call this “the fog”.

As adoptees, we can have certain weaknesses, triggers, and issues we struggle with that differ from non-adopted people.  I have been lucky to have received a good deal of counseling, therapy and help through adoption support groups online and offline, workshops, conferences, and seminars.  I love to be able to give back to others the compassion, unconditional acceptance, and healing they want and need.  I was given the best by the best and can't stand those who are struggling in the dark grasping for something to hang on to that makes sense, and for a little light to shine on their situations.  Adoption can be a crazy mixed up mess of confusion coupled with the world giving you all kinds of unsolicited advice and unrequested input without understanding ANY of it.  It can and will drive you nearly crazy whether you let it or not.

Unfortunately, some adoptees will continue down the path of life holding tight to defense mechanisms, anger, and making everyone around them suffer along with them.  They blame, judge, and alienate people and when confronted turn the tables and make themselves out to be victims.  It is defeating to those who have a hard time reaching out to others and frustrating for those of us who are trying to help people to do so.   But, I also know this comes with speaking out about adoption not only to the world, but to other adoptees as well.  I've also gotten caught up and dragged into playing the blame and shame game and it's not fun and there are no real winners.  It's not a matter of who is right or who is wrong it's about respect for others, their experiences, and knowing no matter how much you know you never really know it all.

Let me say this loud and clear there is NOTHING wrong with being wrong.  I was wrong yesterday, I'll be wrong today, and I'll be wrong again tomorrow.  That is the human condition, and that is human nature.  I learned long ago that holding tight to being constantly right was exhausting and that no one person is right all the time.  And if you are wrong, your world will not crumble.   It can be very scary for adoptees to even fathom there is anything wrong or to truly look at the personal monsters and demons that lurk within adoption issues.  It has been unmapped territory in the past and for far too long.  We can become lost, alone, and frightened not knowing the path to find where we belong and fit in in the world.  It has been uncharted water, deep water, sometimes frightening and dark.  It can suck us down, or drag us out of the reach of help like a bad rip tide, and nearly drown us in over whelming emotion, despair, and defeat.

I want to help other adoptees find their own personal coping tools and mechanisms.  I want others to not spend years wasting time and life in addiction, anger, pain, and lashing out, and suffering as I did.  I want to know that at the end of my own life, I knew I had accomplished as much of that as I could.

The Letter From My Mother

I've held onto this letter for over twelve years now hoping that there would be another one.  I've given up hope for that after petitioning the adoption court two more times requesting mail be sent to her, and or some communication or reunion, and twice she has turned me down.  Below is the response she sent via the adoption court responding to the initial letter I sent to her in the same manner.  The bold portions are those that define me verbatim.  It could not be more me than if I was cloned from her.

My only wish is that I could somehow get her to come forth and know, that the life she had planned for me was in actuality pretty horrendous.  It's not my intention to hurt her.  Only to let her know I'd love for her to open the door and let me in, and allow my siblings to know about me and be in my life if they so wish.  I'll never give up hope.  If anyone knows of a woman around the age of 70 that fits the description below in any state but Missouri feel free to contact me.

Hello,

I've started this letter so many times, not sure where or how to begin. The most difficult part is having to tell you, that at the time, I am unable to reveal any I.D. Information. There are situations and people in my life today that have no idea I had a child before I was married. It's like opening a Pandora's box, and I have to be very careful how I do this. Let me try and explain. Only my immediate family and one close family friend knew I was pregnant. It was a very carefully kept secret, life was very different in the late fifties.

You see I was barely seventeen when I became pregnant. My family was shocked and angry. We lived in a small town and my family were well known business owners involved in the community and this didn't happen to “nice girls”. So, without going into the much detail, I spent a great deal of time out of state, out of sight, and carefully constructed stories were told to explain my absence. Not even my best friend knew and still doesn't. My parents were strict and I was never given any choices, and since marriage was not an option offered, adoption was my family's decision.

