September is National Suicide Prevention Month; October is Mental Health Awareness Month and I can’t help but put an emphasis on the adoptee community as these occasions approach. I’ve learned in my own personal journey, that one day I can be sitting on the mountains, living life to the fullest and the next day I can be navigating a downhill battle that last for hours, days, weeks and sometimes months.
Whatever I experience in life weather it be hardships, or things to celebrate I like to share them with people, especially the adoptee community. Let me be clear, I can’t even sit here and act like I have all my sh*t together. I don’t and the last 4-6 weeks of my life have been exceptionally difficult. I tend to stay to myself, I get quiet, I withdraw, and I embrace a season of solitude so I can “get myself together.”
As an adoptee, I can pour myself into areas where other people “need me” but when I need the same services, “Everything is fine.” I have no idea how to ask others for help when I’m down and out. I have learned by being adopted, suffering in silence is what feels natural and normal to me because I’ve been doing that my whole life.
It is my normal.
However, I recently am trying to change things to be an example to others. I know it will be easier said than done, because I’ve been isolating and embracing seasons of aloneness for 46 years when I have adoptee problems. It’s hard to just “step out of the boat” and say, “EVERYTHING IS NOT OKAY! I AM NOT OKAY.”
We’ll today I decided I want to be transparent with a few areas I have been struggling with, and it’s not easy for me to do. I just hope it will help another adoptee be “okay” with the space they are at, and embrace all the season in our lives, not just the upbeat, happy and positive ones. One way I’m working on changing things for myself, is I’m going to write about it but first things first.
I AM CURRENTLY NOT OKAY.
MORE THAN LIKELY, MANY OF US AREN’T OKAY.
It’s okay to not be okay…
I will write about it soon, but for now I want to touch on another topic.
When so many people are spinning “Positive Culture” narratives, it doesn’t leave room for anyone’s heartache, mental health issues, and pain. Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for the positive culture vibes, but we’re in the middle of a pandemic and all the racial tensions, and the elections coming. Covid-19 is here and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon, nor are the other circumstance so many are going through. We really must save space for others to sit at our table who are having real true struggles. Adoptee struggles and non-adoptee struggles. Let me be honest, most of the time people need a listening ear from someone who won’t cast judgement. Believe it or not, that’s so hard to find these days.
For those who don’t seem to be struggling like others, please, please, please don’t forget to save space for others who are having a hard time. We can’t fix other people, or their circumstances, but we can listen, be there and be an ear for them to share their hearts. It could be life or death.
I have significant struggles not wanting to be a burden to anyone and reaching out to other for help in a typical way is almost always nonexistent. I have a few select close people who I know I can be transparent with, but even then, it’s hard to actually “Ask for help.” What asking for help looks like to me is sharing with those I’m close too that we need to talk on the phone or in person so we can “TALK TRASH!” What does talk trash mean? Having a huge b*tch session. Whatever we are going through at that time, we save space to b*tch about it with no judgement. I need those kinds of friends in my life, and I have a hard time allowing anyone in my life where I can’t be myself. B*tching about our realities is a new way of life! Especially in the middle of a pandemic. I can assure you, that after you release all the things being held inside, you will feel better! It’s a matter of finding the right people to allow you to have a relationship where b*tching is welcome.
As National Suicide Awareness Month Approaches as well as National Mental Health Awareness, I want to start writing about some of my experiences and struggles I’ve been having over the last few months. I want to b*tch. I want to be real, raw, and transparent because I know so many of my fellow adoptees will be able to relate to these struggles, and non-adoptees as well. Sometimes writing is the easiest way for me to share my feelings, because no one can interrupt me, shut me down or try to tell me how to feel. This is something that’s happened to adoptees since the beginning.
Writing changes the game for that. As I wrap this up, I would love to challenge you to find a way to share your feelings regarding all we are going through in our current lives. It might be starting a blog, where you can pour your thoughts out or even starting a v-log. It might be creating a public Facebook page or website where you can share your thoughts. It might be finding that one friend you can call and TALK TRASH WITH!
