Tag: Adoptee

Genealogy & Me.. My Crack Pipe Mystery

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova1 Comment

Crazy title, I know…

I was trying to describe what it feels like to SEARCH for genealogy clues and tips on Ancestry.com. I don’t know if other adoptees can relate, but I have the strongest desire deep in the core of my being to SEARCH FOR PEOPLE! I truly believe that I began searching from the moment I found out I was adopted, and that was 5 years old.

I began to search for my birth mother all over the place. Looking back over my childhood and my life, I really don’t think anyone understands the heartache and trauma this causes on a child. How would you feel if you searched for your own mother every where you went? I remember distinctly how it felt, and all the places I looked for her. I remember seeing someone who might be “her”, but I never had enough guts to ask anyone until I reached my early teens. Of course, then I sounded like an idiot, “Are you my mother?”. SMH. That book makes me cry by the way, every time I see it or read it. 

My mind was filled with fantasies about who she was, where she was, and I knew in my heart of hearts this “Adoption Thing” was all a big mistake. There was no way possible a mother would truly give their baby up, would they? I dreamed my birth mother was looking for me, and any day she would pull up in her car and take me back home where I belonged. Every day I waited. Every day I was disappointed when she didn’t come. I never accepted the fact that it was real.

As I got older, I got angry. At 21 my adoptive mom told me she had been keeping something from me, and she lied to me my whole life. She knew who my birth mother was. Feeling betrayed, I began the search for my birth mother because now I had her name. Within days I found her, and the search was over.

During that time (1995) the internet wasn’t big at all. I couldn’t get online and do anything, but I did learn to be resourceful. I was born in Iowa, but I lived in KY. I called the Iowa library in the city I was born, and was super extra nice to the librarian who answered the phone. I really needed her help since I was so far away! I explained to her why I was calling, and she was more than happy to help me. I asked her to look up my birth mothers name in the 1974 directory. She did, and she found my birth mother and her address. Then I asked her to look in the 1995 directory. My birth mothers name wasn’t there, but there was another person that had the same last name as my birth mother that was listed in 1974 AND 1995. The librarian gave me this persons name, and I called her. She happened to be my birth mothers sister-n-law through marriage. Within minutes I had my birth mothers number, and called her.

I’m sharing this because all the way back to my early childhood I began searching, trying to put pieces of my puzzle together. Once I turned 21 and found my birth mother, and I had a name to go off of it took me 16 years and a road trip to finally meet my birth father, then I had 2 siblings I finally met. PUZZLE COMPLETE. ( I was rejected, which was and still is the biggest heartache of my life, but I believe it adds value to my testimony because I have survived being rejected by the woman who SHOULD love me the most!)

Over the years, I have helped many friends & family search for long lost loved ones. Again, the deep desire I have to help others connect their puzzle pieces is almost indescribable. It’s so strong, and now as an adult at 40 years old searching is something that truly makes me happy. I get excited with a new challenge, and I am always ecstatic when I help someone fill in some missing pieces. Little by little mysteries are being solved. Little by little people are bridging the gap between fantasy and reality when it comes to WHO THEY ARE AND WHERE THEY COME FROM?

Could it be that God helped me make it through this life so I could be here on earth to help others find their missing links? My title “Genealogy & Me, My Crack Pipe Mystery” as my title because once I get going on solving a mystery, I am addicted to it, and it’s extremely hard for me to stop! LOL

Some people don’t have this desire in them at all, so that leaves me to believe it’s a gift. I have helped a friend who gave a baby up for adoption find her son. They were reunited a few years back. I have helped a guy find his birth parents, and he had never spoke to his father his whole life. I helped a childhood friend find her brother who was given up for adoption when they were children. The list could go on and on. It’s something that truly makes me happy. I remember not knowing, and no one being anywhere to help me. Maybe God has put me here to support others in their search and reunions, and to be someone who can assist them in what to do next? I’ve been searching for over 20 years now. I’m pretty good at it, and I believe God is using me to help others connect with long lost family members.

I recently subscribed to Ancestory.com. Wow.. You would think I was on crack for real! ( LOL.. Those who know me know I’m living in recovery, 2 years 5 months!) I get addicted to searching for clues and cues. It’s insane. I literally have to pry myself away from the computer. I can spend hours and hours searching.

What is this big thing I have with searching? Does it come from searching for my birth parents at such a young age, even before I had a name? Do any other adoptees have this desire to search for their long lost loved ones? Even for others? To help them find their missing pieces?

