I had a good laugh over the weekend, as my family was driving home from a lovely weekend skiing at Lake Tahoe. I was catching up on blog reading on my nifty iPhone, finally able to devote an hour or two to things other than chasing after my children, thinking about reunion, cleaning out the garage to house Mark's new prize possession, and other humble pursuits.
The whole Dr. Kimberly Leighton exchange still bothers me; I find it vaguely irritating that an academic should be 1. an adoptee but so little devoted to thinking critically about what adoptees have or don't have, in terms of rights and 2. so thoughtless in terms of her contribution to a national discussion about DNA and searching. ("Wow, adoptees should be careful not to rock the boat. People could get hurt, and adoptees must be made aware of this." DUHHHHH.)
I wrote a post about why I felt annoyed by Leighton a while ago, and another blogger wrote a post in support of Dr. Leighton. Fine. But then another person commented as Anon on that person's blog, and apparently one pack of dogs thought it was *I* who had written the comment and tried to go to take their pound of flesh, only it wasn't *I*. I had to chuckle in the car and share with my husband and my two mothers, who all found it very humorous, as well.
Apparently whoever commented sounded like me and agreed with me, so I toast that person. But the people who then tried to shred that argument, and mine, were rather pitiful. I had brought up, in my post, a whole thread of discussion, saying that Leighton should have been taking the industry to task for promulgating lies, rather than adoptees (naughty Pandoras!) who want to search. Someone said that Leighton had never mentioned CIs. Wow! Bully for you for noticing that! That was in *my* argument, and you took one teeny part of it out of context without looking at the whole of it, rather like Leighton's misunderstanding the entire tone of the reference of Pandora's Box.
Both of my mothers, when I mentioned the myth of Pandora's Box, immediately said, "Wow, that's a rather harsh judgment to make of an adoptee." Because they understand the myth and what it means. It's not about oopsies and unintended consequences. It's about a woman willfully disobeying a command, carried away by curiosity (the issue of Hope is a nice add-on, but isn't the main thrust of the problem here). Pandora's Box a very, very misogynistic myth. It's about how a woman didn't *think* at all, who went against what Zeus said to fulfill her own desires and unleashed havoc and strife on humankind--evil is actually the wrong word, carrying medieval, Christian overtones. If Dr. Leighton didn't intend to make this connection, or carry across this meaning, then she was careless, and it doesn't say much about her intellectual grooming. We all make mistakes, and perhaps given another chance, she would choose another metaphor. I will send her an e-mail and ask her to clarify what she meant.
But back to intellectual grooming and silver spoons. The reference to an "Ivy League" school, and getting in on merit, rather than being a legacy was also funny. I am an adoptee. What kind of legacy would I be? Do you really think that my aparents went to the Ivy League? I went to a Seven Sisters college, and I earned my way there by merit. I studied and worked my intellectual ass off, from preschool on. If I'd been a legacy, I would have gone to Mankato State University! In my first family, I would have had more chance of being a legacy. My grandfather and mother went to the same prestigious private college, but I wasn't raised in that family. How you all crack me up.
My brother and I are both smart because we use our brains and have good critical thinking skills. He is well respected in his field of medicine because he reads widely, is a perfectionist, and doesn't tolerate half-thought-through bullshit (at least at work, can't resist that one, ha). As part of my academic training, I have been trained and whipped and scolded and taught not to be a lazy thinker, a la some of you and Dr. Leighton, and when I see people with letters behind their name, I am not necessarily impressed. The institution matters, as does how a person presents himself or herself. Some institutions hand out Ph.D.'s like candy, which is not something to be proud of. As Joy has said, degrees are not proof of anything, but academics like Leighton trade on their degrees, so her credentials are definitely fair game. If Leighton doesn't know her Greek mythology, she shouldn't reference it. Why argue about what she must have meant? You don't know.
And the silver spoon in my mouth? I was raised in a lower middle-class neighborhood in the Midwest. You make me laugh. I did live in Europe and have a horse and other fun things, and yes, I now move in different social circles where I am more comfortable, but that's thanks to my aparents who taught me to have great manners, and my first family, who blessed me with a fantastic temperament and great intellectual capacity. I have earned everything.
Although both of my mothers advised me not to bother to write this post, that it was a waste of my time, I had to write about being considered a spoiled "legacy" when I am adopted! It's too hilarious. I am damned either way. I couldn't have achieved what I did because I am smart and deserved it. No. Not possible. I can't be who I am because of myself.
My aunt, when I was visiting a few weeks back, made a great comment: "C gave you life, and your parents gave you the life you have." I am fortunate to have two such wonderful families, both of whom love me. That's what counts, and I am thankful, also, for my critical thinking abilities, which I honed on my own.
I would rather see all the world, in its horrifying darkness, than be limited and scared to see anything at all. Why bother?
I don't even consider myself to be all that smart. If you want to read a blog by someone truly brilliant, try this. Don't fuck with her.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Not for the faint of heart
It's been a bloody couple of weeks in adoptoland, but so what else is new? There's always someone attacking someone about something, engendering hurt feelings. More than two blogs I read have now gone dark, mostly because of rudeness heaped on by people who just want to flog a person rather than have dialogue. Repulsive. Another blog switched venues to shake off idiots, and the rest of us soldier on.
In one case, a first mother friend was accused of bullying (again, that nonsensical "bullying" bullshit when people don't agree!) and then had harpies send private e-mail and stalk her placed daughter, among other things, "wanting to do the right thing." Ugh. I have now lost another one of the few people who actually stands up for adoptees because the troops of zombie non-thinkers attacked her. I actually had a good laugh when one of the brigade started writing about cyber-bullying and cyber-harrassment but posted links to Utah (surprise!) statutes that don't govern interstate commerce and the Internet. Get it straight, people: Utah doesn't run the country. At least not yet. I hate that my friend felt pounded to a pulp for standing up for herself. APs and beemommies in Utah need to do some real soul-searching before they start labeling others. THINK.
As it turned out, the woman my friend had wanted to engage in discussion ended up listening to what adult adoptees had to say, which I suppose we can see as a victory. Again, we were told that a private e-mail would have been sufficient to help her change her mind. I rather doubt it, however. It's easy to brush off one little e-mail as one person's opinion. Guerilla tactics may be dirty, but they certainly get a lot farther for the cause than politeness. I am fucking finished with politeness, especially after that episode. My friend was badly hurt, and I don't forgive that stuff.
Then another first mother was shredded to bits by APs who didn't know thing one about her story. It was complete bullshit. She had asked APs, honestly, if they felt jealous about the relationships their adoptees have with their first families. I don't think it was a bad question, even if it wasn't perhaps worded in the floweriest of ways. Who gives a shit, really? This was one woman's question, one woman's story. She was lambasted within an inch of her life, psychoanalyzed in the cruelest of ways, and measured up as unworthy of her son. It made me SICK.
In yet another delightful episide, an AP provided commentary on a story published in the Modern Love column of the NYT, documenting one adoptee's journey to reunion and her ambivalent feelings about it. While I believe every word this adoptee wrote, as did the AP, the commentary was directed toward the adoptee's APs, who may or may not have made good decisions regarding communicating with their daughter about her first family (or so the narrative seemed to say). I agreed with the commenter. Even if I hadn't, it was her blog, her opinion. But of course, theuptight upright AP brigade, who has done so much good this week all around, had to throw tomatoes at the AP blogger and adult adoptees who shared stories that reinforced AP ambivalence about reunion.
There have been times with my own beloved aparents that I've known they're not really comfortable talking about my first family, and I know that. Do I wish it were different? YES. Am I allowed to say so? YES. This stuff stems back to childhood for me. I can read every word, every tone, every arch of the eyebrow, every silence of my amom's. I know what my aparents are thinking or doing from their presence and absence from discussions. I used tofeel it was my duty want to take care of them emotionally, but now that I am 42 and really doing reunion, I know it's not my job. I know they love me and want what's best for me, and I love them, but I am going to take care of my own adoptee feelings for a change. I am sure they can respect that.
