After therapy, it takes me a few days to recover emotionally from dealing with the feelings and pain that reliving the trauma inevitably dredges up. And instead of listening to my body and laying low, I ended up here..trying to defend my feelings to those who are seek to change my opinion of adoption. Because, after all, they know better than I do, right?
I'm only the adoptee. Only the one whose life was fucked up by the signing of a fake birth certificate and an erased medical history. The entitlement that oozes from the pores of the PAP's and AP's and even a wife of an adoptee just burns my ass...and makes me wonder what the point is anymore. They'll NEVER understand that by adopting children, they are just perpetuating the adoptees' trauma.
I'm sure that every adoptee who understands the pain that I feel has heard the good ol' phrase "I know some people who are adopted and they couldn't be happier! Get over it or get into therapy..." Really?? Or is that they are afraid to voice their true emotions because of the "angry bastard" stigma that they might be labeled with..
Therapy is helping me find my voice...and I refuse to be silent.
I wear the "angry bastard" badge proudly...because it proves to me that I CAN think for myself...I CAN form my own opinions about things..and whether I am validated by a PAP or an AP or the wife of an adoptee (gag) or not...that's okay because I am learning how to validate myself.
Cricket-
ReplyDeleteOK - I am an AP and as I've said before - I do not always agree with all you have to say - but this time I'm dead on with you. That part one and part two article on politically correct adoption speak was nauseating. Like if we just use the right words and forece everyone else to we can make any problem, pain, or loss our children experience go away? WTF!?! Some people really do have their head up their asses.
You know what else adoptive parents won't understand no matter how many blogs they read?
ReplyDeleteThe spiritual existence of the alternate life an adoptee could have had.
Thanks Tina...I've had to take a step back from responding to the other commenters on the article...eventually, it becomes clear that nothing I, nor my adoptee friends, say will change the minds of the majority, and it's only driving me crazy to try and "break through".
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you came back...
I get irritated when AP's will say that they just can't read adoptee blogs anymore because of all the pain that the adoptee is talking about. I'm sorry but wouldn't they want to know??? Wouldn't they want to know that one day, their adoptive child might just be the tiniest bit angry at their situation. A situation that they had no choice in??
ReplyDeleteAP's are so fortunate that you don't blog for them but for yourselves and yet still allow us to see. Even if many say, I can't read it any more, many do stick with it. And some of those that are overwhelmed by it at first come back after they have time to adjust to the shattering of their preconceptions.
ReplyDeleteWhat you say is so important for us to hear. I know my son had a whole alternate life path with another set of family, friends and experiences he could have followed and some day he will wonder about it and feel the loss of it. I need to work on being able to support him through that, even grieve it with him if that is what he needs from me. Or stay out of it if that is what he wants. I need to prepare myself to do all of that without making him feel responsible for how his experience impacts me. He is the child - I am the parent - I had a choice about being in this situation he did not. That is my job - it is what I signed up for. I only hope I do it as well as he deserves.
I just have to tell you how very impressed I am with you Tina...and so very glad that you come back to read my words...even when they are a bit *ahem* blunt. You're right...I'm NOT writing this for the AP's of the world...if I was, I'd invite my amother to read it to see just what kind of life I actually led and not the one that she deemed appropriate. But if just one (or two or three..lol) AP's come here and can get past my pain, then I've done one of the things I've set out to do...the first one being healing myself from the inside out and the second being, education on what an adopted child feels as they grow up in an adoptive family and the loss that is surely there, if not voiced.
ReplyDelete