Category: Adoptee Confusion

Do not assume when an adoptee finds their biological family, all their problems will be solved, and the case will be closed.

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova14 Comments

 

They say to prepare, but there is no real way to prepare for what some adoptees find when they make the choice to search for biological family.

Searching for and finding biological family as an adoptee is opening up Pandora’s box repeatedly. It is the beginning of a new era of uncovering the secrets that so many think they have protected us from. Even under the best of reunion stories, it is still the beginning of a new painful path that adoptees experience.

If we’re lucky, one door closes, and another door opens. And that’s just it if we’re lucky. Society says at least you have found your truth when so many other adoptees would die to find theirs. Even when the truth has been excruciatingly painful, society thinks we should still feel LUCKY. Even our fellow adoptees suggest this at times, and I understand why they feel this way, mainly when they haven’t found their biological families yet.

I think our friends, families and loved ones sense us in agony before we search and find and in all honestly they hope we will feel “better” after we find out truth. However, when they still see us in agony after we reunite, it hurts them to see us hurt. They want to take our pain away, and they have high hopes reunion will do that. Truth and reality is, it usually doesn’t. It brings on a new set of heartbreak, pain, grief and loss.

Searching and finding biological family, I like to describe it as trading one type of pain for another. Both types of pain are different but equally painful. The pain of the unknown for adopted individuals is like the feelings a parent might have who has a missing child somewhere out in the world. Imagine your 10-year-old child was abducted on the street, and they vanished with no trace ever to be found. The agony that parents must feel every waking moment of every day having their child missing.

Adoptees think similar to this, but it is not just one family member. It’s their very own mother, father, grandparents on both sides, siblings on both sides, and cousins on both sides. We’re on an island all alone, searching in our minds from the moment we find out we are adopted for our biological connections. This is painful from the very beginning. If you don’t think so, I would like to ask you how many adopted individuals you have gotten to know and listened to their stories over the years? I have gotten to know hundreds, if not over a thousand, and not one of them has said adoption has been 100% wonderful. It’s complex, emotional, and painful at best.

Can you imagine what it feels like to not know what your mother looks like?

Or her name?

I know you can’t because it’s unimaginable.

The big difference is, parents of missing children are expected to feel the feelings they feel having a missing child. Society saves space for them, their grief and loss. They have some memories to hang onto, and they have their child’s names and they know who they are. My heart goes out to these parents, because I know it’s a nightmare on every level but I wanted to describe the difference in what adopted individuals experience.

At all costs, we are just supposed to be grateful. If we aren’t, we are labeled as ungrateful, angry, and many other hurtful words.

This is not helpful to the adoptee experience.

To feel whole, complete, and like I was an actual living human being, I had to find this woman that gave birth to me. I had to see her face and know who she was. I fought the closed adoption laws in Iowa like HELL to find her. If I didn’t, I would be dead right now. In my mind, this would solve all the pain I experienced and the heartache I lived with my whole life all the way back to coming home from the hospital with strangers at a few days old.

Living in the unknown is a different type of pain. It was for me anyway. I describe it as agony. Every waking moment of every day for me was painful. I was sad, filled with anxiety, and as I grew into my pre-teen self, it turned into self-sabotage and self-hate. All I needed was HER.

During this time, I had anticipation and high hopes that one day I would be reunited with the woman who gave me away, but things would be different this time. If she “loved me so much,” she had to want to know me and have me back in her life, right?

WRONG

She never wanted to be found, she never wanted to meet me, and she was nothing like what I dreamed about finding my whole life. She was quite the opposite. She was a disappointment on every level and I am still 20+ years later, upset by this disappointment. She considered herself doing me a favor meeting me one time, and we had a 2-hour visit together. After this visit, she shut me out and never spoke to me again. During the visit, she asked me about my life and how my childhood was. I have always been an honest person, even when it hurts. I expressed to her I never bonded with my adoptive mom, and my adoptive parents divorced when I was a year old. I was raised on welfare, food stamps and experienced significant emotional, mental, and even sexual abuse in my adoptive home.

It crushed her, and it was too much for her to handle. Twenty years passed, and she shut me out, not being able to face HER DECISION. She assumed I would have the better life promised to her. I received a message she had passed away, and I traveled to Iowa to her funeral.

I was told by some of her closest friends at her funeral that she was distraught that my adoptive parents divorced, and if she had known that was going to happen, she would have kept me. They said this REALLY BOTHERED HER.

Knowing this truly helped me understand why she shut me out, but it didn’t take away the pain or lessen it. The pain of being rejected by a biological parent is indescribable. The pain of being rejected by your mother, the woman who brought you into the world, is a pain that never goes away. Check out The Primal Wound to learn more.

I’m trying to relay that we should never assume that just because an adoptee finds their biological family that it’s going to be the key that turns the page for them. Or imagine that their life will finally be complete and that they can eventually MOVE ON. Sometimes what we find is so devastating, moving on isn’t an option for many of us. For those of us who can, somewhere along the lines we’ve come to a place of acceptance.

Telling adoptees to MOVE ON or GET OVER IT is never helpful.

It’s actually quite the opposite. High hopes are shattered to the ground, and the disappointment of what was found sets in and rips our hearts to shreds. The grief and loss process continues and will remain a significant component of our lives for the rest of our lives. Adoptees are the kings and queens of adaption, and we do our best to put on a smile for the world to see. It takes everything in our power to pretend that everything is okay deep inside. But it’s usually far from it.

We also must remember that this adaption behavior and pretending is instilled into many of us from a very early age. When we learn that our greatest heartbreak is our adoptive parents’ greatest blessing, we discover our feelings aren’t important. This makes us feel like we aren’t important. We must keep them hidden for fear of upsetting our adoptive parents. Our heartache and heartbreak for the mystery woman we fantasize and dream about are insignificant compared to our adoptive parents’ feelings of finally becoming parents.

The mental mind paradox that any adopted individual has to endure is enough to take us out of this world. It’s way too much for one person to bear. Non-adopted individuals can’t comprehend what the big fuss is all about. Accepting they never will understand because they don’t have the experience has been a critical component to my healing journey. Even when non-adoptees TRY to understand, they simply can’t. We do appreciate those who TRY.

Aside from the failed reunion with my biological mother and rejection from her, I experienced the same failed reunion and rejection from my biological father. Even after DNA confirmation that I am his daughter, he has no desire to know me or have a relationship with me. He said that he would have kept me if he would have known about me, but I was adopted without his consent, so he had no say so. In his eyes, it’s too late now. Double rejection and double heartbreak is a hard pill to swallow. It’s heavy to carry, and the pain surfaces in the grief and loss process for me, which I’ve accepted it will last a lifetime.

Aside from being rejected by my biological parents, I found a long-lost brother who was the best part of my search and reunion. We spent five years catching up for lost time, making new memories together, and being elated that we finally found one another after all these years apart. This reality turned into a shattered nightmare when DNA testing showed we shared no DNA. I can’t even put into words how this experience has made me feel. The heartbreak is accurate, and I have no words to describe it. Pain on top of pain.