So when the writer mentioned her amother's "wobbly voice," asking how reunion went, I could hear it. I know it extremely well. When the adoptee's aparents handed over a thick file of information about her first family, without a word, without offering to discuss it with her, if she wanted--well, that's a parenting choice, but a loaded one. Adoptees know the avoidance tactic. It's okay, but it's not value-free. To say that it is: that's wishful thinking on the part of APs who don't want to look hard at themselves.
Anyway, adopto-blogland is full of packs of bloodthirsty hunting dogs (not like my own adorable lurcher, to be certain) who derive pleasure from tearing flesh from people, preferably first mothers and adult adoptees.
Their behavior is execrable (how I love that word); supposedly they are human, not beast. Yet they tear others down for fun, or to avoid challenging their own beliefs. Probably a little of both. Mostly they think they are mighty superior, but their insecurity is readily apparent to anyone who can truly see.
To those who hide, give up, or seek shelter: I can understand your desire to retreat. But we adoptees cannot. Just cannot. We must fight for ourselves and those who come after us, because we are still the ones who are treated like invisible ghosts, at best, or rubbish to be trod on, at worst. People still insist on speaking for us, saying that their children won't be like us, that it's okay to close adoptions, that it's fine to take children from orphanages filled with "stock" by corrupt practices. It's insanity, and I won't stop pointing it out to the naysayers. It's an uphill battle, and a weary one, but nonetheless important.
My brother, and mother, and uncle, and my cousin all said to me last week: you are so brave to come meet family, all by yourself. To fly to another state and not know what will happen, with strangers. To that I say: it was nothing! Nothing compared to being rejected, over and over; nothing compared to hating myself; nothing compared to most of the things I've done in my life.
Adoptees have the hearts of lions. The rest? Look deep inside yourself, and try to have compassion.
In one case, a first mother friend was accused of bullying (again, that nonsensical "bullying" bullshit when people don't agree!) and then had harpies send private e-mail and stalk her placed daughter, among other things, "wanting to do the right thing." Ugh. I have now lost another one of the few people who actually stands up for adoptees because the troops of zombie non-thinkers attacked her. I actually had a good laugh when one of the brigade started writing about cyber-bullying and cyber-harrassment but posted links to Utah (surprise!) statutes that don't govern interstate commerce and the Internet. Get it straight, people: Utah doesn't run the country. At least not yet. I hate that my friend felt pounded to a pulp for standing up for herself. APs and beemommies in Utah need to do some real soul-searching before they start labeling others. THINK.
As it turned out, the woman my friend had wanted to engage in discussion ended up listening to what adult adoptees had to say, which I suppose we can see as a victory. Again, we were told that a private e-mail would have been sufficient to help her change her mind. I rather doubt it, however. It's easy to brush off one little e-mail as one person's opinion. Guerilla tactics may be dirty, but they certainly get a lot farther for the cause than politeness. I am fucking finished with politeness, especially after that episode. My friend was badly hurt, and I don't forgive that stuff.
Then another first mother was shredded to bits by APs who didn't know thing one about her story. It was complete bullshit. She had asked APs, honestly, if they felt jealous about the relationships their adoptees have with their first families. I don't think it was a bad question, even if it wasn't perhaps worded in the floweriest of ways. Who gives a shit, really? This was one woman's question, one woman's story. She was lambasted within an inch of her life, psychoanalyzed in the cruelest of ways, and measured up as unworthy of her son. It made me SICK.
In yet another delightful episide, an AP provided commentary on a story published in the Modern Love column of the NYT, documenting one adoptee's journey to reunion and her ambivalent feelings about it. While I believe every word this adoptee wrote, as did the AP, the commentary was directed toward the adoptee's APs, who may or may not have made good decisions regarding communicating with their daughter about her first family (or so the narrative seemed to say). I agreed with the commenter. Even if I hadn't, it was her blog, her opinion. But of course, the
There have been times with my own beloved aparents that I've known they're not really comfortable talking about my first family, and I know that. Do I wish it were different? YES. Am I allowed to say so? YES. This stuff stems back to childhood for me. I can read every word, every tone, every arch of the eyebrow, every silence of my amom's. I know what my aparents are thinking or doing from their presence and absence from discussions. I used to
So when the writer mentioned her amother's "wobbly voice," asking how reunion went, I could hear it. I know it extremely well. When the adoptee's aparents handed over a thick file of information about her first family, without a word, without offering to discuss it with her, if she wanted--well, that's a parenting choice, but a loaded one. Adoptees know the avoidance tactic. It's okay, but it's not value-free. To say that it is: that's wishful thinking on the part of APs who don't want to look hard at themselves.
Anyway, adopto-blogland is full of packs of bloodthirsty hunting dogs (not like my own adorable lurcher, to be certain) who derive pleasure from tearing flesh from people, preferably first mothers and adult adoptees.
Their behavior is execrable (how I love that word); supposedly they are human, not beast. Yet they tear others down for fun, or to avoid challenging their own beliefs. Probably a little of both. Mostly they think they are mighty superior, but their insecurity is readily apparent to anyone who can truly see.
To those who hide, give up, or seek shelter: I can understand your desire to retreat. But we adoptees cannot. Just cannot. We must fight for ourselves and those who come after us, because we are still the ones who are treated like invisible ghosts, at best, or rubbish to be trod on, at worst. People still insist on speaking for us, saying that their children won't be like us, that it's okay to close adoptions, that it's fine to take children from orphanages filled with "stock" by corrupt practices. It's insanity, and I won't stop pointing it out to the naysayers. It's an uphill battle, and a weary one, but nonetheless important.
My brother, and mother, and uncle, and my cousin all said to me last week: you are so brave to come meet family, all by yourself. To fly to another state and not know what will happen, with strangers. To that I say: it was nothing! Nothing compared to being rejected, over and over; nothing compared to hating myself; nothing compared to most of the things I've done in my life.
Adoptees have the hearts of lions. The rest? Look deep inside yourself, and try to have compassion.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Belonging
I have been back over a week, and I've been slow to write because things are, well, just great and comfortable. I can find a thousand words, a million metaphors for depression, longing, sadness, and feeling broken. Happiness and peace are harder to construct poetically. It seems so Disney and unfamiliar to me.
I could sum up the weekend I spent with my family with three marvelous sentences uttered by my uncle, as we were all waiting to be seated in a busy restaurant. Apparently we had missed a spot at our six-person table and had to squeeze into a booth. The host apologized, and my uncle said, "Don't worry; it's okay. We're family." I looked around at everyone, and it was true. I looked like everyone present, I was one of them, I was welcome, and I belonged. I sat between my two cousins and chatted away, enjoying stories about my grandparents and my mother and uncle. It was normal. I wasn't made to feel awkward, and I didn't feel awkward.
I didn't cry at all, except when I was with my friend Lori, at lunch, and she told the story of giving up her son (that always makes me cry). If you know me IRL, this absence of lachrymose behavior will seem unbelievable. I cry at the drop of a hat, even on my medications, so I must have felt protected. I am usually ill-at-ease in new environments and try to melt unremarked into the background, but that didn't happen.
C and I spent Sunday night at my uncle's house. We enjoyed a delicious dinner prepared by my aunt (she is a spectacular cook), and then looked at treasures and booty my grandfather had brought back from Germany after WWII. Our conversation flowed over the evening; I was able to ask questions, and I enjoyed gathering layers of information that told me about different family members: great-grandparents, grandparents, etc. I really wish I could have met my grandfather. Everyone says he would have loved me, and it sounds like his temperament was very similar to mine. Maybe in some small way, I form part of his legacy, and I can feel good about that. I certainly look like him.
Leaving to return to California was very difficult, but we all have plans to meet up again this summer. My family has pledged to get to know Mark and the kids, and not to let me go again. I trust them, and they are showing in all kinds of ways that they mean what they say. As you know, trust and loyalty are important concerns of mine, so this is huge.
As my uncle and aunt and mother said, our weekend together marks a beginning, not an end. The hard part is finished, at last. Certainly, there will be bumps and bruises and hurt feelings, but we are committed to pursuing our relationships and making time for one another. I have more people to love, and who love me. I never thought belonging would happen like this, or feel so good.
As Joy said, it's not all that surprising. I am a warm, loving, kind, generous person. What kind of family did I think I came from?
Finally, finally, I am at peace inside myself. That is the most amazing gift of all.
