Category: Adoptee Feelings

What My Adoptive Parents Could Have Done Differently

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova5 Comments

“Other than helping you find your birth family sooner, is there anything you believe your adoptive mom could have done to decrease the amount of anger and resentment you felt towards her?”

 
 
This is a very valuable question I was asked by an adoptive mom who wants to know more so she can have some input on her adoptive children. I COMMEND her for asking!  
*She would have let me blossom into my own person and not try to mold me and shape me to be like her. I was nothing like her. We had no similarities and I didn’t like the same things she did, but she didn’t give me options other than the things she wanted me to do. An example is ballet. Ballet is beautiful, but I hated it. I never wanted to take it. One example of many.
*She always made me feel guilty about even asking about my first mother. I never even spoke of my biological father or the fact that I may have siblings. If she made me feel bad about wanting to know more about my first mother, of course she would do the same about the rest. This made me feel extremely alone. It hurt me deeply that I couldn’t speak freely about my feelings. This has created lifelong pain for me.
*Talking about my first family shouldn’t be a secret. They are a part of me, why the “hush hush” attitude? How do you think it makes a child feel when you hide a part of them? It’s no wonder I had low self-esteem my whole life. She never spoke about them, unless I brought it up. Then I was made to feel guilty.
*I wasn’t allowed to express love for my first family. This hurt me deeply.
*She told me I was a gift. I understand in the Christian world, everyone refers to babies as “Gifts from God”. That’s all find and dandy but adoptees can find this very offensive as if we are something of monetary value. Yes, I believe babies are a gift from God, but please avoid saying this to your adoptive child. It can cause more harm than good.
*Counselors were sought my entire life, beginning at age 6. I found out I was adopted at age 5. The original trauma of being separated from my biological mother never was mentioned? It was the root of my issues but growing up being made to feel guilty and that I should just be grateful for someone wanting me when my own mother didn’t I was never able to feel comfortable to voice my true feelings. Don’t ignore this very critical fact that could have a major impact on your child’s behavior. Being separated from your biological mother at the beginning of life is the biggest trauma your child will ever face. Read Nancy Newton Verriers book, “The Primal Wound”.
*Please don’t ignore your child when they speak of their first family. This is their way of opening up. NEVER make it about YOU and YOUR feelings. It’s not about you. It’s about them and they need to feel comfortable without being shamed for the curiousity of their first family and their feelings need validated. This is CRITICAL to the healing process.
*Adoptees need to heal from the trauma they have gone through. So do kids in foster care. You can’t erase their history. Please don’t try. Not discussing all the details about their first family is erasing their history. Please bring it up, and make it an open topic of conversations. This is one of the biggest hurts of my life is having to keep my feelings a secret. Adoptive parents say, “Sally never talks about her biological family, and she says she loves being adopted.”  More than likely Sally is not a teenager yet, and hasen’t fully grasped what adoption means. Children are going to be slower at identifying true feelings, and learning that they can talk about their first family. As the adult and adoptive parent you should start these conversations. I WISH MY ADOPTIVE MOTHER SAID, “It’s okay to love your first family and have a sad heart you aren’t with them!”.
*Never speak for the first family. A better life is just a different life. A child can’t comprehend how you “LOVE” something and you “Give it away”.  This is very confusing to a child. I never could comprehend this and I am just figuring out today the truth. What I wish my adoptive mom said is, “Your first mother wasn’t able to take care of you so she placed you up for adoption to a family that could take care of you.”  None of the nonsense about a “Better Life” or “She loved you so much.” No one truly knows how she felt. So stop trying to answer questions for her. It only makes it worse!
