Sigh

The collagen in my face is breaking down.

Another wrinkle has appeared, on my cheek, every time I smile it gets deeper and deeper. Good thing I don't have much to smile about these days, or I'd look like I was 80. Perhaps this is the tradeoff for not having any gray hairs yet...although I think I'd rather take the grays, at least you can color those.

I feel so stuck and I hate my life.

And when I am angry, when I am dissatisfied, I lash out at others. The thing is, I wasn't raised that way, so where does this come from? I have a huge tendency to avoid the things I don't want to deal with, the things that hurt me, the things that trouble me.

I haven't visited my parents' graves in over a year.

I KNOW where that comes from.

The same woman who avoids me, who avoids this adoption shit. And in a way, I notice that I avoid her too. Because when she says "Let's make plans" I shut down a little, and don't want to. I suddenly want to back away from it. Like, what the hell? Where is THAT coming from? When all I want in the world is to have her in my life yet when I finally get it, I drop it like a hot potato?

That's just fucked up.

So I have to try to figure this out...why do I react this way? Is it because I am afraid of a second (third) rejection? Is it a subconscious way of hurting her the way she hurt me? Am I just apathetic about the whole thing?

God all this self-analyzing is exhausting. I wonder if non-adopted people do even half the self-analysis of every waking moment as adopted people do. Why did I do that? Why did I think that? What did that mean? AAARRRRGGGGGGHHH!!!

It's time for the padded cell.

And I still can't get to that cemetery, every time I drive past it I look over at it, feeling oh so guilty, like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, but I just haven't felt like I've had much to say. Hi mom and dad, I've been out bitching and moaning about you adopting me, how's the afterlife treatin' ya?

Yeah. Not so much to say these days. Guilt guilt guilt.

Naughty naughty.

Wait...what's that...another wrinkle? Shit. Time to grow up and act my age.

Improving

I haven't really had much to talk about lately in adopto-land, I guess I've been either taking a break or avoiding it all together, I don't know but I just haven't had a lot of inspiration as of late.

Instead, I've been focusing on me. Becoming better, becoming healthier, improving my life and my outlook. It's a long slow process and one that I don't know if I'll ever complete, but the journey is an interesting one, with some days more fruitful than others.

I think a lot of it just has to do with the time of year. I always feel refreshed and renewed in the fall, it's my time to start over, my time for second chances. I've taken up running down the gravel road and in one short month I have worked my way up to being able to hoof an entire two miles now without needing to stop and walk (well, okay, I do have to take a little break at the mile-mark but I can do one mile up the road and one mile back, running, nonstop. I am proud of this 35 year old body.)

I don't know where things are with my mom right now. I think they are good, when she does reply it is positive, but I am getting apathetic about our relationship and beginning to ask myself exactly what it is I even want. I think that the constant let-downs are beginning to wear on me and my defenses are in permanent up-mode. As much as I want her in my life, as much as I would love a close and warm relationship, I just don't see it happening. I don't know if I could ever trust her enough, if I could ever endure a long silence without that nagging fear in the back of my mind, telling me she's doing it again, she's pulling away, she's abandoning me all over again.

And I DO NOT want to subject my children to that, because as much as they deserve to have their grandmother, they do not deserve to be abandoned by her too.

But all I really know for sure is, I like to run. But it's getting cold, soon the snow will fly and I will no longer be able to hoof that gravel road. But for now I will continue to look into myself and improve, and enjoy this beautiful fall season, because no matter what happens in my reunion, I still have to be strong for myself.

Deal with it

I was linked recently to an adoptive parent's blog, I don't have the address handy (okay, okay, I'm just too lazy to go get it and I really don't want to create some inter-blog posting/commenting thing anyway) where the purpose of her blog, from what I can gather, was to help other adoptive parents deal with their adoptees' issues of separation, grief, loss, etc.

Well that's cool, I'm pretty down with that.

But what I hope that this parent, and the readers of that blog and all the adoptive parents out there realize, is that how I, and every adoptee "deals" with our adoptee issues is not a consistent thing. There are variables...depending on the adoptee's age (I don't think most people can truly even grasp the magnitude of what being adopted even IS until you've reached some level of maturity, say, at least into your teens); to your mood, the events that have shaped your life thus far, etc. and so on and so forth.

The post that this AP took to her blog was just a snapshot of my feelings that I happened to write about on a particular day. I was feeling a little tired of the overall societal view against adoptees reuniting, particularly my own good friend thinking it is so inappropriate, simply because, why, I am adopted? So I shouldn't miss the woman who gave birth to me, who I did bond with in utero, who I did LOSE and therefore have a right to miss and want some part of her in my life?

But at the same time, some days, I am quite surprisingly normal. Some days, I don't think about it. I don't miss her, I don't care if I talk to her ever again, or see her, or ever hear her voice. Some days, I could care less. Other days, not so much. There are days when it's all I can do to get out of bed.

But the important thing is that those days happen...in between the good days, when I seem to be not affected, when I seem to be the "normal, happy adoptee" that everyone likes to see and everyone is most comfortable with, sometimes it is there. Sometimes, I do get mad that I was abandoned, that I was given away, that I feel second-best and inadequate and like a huge failure as a human being because my own mother didn't want me.

It doesn't have to be there EVERY DAY to mean that it ISN'T THERE. I don't have to talk about it verbally or openly for it to mean that it ISN'T THERE. And, I NEVER would have told my adoptive parents, because, OMG that would have hurt her, crushed her, that would have shaken the very foundations on which our relationship was built (not that this is probably true, but as an adoptee? The LAST thing you want to do is hurt your aparents, because if your own mother could abandon you, what's to stop them from doing it too?)

But really, I didn't even begin to explore or even acknowledge a lot of these feelings until I was well into my 20's, after reunion, after I had children of my own. As a child, I was pretty satisfied with the whole "She gave you up because she couldn't take care of you" and "she was just too young and she loved you so much she wanted you to have a good life" kind of blah blah blah. But as I got older, and ESP. after having my own babies, I just realized, how could anyone give away your own child?

How?

So, just in case anyone from that other blog ventures here and reads beyond the one post, I hope you take this to heart. If your little one doesn't seem too affected now, don't take it as a sign he or she will never be. If he or she doesn't talk about it, don't think it may not be there. Adoptees are masters at hiding our true feelings, we are pros at stuffing and masking and burying this stuff.

But don't take it from me.

I'm just one adoptee who's been doing this stuff for the last 35 years.

Tired

I'm tired of adoption today.

I'm tired of being the daughter you gave away, of feeling like a piece of yesterday's trash that went out on the Waste Systems truck with the rest of the rotting, stinking shit.

I'm tired of feeling like I don't matter.

I'm tired of feeling like the secret, the thing to be ashamed of, the reason for all your problems. I'm tired of being second best in EVERYTHING, both in your world and in mine, because being discarded at birth certainly does not make one feel like a stellar human being in other aspects of one's life.

I'm tired of living in a dark room with no light. Not knowing anything about myself, even after so many years of knowing you, the pieces are still not together, because you cannot find it within yourself to help me put them together. I guess that's because I was just the discarded one, you'd have to pluck me out of the stinking, rotting garbage to do that, and who wants to touch yesterday's rotting trash, right?

I'm tired of being looked at like a disease, like I must have been born to some drug addicted, street walking, slut of a woman with multiple psychoses which I almost certainly will inherit. I'm tired of the stigma of being born a bastard.

I'm tired of people thinking that being an angry adoptee is somehow a bad thing. Fucking RIGHT I am angry, and why shouldn't I be? Why shouldn't I be angry that I was tossed aside by my mother, that I am treated like shit by my government, that people look at me like a freak of nature? Why shouldn't I be angry that I can't know who I am, that I can't feel like a whole, complete human fucking being, that I just want the same goddamn rights as everybody else? Well-adjusted my ass. They can kiss my maladjusted ass until their lips bleed.

Mostly I am just tired of not being listened to. You know it's funny, you'd think that if adopted people were complaining about adoption, people might stop and say hey, something must be wrong here. But no, we are just laughed at, stomped on, made fun of, stomped on some more. All because people need to make money, and infertile or lazy women need to get babies. And they don't give a rat's ass if their little adoptee hurts like I do, or if T does, or Joy does, or any other adoptee, because as long as they get what THEY want, everything will be okay.

Fuckers.

Fuck them.

I'm tired of it.

I'm tired of adoption.

I wish adoption didn't exist.

I hate adoption and I hate being adopted.

I'm just sick of being adopted today.