I could sum up the weekend I spent with my family with three marvelous sentences uttered by my uncle, as we were all waiting to be seated in a busy restaurant. Apparently we had missed a spot at our six-person table and had to squeeze into a booth. The host apologized, and my uncle said, "Don't worry; it's okay. We're family." I looked around at everyone, and it was true. I looked like everyone present, I was one of them, I was welcome, and I belonged. I sat between my two cousins and chatted away, enjoying stories about my grandparents and my mother and uncle. It was normal. I wasn't made to feel awkward, and I didn't feel awkward.
I didn't cry at all, except when I was with my friend Lori, at lunch, and she told the story of giving up her son (that always makes me cry). If you know me IRL, this absence of lachrymose behavior will seem unbelievable. I cry at the drop of a hat, even on my medications, so I must have felt protected. I am usually ill-at-ease in new environments and try to melt unremarked into the background, but that didn't happen.
C and I spent Sunday night at my uncle's house. We enjoyed a delicious dinner prepared by my aunt (she is a spectacular cook), and then looked at treasures and booty my grandfather had brought back from Germany after WWII. Our conversation flowed over the evening; I was able to ask questions, and I enjoyed gathering layers of information that told me about different family members: great-grandparents, grandparents, etc. I really wish I could have met my grandfather. Everyone says he would have loved me, and it sounds like his temperament was very similar to mine. Maybe in some small way, I form part of his legacy, and I can feel good about that. I certainly look like him.
Leaving to return to California was very difficult, but we all have plans to meet up again this summer. My family has pledged to get to know Mark and the kids, and not to let me go again. I trust them, and they are showing in all kinds of ways that they mean what they say. As you know, trust and loyalty are important concerns of mine, so this is huge.
As my uncle and aunt and mother said, our weekend together marks a beginning, not an end. The hard part is finished, at last. Certainly, there will be bumps and bruises and hurt feelings, but we are committed to pursuing our relationships and making time for one another. I have more people to love, and who love me. I never thought belonging would happen like this, or feel so good.
As Joy said, it's not all that surprising. I am a warm, loving, kind, generous person. What kind of family did I think I came from?
Finally, finally, I am at peace inside myself. That is the most amazing gift of all.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Reverie
It is Saturday night, and I feel different: wonderfully so. I was plagued by nerves on the flight, but I was confident I would be okay either way. I didn't expect anything to go horribly wrong, but I didn't know they could go so fantastically smoothly, either. You don't know what will happen.
I got off the plane, turned on my phone, and saw a text from my cousin saying they were stuck in Nashville traffic. It was snowing. I waited and breathed until they arrived, and before I knew it, I was folded in big hugs from my cousin and C. W, my cousin, installed me as navigator and we were on the way.
Everything was just EASY. I could tell they wanted me there and loved me. We joked and laughed for the hours it took to drive North to Indiana, and I was at ease. I didn't cry at all. I just belonged. And when we got to the hotel, my aunt and uncle were waiting. My uncle pulled me out of the car for a hug, and he told me how glad he was to meet me at last.
C and I spent hours looking at photographs, and I could see myself in her and her father.
I have been welcomed so openly and generously that I can see where I get my temperament from, if you know me IRL.
This weekend (and it is not over yet) has given me love of such an extraordinary degree that sometimes I am speechless. I just sit back and listen to conversations and drink in little things, such as stories about my deceased grandfather and great-grandparents. It is all new to me.
My brother calls one of us to check in periodically, and this afternoon, C, my aunt, uncle, cousins, and I were sitting at a table, chatting. C was on the phone with A, and asked if anyone wanted to talk to A. W said, "Yes, I will speak to Aunt C's bastard child," and I said, "No, I am sitting right here." Everyone laughed very hard.
No more secrets is the mantra here, and they mean it.
I got off the plane, turned on my phone, and saw a text from my cousin saying they were stuck in Nashville traffic. It was snowing. I waited and breathed until they arrived, and before I knew it, I was folded in big hugs from my cousin and C. W, my cousin, installed me as navigator and we were on the way.
Everything was just EASY. I could tell they wanted me there and loved me. We joked and laughed for the hours it took to drive North to Indiana, and I was at ease. I didn't cry at all. I just belonged. And when we got to the hotel, my aunt and uncle were waiting. My uncle pulled me out of the car for a hug, and he told me how glad he was to meet me at last.
C and I spent hours looking at photographs, and I could see myself in her and her father.
I have been welcomed so openly and generously that I can see where I get my temperament from, if you know me IRL.
This weekend (and it is not over yet) has given me love of such an extraordinary degree that sometimes I am speechless. I just sit back and listen to conversations and drink in little things, such as stories about my deceased grandfather and great-grandparents. It is all new to me.
My brother calls one of us to check in periodically, and this afternoon, C, my aunt, uncle, cousins, and I were sitting at a table, chatting. C was on the phone with A, and asked if anyone wanted to talk to A. W said, "Yes, I will speak to Aunt C's bastard child," and I said, "No, I am sitting right here." Everyone laughed very hard.
No more secrets is the mantra here, and they mean it.
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Less Than 48 Hours
Sometimes I feel convinced that I've fallen down the rabbit hole of someone else's life. Things like this just don't happen to me. Please don't wake me if I am dreaming.
It's almost time to go. I could/should be packing tonight. I work tomorrow night and won't have time. I am thinking about what to take, but the bed is warm, Finn is next to me, and I am finding it hard to stir.
Joy and I spoke the other day, and she asked me what I was wearing for the big meeting. "I don't know," I said. I am not fashion forward, and I don't have Joy's panache. Although I like to frequent Anthropologie, and I buy some beautiful clothes sometimes, I have a uniform from which I rarely deviate: t-shirt, cashmere hoodie or sweater, down vest or Barbour polarquilt jacket, jeans, and Danskos, Converse, or Frye boots. That's pretty much it. The tees, hoodies, Converse, and Danskos come in a variety of colors. Joy advised me to stick to black but wear good lipstick. I think I can manage that.
What about the cold? I have a wool pea coat that I bought ages ago for a trip to New York City in February. It's now two sizes too big, since the surgery and complications made me maigre. Even if I layered the heck out of myself, I would drown in it. I will have to swathe in hoodies and scarves and do my best with down, I suppose. I don't think anyone cares but myself. I will be fine.
The other day, C and one of my cousins called to say they were going through piles of photographs to make copies for me. Given that I'd written a fairly morose post about wanting photographs nine months ago, I was almost immediately overwhelmed by joy (and tears, to be honest). I didn't ask for the photographs. They were just did collecting them for me. And when I said how grateful I was, C asked "Why? Why should you be grateful?"
She is helping me see ways in which I make myself vulnerable and insignificant in ways I don't have to. It's okay to want pictures of your family, and you don't have to be grateful. You deserve them; you can accept and be happy about it, without shadows or reservation.
I know that in some ways, Friday is a watershed. There will be my life before Friday, and my life after Friday. And no, Dr. Moreau and the Correcters (to borrow a great term coined by Joy), Friday isn't just like meeting a pen pal for coffee. "Golly gee, just be practical about it all!" C and I are walking into it with our expectations based in our friendship; that suits us perfectly. And yet you just can't get around the mother/daughter thing, or that I look like her, or that I'll be staring at her and checking out her gestures. I am sure that goes both ways, and that the rest of the family will be checking me out, as well. I can't help but be an oddity, as well as a person.
I am ready to have fun with C, while knowing that it might be emotionally difficult. Joy said that I benefit from being older, having been around the adoptoland block; having the support of adoptee and first mother friends IRL, on the forum, and in other places; and being a self-actualized person. This is true, and I am hoping she's right that it will help smooth things. I truly do feel much more stable than I did a few months ago. The little girl inside me finally feels that she is seen and loved and matters to someone who matters to HER. My aparents couldn't help that little girl, and for various reasons, only a select few people ever have been able to reach her. She is quite particular.
I am fortunate to have so many friends who have been texting and calling and writing to send me love for my journey, but I am also blessed by a wonderful family who are opening their arms to me. It will be a life-changing experience, to be certain.
I promise an update sometime over the weekend, although it will likely be brief.
It's almost time to go. I could/should be packing tonight. I work tomorrow night and won't have time. I am thinking about what to take, but the bed is warm, Finn is next to me, and I am finding it hard to stir.
