Ann Landers and the Grateful Adoptee

I'm going through a period of purging, as I prepare to leave my apartment and graduate to "homeowner".  While cleaning out my closet, I came across a bright purple folder and immediately recognized it.  I'd seen it many times before as a child - it lived at the bottom of my mother's desk drawer.  At some point after my grandfather passed away, it was given to me to sort through, since the top layers of paper were his - "The Well Stocked Bookshelf": a list of every book he had ever read from 1950 until the year he died.  

But beneath the stack of recommended books were more familiar papers.  Report cards from Hempstead Elementary, letters to and from my teachers, construction paper book reports - and newspaper clippings.  At some point, this folder had been a catch all from my much younger days.  Now, it's a haunting reminder that my status as an adoptee was always prevalent in my life - even before I recognized it.

"Joanna takes an active part in class discussions and participates in activities -

she takes pride in her work, but often looses focus.  At times, it

seems that she is not present.  We will work with her to redirect

her focus and improve organization.  - Higgins, 93"

"Joanna understands concepts and skills taught.  She seems to enjoy

reading and has a vivid imagination.  She struggles with concentration,

and often seems to be daydreaming.  - Folb, 94"

I remember my daydreams from those long days in class.  My thoughts were always elsewhere, always with my Mother.  Sometimes she was a Princess.  Sometimes she was a little girl, like me.  I would watch the cars go by and wonder if she was riding in one of them.  There was another teacher at the school - a librarian.  She had blue eyes, too, and I would pretend that she was my Mother - that she had taken the job at my school to be closer to me.  

Beneath the disappointing report cards, my mother had saved clippings from the newspaper.  I recognized the format immediately - Dear Ann Landers.  I knew the name, but little else.  My stomach turned as I realized what these were.

"Dear Ann,

I am saddened every time I read about an adopted person

who is trying to locate a birth mother - even more so

when contact is made and the child is rejected.  I offer

this advice to all such persons: Adoption is a binding,

lifetime contract.  Biological parents release children

for adoption for valid reasons.  The primary one is to

give them a better life than the birth parents can offer.

If one of my two adopted children ever wants to contact

a birth mother, I will offer this advice: She gave you a

life and parents, possibly at great personal sacrifice.

What more could you ask of her?  Don't tarnish that

gift by meddling in her private life after all these years.

Respect her and pray for her well being as I do.  The 

best gift you can give her now is the gift of privacy.

- Thankful in S.C.

Dear S.C.,

Beautiful.  Thanks for speaking so eloquently for

those who cannot speak for themselves."

I'm sorry, but who gave her the right to speak for ANYONE but herself?  But that's really it, isn't it?  She's speaking for herself - thinking of only herself.  How can she - or anyone - know what the birthmother wants?  And more importantly, though least considered - what about what the child wants?  If I had been brave enough to talk to my mother about searching and she had responded the way this woman suggests, I would be heartbroken.  Thanks, Ann, but I can very well speak for myself, thank you - and this is a far cry from what I'm saying.

"Dear Ann Landers,

My older sister bore a son out of wedlock, left

instructions that he be put up for adoption, and then

jumped off a bridge.  I followed her instructions and

gave "Barry" to a childless family I knew would love

him and raise him well.  The understanding was that 

our family would cut all ties with the child and never

let him know of his history.  This was my sister's last

wish.

My worst fears were realized when I received a

letter from Barry, now age 18.  It seems that he dug

around and found out his birth mother's hometown.

He then went there, began asking questions, and

located some distant cousins.  They took him all over

and even introduced him to one of his mother's

high school teachers.  He hounded me with 

phone calls, insisting that I must know who his 

father is.

Finally I told Barry to leave me alone and that he

had gone against his the wishes of his mother's

family by digging into the past.  

Ann, keep telling adopted persons to be grateful

for what they have and not to poke around looking

for their "real family".  They of course are hoping

that the family they dig up will be rich and beautiful,

eager to open their hearts and their homes to them.

That is what happens when you watch too much TV.

- No Name, No State, 

and Mailed While On Vacation

Dear No Name, No State,

Your letter underscores the message I've been trying

to get across for years - such family reunions are

very painful.  Thanks for saying it far better

than I could.

Yes.  Yes, that's exactly it.  The gaps in my family tree don't matter.  My medical history doesn't matter.  My story - my origins - don't matter.  The hole in my soul doesn't matter.  I just really wanted my Mother to be rich and beautiful.  That's my main concern.  

I don't know what I am more upset about - these idiots raising adopted children with their own twisted, bizarre agendas, the fact that these responses were read by hundreds of thousands and accepted as normal and true and valid - or the fact that this is what my mother was clinging to.  Part of me is heartbroken for her.  I can imagine her feverishly clipping each adoption-related correspondence out of the papers and stashing them away.  I wonder if they brought her comfort.  I wonder if she would read them over and over and tell herself that everything was fine - that these "experts" had it right - that she had it right.

But then I imagine six year old Joanna finding these, reading them, and feeling guilty for her daydreams.  I imagine her asking questions about her Mother, and being told not to think about those people because they gave her away - and she has no right to meddle.  I imagine her tucking herself away, closing herself in her closet where she hides, and trying desperately not to think of Her, because she should be grateful that she was chosen.

This has to stop.  

setting fires to our insides for fun

“Are you happy you were adopted?”  This is without a doubt the most frequently asked question of me.  It comes in many shapes and forms, but always, they’re digging for this seemingly simple kernel of information, as if everything else I have ever said or felt is made irrelevant by the answer.

“Yeah, but imagine where you’d be if you were never adopted.”

“But think of what your life might be like if you had stayed with Her.”

“But you love your adoptive family, don’t you?”

“Would you rather have been aborted?”

First of all, rude.  Secondly, my answer is a hard truth no one actually wants to hear.  Adoption is the worst-best thing that’s ever happened to me.  And I would rather be dead than adopted.

