Tag: Truth

Building My Family Tree

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova3 Comments

Biological roots denied me but DNA doesn’t Lie.

My family tree is still my family tree.

That weird feeling when I create my family tree on ancestry.com but I know if my biological family knew I was  including them in what is biologically mine they would disown me a second time or lash out at me in some way…

All the way back to being a little girl in elementary school, I was denied being able to build a family tree because I didn’t have the information that was rightfully mine to have. I refused to build a family tree unless I knew my biological information, because if I built it on my adoptive family it seemed that wasn’t the truth for me, although I’m sure everyone would have liked me to go along with that. But I didn’t because it wasn’t true.

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This was what was TRUE, Until I found my answers.

Now, I feel a certain way about building it, because most of them weren’t accepting. But my need and want to KNOW and SEE MY FAMILY TREE for the first time in my life, is far greater than caring what any of them think… But it is in the back of my mind.

Have any of my fellow adoptees had this weird experience or felt this way?

It’s time I have my family tree, my truth and to be able to trace my ancestors as far back as possible.

Let me just add: If you aren’t for adoptees finding ALL of our TRUTH you are against it. It’s black and white.

John 8:32 says: 

“We shall know our TRUTH and our TRUTH shall set us FREE!”

 

I decided a few days ago, to dig deeper into my genealogy. Thankfully I’m one of the few adoptees that has fought and fought hard to discover my truth.  No one helped me. No one cared my heart was literally ripped in shreds not knowing where I came from.  Most of us are alone in this quest and no one walks along side of us and says, “I’m on this ride with you, you aren’t alone”. Not back in my days they didn’t anyway. Thanks to new technology, adoptees are growing up and they are connecting with other adoptees so they know they aren’t alone. Praise GOD for this!

Over a 20 year period, I searched and I found. Back in the beginning there was no internet. I found my birth mother’s name after my adoptive mom decided to “come clean” and let me know she lied to me my entire life.  I began my search for her by calling the Waterloo, Iowa library and the librarian was kind enough to do some research for me. God bless her for being so kind on that day back in 1985. I had no idea within 24 hours I would be on the phone with the woman that gave me life. It was a surreal experience for me. I had waited for that day my entire life.

Sadly, after meeting one time about a year after I found her she shut me out and we never spoke again. Not my choice. She passed away in 2010 with us meeting only one time. Through this journey, I have learned to have grace and compassion for this woman, my birth mother whom gave me life. I prayed, and cried, and sulked around for 40 years with a broken heart because I just didn’t understand how she “loved me so much” like I was always told yet she shut me out and didn’t want a relationship with me. It left me feeling so confused, sad, alone, and heartbroken for most of my life. Even into my adult hood I still hadn’t made sense of the truth of what had happened. Thankfully the last 3 years I’ve been on a healing journey, so I could see things through different lenses and gain more truth, because truth brings understanding.

ALL ADOPTEES NEED OUR TRUTH SO WE CAN GAIN UNDERSTANDING

WITH THIS UNDERSTANDING COMES ACCEPTANCE

THEN HEALING BEGINS

After attending my birth mothers funeral, I gained even more understanding. Many people that were close to her told me she shut me out because she was distraught because my adoptive parents divorced when I was 1. She was promised I would have a “Better Life”.  If she knew that was going to happen, she would have kept me. She could have kept me and raised me as a single parent and gotten welfare, and public assistance and struggled like my adoptive mom did. I was told this hurt her deeply, and that is not what her wishes were. That’s the point many people make that is very valid in adoption. Adoption doesn’t promise a better life, only a different one.

As I struggled through her funeral, I was able to learn more about my biological father, and gain confirmation as to who he was and where he lived.

Next Stop: Leon, Iowa -Population 1900

I showed up at my birth fathers door after receiving confirmation from his wife that it would be a good time so I made a long 3 hour drive and arrived late morning on November 10, 2010. 10 years earlier, he received my letters but he ignored them so I decided I had nothing to lose and I needed to see his face one time. My desire was so great, I knew he was a gamer and a hunter, and he had a gun shed, and a slaughter shed on his property, and I still had no fear in knocking on his door. We had an hour long conversation and he let me take his picture and off I went. We exchanged contact information, and back to Kentucky I went. It was a surreal experience for me. I remember it like it was yesterday. Finally, after 36 years of wondering, wishing, dreaming about who I looked like I finally looked like someone. I looked just like my birth father.