Joy and I spoke the other day, and she asked me what I was wearing for the big meeting. "I don't know," I said. I am not fashion forward, and I don't have Joy's panache. Although I like to frequent Anthropologie, and I buy some beautiful clothes sometimes, I have a uniform from which I rarely deviate: t-shirt, cashmere hoodie or sweater, down vest or Barbour polarquilt jacket, jeans, and Danskos, Converse, or Frye boots. That's pretty much it. The tees, hoodies, Converse, and Danskos come in a variety of colors. Joy advised me to stick to black but wear good lipstick. I think I can manage that.
What about the cold? I have a wool pea coat that I bought ages ago for a trip to New York City in February. It's now two sizes too big, since the surgery and complications made me maigre. Even if I layered the heck out of myself, I would drown in it. I will have to swathe in hoodies and scarves and do my best with down, I suppose. I don't think anyone cares but myself. I will be fine.
The other day, C and one of my cousins called to say they were going through piles of photographs to make copies for me. Given that I'd written a fairly morose post about wanting photographs nine months ago, I was almost immediately overwhelmed by joy (and tears, to be honest). I didn't ask for the photographs. They were just did collecting them for me. And when I said how grateful I was, C asked "Why? Why should you be grateful?"
She is helping me see ways in which I make myself vulnerable and insignificant in ways I don't have to. It's okay to want pictures of your family, and you don't have to be grateful. You deserve them; you can accept and be happy about it, without shadows or reservation.
I know that in some ways, Friday is a watershed. There will be my life before Friday, and my life after Friday. And no, Dr. Moreau and the Correcters (to borrow a great term coined by Joy), Friday isn't just like meeting a pen pal for coffee. "Golly gee, just be practical about it all!" C and I are walking into it with our expectations based in our friendship; that suits us perfectly. And yet you just can't get around the mother/daughter thing, or that I look like her, or that I'll be staring at her and checking out her gestures. I am sure that goes both ways, and that the rest of the family will be checking me out, as well. I can't help but be an oddity, as well as a person.
I am ready to have fun with C, while knowing that it might be emotionally difficult. Joy said that I benefit from being older, having been around the adoptoland block; having the support of adoptee and first mother friends IRL, on the forum, and in other places; and being a self-actualized person. This is true, and I am hoping she's right that it will help smooth things. I truly do feel much more stable than I did a few months ago. The little girl inside me finally feels that she is seen and loved and matters to someone who matters to HER. My aparents couldn't help that little girl, and for various reasons, only a select few people ever have been able to reach her. She is quite particular.
I am fortunate to have so many friends who have been texting and calling and writing to send me love for my journey, but I am also blessed by a wonderful family who are opening their arms to me. It will be a life-changing experience, to be certain.
I promise an update sometime over the weekend, although it will likely be brief.
Friday, February 03, 2012
"Birth Child"
Is it just me, or is the term "birth child" really icky?
I don't like being called my aparents' "adopted daughter" when I am introduced. I am their daughter.
C calls me her daughter, placed for adoption.
I don't want to be anyone's "birth child."
Why do we need more freaking labels for children in all this mess?
Is it not a fact that I was born C's daughter, and that now I am the daughter of my aparents, end of story?
It might take longer to write it out "son/daughter placed," but being called a "bchild," or "bdaughter" or any such thing makes my skin crawl. It reduces me to no more than a pile of cells that came out of someone's vagina. It makes me even more Other than I already feel. Fuck. Then again, that's the point: the industry wants to distance us from our first families, as much as possible. Labels help with that!
I have two sets of parents, and I don't really like calling my aparents my aparents, because they are my parents. C is my mother and my friend. I wish I could refer to all of them without labels, but I get that there has to be some way of distinguishing between the two sets of parents for clarity. I guess, in protest, I could just start referring to the parents who adopted me by their initials, as well.
But a child is ONE person, not two. I don't need a label, as if to say I am someone's "real" daughter and another person's "fake" daughter. Parents hate labels, so why apply them to us? Oh yes, see my previous post about adoptees not having a voice.
I Googled "birth child" and and found this on Adoption.org: "A birth child is a child that is biologically related to a mother and father." Okay, this is true of almost every family not formed by adoption. Do I need to refer to my own sons as my "birth children" now, or would that be gratuitous? If not, why not? If I went around school or the neighborhood, calling my sons my "birth children," people would think I was crazy. And yet this whole industry bullshit set-up is crazy, no, crazy-making.
Do any of my adoptee readers feel comfortable referring to themselves as a "birth child," or "bio child"? I have never read any adoptee referring to him/herself in this way. Were we asked about this?
Does the industry care what we think? Ha, ha, ha, that was a rhetorical question, of course.
Thank you, no, fuck you, adoption industry, for yet another needless label to isolate adoptees. As if we don't feel strange enough! It's hard to be just a kid sometimes when you're adopted and have to explain relationships. Sometimes you don't want to explain anything, but if people are labeling you bchild, what chance do you have? Especially if your own first family calls you "bchild"? Why can't you just be their son or daughter? Seriously?
I don't like being called my aparents' "adopted daughter" when I am introduced. I am their daughter.
C calls me her daughter, placed for adoption.
I don't want to be anyone's "birth child."
Why do we need more freaking labels for children in all this mess?
Is it not a fact that I was born C's daughter, and that now I am the daughter of my aparents, end of story?
It might take longer to write it out "son/daughter placed," but being called a "bchild," or "bdaughter" or any such thing makes my skin crawl. It reduces me to no more than a pile of cells that came out of someone's vagina. It makes me even more Other than I already feel. Fuck. Then again, that's the point: the industry wants to distance us from our first families, as much as possible. Labels help with that!
I have two sets of parents, and I don't really like calling my aparents my aparents, because they are my parents. C is my mother and my friend. I wish I could refer to all of them without labels, but I get that there has to be some way of distinguishing between the two sets of parents for clarity. I guess, in protest, I could just start referring to the parents who adopted me by their initials, as well.
But a child is ONE person, not two. I don't need a label, as if to say I am someone's "real" daughter and another person's "fake" daughter. Parents hate labels, so why apply them to us? Oh yes, see my previous post about adoptees not having a voice.
I Googled "birth child" and and found this on Adoption.org: "A birth child is a child that is biologically related to a mother and father." Okay, this is true of almost every family not formed by adoption. Do I need to refer to my own sons as my "birth children" now, or would that be gratuitous? If not, why not? If I went around school or the neighborhood, calling my sons my "birth children," people would think I was crazy. And yet this whole industry bullshit set-up is crazy, no, crazy-making.
Do any of my adoptee readers feel comfortable referring to themselves as a "birth child," or "bio child"? I have never read any adoptee referring to him/herself in this way. Were we asked about this?
Does the industry care what we think? Ha, ha, ha, that was a rhetorical question, of course.
Thank you, no, fuck you, adoption industry, for yet another needless label to isolate adoptees. As if we don't feel strange enough! It's hard to be just a kid sometimes when you're adopted and have to explain relationships. Sometimes you don't want to explain anything, but if people are labeling you bchild, what chance do you have? Especially if your own first family calls you "bchild"? Why can't you just be their son or daughter? Seriously?
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Lies, Infantilism, and Lack of Ethics
There has been much buzz in blogland about recent discussion of DNA, searching, and adoption on Diane Rehm's show on NPR, with some focus on the contributions of a bioethicist from American University, Dr. Kimberly Leighton. Leighton is a philosopher and an adoptee, who has searched and found her natural family. While wearing her ethicist's hat, Leighton, given the benefit of the doubt, must have wanted to take the broadest view possible. It was tiresome, however, to hear the same, worn-out terms that are not value-free.
When Leighton said that adoptees were using DNA to search for "connections," I could agree with that. But when she said, "When adoptees go searching, they're opening up Pandora's boxes of other people's lives," it is as though she believes adoptees go in, selfish and naive, doing thoughtless damage to otherwise "happy" families. Unleashing evil, as Pandora did, despite being told not to do so.