“But imagine where you’d be if you were never adopted.”  I imagine where I would be if I had never been adopted almost every day.  I imagine waking up in the same house as my Mother, getting out of bed and going into the kitchen where my Mother sits with her coffee and cigarette.  I imagine breathing in her smell - smoke and leather and faint traces of perfume and hairspray - and not having to dwell on it, not having to force myself to pause and memorize it, because I live with it.  That smell will come home after work, the same as the day before, and the same as the day to come.  

“But think of what your life might be like if you had stayed with Her.”  Maybe I wouldn’t have had the opportunities in education that I did with my adoptive family if I had stayed with Her.  Maybe I would have chosen a different career.  Maybe I would have become a mother myself.  But maybe not.  

The point is, asking me to imagine ‘where I would be’ if I had not been placed for adoption is pointless - and insulting.  As if I hadn’t thought to imagine it before.  As if my every empty thought is not instantly filled with Her.

“But you love your adoptive family, don’t you?”  I do.  But I could have just as easily never met them, never known them, and never loved them.  I love my friends - but had our paths not crossed, I could have just as easily never known them, never loved them.  Had I never been adopted, I might not have known them.  So it is not a matter of choosing to love one over the other.  They never would have existed to me.

“Would you rather have been aborted?”  Again, first of all, rude.  Actually, I’ll skip the ‘rude’ and jump straight to a big ‘fuck you’.  I’ve been asked this more times than I care to admit - most often by ‘friends’.  

Existing in the ‘Christian Community’ as an adoptee is a special kind of hell.  I am expected to be grateful.  I am expected to see and accept and be thankful for ‘the bigger picture’.  I am expected to celebrate when church families come home from their missions with someone else’s baby in tow, rescued from some poverty-stricken, war-torn country.  I am expected to smile through baby dedications, to offer myself as a shining beacon - a poster child for the successful outcome of adoption.  God bless us, everyone.

In reality, I struggle daily to reconcile my faith and what I know with what I feel adoption has done in me and to me, and feeling like a victim of God’s plan.  The hard truth, and the hard answer that no one actually wants to hear - despite asking this disgusting question - is that I would rather be dead.  I would rather have been aborted than have to live on this carousel.  A constant circle of questioning and anger and acceptance and peace, over and over and over again.  I would rather be dead than to know the sick knots in my stomach every time someone excitedly announces that So-and-So adopted a baby and asks me how wonderful that is, and aren’t I so grateful that I was, too.  I would rather be dead than have to hold back tears every time I overhear a conversation about deciding whether or not it’s time to tell their child that they’re adopted.  I would rather be dead than know what I know.  

And I would rather be dead than have to answer these questions.

the whole {half} truth

Adoption itself is an entity cloaked in secrecy and lies.  Original names and dates and places are blotted out and new identities are issued without hesitation.  Agencies (who should and often do know better) and Adoptive parents who are none-the-wiser to the long-term ramifications are eased into believing that keeping the whole truth secret is best for the child.

Secrecy for the sake of comfort is par for the course more often than not.

Knowing this, I don't know why, then, I am still so surprised and betrayed by my birthmother's lies.  I have come to terms with my adoptive family's discomfort with my own adoption and reunion, and thus have come to understand and forgive them for the secrecy they forced upon the subject.  Coming to terms with my birthmother's lies and secrecy for the sake of her comfort, however, seems impossible.  Ten years of reunion seems to me to be plenty of time to mention two siblings, also placed for adoption after me.  Ten years gave her 88,000 hours to take out a piece of paper and confess, and help me understand her and let me know that there are others in the world who share my blood.  Of every betrayal adoption has inflicted upon me, hers is the most devastating.

I don't know how to respond except with silence.  I wish that cutting her off hurt her as much as it hurts me.  

"thank you, and we're prepared." - unprepared adoptive mother

There are plenty of things that pop up in the day to day existence of an adoptee that are triggering (not unlike PTSD responses), but personally, one of the more emotionally charged triggers is discovering the intent to adopt among friends and family.

I'm frequently asked if I'm anti-adoption.  And somewhere between clenching my jaw and resisting the urge to reach over and smack the challenger's smug smile off their face, I calmly answer, "of course not."  I don't believe that being strictly anti-adoption is realistic as a broad spread position.  Of course there are circumstances where children are truly orphaned.  There are 400,00 children in the foster care system - 100,000 of those are eligible for permanent placement through adoption - and they should be placed.  That being said, what I am is anti supply and demand of babies.  I am anti coercion of birth mothers and fathers.  I am anti societal stigma which subtly forces women to relinquish when relinquishment would otherwise never be considered.  And perhaps most passionately, I am anti-adoption ignorance.

"Thank you, and we're prepared," was the gifted advisory reply, spoken by one ignorant party to another when one lamented that upon publicly announcing her desire to adopt she was met with concerned resistance (feigned or otherwise).  Listed among these comments of concern were: "adopted children have issues", "an adopted child would throw off the balance in your biological family" - and my personal favorite, "you don't know what you're getting into."  You're damn right you don't know what you're getting into.

The most unfortunate part of this entire encounter is the not-yet-adopted child who is already suffering at the hand of each well meaning voice in the conversation.  And that child is what triggers the most deep rooted, sickening anxiety in me.  I am the adopted child/adult with "issues".  I am the adopted child/adult who throws off the balance in my adoptive family.  I am the full-grown result of an adoptee being raised by ignorant adoptive parents.  And I am every adoptive parent's worst nightmare.

Upon my second arrival into a mother's arms, I was already five weeks old and suffering greatly as a result of the Primal Wound.  I refused to take a bottle - something that my family remembers and attributes to being strong-willed - which is more widely understood now as being a PTSD-like reaction of numbness.

Following the cues of my adoptive parents, talking about my birth family and my adoption were subjects that were better left undiscussed.  More than undiscussed, they were buried deep and cemented over.  An unwillingness to address their own infertility issues transferred to an unwillingness to acknowledge that I came from anywhere else.  As far as they were concerned (I say 'were' because reuniting with my birth family has forced them to budge somewhat on this subject) I didn't exist before the airport pass-off.  Never mind the five weeks of limbo between my birth and adoption.

