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.