Thursday, January 13, 2011

In A Nutshell

I was going to give this natural mother a Blog of Shame award, but I just couldn’t bring myself to bother. I’ve commented on her blog before and have always been struck by the angry way she discusses adoptees and their feelings. She’s a first mother…and from what I recall, her daughter doesn’t speak to her any longer. This is going to come out sounding bitter, but really, I can’t really blame her daughter for cutting ties if this is how her mother feels and expresses herself.


“People, I am just going to say it, being angry is ok. Yep, definitely. Being silly about hiding how you feel is ok. Being hurt is ok. These are honest emotions. But good grief! You are not babies anymore! If you are hurt, angry, feeling less than, take a look in the mirror. Ask yourself honestly if the words you are saying are not part of the problem. Ask yourself if telling someone who may or may not have been waiting for over 20 years to meet you that you are happy to have been adopted, that you don't care if their families don't know, that you hate them, ask yourself exactly how you would feel.”


So we should lie? We should deny our anger and just get over it? While I don’t understand the mindset of adoptees who are happy they were adopted, I’d never discount their feelings. One of my best friends is adopted…her adoptive parents went on to have a biological daughter four years later. She has never once, in the two and a half years since my reunion, said that she wished she could find her mother. She is content with her afamily and glad that she was adopted into a loving household. I’d never tell her she was wrong for being happy, but neither would she tell me that I’m wrong for my feelings of anger and pain.

In the words of my former therapist, you can’t take other people’s feelings personally. Those adoptees that Lori is ranting against aren’t ranting and raving against Lori. They are ranting against their own particular situation. One that only they have walked through. To tell them that they are part of the problem is just horribly presumptive.

Until you’ve walked a mile in someone else’s shoes and all that jazz…in fact, Lori says that adoptees should put themselves in their natural parents’ shoes…

“The fact is that you aren't in her/his head and you can't possibly know exactly what your words are doing to them. You can't possibly know if the person is being hammered down yet again, by YOU. You can't know.”

What about what your words are doing to adoptees who read your blog? Reading how immature we are for having feelings different from what you think we should have…

“You are, supposedly, mature, adult people. Yet you know you have issues with abandonment (in the very least) and that you should work them out and you don't. No, you don't. You would much rather beat the crap out of the person that you found/were found by, than face the fact that your problems are yours. After about 18 - 20 you can't blame your parents, none of them, for your problems. You can say they caused them, truly, but you are choosing not to deal with the problems in an honest fashion.”

I’d really like to know whose blogs she’s been reading…I think I’d like to add them to my blogroll if they aren’t already there.

7 comments:

  1. but its the job of adoptees to keep everyone else happy. That's the first and most important lesson we ever need to learn.

    Adoptees are not supposed to have their own feelings and god forbid they express them if they do!

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  2. Jay...I am finally at a place where I can say, "Fuck that!".

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  3. Being an adoptee is a contradiction. We are the middle (rope) of a tug of war competition between parents and if we are real and see benefit from those we were adopted by (non-abusive loving good people) we are wrong - and if we respect the other parent(s) choices, i.e. not telling siblings etc - we are wrong - and if we wish things were different and could know our siblings etc - we are wrong...

    Like Joy said obviously whatever bloggers she is referring to forgot our number one job on this planet is to make sure everyone else is happy...

    Who knew...

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  4. She seems so very sad and angry. I didn't read a lot (I have a migraine tonight) but her banner said she is also a widow. Maybe her way of 'handling' her loss is minimizing it in this very very sad manner.

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  5. Yes Lee, she is very sad..and very angry. And nothing any of us says to her will change that, I know. I just wish she understood that by lambasting adoptees, she's only making it more difficult to understand her point of view.

    Hope your migraine clears up soon! I had one yesterday..think it was because of the snow and the weather.

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  6. The adopted ones said, "Being an adoptee is a contradiction."

    That is how it appears from my limited, outside vantage point as well. In spite of the pain of losing a child to the adoption machinery in the US, I don't think it can compare to what it would be like to be the adopted one in an adoption constellation. The high-wire/tight-rope act that so many adoptive parents AND natural parents expect adoptees to perform to keep them happy and not hurting is mind boggling.

    It's not your job or any other adoptee's job to make me feel better or more at peace with my struggles - that would be my own s*** I have to work out. Period.

    On a similar note, I just talked with one of my professors tonight for a long time - he is an adoptive father of five children from the BSE. Only one of them has attempted to reunite with her natural family & was TOTALLY rejected by her natural mother :(. She wanted to build a relationship with her siblings but her natural mother was adamant that they never find out about her. I was so angry at her natural mother by the end of the conversation I could have spit nails. In my view, relationships with adoptees and siblings are precisely that - relationships with siblings and NOT me.

    P.S. I have never quite understood the blogger in question either. I think that Lee might be on to something though.

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  7. I really think she sees what she wants to see too. I was honestly surprised at what she read into my comment to her - apparently I behaved badly. I thought I was quite tame really.

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