Please share your thoughts & experience!

Pamela Jones AKA @freesimplyme

http://www.facebook.com/howdoesitfeeltobeadopted

How Do You Feel About The Day You Were Born & Why?

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova2 Comments

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”- Mark Twain…

Does this quote make other adoptees squeal deep down inside or is it just me? I’ve been seeing more and more of this quote and each time I read it I’m reminded of the 2 most important days of my life and many other adoptees being hijacked, stolen gone forever. It feels like a knife stabs me in the gut each time I read this. I would suspect non-adoptees can’t even grasp WHY this quote would hurt so badly.

Let’s face it… There was no celebration that day. It was dooms day for my birth mother and I. I believe the day she surrendered her newborn baby was the hardest day of her life & I believe that day set the tone for the rest of her life. She died an alcoholic all alone at 63 years old.  I believe the day I was born was the day I experienced the biggest loss of my life, my entire first family and everything to go along with it.

For the day I was born to be one of the top 2 most important days of my life, AND for me to experience the biggest trauma of my life on that day by being separated from my birth mother at the beginning of life is an oxymoron. So this leads me to believe this quote counts for everyone, BUT adoptees.

Does the world truly not see why adoptess views of themselves may or may not be so distorted? We were born into a difficult situation. We’re left to process this alone. We’re expected to celebrate something that should be grieved.

I don’t know about you, but this whole adoption thing is the most backwards experience of my entire life. How can I grasp that the 2 most important days of my life were the day that I was born and they day I found out why? I know why I was born… So I could fill a void in a woman’s life who couldn’t have children. She always dreamed of being called “Mother”. That’s why I was born. I was born because my birth mother had a sister who was deformed at birth because her mother tried to give herself an abortion, but didn’t succeed. This is the only reason my birth mother didn’t have an abortion. That’s why I was born. I was born and handed to strangers because my birth mother wanted to get rid of her problem. Her reminder of her affair with a married man who’s wife was dying of terminal cancer at the time I was conceived.

I don’t feel any comforting thoughts about the day I was born, only tragic. I don’t feel anything GOOD or warm fuzzy about anything to do with that day. I don’t feel HAPPY about being given LIFE instead of aborted. I would have rather been aborted because I wouldn’t feel any of this heart breaking pain day in and day out!  If you walked one day in my shoes and felt what I felt you just might feel the same way, so don’t judge me! I don’t feel great about anything to do with being born on this earth, used for the benefit of someone else. I don’t feel great at ALL about all that was taken from me. There is nothing GOOD to say about anything to do with the day I was born, or the reason WHY.

This isn’t saying I’m not thankful for certain aspects of my life or being born. I’m thankful I was a healthy baby. I was born with all my fingers and toes, etc. But for me to be happy or joyous about the day I was born, or the reason WHY I was born is crap. I had to fight like hell to find out my truth about WHY I WAS BORN. The truth hurt, but at least I found out. Thousands of adoptees will never find out their truth. They will never find out why they were born. Does this make them LESS THAN? It sure makes them feel like their foundation is missing.

Mark Twain- Your quote is crap for adoptees around the world.

That is all. I had to get this off my chest, because if I see that quote one more time I might just scream. How does this quote impact you if you are an adoptee? Am I alone here? Only ranting because this is my place to rant and share my feelings without being interrupted.

I wish I was excited about the day I was born. 

I wish I felt happiness on the day I was born. 

Thank you very much.

Happy New Year ALL!

Pamela Karanova @pamelakaranova

http://www.facebook.com/howdoesitfeeltobeadopted

Just Listen… That is all…

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova10 Comments

Each day I wake up, I say a prayer and thank God for allowing me to see another day on earth. Even when it’s hell on earth. I get out of bed, and muzzle through the morning. I play my worship music, I have some time with God. If time permits I do some writing, or journaling. Writing seems to be my escape. I can share my real feelings here, when no one else in the world seems to want to know how I feel. Part of me doesn’t want to share my feelings with anyone in my “REAL” world. I’m afraid it would hurt them, then once again it would be about me worrying about others feelings before my own.  Being adopted, that’s how it’s been since day one.  I’m mentioning this because part of me wishes the people in my life close to me cared enough to want to read my feelings, and the other part feels like I need to protect them. People generally want to start giving unsolicited advice, and I’m just not ready to receive it from those who have no idea how it feels to be adopted. I wish more people would just LISTEN. That’s all I need.