Sick

Let me ask you a question:

If your mother died, and your father remarried, would you not still miss your mother no matter how much you might come to love and care about your father's new wife?

Would the fact that your father remarried somehow erase the fact that you had a mother before? You wouldn't be expected to forget your own mother, or to not grieve for her, or to not miss her, would you? Of course not. No matter how wonderful this new wife may be, how much you may come to love her and care about her, people would always expect that you'd still love and remember and miss the mom you lost.

But somehow, if you lost your mom through adoption, you ARE expected to forget her, to not miss her, to not grieve for her and to never want to know about her or any of the family you came from. Your "new" mother is your "only" mother and you are not allowed to have any feelings for the mom you lost.

How effed up is that?

Genealogy

Anybody out there get into this stuff?

I love it. It's fun, it's addicting, but it's also frustrating as hell.

I have been in the process of tracing my n-family's genealogy, on both sides, which is to say, no small task. My father's side is particularly difficult as he was also adopted by his step-father, and my grandmother will not speak of her ex-husband no matter how much I try to convince her.

And thanks to the joys of sealed records, I can't get his OBC to find out anything about the man.

Oh but wait...there's something the state didn't think about...my father's older sister did NOT get adopted by their step-father, so her OBC is intact, never altered, and my n-grandfather's name is right there for anyone to see.

Bingo.

Now I just need to get to the vital records office one of these days to order a copy, which is another hurdle, as it is quite a distance. Pfffft.


But, just a tip that may help anyone who is doing family history research...if the family member you are researching yields a dead-end, try a sibling.

So I know that the man was Irish. And that on my mother's side, I am Austrian. There is also a fair amount of Norwegian and also some French mixed in. What a mix! I would really love to find out the names of the villages/towns/cities/or regions the families came from in these countries; to finally be able to have that connection to my real, true roots will be so grounding. I want to Google Earth them. I want to GO there, and walk the same streets. I want to try to imagine what these ancestors were like, what their lives were like & how they lived, loved, worked and played. They are my people, the people whose genes created the genes that created my genes.

Have I mentioned before how much I love history and the past? If someone ever invents a time machine, I'll be first in line to go.

Well, wish me luck, that I can unravel the mysteries of my own family history. With any luck, maybe in a year or two I'll be wandering the streets of a tiny Alpine village or taking in the green shores of Ireland, and reconnecting with who I really am.

It's about damn time too.

Step it up, mom

First I want to apologize to my readers.

I closed my blog temporarily because I was not blogging, and didn't want any ambush comments from freaky weirdos popping up while I was not around.

But, I am back for now, hopefully I will be able to get around to writing more.

But I want to talk about first mothers.

Specifically, reunion and first mothers.

There is some debate out there about who's responsible for what when it comes to keeping the relationship going; adoptees should be more considerate of their mothers, mothers should be more considerate of their children, it goes on and on. Both sides want the validation we seek and deserve.

But I want to talk about MY mother.

We reunited in 1996. I found her, well I paid the agency to find her, so I initiated the reunion. It went well at first, then into the first year she cut all contact with me.

Called me up and just like that, told me she didn't have time for me in her life.

So, being the good little respectful adoptee, I obliged, and let her ignore me for the next decade. For over ten years I put up with this bullshit. And that's what it is...it is BULLSHIT.

She was hiding, avoiding her feelings, avoiding her guilt, avoiding her shame. Avoiding ME so she didn't have to deal with it.

And where did that leave me...abandoned as an infant, abandoned again as an adult, while she played the victim? Now tell me, as an adoptee, how much of this do I really have to put up with? I think ten years is enough. And after a teeny tiny semi-re-reunion this year, she is back to ignoring me yet again.

Enough.

Sorry, mother, but I am tired of being left with the emotional fallout for your inability to deal with the adoption. This was YOUR doing. Did I walk out of your vagina as an infant and put MYSELF up for adoption? I don't think so.

Grow up and take some goddamn responsibility. You could start by apologizing, a simple, "I'm sorry adoption has hurt you so much" would be nice, even if you thought it was the right thing to do back then, it has hurt ME and your actions since reunion have hurt ME.

If I bump into someone with my grocery cart, even though I didn't intend to hurt them, I at least say, "Oops I'm sorry," why can't our mothers apologize to us for the pain they caused us by giving us away?

It's 2:40 p.m. and...

still no calls, emails, any sort of acknowledgment from my mother.

Well I guess I shouldn't have expected it, but, oh well.

Happy birthday to me.

Adoption Sucks and I am Afraid of My Own Mother

I spent the better part of Tuesday writing, deleting, and rewriting the same damn email to my mother.

All I really want is to see her; but do you think I can bring myself to ask for that?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Riiiiiiiigggggggght.

I am an adoptee who is afraid of her own mother. Is that not the most pathetic, moronic, idiotic thing you've read in the adoption-blog land? I think it probably has to be, for me, and I am a bit ashamed of myself for even writing it.

It is so hard for me to even send her a simple email to say, Hey Ma, what are you doing for the 4th? Are you going to be around? Can we maybe get together, do lunch, take the kids to the zoo?

For most normal people, this would be second nature, they wouldn't even put any thought into typing the words and hitting send (or picking up the phone and asking) but for me, this is an agonizing process, sometimes taking WEEKS to compose the words, figuring out how to not make them sound too needy, or demanding, or if I'm asking too much of her too soon.

I obsess over this and go through our past emails and figure out who emailed who last, and how long ago, because I don't want to do too much, I do not want to rush things this time around. I over-analyze and calculate and when all is set and ready and looking just-so, I delete it.

I am so full of self-doubt and fear that this relationship could crumble that I sit back and do nothing. I am frozen. I don't trust myself, I don't trust HER, I don't trust this relationship.

And really, why should I? She walked away from me not once, but twice. The very first birthday we had together, the original one, I was left all alone in a sterile hospital, crying for my mother.

The next birthday we had together 24 years later, she left me again, calling me on the phone to tell me she doesn't have time for me in her life.

She tells me she loves me, but I have a hard time believing it. I just don't buy it. I WANT to believe it, I WANT to feel those words and know that what she says is true, but some part of me just doubts it to my core.

I don't trust her, and I don't trust us.

Not yet.

And with birthday number 35 coming up, will the cycle continue?

I want to ask her if we can spend some time together on or around that day. But that scares me more than anything. Will she turn me down? Walk away from me again? I think just being turned down will be more painful than not doing anything and sitting here longing for her.

And, god, I am all grown up and still longing for my mother like a little kid.

How screwed up is that.

Adoption sucks, and I am afraid of my mother. Afraid of losing her, again, for the third time. Because if it happens again, there will be no more chances, of that I am sure.

I have a picture I keep on my computer here at work. Gran sent it to me,
about a year ago, it's a picture of her, her nephew, and her son. It was
one of the last pictures to be taken of my father before he died, and in it he
looked happy. Genuinely, positively, happy.

For a short while after his passing she sent me quite a few pictures. It's funny in a way, because before he died, I couldn't pry anything out of her about him...not a word, not a single photograph, not a peep. She was silent as a stone where he was concerned. I think in her grief, reaching out to me was a way to somehow connect with her lost son...I don't know. But if she only knew just how much of her boy was in his long lost daughter, she'd be amazed. It amazes me every time I find out more about him.

Your words to me just a whisper; your face is so unclear

I try to pay attention; your words just disappear

I don't really remember much about my father. The day we met, it's mostly all a blur to me now. I don't even remember the name of the place we were at. I remember the look on his face when we first walked in, I remember somehow ending up at a booth, I remember our hands being palm-to-palm and him remarking how much I look like my brother.

The rest? Like a videotape that has been erased, recorded over. I know he was unhappy. He was a man who's life held no joy; he had nothing and nobody. He was angry at my mother too. That was painfully obvious. Old resentments, old hurts, he still had plenty.

Cause it's always raining in my head;

forget all the things I should have
said

But it wasn't until after he passed away that winter that I really, truly got to know the man. As my Aunt stood up there and gave a truly wonderful memorial speech, I was amazed at just how much I am my father's daughter. From the little things he liked, to his dramatic personality, to his very snarky and blunt way of speaking, to his intolerance of stupid people and his hating being the center of attention and being around crowds of people. We both are cat lovers, he thought dogs are for idiots, I think my dog IS an idiot.

He was a very straight forward and no-b.s. individual. I am too...most of the time. Although I did inherit a very emotional streak from my mother, and a tendency to hide from my emotions, I will give her that. When it comes to my problems, I avoid, avoid, avoid.