I did a tremendous amount of thinking and weighing of consequences before initiating anything through the CI system and paying my $1,000+ for someone else to represent me (and apparently, badly). I didn't necessarily expect anything different when I contacted C myself, once I knew her identity. I thought very carefully about what C's level of discomfort might be; I addressed that in a letter, and told her that I didn't want to hurt her. In the end, I did hurt her, but if I had done nothing, I would have been hurting myself.
I don't think it's ethical to expect adoptees to bear the burdens of the pain of the entire natural family, just to keep secrets that were promised by unscrupulous agencies eager for womb-fresh infant flesh, promises of perpetual anonymity that weren't even LEGAL.
It's a matter of weighing another person's burden against your own, and being willing to deal with the consequences, knowing that you might hurt that person. Knowing your limits, and theirs, and being willing to communicate those boundaries.
I don't think that C was promised perpetual anonymity, but she misspelled her name on my Pre-Adoptive Agreement. That didn't deter me; it just made finding her a little bit harder later on. The agency lied to HER about the care I would receive, and she was very, very sad about that. She was not told that I would languish in the NICU for six weeks and not be placed for another four. She was told that I would go home the day following my birth with my aparents. LIES.
None of this is ethical. The agency lied to my aparents and told them that C had received prenatal care throughout the pregnancy, from the time she told her parents about me. Which was, uh, let's see: maybe 10 days before my birth. Another LIE. My aparents wouldn't have cared either way. They just would have liked to know the truth about prenatal care; apparently, the truth was considered "too much" for them to handle. Nice.
C is one of those mothers who truly didn't want to be found, although that has since changed. It's been a long process. She said that she is glad I didn't give up, and that God obviously had other plans than the ones she had made for herself. Our lives are richer for knowing each other, per both of us, and it's been a relief, she says, to be out of the closet. Had I been "ethical," and run away, and played the "good little adoptee," our relationship, and our peace, would be unknown. I know each situation is different, and we all have our limits, and what we are called upon to do and say with family members changes by the minute sometimes. I am not saying that anyone should follow in my footsteps. But at the same time, I think it's ridiculous to say that there is an absolute need to heed the manufactured promise of "privacy," "anonymity," or whatever you want to call it, in order to protect women, especially when this crap was made up by agencies to suit their need$. In my opinion, and it's only my opinion, my mother internalized the guilt and "need" for anonymity that society and the agency placed upon her to such a degree that it made her life, and her acceptance of me all that much harder later on. She is a warm, loving, wonderful person whom I treasure as a friend. The wall that went up inside her was unnecessary, and I despise the industry for putting it there.
There are definitely those women who still don't want to be found, never want to be found, and never want relationships with their children. They don't need laws or other artificial things to protect against this. They can 1. communicate this to their placed children, and they SHOULD. It's hard to say, but they need to own it, not have another person do it. 2. if they need something stronger to protect themselves from stalker-type behavior, there are restraining orders. Use the laws we have in place. DO NOT stigmatize adoptees any further with paternalism.
I have immense compassion for women who do not want contact. It must be hard for them to feel trapped by overtures from their placed offspring, but they should not have the ability to call the shots on other relationships their placed adult adoptee has with other family members. Sorry, no. It's called free association, and all adults enjoy this privilege.
At one point when I first contacted C, she went to an attorney to see if she could get a restraining order against me, but shown the letter I had sent, and the one measly phone call I had made, the attorney said there was no case. I am sorry that I stressed C out, truly, but my existence cannot be helped at this point. I was able to approach other people in the family, and with time, she felt more comfortable, and things changed. I am fortunate, in that regard. I think that if she hadn't changed her mind, I would have come to terms with her lack of interest, although it would have been very difficult for me. I am one of those who doesn't see the point in bringing a life into the world for which you have no love. Thank goodness that was not my burden, in the end.
One final point: there are people who like to roll their [virtual] eyes when we say that babies, in adoption, had no choice in the matter. "Well, duh," the snide ones say, as though we are completely stupid. We are making a broader point, people! See if you can follow: when we are placed, we are infants. No words, no choice. But we don't remain infants forever. We grow up. We become autonomous human beings, although within the confines of many of our claustrophobic familial relationships, we are still treated/named as infants. To wit: C's mother asked about me recently, and I am "The Baby." She always refers to me as "the Baby." Never mind that I have a name, that I am 42 and have two sons of my own. I play the role of the placed baby in her mind, and will forever. Refer to me by name, and she says, "Who? The Baby?" Get it now? Adult adoptees remain voiceless children, without agency, in too many situations. I think that is unethical.
As ADULTS, by contrast, we should enjoy the same autonomy and opportunities to make decisions as other adults in the constellation. We can decide to make contact, or not. To reciprocate when found, or not. To complain when treated badly, etc. We should have access to our OBCs because we are grown ups, just like everyone else. And yet adoption forever infantilizes us, and many, many rude people enjoy taking the opportunity to talk down to us and be supercilious, to scold us and tell us what we can and cannot do. To make fun of our feelings and even the words we use! I understand that I am "too intellectual" for some of them, which is quite a feat for a baby.
It would be socially unthinkable to treat any other group the way we're treated, except perhaps those with cognitive disabilities or the mentally ill, and even they get Public Service Announcements telling people to be nice to them. We stand up for ourselves, as we should, and then the holier-than-thou say we're bullies. LOL It never ends.
So yes, we need to be thoughtful about the feelings of others, but adult adoptees don't need protecting from our own identities, and we don't need to protect others at the cost of ourselves (been there, done that, haven't we?).
Oh, and agencies lie, frequently. Why didn't Kimberly Leighton point that out? Maybe we need DNA testing because our non-identifying information is all made-up bullshit, as my own recent DNA testing showed. Why is she assuming that adoptees are the influence of wrongdoing, and the agencies/sperm banks/etc. are ethical? The system is broken, and asking adoptees to back off isn't going to fix it. IMO, Leighton's focus is on the wrong part of what's rotten.
Amanda wrote a beautiful open letter to Dr. Leighton pointing out many of the flaws in the argument for "protecting" the privacy of natural mothers on her blog. I agree with her that it's a shame it pits one person's sense of security against another's, but I do not believe that it's the duty of the adoptee to give in, every time. What we give up, in the balance, is immense.
When Leighton said that adoptees were using DNA to search for "connections," I could agree with that. But when she said, "When adoptees go searching, they're opening up Pandora's boxes of other people's lives," it is as though she believes adoptees go in, selfish and naive, doing thoughtless damage to otherwise "happy" families. Unleashing evil, as Pandora did, despite being told not to do so.
I did a tremendous amount of thinking and weighing of consequences before initiating anything through the CI system and paying my $1,000+ for someone else to represent me (and apparently, badly). I didn't necessarily expect anything different when I contacted C myself, once I knew her identity. I thought very carefully about what C's level of discomfort might be; I addressed that in a letter, and told her that I didn't want to hurt her. In the end, I did hurt her, but if I had done nothing, I would have been hurting myself.
I don't think it's ethical to expect adoptees to bear the burdens of the pain of the entire natural family, just to keep secrets that were promised by unscrupulous agencies eager for womb-fresh infant flesh, promises of perpetual anonymity that weren't even LEGAL.
It's a matter of weighing another person's burden against your own, and being willing to deal with the consequences, knowing that you might hurt that person. Knowing your limits, and theirs, and being willing to communicate those boundaries.
I don't think that C was promised perpetual anonymity, but she misspelled her name on my Pre-Adoptive Agreement. That didn't deter me; it just made finding her a little bit harder later on. The agency lied to HER about the care I would receive, and she was very, very sad about that. She was not told that I would languish in the NICU for six weeks and not be placed for another four. She was told that I would go home the day following my birth with my aparents. LIES.
None of this is ethical. The agency lied to my aparents and told them that C had received prenatal care throughout the pregnancy, from the time she told her parents about me. Which was, uh, let's see: maybe 10 days before my birth. Another LIE. My aparents wouldn't have cared either way. They just would have liked to know the truth about prenatal care; apparently, the truth was considered "too much" for them to handle. Nice.