Complicated, huh? I want people to understand me and if they try I will feel like they at least care. I also want to protect them from knowing how I really feel, so I don’t want to share it. I say “Protect them” because I have found that those close to me feel like because I have such deep rooted sadness due to my adoption experience (I have hope it will get better!) they feel as if they aren’t enough to make me happy. In reality, it has nothing to do with them, nothing at all. It has everything to do with losing so much by being adopted.

I’ve found most people who aren’t adopted can’t even comprehend how we feel. They might try, some of those close to me listen to me and I love them for that. That’s really all I need. But generally it’s on my mind every single day. Every single day I keep my feelings locked up in my mind, I pray and ask God for help to get through each day. It’s not easy. This holiday has been very trying. I’m so glad it’s over. I literally had to pull myself away from “Adoptee Land” and stay away from my computer, adoption sites, etc. It was extremely difficult to make it through each day aside from adding extra to it. Holiday’s are full of triggers. I hate the holidays. I found myself putting on a fake smile for everyone around me. If they only knew how I really felt, they would want to leave my like everyone else has. I think that’s a another reason I don’t really want them knowing my true feelings. They would never understand, and they would label me as an angry adoptee like the rest of society. Just so happens my story is one of heartbreak after heartbreak. There really is no happy ending for me. Not when it comes to my adoption story. I just have to learn to navigate through the emotions, even when they come souring like a tsunami. I must  continue to work on healing, sharing how I feel, and moving forward. The hardest for me, is acceptance. I have accepted a lot of my adoption experience. There are so many aspects to it. I kept thinking as I go through year after year of healing, that one day a light was going to click and my pain would be all gone. Or much less than it is now. It’s actually worse since I’ve been living in recovery. My feelings aren’t being masked by alcohol and drugs. They are very real & raw but it’s not getting easier. Treading through the unknown of working through past adoptee abandonment & rejection issues has been scary and some days I want to give up. It would be so much easier to just give up. But my inspiration is my kids, and future grand kids. I want to be a happy grandma for them, and a healthy mother for my kids. Not just on the outside but on the inside as well. Accepting this pain is here to stay was hard. I don’t think I will ever feel whole. Too much was lost, never to return. Too much was stolen, and the beginning of my life was just too messed up to be able to feel normal like everyone else might. What is normal anyway?  Who knows. I just know even after finding all my biological family, being rejected by my birth parents, and closing the door on that chapter of my life I am still a broken woman. Finding everyone was a HUGE success in my journey, but it didn’t end there. You never know what you will find, and you never know how the reunions will turn out. Mine failed. It’s been beyond difficult. I know other adoptees can feel my pain.

Next one up that’s difficult for many adoptees is Mother’s Day but thankfully I have a few months to even have to worry about it.

For those out there who aren’t adopted who might be reading this, if you can just listen when someone adopted is sharing their feelings to you, that’s the best thing you can do. Please don’t try to fix us, or say anything that could be taken the wrong way. We don’t need to hear things like, “Aren’t you glad you are alive and not aborted?” or “You were a gift from God”. Spare us… That only minimizes our pain, and we need our pain validated. The safest place you can be is to remain an active listener. That’s all I need anyway.

I will be writing more later.

Blessings,

Pamela AKA Adoptee In Recovery

http://www.facebook.com/howdoesitfeeltobeadopted

I pray God helps me find my purpose in this world.

Discovering My Fears…

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova1 Comment

I’m a pretty positive person. I am thankful every day I’m able to HEAR the alarm, SEE the clock, and my feet are PHYSICALLY able to hit the floor. Not once in a while, but every day!  When you care for elderly who are more than humble with physical limitations it helps you see what many people take for granted. I don’t take those simple things for granted. When I arrive at my home on a cold winter day, walk inside and the warm air hits my face I’m humbly reminded that so many don’t have a home to go to, let alone a warm one. Bottom line is, I’m thankful.

Most of my heartaches in life I save to share here in my blog, and at Celebrate Recovery, (CR). At CR I share some of my biggest hurts because it’s a safe place where I’m able to do this without judgment and condemnation. My blog is also a safe place for me, because no one tells me how to feel here. It’s all me, my feelings based on my life’s experiences.