I've confessed before that I was eight years old the first time I tried to end my own life.  Two years shy of a decade on this earth and I was already tired.  I was already worn down by feeling like an intruder - an imposter - in my own family.  Beyond physical differences and appearance, I thought differently, I spoke differently, I laughed differently.  I felt like I had no foundation, like I was floating through life with no purpose of direction.  While my eight year old self's attempt was weak at best, the desire didn't go away.  That was something I struggled deeply with well into my college years.  It's something I still have to fight, daily.  It's something that anti-depressants can't cure - because it's not a chemical imbalance.  It's an existential imbalance.  Suicide rates in adopted adolescents are higher than in non adopted adolescents.  There's something to that.  Why aren't we paying more attention to that?

I firmly believe that all of this could have been avoided by a willingness to openly talk about adoption - and the fact that it is a traumatic experience.  If nothing else, it could have saved an eight year old from feeling hopeless enough to end her life.

Regardless of the adoptee's experience growing up, whether or not their adoptive families were open and supportive and informed - the loss of one's mother is trauma.  If that was more widely understood and accepted by adoptive families, the potential for healing is exponentially greater.  Existing - especially as an adolescent - as a product of two worlds, with two identities and two realities - is a challenge.  And it's a challenge that adoptive parents should be ready for.

both sides now

I have been on both sides of the search process.  In 2005 I began my search for my birthmother, and thanks to one super-sleuthing wonderful friend, I found her only months later.  I realize how lucky I am - I know there are people who searched for years with no result;  I know there are those who searched only to find that their loved ones had passed away.  I didn't have to wait for anything.  I didn't have time to dissect my own motives, or to think about what I would say once I found her.  I threw my search out into the black hole of the internet, and expected nothing would come back to me.

Of course, however unexpectedly, it did.  Our reunion was (and is) a whirlwind of emotion, with an abundance of good, bad, and ugly.  But regardless of the ups and downs, the simple truth that I had brought this search on myself, kept me somewhat grounded and level-headed.  I initiated.  I opened the door.  I said, "Yes.  For better or for worse, I want to know you."  I felt more in control - even if it was an illusion.

This year, I received an email from someone asking if there was any chance that I could be his sister.  He gave me details about my own adoption, knew my birth-name, and my birthmother's.  The dates, details and information all made sense...except for the fact that in the ten years since we had been reunited, my birthmother had never mentioned having other children.  In fact, she had made several comments that would imply just the opposite.  The air went out of my lungs.  This time, I hadn't been the one to open the door.  I had been found.

Once I confronted my birthmother with the recently uncovered truth, and she confirmed that not only did I have one - but two - brothers who were both placed for adoption years after me, the difficulty of settling into a new normal began.

This particular side of the search process, still being so new, is difficult to articulate.  Unfortunately, the similarities between the two experiences included a lack of familial support.  Though I searched for my birthmother alone, without telling many (any?) people, once we connected, I confided in a few close friends - and ultimately, my family.  Not a single friendship remains from that time in my life.  Each 'friend' in whom I trusted my innermost fears and insecurities about reunion left shortly after.  One friend - one who I thought was the closest to me at the time - refused to accompany me to the airport to meet my birthmother for the first time.  She "didn't want to be a crutch", when a crutch is exactly what I needed.

Family support in my reunion(s) is certainly lacking.  My adoptive mother once remarked, during my initial reunion with my birthmother, that "This is all too weird for me".  A consequence that should have been considered prior to adopting, perhaps?  My siblings are removed from the process entirely, choosing to ignore the fact that I am adopted.  They don't ask about my birth family.  They don't care to know anything about that side of my life.  When I was recently contacted by my brother, my adoptive siblings' response was one of annoyance.  This was just another interruption in their existence at the fault of my adoption.

Three years ago, their reaction would have sent me spiraling.  Now, I'm numb to the lack of interest.  I have resolved to floating through this reunion fog solo, trying desperately to minimize the damage of my sharp edges.

choose her a name she will answer to

One of the first questions I asked my birth mother when we were reunited in 2005 was whether or not she had given me a name when I was born.  

I never felt that “Joanna” suited me.  I’m sure everyone goes through a period in their childhood where they hate their name.  I think it’s a part of growing up, of finding your identity.  My adoptive parents gave me my name to honor my maternal grandparents, Joseph and Josephine.  My adoptive mother has admitted that she was hoping that I would be a bit of a tom boy - that I would play sports as they both had, and that I would take on the nickname “Jo”.  Quite the opposite.

In middle school (my group of friends will attest to this) I spent a decent amount of time trying on new names.  One week I would ask to be called “Brenda”.  Another week I wanted to be “Monica”.  I tried over and over again to find something that I felt “fit”.  I never succeeded.

When I was told that I had been named “Jade” when I was born, I felt relief.  I felt peace.  I immediately began to internally identify as Jade, while Joanna began to take a backseat.  And there began a brand new phase of identity crisis as it pertained to my adoption.

I thought seriously about changing my name legally for many months, but several things held me back.  First and foremost, I knew it would hurt my adoptive family.  I imagined the conversation that would need to happen and multiple scenarios, and not a single one of them allowed for a pleasant outcome.  My mother would be devastated.  She would see it as a personal insult.  That alone wasn’t worth the risk.  I also knew that the friend I’d had for years, who grew up along with me knowing me as Joanna, would not transition easily.  Many of them wouldn’t understand the need for the change.  Ultimately, there was a general lack of support, and I didn’t feel a desperate enough need to make the change legally anyhow.

