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.