Please believe that you aren’t alone in feeling the way you do, and you can and will inspire others when you share your struggles, strengths, and experiences. Especially now.
Let’s get to b*tching.
Adoptee Transparency, If no one else in your life is saving space for you to b*tch, I’m saving space for you to b*tch.
Ready, set, go…
Adoptee Love Forever,
Don’t forget this article along with all my other articles are available in audio for your convenience, just look up Pamela A. Karanova Podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes , Spotify. and Amazon Music. Interested in treating me with a coffee, to add fuel to my fire? Click here. Many thanks in advance to my supporters!
Pamela Karanova 
Dear Pamela, from one adoptee to another: I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND. And thank you for your courage and transparency. I hear you asking for help. I am hear to validate your experience, as well as offer myself and time. Call me anytime. If I don;’ hear from you, I’ll reach back. In the meantime, keep sharing! David
Balling at my keyboard! Thank you! It truly means a lot and I will def keep sharing! (((((HUGSSSSSS)))))) ❤
Pamela, keep on telling it like is. Faking happiness all the time is not helpful. You are an example of accepting our negative emotions. Above all, we need compassion. Too often, we neglect to have compassion for ourselves!
Thank you sooooooo much!!! I needed to hear this. I plan on doing a lot more writing and hope to share SOON what one of the major dilemmas is for me at this present stage of life, as well as much more.
I can’t keep hanging onto it anymore. Your support and encouragement means a lot!! 💛💛💛💛
i didn’t know what i wrote was going to be put on here for the world to read. How can i get it removed? I thought I was just writing to you.
Hi Barbra, So sorry you didn’t realize this was a public space! I went ahead and read your message first, then deleted it. Can we continue this conversation via email? Mine is pamelakaranova@gmail.com
And I’ve saved yours. Whichever of us beats the other to the email, I look forward to discussing further! 😊💛
Pamela, thank you so much for sharing the thoughts so many of us adoptees bury deep inside, & opening a little network here for us to communicate. It’s amazing how much we can gain from talking to complete strangers, when the irony exists that lack of communication with complete strangers was one of our primary impediments to happiness in the first place… I’m chiming in with my personal thoughts on suicide. I’ve struggled my entire life with my own determination to eventually kill myself. It always rears it’s head when times are tough for me, which I hate to say is more often than not. Suicide to me represents an actual personal decision, something I feel I’ve been robbed of my entire life. I don’t feel like I’ve ever had a complete say in anything. ANYTHING. Even when I feel like I’ve got true choices to make, my decisions always seem clouded by my forever fractured sense of self. It always comes back to – who would I disappoint? How would my decision to exit this shitty life affect people after I’m gone? What would they need to go through to pick up the pieces of their own lives? The older I get, the easier it becomes for me to say I DON’T FUCKING CARE. Will I do it today? Probably not. Will I do it in the near future? Only time will tell. But I am sure of one thing – barring a catastrophic accident or sudden acute illness, my death will be my own decision and mine alone. Why? Because it will be the one and only choice I will ever make which gives me 100% complete control over my destiny, with complete disregard for the wants and needs of others, and I hold dear my ability to exercise this option at the time and place of my choosing without care or concern for how it will affect anybody else. After all, I will be dead & they will no longer be able to manipulate how I feel about myself any longer. Forever in fact. People will line up to say “you need help” but the truth of the matter is my time for help was 47 years ago. Nobody offered to help my real mother keep me. Nobody offered help when the people who showed up to buy me were clearly suffering mental distress. Nobody offered to help when I showed aptitude for a life path which my adoptive family neither value or supported. Nobody offered to help through the countless mental breakdowns and clear indications I was massively unhappy trapped in a forced childhood of obedience and compliance. Even as an adult the “you need help” narrative strikes me as nothing more than an accusation that I am a broken individual and I am solely responsible for fixing all the damage other people inflicted upon me. I’ve been exhausted with this shit for decades. I still have things to live for, little ones here and there. I own a business, and don’t want to leave my business partner high and dry with a mess he did nothing to deserve. I have an 8 pound shih-poo who I rescued (ACTUALLY rescued) from solitude in a shelter cage and