Sadly, in the last 5 years he has denied a relationship with me. Chances are, he has never faced his part in this that he produced a child out of an affair, while he was married. He knew nothing about me and he has never accepted I was his daughter. I have accepted this.

My reason in bringing this point to light is because I am wondering if any other adoptees have been rejected by biological family, and when they do genealogy on that family and build a family tree if they feel like they are budding in someplace where they don’t belong. I mean, it is my family tree also. Just because I was given up for adoption, doesn’t mean my family history isn’t my family history. Just because they denied me, doesn’t mean my DNA is lying. It doesn’t mean I don’t deserve my birth right, to know where my ancestors came from and to be able to trace them as far back as I possibly can. I feel like so much was taken, and although they denied me, I still have a right to my family tree.

As many other adoptees have said, “I DIDN’T SIGN ANY PAPERWORK”….

That is so true and fits me perfectly.

I believe in adoption all journeys are different. I was one of the adoptees who had this deep deep desire to know all the details about where I came from, and who my people were. It tortured me literally to not have the answers. So the more I find out, the more peace I have because it feels like I’m a real live living person, and not just some baby dropped out of the sky by a stork flying by. When there is no history or answers, or we don’t’ know our birth information, or the answers to our ancestry it’s hard to feel like a real person. For whatever reason a little part of me, maybe the little girl hiding inside is scared of being reprimanded by those who weren’t accepting, and they might tell me to get out of their family tree!

DNA DOES NOT LIE EVEN WHEN PEOPLE DO.

DNA PROVES MY FAMILY TREE IS MY FAMILY TREE.

I WILL NOT LET ANYONE TAKE THAT FROM ME.

As I build my family tree, I am reminded that it really doesn’t matter if they accepted me or not. It’s still my biological family tree. It isn’t everything to me, but it is a piece of me. I have waited all my life to have it and I don’t care what anyone says, it’s mine to have.

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A Few Mistakes Present, But This is the Start of my Family Tree.

As I have been searching over the past few weeks  I’ve found out many new details about ancestors and relatives I wouldn’t have known otherwise. The determination and drive I have had to complete this journey and to never give up can only come from God, and God alone. He’s been my rock when no one understood me. He’s helped me feel love, when I felt worthless, like a piece of trash thrown away to the side. He’s helped me understand that even when “THEY” didn’t plan me “HE DID”.  All of these things are great, but he’s also helped me find my answers, and helped me be courageous enough to put together a family tree with a family that has never accepted me to be in their family. God has saved the best for last, and that is Him helping me find the long lost brother I never knew I had, who has been accepting. He’s been the best part of my search.

Adoption not only has impacted me, but it has impacted my children and it will impact my grandchildren and their children and many generations to come. This isn’t a one-time transaction that doesn’t have any consequences. It’s forever.  My family tree is their family tree. Because it was denied to me, doesn’t mean it should be denied to my children and grandchildren.

God has given me the courage to be brave, to dig deeper and know in my heart of hearts I am doing nothing wrong. If our God is a God of truth, there is no way he wouldn’t want everyone on the earth to know their TRUTH.

For my fellow adoptees, how have you felt about building your family tree? Are you apprehensive or have you not thought twice about it? What has stopped you from building one? Are you one of the adoptees who isn’t able to search due to lack of information? How does this make you feel to not have your history? Have you considered entering your DNA into the DNA databases? What is stopping you?

I pray all adoptees and all people all around the world who don’t have their answers get what they deserve. I pray HOPE in your life, and I want you to never give up!

Let me add, knowing and learning my true history and place of origin has nothing to do with how awesome or amazing my adoptive family has been, or my Family of Choice (church family). They do not compare. They are separate and totally different than me wanting to know my birth right. They are fantastic and amazing in their own way. So please, don’t throw me under the bus for wanting to know my history, it has nothing to do with what my adoptive family did or didn’t do, how they did it or how wonderful they were. It’s simply NATURAL to want to know where we come from. Adoptive parents, please take note and HELP US if you can.

Thanks for reading & don’t forget to to check out the sites I created for all those impacted by adoption, “How Does It Feel To Be Adopted”.

For National Adoption Awareness Month I’m collecting Adoptee Stories at

Our Blog -How Does It Feel To Be Adopted

ADOPTEES, PLEASE CONSIDER SHARING YOUR STORY!

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Find me on Twitter: @freesimplyme

Fellow Adoptees, always remember you aren’t alone!