After a lifetime of dreaming, I get to meet my biological grandmother at least one time, I succeeded. I can’t express how thankful I am that I had enough courage to drive across the country (even after being told by my biological father that I could not meet her) to meet her for one hour as she lived in a nursing home in Iowa. I stayed one hour, and was a dream come true. It opened the connection to my first cousin, who thought she was the only granddaughter. I was honored to be invited back to Iowa for a second visit to meet her and her family and see my biological grandmother a second time. She took me to the land where my grandparents lived, which she described her childhood memories as being like “heaven.” Even with this being a dream come true, when I returned home and the dust settled, this “reunion” became so emotional for me that it set me up for intense grieving I wasn’t prepared to experience. I became sad, depressed, and things spiraled out of control. My grief and sorrow for what was lost and what I missed out on being robbed of these relationships were all I could bear to handle. I was so sad. I just wanted my life to end because of all the pain, the grief, the loss I was feeling. Death seemed like the only way to escape the pain.

Learning to live with a broken heart has been a key component to my healing journey.

Even ten years post reunions with biological parents and all the pain I have experienced in that time from other dynamics to my adoption journey, I still wouldn’t change the fact that I chose to search and find my people. Even when they haven’t accepted me, knowing my truth has been healing in its own way. I don’t regret it, but handling the aftermath is something I will be navigating for the rest of my life.

Even when our loved ones might expect reunions and finding our TRUTH might be the answer for our healing and freedom, in some regards, it can be. Still, the other side is that we suffer in silence carrying the tremendous pain and sorrow of what should have been, what could have been, and all that was lost because of adoption. The difference for adoptees is that our world doesn’t acknowledge we should even be feeling this way; they do not leave space for us and don’t understand why.

Reunion is still just as messy as adoption, and it looks different for each of us. Even being embraced by one or both biological parents carries pain. It brings grief, and it brings loss. Instead of the outlook that when adopted individuals find their biological family, it will be the CURE ALL for the adoptee, let’s reframe things to help them embrace what they are about to experience. It could be happiness; it could be sadness; it could be a combination of both. It could be feelings that are so complex, they don’t even understand them themselves. It could be emotions so difficult that they withdraw; they use coping mechanisms to get through and become shut off.

There is no limits to what an adoptee might find when they search for their biological family. I think many of us are set up for the greatest disappointment of our lives when we assume our birth mother “loved us so much” but her actions of rejection show quite the opposite. Many of us find addicts, graves, happy homes without us, that our biological parents married and had more kids after us, or single women who never married or had more kids. Sometimes we find parents who are happy to be found, and others who want to slam us in jail for pursuing them. Sometimes we are received but only if we agree to remain a secret. Sometimes siblings embrace us, and sometimes they reject us. Some of us are told our biological parents are dead, but we later find that was a lie to discourage us for searching. This happened to me! (never believe what you have been told, until you prove it) I’ve heard it ALL over the years!

No matter how the adoptee responds, non-adopted individuals must meet them right where they are, and they should accept this is a lifelong journey for the adoptee. They should also accept that nothing they say or do, can take our pain away. Being adopted never goes away, so our feelings won’t go away either. The sooner non-adoptees can get this, the easier it will be on the adoptee.

We must remember that no matter how the adoptee feels, it’s normal for a not normal situation. There is nothing ordinary about being severed from your roots, abandoned by your biological mother, and fighting the world for your truth. To my fellow adoptees, I love you, I see you, I hear you. XOXO PK.

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!

Thanks for reading.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova

A Whirlwind But Coming Out On Top

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova3 Comments

What does “On Top” mean?

Well for me it means I’ve decided in my mind I’m working on moving forward from this previous season of my life.

My whirlwind has been more like a tornado.

It’s been a difficult season, but life is difficult right? What I’m finding out that yes, life is difficult but having things happen in life that are difficult are HARD for many people but this adoptee “thing” is also hard. So for me being in recovery and dealing with this adoptee “thing” and the “life in general” thing it’s extremely difficult and the last few months it’s been extra heavy.

I found myself slipping into a depression after I came back from Iowa from meeting biological family for the first time on my birth fathers side. My amazing cousin was so welcoming and it’s honestly the first time anyone on my birth fathers side welcomed me. I was overwhelmed with emotions not so much during the 2 trips to Iowa, but after I returned and settled back from the trip.

It’s strange to me that my entire life I have dreamed of being welcomed by them, someone, anyone and when that dream happens I’m overwhelmed with emotions I didn’t expect… The journey has been pain for me all the way back to being a 5 year old child learning of my “adoption status”. Confusion and mental torment took over and essentially, it’s never left.

So finally I’m embraced by my cousin, her father and his wife, (my aunt and uncle). On the flip side my birth father still refuses to acknowledge me and has disregarded I’m his daughter. Mixed emotions about this. I’m so thankful for my new found cousin, but reality is I still have to process what was lost.

This is easier said than done.

I know my fellow adoptees get it.

I’ve shared in a previous blog post Being Born a Burden my experience on my trip so I won’t share all the dynamics.

Basically a few months ago, when I returned from these trips depression began to set in. No motivation, and other life issues just took me down. I didn’t drink, thank God but at times I felt like I wanted too. Not for the alcohol, just to not feel all the pain I was feeling. The surrealness of seeing my grandmothers house she lived in when I was a child was an overwhelming emotional experience for me. Something felt like I had never been there physically but my spirit had been there. It was almost like an out of body experience, hard to describe.

Finding out I have a sister out there, and my new Ancestry DNA sample and test didn’t bring any good hits on making a connection. This was another major disappointment for me that mixed with my emotions of finding I have a sister to begin with who knows nothing about me, and I have no information on her.

I called my birth father to see if he would tell me any information on this long lost sister. He said he didn’t know her name, her mothers name and he didn’t remember my mothers name! He said “She doesn’t bother me like you do!” and the conversation quickly fizzled. More disappointment and hurt of losing more from adoption.

Why the world things adoption doesn’t impact adoptees for a lifetime is beyond me.

It’s heartbreaking. 

NAAM17 Has been triggering! I literally had multiple adoptees lash out at me on social media!!! This is tragic! Hard to grasp and understand!

So emotions have been swirling, I’ve been taking sleeping pills to just sleep things off and obviously that’s not going to work for very long. Sleeping pills slowly turned into a cocktail of pills, anti depressant, muscle relaxer, and an anxiety medication all non-narcotic because my doctor knows I’m in recovery and I have a very addictive personality. Yet I slowly started to take more pills and more of these same pills just to be able to go to sleep and not feel things. I’ve been stuck in this depressive cycle for a few months now. I thankfully learned this was an unhealthy pattern I was experiencing and I needed to do something about it. Emotionally eating has taken hold. Seasonal Depression has set in, and holidays are EXTREMELY hard for many adoptees, including me.

There is no help for adoptees, not yet anyway.

Soon Adoptees Connect – Lexington, KY will connect and a support system will be built in my area.

I woke up a few days ago and decided if I was being honest with myself, and those close to me I needed to talk to my doctor about this issue I was having and tell her I wanted to discontinue all medications. I did just that.

Now, I’m weaning myself off a anti-depressant and stopped the other medications with no desire to take anymore.

Now I will be feeling again.

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This is daunting for a person who internalizes everything and a very deep thinker. All I can do is take one day at a time. I decided to share THIS because I know some people have missed me, missed my Facebook posts but I tend to isolate when I’m going through things but I’m always with God. He’s my sidekick working things out behind the scenes. I don’t want to burden people with my pain, sorrow or tormenting thoughts.

In recovery we learn we are only as sick as our secrets. My secrets are in this blog and this is why I write. I have to release these things somewhere, especially when there are very few adoptees in my local area I can talk too. I do have fellow adoptees far away and they have been lifesaving! But again, I don’t want to seem like a Debbie Downer, yet this is what my life feels like much of the time.

