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Never Mind My "Bad Experience"

Seven months ago, March of this year, what were you doing? I was trying to cope with the fact that suddenly BOTH of my mothers are dead.

Seven months ago, March of this year, what were you doing? I was coming out of an all consuming blinding fog of denial.

I don't claim to have been fogged like the "I'm so happy, life is so perfect" adoptees are, but I had my own special version. I actively ignored it. Any reference to adoption was refused admittance. It bounced off. The fact that Dexter was a foster child; on Friends, Monica and Chandler's gleeful hunt for a newborn or Phoebe's surrogacy, Sons Of Anarchy and their baby farms, the Blacklist, This Is Us, etcetera. The endless stream of baby-collecting celebrities... I literally didn't allow it to connect. The cord was too short and the plug wouldn't reach the wall. Even when asked about it, I would proclaim it didn't bother me and didn't matter, all the while loudly humming the theme to "I Dream of Jeannie" in my head to drown out the words, the idea, and maintain the disconnect. I could not even think about it.

Now I can't think about anything else. I read. I study. I talk. I write. I try to convince people that adoption is never a good thing.

And I don't know why I bother.

Anyone not out of the fog uses my fucked up life as a weapon against me. Discounting my every assertion because I "had a bad experience".

So... what? I was punished my whole life for being the wrong person in the wrong family, and now you're going to continue to punish me for daring to get shit parents? You're  going to ignore me because I had the audacity to be abused by the people that bought me? How dare I??? THE NERVE!!

And of course, the ONLY reason I'm against adoption is because my life sucked.

Never mind that adoption actively destroys families. Every time someone puts out the call for a newborn, another emom is convinced that relinquishment is the right choice. Never mind that no one tries to preserve their families.

Never mind that every time an adoption decree is issued, an identity is stolen and legal documents are falsified.

Never mind developmental trauma and severing the maternal-infant bond.

Never mind the separation of siblings, robbed of lifelong relationships.

Never mind not knowing your own real family history or where you came from.

Never mind the nearly-universal feeling of displacement suffered by adoptees.

Never mind that adoptees attempt suicide 4 times as often as non-adoptees, 30% more represented in juvenile detention and inpatient mental health facilities, and 50-70% more likely be abused as non-adoptees.

Never mind Sharin Matthews, adopted, 3 years old, and dead in Texas. Never mind the 18 month old in Cambridge, UK, abused to death two weeks after her adoption was finalized. Never mind the nine year old girl in FL, killed when her adopted aunt sat on her chest until she suffocated, while she's begging, "please, auntie, I can't breathe...". Never mind the thousands of other murdered adoptees.

Never mind all the adoptees abandoned and "rehomed" by their adoptive parents.

Never mind that adoptee rights are subverted into adulthood.

Nope, the ONLY reason anyone would every think adoption sucks is if they "had a bad experience".

I've got news for you, Captain Dismissive. My whole life wasn't a tale of terror. I had all kinds of privileges I'd be willing to bet MOST of you dismiss-o-grams didn't have. I had all the best stuff. Latest and greatest, lightest and brightest. The expensive fashionable clothes and shoes. Calvin Klein, Coco Chanel, Oscar de la Renta. Jessica McClintock prom dresses and shoes dyed to match. I had Swatch watches and diamond solitare earrings. I got to go to every camp, every college prep activity. I played on every team and did every activity. I traveled every summer. I've been across the US and around the world twice. I've lived in foreign countries in five story houses with my own servants. Two of them, hired just for me. I had my own room and my own phone and my own computer and up to 12 cats at any given time. I got a car for my sixteenth birthday. And when I wrecked it, I got another newer, better one.

I had fun. I laughed, I played, I fell in love. I had a couple of friends, kissed a couple of boys, went to church and dances and social activities. 

I loved my mom, believe it or not. She wasn't only my worst nightmare, she was also my best friend. I loved my dad. He taught me invaluable lessons about life and survival. If not for the abuses of my person, my life would have been damn near perfect. Except for that pesky developmental trauma.

Still want to blame it on my "bad experience"? Ha. My life was probably better than most of yours.

And even if it wasn't, it certainly wasn't all bad. At 16, making out with the bellhop at the hotel at Disney World right behind my mom's back? And not getting caught? Priceless. So next time you want to dismiss me on account of my "bad experience", count the number of foreign countries you've been to. If you don't run out of fingers before you're done, I've got you beat, sweetheart.

So go ahead and go on about my "bad experience", and I'll start telling stories about Christmas cookies and family vacations to the grand canyon and the summer I got two brand new cars.

Comments

  1. I am just loving your entire blog. Exactly, just exactly how I feel. I wonder what would come out of my mouth if I actually dared to...

    ReplyDelete
  2. For somebody who had such a great life with this adopted family, you are so fast to have endless blogs about how horrid it all is for yourself and other adoptees. Choose one, edgelord and victim or blessed and strengthened. It's infuriating to read over and over.

    ReplyDelete

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