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.

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.

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.