Wednesday, January 26, 2011

"it bites"

that's how being adopted feels to me.  i don't like it.  it sucks.

i wish my mother was just my mother.  i wish my brothers were just my brothers.  i wish my father had just been my father. 

instead, the way it works with being adopted is that you wonder all the time when you're going to pull something that jacks it all up and you're gonna get 'sent back'.

it's NOTHING your parents put in your head (hopefully).  it's just in you.  it's natural. 

let's look at it this way:  your own creator abandoned you.  why the hell would it be any harder for someone not even related to abandon you?

there isn't anything your parents can do to fix it.  your brothers can't fix it.  your new grandparents can't fix it.  the community you become ingrained in can't fix it.  neither can church, girl scouts, neighbors, cousins, family pets.  nothing will ever fix what has been done: initial abandonment and the aftermath.

i have a new friend i really like a lot, and she's an AP.  she asked me in so many words last night, "is this feeling 'everyday', or does it come and go?" 

i told her that it's really always there, but i can get through a day without it shutting me down, but God forbid someone mentions the "A" word.  i lose my mind.  especially on the inside.  i can get pretty vocal about it when challenged, but i've gotten to the point where i prefer to think first, then decide what battles to pick.  some aren't worth my breath.

but the answer is a definite YES.  nearly every adoptee i have the pleasure of knowing feels quite the same, although there are slight tweaks here and there.

it's painful.  it's primal.  no, it doesn't go away.

why would it?  why should it?  if you lost a parent to cancer, do you just get over it?  if you have a stillborn child, do you forget?  if you watched your sister die of parkinsons do you just move on?  no. 

neither do adoptees.  we lost.  and no, we don't forget.

8 comments:

  1. It is infernal. I agree, it might not be always at the front of my mind, but it's always there. We don't forget.

    I love you.

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  2. I can relate to this completely.

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  3. So true jeni, so true. And the weirdest, seemingly insignificant things can trigger it and leave me in a ball of tears.

    Love you sweet girl, my sister, my tribe-mate, my friend.xxx

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  4. I came to you through Myst, whose insight I treasure, by the way. I'm an AP, and not surprisingly some of what you write is very difficult for me to read. It is not at all difficult to believe or accept, and that's exactly why it's difficult to read. But read it I must, and I want to, and I will, because I love both of my children too much to EVER presume that I know what it's like for them to have been adopted.

    They are quite too young, so I can't ask some things of them. I hope you don't mind that I'm asking you in hopes of gaining insight for myself to be a better mom for my kids.

    Many adoptees refer to their "abandonment"... as you did in your post "your own creator abandoned you..." We all know that too many times adoption is NOT the result of genuine abandonment, but of coercion and abuse of pregnant women and natural mothers, and other times it is simply the best option for whatever reason. Does it still feel like abandonment to you?

    I'm asking because I've never had the perspective that my children's first mothers abandoned them - both mothers came to adoption after exhausting other possible solutions and parenting resources. I know the decision was painful for both of them, and I also know that each of them searched carefully for the people she would entrust with her child. Both maintain some degree of contact and remain very present in our intertwined lives.

    You and I don't know each other, so I want to explain that I'm not questioning your feelings of abandonment - feelings do what they do - but are those feelings tempered at all by the specifics of your adoption? Does it help at all to know that your first mother didn't think she was abandoning you? Leaving, yes, but abandoning, no.

    I don't know. That's why I'm asking. Thank you.

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  5. I gave my baby boy away at 16. I thought adoptive parents were better than me, and never knew the terrible repercussions my decision would bring.I know my son is in pain. It's my fault! It didn't have to be this way. I'll spend the rest of my life trying to connect with him, and hoping for true forgiveness.

    It is a primal connection, I never realized existed.I felt it the instant we spoke with each other.I love him with all my soul.

    I'm so sorry for your pain.

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  6. It feels like abandonement to me.... and woe to the person who tries to convince me it wasn't. Give me a break. This has nothing to do with intentions...it's how it can feel to US. Those who actually had to be placed for adoption and then adoption.

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  7. Being an nmom, I relinquished my rights as a parent at 18. It was my decision and I really did exhaust all options, this was in 1979, so it was a closed adoption. I for years, walked around in a self-medicated haze, in such a bad state for what I had done, I just could not face myself. I did hold my daughter, I remember what she looked like and what she smelled like. I did not name her because I was discouraged by the social workers not to to this because it would be too hard on me and I would get too attached to my daughter. Fuck, I am already attached to my daughter, you clueless bitch. Needless to sy my life has been just one big disaster, crappy relationships and my career is not that great either. I am gay and have no other childred. I found out two months ago that my daughter died of a drug overdose 5 years ago. I just started my search in August of 2010 after many years of healing, counseling and forgiveness.

    I will never have the opportunity to laugh or hug my daughter, this was just one of the things that I wanted to do with her. I foundout from her amom that she wanted a relationship with me, but was deathly afraid, so was I, it truly sucks, I never forgot about my daughter and have always cared, maybe this is why my life was so totally fucked up fo so long.

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