Cause I can't take any more of this; I wanna come
apart

And dig myself a little hole inside your precious
heart

The whole point of this post?

I miss my father. I miss a man I never knew, never had a chance to know. I am mad at adoption, mad at death, mad at myself for never trying hard enough, never doing or saying the right things, just, never being GOOD enough.

My father drank himself to death. He was depressed, angry, and felt he had nothing left to live for. Could I have changed that? Could I have given him a reason to want to go on living? Possibly, I don't know, but could I have at least tried a little harder to be in his life?

Cause I talk to you like children, though I don't know how I
feel

But I know I'll do the right thing, if the right thing is
revealed

I could have. I SHOULD have. But I am a chicken, I am always afraid. I was afraid of him and afraid of my family. Afraid of looking like a fool, of being too pushy, of being to 'needy' or emotional or whatever. I doubted myself to the nth degree. And still I do, even with my mother. I am the biggest wuss you'll ever meet.

I'm so sorry, father, for not being there for you. I wish so much that I could have done something, anything, to let you know what you mean to me. Maybe you didn't know it but you were loved, you still are.

Just too bad it has to be by your inadequate daughter.

More Religious Adoption Spew

This individual (who is presumptuous enough to call herself the "Third Eve"...heresy, anyone?) stopped by Irish's blog and left a rather idiotic and completely rude comment the other day.

Of course, I had to check out HER blog to see just what place she was coming from, and just as I suspected, it was filled with bible quotes and pretty pictures of angelic children. Ahhhh, even the adoption agencies themselves would be jealous.

I mean, really. Going off on "real" mothers (hmm, inferiority complex much?) and whining about adoptees not, what, seeing the whole picture?

What is there to see?

That we were abandoned, given up to strangers, and that we have a very real, VALID, pain and anger for that?

I suppose she assumes that only "happy" adoptees are "balanced" and that us "angry" types need God, oh pity the poor unbalanced adoptee who is angry and in pain, don't we know that everyone feels pain from time to time? Pfffft.

You know I find it interesting that she starts her post off with

"a real mother will put her child’s life above her own. "

That's something that thousands of n-mothers do every day, giving up their children for adoption, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes they don't have much of a choice at all.

But she said it herself, these are the REAL mothers.

Not the ones who are waiting in the wings to snatch them up, and justify it with "God told me to".

I find it amusing that these people use scripture to try to validate themselves and their love for adoption.

Exodus 22:21-23 (New International Version)
22 "Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. 23 If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.

Yet thousands of "widows and orphans" are taken advantage of every day, in the name of adoption.

Jeremiah 49:11
Leave your orphans; I will protect their lives. Your widows too can trust in me."

Nope, don't see God telling you to snatch up children there.

# Deuteronomy 10:18
He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.

Hmmm...seems God wants us to HELP these poor unfortunates, not help ourselves TO them, as in this passage:

# Job 24:9
The fatherless child is snatched from the breast; the infant of the poor is seized for a debt.

Try to justify it all you want, but adoptin' fer da Lord is nothing but hypocritical.

If you TRULY want to be Christlike, you'd be helping families stay together, not ripping them apart.

But is it safe?

I love amusement parks.

I have since I was a kid. I remember going up to the local one here, it was an annual tradition with the church youth group, and my friend Stacy and I were completely inseparable and we'd hit every roller coaster and loopy ride we could hit in as short as time possible.

Of course we'd have to be really dumb teenagers and talk in this fake Australian accent the whole time, we were pretending to be foreign exchange students, oh we were a hit with the boys (because teenage boys are the most gullible of the species and who could resist two young blondes who were supposedly from Down Under, mate?) lol.

Yeah, those were the days. Free from our parents, running wild through the park, flirting with boys, and winding up sick to our stomachs from so much junk food and thrill rides.

Ahhh, youth. I'm so glad I am all growed up and beyond that.

Did you know that every year, there are hundreds of injuries at amusement parks and traveling fairs? Maybe you know someone, probably you don't, but I'm sure we've all at least heard of them.

The 4 year old kid who died at Disney; the girl who lost her feet on the Zipper.

Did you also know that while traveling fairs and amusement parks have regulated safety regulations, the stationary parks do not? Most don't have any, while some are left to provide their own safety checks. It is kind of scary, when you think about it.

Lately there has been more attention to this, some of the injured people have been bringing this to the public eye and trying to pass stricter safety regulations on these parks and the individual rides. And I would agree that that is a good thing.

Wouldn't you?

I would think that almost all of us would agree that when you go to an amusement park, you expect that the car won't come off the track or your limbs won't be severed. Our safety should be paramount, not an afterthought.

We wouldn't tell these injured people to shut up and just get over it, because they had a "bad experience", would we?

Yet that's what thousands of adoptees are told every single day, when we try to speak up about the pain that adoption has caused us in our lives.

Yet if something was hurting your child, or ANY child, wouldn't you think that people would want to do something about it? Why does society keep burying their collective heads in the sand when it comes to this issue? Is it because, unlike those injured by amusement park rides, our injuries are emotional, and not out there where everyone can see them?

It would stand to reason that if adoption is hurting the adopted, then something is wrong with the system. Something needs to be fixed, we need better safety controls, we need stricter regulation.

But nobody is listening, and the entire adoption amusement park is still operating, unregulated, hurting and injuring adoptee after adoptee as the giant ferris wheel keeps turning and turning, collecting child after child and dropping them off into the hands of waiting adopters.

Is "family building" really more important than the health of the building blocks themselves?

Forgiveness

Jeni brought up a very interesting topic the other day on AFC, and it's had me thinking long and hard about the subject ever since. Its' about forgiveness...and how, and should, we forgive our mothers for the pain they've caused us?

Now Jeni's situation is different from mine. Her mother rejected her in a really, really bad way upon reunion. So in Jeni's case, I'd say she has a really good cause to say, hey Ma, f-you and the horse's ass you rode in on. But at the same time, holding on to that anger is not a fun way to live, and I'm not speaking FOR Jeni here, I'm speaking for myself and any adoptee who has had a hard time letting go of their anger at being relinquished, being rejected a second time, or any variation or combination of events in between.

How do we do it?

How do we forgive someone for doing us SO wrong?

I guess I've always been a forgiving person, so for me, forgiveness came easy. But I see a lot of my online adoptee friends struggle with this issue, and I've really begun to take notice.

It was this statement by Katmandu that really got me thinking:

I don't really know what it is. Sometimes when ppl say to forgive, what they seem to mean is just get over it.

I mean, wow. What exactly IS forgiveness, really? What does it really mean? Is it as she said...to just get over it? Like we as adoptees have heard, over and over, our entire lives?

That gave me reason to pause.

When my mother called me on my birthday, a year into reunion, and told me she didn't have time for me in her life, I was hurt. Hurt, and in time I became angry. I couldn't accept that she would DO that to me. It was a horrible feeling...of having a mother I loved so much and wanted so desparately in my life yet I had no recourse, no possible way to resolve this. She was just gone and it was her choice, I was left to deal with these feelings of love, loss, longing, and unmet needs from my childhood, and it was like someone holding my head under the water and I could not draw breath. That is how it felt for a very, very long time.

How could I forgive her for doing this to me?

And what would that mean for me...would I just get over it? How does someone just get over that? CAN they?

I suppose for me, it was easier. I knew that she also loved me, and that her reasons were emotional ones. For adoptees like Jeni, the reasons are less clear. Her mother hasn't given her any reason to think that there is guilt or love on her end.

So I am struggling with this. What does it really mean to forgive. I think I take it for granted to know "how" to forgive, but what does it really entail? I couldn't begin to tell someone like Jeni how to do it, how to reach a place of forgiveness.

But I know that for me, personally, living with a lot of anger inside is like living with a dangerous toxin in my veins. I can't be myself, at least not a good version of me. I HAVE to forgive in order to protect who I am and those I love around me, or I become a very bad version of Lillie.

If it's not "getting over it", is it acceptance? Acceptance that the person who wronged us will not change, and that we can never do anything to change the situation? Is it saying, "Ok, you did this, and I'm not going to let it affect me anymore"?

But how do you NOT let it affect you when, for Jeni, it affects her SO much?

This is so hard.

Adoption is so hard.

I wish there were easy answers, I wish I could find the answer for her, and for so many adoptees in her situation.

Just how does an adoptee forgive?

She Was Stolen

Can you help this adoptee?

Please, take a few minutes to watch this youtube video, and then the second part which is also included on her site.

If anyone, ANYONE, has any information which might help her figure out who she is or where she came from, PLEASE help her.