As I pray and ask God to REVEAL things to me, that I need to work on one thing that God has brought to my attention this past week is that I’m operating in complete FEAR of abandonment & rejection based on my history and the things I’ve been through in life. It’s been a “AH-HA” week for me, and a rather emotionally exhausting one. I have always said, “I don’t live in FEAR because I have FAITH”. Well that is a lie. I uncovered some truths about myself and why I am the way I am, and living in FEAR is a big part of my life. I never realized it until now. I know this is in part because I spend my whole life numbing my pain with alcohol. From 12-37 I drank to cope, and on August 12, 2012 I started a recovery ministry. I have 2 years sobriety now and feelings are REAL! Feelings I never felt before because alcohol was a big part of my life. I never faced my issues until I stopped drinking. Many people, and adoptees depend on substances to numb the pain! This is hardcore deep rooted pain we experience!

You see, when we start a recovery journey it’s like peeling back layers of an onion. But we have to recognize how those layers got there. One by one, event after event, the layers built up over time, over our lives and we have YEARS OF LAYERS to work through. This is no QUICK FIX. The first 2 years of my recovery journey I worked on forgiving my birth mother, accepting my adoption experience, and forgiving my adoptive parents for lying to me my whole life. I still have work to do, but it took me 2 whole years just to address those few issues.  I’m just now healing at 40 years old because I spent 38 years being told I should be grateful for being adopted. Because of this I always feeling like something was wrong with ME because I was far from grateful for losing my first family and my history. So here I am, healing slowly. After I processed much of my feelings the first 2 years, and asked God to come in and heal me by working the 12 Steps in Celebrate Recovery (similar to AA but biblically based) God began to reveal more to me. Little by little he keeps revealing more. He knows I couldn’t handle it all at once! I also heard Joyce Meyer say in a CD series I’m listening to about fear, “When God takes you to a new level, you’re about to see a NEW DEVIL!”.  Satan is out to steal, kill and destroy so he doesn’t want to see us overcome! He doesn’t want us to HEAL! He will throw as much FEAR at us as possible! So it’s critical to recognize it and WORK ON IT! I don’t know about YOU, but I’m TIRED OF LIVING IN FEAR!

By God revealing that I am living in FEAR it’s opened up the door way for me to step on into a place of processing WHY I’m in FEAR and acknowledge that my FEAR is NORMAL for a life that has had some things happen that are NOT NORMAL. Let’s me be clear, HEALING IS ON MY MIND! I’m not going to sit up here and write in this blog and be ALL NEGATIVE about my PAST HURTS, without healing in mind. I’m sharing my feelings because I need this place for validation, and a release. I also want other adoptees to know they aren’t alone.

I KNOW GOD HEALS!

Now you may ask what am I in fear of?  I will go in more details in some of my next posts, but I’m in paralyzing FEAR of people abandoning me!  I’m in FEAR of people rejecting me! I’m in FEAR of people HURTING ME! I know, I know… Many people might say, “We all live in FEAR of some kind.”  I believe you are right, but the difference is I REFUSE TO CONTINUE TO LIVE IN FEAR FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE! These fearful CRAZY episodes are WAY TO MUCH FOR ME TO HANDLE. I do NOT want to live the rest of my life in bondage from FEAR based on my past situations. It’s critical I learn the triggers, and there is a list a mile long!

I will write in my next blog post about what this fear feels like to me. The fear from abandonment & rejection that have impacted EVERY AREA OF MY LIFE are ROOTED from being given up for adoption at the beginning of life. It’s rooted in being rejected by my birth parents, and when I found them they rejected me again. This is where my root issues stem from. In Celebrate Recovery we get to the ROOT ISSUES, so we call PULL THEM UP and ask God to heal them and move forward.

I’m also suffering with a increased desire to control my life, and it’s having a negative impact on me so that’s something else I’m about to work on and write about. When adoptees go their entire lives controlling NOTHING about decisions that were made for our lives THAT IMPACTED SO MUCH we want to CONTROL. The biggest thing I’ve noticed lately that’s having a negative impact on me is TIME and PLANNING. Surprisingly, I can also discover this having a root issue from my adoption experience. I WANT TO CONTROL EVERYTHING ABOUT MY LIFE! ADOPTION CONTROLED EVERYTHING, NOW IT’S MY TURN!!!!!!!!! But as you can imagine, this has negative side effects. I will be sharing some in future blog posts.

I’m thankful for God bringing these things to my attention, and for the strength to share some of my struggles. Fear, Control, Abandonment & Rejection are tactics from the devil. He doesn’t want me to be free, but I’m determined to break out of these negative and dysfunctional thought patterns that have developed from my adoption experience & lifes experiences. It will take time but I’m excited to share my journey with you!

For the adoptees here, have you discovered you operate in FEAR? Or am I alone here?