You asked if I had named you. No, I didn't. In fact, I was never allowed to even see you or hold you. No information was given to me about you except you weighed six something, and was born at three something. I wasn't even allowed to know what I had. Only by accident did I find out that I had a baby girl. I was told at the time it was standard procedure for an adoption, and I was young, frightened, and didn't question. As I reflect back, I realize my parents knew then that if I had ever seen you that I would never have been able to go through with the adoption. I've tried very hard not to judge my parents actions. I would like to think they had my best interest at heart. It was not easy for me to give you up, but from the depths of my heart I believed it was the best thing for you. So now I'm faced with how to tell the people in my life today, about a part of my life they never knew existed. I'm trying to find a way so that it doesn't cause anyone any embarrassment or pain.

Your letter was lovely and the poem was very moving. I've pictured you in my mind so often throughout all these years. What did you look like, when you would have started school, graduated, started college. I wondered if you were married, if you had children, were you happy, and prayed I had made the right decision. It's hard to imagine almost forty years have passed and the you're a grown woman and so accomplished. I was so sorry to hear of your health problems and that I wasn't able to of more help. I did not know your father's family very well, and since they did not acknowledge any responsibility or wanted any involvement in my pregnancy I have had no contact in over forty years.

I would like to tell you a little about myself in hopes that it might help you understand a little about who you are. As you know I'm very petite. I'm 4' 10”, weigh in under 100 pounds. I have thick dark brown hair (which is just starting to gray) and of course the green eyes. I'm also left-handed. I've always been athletic, swimming, skating (as a child) and today I play a lot of tennis and some golf. I love being outdoors and I inherited my mothers and maternal grandmothers green thumb and love of gardening. I too love to cook and from scratch. I can sew, but it isn't one of my favorite things, although both my grandmother and mother were excellent seamstresses.  I play the piano but I really wasn't very good, although I loved to sing and dancing was my favorite. It was my paternal grandmother that was the concert pianist, and she taught in schools as well as private. I love animals, have always had pets, and am owned by three very spoiled cats. I have a very outgoing personality which really didn't develop until I was on my own. I was very shy as a child. I'm outspoken, but also soft-hearted. I tend to be a perfectionist, can lose my temper when pushed too far, but a sense of humor has always helped to keep me grounded. I'm the shoulder everyone leans on whether it's family or friends. I'm the one they come to for help, advise, support or just to talk to. I guess because of this I find it very hard to burden others with my personal problems. I'm private when it comes to personal things and try to solve everything myself. To burden others with my personal problems is foreign to me, that's why opening all of this up is very difficult.

I regret I was unable to see your picture or learn your name. That cannot be made available to me until I release my identify. I hope at this time you can somehow come to understand the position I'm in. Someone said to me once that there are risks in every decision we make. It's just which ones we can live with the best. That's the crossroads I find myself at this time.

I've always believed you were the innocent person in all of this, and stood the most to be hurt, and that is one of my deepest regrets. I'm sure you still have many unanswered questions, and I pray this hasn't been too difficult for you.

So for now I'll close asking for guidance in working through this and for God's blessings for you and your family.

From my heart.

 

"Wishful Drinking" by Carrie Fisher and "Wishful Thinking" by an Adoptee

Today I opened Carrie Fisher’s book “Wishful Drinking” my friend loaned me for some summer reading.  I have always loved her acting, comedic sense of humor, and her writing.  “Postcards from the Edge” is one of my all-time favorite movies.  Movies and books….ok and soap operas, so two out of three ain’t bad, have always been a healthy escape for me since I was young.  Growing up feeling like I was out of place and obviously not wanted the way I was (meaning genetically incorrect) in my adoptive family, I lived vicariously through the characters in novels and film.

Although many children feel out of place in their own biological families, there are extreme situations like being adopted that can leave the most loved and cared for child feeling like an alien.  Upon reading the first chapter of “Wishful Drinking” it was like hearing the exact words and feelings many adoptees like myself, have a hard time getting others to comprehend (understatement).   Most of us don’t want to continue to be misunderstood, judged, and labeled.  And, most of us want to know we are not alone in what we do feel.