To be quiet honest, I’m tired of the struggle. I believe I could handle life issues better, if all the adoptee “STUFF” wasn’t also overflowing on my plate. This is why I always will say adoptees are STRONG, yet much of the time we don’t feel like it.

Today, I’m excited to stop taking these medications and hopefully have my life back a little bit. Adoption triggers so many emotions for adoptees, and when multiple things hit all at once it can be paralyzing.

This is all for now, but I wanted to share where I’ve been and what’s been going on. I know many of you can relate. Have you experienced anything like this before?

Blessings,

Pamela K.

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Confliction Brings Content

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova10 Comments

The weekend of April 21st & 22nd I had the honor of going to my first ever adoptee conference. It was an experience of a lifetime for me and I enjoyed so much of it. My favorite part was meeting my fellow adoptees near and far.

Other parts were simply overwhelming. Emotions I had stuffed for years came flooding back. It was tough on many aspects.

I left the conference with a ton of emotions way up at the surface. I didn’t quite know how to process it all. My plan was to come home and spend some time writing about it in the days to come.

That plan was halted by some news…

Within a few short hours of being back in Kentucky from the conference I found out my adoptive mother had passed away some time over the weekend.

More confliction.

It could hardly believe it.

I took all things I was feeling regarding the conference and put them on the shelf. (a safe space I will return to deal with later.) The emotions and feelings associated with my adoptive mother’s passing had taken over me.

My cell phone rang and on the other line it was my adoptive father whom never calls me for anything unless its sad news or a health issue. I had been working a double shift that Monday April 24th. I was at the tail end of the last shift when I got the call.

Adoptive Father- “Hi Pam- How are you?”

Me- “I’m good Daddy, at work. How are you?”

Adoptive Father- “I have some sad news for you. Your mother has died at some point over the weekend”.

Me- “Wow I don’t really know what to say. What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to do something?”

Adoptive Father- “No, I don’t think anyone wants you to do anything.”

Me- “I just wish she was different and things were different but at least she’s at peace now and hopefully she will finally be happy. I know for certain she was never happy here on earth.

Daddy- “Well your sister is taking it pretty hard. (Haven’t had contact with her in many years)

Me- “Well she still had a relationship with Her, I didn’t so that would make sense I suppose. I had to let go for my own sanity but thank you for sharing the news. I appreciate it”.

My mind was racing a mile a minute. What would they want from me? What would my responsibilities be in this thing? Would I have to travel back to Iowa? Would I be expected to DO SOMETHING? I was a mess thinking of all these things. I just wanted to run and hide.

Interesting that I was not able to process losing my “Mother” because I have done that every single day for the last 42 years. How was this any different?

You see, back in 2012 when I decided to get sober a lot of things changed for me. I learned that to fully live in recovery I had to get honest about all areas of my life. During that process and over the last 5 years I realized that I was forced to be in this family with dysfunction but as I got sober I learned I could make my own choices in all areas. In that time, I had discontinued my relationship with my adoptive mom because of the toxicity she brings to my life. I had accepted the fact that I will never have a mother because she has never been one. I was always the one taking care of her, not her taking care of me. I tried to set boundaries and she wouldn’t abide by any of them.

For my own mental health, sanity and recovery I had to close the door and keep it closed. I had learned in 42 years if I even cracked the door a tiny bit her toxicity impacted me in negative ways and I didn’t want anything to do with that anymore.

It’s awesome when we figure out that YES, we have that choice!

NO MATTER WHO IT IS!

My entire life I have been petrified about what is she going to do next? What area of my life is she going to come back and haunt me. She’s tried hard to use my kids as a manipulation tool and it infuriated me. Aren’t the horrible memories of her trying to commit suicide by laying in the street enough? Or the memories of her tying us to chairs as kids? The manic-depressive episodes- they weren’t enough?

Fear was always on my mind when it came to HER. Fighting off bad memories from my childhood has been a daily struggle. Thank GOD, I have God in my life or I wouldn’t be here! I have forgiven her but I have also closed the door and moved on with my life.

So now what?

I struggled with feeling inhumane for not FEELING LIKE I LOST A MOTHER WHEN SHE DIED. I felt guilty for not feeling any sorrow like someone should feel when their mother dies.

STOLEN!

One more thing adoption has stolen from me. Not only 2 entire families but my mother too! If I had a good mother would things be different for me?

I will never know.

I came to the realization I DIDN’T LOSE A MOTHER WHEN SHE DIED. She was never a mother to me. She took more than anyone could ever imagine.

If I was to weigh the pain of losing my first mother and being rejected by her later in life to the pain of my adoptive mother passing there is no comparison at all. What I am trying to say is that the pain I have felt every single day of my life is the worst pain I have ever felt and that’s because I lost my birth mother at the beginning of life. It’s because I’ve lost 2 entire families because of adoption.

I have accepted THIS.

But it still hurts.

If you aren’t adopted, we are triggered by essentially EVERYTHING IN LIFE!

My adoptive mother dying has no comparison to me. I hope that doesn’t sound too harsh but I am being transparent here. What I did feel was a sadness and sorrow for her that she never found happiness or wholeness here on earth. I felt sorry for her she was in addiction, had gone her entire life never being diagnosed with mental illness therefor she tore through people’s lives like a destructive tornado and she never relented. If it wasn’t a family member (who almost all cut her off) it was someone where she worked, where she lived and her own children. I felt sorry for her that the adoption industry set her up for a fairy tale and I was never the daughter she wanted or needed.

Our adoption story is a flat our disaster!

I was her caretaker.

She was never mine.

Until I turned 31 and packed up a 22 foot U-Haul and moved myself and my kids across the country. I have never felt freedom before like I have sense I moved.

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HARD IT WAS!! I HAD NO HELP & NO SUPPORT aside from my best friend. I had 3 small kids and was a single mother making this decision.

IT WAS THE HARDEST YET BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE.

I had to do this not only for myself, my mental health and sanity but for my children! When I saw her doing some of the same things with my kids I knew it was time to go. GOD KNEW!

Life has never been more peaceful for me because I moved far away.  Now it was time to recovery from the first 31 years of life!  I tried to have a long-distance relationship with her but that didn’t work either. She would come visit and it was like the devil himself was showing up at my door step. I had to put an end to it. There comes a time when we must put ourselves FIRST.

I was unsettled on how this was going to play out. For some reason, I thought they were going to need something from me or I was going to have to go back to Iowa to clean her apartment out. I was petrified! Given the circumstances I had dreaded this more than anything in the world and the scene played over and over in my mind all these years.  I had visions of this day coming. FEAR! Fear of facing something I ran from tormented me all these years. 

I just wanted the nightmare to end and for it all to go away.

It was like a dark cloud hanging over my head.

I certainly didn’t expect it to happen within 24 hours of connecting with my fellow adoptees in real life. I hadn’t even been able to process the conference yet!

After my conversation with my adoptive father (him and adoptive mother divorced when I was 1) He asked me to call my adoptive sister. I hadn’t spoken to her in years and years. I believe my adoptive mom used triangulation tactics our entire lives and played us both against each other. We never stood a chance at being sisters because of her.

Now I was supposed to call her?

All I wanted to do was the right thing considering the circumstances.

I called. We spoke about 5 minutes. She was tearful and crying. I was the opposite = Emotionless. She hadn’t let go yet, and I had many years earlier. I didn’t make my decision lightly. I prayed and contemplated and received some guidance from people I’m close to. I felt sorry for my adoptive sister but I know she will be okay.

It comes down to this. If you don’t bring happiness and positivity into my life you must go. I am not making any apologies these days for cutting toxic people, places or things out of my life. Neither should you.

