"Writing" and "Righting" the Adoptee Struggle

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you" ~Ray Bradbury

I borrowed this quote from my friend Trace (thank you Trace) because it is speaks to me of how I have dealt for years with being adopted.  It's no surprise why so many adoptees blog, write books, or spend a great deal of time in support forums writing and sharing their experiences, emotions, and anger.  It's obviously a surprise to the "nonadopted" world.  But, the realm of writing allows a safe place for adoptees to express themselves if only for them, and others who understand.  I know it has been a great vehicle for healing for myself.

I wrote a poem years ago about my frustration at the system of closed records adoption.  I never claim to speak for anyone else, but I will today for so many I do know feel as I do.  I hope they don't mind.  In fact, I hope they are pleased by it.

Twelve years later after petitioning the adoption court I still have no names, no cities, not even a state where my biological parents are.  The government has no right to keep this information from me.  It is mine.  No, strike that and I will speak for adoptees right now, it is "ours".

Rights in adoption are not about reunions or relationships.  The nonadopted world continually convolutes and twists what we are asking for into imposing ourselves into others lives and ruining them.  As I told my adoptive mother I will tell the world "I didn't know being related to me would be so bad".  I don't really need any further rejection in my life after not fitting in in any capacity in my adoptive family, nor would I welcome it with anyone else related to me or not.

There are adoptees who just want information and medical background from their biological families just as there are those that want contact and communication from their families or origin.  We simply do not need outside entities or other persons involved in making decisions about who and what we can know.  That right will always belong to us.

The Struggle

Struggling to move onward through the future's open door.
Still caught up in mysteries of what has come before.
I feel another part of me was lost somewhere in time.
I'm searching for the reasons and all answers I can find.
To sever unseen shackles locking me up in the past.
And hold within my hands the keys to truths found at long last.
Impeded by the secrets that so many keep from me.
In pursuit to solve this puzzle and at last to be set free.
Between my heart and mind there seems to be eternal war.
Near defeated by this conflict, drained and weary to the core.
I stand here with my head held high not yielding to these thoughts.
That lead me to believe these long fought battles will be lost.
Ignoring drones from ancient tunes that say I have no right.
In quests that seek to find these missing pieces of my life.

It's "just" a name

The Sands of Time

Searching through the sands of time examining my past.
Watching life I call my own pass through the hour glass.
So much has been forgotten, so much has been left behind.
So much that has been buried I search for but can not find.
People who have come and gone and those still here today.
Faces I have never seen who long since went away.
Missing names and histories leave only gaping holes.
Oh how I'd love to hear all of those stories left untold.
Each has left their mark upon my soul and memory.
This life that was created, an everlasting legacy.

I was told "it's just a name" by a co-worker last week when discussing names.  These types of comments are made by people who have no idea the very foundation of their lives their names of origin give them.  This is the attitude of many people who are not adopted and don't have their original identities taken from them and sealed by the state. 

A few days later when this co-worker was asked why he went by initials instead of his first name he declared that people shortened his name and he was continually called by a partial of it.  He did not like the "nickname" and wanted to be called by his full first name and since people could not seem to do that, he now was using the initials of his first and middle name.  So, in fact a name DOES actually matter.

Loss in adoption is glossed over by the masses unaffected by it.  What so many take for granted becomes a life long quest to find for those of us it has been taken from.  It does matter, and a hell of a lot to so many of us.

The name I was given when I was adopted, and the family it comes from, does not describe or tell me who I am.  It is not my genetic or historical background.  It belongs to others who want to pin it to me and erase where I came from.

A name is only a name....until you lose it.

Judging Adoptees

Recently I was judged and attacked by another adoptee (more than one actually) over my lack of understanding about the positive side of adoption.  I guess my views are warped to them and if I would only be around "happy adoptees" I would get a different side of adoption.  I was accused of "coming after" said happy adoptee.