So, now Jade is something of an alter-ego.  Jade is an artist in the purest form.  Jade is responsible for my most free-spirited decisions in life.  And while there may not be anyone who calls me by that name, it’s enough for me that she exists within Joanna.

born with the moon in cancer

choose her a name she will answer to

call her green and the winters will not fade her

call her green for the children who've made her

little green, be a gypsy dancer

he went to california

hearing that everything's warmer there

so you write him a letter and say, "her eyes are blue"

he sends you a poem and she's lost to you

little green, he's a non-conformer

child with a child, pretending

weary of lies you are sending home

so you sign all the papers in the family name

you're sad and you're sorry but you're not ashamed

little green, have a happy ending

just a little green

like the color when the spring is born

there'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow

just a little green

like the nights when the northern lights perform

there'll be icicles and birthday clothes

and sometimes there'll be sorrow

National Adoption Month: Day 22

I never felt that I fit in well with my family.  Even when I was little I knew that I was different from them.  They were chemists and engineers and CFOs and CEOs.  I was an artist and a dancer.  They were a proud family of “straight A’s” and if I could scratch by with a C I was thrilled.

Grades were always a point of strife in our home.  Days when report cards were sent out were often spent elsewhere.  I would avoid the inevitable conversation about “living up to my potential” and “applying myself” as long as I could, seeking refuge from disappointed faces at a friend or neighbor’s house.  When I was ten, ‘disappointed faces’ turned into something uglier.  

When it’s said that your life flashes before your eyes in moments of perceived extreme danger, there is no exaggeration.  I don’t remember the specific trigger.  I know that report cards had been issued a few days prior, and since then I had come home with incomplete homework and a painfully low quiz grade.  The teacher had offered to let me re-do the homework for half credit, which apparently was enough of a point increase to make it worth trying.  I sat on the floor of the family room, at my father’s feet, while he slowly explained and re-explained whatever problem I was working on.  It had been a grueling two hours since I first sat down with it, and he was reaching his limit.  I pulled at the short pink threads of the carpet and let out a heavy sigh.  Not only was I completely disinterested in the topic, but I was also completely defeated.  “I hate this.”

I don’t know how I moved from Point A to Point B, but my next immediate memory is being pinned to the wall across the room, my father standing over me with a rage I hadn’t seen in him before.  I was shaking while he screamed inches from my face.  He hit me hard enough to drop me down to my knees, and there was a moment of peace there - like the eye of the storm.  From my new position I could see my mother ushering my little sister out of the room, then returning, only to cower in the doorway.  He grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me back up to my feet.  He was still shouting, but none of those words ever stuck with me.  I was staring passed him, and at my mother.  I’d never hated her before that night.  She did nothing to stop it.  She said nothing.  She didn’t fight for me.  

Alone in my room that night, I moved my hand to cover my face and felt burning.  I got up and looked in the mirror.  The top of my eye was open and bleeding.  I found a washcloth and a water bottle in the room and took care of myself - there was no way I was voluntarily leaving my room again that night.  I laid there, holding that stupid cloth over my face, oozing hate for both of them.  I hated him for everything he was.  I hated his job.  I hated his brain.  I hated math.  And I hated her for being weak.  I hated her for not standing up for her ten year old daughter.  I hated her because I didn’t trust her anymore.

No one woke me up for school the next morning - or the morning after that.  I would have enjoyed that a bit more if home didn’t feel like a prison of tension and nerves.  

After that, my mother described my father and I as having “clashing personalities”.  Not that he stepped over the line.  Not that he hurt me in the deepest possible way.  Not that my trust in my parents had been obliterated.  Not that our relationship would never recover.  Just simply our personalities clashed.  As if this was a common problem between fathers and adolescent daughters.

Eventually, it stopped.  Eventually, when it escalated enough that an outsider was brought in, mandated counseling happened.  And then college happened.  And I never moved back.  I’ve forgiven him by moving on.  I tell myself, and the few others who are cursed with a close friendship with me, that it was a different time.  He was a different man.  I’ve forgiven her.  I’ve recognized and forgiven her weakness.  But trust is a thing of the past.  Trust is a fantasy from childhood.

National Adoption Month: Day 10

If you haven't noticed, I'm jumping around a bit here.  I'm taking on the topics that I can handle, ignoring the ones I can't, and hopping around the month of prompts, all in an attempt to get back into it.  So, bear with.

***

“That’s not your baby,” the woman in line behind my mother and father spoke bluntly.  “There’s no way that’s your baby.  I’m looking at you…and I’m looking at him….and there’s just no way.  She’s too beautiful.”  Her comments may have been meant as a compliment.  She may have been struggling to find a new and unique way to tell someone that their baby was adorable.  But since I was, in fact, not “their baby”, those words left deep wounds on the hearts of my parents.  This story was retold to me more than once by other well-meaning relatives, again, trying to boost my confidence or perception of myself - but what it did was make me even more aware of the differences between myself and them.

Perhaps my most distinctive feature is my hair.  It’s big, it’s red and it’s curly.  I live in a family of brunettes and blondes, all with thin straight hair.  Where I might normally have counted myself lucky, I grew up hating my hair.  It was different.  For the longest time, I didn’t understand that I had curly hair.  I did as my mother did - I brushed it out each morning after washing it, and each time I was crushed that it did not fall straight as everyone else’s.  It was poofy and frizzy and all I wanted in the world was for it be silky and smooth.  It seems trivial but it was an obvious difference between myself and my family and one that I did not want.  

When I reunited with my birth mother in 2006, the first thing I noticed about her was that we had the same hair.  Her smell was foreign as she wrapped her arms around me for the first time.  I didn’t recognize her touch.  But when I looked at her, I saw myself for the first time.  For those who are not adopted, this is a privilege that is taken for granted.  To be mirrored in your own family is so desperately important in those dreadful and beautiful formative years.  And instead, adoptees are reminded constantly that they are not the same.  