Do I feel any regret for making this decision? No I don’t. I prayerfully made this decision and many tears were involved for along time.  I had to do what I had to do to survive. I had to put my recovery and mental health first for once. I didn’t regret moving across the country and I don’t regret cutting her off with this unhealthy tie legally attaching me to this toxicity.  It was a strange feeling at the end of her life being someone who had to sign her cremation paperwork.

As if the beginning was an adoption transaction.

The end was a cremation transaction.

I didn’t sign any adoption paperwork.

But I had to sign her cremation paperwork.

Confliction.

There is supposed to be a memorial at a later date. I decided it would not be in my best interest to go back to Iowa to help with her apartment. I experienced massive anxiety and fear even contemplating it. I didn’t have peace about it at all and peace comes from God. This spoke to me. I helped with some of the cremation costs and will be sending more money asap to go towards expenses my sister has had to face regarding this manner. Neither of us asked to be in this situation. It’s certainly not all her fault. I will not attend a memorial at this point unless my children want to attend. Being an adoptee loosing 2 entire families with no funerals, no nothing I’ve learned to say good-bye without funerals!

 I know my kids are sad and I can respect and understand that because they are in a different position than I am. They didn’t experience what I did and I never want them too- THANK GOD!  I respect the need for them to process the grief and loss they might be experiencing. After all, legally she was their grandmother.

Out of every darkness in life God will turn around and use it for His good. I am content knowing that even when my adoptive mom brought so much darkness to my life she’s in a happier place now. I know she believed in God and I know her mental illness was left untreated. I know she’s in heaven healed, happy and whole. Finally, she’s in a place where she could receive all God has for her and it wasn’t here on earth. Heaven isn’t 2nd place you know! Her infertility and not being able to have her own children haunted her and I was adopted to fix the problem. What a heavy burden to carry. I’ve forgiven her. She was sick. I am sad she lived such a miserable life.

John 10:10 says “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Today I choose to live life & live it more abundantly. I am excited to move forward to receive all God has in store for me. I’m looking forward to taking back all the enemy has stolen from me as the days move forward in life. I have a bucket list now and I’m moving forward with those people in my life who love me for me and are real, true, genuine and sincere.

Content.

I still haven’t even processed the conference yet. I don’t know if I will ever be able to do that but hopefully I will be able to write about it soon. It was tough on many levels. My favorite part was meeting all my fellow adoptees who GET IT!

I love you all.

Say a prayer for me and I’ll say a prayer for you too!

I have my Facebook back up for now!

Follow me @

Adoptee in Recovery

Twitter- @therealpwishes

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Pamela Karanova
 

When a “Birth” Mother Lies & Keeps Secrets…

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova18 Comments

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After 41.5 years I am still trying to fix the mistakes of my birth mother.

In her eyes “It was the best choice”.

In my eyes it’s been the biggest nightmare and loss of my life.

41 years ago I was a secret to everyone around. Her shame was too big. Her guilt probably enormous. I have tried to put myself in her shoes back in 1974. She made probably one of the hardest decisions of her life. I have accepted her decision. She did what the industry told her would be THE BEST FOR ME…

Hand me over to strangers.

But what they failed to tell her was the lifelong grief, loss, abandonment, rejection & trauma I would experience because of HER CHOICE.

I HAVE HOPE IN HEALING BECAUSE GOD IS MY HEALER!

Her choice was to keep who my biological father was hidden. Not just from me, but from HIM. She CHOSE FOR ME AND FOR HIM that we could never lay eyes on one another, never celebrate a Father’s Day or Holiday together. She CHOSE for us both that we would never have a relationship.

SHE DID THAT.

Because of her SECRET he knew nothing about me.

Naturally I want to know Him! I want to find him!

Because He knew nothing about me when I showed up at his door,

HE HAS DENIED I’M HIS DAUGHTER FOR THE 16 YEARS HE’S KNOWN ABOUT ME. 

WHY?

BECAUSE MY BIRTH MOTHER KEPT THE PREGNANCY A SECRET. I WAS GIVEN UP FOR ADOPTION WITHOUT HIS CONSENT.

“FATHER UNKNOWN”

WAS A LIE!

How do we teach our kids not to lie but adoption is filled with lies and deception?

Explain that to me?

I wonder how many women FALSELY put “FATHER UNKNOWN” on their child’s birth certificate knowing they were lying, being deceptive, keeping life changing information hidden for years to come?

My birth father has known about me since 1999. He’s had 16 years to get to the bottom of the truth. But because of MY BIRTH MOTHERS DECISION he is skeptical I show up on his door step and tell him I’m his daughter! Do you blame him? I don’t?

He has said over and over “what are we gonna do get a blood test 30-40 years later?!”

Actually DNA is so much more advanced now, I was able to get a DNA test without his DNA which linked me 2x to his family tree by his family surname.

BIRTH MOTHERS CAN LIE AND KEEP SECRETS ALL THEY WANT BUT DNA DOESN’T LIE!

THE TRUTH ALWAYS COMES TO LIGHT!

ALWAYS!

“For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all.”- Luke 8:17

You can read my last attempt to deliver him the DNA confirmation here.

A follow up to that post is basically Father Felix stopped communication with me. 100% cold turkey.

Heartbroken All Over Again.

Regardless I never knew if he delivered the DNA Results. So I decided in one last attempts to FIX WHAT MY BIRTH MOTHER LIED ABOUT I needed to make sure my birth father knew the TRUTH that I am his daughter. I have decided to mail the DNA results on my own along with a letter and a photo.

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WHAT DO I HAVE TO LOOSE?

Absolutely NOTHING!

I went through a phase where I had given up. I lost all hope. I just couldn’t deal with any more rejection from my biological family but I prayed about it and something happened.

God gave me a fresh new wind to give it one last shot.

What am I expecting?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

But this is something I need to do for myself. There has always been that uncertainty as far as my birth father is concerned. He didn’t know if I was REALLY his or not! Think about it, he would have to face the past and take accountability for his actions. He fathered a child out of wedlock, in the 70’s. He might feel shame or remorse, he might not care at all! Either way I am not mad at him, but I can’t imagine not wanting to get right with my only daughter before I die! He’s 77 for God’s sake.

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Do we look alike?

Regardless of what he does or doesn’t do after he receives the TRUTH I have done my part. I have spent 41 years in agony and those days are over for me. If he knows I’m his only biological daughter and HE STILL DENIES ME

I AM FINISHED!

I will leave the door open, but I am walking away.

So what happens when a birth mother lies and keeps secrets?

IT ONLY HURTS THE ADOPTEE AND IT HURTS US GREATLY! IT DOESN’T JUST GO AWAY. IT’S A LIFE LONG STRUGGLE. IF THE ADOPTION AGENCIES AND ADOPTION COUNSELORS ARE TELLING YOU OTHERWISE THEY ARE LYING TO YOU. I AM ADOPTED AND I KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE. I WOULDN’T WISH IT ON MY WORST ENEMY!

I MAILED THIS PACKET TO MY BIRTH FATHER TODAY. AFTER 42 YEARS IF HE STILL DENIES ME IT’S HIS LOSS. BUT PLEASE SAY A PRAYER FOR ME AND A PRAYER FOR HIM.