When I opened the book and read the first line:  “So, I am 52 years old” and (I will turn 52 next month) I knew this book was meant for me.   I was not wrong in thinking that whatsoever.  The next few paragraphs of the first chapter stuck home and I have to share them with you.  And even though Ms. Fisher is discussing being a child of Hollywood and being Bi-polar which isn’t being adopted, the similarity of the situations sound uncannily familiar.

“I could tell from watching how normal people lived—normal people as depicted by Hollywood and burned into our consciousness—I understood that my life was unusual.  Like many others, I grew up watching television shows like “My Three Sons” and “The Partridge Family” and “The Real McCoys.  And based on the lives depicted on those shows, I knew my life was a different sort of real. It was the only reality I knew, but compared to other folks—both on television and off—it eventually struck me as a little surreal, too.  And, eventually, too, I understood that my version of reality had a tendency to set me apart from others.  And, when you’re young you want to fit in.”

Wow, that’s absolutely how I felt growing up.  Life was surreal.  I looked around and didn’t see children growing up without their biological parents and families.  I didn’t understand why I had to pretend being adopted was a normal life style choice.

“Like real life is this other thing, and we’re always trying to determine what’s going on in this distant, inaccessible, incomprehensible place.”

Exactly!  Where are my biological parents?  Do I have siblings out there?  Are they dead or alive?  Where do I belong in the grand scheme of life without roots and knowledge of my heredity?  And, why am I being kept in the dark about all of it?

“As a consequence, I find that I don’t have what could be considered a conventional sense of reality.  So, as I said, my reality has been formed by Hollywood’s version of reality.  As a child, I thought “Father knows best” was real and that my life was fake.  When I think about it now, I may not have been far from wrong.”

In meeting up with the adoption community online and offline I’ve established that I too, was not far from wrong in knowing that being taken from my family of origin and planted into a different family with no recourse for information isn't normal.  At least for those of us who feel out of place, unaccepted for who we are, and continually told “being adopted doesn’t matter”.    

“I find that I frequently feel better about myself when I discover that we’re not alone, but that there are, in fact, a number of other people who ail as we do—that there are actually a number of “accomplished” individuals who find it necessary to seek treatment for some otherwise insurmountable inner unpleasantness.”

And there you have it.  Summed up and laid out in print what many adoptees struggle with on a constant basis.  No matter if the homes we were adopted into are good ones, adoptees are tired of playing “pretend” with their lives under terms created and dictated to us by others.  We realize now as adults, we are told that by those that have no idea or clue about what we feel, or should feel.  And, we are finally able to step out of our comfort zones, well really uncomfortable zones, to let the world know.

So, thank you Carrie Fisher for writing "Wishful Drinking" and laying your life out there for the world to see.   It helps so many of us who are battling personal demons in life, and feeling alone and isolated.  Hopefully, in the sharing of this experience with truth and honesty, it will help many others to find the courage to speak out.  "Wishful Thinking" for this adoptee is that we can to enable more adoptees to find their voices and help make the drastic changes to law and policy that have been needed in adoption for far too long.

Freedom for Adoptees

I was thinking today about the Fourth of July celebration and freedom.  Freedom is something most adoptees don't have when it comes to obtaining our original birth certificates, and having access to identifying information about our biological families as other citizens can, and do.  Our rights and freedom to do so are held and controlled by outside parties and interests.

I've been blogging over at the Lost Daughters blog lately and enjoying doing so very much.  I am continually humbled and surprised by those that look forward to what I write and what I have to say.  Because for most of my life that was not the case and in fact, I was told that almost everything I had to say on any subject was wrong.  Or worse I was crazy.