National Adoption Month : Day 5

I used to think - and truly believe - that I could compartmentalize my life in regards to my adoption.  I believed that I could tuck my status away, take it out when I needed or wanted to talk to others in my circle, to feel validated, to work through some particular aspect of my reunion with my birth mother.  But with each passing year, it becomes more and more clear that there is no escape.  I may not wake up each morning, yawn, stretch, and say “yes, I’m still adopted”, but I have realized that truly, my adoption experience touches every aspect of my life.

Ever since I was young, I felt so strongly that marriage and children were key aspects to my own personal happiness.  It was nothing that was imposed upon me.  I wasn’t raised to believe that those are what would determine my worth.  Still, from the time I understood what a bride was, I wanted to be one.  I wanted to poofy dress and the bouquet.  I wanted to be swept off my feet.  I wanted someone to love and to be loved by.  

Likewise, I always wanted to be a mother.  Painfully aware as a child how difficult it had been for my mother to become pregnant, I knew that “playing pregnant” would upset her.  Games of house were played in secret.  Innocent games that I see my friends’ children playing in the open were hidden, forbidden thing.  I remember vividly on one particular occasion, my friend and I were playing “house” in my room.  I had stuffed some plush bear under my costume dress and walked around waddling and groaning about back pain - until my mother walked into the room.  I hit the floor like a bomb had gone off.  I’ve never moved faster in my life.  I dropped, not wanting her to see, not wanting her to hurt.  But I wanted it - desperately.  I wanted to see my face in someone else - something I had not known until late in my teens when I finally found my birth mother. 

But I have never been in a serious relationship.  The longest I was ever with any one person was just about six months - and it was semi-long distance.  The longest relationship after that, with one who was within reasonable distance, lasted all of a few weeks.  I would lament this - for years.  I was crushed that marriage - and children - seemed to be things that simply were not meant for me in my life.  Now, with a little more wisdom behind me, I’m more than certain that my adoption experience has tainted both of these things.  I cannot be in a relationship for long.  I always want to leave before they can leave me.  I don’t want to get too close.  I don’t want to ever be attached to anything.  It took me years to even get a cat because I didn’t want to love it - I didn’t want to get attached.  Knowing that about myself, how can I even consider children?

How cruel would it be to have a child, only to keep my distance so that I’m not hurt?  How selfish?

Being in reunion for almost ten years, I have only begun to scratch the surface with my birth mother.  It’s been ten years of one step forward, two steps back.  Most recently, just as I thought we had finally come to a place of understanding, where my own expectations of the relationship would no longer taint it or hinder it, I was contacted by a man claiming to be my brother by Her.  I assured him he was mistaken, that we had been in reunion for ten years and certainly she would have mentioned it.  But I was wrong.  In fact, she had two sons after me who she also placed for adoption.  When I confronted her, she stated it simply, as if it were such an easy thing to give birth and hand her babies over.  Those are my genes.  That is who I have come from.  Why on earth would I consider having children when my very being has been written and created by her.  I feel like a monster.  Or that I at the very least have the potential to be a monster.  Monsters should not have children.

At best, I see myself as damaged from my adoption.  A “half” person.  Broken.  How could I ever ask someone to take that on?

NAM2015: Day 2: The Adoptee In the Room

Todays' National Adoption Month prompt hits me hard.  Being the "Adoptee in the room" happens more often than not.  And I'm somewhat ashamed to say that more often than not, I remain silent in the hopes of keeping the peace, not rocking the boat, not hurting feeling, etc - but at what cost?

Recently a friend of mine publicly announced on Facebook that she was upset that while announcing her desires to adopt, she was met with comments along the lines of "you don't know what you're getting into", "they could have problems", "they could disrupt the rest of your family".  This, of course, opened the Facebook-floodgates of well-meaning comments and outright ignorance.  One woman commented: "You could reply by saying, 'yes, and we're prepared'."

It was that remark that put me over the edge.

Prepared in what way?  I think the whole point is that she IS NOT prepared.  So, I went against every rule I've ever set for myself regarding social media discussion, and I replied.  Prepared in what way, indeed.

I spoke up this time, and informed ALL parties that saying you are prepared to silence rude remarks is not the answer.  ACTUALLY being prepared would be better.

On more than one occasion, when I have mustered up the courage to offer insight into my experience as an adoptee and give prospective adoptive parents the chance to be prepared before welcoming a living, breathing open wound into their home, I have been refused with the common response that it's unnecessary.  Some have expressed that they are already parents of biological children - how different could it be?  Others insist that they are called by God to do this and He will give them the wisdom they need.  Nothing sickens me more than that.  God very well may have called you to adopt...but I'm certain He didn't call you to go in willingly blind.

This person who outright refused the offered books, life-experiences, and literature is willingly ruining her child's life.  Sounds a bit extreme, I'm sure.  But 29 years of deep pain and struggle, and hearing that my experience is typical rather than unique has brought me to that very conclusion.  Ignorance is one thing.  I can forgive you not knowing how to help your child.  But to be presented with the truth, and to turn away from it, knowing that your child is to benefit or suffer at your decision, is despicable.

And this is why so often, being the "adoptee in the room" is a burden I'd rather not have.  This is why I choose silence more often than speaking up and out.

National Adoption Month: Day 1

While I am keenly aware of November being National Adoption Month, as it is, in fact, the month that I was adopted, a brilliant blog, The Lost Daughters, has posted daily prompts for those *actually* affected by adoption.  Members of the adoption triad (adoptees, birth parent(s) and adoptive parent(s) ) and specifically adoptees and birth mothers have a much different view of the otherwise fluffy narratives of adoption.  We're in the trenches.  And the trenches are life-long struggles.  It seems only fitting, then, that NAM should be a time to raise awareness to this fact.  Let's hear the real life stories. Let's hear the truth.  The WHOLE truth.  Let's hear what a lifetime of celebrating "Gotchya Day" is like for the adult adoptee.