C is one of those mothers who truly didn't want to be found, although that has since changed. It's been a long process. She said that she is glad I didn't give up, and that God obviously had other plans than the ones she had made for herself. Our lives are richer for knowing each other, per both of us, and it's been a relief, she says, to be out of the closet. Had I been "ethical," and run away, and played the "good little adoptee," our relationship, and our peace, would be unknown. I know each situation is different, and we all have our limits, and what we are called upon to do and say with family members changes by the minute sometimes. I am not saying that anyone should follow in my footsteps. But at the same time, I think it's ridiculous to say that there is an absolute need to heed the manufactured promise of "privacy," "anonymity," or whatever you want to call it, in order to protect women, especially when this crap was made up by agencies to suit their need$. In my opinion, and it's only my opinion, my mother internalized the guilt and "need" for anonymity that society and the agency placed upon her to such a degree that it made her life, and her acceptance of me all that much harder later on. She is a warm, loving, wonderful person whom I treasure as a friend. The wall that went up inside her was unnecessary, and I despise the industry for putting it there.
There are definitely those women who still don't want to be found, never want to be found, and never want relationships with their children. They don't need laws or other artificial things to protect against this. They can 1. communicate this to their placed children, and they SHOULD. It's hard to say, but they need to own it, not have another person do it. 2. if they need something stronger to protect themselves from stalker-type behavior, there are restraining orders. Use the laws we have in place. DO NOT stigmatize adoptees any further with paternalism.
I have immense compassion for women who do not want contact. It must be hard for them to feel trapped by overtures from their placed offspring, but they should not have the ability to call the shots on other relationships their placed adult adoptee has with other family members. Sorry, no. It's called free association, and all adults enjoy this privilege.
At one point when I first contacted C, she went to an attorney to see if she could get a restraining order against me, but shown the letter I had sent, and the one measly phone call I had made, the attorney said there was no case. I am sorry that I stressed C out, truly, but my existence cannot be helped at this point. I was able to approach other people in the family, and with time, she felt more comfortable, and things changed. I am fortunate, in that regard. I think that if she hadn't changed her mind, I would have come to terms with her lack of interest, although it would have been very difficult for me. I am one of those who doesn't see the point in bringing a life into the world for which you have no love. Thank goodness that was not my burden, in the end.
One final point: there are people who like to roll their [virtual] eyes when we say that babies, in adoption, had no choice in the matter. "Well, duh," the snide ones say, as though we are completely stupid. We are making a broader point, people! See if you can follow: when we are placed, we are infants. No words, no choice. But we don't remain infants forever. We grow up. We become autonomous human beings, although within the confines of many of our claustrophobic familial relationships, we are still treated/named as infants. To wit: C's mother asked about me recently, and I am "The Baby." She always refers to me as "the Baby." Never mind that I have a name, that I am 42 and have two sons of my own. I play the role of the placed baby in her mind, and will forever. Refer to me by name, and she says, "Who? The Baby?" Get it now? Adult adoptees remain voiceless children, without agency, in too many situations. I think that is unethical.
As ADULTS, by contrast, we should enjoy the same autonomy and opportunities to make decisions as other adults in the constellation. We can decide to make contact, or not. To reciprocate when found, or not. To complain when treated badly, etc. We should have access to our OBCs because we are grown ups, just like everyone else. And yet adoption forever infantilizes us, and many, many rude people enjoy taking the opportunity to talk down to us and be supercilious, to scold us and tell us what we can and cannot do. To make fun of our feelings and even the words we use! I understand that I am "too intellectual" for some of them, which is quite a feat for a baby.
It would be socially unthinkable to treat any other group the way we're treated, except perhaps those with cognitive disabilities or the mentally ill, and even they get Public Service Announcements telling people to be nice to them. We stand up for ourselves, as we should, and then the holier-than-thou say we're bullies. LOL It never ends.
So yes, we need to be thoughtful about the feelings of others, but adult adoptees don't need protecting from our own identities, and we don't need to protect others at the cost of ourselves (been there, done that, haven't we?).
Oh, and agencies lie, frequently. Why didn't Kimberly Leighton point that out? Maybe we need DNA testing because our non-identifying information is all made-up bullshit, as my own recent DNA testing showed. Why is she assuming that adoptees are the influence of wrongdoing, and the agencies/sperm banks/etc. are ethical? The system is broken, and asking adoptees to back off isn't going to fix it. IMO, Leighton's focus is on the wrong part of what's rotten.
Amanda wrote a beautiful open letter to Dr. Leighton pointing out many of the flaws in the argument for "protecting" the privacy of natural mothers on her blog. I agree with her that it's a shame it pits one person's sense of security against another's, but I do not believe that it's the duty of the adoptee to give in, every time. What we give up, in the balance, is immense.
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
"I love you, but..." Redux
In many ways, broken things sadly don't change. My own personal circumstances have, because I am fortunate to have family members who are kind, humane, and mature. They are able to see things from my point of view, as I try very hard to see things from theirs. They don't tell me that my point of view is worthless, that my feelings are wrong, or that I am "mean" for feeling anger or loss. Imagine that!
When reading the blogs of many first and adoptive parents, however, I am struck, as usual, by the lack of empathy for the adoptees. And when adult adoptees, or even others from the constellation (more rarely) pipe up to say anything about how this might feel for the placed child--wow! The burning oil and screeching and moaning and saying, "Oh, that person is so MEAN and doesn't GET it!" commences. Really? The person doesn't get it? Or that person is presenting a point of view that is potentially in conflict with yours, or is uncomfortable for you to entertain? It's not all about YOUR feelings? Isn't adoption supposed to be about helping the ADOPTEE live the best life possible?
And the adoptee erasing, or the thinking FOR the adoptee, or the "It's all for the adoptee's good," or It was too hard for MEEEEE," or any number of the usual responses are thrown about.
I was talking to Mark about this pathetic phenomenon the other night, in relation to a blog where a child was placed and the mother is raising three kids older than the placed child. Someone mentioned that the placed child might feel angry about being the only one placed. It's hard to reconcile love with the fact that your older sibs are all safely ensconced with your mother, especially when the reason given for placement was that she didn't want to raise you as a single mother. But she's raising your siblings as a single mother. It doesn't compute. Yes, life is more complicated that that, but it's still a burden for that child to bear, let alone understand. Of course, the Anonymous commenter was hung, drawn, and quartered for even suggesting that the placed child might have some anger to deal with. I was tearing my hair out, but Mark simply said, "Remember, adoptees are inconvenient. Your feelings are inconvenient, your presence is inconvenient, your opinions are inconvenient. You are only wanted and welcome in discussions so much as you can stroke these people's feathers the right way." He is so correct. It's true, sad, infuriating even, and I feel for this little girl. I hope she will be given the space to express whatever she feels--and it may certainly be positive, but I rather doubt it.
Von wrote, very insightfully, apropos this subject: "It is a curious thing that comments by adopters are seen as positive and helpful while remarks usually from adoptees who see how it might be for the teen are viewed as negative and mean. Adoptees have a right to comment on what is put out there about adoption and to have it viewed with the same seriousness as other comments."
This was in relation to another sad story, a 15-year-old boy who was being "rehomed" by serial adopters who decided that they just didn't love him unconditionally. WTF? When you adopt a child, it's for life. You work through your problems. Parenthood should not be revocable. Adoptees are not items of clothing or appliances, as Von pointed out. These heinous APs want to give the boy to another family for a month as a "test drive." He is a human being! Furthermore, when adult adoptees pointed out that these APs' behavior was inhumane and WRONG, the adopters took umbrage and said that adoptees didn't have right to comment. Anyone who sympathized with the adopters and how hard it was for THEM was welcomed. Sound familiar?
The point of view of the adoptee--usually--is contingent upon our "good" behavior (meaning praising our parents), toeing the party line (adoption is a gift! it saved my life!), etc. Then our parents say, "I'll accept you, but I don't really want to let people know who you are if you don't behave in just the right way, or if I have to own my behavior, etc." It's a nasty, rotten deal if you look under that shiny, skittle-coated cover. But many parents don't like you to do that!
Ah, love is contingent, and that's what hurts the most. Censorship, parental self-pity at the expense of the child, and the continued lack of ability to take responsibility, as parents, come not far behind.
I cannot tell you, after so many years of reading these horror stories on blogs of "loving" parents, how fortunate I am to have two mothers who don't say, or act, in the horrible way of "I love you, but..." It's the stuff of nightmares.
And you say you wish you'd been adopted?
