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.  

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 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?

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.