WHAT HAS IT BEEN LIKE HAVING A FATHER OUT THERE THAT IS ALIVE BUT I CAN’T HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM BECAUSE ADOPTION STOLE HIS RIGHTS AND STOLE A CHANCE AT US GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER? LIKE GRIEVING THE LOSS OF SOMEONE WHO IS ALIVE. HAVE YOU EVER DONE IT? ADOPTEES HAVE TO LIVE WITH THIS DAILY AND THE ADOPTIVE PARENTS CAN PRETEND ITS NOT THERE BECAUSE WE DON’T TALK ABOUT IT…

LET ME SHARE YOU ALL ARE THE LAST PEOPLE I WOULD SHARE THESE FEELINGS WITH. THAT WOULD BE A TOTALLY DIFFERENT BLOG POST.

FOR ALL THE BIRTH MOTHERS/FIRST MOTHERS OUT THERE WHO MIGHT BE READING- IF YOU ARE KEEPING ANY SECRETS OR LYING PLEASE RECONSIDER.

EVERYONE DESERVES THE TRUTH NO MATTER HOW HARD IT IS.

EVERYONE DESERVES TO KNOW WHERE THEY COME FROM.

WE CAN’T HEAL UNLESS WE HAVE OUR TRUTH!

ALL OF IT!

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Secrets & Lies in Adoption EXPOSED.

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova11 Comments

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I asked my fellow adoptees to chime in and share some of the secrets and lies they have experienced regarding their adoption experiences as a way to bring awareness to the realities of what many adoptees face in adoption. 

I also asked them to share how these secrets and lies impacted them. 

Here are their responses. 

All entries are kept anonymous. 

  • Way too many lies to list here but the biggest ones that have hurt me the most. I always asked my adoptive mom about my birth mother growing up. I don’t think a day passed I didn’t ask about her! In a way to detour me she always said “When we get enough $ for an attorney we will get the sealed records open but right now we don’t have enough $” This went on for 21 years then she decided to “Come Clean” and admit she knew my birth mothers name. Trust forever broken.
  • My adoption was illegal because my birth father did NOT consent to anything. I was kept a secret from him. His rights were stolen. My adoptive parents and adoption attorney must have not even asked any questions about him because he wasn’t even considered a factor in my adoption.
  • I was told my birth father was dead! That was a cruel lie. I found him and met him. He knew nothing about me! Fathers have rights too!
  • I was told my birth father was married when I was conceived this is why adoption was “chosen” for me. That was a lie. He was not married. Truth is WE ALL DESERVE TO KNOW THE TRUTH! ALL THINGS IN DARKNESS WILL COME TO LIGHT. Get right with GOD and COME CLEAN! Adoptees are HURTING because of all the lies. John 8:32.
  • Here’s the deal. I can handle the truth; it is the secrecy and withholding that is thoroughly egregious.
  • People can say anything to me; but If it’s a lie… (as a closed adoption adoptees), I can detect bullshit to the ‘enth’ parts per million.
  • Yes, I was lied too. We all were in some way that is what adoption is/was predicated upon in the first place. It has fundamentally always been assumed that we couldn’t handle the truth.
  • While I always knew I was adopted, my adopted mom had told me that my birth mother and father couldn’t afford to keep me and didn’t want to have kids. Once I found my birth family last year, I discovered the truth. My birth mother wasn’t given a choice. Her parents sent her to a home for unwed mothers to have me. Since finding out the truth, I’ve dealt with a lot of anger towards my adopted mom for keeping all this from me. She had to have known at least some of this info. Truth is I believe she was scared and afraid of losing me and that’s why she hid information from me. What all that has done to me is it made me very guarded with other people and it takes a long time for me to trust others. Feelings of abandonment and loneliness have been a struggle.
  • The adoption agency lied to me and my adoptive parents. The adoption agency told us that my birth mother never went to try and get me back, I did not have any other biological siblings that were also adopted, my birth mother never tried contacting me over the years. We found out all those things to be false. A week after I was born my birth mother went back for me, I have a younger biological brother that was also adopted through the same agency, and my birth mother went back three times over 25 years to try and get information about me. Even when I was reunited with my birth mother and learned all these facts, the adoption agency still denied them.
  • My adoptive parents didn’t tell me I was adopted, even when I asked after the birth of my first child. I was 34 when my birth mom found me and I discovered the truth. My adoptive parents told me everything they knew…the young and unmarried story… They also gave me paperwork which was accurately filled out by my birth mom when I was 16 and everything on my OBC (which I requested last year) was exactly the same as my amended one (except, of course, for parents names). So, the truth was always told. HOWEVER, the biggest and most damaging lie is that a 19 year old isn’t a fit parent. Or that money is a factor. The industry is perpetuating lies which are believed by vulnerable women and that is where the problems lies. There will always be actual orphans and kids who honestly don’t have fit parents. Let’s be stewards of these needy children, and stop creating ‘needy’ children with lies.
  • I believe I found my father after 13 years of searching. 29 years I grew up thinking he had passed away before I was born. Got my non-Identifying information and it also said the same thing. That he passed. So for an additional 13 years I accepted the fact that he’s passed but I may find his family. Well. 3 days ago we believe we found the family. Yesterday morning I get a message saying “You might be my daughter, get back to me”. WHAT!!!???? Yea. Everything about him in my paperwork has so far been a complete lie. I spoke to him and I said “well, you’re supposed to be dead”. We had a good laugh about it, but we were both stunned with the lies that were told from the birth mom and how the agency let it happen. I guess this is the reason why she never wanted to reunite. She couldn’t face me because she knows she lied.
  • Only an adoptive father left, we’re estranged. One of the reasons I’d because he still lies, even knowing how important it is for me, while at the same time, scoffing at me why I just don’t leave it alone and move forward. I want the truth. I’m so over lies and I want a chance to be whole! No agency, I was handed over on the street. There was a birth mother, her father, and a lawyer for both sides. Don’t even know what nationality I am. My mom’s favorite threat was sending me away to boarding school. She killed me. ..I didn’t kiss them on the mouth, drink from their glass or look at them in the eye. I hate the sad fog that covers me every day.
  • Though my parents were pretty honest with me about my adoption there was a “lie by omission” in my case. I found out at 16 years old, the first time I ever had the guts to really ask questions, that there had been a 2 legal sized paper, back and frontboth sheets, letter from my birth mother that came with me. My adoptive mother burned it so I never got to see it. I eventually found my birth parents and happened to get a copy of that letter in my file. If only I’d had the info growing up, it would have gone a long way to helping me sort out who I was, even if it gave no identifying info for search.
  • I was lied to way too much to write about here I guess the biggest were when I was youngest and was told natural mum didn’t want me or love me but I was also told adoptive mom had a hysterectomy which she never did. I was told that she had remarried had other kids and moved on why would I ruin that for her. I was even told I was found under the gooseberry bush and that was some of adoptive parents lies. Then my natural half-brother lied to me for a year about knowing natural moms whereabouts. The social service reports said I had two brothers when I had a brother and a sister.  There’s a lot of conflict between the stories I got from my social service reports compared to what my natural mum has told me but she also told me she is so traumatized in my first five years she doesn’t remember frown emoticon.  My truth is still elusive to me even after reunion. I did try to contact my dad but no answer there yet. The lies did a lot of damage to my life and they also prevented me from searching when I was 16 and took off the travel and be abused around the world. I could of found my Mum sis and Bro all in contact at that time instead I took off round the world searching for something and I didn’t even know what it was. Now my brother is missing and no one seems to know what happened with him. I found my sister with mum though even they have lied to me too. Adoption is all about deception in my eyes and my trust is shattered.
  • I was 21 when I learned that I was adopted. I had hunches but it was only confirmed when my foster mother died. I felt like my whole life back then was a lie and it didn’t help that my real parents were unloving and uncaring up until now I still feel the stigma of being adopted which is synonymous to being unwanted I guess. The worse part was being lied to.
  • Let us not forget about the secrecy in our birth families. If they don’t tell us something and they know about it, that is a lie in my book.
  • My birth mother kept me a secret from her younger two sons.
  • My birth father kept me a secret from his wives and my paternal brothers.I think part of the reason I don’t have a close relationship with my maternal brothers is they did not know about me. I met one paternal brother in 2011 and the other in 2015. The youngest one I was afraid to meet because of his mental and rage issues. Sadly he committed suicide in November 2015. I was not encouraged to attend the funeral because my birth father won’t acknowledge me. Meeting him at the service could have been an explosive situation. I wanted to go but I value the relationships with my paternal family who has accepted me.
  • My birth mother didn’t bother to tell anyone that I was allergic to milk. I spent years being forced to drink milk. Later in life, after I found her, she lied to me about my birth father. She told me his family were all dead and that he was a “dangerous man” that I shouldn’t try to find. He’s pretty harmless, and it turns out she lied to him, too.
  • The only truth is my birth mother placed me for adoption at birth.
  • My adopted parents lied outright and by omission. Adoption was a hugely taboo subject so was not discussed. I had a memory of it being mentioned once when I was about 4, so when I was an adult I searched for information on my own. I was adopted in theUK so was able to get my OBC and some information from the adoption. I told my adoptive parents about this at the point when I had searched and found my birth siblings and was about to meet them. I asked them at that time to share what information they had but they denied having anything at all, including my original name. According to standard practice at the time, they would have been given my original name as it was my legal name until the adoption was finalized which was several months after they had custody of me. I was given their copy of my medical records which started immediately after the adoption finalization date. When I asked about the previous records they said they were ‘lost’. Actually they must have tossed them as they would have been under my original name. My younger sister, also adopted was never told at all about her adoption, I didn’t know either if she was adopted but assumed she would know. I tried to find her birth/adoption record so found out that way. Later, I realized she didn’t know so I told her. At that point we realized the extent of the lying to support the fact that they hadn’t talked about adoption. Like on her passport they put their home town instead of her true birth place and when asked about medical history by the doctor they gave theirs instead of saying they didn’t know.
  • I was adopted in 1959, born in May of 1958. The lie, well one of the many lies was about my race. I was told that I was some kind of Native Indian. They never told me what nation I came from but that I was an Indian. Turns out my mother is German and according to her, my father is Puerto Rican! This is not true either. I’m lost. I am just so desperate to know the truth. Who am I? Where did I come from? Whose blood do I share?
  • Catholic Charities lied to my adoptive parents saying my mother had died and I was the only child. In other words move on never look. But what I found out was that my birth mom was 22 and was raped on a street corner in St. Louis by 8 men. She wrotea letter to the agency saying she wanted to connect with me if I ever contacted them. They refused to give me info until I got a court order. My adoptive parents wanted me to know her.
  • More than half of my non identifying information was a lie. It was my birthmother. Not the agency I have discovered. Very disappointing.
  • My real mother was lied to, coerced, and forced to give me up. Let’s start with the lies related to breaking down a vulnerable young pregnant woman with the nonsense that she wasn’t good enough to raise me, that she would be selfish to keep me. That theripping apart of a willing mother and her child was the best and only option. The women, who lost their children in the 60 era, and their children, seem the saddest to me. Very decent but vulnerable women treated like criminals, begging to keep their children and having them stolen from them for no good reason. No good reason at all. What happened to them is way beyond cruel, yet our society ignores this complete unethical injustice, and the same practices continue today with a carefully calculated new spin. They use fear and shame to manipulate the mothers. I’m an adoptee and the same fear and shame was used to manipulate me. What is the reason behind all this lying? Why was it necessary? Who did it benefit? Well there were these infertile people that just really, really needed a newborn and would do anything to get it and keep it. Including denying me of any personal information or history. Including denying a dying woman’s request to see a non-identifying photo of her young daughter just one time before she died. Including ignoring a lost little girl’s needs, and criticizing her all her life because she wasn’t like her adoptive parents. I didn’t need to be adopted. I wasn’t unwanted at all, I was desperately wanted. My adoptive parents weren’t secure enough to tell me the truth. My adoptive mother cruelly denied me information that could have made my life better, even as an adult. But sadly my true life story didn’t suit her adoption fantasy, so I suffered the loss, for my adoptive mother’s emotional comfort. Her comfort was the reason for all these lies. She needed to own and control me, and I didn’t turn out like she hoped. In fact I turned out just like my real mother as it turns out. Some adoptions are truly needed. Mine wasn’t, and the treachery and lies involved in taking a child from a perfectly good mother and selling me off to someone who wasn’t very good for me caused a great deal of damage to myself and my real mother. All for another woman’s need to acquire an infant and so her feelings weren’t hurt. She needed someone’s baby to fix her problem. The fact that it was all so unnecessary and all the focus is on not hurting the adoptive mother feelings that is the deepest wound to me. It probably sounds like I hate her for adopting me and I have felt that at times because she has been quite cold and cruel to me. But I still love my adoptive mother and father very much. I understand that they didn’t realize the sinister nature of the baby scoop era. The wanted to be parents. The fact that I still feel the need to tack on this disclaimer that I love my A parents, is a true testament to how incredibly much focus is put on the feelings of the adoptive parents. I do wish my feelings and interests had been considered as much, and that I had at least been provided with all the information they knew. Keeping it from me caused the deepest issue between my adoptive parents and me by far.

