I want to share a little about my recovery journey. As you already know my blog and writing are all a part of healing for me. I made a vow to blog more in 2014. I really find this is a safe place, and I can get my feelings out and no one can interrupt me or tell me how to feel. Why didn’t I discover this earlier? I might not have had so many emotions and feelings built up and they came out in other ways like anger, resentments, and rage, confusion, low self-esteem, etc.
I always say I’m in recovery from LIFE. What this means is that all life’s experiences have made me into the person I am today. I will say all the way back to being in my birth mother’s womb and being given away to strangers after I was 4 days old. This is part of me, it’s my history. I want to write about it because it’s mine to write. It’s the truth. I heard an adoptive mom say recently “You should never say “Given UP”; you should say “Given a Better Life”. This frustrated me a bit, because you can’t tell people what they should or shouldn’t say. What I say is based on what I feel and what I feel is based on my experience. Who is to say I had a “BETTER LIFE” anyway? I believe that’s the stereotypical statement that most people are lead to believe. That’s what the adoption industry want’s you to believe. “ADOPTION IS BETTER”. I have news for you, many adoptive families are FULL of dysfunction and have homes that aren’t fit for anyone to live in, let alone a child that has been paid for at a very hefty price. A price that’s based on LOSS all the way across the board. I have always felt like I was abandoned at birth, because I was. My birth mother gave birth to me, and left the hospital and left me there. I was placed 4 days later by strangers. People I didn’t know. This is abandonment. Whatever her intentions were she still gave up every right to parent me, and gave me away. I don’t care what anyone says, this is abandonment. This is where it all started for me.
GOD MADE YOU SO YOU COULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
It’s been proven that adopted kids separated from their mothers for any reason or kids separated from their birth mothers at the beginning of life endure a trauma. When a trauma occurs and it’s not grieved or tended too in the proper way, it will come at other stages of life. To ignore the trauma only adds pain to that trauma. When a child is adopted or separated from their mother the beginning of life this needs proper grieving at the right age so the adoptee or child can heal in the proper way. This might seem foreign to some people. But take it from an adoptee that turned to drugs, alcohol, sex and violence, anger and rage 27 years of my 39 years of life. I have been living in VICTORY for almost 17 months. I’ve been in recovery from abandonment & rejection issues for 17 months. I’ve been sober for 17 months and during this time, I have been able to uncover what has been covered my whole life. That’s its okay to grieve the loss of my first family. Its okay to cry about the family I never grew up with. It’s okay to grieve the fact that my birth mother didn’t want to parent me. It’s okay at 39 years old to feel abandoned and rejected by the two people who should love me the most, my birth parents. It’s okay to feel the way I do and not have anyone else tell me how I should feel. Do I feel like an idiot sometimes grieving something some people don’t even comprehend? Sometimes, but unless you have been left at the hospital by the woman that gave you life you will never understand how we, the adoptees feel. It’s been the biggest heartache of my entire life.
What do I think can be changed for future adoptees and those who have been adopted at the present time? I think that allowing the adopted child, or child who has been separated from his or her mother to grieve and encouraging them to grieve is a great way to start. This can’t be done by living in the “Fog” about what is really going on. Adoptive parents need to come out of the fog, and accept the truth about their adoptive child. As hard as it may be, read what adult adoptees are writing. Learn from them. We aren’t sharing our experiences for them to be kept in silence. Ask questions, and have an open mind. At 39 I’m grieving the biggest loss of my life, and that’s my first family. Until you grieve that loss it will always be an open wound deep down and it will never heal until grieving that loss takes place. Healing is possible but it will never happen by denying the issue is there.
In my recovery journey and giving up all substances and giving my life to God, I have learned that it’s not an easy journey. But I didn’t want to keep living with the pain from my past any longer. I feel all adoptees need to grieve their losses in order to live a healthy productive life. For some adoptees, they don’t feel they have any adoptee issues. That’s wonderful but certain things in life can trigger these issues, and they may very well come out at some point. My adoption issues have had an impact on every aspect of my life. The way I raise my kids, my relationships, bonding with people, letting people close to me, my work, my self-esteem, my happiness, and the list could go on and on.
I believe that God uses our pain for his gain. We each have a journey and we are called to share our experiences with the world. We have to share our struggles so they can help someone else heal. That’s what my blog is about. Maybe that’s what my journey is all about?
Healing is possible, but denying the problem or issue exists will never benefit the adoptee or the child separated from their mother.
Thanks for reading.
Pamela Karanova 
This is a great post and I thank you for writing it. I agree with everything you said. Universal wisdom says that the most painful thing that can happen to a person is the death of a child. But I think that the loss of one's entire family on both sides is just as difficult. Our experience is doubly hard because the loss and the pain are so often denied by those who have never lived it. And we are not allowed to freely express our feelings and grieve our ambiguous loss.” I was adopted 4 days later by strangers.”I just wanted to mention, and forgive me if this seems like nitpicking, but you were most likely PLACED at 4 days, not adopted. The reason I mention this is news stories always refer to potential or prospective adoptive parents as the child's 'adoptive parents', in cases where there is a contested adoption. This terminology makes it seem as if the big, bad natural parents are trying to snatch back their kid from “the only parents s/he has ever known”, when legally s/he is still the child of her first parents. I think it is real important for those of us in adoption reform to clearly make the distinction.Again, I loved your post. It was beautifully written and so heartfelt. I hope understand my correction in the spirit in which it was written.
Robin, Thanks so much for reading! Also, thanks for your input. Actually now that I think about it, I believe my fake birth certificate has my DOB as 8/13/74 but the Dr. signed it in June or July of the following year! So I have had people mention the latter would have been the adoption date? So technically I WAS placed 4 days later? Good advice! Thanks so much! Learning every day! XO