But, I was not wrong or crazy.  I was adopted.  And adopted into a family where genetically no two parents could have been more different from the child placed with them.  The blank slate theory's failure, the theory "sold" to adoptive parents for decades by adoption agencies and social workers, could not have been more evident in adoption than in our home.
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My adoptive parents constantly undermined and berated me for not being more like any other child in the neighborhood or classmate they could name.  I was loud and they were quiet.  I was social and they were introverted.  They were very traditional and I was very VERY contemporary in how I approached life.  It became more evident when my adoptive parents had a biological child who fit right in and still does.  I was the "product" of a whole other set of genes.  I had a whole unknown biology I was created from.  But, when it was questioned I was quickly shut down.

My voice, feelings, and opinions may have been stifled as a child and into my younger adulthood, but that is no longer the case.  I am still shocked when non-adopted people speak about on how adoptees should feel, live, and what rights as adoptees we should have.  I don't get as angry as I used to I have come to realize it is simply ignorance and the adoption industry's perpetual myth building.  I do however fight back with the knowledge and experience I have gained in adoption education and reform over my lifetime. 

And, I have gained a great deal of wisdom from life in my adoption experience.  I also continue to learn from the experiences of others.  Our stories put together build an overwhelming amount of evidence than adoption as it has functioned is not working for the children it is supposed to provide for, but is also ridden with fraud and corruption and managed and controlled by those the profit from it.

It used to be that we were the ones who were not listened to when we spoke out about all that was wrong with adoption.  But now we are turning the tables on everyone that tells us it doesn't matter, be thankful, be grateful, and don't rock the boat.  Not only are we rocking the boat we are taking the oars and steering it in the right direction.  Our voices will not be drowned out and over powered by those that have no "business" dictating to us what we should, and could, be able to know about our very own biological relatives and genetic history.  To all those naysayers and those who fight against us in our quest for the truth about OUR lives this is what I have to say to them now.

~ Freedom of speech is wonderful – right up there with the freedom not to listen.

Rejected Adoptees

No one not adopted can understand how the rejection can and does affect you each and every day. Today I am home sick...again. The only thing I have ever been in trouble with at any job was absences. With all of my health issues all it takes is one little virus, a virus most people can handle and work through and throw off, and which can inflame the rest of the problems wrong with my body. 

If I miss a day before or after a holiday I have to bring a doctors note. Well, I ride the bus so going to the doctor is an outside 2 hour ordeal getting to and from at least and not to mention right now I don't have the money to do so, until Friday payday...neither does my husband or he would give it to me. Doctors can really do nothing for me I need multiple specialists and testing first. I have to wait on health insurance to kick in and then pay the deductibles and premiums which will take weeks if not months. Time off from work is considered a weakness no matter what. It does not matter how much over time I work for them or how much I give really. It's all about stats and time and performance. A lot like being adopted.

Everyone thinks I am strong, intelligent, and capable. I am, true. My body is not. It never has been. It was weak and sickly at a young age. And what I've had to endure growing up ill is much more than even "regular" people can comprehend. Throw adoption into the mix and you have a "I don't want to be here" scenario brewing every day. These people at work are not really supportive they are supportive of company profits and success that makes THEM look better. I am a cog in the wheel. As I was in adoption.

Example: I was at work recently and the weather reports began to progressively worsen. My boss let me leave 1/2 an hour early and I know, as I always know, there is a chart of "gives" and "takes" at work being kept. Nothing comes for free. As I learned in adoption.

As I began to walk from work, and run to catch the bus as usual (one of two other connections I have to make to get home) the lightening began. I don't fear many things in life....severe lightening is not one of them. The tornado sirens begin to go off. I am scared, trembling actually. But, I calm my fears and reason with myself about stats of people hit by lightening or those that die in stormy weather. A nice older lady asks me as I wait under the cover at the gas station looking out for a bus siting if I am “ok”. Oh, if I only had the time to tell her. I say I am waiting on the bus and she leaves....all the while wishing she was the mother I never had. One who cared, and one who I could care for. And, wondering WHY in the hell life left me bereft of relatives.  As adoption often does.