If you knew me in the "real" world I'm the office clown, the loyal friend, the nonjudgemental shoulder to lean on and confide in.  But, I would never "go after" anyone and anyone who really "knows" me "knows" that.  I stand up for myself and my experience.  I will debate I don't deny that.  I do get out my adoption soap box often and educate when and where I can.  I am proud to have made many many people rethink their views of adoption and what it really means to those it affects.  I have, and continue to work in adoption reform with adoptees who are happy with their adoptive families.  You can be happy with your adoptive family but NOT agree with the way the system of adoption functions.  AND as I state over and over and over again I am GLAD for them, and I don't deny and dispute their feelings and emotions.  I would never want anyone or any child to have to endure what so many of us "unhappy" adoptees have.  It's why I work as hard as I can, when I can, for the much needed overhaul to adoption.

I am used to being judged but not usually by other adoptees.  Most "get it" or at least can empathize some.  Adoption may define much of my life but it does not define ME in totality.  You do not know "me" so do not label and condemn my life choice in expressing how I feel on an adoptee SUPPORT group.  Do NOT access my mental health state with your amateur diagnosis and skills.  Do NOT leave hate mail in my inbox.  And seriously, if you don't like what you are hearing and don't agree then simply state your peace and leave!

I don't go to pro-adoption sites.  I don't agree with what is being said and will never support the system of adoption as it functions with closed records and huge profits.  SO I don't join in on discussions which want to make me pull my hair out and bang my head against the wall.  See, I'm old and wise like that.

Sometimes I think these "happy" adoptees doth protest too much.  Why do they have such a huge problem with those of us who have had terrible experiences with adoption?  I think it threatens them and makes them question their own lives as adoptees.  But, that is my personal opinion and I don't claim to be a counselor or therapist.

There are not many places in the world us adoptees have to feel safe to discuss our adoption experiences.  Many of us simply do not allow anyone to see how adoption affects us because we are all too familiar with the judgement, criticism, and the never ending advice we get from those who have no idea what they are talking about.  Adoption is not something you "get over".  Adoption is not a one time transaction it is a life time event.  If only these self proclaimed "happy" adoptees would instead place their time and energy into helping change the system of adoption and open records we wouldn't have the need for search and support groups.  If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.  'Nuff said.

Mother Unknown

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 and 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.

It's just the strangest thing ever not knowing who your biological mother is.  I never really thought about my bio father much, not until the courts found him in 2003.  Both however, want to remain unknown.  So, here I wait to hear back about my court petition. If all I get is updated medical at this point in time with my health I'll take it.  In limbo again waiting on this for the fourth time.  It could be days, or weeks, or months who knows.

I hate how weak I feel about it sometimes.  And, throw in health issues, pain, and a virus, and I'm reduced to a sniveling, and literally too with this cold, whimpering, blubbering fool.  I am so not proud of that. 

Of course my situation with adoption search for biological family is magnified with the rejection from my adoptive family.  So, I've lost two mothers.  I remember telling my marriage counselor once jokingly "I have double mother rejection syndrome".  And in all seriousness, being an adoptive mother and understanding the issues she went through with her biological daughter, stated matter of factly "No Karen, you really do".  And, the truth shall set you free.

I think it was then, before owning my first computer and getting online to meet and greet and world of adoption, I realized how largely these rejection issues played out in my life.  Why I chose people who abused and rejected me.  Why I picked people I had take care of because of the dysfunction of having a mentally ill adoptive mother unable to cope with life.  I actually believed I could make someone love me.

It's not that I am looking for parents anymore it's not about that.  It's about having the truth, being able to see photographs, know names, and where you came from.  Relationships with them are secondary to me now.

I got a look inside "myself" in the non-id letter I received from my biological mother 12 years ago.  My bio father was found as well.  So, I have given them the chance to want to know me.  I'm getting weary of this long high stakes game of adoption search and wait with my bioligical parents.  My poker face is starting to fade.  Let's see if they are willing to ante up, show their cards, or fold and walk away again.

