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.
No printed words to lend me clues.
No response to questions asked,
as weeks, and months, and years drift past.
Still waiting for a sign or word,
the time my voiceless pleas are heard.
But only silence resounds instead.
Another day, unvisited.

I survived the adoptee birthday this year fairly well after dealing with the fourth adoption court petition denial for identifying information from my biological parents.  Instead of a lot of angst and turmoil there was only mild depression.  A depression that is always there and pokes it head out at the usual Holiday periods and observations and life triggers.

I just heard it put that depression is like the fear that the sun won't rise.  Well stated but I'll go a little further.  For me the depression from being adopted and being rejected twice is like knowing the sun will rise and shine on everyone but me.  It might sound a little extreme but that's how I feel.

It's not about not being alone I can do that just fine.  I've been a wife a great portion of my life and a mother for nearly 30 years.  Alone time I crave and yes probably because of being left out of two families it became my norm.  And what wife and mother doesn't enjoy the simple sound of silence for a period of time.  The type of silence I am talking about is deafeningly loud.

Cosmically alone in the universe detached from family is a different type of alone animal.  It's also the belief that someone you caused and were responsible for it.  What person wouldn't question why they were given away by their own family?  I've finally arrived at the knowledge that it is not my fault but I spent far too many years believing that it was so and not just of my own creation either.  Knowing it's not my fault doesn't really make me feel much better.  I am still the odd person out in two families.  I hate admitting this weakness and vulnerability but I am still looking for that kind of love and connection in my life.

I now know how to cope and deal with most of it, writing being one of them, but I shouldn't HAVE to grieve the loss of my biological name and knowledge of my original family forever.  Not knowing where you came from and the search for self is an unending journey for many adoptees..  Being a wife and mother is fulfilling, but it does not complete or fill the gaps left in the fabric of my soul.

“If you don't receive love from the ones who are meant to love you, you will never stop looking for it.”
― Robert Goolrick, The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life

"Related"

The term "related" takes on a whole different meaning for adoptees.  It's a strange concept misunderstood by most and continually being redefined by adoption agencies, groups, and the people involved in it.  But good or bad adoption law or term depending on the viewpoint, it doesn't change the emotional course being adopted sets you on from birth as an adoptee.

Being adopted you have two families.  Whether you accept one, the other, or both, even if you don't know anything about the one you were born from, they are still out there existing and always a part of who you are.  Even if you deny any acceptance and live only within and from your adoptive family there is no way you can not look in a mirror and see the evidence every day staring back at you.

One family you share years, stories, and a history with.  Another, you share biology, genetics, and genealogy with and then pass them along to your own children.  Sometimes you can piece the two together to form lasting bonds, but many times you can end up feeling disconnected from both due to a wide variety of reasons.  I am nothing like my adoptive family and not accepted by my biological family in fact, not even recognized at all.  More like swept under the rug and forgotten without any recourse to get closure about who I really am.

I also feel left out of a large part of the world of adoptees as well.  I am stuck in limbo without the ability to find my biological family.  Four court petitions have been denied to receive identifying information and there just not enough I have to go on to find.  Obviously a good amount of secrecy was requested by my biological grandparents which my biological mother feels allegiance to still.  A great amount of apathy from my biological father who walked away from my mother and me 53 years ago, and then denied any information upon my urgent request for updated medical information via the adoption courts.  Neither of my "parents" will tell their children I exist.

I've sat back in the corner for over thirteen years now watching reunions, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I'm fully aware of the difference between rights and reunions.  And now, all I am asking for is MY information.  Plain and simple I want MY truth.  Adopted or not, it is what all people deserve to have.

My 100th Adoptee Blog Post

I've not been writing recently at all I'm starting to feel as if there is nothing I haven't already said a thousand different times in a hundred different ways.  Yet, there is still so much there I feel the need to express.  And, at the same time so few who really get it or can who are not adopted and cut off from their biological roots.

One of the most common pieces of advice I get from nonadopted persons is "I know my biological family and I wish I didn't, I don't want them you can have them."  That's like adoption I don't WANT a second hand me down family I want my original one!  You can't replace families with another one and people and names in exchange for new ones.  It doesn't work!  Well, for many of us.  At this point I'd take the knowledge of where I came from and forgo relationships.  I just want the truth, MY TRUTHS.

It's a fine line walking between an unknown past and navigating your future.  I feel caught between two worlds.  One where I don't belong or fit in and one where I am continually searching faces, names, and the bits and pieces of information I have gathered over the last decades.  I have sisters or brothers out there, two I am aware of, that have no idea I exist.  They are being lied to if even only by omission.  I was cleaning out my filing cabinet last week and came across the copy of the letter my biological mother wrote me thirteen years ago, non-id of course, via the adoption court.  I read it while tears streamed and hid it back where it was.  Out of site out of mind maybe, but never out of heart.

When life is going well it's easy sometimes to "not think about it" as we as adoptees are continually advised, and focus on the good.  But sometimes the pain of all of that loss bubbles up and overwhelms us when we are at our weakest.  That's where I have been at struggling every day to cope through the loss of belonging in two families, multiple health issues causing financial issues, coping with too much chronic pain and fatigue, relationship issues, managing a household, trying to search for work I can do, and raising my son.  Wondering all the while when "This too shall pass".

I hope all of this makes sense because lately life has not made much sense at all.  I don't expect it to be fair. I'm not that naive, but at some point I'd like to be drowning in sorrow and hiding it all behind the face and demeanor of a clown.  I don't want to sound pathetic, or whiny, or weak but my mask is getting unbearably heavy.

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!