*If she was a $2 crack whore or a satanic cult leader it doesn’t matter, SHE IS STILL OUR MOTHER! Please do not make the child feel bad about the way their first families were. We are ALL HUMAN. WE ALL FALL SHORT. Abusing a child is never okay, and of course there are many cases where the best interest of the child is to be taken to a safe place. No matter how horrible the biological family is, any time a child is taken from it’s mother a trauma occours. But if you make the child feel guilty about wanting to know their first family they will feel bad about themselves. I feel that honesty at age appropriate times is critical. “Your first mother was very sick and not able to care for you so she reached out to someone who could, that’s why we adopted you.” OR if she didn’t reach out to someone that could, and the child was taken then leave that part out. “You were in an unsafe environment and you were moved to a safe place.” That is a perfect statement vs. sharing she was a satanic cult leader or a crack whore.  If the child was abused, then you could share the child was abused but details about the abuse can be shared if the child grows into an adult and asks the details on his or her own. I don’t’ feel secrets should be kept but I do feel a******This is being honest but protecting the child at the same time.  Think of wanting to protect the child, you wouldn’t want them to know all your deepest darkest mistakes would you? When they are old enough and start asking details then share what you know but when they are at young tender ages they don’t need to know the negative things about their first families. I got to a point where I fought everyone to find out the TRUTH. But if I ever had my adoptive parents sit down and explain to me all they knew at an appropriate age, then I would have known much sooner. But please know I didn’t love my birth mother any less no matter what kind of person she was. I NEEDED TO MEET HER AND SEE FOR MYSELF! I put in my testimony, “They say the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, and I agree. But I needed to see for myself!”.
*When you adopt a child please know you adopt the first family as well. If you go into adopting thinking your child has a blank slate, you are very mistaken. ALL CHILDREN HAVE A HISTORY. Our history is a part of us and will always be. Please acknowledge this.
*Always acknowledge your child’s feelings. Good and bad they deserve validation.
*Don’t expect to lie to me and for me to be happy with that. My adoptive mother lied to me my entire life. “When we get enough money for an attorney to get the sealed records opened we will try to search for your birth family, but right now we don’t have enough money.” I always hung onto that hope, and all of a sudden one day “POOF” she knows my birth mothers name. I was angry at her for along time for this. Yes, she didn’t have to tell me at all but she would have to live with that. It is wrong to hold someones history from them!
*Any time a child is severed from their biological roots this can cause major identity issues. Please be prepared to connect all the dots for your child, and to assist them in whatever way possible so they can put all the pieces to their puzzle together. If you have to get on board with adoptee rights do it. It will mean so much to your child!!! They deserve to know ALL the answers to their history.
*Remember your history is not their history. No matter how bad you want it to be, it’s not and it’s not the same. They have a different family tree. Their ancestors come from a different place. This needs to be acknowledged. Never ignored. It should never be a secret. If they see this is important to the adoptive family they will see its okay to talk about it. You can never erase someone’s history. [HIS] Story- [HER] Story. Just because you adopt a baby this doesn’t mean their history is erased. Every child no matter what the age has a history. It is WRONG to try to erase it.
*Open adoption has a set of issues of it’s own. I don’t write much about it because I haven’t experienced it. I believe you truly have to experience something to be able to know how it feels. Maybe that’s why I have so much to say about how it feels to be adopted? But what I have heard others bring up is that children in an open adoption can have many issues related to wondering why their first family is in their life, but they can’t take care of them? This causes a whole set of abandonment & rejection issues of their own aside from the original trauma of abandonment. I feel open adoption takes the “wondering” issue away but the original trauma of being abandoned by your own mother is still there. This is the root issue of dysfunction and can cause a lot of grief and loss issues unless it is handled in an appropriate way. Again, read Nancy Newton Verrier, “The Primal Wound”.
*Denying the truth and all the issues that can come with adoption and pretending that just because the child isn’t speaking about their issues, doesn’t mean they are not there. I always felt a total divided sense of loyalty to both families. This was heart breaking, and I was never able to express these true feelings until I got older. Just because your adoptive child says they love being adopted and they appear to feel great about their experience doesn’t mean they don’t have some deep seeded issues there. Remember, any time a mother and a child is separated a trauma occurs- No matter WHY they were separated. Younger children are not able to fully grasp what adoption means, this doesn’t mean they don’t wonder, or have emotional issues related to being adopted.