Angry Adoptees!

Of the many labels, like ungrateful and bitter, given to us adoptees angry is one of the most used.  Anytime we appear unhappy with our adoption situation in almost any capacity, and voice our angst with anything about adoption, immediately we are branded "angry".

There was a recent debate on an adoptee support group about us angry adoptees.  This is not unusual with the exception that it came from a fellow adoptee.  Also, not that unusual.  There are many adoptees who are perfectly happy to have been adopted.  I have no problem with that if it works for you more power to ya.  For a great amount of us adoption is ridden with emotions we work to understand.  And, anger is a large factor in those emotions.

Below I will adress some of the statements about our anger as adoptees we hear often.

1.  Put it in the past get over it and move on.

Adoption is not a one time transaction it is a lifetime event.  Many of us we would love to do just that, put it in the past.  Unfortunately, when you are dealing with adoption court petitions, search and reunion issues (or lack thereof), being unable to locate your biological family, Holidays, birthdays, and the deaths and loss of biological relatives you will never get to know, this is in the present obviously.

2.  You should be grateful.

Grateful we had our biological families taken from us?  That we have lost our roots, our heredity, our family histories?  That no matter if we find our first families we can never get back that time, who we might have become, and the connections we did have the chance to form with them.  And, I am grateful for MANY others things in my life.  Adoption is NOT one of them.

3.  I refuse to live my life being angry.

There is a difference between being an angry person and being angry ABOUT something.  If you are spewing hate and animosity at the world THEN you have a problem.  Venting and discussing how you feel about your anger is a another animal.  People can be angry about something and still be fully functioning healthy adults.  Quit judging a portion of the person you see in regards to adoption and don't know in totality.

4.  You could have been aborted or left in fostercare.

Everything in life is perspective.  Adoption is no different.  Some people are happy they were adopted.  For me left anywhere else as in in foster care, an orphanage, or a home probably could have been no worse than the adoptive family I was placed with where I was abused in every way, and then rejected.  And yes, many days I wish I would have not been born.  People don't want to hear that, but that is how many of us feel.


5.  Get counseling or therapy.

Who says we haven't done that?  Ummmmm and I thought that part of "healing" was a good support group.  That is why we are here.  If you don't need support or to talk about your adoption issues why are you there?  And lastly, are you a psychologist or do you must play one online?

6.  I don't see you doing anything but wallowing in your anger.

Then you've got your eyes closed pretty damn tight!  And yes I AM angry so are MANY of us and we ARE doing something about it!  My apologies to my fellow adoptee activists in advance, but I would like to also speak for many of you too.

We are angry we are denied their OBC's.  We are angry we are continually lied to from birth by our adoptive parents, by adoption agencies, and our birth certificates falsified.  We are angry there are biological parents who can not find their children relinquished to adoption.  We are angry adoptees will languish ill or die, or their children will, trying to obtain current family medical background.  We are angry that biological parents will try to have important family medical history passed on to their natural children and will be denied this by adoption agencies and courts and instead it will be tossed into an old dusty file.  We are angry that adoptees are pawns in a system that profits off our pain and loss and then are expected to be thankful someone "took us in".  We are angry adoptees have to spend vast and enormous amounts of time, energy, and money searching, seeking, and begging for any and all information we can get about our biological and family backgrounds.


Anger is a natural human emotion.  What we do about it makes all the difference.  Many of us in adoption activism and reform use our anger to speak out about, and work towards, the absolute NEED for truth and honesty in adoption.  For many of us online and offline support groups nurture and support us in a world that casts our dilemmas with adoption aside as exaggerated and unimportant.

We can look to many leaders that have changed and revolutionized the world out of their anger over injustices and mistreatment of  themselves and others.  Like us, misunderstood and judged, we work for our cause and let anger light our fuse to facilitate positive change.  Perhaps this is a good time to post this in honor of Martin Luther King day.