I couldn't imagine a more horrible fate for any one of us adoptees than to be literally stolen from your family, your homeland, and given away into adoption with absolutely NO way to find out about your true identity.

If enough people see this, perhaps the right person will be able to help this girl.

Abolish Adoption?

There seems to be some kind of misunderstanding in the midst of the adoption reformers (or, "angry adoptees lol) and the rest of the world, those who love adoption and don’t see anything wrong with it at all look at the reformers and think we’d all like to see it go away completely, be abolished, leave no other alternative for those poor, unwanted, unloved, homeless, orphaned, abused, neglected children.

Obviously, adoption has to be an option; there will always be a need for loving and stable homes. Oh, there are some people who truly do feel that adoption should go away completely, and some days, I tend to sway in that direction, but in reality, I know there is always a need for it. It just needs some tweaking, the furniture needs to be rearranged, the place needs a renovation.

A recent question over on the barf-fest that is Yahoo! Answers really tickled my funny bone (and not in a delightful way) and got me to thinking…if this person thinks that the pro-reform group has it backwards, then, WOW, he/she should take a long, hard look in the gilded mirror. This person states,

“Why do some adoptees want to ban adoption? I mean are they so angry they cannot see that adoption can benefit many? Can they not see outside their own “pain” that not everyone in the adoption industry is evil, not every decision to relinquish was forced? Do they honestly believe the foster care system is preferable? Or are they being influenced by b mothers groups, whose recollections of events may be hazed by regret and guilt?”

I don’t know where to start with this one. I mean, idiots come in all shapes and sizes, and I’d say that judging by this post, this idiot must be quite well rounded.

So I’ll just start at the beginning: Why do some adoptees want to ban adoption? I mean are they so angry they cannot see that adoption can benefit many?

Yes, start with the “angry adoptee” stereotype, always effective. Good show. Clap, clap. And just who is adoption benefiting…lawyers? Adoption agencies? I won’t argue with you there, bud. Yes, I’m sure there are MORE than a few happy adoption workers, whistling all the way to the bank. Oh, and let’s not forget the adopters, yes, it works out well for them too, they get that shiny new baybee, all cute and warm and smelling like oozing green shit.

Can they not see outside their own “pain” that not everyone in the adoption industry is evil, not every decision to relinquish was forced?

No, I can’t see outside my own pain. Neither can my n-mother, but thanks for your caring and compassion, I see that you must be one of those non-evil types, I can feel the love oozing from your pores. I wish you had adopted me, not.

Do they honestly believe the foster care system is preferable?

Preferable to what…having my name changed, my birth certificate altered and the original one sealed and locked away from me? Having my records made unavailable to me? Having my entire genealogy, my medical history, my social background become a huge secret that is ILLEGAL for me to know? Because I guess yeah, I’d rather know than be treated like a criminal for wanting to know.

Do you have to have a piece of paper to PROVE you are a parent, or can you love a child without it?

Or are they being influenced by b mothers groups, whose recollections of events may be hazed by regret and guilt?

This is a funny one. Regret and guilt…GEE DO YA THINK MORON?? Pffffffft.

I don’t need anyone to influence me, btw. I am an adult who is fully capable of forming my own opinions and thoughts, thank you very much. But thanks for treating me like an incapable child, again, you must be one of those non-evil types, I can still feel the love. Mmmmm.

You know, I thought some more about this idiot’s ranting and the same logic could be applied to those silly angry mothers who formed that dumb little thing called MADD.

I mean, why do some angry mothers want to stop everyone from driving home from the bar after a night of drunken debauchery just because one or two of them might have lost one of their kids? Can’t these mothers not see beyond their own pain that not EVERY drunken person who drives home ends up killing somebody? Or are they being influenced by AA members, whose memories are hazed by too many tequila shots and guilt about getting a little too flirty with every man in the bar?

Yeah. Why spoil the fun for all the adopters just because a few adoptees are hurt by being adopted, right?

Because it’s ALLLLL about the children.

Sure.

Would you Spy?

If you could spy on an adoptee, would you?

If it was the child you adopted, or the child you gave up for adoption...would you read their most private thoughts and feelings?

If you stumbled upon their blog, or perhaps a message board where that individual had been posting about adoption issues, feelings surrounding an upcoming reunion, feelings of abandonment or fear of rejection...would you read their words if you figured out that it was YOUR child posting it?

This has happened recently on AFC, and although the posting was placed on an area that is public, I am nonetheless a little pissed about it. That this adoptee's nmother found her postings and read them, then used it as an excuse to back out of a reunion visit, is...well...just pathetic.

Pathetic and really, really maddening.

She was spying, and if what she was reading was not sitting well, she should have said something to her daughter instead of just staying hidden and lurking in the background like some voyeur, then pulling away after all was said and done.

To use an adoptee's words and feelings against her like that is just spiteful, it is mean, it is hurtful.

After all, how is an adoptee supposed to EVER work through these adoption related issues? Where was she to go, if not to the adult adoptees support forum, to speak to other adoptees who understand the adoption and reunion feelings? Obviously her own MOTHER is not being supportive; no, she's too busy playing spy games and acting like a victim herself.

Adoptees as a whole were the ones who had absolutely NO SAY in any of this adoption bullshit. NO SAY in being give away, in who they were sent to live with, in what their lives were to become. We are the ones who are FORCED to live with it, FORCED to swallow the pain and the guilt and the shame of being cast out of our own families and being the band-aid for another, of shouldering that pain at the expense of never "Hurting" our adoptive family, and then holding back and being ever so cautious so we don't hurt or intrude on our original family if we do decide to try to reunite.

FUCK!

We walk on goddamn eggshells EVERYWHERE we go, so we don't hurt ANYONE, and when does ANYONE, EVER, consider OUR goddamn feelings? Huh?? WHEN???

I'll tell you...

NEVER.

And this is a prime example. This adoptee was posting in an adoptee support forum, trying to be mindful of her n-family because she didn't want to bring things up to them and "hurt" anyone, she was just trying to work through her fears and anxieties, and look what happens. She gets spied on by her own mother and she slams the door shut in her face, all because, I don't know, I guess this adoptee was wrong to want to work through her own feelings.

Fuck that.

If you have an adopted person in your life, it's about time you start giving them space to explore their feelings. Don't pry, don't SPY, and for god's sake, don't play the guilting games.

I'm sorry for what happened on AFC...and shame on that sneaky, deceitful n-mother for doing what she did. Shame, shame, shame.

Grow up.

5-Year-Old with Aspergers Voted Out of Class

I'm asking everyone to please take a moment to read this post, even though it is not adoption related, because I feel that a very horrendous deed was carried out against this poor child. And the perpetrator of this cruelty...not other kids, but the CHILD'S OWN TEACHER.

How would you feel if your 5-year-old child was treated in such a way? What would you do...what would you expect the school system to do? I know what I would do, and that teacher would have to have my size 10 steel toed boot surgically removed from her anus...but please, read on:

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/may/23/st-lucie-teacher-has-class-vote-whether-5-year-old/

PORT ST. LUCIE — Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.

After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Barton's 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher said they were going to take a vote, Barton said.

By a 14 to 2 margin, the class voted him out of the class.

Barton said her son is in the process of being diagnosed with Aspberger's, a type of high-functioning autism. Alex began the testing process in February for an official diagnosis under the suggestion of Morningside Principal Marsha Cully.

Alex has had disciplinary issues because of his disabilities, Barton said. The school and district has met with Barton and her son to create an individual education plan, she said. His teacher, Wendy Portillo, has attended these meetings, she said.

Barton said after the vote, Alex's teacher asked him how he felt.

"He said, 'I feel sad,'" she said.

Alex left the classroom and spent the rest of the day in the nurse's office, she said.

Barton said when she came to pick up her son at the school on Wednesday, he was leaving the nurse's office.

"He was shaken up," she said. Barton said the nurse told her to talk with the child's teacher, who told her what happened.

Alex hasn't been back to school since then, and Barton said he won't be returning. He starts screaming when she brings him with her to drop off his sibling at school.

Thursday night, his mother heard him saying "I'm not special."

Barton said Alex is reliving the incident.

They said he was "disgusting" and "annoying," Barton said.

"He was incredibly upset," Barton said. "The only friend he has ever made in his life was forced to do this."

The child's mother filed a complaint with the school resource officer, who investigated the matter, said Port St. Lucie spokeswoman Michelle Steele said. But the state attorney's office concluded the matter did not meet the criteria for emotional child abuse, so no criminal charges will be filed, Steele said. Port St. Lucie Police is no longer investigating, but is documenting the complaint, she said.

