"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.

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.