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable.  Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
Martin Luther King, Jr.  

Sick and tired of being sick and tired about adoption and ill health!

Thank God for the understanding I get from the adoption community.  Just about the time I think it's "enough" and that I can't take anymore someone steps in and clarifies for me that it's not "us" it's "them".  (Thanks to Kara again)  Being rejected by two families is hard enough most days, but being continually ill while navigating life "alone" and sick is pretty unbearable.

I was almost in the ER Sunday but unfortunately without health insurance they don't do much for me except make sure I'm not going to die, do blood workup, give me pain meds, and tell me I need expensive follow up and send me home and charge me $5,000.  I am nearly bankrupt as it is in the last 30 years from medical problems.  And, in being sedentary for two health issues makes the other two, high blood pressure and rheumatoid, flare up.  I live where I am unable to obtain state help because I am married and that income puts health help out of reach.  Being chronically ill means being unable to work as others can and afford luxuries like health insurance.  Disability is out of reach for now.

I have two families, adoptive and birth, both who know I have been ill since age 15 in and out of doctors and hospitals and NONE of them give a crap or care.  It drains the life out of my relationships, who wants to be around someone who is always sick and never feels good and has no one else to rely upon.  Hell, I don't want to be around me!  I got lucky enough to marry an adoptee lite from a crazy family of nuts like mine who has his own issues he needs to deal with.  I've tried to help "save" him too but I am trying to keep myself from drowning in issues as it is.

I have not heard from my adoptive family in over two years maybe more.  I am the one to call, send photos of myself and my kids, trying to extend the olive branch of healing and forgiveness.  I get bitter comments and judgemental attitudes back.  I put myself out there once again over the last three years calling and with a visit because I know my adoptive parents are aging and not well and won't be around much longer.  I heard later from my husband my adoptive mother sat up and bad mouthed me to him after I had gone to bed.  He had not told me immediately because he was so shocked that a mother could be that hurtful, but I can't say I was surprised.  I just didn't want to live with the fact I did not try my best to build a bridge over the hurt, pain, and anger.  I did and I tried and now, I am DONE.

The fact remains that I am not their child and I never will be.  I did not put myself out there for the usual family Holiday letter going on and on about their wonderful biological child and their extraordinary grandchildren with the one sentence at the end "Karen is still living in Dallas".  I don't think they remember the names of my children.  Out of sight out of mind.  It's obvious we don't matter.

I am petitioning the court for updated medical records again for the fourth time in twelve years.  I have stopped waiting and believing that my biological mother will ever step up to the plate and release her name and allow me to have a relationship with my siblings she can't let know I exist.  I only hope my biological father can step up with the other half of my family medical background.  Hearing through the courts from him in 2005 "I understand her need for information but everyone in our family is healthy" falls in the same category for me as the pack of lies the system of adoption tries to sell the world and I'm just not buyin it.

Please don't tell me to "think positive" I am POSITIVE this all sucks and is unfair.  Please don't tell me to "hang in there" I have hung in there far longer than most other people could.  Please don't tell me God only gives us as much as we can handle and then throw bible quotes at me, I have studied the history of the bible and read it back to front several times and I have my own faith and spiritual beliefs thank you very much.   There is an monumental amount of depression that stems from adoption rejection.  There is an overwhelming depression that comes from chronic illness.  The two together can be a near lethal combination.

What I need is understanding, support, and unconditional love.  I have finally stopped looking for that from my adoptive and biological families.  I get it from people whose faces I have never seen in person but whose hearts I know better than my own.  The adoption community is amazing.  If I ever believed anything was God sent they certainly are to me. 