My birthday was three weeks ago.  I won't be celebrating "Gotchya Day" for another two weeks.  Existing in the gap between my birthday and adoption day is difficult every year.  I wonder what I must have been thinking.  Baby Jade left the comfort of her mother's familiarity and went...where, exactly?  I know that I was in foster care for the month between birth and adoption.  I know that they  struggled to calm me - "she's a crier!" they announced jovially as they passed me into my new family's arms.  But I wonder what on earth that baby thought was going on.  I wonder if she knew.

As an adult, my birthday is difficult to celebrate.  I always hated my birthday, even as a child.  Despite presents and seeing family, I was often a wreck, and threw wild tantrums over nothing at all.  I'm unattached to the day now, and prefer to do nothing rather than celebrate.  Sometimes I think of my birthmother, and wonder if she's thinking of me.  But more often than not, I try to forget.

Then comes the long four week stretch, where life goes on, but I feel dead inside.  Even this morning, I woke up, lay in bed playing on my phone for a while, then rolled over and realized that I haven't been adopted yet.  It's agonizing, and every year I try to forget.  I try to fill my schedule so I don't have to dwell on any one thing for too long.

For me, Adoption isn't a warm, sunshiny commercial with a happy family frolicking at the beach.  Adoption is the worst best thing that ever happened to me.  National Adoption Month should be used to shed some light on that reality - the reality of so many adoptees.

the art of suffering

"If I'm standing beside someone with seventeen stab wounds, my one does not hurt any less."

Suffering is hard.  Especially when you suffer from something that is not widely recognized as being painful.  Suffering in silence is the intricate and elaborate art mastered by the adoptee.

Up until just yesterday, there had been very little communication between myself and my newly discovered half-brother.  But that did not stop me from thinking about him - daily, hourly, etc.  And all the while, I'm suffering.  My adoptive family is absent in their support.  There are only two people I have been able to confide in since my world was turned upside down, and while I love them both for being a willing ear, the looming fear of being "too much to handle" creeps in easily.

"There are people who have it much worse than you."  There are.  And I get it.  But it doesn't diminish my pain by any means.  Knowing that there are those suffering terrible diseases, terrible loses, terrible physical pain, doesn't make me feel better.  It doesn't lessen my suffering.  It doesn't help fill the gaping hole in my spirit.

I feel very much alone in this.  And that's not fishing for pity.  I am alone in many aspects of my life.  I keep to myself.  I keep people out.  And alone seems more and more appealing as those closest to me, those I confide in, seem unable to understand this suffering.

waiting

It's been almost two weeks since the discovery of two siblings came to light.  In those two weeks, emails have been exchanged, but sparingly.  I dance a fine line between accepting this new reality and choosing to ignore the whole of it, the larger implications always weighing on my mind.  I find that when I think of these new comrades, I am burdened with hundreds of questions, though when I have the opportunity to ask, I am left speechless, empty.

I recently (as in this very day) finished reading the memoir of a certain hero of mine.  My Queen.  An Irish icon.  An actress.  A Captain.  A birthmother.  I read the details of her own reunion with her daughter, poured over the words and raw emotion, soaked in every mention of regret and longing for that which she gave away.  And as I read, I wept.

I wept for her loss and discovery, to be sure.  But I wept also for myself.

I wept because while this woman regretted her choice almost instantly, and spent the whole of her life tortured by her choice, longing for the connection to her daughter that she was denied, I wonder if She ever did.  Or rather, because I feel I already know the answer, why she didn't.  Isn't that what every adoptee wants so desperately?  To believe - to know - that the choice that was made on their behalf was a mistake?  To know that giving you up, giving you away was a mistake.

Regardless of the real-life consequence of this choice, this decision; regardless of the inability - whatever the obstacles might have been; regardless of how implausible the reality was or is - I want to feel - to know - that giving me away was a mistake.  Giving me away was a mistake.

Alas, I don't believe She feels this way.  I don't believe She ever did.  I don't know that she thought of me every year, on my birthday, as I thought of her.  I don't think I will ever have the answer, either, despite being in reunion for a decade.  I don't think I will have anything more than the small satisfaction of having known her at all.

And so, my longing continues.

jaded: a brief introduction

After a five year interlude and an incredibly rocky road in reunion, I decided that a fresh start was in order.  Triggered by new discovery, I realized that once upon a time, this was a wonderful venue for finding my place in the wide world of adoption - and for finding an incredible group of supporters-turned-friends.  While I have chosen to remove the blog that chronicled the very beginning of my adoption journey from the "public" and start anew, it remains saved on paper, and will serve, I'm sure, as a reminder of how it all began.

Recently, after ten years of reunion with my birthmother, I received an email from someone claiming to be my half-brother.  A half-brother, which my birthmother neglected to tell me about for ten years.  He found me on his search for Her.  And he found another brother.  So, in one foggy, fucked up Wednesday morning, I went from being an only child to the oldest of three - and all with no help from Her.

I've spent hours upon hours upon hours explaining away every word - every lie - she'd ever spoken to me.  I've defended her, I've persecuted her, I've been furious and I've been heartbroken.  Trying to wrap my mind around a ten year lie - when the truth was is so crucial to joining the two separate lives I live in adoption - has left me with nothing but numbness.  Everything she has ever said to me is brought into question.  What stock can I put in any of the information she has shared with me up until this point?  I've spent days replaying exchanged words, wondering if every word was a piece of a carefully spun web, meant to keep the truth away.

So, almost a week later, I'm emailing a newly discovered sibling with the same ferocious, greedy need for connection that I once felt for Her.  And a week later, I've said nothing to Her.  I thought I knew what complexity was.  My understanding was lacking until now.

I feel betrayed.  A betrayal that eclipses even the most primal fears and hurts of being let go of twenty eight years ago.  I don't know how to overcome such a heavy lie.  My greatest fear is that I can't.

the chasm

Two friends of mine - one much closer than the other - are planning to adopt children in the somewhat-near future. This...is awkward for me.

Reason #1: 

Friend "A" approached me as such: "Hey! You're adopted, right? We're going through the  process of adoption..maybe you could like..give us some insight!"