Pamela Karanova, Reunited Adult Adoptee

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Grief & Loss & Adoptees

Published on by Pamela A. Karanova7 Comments

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This picture kinda sums up my mood at this point in my life.

I was up late last night researching “Grief & Loss” and all the stages of this process.

It was amazing to me that if I inserted the word “ADOPTEES” into all of the areas that take you through the grief & loss process it describes how I have felt all of my life regarding my adoption experience.

Putting in some work and research I have identified that this process is the grief and loss process, vs. depression. I’ve compared the 2, and from what I’ve read and learned, the grief & loss process is like an emotional roller coaster, up and down. It’s said that you can still see the beauty in areas of your life, and the thankful for certain areas, but in this particular area (ADOPTION) I (and hundreds of thousands of other adoptees) are stuck in this grieving and loss process.

Why are so many of us stuck?

My opinion is based on living my life being an adoptee. I believe I am stuck at this point in my life because my grief & loss was never acknowledged growing up, ever. I’ve been 100% alone on this entire journey, until now. I know I have people who support me, especially my fellow adoptees. Growing up, no one ever told me it was okay to be sad about the biggest loss of my life, let alone cry about wanting to know who my birth mother was. Emotions, and sad feelings were tucked deep inside, with no way to come out.

I remember my adoptive mom telling me I was adopted, and how my birth mother loved me so much she “gave me away” to have a “better life”. She followed this by saying, how HAPPY she was, that her dreams finally came true to be a mother. She said she couldn’t have her own babies, so when she adopted me, God gave her the gift of being a mother, so I was so special to her.

Let me ask… I wonder how my feelings of sadness would fit into this equation? I remember being a little girl, thinking, “Wow.. She sure is happy I’m here, to be her daughter” and I knew at that moment, for her to keep her happiness I can’t share my sadness. Did anyone else experience this? In a way I feel like it was a form of gas lighting. But she was also someone who always made us feel like we were responsible for the way she felt, which is not true. I grew up with the mindset (because of her upbringing) her happiness and sadness depended on me. She would always say things like, “You made me feel this way, or you made me feel that way”… I always remember counselors always telling us, “You aren’t responsible for her feelings”. When we would say that to her, she insisted we made her “feel” a certain way.

It’s interesting to me to finally figure this all out and my attempts to do this research are to work towards healing, because truthfully although I’m on the other side of my healing journey, I still have a long way to go.

Let me share some of the top areas that society might consider areas we might grieve our losses over in our life:

  • Divorce/Relationship Breakup
  • Loss of health
  • Losing a job
  • Loss of financial stability
  • A miscarriage
  • Retirement
  • Death of a pet
  • Loss of a cherished dream
  • A loved one’s serious illness
  • Loss of a friendship
  • Loss of safety after a trauma
  • Selling the family home

Of course we can add to that list. It amazes me that losing ones mother at the beginning of life is no where on this list. Nor is losing an entire family in adoption.

What if, just what if the WORLD started opening their eyes to the adoptees side of view, and they stepped out of denial and we started to grieve our very VERY real loss at a very early age?  What if the world started treating adoption loss like they do other losses? What if the WORLD got educated on the grief & loss process, and adopees started sharing their feelings at a much earlier age? What if we saw adoptee therapists who specialized in complicated grief and loss at a early age?

The more significant the loss, the more intense the grief we experience.

Adoptee loss is complicated!

In adoption, our loss is so extremely great, yet it’s almost always ignored. We’re told the be thankful, to be grateful and to be happy we were given life when we could have been aborted. We’re told we were a GIFT FROM GOD and God knitted us in our mothers womb and we were planned before we were ever born. Scriptures are thrown at us to back it up.

How do these comments help us grieve our loss? To me, they have always been silencer statements as a way for someone to try to make me “FEEL” better. How about as a society we come to a place where we just can’t make adoptees feel better, we let them grieve their losses by acknowledging them and we listen to their feelings when they share them?

What if those close to us were to say, “It’s okay to be sad” or “It’s okay to want to know where/who your first mommy is. She’s your mommy and you have every right to love her and ask questions about her”. What if the world said “I’m so sorry for the pain adoption has caused you, and acknowledged our feelings of loss” instead of “Oh your adopted?! How wonderful!”.

There is nothing wonderful about losing our mothers and an entire family. I’m so sorry, but there just isn’t anything wonderful about that.