 

  • What’s the saying? Knowledge is power! When important facts are hidden or lied about to the adoptee it can have disastrous consequences. I didn’t find out the truth until I was almost 45 years old and let me tell you it has been really tough. There wereseveral things my adopted mom kept hidden from me or lied about. She has been deceased for over 10 years so its not like i can confront her about any of this. I fight the battle over guilt, shame and abandonment. Telling the adoptee the truth not matter how hard it may be in my opinion is always the best path to choose. Let the adoptee decide whether or not to pursue any kind of reunion.
  • I am sad I was lied to and manipulated by my adoptive family and the government and even members of my natural family I am sad they thought it was ok to poison me against and alienate me from my natural mom.

 

  • Without the truth how can we live? I mean really live? It’s like wearing a mask, all day, every day, forever. If Illinois did not change the law regarding OBC’S I would still be living with that mask. My reunion wasn’t the fairytale I had dreamed aboutfor 45 years, the rejection almost killed me. BUT, I know who I am! I no longer going through life like a ship with no anchor. All I ever wanted was the truth and I’d do it all over again even knowing it would be painful! No one should have to go through life wondering who they are. It’s a gaping wound that never heals. It touches every little piece of your life and robs you of the simplest of joys. Finding my truth has been the best thing that ever happened to me! The truth wins above all else!