No. I really don't want to.

"Come on.. give us like.. one pearl of wisdom.. What should we know?"

I don't produce pearls. More like soggy, depressed sponges that sit next to the oysters  that produce pearls.

"Please? One thing?"

So, I gave her my second to last copy of Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew. A week later, I was given the book back by a friend of a friend of a friend of Friend "A" and asked why I would ever give them something like that to read when they were so eager to receive their "Maybe Baby" as they call it (which in and of itself made me want to barf).

I have a feeling I won't be invited to that baby shower. Nor will I be photographing that newborn session. Nor will I ever be welcome back in that corner of the church building.

Reason #2:

Friend "B", who has known me since middle school, asked me "what I thought about being  adopted". I should have directed her here. My response was probably not as friendly as it  could have been. And I'm sure she wasn't ready for it. 

I told her it was the worst thing that could ever happen to someone. I told her - as if it wasn't difficult enough to be separated from your mother, you are then expected to call another woman by that name, and more often than not, expected never to speak of that first woman again. I told her that I think about it every day and nearly every moment I am left to my own thoughts. I told her I still cry and I still find myself saying "I want to go home", only...I have no idea where that is. I told her it's the most difficult experience I can imagine and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I don't expect I'll be hearing from her any time soon, either.

Someone teach me how to shut my mouth and smile and nod again. When did I forget how to do that?

Someone tell me this will get easier.

I belong to no one

I took a long break - again. But for a reason apart from simply letting busy life and schedules get in the way.

I'm breaking down.

While struggling to find purpose, voicing what I could manage to a friend, I decided that maybe I was letting my adoption 'crusade' get in the way of finding my purpose. I thought maybe I was being too one-sided in my opinions. I feared that in becoming something of the adoption martyr in the art world, I had lost sight of what I had gained through my adoption experience. I decided to tuck the blog away for a while. I wanted to attempt to re-prioritize. I had great dreams of a peaceful life ahead of me, filled with certainty of purpose. I found neither.

I'm in the middle of a Bible study with a close friend. God bless her, she has had to listen to my every insecurity, my every fear. My broken spirit sits in her living room every week, struggling through the pages of our books, holding back tears because I think she'll grow impatient with my constant whining - my desperation to find a reason for my being.

Last week, in our study of Esther, it was said that the Jewish Queen was battling two sides of herself. The question was asked: what two sides are in you - and what would you call them?

I wrote - hesitantly - Jade and Joanna. I was sure of my answer, but hesitated only because I knew it would raise questions; questions which I have begun to fear are asked out of politeness, rather than a genuine curiosity or desire to know me more deeply. This fear has been born out of the sheer number of hours I have clocked weeping on her couch, on her shoulder. Whether this is the case or not, I know I would be tired of me, too.

Joanna is a steel skeleton smile, a concrete fortress with an alligator infested moat. She is  a thick, tall wall, impregnable and completely defended against the outside world. And she  is covered, just so, with a layer of flesh just thick enough to make others believe they know  her - she is human.

Jade is a mass of raw nerves and nothing else. She might stare at those around her and  think to herself that she would like to let them near, but she is perpetually alone of her  own choice. Alone is painful, but it is safe.

In this quest to find meaning and purpose in my life and in what has been my story thus far, I've only come up with more questions than answers. I set out to realize that God has some reason behind my existence. If He does, I don't know what it is.

One thing I've struggled with my entire life - and I do mean my entire life, without exaggeration - is the fact that my mother was so young when I was conceived. At fifteen years old, I don't think anyone would have given a second thought to it if she had decided to terminate her pregnancy. She was a child herself, and the risks to her health were great. It would have been so easy. No one would have asked any questions. But she didn't; and now I'm here, some twenty four years later. And I don't know why.

I have to believe there is a reason. But I don't know what it is.

From my perspective - and maybe it will be hard to hear for some of you - I think it would have been easier to never have existed at all. Certainly less painful. I used to get angry with God for letting me suffer as I have. I live on the verge of tears with a deep ache in my heart that escapes in groans over the slightest thought of my origins. I feel cheated, robbed of normalcy. And almost daily, I struggle with the desire to give up.

Not writing hasn't helped at all. It hasn't helped me to forget that I'm different. It hasn't deterred my thoughts - not even slightly. So what is the purpose? Why is every task a momentous one to be overcome? Is there some great prize at the end of so much pain? Some sort of reward for enduring? Or are the cosmos mocking me for thinking I am significant?

Adoptees and Hope

William F Lynch, a Roman Catholic priest calls hope

the fundamental knowledge and feeling that there is a way out of difficulty, that things can work out, that we as human persons can somehow handle and manage internal and external reality, that there are solutions in the most ordinary and biological and physiological sense of that word, that, above all, there are ways out of illness.

His view of reality is that it is not ultimately conflictual. He believes that

being immersed in reality, belonging to it, provides the foundation for the beginning of hopefulness for all human beings, despite what may be the very difficult circumstances of relinquishment and adoption.

It is said that we are to find hope in our ‘future stories’, in our possible futures with our questions answered, and ideally, with our reunion needs met. We are to find and cling to the hope that some day, we will receive that letter from our birthmothers, that we will have that teary reunion in the airport, that we will no longer need the fantasy birth parents that we spent a lifetime creating.

But what happens when we do receive that letter? What happens when we do have that teary reunion, and we get to know the men and women who gave us away? And what happens when everything you expected to happen doesn’t? How, then, do we deal with the insatiable longing that still lurks in us?

It must be a common occurrence that upon meeting for the first time, or even over periods of time, we realize that what we dreamed our birth families to be can never exist. In fact, it must be an unavoidable truth. The fantasy we create in our minds cannot exist outside of our minds. Our mothers are not Queens, our fathers are not Kings. They are not flawless. They are humans. They are like us.

So how do we deal with reality? And how, when there is an unrequited interest in reunion, do we achieve a maintained sense of hope? How do we keep from falling into a pit of hopelessness when it would be so easy to focus on everything that did not happen according to plan in your reunion?

