Sacrifice. It's such an abstract concept. It's basically and frequently defined as: giving up something for the sake of something else. (Or killing livestock and children in the name of a diety. Since I refuse to allow adoption to be referred to as a diety, I'll be sticking to the former.) But what does that really mean?
For adoptees, it means everything. Because that's what we give up for the sake of something else.
I gave up my family. I gave up my name. (I was eight months old when they "got me", I knew my bloody name.) I gave up my original unfalsified documents and my access to them. I gave up knowing where I came from. I gave up lifelong relationships with siblings and the connection they afforded. I gave up my concrete identity and sense of self. I gave up my ability to ever fully trust anyone to stand beside me. I gave up my ability to believe in anyone's "best intentions" or "love". I gave up a life. for the sake of something else.
For the sake of... being was forced to live with strangers. I didn't want the adopters, I realize that now. I most certainly rejected them. There was a photo album my mother kept in a locked filing cabinet drawer, the same drawer in which I found the receipt for myself. My mother never showed them to me, and didn't know I knew about the key behind the mirror in her jewelry box. In the album was a picture of me, my mother and father, dated in my eighth month of life on this earth. We were standing on the stairs of a courthouse, and I was red, enraged, screaming, and pushing at my mother's face with one tiny, balled fist. I gave up a father whose chest I would fall asleep on, little fingers tangled in his beard, for the sake of a set of people I didn't choose or even want.
I gave up a genuine connection to other human beings for the sake of a forced attachment necessitated by my need to survive. An idea of 'mother' shoved into my tiny lizard brain. A hollow shell with empty words and false promises of parental love and support. She could never be an adequate substitute for a mother... She had never sustained a pregnancy! She had never once felt the genuine rush and weight of the maternal instinct sizzling your every nerve ending.
I gave up the life I should have had with lower class income and siblings to grow with. I gave up holidays, Birthdays, meals on a Sunday afternoon with the family of my blood for the sake of a lot of money, formal family values, a good education, a strict regime of work and expectations. If that means a "better life", then yeah, I had one, up until I was sixteen. After that I was on my own, passed from lockup to lockup by counselors and adopters until I finally freed myself and found out what it meant to take care of myself.
I gave up a childhood with my siblings for the sake of a childhood alone, feeling hollow and ostracized and "different" from everyone else.
I sacrificed, and sacrificed, and sacrificed. My sacrifices were not my choice. Three sets of adults decided that these sacrifices were just fine for me to make, that they'd have no effect on me, and if they did, it would be my fault for "choosing to focus on the negative", "disrespecting my 'parents'", and "being oppositional". (How many adoptees my age remember that from counselors? Oppositional? Contrary?)
I didn't want to sacrifice any of these things. I was a baby who wanted her daddy. He was all I had.
Before you speak to me about how difficult your sacrifices were, APs and BPs, you need to remember ONE CRUCIAL FACT. Your sacrifices were voluntary. You chose to relinquish. You decided, for whatever reason, that parenting your own child wasn't appropriate for you. The consequence of your choice is your pain and guilt. Unfortunate and inevitable if you're remotely human. Or you chose to adopt. You chose to drain your bank account and invite eyes into your lives. You decided pretending to be the parent of a child that isn't yours was appropriate for you. The consequence of your choice is an empty bank account and troubled, traumatized child.
What am I paying for? The consequences of other people's choices made for me are heavy indeed, and have affected every aspect of my life. And what am I paying the consequences FOR? For daring to be born? Or am I paying the consequences for someone else's mistakes?
Sacrifice is giving up something for the sake of something else. I have been sacrificing since I lost my mother. I have lived a life that has known nothing but the sacrifice of everything that was me, for the sake of everything I was supposed to be.
This is Adoption. Isn't it pretty?
#NAAM2017 #adoption #adoptionsucks #adopteevoices #adopteetruth #adopteesnolongersilent #flipthescript
For adoptees, it means everything. Because that's what we give up for the sake of something else.