 

  • I think many adoptive parents are insecure thinking that children will love the birth mom more. I believe it took all of them to give me life. One to bring my life into the world and the others to sustain my life. I live in total gratitude to all who made my life possible including those who got my mom to a safe place to give birth.
  • My own adoption was closed. My birth mom sent a letter to Catholic Charities telling them if I wanted to find her she wanted to connect. They NEVER gave me that letter NOR did they even want to give me any information. I had to get a court order and still they didn’t want to give it to me. I told them if they didn’t they would be in contempt of court. I showed up an hour after the phone call.The woman I spoke with was no happy. We talked for a while and then she said “if you’re going to find your mom you need to know about THE DAD!. Well I hadn’t given it any thought. She leaned over as if to throw up on me and angrily said “YOUR MOTHER WAS RAPED” While many might think it was better not to know God had and still has so many plans that humans can’t understand. My mother prayed for 48 years to one day meet me again. She loved me and placed me for adoption because her mother didn’t believe she was raped by 8 men and insisted on my death. My mother fought for me and I’m alive today with 2 married sons and 6 grandchildren.
    I’ve founded Choices4Life to help other moms pregnant or raising children after rape conception. YES I am very glad to know the TRUTH.
  • From a medical standpoint, you are assumed that every disease and cancer may run in your DNA since you have no family medical history. As an adoptee, I was subjected to extra testing and early detection (ie mammograms) because of it.

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If you are an adoptee and would like to add to this post to help raise awareness about the lies you were told and how this impacted you please feel free to inbox Pamela Karanova or send me an inbox on How Does It Feel To Be Adopted?

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The Waiting Game Lasts a Lifetime for Adoptees

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova2 Comments

I guess when you spend 41 years waiting on a piece of mail from your biological parents, waiting on an Catholic Priest to deliver DNA results should be a cake walk?

I’m 41 and I’m still waiting…

Which means I haven’t given up yet!

I am extremely thankful for Father Felix and his desire to have the willingness to help in this matter. I can’t even imagine how he is handling this or approaching it. All I know is he has ALL the information and God has him on an assignment. I am nervous. This is my last shot at ever having a chance at any of my biological family acknowledging me. With DNA proof they have 2 options. They either accept me and acknowledge me or they don’t. I can imagine it might take some time, but hasn’t enough time already been lost?

IMG_20160204_073344It reminds me of spending so much time waiting on my birth mother to keep her word in writing me. I spent over 20 years checking the mail and anticipating her letters and pictures. I wanted to read her feelings, see her hand writing, see a photo of her. In 1994 when I found her she PROMISED me she would write me. I wrote her. Would I be wrong for having a resentment about having to check the mail every day and being disappointed when I open the box and there never has and never will be anything from my biological mother or father? They have known my address but they had no desire to have a relationship with me but I still always had hope one day I would open the mailbox and get a letter from them. Sadly, every time I check the mail I still get disappointed.

Waiting, Waiting and more Waiting…

Praying, Praying & more Praying…

Adoptees, Never give up hope in finding your family & seeking your TRUTH! 

2016-01-10 18.04.25

Turning the Page…

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova1 Comment

I thought the way I was had to be typical but I’ve learned recently the “WAY I AM” has a lot to do with experiencing trauma being separated from my birth mother at the beginning of life. It also has a lot to do with traumatic events I have experienced in my life as a child, and a woman.

I went through a few days this past week where some emotions were triggered and A LOT was revealed to me! Although the revelation was very difficult, and draining I’m thankful that God revealed these things so I can begin to work through these things and move forward with the expectations of healing as the outcome.

Over the next few weeks & months, I’m going to put a spin on my blog posts. I’m not only going to include some of the deep issues I have had with my adoption experience, but I’m also going to share some of the deep rooted & traumatic situations that I experienced as a child, and growing up into my adult life. I haven’t written much about detail of certain events. I still experience a certain level of shame when it comes to certain things but I feel like God is tugging at my heart to share so I can continue to heal in these areas and maybe inspire someone else who has been in similar situations.

Please check back as I continue to turn the page on my healing journey. Thanks for reading & thanks for being here!