Steele said the teacher confirmed the incident did occur.

St. Lucie School's spokeswoman Janice Karst said the district is investigating the incident, but could not make any further comment.

Vern Melvin, Department of Children and Families circuit administrator, confirmed the agency is investigating an allegation of abuse at Morningside, but said he could not elaborate.

Ok....just how in the HELL is this NOT abuse?? And why the FUCK is that teacher still teaching, and not fired, banned, never allowed within 500 feet of a child again?

This is horrid. And what's worse, are half of the comments to the article...it seems there are people out there who actually CONDONE this type of behavior. Of adults, of teachers, bullying and making a mockery of a FIVE YEAR OLD BOY with a disability that causes his behavioral problems.

And she KNEW it, yet she went ahead and did this anyway.

If you are as pissed off and livid as I am, please sign this petition below:

http://www.petitiononline.com/autism08/petition.html

You can also contact the St. Lucie school and Board members here:

Morningside Elementary School Principal: Mrs. Marcia Cully cullym@stlucie.k12.fl.us (772) 337-6730St.

Lucie County Schools Superintendent: Michael J. Lannon4204 Okeechobee Road Ft. Pierce 34947-5414 Phone: 772/429-3925 FAX: 772/429-3916 e-mail: lannonm@stlucie.k12.fl.us

St. Lucie County School Board Chair: Carol Hilson 772-519-0397 HilsonC@stlucie.k12.fl.us

Vice Chair:Judith Miller772-528-4545 MillerJ@stlucie.k12.fl.us

Tons of updated info and a great form letter to use http://autisticnation.typepad.com/thinking_in_metaphors/2008/05/wendy-portillos.html

Last but not least letters to little Alex supportalex@treasurecoast.com

Call, fax, write these people and tell them to FIRE that bitch NOW. And send little Alex an encouraging word.

I used to face bullying like that from kids at school, but NEVER, EVER, EVER was it our SHOULD it be instigated by the very TEACHER.

SICK AND DISGUSTING.

Right to Life...But Not to Live?

The argument that many, if not most, adoption supporters will use when stating their case is that every child has a "right to life". This usually follows on the heels of a staunch anti-abortion stance, in which these adoption lovers yammer on about these unborn babies and how they all deserve a chance to live, and adoption is the great win-win solution to ending their lives.

Even anti-abortion legislation gives the right to life of an unborn child, seemingly, greater weight than those rights of the already living...namely the woman carrying this forming being. Some anti-choice mongers would go so far as to even force a woman to carry to term if it means sacrificing her own health and well being, because the developing fetus within her carries MORE of a right to life than she herself, the fully-formed, already breathing, surviving, tax-paying human being.

But this isn't an argument about whether or not abortion should or shouldn't be legal. That's for another day.

No, this is about rights...and where the seem to stop being important.

Because I what I want to know is, where are all these staunch supporters of the rights of these unborn, these fetuses, these children, once the children are brought into the world? What happens to these children's rights once they ARE born and become (ahem) adoptees?

Seems like nobody is taking up the torch for their rights once they pass through the birth canal.

Because the right to LIVE is not nearly as important as the right to LIFE, is it?

Case in point: these people who would force a woman to bring a child into the world and give her baby to strangers are the very SAME people who would fight to PROHIBIT these children, once grown, from obtaining their original birth certificates, from reuniting with their biological families, from reconnecting with their roots.

People like KATHLEEN HOY FOLEY, who wrote this disgusting article for the Daily Record, posing as a "birthmother", (http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080525/OPINION03/805250317/1096/OPINION),

but it's interesting to note that she ALSO has her signature on an Ohio Right to Life advertisement. Seems she is quite the staunch supporter of the Right to Life and, interestingly, quite strongly anti-adoptee. http://www.columbusrighttolife.org/Signature%20Ad%202008/SigAd%20final%201.pdf

So which is it, Kathleen? Are you a New Jersey "birth" mother or an Ohio right-to-lifer? I'd like to know; I'm sure there are many others as well.

And you have your various religious and church groups who also are in the right to life camp, yet oppose the right to open records and, well, the right to LIVE for adoptees. So they support fetuses, but oppose the already born.

Funny.

So I wonder why that is...why on one hand, we have people so strongly pulling for "our" (as in, the "adoptee") right to life, and yet, once we are born and placed in our loving homes, we are no longer supported in our right to LIVE? To live our lives, the way WE see fit, to access OUR histories and records and roots, to be the people WE were born to be?

Can someone answer that for me? Why does the right to life stop as soon as life begins?

A Case for Adoption Reform

See my original post at http://antiadoption.wordpress.com/2008/05/26/a-case-for-adoption-reform/

I wrote this blog piece for Antiadoption, but I wanted to also highlight it here.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Straight from the horse’s mouth.

I’d like to thank Lori Tay, a somewhat recent commenter to Anti-Adoption, for her very honest and poignant comment. It took a lot of courage and guts for her to be so truthful about how infertile couples TRULY feel about adoption and the little adoptees they may someday choose to bring into their lives, and I think it’s this type of hard-hitting, brutal honesty that we all need to see exactly why adoption isn’t the great thing that it’s hyped up to be.

Thank you, Lori. Honestly.

For those of you who haven’t seen Lori’s comment, here it is, copied for you:

Anti-adoption advocates hate infertile couples in general, seeing us as the problem. What they fail to realize is that many, many infertile couples have NO desire at all to adopt. For us, adoption would only be a VERY LAST RESORT.

That’s right, birthmothers - your child would be a last resort for us, whether you like that or not. Your child is not the great prize you may think he is. What most of us want most is our own biological child!

Thank God for advances in reproductive medicine. IVF success rates are improving all the time. I predict in the future there will be a lot fewer people adopting or fostering children, because they will be able to have their own child.

What Lori said is so deep and profound, it makes one wonder why ANYONE would place an innocent child in the home of an infertile couple. Kind of dispels the myth of the “win-win” situation, doesn’t it?

But what Lori brings up here is a fact that far too many adoptees already know…that we really ARE second best, we ARE the last resort, that our adopters really would have rather had their own. Too many adoptees are growing up in homes where they are not treated well, are not loved, and are, well, to put it frankly, either physically or emotionally abused because their adopters chose the consolation prize…adoption.

Thanks Lori for bringing it to us straight from the infertile horse’s mouth. What so many adoptees have tried to say, and has fallen on deaf ears, might finally be heard from the infertile mouth itself.

DON’T stop telling your truth, please.

How in the world could any adoption agency or social worker in good conscience, ever place a child in the home of someone with this much anger and animosity toward that very child? But it happens, it happens every day, and who pays the price? That innocent baby. That second choice, that last resort, pays the price for not being the biological offspring that their adopters wanted SO badly.

And if we complain, if we want to know OUR biological family, oh boy, do we hear about it. Shut up and be grateful, don’t hurt your adopters, you know the drill. Can’t win either way.

So it’s attitudes like this that lurk just below the surface…hidden, festering, simmering, eating away, but only a few, like Lori, have the guts to be honest about it.

I wish more did.

Maybe then we’d stop ripping families apart just so that someone else could get their consolation prize, and what little consolation it turns out to be.

Canned Whine

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 5/21/08)

Do you ever spend time perusing through the tag surfer (those of you who blog on Wordpress)?

I type in "adoption" and I am most often sickened and disgusted by blog after blog of whiny, complaining posts by PAPs who are yammering on and on about paperwork and and red tape and *gasp* having to wait SO LONG to get that poor kid who they will no doubt drag home, amid a fury of flashing camera lights and strange faces hugging and kissing and strange people talking in a foreign language all the while this poor child is sitting there with this look of abject shock and horror.

It's just GROSS.

Whine, whine, whine. Me, me, me.

I want, I want, I want.

I have to wait sooooooooo lonnnnnnnnng! OMG!!!!

Yeah, you know what? FUCK you. You have to wait 100 days to fulfill your selfish little desire to yank a defenseless kid, a STRANGER'S CHILD, out of her homeland, her culture, her familiar surroundings and force her to assimilate into an entirely new and foreign world just to fulfill your pathetic wants? FUCK. OFF.

I had to wait TWENTY FOUR YEARS to fulfill my very REAL NEED to have my OWN, REAL, BIOLOGICAL MOTHER back into my life. I had to LOSE HER in order to become someone else's dream child. I had to lose not only her, but my father...my grandparents...my FULL brother, my half sister, my aunts, uncles, cousins...I had to LOSE all of it. ALL OF THEM.