Moreover, what happens when your questions are answered by our birth families.. and we still cannot come to terms with the reality of our existence?

It seems there are still more questions than answers. And it seems there is little else to do but to continue to hope that they will be answered - if not by our birth families, then by ourselves in our journeys.

I am ONE

ONE: Describe my origins. 

EMH: Oh, it's a long story. 

ONE: I wish to hear it. 

EMH: Another time. 

ONE: I wish to hear the story. Now. 

EMH: In a nutshell, there was a transporter malfunction. My emitter fused  with several of Seven of Nine's nano probes. 

ONE: I was an accident. 

EMH: Call it a random convergence of technologies. 

ONE: Am I unwelcome here? 

EMH: On the contrary. Our primary mission is to explore new forms of life.  You may have been unexpected but given time, I am sure you'll make a  fine addition to the crew.

I was an accident.  Obviously, I was not a convergence of technologies, but I certainly was an accident. No two fourteen year olds get together with the intention of having a child. And yet, two did. I’ve struggled with this concept all of my life. I know that I was never intended to exist. But I do now. For whatever reason, my birth mother chose not to end my life. So there must be a purpose for it.. right? At fifteen years old, it would not have been exceptional to have chosen abortion as a viable solution to an unwanted pregnancy. But abortion was not chosen. And now here I am. But for what? I still have no answer. Sometimes I wonder if abortion would have been the better choice.. the “righter” choice. At least then I wouldn’t be playing tug of war with my own purpose for existing.

JANEWAY: Well, we can delay telling him for now, but keep in mind the  drone is becoming an individual. Seven, he has the right to know. Sooner  or later, we'll have to answer his questions.

And here was the moment of clarity I wish my adoptive mother would have had. I wish she could have had this conversation with Captain Janeway and realized that I had the right to know even the minuscule amount of information that was known. Knowing was a vital part of becoming an individual. And I have been delayed in doing so because of not knowing.

ONE: No. I should not exist. I was an accident. A random convergence of  technologies. 
SEVEN: You are unique. 
ONE: I was never meant to be.

Again, here is my (seemingly) lifelong struggle. I suppose I am only at my quarter-life now, but thus far, I have battled this in myself nearly every day. I was an accident. I was never meant to be. And when I watched this scene, I couldn’t help my tears. And they kept flowing, because I realized I was weeping out of jealousy. “One” was allowed to end his battle. He died heroically saving the ship and its crew. Lucky bastard. I just wait. And wait. And wait. And maybe one day I will find my purpose.

oh, to be someone's own child

I was nine years old the first time I tried to kill myself, the first time I acted on the desperate need to not be.  I had seen Romeo and Juliet on television recently, and the notion of poison - something that would just let you go to sleep and never wake up - was appealing.  I never wanted to hurt myself.  I never wanted to be in pain.  Pain was never the release.  I’d had quite enough of that.  It was just a deep longing to not have to feel anything.  My innocent understanding was certainly lacking, however, and instead of drinking anything lethal, I drank 2.5 oz of perfume.  I threw up all night and could offer little explanation to my parents as to why I had done it.  Even then I understood that the truth would have hurt them. I was nine, going on ten years old. What could possibly be so painful at ten years old? What could hurt so much that after only a decade of living, you wanted it to be over already? Moreover, what ten year old even knows that suicide exists?

I’m sure a lot of adoptees know.

Among adolescents who have attempted suicide, an alarming number of them were adopted. According to a study conducted by Gail Slap, MD, Elizabeth Goodman, MD, and Bin Huang, MS, adoptees were found to be 7.6% more likely to have attempted suicide. (Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics)I had coffee with a good friend of mine last night; one who I have known since eighth grade. She was recalling a church service she recently attended where a movie was shown about orphaned children in various third world countries. She was moved by the film, and says she felt God putting something in her heart that day. When I inquired further, she said, “I just all of a sudden felt this overwhelming push. I think I might want to consider adoption in the future.”

I waited, letting her continue her story, as she was speaking quite passionately about it. My immediate, albeit, silent reaction was to vomit up all the reasons to be cautious...to be as passionate about caring for an adopted child (which is significantly different than caring for biological children from an emotional standpoint). And then those dreadful, sharp, soul-shattering words passed through her lips: “But then I think..I really want children of my own..”

Children of my own. My own children. My own.

And I am, what? We are, what? Not. Very plainly, we are not. We are not our parent’s “own”. Not even remotely.I can recall another friend of mine, who I met in college. Many of my thesis pieces and bodies of work were adoption-related, and being close to me, she was very well versed in “adoption-speak” and very aware of how adoption has affected me.

She and I were sitting in a pub we frequented between classes, and I had just put away my sketches for a body of work I was presenting to a professor. She perked up in her seat, and her eyes got wide, and she asked if she had ever mentioned her cousin. I did not think so. She recalled to me that her cousin had held a birthday party recently. At the party, one member of the family had invited a guest. As they were being introduced to the family, this cousin said, “This is my wife.. and this is my son. And this is my adopted daughter, *****.” My friend asked me if she was hanging out with me too much, or if this was legitimately offensive. My reply was far from calm.She added, “Well, she didn’t seem to mind. She never does.”

Yes, she does. My heart broke for that poor girl, who had always, and would always be introduced as second-rate. This is not my daughter. This is my adopted daughter. And I wondered how many times she’d thought of ending her young life.

There is something both insignificant and monumental that happens in our words. It’s a strange duality between the nonchalant and the overt. Adoptees hear it every day. It’s that dreaded phrase: “my own children”. It’s always said in passing. It’s rarely meant to cause the damage that it does. And more often than not, the speaker does not realize what they’ve said and what they’ve done...though experience has taught me not to underestimate the intentionally cruel.

Oh, to be someone’s own child. I don’t think there is anything in this world I wouldn’t give to be ignorant of the power of that phrase.