Blessings,

Adoptee in Recovery

Actions Speak Louder Than Words…

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova4 Comments
Is it me?
Or do other adoptees experience similar emotional issues? Is there someone out there that can relate to me?
I spent my entire life dreaming and fascinating about my first family. I had no information about them and no one in my life was willing to share anything and I never knew if they knew anything at all. I never have found out the truth. From the moment I found out I was adopted and another woman “Loved me so much she gave me away” my view of “Love” and “Life” was distorted. How does someone LOVE SOMETHING and GIVE IT AWAY? I don’t think I’ve ever truly grasped what it feels s like to be loved by someone. The most recent incident with my oldest daughter has caused a whole new set of emotions that stem from my adoption experience. Maybe I can explain the best way I know how.
No matter what happened with my adoption, It has left me feeling totally alone, and unworthy of accepting love from others. Even being a Christian woman, I sometimes struggle even believing that God loves me. I have some people in my life who I am close to, and I love them and I love my kids, but when people tell me they love me I just can’t grasp it and believe it. The word LOVE in response to me is just another word. I feel like I merely exist on this earth. What’s the purpose?  After all, as far back as I can remember the ACTIONS of my birthmother that were supposed to be so loving have left me feeling like I don’t even deserve to be on this earth. Her actions of having me and giving me over to strangers are not love in my mind. Everyone always says “She loved you so much, what a selfless act”. I think that’s complete bull crap. Not one single person telling me that has had a 5 minute conversation with my birth mother. Not even a one minute conversation. So for me to believe it all these years have just added to my pain and agony and to the lies in the adoption industry. I believe people say those things to make us adoptees feel better but for me it’s made it worse.  Those WORDS and her ACTIONS contradict one another and at almost 40 years old I am finally able to express my feelings about it and uncover the TRUTH. This has had a major impact on every single area of my life, even how I raise my own kids.
The TRUTH I have uncovered has been put together by my observations and experiences over the last 20+ years of my life. I found out my birth mother had an affair with a married man, and he was a friend of the family who was 10 years older than her. When she found out she was pregnant, she hid it from everyone and was completely ashamed of her actions. I was told she was an alcoholic and drank the entire pregnancy. In 1974 abortion was legal. I believe she would have aborted me, but her experience with abortion was horrific. Her mother tried to abort her first born child every way imaginable on her own, and she failed giving birth to a very deformed older sister. This older sister (who would be my biological aunt) was in a nursing home her entire life where she later died in her late 50’s. This is why I believe my birth mother didn’t choose abortion, although I wish she would have. My pain would not even exist.  So for those who always want to say “Aren’t you thankful you weren’t aborted”, I guess you know my very sincere answer now. Thanks for your thoughtful question. Let me ask; are you thankful you weren’t adopted?
My point in bringing up the TRUTH is because it’s impossible to HEAL unless you acknowledge the TRUTH about what you are struggling with. Being in denial is not going to help anyone. It seems that this adoptee journey has many layers like an onion. They just keep being pealed and uncovered one by one. But from my experience being an adoptee the onion doesn’t’ have a center or an end. It just goes on forever and ever.  I truly don’t feel the pain is ever going to go away. My experience is that when your birth mother can discard you, anyone can. The one place I thought I was “Safe” was with my own children. I have always felt we had a very close relationship but things took a turn in that area this past weekend. I believe that our kids will always test the waters, and push parents to the limits on occasion. I have expected this from raising my kids on my own and now I have 3 teenagers, one who lives alone across the street in her own apartment and my twins that still live at home. They will be 16 soon. I have taken so much pride in being able to be sober for close to 2 years, commit myself to my recovery journey so I can be a better mom and one day a fabulous grandma. I have been hit smack dead in the face this past weekend. Maybe I am just fascinating again; we adoptees seem to get five stars in that area.
 I was put in a situation where it was tough love, but I had to tell my oldest daughter “NO” on something. She got upset with me, and deleted me and blocked me from her Facebook. There are more details to the story than that, but I don’t want to go into all the details because it would take forever. As a parent and a person who had a very rough teenage life, I expect these things. When this happened it triggered a whole new set of emotions. It made me realize that not only did my birth mother discard of me, but at any given moment my children will do the same. The feelings of sadness I have felt this week due to the cancelation of meeting my biological grandma (see previous post) and the emotions from the disagreement with my daughter have really sent me into sadness. I went to church Sunday and got up and left. It was too hard to pretend everything was just wonderful. I had to leave. Some might say “Teenagers stay mad at their parents”. I agree. They do but my kids and I have always had such a close relationship and I have always hung onto hope that it would continue that way, and one day I would have grandkids and that would be the beginning of my family tree and things would be wonderful. Another fantasy. I feel like my whole life is one big fantasy. It started the moment I found out I was adopted.
During the disagreement with my daughter she brought it to my attention she has “NO ONE” as in family to rely on in times of need. As sad as this makes me, I feel her pain because I don’t have anyone either aside from a few far away cousins, that I hold dear to my heart. My adoption has caused a major division between my kids and me & most all of my immediate family.  I had to move my kids across the country to protect them from my very emotionally twisted and mentally sick adoptive mother. This was for their benefit, but it also left them with no grandmother and this impacts them. Adoption not only impacts me, but it impacts my children and it will impact their children and their children. This decision and institution made up by people has negatively impacted my life in every way possible. I struggle with that. I have a hard time with that. This is why I drank alcohol and searched in some very dark places for love for 25 years of my life. I didn’t want to face the truth, and I had no help in discovering the truth because my adoptive parents were so brainwashed and convinced that if they didn’t talk about it, and if they just tell me I should be grateful everything would be just fine.  This is totally opposite of how I have healed and what many adoptees feel help bring them healing.  Adoption in the 1960’s and 1970’s was very different than adoption today, but then why are the laws still the same and many adoptive parents still blinded by the fact that the original trauma can’t go ignored and unrecognized? WHY? Because they don’t want to face the truth, that’s why. The hard core truth upsets their feelings of “Were doing a good deed by adopting an unwanted orphan.”  All because the bible tells them so.  Let me share something with you. Adoption is a manmade industry, and entire entity made up to make profit off vulnerable mothers and their babies, and it’s blown up to be a major industry all over the world. I can honestly say the experience I have had from my adoption has no good involved. Every single day I wake up trying to find my place in this world. Every single day I look in the mirror and I’m reminded that the 2 people who should love me the most don’t.  Yes, I’m thankful I found my birth parents and got to see them very few times. But they rejected me. What’s happy about that? What’s good about that? I will never forget this. The pain doesn’t get easier. I had to accept this because it’s the TRUTH!
How do you think it makes adoptees feel when adoption is praised all around the world? Something that caused us so much pain and inconsolable grief is constantly thrown up in our faces and brought to our attention adding salt to the open wounds. This is not okay. Those people in society that want to speak how amazing and wonderful adoption is have never walked one footstep in an adoptees shoes. We are finally starting to break out of “The Fog” and when we grow up we learn the TRUTH about adoption. As a child I was brainwashed and told I couldn’t feel bad about losing my first family and my birth mother. She loved me so much she gave me away, TO STRANGERS! To people she never laid eyes on, or met in her life. How is that love? The “Better” life I was supposed to have wasn’t better at all. It was just different.
I will be writing soon about how I feel when society and people in general speak for birth mothers, and birth parents. More of the lies that are a part of the adoption industry.  Finally at almost 40 I have come to a place of more TRUTH in my life. I will share in my next post.
So now as I have been trying to work things out with my daughter, it will always be in the back of my mind that she too will one day reject me, and leave me. It’s so crazy but I always had a feeling that was coming. Some don’t realize that when you have experienced the extent of abandonment and rejection adoptees have it changes everything! Every single biological family member I have I have pictures saved in a special file on my computer, titled “Bio Fam”. Why you may ask? Because I KNOW they will disappear one day! It’s just a matter of time. I better hurry up and save their picture before they do. It’s not that the pictures are everything but they sure are when all the memories you SHOULD have had don’t exist.  I learned this when I met my birth mother for the first time, and it was the last. I fantasized my entire life about this woman, and POOF… She’s gone just like that. With no explanation, no nothing. This experience has impacted every area of my life. Adoption has impacted every area of my life. When I realized that I was also saving my children’s pictures off the computer I learned that my wounds go even deeper than I realized. I am also fearful my own children will leave me.  This is very sad to me. I realize it but I can’t do anything about it. That fear is still there and this recent upsetting with my oldest daughter triggered emotions that I hadn’t ever faced before. My fantasizing how perfect life was because I had 3 amazing kids in my life could come to a crashing halt at any given moment. They too could get mad at me for something and abandon me and reject me. This has left me feeling like no matter what I do, the reality is the outcome could be as devastating as it has been with my biological parents. It opened the wounds I have tried to hide of the tragedies and trauma of not only being separated from my birth mother at the beginning of life, but her rejecting me when I did find her.  What do I do with that? Continue to deny the realities of what has happened? Continue to pretend my kids won’t do the same thing one day? I’m pretty sure non adopted people can’t even relate to this language. It probably sounds pretty ridiculous to them.  And that’s okay. My goal in writing my feelings is to #1) Let other adoptees know they aren’t alone. #2) For any adoptive parents who can face the fact that their adoptive children can and most WILL have emotional issues due to their adoption can come here as a place to try to understand better.
If any adoptive parents are reading this, and I’m sure many will I wouldn’t expect you all to understand how we feel but you can TRY to understand by reading what we have to say. But please be open to the realities of how adult adoptees feel and what has hurt them and what has helped them handle the pain and realities of adoption. For me, and I will say this until the day I die, THE TRUTH has helped me more than anything. Telling my birth mother “Loved me so much she gave me away” didn’t help me. Telling me I was the “Chosen” one didn’t help me. Telling me I was a “Gift from God” made me feel like someone’s property and God was in charge of all this pain. Telling me I should be thankful didn’t help me. Saying “Aren’t you thankful you weren’t aborted” definitely hasn’t helped me; all of these things have made it worse. Denying the trauma that was experienced at the beginning of life has hurt me. Pretending my first family didn’t exist hurt me. Not supporting my search and reunions hurt me. Having insecurities about my first family hurt me. Lying to me hurt me. Seeing me search and not offering the information you KNEW hurt me! I could go on and on and on.
The bottom line is that adoption lies no matter how big or how small has got to stop. Lying to the adoptee for any reason is not healthy nor is it the right thing to do. It’s very wrong and lying or as the adoption industry likes to convince people “Protecting the child” is terminology used centuries ago when adoption first became legalized. Take it from an adult adoptee that is in recovery from my adoption related issues. LYING WILL DESTROY THE ADOPTEE and it will destroy the relationships the adoptee has with the adoptive families. We already have a major issues regarding having no choice in being separated from our first families and facing the truth about the woman that should love us the most in life not wanting to parent us, for whatever reason. Cant’ you see that the REASON doesn’t even matter…. The root issue is abandonment, from her handing us over to strangers. That is where the dysfunction comes from. Being denied to grieve the root issue and having to pretend our whole lives that our biggest PAIN is in our imagination, we shouldn’t love our first mother nor should we ever think about her when this “Wonderful, amazing, family” has “Adopted” us and they have all the love in the world to give. Let me share, loving ME is also loving my HISTORY. When you try to erase my HISTORY you are erasing a part of ME. What makes you think I believe you love me when you have no problem erasing part of me? My HISTORY and I are a total package. And until adoptive parents can willingly embrace this, adoptees all over the world will continue to be hurt and devastated due to their adoption experience.

Thanks for reading!