Adoption is NOT this beautiful and wonderful thing. Adoption is NOT a dream come true, it is not some magical win-win-win situation where everyone comes away happy.

I LOST. My mother LOST.

In order for any child to become adotped, he or she must first LOSE a FAMILY. That child's parents must LOSE their CHILD. Where is the beauty in that? Where is that wonderful? I do not see it, one bit. And the land of McDonalds and XBox does NOT make up for losing everything, from your blood to the very essence of WHO YOU ARE.

Or these people that send off for their little "referral" and are sent a photograph and claim to be instantly "in love" with that child. In LOVE...with a PHOTOGRAPH. How completely and totally pathetic and demented.

Where else but in adoption do we think it's perfectly normal to "know" we love another human being...just by looking at a PICTURE??? JESUS CHRIST IN A VW HIPPIE VAN. Pass me some of that weed, because whatever you are smoking, it must be some pretty potent stuff to make you stay in that fantasy reality.

Here's a story for you:

I just KNEW when I was 13 that Corey Haim was destined for me, I could tell just by seeing his smiling face in my Teen Beat magazine. I KNEW that God meant for us to be together forever.

I'm still waiting.

ROTFLMAO.

Right.

Adoption is such a fucked-up institution, it makes my head spin.

Mom

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 5/14/08)

I have been meaning to write about this for a while now. Mother's Day has come and gone, and it always leaves me with a mixture of feelings.

May 10, 1997. That was the day my mom died. It was a Friday, 2 days before Mother's Day that year. I remember it well...the cancer had been making quite a steady progress at replacing the skin and tissue of her chest with hard, brown callousy tumor cells. She showed them to me one day, the were growing on the outside too, they were scabby looking. I was spending my nights in the day-bed that we set up in the small living room off the dining room, listening to Nick at Nite play on her television, waiting for the sound of that little bell she would ring if she needed me.

And it rang, too often it rang in those last couple of weeks. The morphine wasn't helping. She didn't know where she was. She wondered if she had died or if she was still alive. All through the night, between episodes of I Love Lucy and the Munsters, the bell would ring, and I would go to her.

And we would hug, and cry, we knew the end was near.

I spent my days doing much the same thing...although I also had my brother to look after, my recently blinded and brain damaged brother, the accident that took his vision and half his brain happened on May 9, 1996, one year before Mom died. Our Dad died in July, about a month after my brother came home, so it was just me, my blind brother, and my dying mother. I was taking care of all of us.

Not the easiest of tasks for a 23 year old, but I was glad to do it. I would do anything for my beautiful mom.

I didn't go to the cemetery after the funeral. I just couldn't do it. Everybody telling me how sorry they are, people I didn't know, didn't remember, or who I knew and had never heard jack shit from my entire life, yeah, they're sorry, well this was the second mom I had lost, and I just couldn't stand another second of it. Not one more second. But it wasn't really me they were sorry for, no, it was my brother. My poor, blind, brain-damaged brother, because everyone knew that HE wasn't adopted, HE was the one who lost his REAL mother, HE lost SO MUCH that day. Even to this day, people ask about poor M...he lost his mom and dad, how is he doing, yet they don't stop to think that I did too. The bastard adopted freak child lost something, too.

Because I did love my a-parents, I love them still. I am sitting here typing this in the very room where my amom drew her last breath. Outside my picture window is where my adad's heart stopped beating on that sunny Thursday in July. This is where I grew up, this is home, this is where my memories lie.

Yet part of me sometimes feels like a big, fat, adoptee traitor. And I know that's silly...but sometimes when I'm out there, fighting the fight, blogging and message-boarding about adoptee rights and about adoption pain, I feel like a traitor in two senses...one, a traitor to my a-parents, and the other, a traitor to the adoptees.

I have learned to separate my loathing for adoption from my love for my adoptive family. I know that it is the separation from my family, and not them, that has caused my pain...and it is my struggles with reunion and my n-mom's issues that cause me pain, not them or anything they ever did.

But on the same note, I feel that I should somehow not love my adoptive family if I am to be any sort of champion for adoptee rights. That having this "good" adoptive family, and these fond memories, somehow makes me traitorous or not worthy to take up the torch for my fellow adoptees. I feel like a poser, like I don't measure up, like I don't belong here.

And I don't know how to tell my n-mom anything about my a-parents without feeling like I am hurting her or making her feel bad in any way...because truth be told, as much as I love my adoptive family, I just would rather have never been adopted. But how could I ever say that without hurting THEM?

This shit is so hard.

So, so incredibly hard. And it makes me feel like an asshole no matter which way I look at it.

Maybe life would be easier if I were back in the fog.

Happy Adoptees

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 4/12/08)

How many times have you heard it?

"Well, my best friend's cousin's hairdresser is adopted, and she's perfectly happy about it!"

"I have had a great adoption experience...both my brothers were adopted!!"

"I have a couple of dear friends who were adopted, and both of them are so happy and well adjusted!"

They are everywhere, everybody knows at least one. The happy, well-adjusted adoptee. Your best friend, the hairdresser in the salon, the clerk in the grocery store. Always happy, never a complaint, they are the epitomy of well-adjustedness.

Just the other day, someone was telling me that every adoptee she knows (except for one, because he had a "bad experiece" with adoptive parents who lied to him so he doesn't count) is happy, well-adjusted and thankful.

But I wonder...for every person who has a story like this to tell, I have to wonder just whether or not these people have ever actually asked the adopted person how they actually feel. You know, sat down, had a heart-to-heart, gotten into those deep, dark recesses of the adoptee's soul where the adoptee ISN'T afraid of or tired of hearing "Oh but you had such GREAT ADOPTIVE PARENTS" or "BUT YOU COULD HAVE BEEN ABORTED!!" or "HOW COULD YOU HURT YOUR ADOPTIVE PARENTS LIKE THAT???" if they ever dare to speak a hint of their true feelings.

Ever done that? Have you ever even asked the adopted person how they feel?

Have you ever used those lines on them? You know, the be grateful, coulda been aborted, don't upset the AP's? Yeah? Hmpf, then don't expect to think that what you ever hear from the adoptee to be the truth.

I think that every single person that I know would probably tell you that I am happy and thankful to be adopted. Without a doubt in their mind, oh yeah, I'm one of those happy adoptees. I had super-terrific adoptive parents, a great upbringing, everything a kid could want.

But nobody has ever asked for the truth, and even if they did, I have no reason to give it.

Because how can you tell someone who doesn't know or understand, how it feels to know that your own mother gave you away? How can you explain that soul-crushing pain to an "outsider"?

Simple, you can't.

Happy that I was given away, my name was changed, my records sealed, and I am treated like a crime suspect for asking for them? Grateful because I can't even access a copy of my own birth certificate, grateful that I can never know if cancer runs in my family, or who my ancestors were, or where my screwy curly hair comes from or find out why I get debilitating migraines?

No, I am not grateful, nor am I happy.

But, I'll never tell you that. I'll just smile, and nod, and play the game, because that's what you want to hear, that's what makes you feel warm and cozy.

I met my mother, 11 years ago I met her. Is she happy with the "choices" she made? Hmpf, if she HAD a choice, but you know, back in the 70's and the decades prior, women didn't HAVE a CHOICE. Their babies were taken from them, stolen, coerced. Women were lied to, deceived, tricked, even downright bullied and forced into giving their babies away. They didn't have a "choice". My mother didn't have a "choice".

It destroyed her, and her ability to face me after our reunion, 11 years later and she is finally able to let go of the guilt, and we are starting to rebuilt what we started in 1996.

Adoption destroyed me. I do not trust anyone, I think everyone is going to leave me, because if my own mother didn't keep me, then why would anyone else? I do not trust anyone. I do not have friends, because I do not trust people. I am the victim, because I bend over backwards to please everyone, because I fear abandonment. I am a doormat.

But I will never tell you this, because you don't want to hear it, you only want to hear that adoption is great, and wonderful, and rainbows and happiness and win-win-win.

But it is loss.

I lost, my mother lost. And in a way, my adoptive parents lost. Because they didn't get that grateful, as-if born to daughter they were promised; they got a damaged kid with someone else's DNA, a kid who didn't look or act or sound like them, a kid who was exactly the opposite of everything they were, a kid who exasperated them and confused them and annoyed and exhausted them. They didn't understand why I wasn't what they expected. I didn't understand why I couldn't be what they wanted, and I hated myself for it. I loathed myself for it. I decided that's why my mother didn't keep me, because I am defective...I am bad, I am unworthy, I am a big worthless piece of shit. I didn't fit in, anywhere.