I gave up my family. I gave up my name. (I was eight months old when they "got me", I knew my bloody name.) I gave up my original unfalsified documents and my access to them. I gave up knowing where I came from. I gave up lifelong relationships with siblings and the connection they afforded. I gave up my concrete identity and sense of self. I gave up my ability to ever fully trust anyone to stand beside me. I gave up my ability to believe in anyone's "best intentions" or "love". I gave up a life. for the sake of something else.
For the sake of... being was forced to live with strangers. I didn't want the adopters, I realize that now. I most certainly rejected them. There was a photo album my mother kept in a locked filing cabinet drawer, the same drawer in which I found the receipt for myself. My mother never showed them to me, and didn't know I knew about the key behind the mirror in her jewelry box. In the album was a picture of me, my mother and father, dated in my eighth month of life on this earth. We were standing on the stairs of a courthouse, and I was red, enraged, screaming, and pushing at my mother's face with one tiny, balled fist. I gave up a father whose chest I would fall asleep on, little fingers tangled in his beard, for the sake of a set of people I didn't choose or even want.
I gave up a genuine connection to other human beings for the sake of a forced attachment necessitated by my need to survive. An idea of 'mother' shoved into my tiny lizard brain. A hollow shell with empty words and false promises of parental love and support. She could never be an adequate substitute for a mother... She had never sustained a pregnancy! She had never once felt the genuine rush and weight of the maternal instinct sizzling your every nerve ending.
I gave up the life I should have had with lower class income and siblings to grow with. I gave up holidays, Birthdays, meals on a Sunday afternoon with the family of my blood for the sake of a lot of money, formal family values, a good education, a strict regime of work and expectations. If that means a "better life", then yeah, I had one, up until I was sixteen. After that I was on my own, passed from lockup to lockup by counselors and adopters until I finally freed myself and found out what it meant to take care of myself.
I gave up a childhood with my siblings for the sake of a childhood alone, feeling hollow and ostracized and "different" from everyone else.
I sacrificed, and sacrificed, and sacrificed. My sacrifices were not my choice. Three sets of adults decided that these sacrifices were just fine for me to make, that they'd have no effect on me, and if they did, it would be my fault for "choosing to focus on the negative", "disrespecting my 'parents'", and "being oppositional". (How many adoptees my age remember that from counselors? Oppositional? Contrary?)
I didn't want to sacrifice any of these things. I was a baby who wanted her daddy. He was all I had.
Before you speak to me about how difficult your sacrifices were, APs and BPs, you need to remember ONE CRUCIAL FACT. Your sacrifices were voluntary. You chose to relinquish. You decided, for whatever reason, that parenting your own child wasn't appropriate for you. The consequence of your choice is your pain and guilt. Unfortunate and inevitable if you're remotely human. Or you chose to adopt. You chose to drain your bank account and invite eyes into your lives. You decided pretending to be the parent of a child that isn't yours was appropriate for you. The consequence of your choice is an empty bank account and troubled, traumatized child.
What am I paying for? The consequences of other people's choices made for me are heavy indeed, and have affected every aspect of my life. And what am I paying the consequences FOR? For daring to be born? Or am I paying the consequences for someone else's mistakes?
Sacrifice is giving up something for the sake of something else. I have been sacrificing since I lost my mother. I have lived a life that has known nothing but the sacrifice of everything that was me, for the sake of everything I was supposed to be.
This is Adoption. Isn't it pretty?
#NAAM2017 #adoption #adoptionsucks #adopteevoices #adopteetruth #adopteesnolongersilent #flipthescript
Barn Wheway: we were sacrificed by them upon their altar of transidentification and we were specifically nurtured, passively by our family and actively by infertiles, to sacrifice ourselves upon the very same altar to the very same abomination. Now we know and are trying to reverse that bogus cruel 'nurture'; to cease engagement in their macabre vampiric religion of human sacrifice.
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