It's hard enough for people to understand adoption, but even harder still for them to grasp the depth of agony it can cause being rejected...and twice no less.  I truly can't fathom not caring if your child or sibling by adoption or birth was ill and suffering.  I may never fully know the reasons why I was unlucky enough to be so burdened in life by ill health and adoption rejection and abandonment.  I only know how devastating it can be and will continue to do what I can to help change the system, stop the industry that profits from selling children to others, and support those going through the hell we know as adoption.

Adoption is my kryptonite...and there you have it.

Unvisited

No message from the telephone.
No telegrams while I was home.
No mail came though I checked the box.
No cryptic secrets were unlocked.
No headline in the daily news
or printed words to lend me clues.
No response to questions asked
as weeks, and months, and years drift pass.
Still waiting for a sign or word,
the time my voiceless pleas are heard.
But only silence resounds instead.
Another day, unvisited.

I was talking to my son last night it was a very emotional conversation.  We are dealing with some pretty heavy issues and problems and it's the holidays of course.  I was crying, something I don't usually let him hear me do.  He told me that I was a strong person.  That is something I am always told by others in descriptions of myself.  I tried to relate to my husband how vulnerable in life I feel and he scoffed and added “Karen you'd never know it by the way you act”.  And there you have it “act”.

So many adoptees have to hide how they feel about being adopted and adoption period.  It's understandable considering the amount of flack we get about how we feel about it, how we react it to it, and what we say about it.  I am not one of those adoptees that hides much about adoption.  I figure I inherited this big mouth for a reason so go with your strengths I have been told.  And I do.

But, I don't think anyone really understands the depth of despair, pain, and loss that adoption can bring to our lives this time of year, especially for those of us who are rejected by two families.  I can usually take on the world and people in almost any endeavor.  But I have to admit adoption is my kryptonite.  It is the one thing that can bring me to my knees without a moment's notice or warning.  It makes me feel weak and incapable.

I wrote the poem above ten years ago when I was waiting for my first mother to be able to tell her family and others about my existence.  It still applies today, but it also speaks of the relationship I have with my adoptive family.  I don't know if they love me really, and if they do it's more of an obligatory love and tolerance because they don't really like who I am.  I've had enough of that in my life and who needs it?

I've actually been told several times in regards to my adoptive parents lack of real love and caring for me “Well what did you do to them that they don't want you?”  People can't grasp the fact that some parents adoptive or birth just don't have the ability to love their children in the way they should.  And, it has to be that those children have committed some crime or disservice against their parents because normal people wouldn't behave that way.  And there you have it “normal”.  My statement in retaliation to that is “I'm not their child”.  It's the blatant truth.  I am not biologically my adoptive parents child, and my biological parents consider me my adoptive parents child.  I am an adoptee who fell through the cracks of the system into a bleak and barren dark hole of rejection and abandonment.

Adoption is not normal.  It severs children from natural parents and grafts them into other families many times very different from the genetics that adopted children come from.  It is not only not normal, it is unnatural.  I was not the conforming, accepting, grateful little child as was expected.  I was overt with my questions about where I came from and who and where my biological family was.  I reacted to the abnormal situation that was the abusive Cinderella complex forced upon me.  That of being the work horse, the care taker, the minion while the biological child was loved, adored, and treated with special care, kindness, and favor.  Only there were no glass slippers or prince to show up and save me.

Double family rejection in adoption is overwhelming.  I struggle with self worth every day.  Most don't see it. It's a facade and one that I've become quite adept at wearing.  You learn that being adopted.  For the powerlessness and vulnerability is not something we let show often, except with each other and or to those we feel safe with.  And yet even with that still, there remains so much we fear and hide away even from ourselves, that can catch us off guard, left open and wounded.

So, there ya have it.  Not that's it ever been any secret how I feel about adoption or how it's affected me.  But, the truth is it does more deeply than anyone who knows me that is not adopted can understand.  The best gift I could receive at Christmas this year from those who love me is the comprehension that beneath the exterior of this strong, competent, articulate and intelligent woman, there is always a lost little girl waiting for family to come take her by the hand, and take her "home".