Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Triggered

The newest reality television show hit ABC last night...Find My Family.

I had NO intentions of watching, but then, all of a sudden, my finger pushed the button on the remote and I was sitting on my couch, sobbing my eyes out. Not crying because of how beautiful the show was...but crying because of how it was triggering me.

Before when I was fully engulfed in the fog and not reunited, I'd watch similar shows..like The Locator and cry because I wanted that to be me. I wanted to be found...even though I refused to believe it would ever happen to me.

Watching the show last night, my heart broke for the adoptee...as I realized that she must have been feeling horrible for knowing that her parents (now married with three other children) had given her up and kept the others. How incredibly painful it must have been to hear that her parents gave her up so she could have a better life, when in looking at the natural family, she WOULD have had a good life...with two sisters and a brother.

Now that I'm in reunion with my natural family, that thought hit home for me last night. I WOULD have had a good life with my family...and it just brought out the feelings of loss that much more in focus for me.

Read the following from the website regarding the show:

"What we love about the show is that the emotion is really earned, and it's honest," said ABC alternative series/specials/late-night co-topper John Saade. "It isn't big, contrived moments. We're not looking for train wrecks."

Reunion is like a train wreck though. And pretending that it's all rainbows, fluff and sunshine is just wrong and misleading. You start out on the train, riding at a constant speed, stopping once in awhile to let others on or off at the stations. Then there's an accident..a car or truck on the tracks that causes the train to derail..for an adoptee, this could mean that you find your natural family, or in my case, they find you. Time stops in that instant and the emotions that you feel in that moment are overwhelming. Some good, some not so good. It brings the pain of having been relinquished to the forefront of your mind and you wait for the accident to be cleared off the tracks so you can continue traveling. Might not take long, or it could be a lifelong journey. Regardless of the time, it's something you'll never forget.

Jeebus. I wish I wasn't skipping therapy this week.

6 comments:

  1. You're so right. No matter how you put it, or how anyone might try, adoption just IS trainwreck.

    The sooner people accept this, then the sunner s how like this won't casue outrage, or for that matter, be needed.

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  2. I didn't mind at all that the show didn't deal with reunion; that was not the point. I can't ever watch any of these shows completely dry eyed--and I love them all for putting it out there that adoption is not the simple/fortunate thing most of the public thinks it is.

    Adoption is always painful.

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  3. Thanks for writing Lorraine :)

    I agree that adoption is always painful...but the show for me was a bit too...ummm...tidy. Does that make sense? It didn't really deal with the messy aspects and the bitterness that is felt by both the adoptee and the natural parents. Just had them meeting under the 'family tree' and that was it.

    I'm glad in retrospect that I watched it...but I'm not sure I could watch it again...you know?

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  4. You're right, I guess I never took the time to think about it. Of course it's not all rainbows and fluff. There's so many underlying emotions to deal with, I just can't imagine.

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  5. Thanks for visiting my blog, I'm finally getting to read through some of yours. I don't write that much on my blog about my adoption and subsequent reunion but here's a summary. My B family gave me up for adoption and a year later, my younger brother was born and went to another family. The following sister and brother that were born were kept, along with two older sisters from a previous marriage. We all met about 12 years ago and have kept in touch. The relationship with my siblings has been more important to me than meeting my B parents, although my feeling for my B Dad were very strong and something I'm still sorting through after his death. My A parents and brother have all died.

    I didn't watch the TV show because the reunion is such a small part of the experience and somehow making it into a TV show seems misleading.

    I'm sorry to read of what happened to you. It's hard enough to be adopted but then to be abused is a terrible thing. I ended up in an alcoholic home that left me ill equipped to lead a normal life. But the home I missed out on was not so good either, although, as I tell my siblings, "at least you had each other."

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