I cried myself to sleep so many nights, I couldn't begin to count. I yearned for the mother I never knew. I waited for her on my roof, every car that came down our road, I hoped and prayed it was her, coming to get me. I missed the woman I had never know, I wanted her so badly.

I tried to kill myself multiple times.

But you never would have known it, I hid my pain in humor, I covered my tears with laughter.

I was a "happy" adoptee.

How may happy adoptees do you know?

The Definition of Family?

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 4/5/08)

I was reading a very nice blog post today by an adoptive father about the definition of family. This gentleman was going on to explain how he had grown up with quite an extensive clan - he had a huge family and so felt he very well understood what a family meant.

Good for him; having grown up in a very small family, I always felt a little wistful about those who had big, close, loving families.

But at the same time, he went on to say that a family isn't only made up of blood. And I can agree with him - to a point.

Because for someone who grew up with a big, huge, loving family of blood relatives, how can he possibly know or understand how it is for the adoptee who has to grow up and not be related to anyone?

I wonder where his little adoptee's family comes in to any of this. Are they a part of his "family"? Does he even consider them, the people who created "his" child, the people who share a very close connection to this little adoptee?

No, family may not be only blood, but blood is definitely a major factor in determining who IS your family.

I grew up without my "family" and I missed them, terribly, every single day of my life. I yearned for them, longed for them, cried for them. Even though I had my adoptive "family", and YES I love my adoptive family, when you don't have people around you who look like you, who act like you, who ARE made up of the same stuff that you are made up of, you just, well - you feel it. It's a feeling deep within your bones that you can never really shake. Even if the family who is raising you is the best, most loving group of people you could ever have the pleasure of loving and living with, sometimes love just isn't enough.

Families are not interchangeable.

I'm sure that this man's little adoptee will grow up in a very loving household, with a huge extended adoptive family to dote on him and care for him. But I hope they realize that that little adoptee has lost something - his original family, the family he was born to, a whole group of people who share his talents, his interests, his eye color and nose and hair and same big toe. Perhaps this little adoptee will miss them too...and if he does, I hope they are sensitive to that.

And, I'm happy that this man grew up with his big, happy, blood-related family.

I just wish that I had had the same opportunity to be raised with mine.

What Adoption has Given Me - And What Adoption has Left Me With

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 4/5/08)

Adoption has given me a name. It is not really my name, the name I was born with, but it is the name I grew up with and that everyone knows me by and with which I am most accustomed. Adoption has given me a family - a borrowed family, who, for a brief moment in time, were here with me to love and guide me, to raise and teach me, to help turn me into the person I am today. They were not really ever mine; and to prove that point, fate or destiny or whatever forces there are decided to take them from me in one quick motion to drive that point home (see my "hell" category).

Adoption gave me my home. I live here, in this place where I grew up, not where I was born but where I was taken to, this little acreage outside of this little town in this farming region. Adoption gave me the people I know and the experience I had, which include growing up around those who love to garden and teaching me to have that same passion.

Adoption gave me the life I am living. It may not be a better life, it may not be a worse life, it is just a life. A different life. Because I am happy is not because of adoption, it is in spite of it. I do not have my DH and kids because of adoption, because I can't say that I never would have met him had I not been adopted; who knows? Would he have ended up in my city? Would I have moved down here eventually? If we were meant for one another, it would have happened.

But what has adoption left me with? Adoption has left me with pain...lots and lots of pain. It has left me with the knowledge that I will never, ever have the family I was born to be with. It has left me without a name, the name I was born to have, the person I was meant to be. Adoption has left me without my family - the family I was taken from and the family I was taken by, because in true adoptee fashion, everybody abandons me. By death or by adoption, I am alone.

Adoption has left me with an empty heart. A heart that doesn't know how to let people in, because it is too broken and scared of being left once again. Adoption has left me without my mother, or my father, or my siblings or grandparents or aunts and uncles...I have never had anyone around me who looks like me, or acts like me, or shares the same talents and abilities as me. Until I had my children, I've never been related to anyone.

Adoption has left me all alone.

Adoption has left me with a feeling of emptiness - a hollowness within my core that can never, ever be filled, even after reunion. Because nothing can replace the years that were lost, the years spent wondering and searching, longing for a ghost figure, dreaming and hoping, crying and agonizing.
Adoption has left me with scars.

Internal scars, the scars of a child who wondered every day why her mommy didn't love her, what was so bad about her that her own mommy would give her away. A little girl who wondered every day if her own mother loved her. Who does that? Who actually has to guess if their own parents even think about them? I'll tell you - adoptees. Because living with the knowledge that the woman who brought you into this world, the ONE PERSON who should love you unconditionally, would just give you away? It is traumatic beyond belief. No amount of love from somebody else can take that away. Nobody can soothe that hurt, nobody can make that better.

So, adoption has given me everything - everything I have. But it has left me with nothing, because nothing can make up for or replace what it has taken away.

And a Chorus of Angels were Singing

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 4/1/08)

Or some shit like that.

Yay for my wonderful, sweet, adorable friend Heather! Another successful reunion just happened this night, Heather called her mother for the first time, and let's just say her mother was quite thrilled to hear from her baby daughter.

I love these stories.

LOVE THEM.

Two more people, fucked over by the horror show that is adoption, finally can begin to heal and put their shattered lives back together. Too bad for Heather that she has been treated so poorly by the state of New York all these years and this could have happend YEARS earlier. Think of all the wasted years when New York was telling Heather that her birth was "none of her business".

Fuckers.

But, YAY!!!!!!!!!!! Heather and her mom, together again, as they rightfully should be. I think I hear angels singing.

Or maybe my stomach is growling... ;) Ha.

Love ya, H! Congratulations, sweetie! You deserve this SO MUCH!!

Hiding

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 3/31/08)

I've really been out of it lately. Sorry, everyone, I feel kinda like I've been letting you down...my wonderful friends at AFC, my arch enemies at Yahoo Answers, my readers here at my sporadic blog. But, I've been hiding. Avoiding, lying low, staying out of the adoption world as it is. I'm not sure why...maybe things have gotten to be a bit much, maybe I'm just kind of tired of all the drama...maybe, part of me is a lot like my mother in a way.

I've been reflecting a lot on our meeting last week. She emailed me right away the next day to tell me a few things, mostly that she realizes we need to get to know each other and that she wants to talk more about the adoption. My Gran had said something about regretting the mistakes we have made and I think my mother took it as the adoption itself was a mistake...I don't know, but she went on in her email to say that she thought, at the time, that she was doing the best thing. I got that classic line, they gave me away because they loved me so much...yadda yadda.

To be honest, it just pissed me off.

I want to email her back and tell her that yes, it was a mistake, it was the biggest mistake she or any person could ever make, but this is not something I want to say in an email. I think I am finally realizing that I DO harbor some anger for being given away. Fuck, I have been in the fog...who knew! Probably a lot of you, why didn't you bitch-slap me into reality??

I've agonized over her for so long, and now that I finally have her back in my life, I'm not sure what I really want from her. I just feel kind of numb to the whole thing. Isn't that weird? I thought I'd be more emotional than this...but really, I kind of feel like I could take her or leaver her. I've put so many years of yearning and crying for her, that I think I am emotioally spent. And when I finally get my chance to truly lay it on the line, I turn into my classic self...chicken shit, people pleaser, miss nicey-nice-can't-say-anything-mean. Fuck it.

I am such a loser.

I don't even deserve this reunion.

Do I tell her the truth...that I fucking hate adoption and that I have never, ever appreciated being given away? Or do I pacify her and spare her feelings (like usual) and say yeah, I understand, you did what you thought you had to do, bla bla bla? How do you tell someone, you fucked up royally and I paid the ultimate price for your screw up?

I just don't know. I don't think I could ever do that.

Adoption is just screwed up. It's just a fucked up, sick, disgusting institution.

My Dinner with Mom

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 3/28/08)

So, I saw here Wednesday night for the first time in over ten years.

We went out for dinner, along with my Gran, and I spent most of the evening just taking it all in and listening to them talk. They spoke a lot about my father (Gran, as you may or may not know, is his mother) and about his circumstances before he died.

She was not surprised that my one meeting with him went well...of course she knew him in ways that my Gran and aunts did not, but she thought that all of his anger and hesitance in the beginning was more out of fear and nervousness. But it was a sad night to hear about the end of his life, how he had not wanted to be alive any more, and about all the ways he was literally trying to kill himself. Well, he succeeded, he was very sad and depressed, I hope he's in a happier place.