*Help your child create a keep sake box or chest with information about their first family. Every detail you can think or and any information you have been given. This will mean so much to them when they are older. Letters, pictures, cards, keep sakes, documentation of their birth, medical history, Original Birth Certificate, anything you can get your hands on about their history. I know of an adoptive mother who kept a baby blanket and some letters her adoptive childs first mother gave her to give to her child. The child found out about this later when she met her first mother, and nothing was ever given to her. This sent her in immediate rage and anger and she was left very upset. If the biological family sends things for this child, open adoption or not, do not take it and never give it to the person it belongs to. This is wrong!

*Never EVER lie to your child. We spend our whole lives with our parents telling us “Lying is never okay!” Guess what.. In adoption its not okay either!
*Realized Birthdays may be very difficult. “Birth” day. Imagine the trauma that happened that day? Some adoptees have a very difficult time celebrating. Others may not. I experience an inconsolable grief on that day. It’s very difficult to handle and I am forced to smile and put on a happy face for those around me. It’s grueling. It’s a day I despise.
*I wish my adoptive mom would have gotten some extensive therapy before adopting me. She was unable to have children of her own, and instead of grieve her loss, she adopted. This caused me great pain growing up because she has some severe deep rooted emotional issues due to her loss from not being able to have her own children, and I had to pay for that. Her root issues of infertility were they cause of much of her dysfunctional behaviors and addictions. Her feelings of low self-esteem and unworthiness interfered with her parenting causing me to feel even more abandoned and rejected than I already did.
*I believe all adoptive parents should read The Primal Wound, Nancy Newton Verrier. I can’t share this enough!
*It would mean the world to adoptees if their adoptive parents jumped on the bandwagon and helped them get access to their Original Birth Certificates. This would have meant everything to me, but I have never received one bit of support from my adoptive parents and this has caused a great division between us. I can’t talk to them about my first family who is part of me. This causes more pain and I will never understand how you can adopt a child and expect them to forget their first family. This is so not right.
*Always realize that adoption is not a natural situation. What is natural is a child being raised by their very own flesh and blood and biological family. Our reactions to an unnatural situation are very normal for a not normal situation. Never make your adoptive child feel guilty for wanting to know more about where they come from. For wanting to know all the details about their first mother who carried them for 9 months, for wanting to know their siblings and who their father is. If you make them feel guilty in any way they will shut down. They will repress everything and it will come out in other ways. Anger, rage, low self-esteem, their relationships, how they parent their children, etc. Please let them share openly and freely about their first family and any questions they may have.
*Don’t be surprised when your adoptive child feels robbed of so much. I feel that because people and an industry CHOSE what they wanted for my life, I have lost more than they could ever comprehend. Relationships robbed, and so many family memories, and holidays never to be replaced. This is a loss, and it deserves acknowledgement. It’s a REAL LOSS so please don’t ignore that it’s there.
*Reunion should be between the adoptee and the biological families. They should be able to reunite without their adoptive families smothering them. They will have so much missed and time to make up for. Give them their space, and trust that everything will be okay.
*Money doesn’t take away the fact we lost so much. I would have rather been dirt poor with my biological family then be with strangers that denied me the right to love my first family or acknowledge their existence.
*I feel adoptive parents need to get therapy for any insecurity they may have about their adoptive child meeting their first families. Your issues are not our issues. Please get help. Reality is , if you have done an outstanding job raising your adoptive child, you will have nothing to worry about.
Love is not all we need. We need the answers to our history. ALL OF IT. You have the choice to join that fight or we will do it alone. I say “Fight” because so many people are still against adoptees discovering the truth to their history, and states are still closed records.
Visit The Adoptee Right’s Coalition and help figure out how you can help get on board.
Visit www.facebook.com/howdoesitfeeltobeadoptedand ask questions so you can receive some feedback from those who have lived with being adopted.
Keep reading adoptee blogs. If you are an adoptive parent or potential adoptive parent and you have made it this far I commend you!
I am sure I can think of more, but these are the things that come to my mind based on my experience.  I hope and pray that adoptive parents or potential adoptive parents somewhere out there can read this and open their hearts and understand a little better.
Are you adopted? What can you add?

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!

