The Ungrateful Adoptee

If you want to have a good reunion with your "angry adoptee", here are a few things I'm relatively certain will make a positive difference for you. Some of it will be hard to read. You may want to deflect or abscond, but if you can sit with your discomfort on this, you may well be able to sit with your discomfort in reunion, and that WILL make it better. 1. Own Your Shit. I cannot stress this enough. Own your choices and decisions. Don't blame others, your lack of support, religious oppression, coercion from adoption professionals. Phrases like, "I didn't have support, but ultimately I decided to put you up for adoption, and for that I'm sorry." will go a long way. 2. Don't Expect Us To Feel Sorry For You. We want to know why you relinquished us, and we want the truth. The circumstances surrounding relinquishment are never truly positive for an adoptee, even if they seem that way at first. Don't expect compassion for your dire circums...

I have recently been accused of "being known by many many as the spawn of Nancy Verrier". Honestly all I can do is chuckle. Reason being, since I read The Primal Wound, I detest the woman. Anyone who's spoken to me on the subject can attest to this. I can't stand Nancy Verrier. I can't tolerate any adopter who can't accept their own culpability in adoption trauma, and she CLEARLY couldn't. She had no inkling, or didn't want to, about the role adopters play in adoptee trauma. I could practically hear her in the wailing adopter tone as I read the book... "We just wanted a child to love! Through no fault of our own, this child is traumatized! We do our best, but it's just SO HARD to love these mean little adoptees with their PTSD and trauma! It's not MY fault you won't LET ME LOVE YOU! I didn't do anything wrong, and you've been hurting me since infancy with your rejection and acting out! All I wanted was to love you uncondi...

Nowhere in this blog do I say "be an asshole". All through it, in fact, I say, "Adoptees, do what's best for you, as the only real victim of adoption." I have seen too many blogs in which relinquishers think they have some kind of special insight into reunion and the adopted condition. It often feels like some kind of sick cosmic joke; adoptees longing for answers and ownership of responsibility from the women who rejected them finding relinquishers who blame, finger point, and gaslight. It's like everyone is mismatched, adoptees desperately searching for peace and being thwarted at every turn by adopters, governmental agencies, and overly sensitive, self involved relinquishers. And still we just want the people we're blood related to. This post was inspired by Musings of the Lame's blog post, "Ways to Ruin an Adoption Reunion II, Adoptee Do's and Don'ts edition". *How An Adoptee Might Hurt Their "Mother"* Keeping ...

The focus of adoptionland is skewed. There are too many focusing on adopters and relinquishers. Too many treatises on their feelings, wants, and needs, even on the middle of passages supposedly written for us, adoptees. Adoptees need to remember how hurt everyone else is by their relinquishment. We need to be gentle and deferent because of their incredible loss. Don't ever forget your rejection of your adopters as an infant and (in my case) small child. Don't ever let it slip your mind how much pain you've caused your poor adoptress. All she wanted was her own child! Don't forget all the suffering she had to deal with before you were even born (seeing as how that has *so much* to do with you as a person). Don't forget about all of her grief, infertility, miscarriages, dashed hopes, sadness, and endless needs!  She wasn't thinking of you when she adopted. She was thinking of herself. You need to remember and respect how sad she was, and how lucky you are that s...

I understand. I scare you. The truth scares you. Your pain scares you. And more importantly, perhaps most importantly of all, my pain, OUR PAIN, scares you. It's okay to be scared. It's okay to ban and block. To a degree, it's okay to talk shit about me. We're all adults. Do you know what's not okay? Trying to shut me down. Trying to silence my voice. Trying to cut me off from my comfort, connections, and freedom. The constant neverending petty target on my back. The barrage of abuse in my inbox and the constant reporting and harrassment. I don't report you, because, unlike you, I have actual work to do. There are too many Adoptees out there who lack a voice. They think they're alone. They think they're crazy and the only one feeling this irreparable, undefinable loss. They don't understand why they feel what they do, or that they're allowed to feel that way. They're brainwashed. They're damaged. They're wracked with guilt becau...

No. No, you really don't. Non-adopted person, listen to me and listen good. You do NOT wish you were adopted. If you knew what it feels like to be adopted and aware, you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy. Adoption is trauma and abuse of a voiceless infant. Whatever the circumstance, we are torn from our families and thrown to strangers. We scream and protest until we are quite literally broken. And we carry that break in us for the rest of our lives. I'm just going to assume that those of you who wish you were adopted percieve yourselves to have been abused or mistreated in some way by your family. Funny, I was abused and mistreated by my family too, and I WAS adopted. Beaten? Me too, and I was adopted . Verbally abused? Me too, and I was adopted. Molested and raped? Me too, and I was adopted. Sounds pretty well the same to me. Until you add in the distinct disadvantage of developmental trauma. Until you add in massive loss and fear of abandonment. Until you a...

The right to feel is inherent. The right to feel how you feel and use your own terms to state it is a given. Unless you're adopted, of course.  If you're adopted, all involved parties are aggressively eager to inform you of how you feel, when you feel it, and how you're allowed to say it, all the while diminishing the reality of your feelings by interjecting the comparative importance of their own.  For instance. The adopter. "I love you! I'm bonded with you! You love me too! You're bonded to me too! You're grateful for the better life I'm providing for you! Look how nice your things are! Could your horrible junkie parents give you such nice things?"  In the meantime the Adoptee is wearing her nice clothes and wetting her nice bed because of the nightmares, and by eight years old is already wondering what it's like to be dead. I could give you examples of how relinquishers, gentle adopters, industry flunkies, and even our own fellow Ado...