potential euthanization. She loves me unconditionally and would undoubtedly be devastated if I failed to show up one day. I still have dreams of breaking into the music industry after being robbed of that dream at a young age where my personal goals were still completely attainable, although this desire circles the drain harder and harder the older I get. Realistically I don’t have much left that keeps me going. Sometimes it’s simply the goal of allowing my continued suffering to inflict as much emotional damage on the very people who remain convinced that my adoption was somehow a lifelong gift from them to me. Nobody involved will ever understand my trauma, and will remain convinced it was always a result of my being inherently defective somehow. In the end they will probably never admit the root cause of why I eventually blow my brains out (the most obvious avenue) and will live on forever considering me a lost soul. And they will be correct, albeit for every wrong reason imaginable. Lately the YouTube algorithm has decided I should be watching videos on people’s near death experiences. A lot of these scare the shit out of me because they invariably make a brief stop in hell to witness it’s atrocities before being let into their actual, beautiful afterlife. Hell scares me, probably because it represents an extension of the life I’ve already lived, the life I very much look forward to leaving one day. I hope whoever controls the master plan understands that I never had a choice in my destiny. I don’t believe a loving god would ever intend for a mother and child to be separated so callously. I hope an exception is made for those of us in terminal pain who just can’t take it anymore. Everybody has sympathy for the cancer patient who swallows their entire bottle of pain meds. Adoptees are just expected to suck it up and trudge on, no matter how deep the shit gets. Our pain is 100% valid. Denying us our right to free ourselves from a life we were never meant to live in the first place is myopic at best, inhumane at worst. Like I said – it may not be today, or next week, or even ten years from now. But it will always be my choice. MY FUCKING CHOICE. The only choice I will ever feel I truly made by myself. Light & Love. Until the end…
Hi Okie,
I AM SO SORRY! ((((((((((MEGA HUGS)))))))))))))
You are more than welcome and thank you for your kind words! It’s never easy sharing such a personal piece of my life, but I do it with my fellow adoptees in mind! So you will know you aren’t alone. So thank you!
Just WOW at all you have shared here. I could have written so much of it myself. I really hope you know that you aren’t alone! You have actually helped me feel less alone, because so much of what you have shared here has been a HUGE struggle of mine. So much so, I have yet to share the depths of it like you have here. THANK YOU for being so vulnerable and transparent. I can relate and understand so much of it, but you put it all into words better than I ever could!
I agree 100% with you on whoever controls the masterplan, and due to the lifelong threats of “going to hell” my whole life from my adoptress and the religious groups I have retired from, I am no longer a believer. I have had this obsession for a long time to control my exit from the world because I didn’t get to control the grand entrance into the world, and all these years everyone has made life altering choices for me. For me, I have already planned my funeral and I struggle sometimes daily, or hourly with thoughts of just wanting to leave the world. I have described it sometimes that it’s hard to feel alive when I feel like I was never born. It’s easier to think about “ending it all” MY WAY, but like you the only reason I am here is a few important things. My kids. And somedays I am angry that I am alive for other people, because if it was just me I would have left long ago because the pain has been too great. So now, I am stuck with a choice to “make the best of it” but it’s fucking hard!
I don’t believe a “loving god” would allow so many mothers and babies to be separated either, like what’s happening with ADOPTION. And the evangelicals are the ring leaders of the industry of buying and selling babies!
I am so sorry for all the pain you live with everyday. I recently had someone comment on my website, “You really are messed up!” SMH. I didn’t give that stupid b*tch the time of day in a response. I am so over it. Sorry for the curse word but it’s part of my deconstruction therapy! It reminds me of “You need help!” which I have heard a million times. For me, help looked like walking away from EVERYONE and choosing MYSELF. But even then, I am alone. I am sad everyday that I had to make that choice, but I do my best to put on a smile for the world and I know deep down that all my pain in life, created THIS CONVERSATION to happen, and if I can let you know one thing it’s that you aren’t alone. I live for you, and my fellow adoptees just so I can let you know that. Sending you lots of hugs, today and everyday! ❤