I’ve written a few blog posts earlier about God healing my broken heart regarding my birth mother. Amazing, yes this did happen! What I’m continuing to experience is processing grief & loss regarding my adoptee experience. I have accepted that it is here to stay, and the more I feel it the more God will heal it. So this is my safe place to write about what I’m FEELING regarding my adoptee experience, and each time I write I’m healing.

I would like to encourage all adoptive parents to reach out for help on assisting your adoptive child in starting the grief and loss process as early as possible. I had to figure all this out on my own. I still have people that are close to me who think I should have “just gotten over it” by now. Don’t you think if I could I would? Who really wants to go through the grief and loss process their entire life? Sad thing is, sometimes it takes us an entire life to process this grief and loss especially when we aren’t starting until our 20’s-30’s-40’s & 50’s. If society would step out of denial, and begin to understand how great our loss truly is, by reading adoptee blogs, reading The Primal Wound-Understanding The Adopted Child and take off their rainbow colored glasses regarding adoption, we wouldn’t spend such a long time grieving our losses.

Let me say there is no write or wrong way to grieve, or a time we are limited to ID-100265464grieve. Some of us grieve pretty quickly, some of us are perfectly fine and don’t need to grieve at all. Some of us experience loss so great, we will be grieving for the rest of our lives. Each adoptee is different and unique in that aspect. The point I’m trying to make is that once the WORLD steps out  of denial and starts to acknowledge our loss as a real and valid reason to grieve adoptees will begin to heal. We need non-adoptees to TRY to understand this, especially those impacted by adoption. What if we start doing this at as young of an age as possible the adoptee suicide rate will begin to go down? The prisons, and treatment facilities filled with adoptees will be less and less. The crime rate for adoptees will be less and less.

Study the grief and loss process, and add ADOPTEE LOSS everywhere you can. You will learn that “ANGER” is one of the stages of grief, and as an adoptee who has lived being adopted we have much reason to be angry. The question is, what are we doing with our anger? Are we using it to hurt ourselves, and other people or are we using it in a positive way? Are we helping others with it?

So many adoptees don’t know what to do with the feelings they are having. Talk about a mixed up bag of emotions. Every day continues to be a struggle, but because of my kids, God and my close family and friends, and because of my fellow adoptees I’m still here.   Many days I don’t want to be here, the pain is just too great and at 41 years old it continues on. I know my fellow adoptees get it!

Could it be I will experience this pain from grief and loss for the rest of my life? 

I will never know the answer to that, until I reach the end of my life but I have experienced it for 41 years now. Each and every day there are always reminders and each day is a struggle. I don’t believe I’ve ever truly lived LIFE because so much has always been weighed down. I’ve spent my entire life trying to survive and make it through the realities of what adoption really is.  Today, I can get comfort in knowing I have a purpose on this earth to share my story so other adoptees know they aren’t alone. I have hope in Jesus my pain will get easier. I have hope that future generations of adoptees will have things easier, because adoptive parents are reading and listening.

I’ve learned that most people just don’t want to read or hear what adoptees have to say because the truth in how we feel is pretty uncomfortable. It’s not usually a happy topic and I can understand this might be the case for any “hot topics”. Yet society is failing to “tune in” to a very flawed system of sealed records, and adoptees hurting all over the world because no one will validate our grief and loss. Society can do something about this. They can chose to tune in and try to understand from an adult adoptees perspective. They can stop pretending that our loss isn’t real or we aren’t impacted by loosing our entire first family. They can face the truth, because the truth is the only way we will be set free. I challenge you, to start tuning in today.

I know the adult adoptees sharing their stories is causing a ripple effect in the adoption communities, so all the future generations of adoptees will be able to be heard and not silenced. They will understand their loss is real, and it’s okay to grieve it. Hopefully it will start as early as possible. I pray adoptive parents out there are equipped on how to handle these very sensitive subjects, so they can better help their adoptive children. ( search for an adoptee therapist who specializes in complicated grief & loss) No matter what our biological parents were, or they weren’t we all deserve to know our truth, so we can grieve that truth and move forward with healing.

John 8:32 “We shall know the truth, and the TRUTH shall set us free” 

For my fellow adoptees, what has helped you with grieving your losses during your journey? Do you have any suggestions for your fellow adoptees or those reading? What has your process been like? Has it gotten easier for you?

Pamela A. Karanova PamelaLee

Reunited Adult Adoptee

http://www.facebook.com/howdoesitfeeltobeadopted

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Twitter: @freesimplyme & @adopteereality

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Photo Credits By Witthaya Phonsawat  & Theeradech Sanin’s

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

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