-Adoptee In Recovery

**Adoptees will never be able to HEAL unless they DISCOVER their TRUTH**

http://www.facebook.com/howdoesitfeeltobeadopted

When I Found Out I Was Adopted

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova5 Comments

My life changed in a major way when I found out I was adopted. I will never forget watching a TV program with my adoptive mom and seeing a woman who gave birth to a baby. Being curious as kids are, I made a comment to my adoptive mom, “Mommy, did I come out of your belly like that?”. I remember her response was something like this…

“No you didn’t come out of my belly. You came out of another woman’s belly. She loved you so much she wanted you to have a better life so she gave you to me to raise.”

This was a moment I will never forget. I never understood how you love something but you give it away. I think back now and try to think of what my adoptive mom COULD have said that wouldn’t have had such a negative impact on me. As a 5 year old child I couldn’t comprehend this. I whole heartedly believe she did the right thing by telling me but the WAY she said it was something that had a negative impact on me my entire life.

I’m an adoptee who can say “I always knew I was adopted” because she did tell me. I believe back in the 70’s adoptive parents weren’t anywhere near equipped in how to tell your child their adopted, like they are now or how to handle “what to do” being adoptive parents. I’m not saying she meant to hurt me, but the way she told me would forever taint my view of love. When you love something you keep it, you don’t give it away. “She gave you to me to raise.”… I felt disposable, unlovable, and like a piece of property. This was the first moment in my life I began to search for my birth mother. I began to ask questions. Who was she? Where was she? How do I find her? I never EVER stopped asking about my birth mother.

As a 40 year old woman I look back over my journey, and I’ve tried to think of a way my adoptive mom could have told me that I was adopted that didn’t confuse me on such a deep level. I feel like giving something or someone away and associating it out of “Love” is far too confusing for a child to understand. It was total abandonment to me. This still has a deep rooted impact on me today. I feel like everyone in my life is going to abandon me.

I wish she would have said, “You have a biological mommy who couldn’t take care of you, so she found someone who could. That someone was me.” But see that type of answer would have come with more questions behind it. “Why couldn’t she take care of me?” is what I would have asked. And then the TRUTH would have come out. But I know from experience in living it, adoption secrets and lies are a big part of the adoption experience and a huge part of my pain. Everyone was “protecting” me from my own history. The fight to find my history all alone has caused me more heartache and pain than anyone could imagine.

I wish I was never told my birth mother loved me. She didn’t love me. The adoption industry as a whole seems to always want to speak for birth mothers. Once I acknowledged this TRUTH it was easier of me to let go of the pain and move forward and heal.

“You can’t heal a wound by denying it’s there” (Jeremiah 6:14)

NOT ALL BIRTH MOTHERS LOVE THEIR BABIES.  SOME OF THEM JUST WANT TO GET RID OF THE PROBLEM. THIS IS A FACT. THIS IS WHY IT’S SO HARD FOR ME TO BELIEVE ANYONE ON EARTH LOVES ME. YOU DON’T LOVE YOUR OWN CHILD & GIVE IT AWAY & REJECT IT AFTER IT COMES TO FIND YOU.

That’s not love. The shenanigans of her “Loving me so much she gave me away” could have saved me a whole lot of heartache if the truth was told. I’m not saying they could have told me she didn’t love me. Of course everyone would like to think she did. It is definitely a more pleasant thought. But her actions after I found her and she rejected me after meeting one time showed me otherwise. The entire story of how I was conceived was my TRUTH and after learning that, I was able to gain a better understanding of WHY she chose to give me up for adoption. I needed my truth to move forward with my life and to be able to accept it for what it is.

DO ADOPTIVE PARENTS UNDERSTAND THEY ARE STANDING IN THE WAY OF OUR HEALING BY WITHHOLDING OUR TRUTH FROM US?  

Let me add, I will always be thankful my adoptive mother was honest about telling me. If she didn’t tell me it would nothing short of holding someones identity hostage, and if it were me I could never live with myself or do that to someone. For the adoptive parents who make the choice not to tell their adoptive kids their adopted, I feel you are making a huge mistake. Everyone deserves to know where they come from. Adding the trauma of being lied too your whole life is beyond devastating on the adoptee. Being adopted is hard enough on it’s own.

For the adoptive parents who may be reading; How did you tell your adopted child they were adopted? Where did you get your advice from? If you haven’t told them, what are you waiting for?

For the adoptees here, how were you told you were adopted? How did it make you feel?

-Adoptee In Recovery

@freesimplyme

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