But seeing her again...wow. She hasn't changed much, but seems a lot more grounded than she was in 1996. I can tell she's grown. She is just very sweet and kind. She wants to start a new tradition for us all to take a week or weekend vacation together, up north by one of the lakes, get all the families together. And we are going to see each other again, probably next month. She still has to meet her grandchildren.

I am just kind of numb, really. I've been so cautious with her this time in case she pulls away again...keeping myself from getting too excited or from expecting anything from her. A huge part of me doesn't trust her, that she won't do that to me again, but I am slowly starting to allow myself to believe that she is genuine about our reunion this time. It's hard to feel secure; I am so afraid of being abandoned yet again. Is this just the adoptee in me, or what? I don't know. But, I am cautiously hopeful that this time is the real thing.

But, I saw her again! Yay!!!! I guess that in itself is pretty huge, for both of us. Keep your fingers crossed that this is a sign of things to come!

Fun with Photoshop

So, I've been messing around with Photoshop today, and I'll admit I'm no pro at it, but what a fun way to spend a day off when it's 4 degrees outside (that's Fahrenheit, folks) and I'm feeling a little snarky?

Who better to make fun of than some of our biggest enemies in the fight for adoptee rights, huh?

Mr. Tom Atwood, of the evil organization NCFA, and Ann Cavoukian, the bitch that kept Ontario's adoptee access to their OBC's denied. Fucking twunt.

Ah well, the war isn't over. And I have Photoshop. Let the battles begin.

This is my first attempt, a fine rendering of Tom Atwood, dressed in McDonalds attire and serving up a heap 'o Lies with that McBullshit:



Can we say, McDork? ROTFLMAO Asshole.

Next is one of my favorites, my friend M suggested I add ol' tunaface Ann into the fun, so here is my first work:



Twist a little harder, guys, like you are twisting out the hearts of millions of adoptees! Fuckers.

Next is just a stupid one, but I think it speaks volumes:



Does more need to be said?

And finally, what I think is my favorite, I hope you agree:



Arschloch.

A Message of Hope

(Originally posted on Wordpress on 12/13/07)


In these uncertain times, especially the Holidays...yuck...the Holidays.

It can be hard, especially on us adoptees, whether in reunion or not, this can be an extra triggering time of year. When it should be all about family and love and being together, we are sorely reminded of all that we lost, all that was taken from us, all that we are missing out on, all that we can never get back.

Heck, even if you're not an adoptee (or first parent) and you happen to stumble on this blog, I know the Holidays can be hard for a lot of people, so I just wanted to share this message of Hope to everyone out there.

Because, truly, we now know that salvation does lie at the end of the rainbow.

;)

Dear Mom

(Originally posted on Wordpress on 12/3/07)

You say you feel guilt. You're afraid to let me get to know you. Well I have some feelings too, feelings I have been putting on hold and shoving down deep because I want to try to help you, but you know I just can't do this any more.
I am hurting. I have been hurt my entire life. Do you know how it feels, to have your own mother leave you and walk away? You left me, you gave me away and you left me, not once, but twice, you turned your back on me, your own daughter, you just left me all alone. Adoption is not wonderful. Adoption is not the loving choice. It is the most horrible, painful, lonely experience anyone can ever inflict on a child, separating her from her mother like that, leaving her bewildered and cold, then expecting her to be grateful for it. You know I have missed you every single day of my life. I have thought about you every single day of my life. I have wondered about you, wondered if you think of me, wondered if you care, if you are somewhere out there, if you love me too. I hate this, I hate it, and the worst part of it is, even reunion couldn't bring any healing, I guess adoption just damages all of us too much. Maybe it would have been better if I had never been born.

I didn't ask for this, any of it. I didn't have a choice, as a baby, you, M, everyone else made the decision for me, you chose this life for me, nobody thought that just maybe I didn't want to lose my mother, my family, who I was meant to be. I never would have chosen this, EVER. I don't care if we would have lived in a cardboard box under a bridge, I never wanted this. I lost you, I lost everything, I was a fish out of water my entire life, unable to breathe, a square peg without any hole, filled with the most incredible pain imaginable because my own mother didn't want me, she gave me away to strangers.

To STRANGERS.

And my whole life, even now, my birth has been cloaked in secrecy, it's just one big shameful secret, I am a walking, shameful abomination who's past must be kept a secret, I don't have a right to possess anything that belongs to me concerning the day of my own birth, oh good heavens no. I was special and chosen and a gift yet they need to protect you from me, I might stalk and harrass and murder, I have the potential to cause great harm. I am suspect. The mixed messages in adoption are crazy making, one day we are blessings, the next we are freaks, every day we are sub-human, nobody gives a rat's ass unless there's a buck to be made.

And I STILL choose none of it, except to try to build something with you, but you continue to play this game of hide-and-seek, you just keep leaving me. And it's killing me.

All I ever wanted, even when I was that 4 pound newborn, was you; I just want my MOTHER. I don't care who you are or what you've done, I just need my mother to finally, finally take her baby daughter in her arms and tell her, mommy's going to make everything all right. She's still in here, that 4 pound newborn, she's still inside me, looking for you, wondering where you went, she still needs you so much, she's still waiting for you to come back for her.

Maybe it's too late for you to raise me. Maybe it's too late to change my diapers and fix my boo boo's and to watch me grow up.

But it's not too late for you to love me.

Why is Biology Important?

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 11/21/07)

Biology is not important. Love conquers all.

I've been hearing this so much lately that I just want to run from the room screaming whenever someone utters these tired, overused phrases.

Just why is biology important? Well, perhaps for someone who hasn't had to go without it, that question might seem hard to comprehend. Perhaps to that woman who can so casually dismiss the importance of having that familial connectedness with someone, anyone, whether they be of good or bad quality, this is something of little consequence. But for those of us who have lived our entire lives without it, it can be a big deal.

Adoptees are expected to occupy a specified place. It is a precarious place; we fill the hopes and dreams of our adopters and make their lives complete. We are often that last great hope, or that miracle gift, or that poor unwanted/unfortunate foundling who was saved and taken in by this gracious family. We have an obligation to fill. We are responsible for keeping our aparents' happiness intact, for bringing that joy into their lives, for completing their happy family. We have a big role, huge pressure to perform. We must excel, be the perfect child, get good grades, make our aparents proud. If we don't succeed, of course it is the fault of our DNA, it is bad "blood", biology rearing its ugly head. But if we're good? Oh, blessed be the aparents and their wonderful parenting, they did such a good job taking in this poor little waif and creating such a magnificent work.

Because heaven forbid anything good come from the adoptee herself, or that any "good" DNA exist in her cells.

But it's a funny thing, that biology, because even through all that loving and doting, all that showering with affection and worshipping at the altar of the adoptee, some of us still commit the ultimate sin of The Search.

Horrifying, isn't it?

I know.

So why is it that adoptees perform The Search, anyway? Why is it that Love Isn't Enough? Is it some sort of genetic defect, brought about by our n-mother's probable history of drug and alcohol abuse? Is it our "fantasy" of some mythical, goddess-like woman who will welcome us back home with open arms and make all our hurts go away? Or is it based on something more in reality?

I tend to think it's more reality-based.

Have you ever watched the television show Lost? I love it; I'm a Lost junkie. So for those of you who have seen it, just imagine, if you will, that you were on that Oceanic flight. You are one of the survivors, lost on some unknown island, you have no idea where you are and you have no way to get off that island to get home. Let's pretend a little further that the Others grabbed you, gave you a new name, refused to let you return, made you live with them as one of "their family", wouldn't let you have access to any part of who you used to be (even though they seem to have the capability to know everything about you and your life prior to the crash) (hmm...seems a lot like real life and sealed records!!). You are basically a prisoner, yet they profess to love you.

Oh sure, after some time, you'd probably get used to this, you may even grow to love your new "family", but a part of you would always long to go back home, wouldn't it? I mean, I know this is a stretch of the imagination but just play along with me here. If you were in that situation, where you were stuck with these people and knew you couldn't ever return home, you'd probably grow quite attached and even grow to love them as a family...but you'd never stop loving your "real" family back "home" and you'd never stop longing for them. There would always be a part of you that wanted to go back and see your mother, your father, your uncles or cousins or whoever it is that was back in "civilization" where you came from.

If you can indulge me this, and really try to put yourself in there, then perhaps, just maybe, you can understand the importance of "biology" for an adoptee.