When reading the blogs of many first and adoptive parents, however, I am struck, as usual, by the lack of empathy for the adoptees. And when adult adoptees, or even others from the constellation (more rarely) pipe up to say anything about how this might feel for the placed child--wow! The burning oil and screeching and moaning and saying, "Oh, that person is so MEAN and doesn't GET it!" commences. Really? The person doesn't get it? Or that person is presenting a point of view that is potentially in conflict with yours, or is uncomfortable for you to entertain? It's not all about YOUR feelings? Isn't adoption supposed to be about helping the ADOPTEE live the best life possible?
And the adoptee erasing, or the thinking FOR the adoptee, or the "It's all for the adoptee's good," or It was too hard for MEEEEE," or any number of the usual responses are thrown about.
I was talking to Mark about this pathetic phenomenon the other night, in relation to a blog where a child was placed and the mother is raising three kids older than the placed child. Someone mentioned that the placed child might feel angry about being the only one placed. It's hard to reconcile love with the fact that your older sibs are all safely ensconced with your mother, especially when the reason given for placement was that she didn't want to raise you as a single mother. But she's raising your siblings as a single mother. It doesn't compute. Yes, life is more complicated that that, but it's still a burden for that child to bear, let alone understand. Of course, the Anonymous commenter was hung, drawn, and quartered for even suggesting that the placed child might have some anger to deal with. I was tearing my hair out, but Mark simply said, "Remember, adoptees are inconvenient. Your feelings are inconvenient, your presence is inconvenient, your opinions are inconvenient. You are only wanted and welcome in discussions so much as you can stroke these people's feathers the right way." He is so correct. It's true, sad, infuriating even, and I feel for this little girl. I hope she will be given the space to express whatever she feels--and it may certainly be positive, but I rather doubt it.
Von wrote, very insightfully, apropos this subject: "It is a curious thing that comments by adopters are seen as positive and helpful while remarks usually from adoptees who see how it might be for the teen are viewed as negative and mean. Adoptees have a right to comment on what is put out there about adoption and to have it viewed with the same seriousness as other comments."
This was in relation to another sad story, a 15-year-old boy who was being "rehomed" by serial adopters who decided that they just didn't love him unconditionally. WTF? When you adopt a child, it's for life. You work through your problems. Parenthood should not be revocable. Adoptees are not items of clothing or appliances, as Von pointed out. These heinous APs want to give the boy to another family for a month as a "test drive." He is a human being! Furthermore, when adult adoptees pointed out that these APs' behavior was inhumane and WRONG, the adopters took umbrage and said that adoptees didn't have right to comment. Anyone who sympathized with the adopters and how hard it was for THEM was welcomed. Sound familiar?
The point of view of the adoptee--usually--is contingent upon our "good" behavior (meaning praising our parents), toeing the party line (adoption is a gift! it saved my life!), etc. Then our parents say, "I'll accept you, but I don't really want to let people know who you are if you don't behave in just the right way, or if I have to own my behavior, etc." It's a nasty, rotten deal if you look under that shiny, skittle-coated cover. But many parents don't like you to do that!
Ah, love is contingent, and that's what hurts the most. Censorship, parental self-pity at the expense of the child, and the continued lack of ability to take responsibility, as parents, come not far behind.
I cannot tell you, after so many years of reading these horror stories on blogs of "loving" parents, how fortunate I am to have two mothers who don't say, or act, in the horrible way of "I love you, but..." It's the stuff of nightmares.
And you say you wish you'd been adopted?
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Journey
I bought my ticket today. I am going to meet C. It's happening.
Wow.
I don't have words for this. I feel it in my body, more than anything at this point, today.
C and I were talking about what our expectations are, and we decided: our meeting is about expanding our friendship in person, which will be a lovely thing. I am perfectly happy with that.
At the same time, it is undeniably odd to be meeting one's mother for the first time since one's birth. Just is.
My aunt is going to join us one day, which is fantastic, and I hope to be seeing my fabulously supportive first-mom friend Lori, who was with me on my first pilgrimage to Indiana.
I will be back in a Midwestern winter, as well. Haven't done that in a long, long time. I will be layering on the sweaters, as my pea coat is too huge. I have become a Northern California hothouse flower with thin blood.
I feel in some ways that I will be on display (I will be), but I am secure in myself in a way that I have never been before. I like myself, and that counts above all. No one can take that away from me.
One of my favorite people at work reminds me and others to let the negatives fall away, like water off a duck's back. If there are things to be learned, fine. Learn them, but self-excoriation won't help. For some reason, I am in a place where this has been working for me, and damn, it feels great.
I make mistakes, I see what I've done, I change my behavior, I correct things, and I move on. I see where others are acting like morons, I can call them out on it (or not), and stay my course. I refuse to take their shit on as my shit.
I know it's not just the Topamax, because I've been on that for nearly a year, and my dose has been halved. I know it's not just the support of my wonderful aparents, because I've had that my entire life. I know it's not just the love of my friends, because they've been doing their damndest for years, and it's been uphill work. It's not just the love of C, although that is the icing on the cake. It's not just the love of myself. It's everything, finally coming together.
Better late than never.
Age has its benefits; I love the perspective that I can bring to situations these days.
Maybe not my wrinkles, but oh well. I am am enjoying middle age. If only my body would oblige and dissolve that fucking clot.
Wow.
I don't have words for this. I feel it in my body, more than anything at this point, today.
C and I were talking about what our expectations are, and we decided: our meeting is about expanding our friendship in person, which will be a lovely thing. I am perfectly happy with that.
At the same time, it is undeniably odd to be meeting one's mother for the first time since one's birth. Just is.
My aunt is going to join us one day, which is fantastic, and I hope to be seeing my fabulously supportive first-mom friend Lori, who was with me on my first pilgrimage to Indiana.
I will be back in a Midwestern winter, as well. Haven't done that in a long, long time. I will be layering on the sweaters, as my pea coat is too huge. I have become a Northern California hothouse flower with thin blood.
I feel in some ways that I will be on display (I will be), but I am secure in myself in a way that I have never been before. I like myself, and that counts above all. No one can take that away from me.
One of my favorite people at work reminds me and others to let the negatives fall away, like water off a duck's back. If there are things to be learned, fine. Learn them, but self-excoriation won't help. For some reason, I am in a place where this has been working for me, and damn, it feels great.
I make mistakes, I see what I've done, I change my behavior, I correct things, and I move on. I see where others are acting like morons, I can call them out on it (or not), and stay my course. I refuse to take their shit on as my shit.
I know it's not just the Topamax, because I've been on that for nearly a year, and my dose has been halved. I know it's not just the support of my wonderful aparents, because I've had that my entire life. I know it's not just the love of my friends, because they've been doing their damndest for years, and it's been uphill work. It's not just the love of C, although that is the icing on the cake. It's not just the love of myself. It's everything, finally coming together.
Better late than never.
Age has its benefits; I love the perspective that I can bring to situations these days.
Maybe not my wrinkles, but oh well. I am am enjoying middle age. If only my body would oblige and dissolve that fucking clot.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Unexpected
2012 continues to bring things unexpected, things wonderful, interesting, and perplexing. I am sure it will bring heartache and pain. But for now, I am not courting it.
My aparents did the DNATribes testing for themselves this past fall. Genealogy is a favorite hobby of theirs, as I have written before, and they were curious about their deep ethnic roots. My adad's family is strictly Norwegian, at least back four centuries, so we expected his test to reveal strict Norse roots. Nope. He is many things, but up top he is Tajik and Basque! Very curious. I guess his ancestors brought women back from all over the map and they interbred in their little fjord of Norway. Fascinating. My amom was Chinese and Irish and all kinds of things. A mutt with curious origins.
Then for Christmas, they gave me my own DNA kit. I thought it was a fabulous gesture. They didn't want me to be left out, and of course, I am an unknown on many counts. Especially where my sperm donor is concerned. So I did the swab a couple of weeks ago and sent it off. I really thought I would come back very mutty, probably largely half Jewish. Jewish people have often assumed I am one of them over the years. Why not? I figured the test would simply verify what I already knew, and that it would just be a way to underscore my link to the non-identifying information I had about my nfather: the East Coast educated, intellectual guy (that I chose to read as Jewish).