Another Day, Another Struggle

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova2 Comments
Over the last few days it’s been made apparent to me that there is still so much deep dark sadness deep in my heart from my adoptee issues. Is it ever going to go away? I truly don’t believe so. I believe the key for me is to work on coping skills as much as wishing they would go away. I remember hearing another adoptee state one time, “It feels like a life sentence”. I believe this statement sums it up the best for me.  Even as a God fearing Christian who is in a recovery program from these very issues I still have hard days, and rough patches and they seem to send me in a downward spiral into complete sadness and feelings of despair.
Let me make this clear that I am a truly blessed person. I am thankful for everything God has given me in my life, and for the fact that I have 3 amazing healthy children. I have an awesome career, a small handmade soap business on the side. I have an amazing church family, and a small circle of friends I wouldn’t trade for the world. I wake up daily and as soon as my eyes open I am thanking God for getting me to where I am today. From where I used to be I’ve come along way. I’m very thankful for my health, and for the few family members I do have contact with in both families, adoptive and biological. I’m generally a very upbeat, happy and positive person. I don’t sit around and feel sorry for myself or focus on the negative aspects in life. I focus on the future and what it’s going to be like when I have my future grand kids, and maybe a husband one day although that’s neither here nor there to me. I focus on my relationship with God, and that’s the most important relationship I have in my life. Then comes my relationships with my kids.
I can certainly say that if I didn’t have God or my kids I wouldn’t be here. I would have nothing to live for. I was hoping that my feelings of being less than, or inadequate were tapering off and going away but I believe they are still deep down there because I wouldn’t feel the way I do when I have this downward spiral of sadness that seems to come and go. It’s hard to build yourself up, and have feelings of self-worth when you have been through what adoptees go through. All adoptees are different and we are all at different stages of our journeys. We are always second class, second choice, we always have to worry about everyone else’s feelings more than our own. How do you think that makes us feel? We have to worry about what everyone will think about what we say about our journeys so we keep quiet to avoid ruffling anyone’s feathers. I find time and time again I have to defend my very feelings against people that have no clue of what it feels like to be adopted but they always seem to have an opinion or something to say. More than likely they blend in with the rest of society on how glorifying adoption is because they know someone that has adopted and believe its all rainbows. They never once taking into consideration of adoptees loose an entire family before they gain another one.  We are forced to suffer in silence because no one understands us.  We can never grieve the loss of our first families because our adopters deny us that right by telling us we should be grateful.
Finally at 39 I am grieving, all on my own. Because once again no one understands but other adoptees and I believe some birth mothers may understand to an extent but not fully. They lost a child; we lost a whole family and our very own mothers and fathers. Not that one is more or less than the other, because I know losing a child is traumatic and they too were more than likely denied to grieve the loss of that child but for us to have to pretend our whole lives that we should just be grateful is just flat out wrong and traumatizing. The loss of our mothers is traumatizing. Any time a mother and a child is separated a trauma occurs. This trauma needs grieving, and the proper healing to take place. Now how is that going to happen when adopters pretend it’s not even there?
I’m in a recovery program called Celebrate Recovery. It’s a Christ-centered recovery program. It’s to help everyone overcome their hurts, habits, & hang ups. I am certain God put I in this ministry to not only work on my adoptee issues but to help share the realities of the silenced side of adoption and that’s an adoptees voice. I have prayed for grace and peacefulness when I share my issues because again, I always have to worry about who I offend and whose feelings I might hurt. I give my testimony for the second time on April 3rd. I gave it this past September but I sort of sugar coated the depths of my adoptee issues, but I am spending the next 3 weeks rewriting it and I am focusing solely on my adoptee issues because I truly believe being adopted, and the impact it has had on me is the root of my dysfunctional behaviors and life style patterns. It’s why I always drank alcohol to cope. It’s why I always tried to cover the pain and hurt. It’s because that pain and hurt is so tremendous that it’s unbearable at times. I have been living a sober lifestyle since August 12, 2012. No alcohol and no drugs, no anything to numb the pain. I can tell you it’s the most difficult journey to walk and the emotions I’m processing are very real and some days I don’t even feel like going on. But I have to because my kids need me. I wake up, put on the sugar coated smile and appear to have it all together for everyone around me. But deep down it still hurts. I’m not sure if that will ever go away.

I wish sometimes I could record my thoughts about it. I was lying in bed last night with my mind racing, praying and asking God to just take it all way. Take away the sadness and pain. I was thinking about never really blending in with either of my families. I felt like an outsider in my birth family because we had no memories to speak of, no history to share. Its awkward building relationships with people you should be so close to but you are virtual strangers at ever extent. It’s even harder when they live far away. I have cut ties and let go of all my birth family accept my biological brother who is amazing. The rest of them have been too painful even down to the biological cousins. I pulled back and threw in the towel on all the rest of the relationships. I have wanted to go see my biological grandmother for the first time but at this point I’m thinking that may cause me more harm than good. How would you feel going to see your biological grandmother for the first time ever and knowing that was the only time you would ever see her so it would be your first and last time ever meeting her? Talk about emotional. Maybe if it would be better emotionally if I never went. I never opened that can of worms. Do you not realize how hard this is? I have to choose between seeing her one time or never at all. I shouldn’t have to choose this. It’s not fair. With my adoptive family, I don’t know what I would do without my cousins and my one brother I do have contact with. They have all been amazing, but sad to say it’s still not the same. We are close, some of us but we don’t share the same genetics and I always felt different and like I didn’t fit in with them either. It didn’t help growing up in a step family. So not only was I the adopted child, I was a step child also. My adoptive dad was awesome but he was also far away. We never were able to have a close relationship. But I love him dearly. IT WAS DIFFERENT! VERY DIFFERENT! I never felt like I belonged with either family. I’ve had to accept this.

I’m thankful today I have created my own life, with my own family whom are my children. This is what I wake up for every single day. My kids.

 I will continue to write about my journey and share it with the world.
Thanks for reading!