The tornado sirens begin again and I lose my cell phone signal and contact with anyone who can give me a weather report on what is going on where I am at. I can not call a cab now. Luckily, with my dollar store umbrella I see the bus coming and after a 1/2 an hour of hell waiting 20 yards from the tornado sirens I bolt for the bus. I reach the rail station only to be grasping for the button on the train to open the doors when it pulls away. There I am alone, cold, wet, scared and too friggin frightened standing at the dryest place I can find as the crackles of lightening bear down upon me. I locate the best place I can between the ticket machine and the over head cover post....and I break down and cry.

I swear had I have been swept away by the weather and have perished and could have come back to watch the bereavement in my afterlife role I would have heard my adoptive mother say “If she would have stood under the OTHER pillar” or “If she lived her life by the word of God the weather wouldn't have hit her" and my adoptive father would have said, par for the course, nothing. I will never measure up or be enough because I am not their child. It's pathetic their excuses for not taking any responsibility for loving their adopted children, it's still our fault we didn't turn out in the capacity they expected. And Capacity = exactly like them.

I would never have heard the things most parents say about the child they lost. But, I don't count because I'm not their child. I never really have been and I never will be. I am no one's child and....I hate being adopted.

"Selfish" Adoptees

Is just one of the labels/names we hear when we, as adoptees, attempt to reform and change the way adoption operates.  It still shocks me that anyone could believe having your biology and genetics taken from you and held hostage by government and religious entities is alright and could actually be approached with such a nonchalant attitude.  Adoption, sperm and egg donation, and IVF is in fact a booming business, and not the altruistic operation it is usually perceived to be.

It can cost tens of thousands of dollars to adopt a newborn infant.  Nonprofit agencies that facilitate these adoptions bring in millions of dollars each year and the BOD incomes from these can range upwards of six figures.  Egg donors are paid a high price for their donations.   In Vitro fertilization techniques leave unused embryos in freezers to languish when no longer needed and or given away as donations to other infertile couples.  Anonymous sperm donor banks are supposed to put limits on the amount of children conceived and born this way and yet sperm donor registries dictate otherwise.  All of this is a much unregulated industry, an industry out of control.

I shake my head in disbelief that we play God with life and lives every day, and refuse to look at how we got there.  Are we really going to continue to justify the  means to the end when we are dealing with manipulating gametes that become embryos and human beings?  And then turn our backs to the repercussions and ramifications these actions dictate permanently into the lives of adoptees, sperm, and egg donor children?  How is it people can expect adoptees to feel grateful when we are treated like commodities and interchangeable parts?  And when we as adoptees stand up for our rights and the rights of future children brought into this world by whatever means available, and usually most affordable, we are met with harsh judgment and cruel ridicule?

Money, profit, and power have obviously become more important in creating a family than ethics.

And we are the selfish ones?  I think not.

Remembered on Mother's Day

Remembered

Never forgotten, never lost.
Never far from mind or thought.
Not left behind, or in the past.
No image fades, the memory lasts.
You're seen in smiles my children give.
Always within my heart you'll live.
Remembered now, forever here.
'Til close of life, and end of years.

I've been very busy lately starting a new job, moving, getting settled in both.  I had not even thought about Mother's Day and the extra emotion it brings being adopted and separated from the mother who gave you life.  I had a few rough moments that brought tears to my eyes last week with a very moving quote from an adoptee who we lost this year.  She wrote incredible books that almost every adoptee can relate to, and BJ put into words what so many of us haven't been able to say, or define about our adoptive experiences.

Those who know their mother cannot imagine what it is like not know the woman who brought you into this world. What it is like to be forbidden by law to see her face, hear her voice, know her name. No one can imagine it because it is unimaginable.- BJ Lifton

And then I open the Sunday paper.


http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20110507-essay-a-son-gets-to-know-and-love-the-mother-he-never-met.ece

And....

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Mothers-Day-Has-Double-Meaning-for-Adoptees--121392439.html  

Even though my biological mother can't step out of the past and let go of the secrets and shame I will always think of her and wonder if she thinks of me.  As a mother, I don't see how she could not.  And, as an adoptee I'll never give up hope someday, I will be able to know who she is.