The results were a shock. I am half Spanish/Basque! Wow. The rest is the expected UK/Celtic components from C, with a little Greek and Italian thrown in probably from my nfather, as well. I told C about this, and she said that it makes sense; she still doesn't know who he is, but since she was a Spanish major, it is likely she was attracted to a Spaniard/Basque. Holy shit. I don't look Spanish, at least I don't think so, but then again, I have been to Spain, and there are many ways to look Spanish. My Spanish is rudimentary to say the least. It is the last language I ever studied, and I did so just before nursing school for professional purposes (crudely, I say I speak vagina Spanish). I love Spanish history, but I know next to nothing about the Basques. It is incredible to know a little bit more about myself, and maybe now I can explain my strange obsession with Catholicism and self-flagellation. LOL
I do have a print of Goya's El Perro Semihundido hanging in my bedroom; I brought it back from Madrid in 2001. Mark said that I was the senorita semihundida. Clever.
I am also feeling incredibly close to C and my brother. I don't know how to explain it. I am not certain exactly what has changed. Maybe things really do work out in the end sometimes. There are so many war stories, so many disappointments, so many sadnesses in the world of adoption. So much time lost, so many ways to hurt each other, so many possibilities to continue to be lost to one another. But we seem to be working through it. I am relieved that they can see me for who I am and love me anyway. I know I could make it through without their support, but it wouldn't feel this amazing. Their validation is so warm.
I had a rough time at work last night. I am not the best person at IV starts; I just am not. I keep learning, but it's not an intuitive skill to me. As my ER nurse friends say, it's all about the practice, and I do it only a few times a week, if that, not multiple times a day. Anyway, I sent A a text trashing myself, and he said, "Don't be so hard on yourself." I excel at being hard on myself, and it is wonderful to be reminded that it's okay to fail if you keep trying.
I could never had predicted any of this wondrousness two years, a year, six months ago. I have a hard time thinking that I deserve it. I do the best I can, but for some reason, I have had piles of shit visited on me. It's just what happens to me. Well, things seem to be changing.
I had to see my primary care MD this past week to follow up after the ER visit, and she said she'd had notes from my hematologist and hepatologist. Both wrote to her that they're shocked I am not in clinical depression anymore without medication, considering my health and chronic pain situation. She said that she isn't shocked: I am strong and know how to get on with my life.
I also know that a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders. If I still felt that my very existence were a mistake, that I had no purpose, I might be having a more difficult time making it through each minute. I am aware that I will certainly fall into the pit again; it's the nature of depression. It's a disease. There is still a huge part of my life that is wrong, messy, confusing, and in stasis. I am ignoring it for now because I simply cannot deal with it. One step at a time. I want to enjoy being happy for a while.
There's a chance I will meet up with both my mother and brother this spring. I am thrilled. Can you even imagine?
My aparents did the DNATribes testing for themselves this past fall. Genealogy is a favorite hobby of theirs, as I have written before, and they were curious about their deep ethnic roots. My adad's family is strictly Norwegian, at least back four centuries, so we expected his test to reveal strict Norse roots. Nope. He is many things, but up top he is Tajik and Basque! Very curious. I guess his ancestors brought women back from all over the map and they interbred in their little fjord of Norway. Fascinating. My amom was Chinese and Irish and all kinds of things. A mutt with curious origins.
Then for Christmas, they gave me my own DNA kit. I thought it was a fabulous gesture. They didn't want me to be left out, and of course, I am an unknown on many counts. Especially where my sperm donor is concerned. So I did the swab a couple of weeks ago and sent it off. I really thought I would come back very mutty, probably largely half Jewish. Jewish people have often assumed I am one of them over the years. Why not? I figured the test would simply verify what I already knew, and that it would just be a way to underscore my link to the non-identifying information I had about my nfather: the East Coast educated, intellectual guy (that I chose to read as Jewish).
The results were a shock. I am half Spanish/Basque! Wow. The rest is the expected UK/Celtic components from C, with a little Greek and Italian thrown in probably from my nfather, as well. I told C about this, and she said that it makes sense; she still doesn't know who he is, but since she was a Spanish major, it is likely she was attracted to a Spaniard/Basque. Holy shit. I don't look Spanish, at least I don't think so, but then again, I have been to Spain, and there are many ways to look Spanish. My Spanish is rudimentary to say the least. It is the last language I ever studied, and I did so just before nursing school for professional purposes (crudely, I say I speak vagina Spanish). I love Spanish history, but I know next to nothing about the Basques. It is incredible to know a little bit more about myself, and maybe now I can explain my strange obsession with Catholicism and self-flagellation. LOL
I do have a print of Goya's El Perro Semihundido hanging in my bedroom; I brought it back from Madrid in 2001. Mark said that I was the senorita semihundida. Clever.
I am also feeling incredibly close to C and my brother. I don't know how to explain it. I am not certain exactly what has changed. Maybe things really do work out in the end sometimes. There are so many war stories, so many disappointments, so many sadnesses in the world of adoption. So much time lost, so many ways to hurt each other, so many possibilities to continue to be lost to one another. But we seem to be working through it. I am relieved that they can see me for who I am and love me anyway. I know I could make it through without their support, but it wouldn't feel this amazing. Their validation is so warm.
I had a rough time at work last night. I am not the best person at IV starts; I just am not. I keep learning, but it's not an intuitive skill to me. As my ER nurse friends say, it's all about the practice, and I do it only a few times a week, if that, not multiple times a day. Anyway, I sent A a text trashing myself, and he said, "Don't be so hard on yourself." I excel at being hard on myself, and it is wonderful to be reminded that it's okay to fail if you keep trying.
I could never had predicted any of this wondrousness two years, a year, six months ago. I have a hard time thinking that I deserve it. I do the best I can, but for some reason, I have had piles of shit visited on me. It's just what happens to me. Well, things seem to be changing.
I had to see my primary care MD this past week to follow up after the ER visit, and she said she'd had notes from my hematologist and hepatologist. Both wrote to her that they're shocked I am not in clinical depression anymore without medication, considering my health and chronic pain situation. She said that she isn't shocked: I am strong and know how to get on with my life.
I also know that a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders. If I still felt that my very existence were a mistake, that I had no purpose, I might be having a more difficult time making it through each minute. I am aware that I will certainly fall into the pit again; it's the nature of depression. It's a disease. There is still a huge part of my life that is wrong, messy, confusing, and in stasis. I am ignoring it for now because I simply cannot deal with it. One step at a time. I want to enjoy being happy for a while.
There's a chance I will meet up with both my mother and brother this spring. I am thrilled. Can you even imagine?
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
New Normal
2012 has crept in, and I am glad to feel that it's going to be better than 2011. At least on some counts.
My resolution is to accept that I have found a new normal for myself. It might not be where I wish it were, or a perfect place, but it's a place where I can breathe and feel some balance.
I had not been feeling myself for much of the autumn, thanks to thedopamax Topamax. On one occasion I forgot I was scheduled to work (not like me); on another, I watched a friend's baby eat a photograph without registering that perhaps stepping in to intervene might be an appropriate action (my dopey inner voice said, "Oh, it's probably laminated, and that's okay!" WTF?); at work one night, one of the midwives asked me to turn the overhead lights on for a delivery and I couldn't figure out what the lights were (umm, really?); and on another occasion, an MD whom I really, really like and admire and want to impress asked me to bring him three simple instruments to the recovery room and I had to WRITE THEM DOWN. None of these things is at all like me. I am sharp as a tack, usually. I can remember things quite well. I began to think that 1. my liver was failing; 2. I had had a small stroke; or 2. for some reason the Topamax wasn't metabolizing properly. Whatever it was, I felt like I was wandering like a cloud, but not happily like in a Wordsworth poem.
So off I went to the ER again, to round out 2011. Many blood tests and a CT and neurology consult later, it turned out that some people can have random, acute episodes of "confusion" (that I would more properly characterize as rank stupidity) on Topamax, even on stable doses. My dose was cut in half, and a day or so later, I felt 100% better. So I am back nearly at square one with what to do with pain medication. Sigh. On the other hand, I am really, really, really glad to have my brain back. While I did enjoy the emotional stability that Topamax gave me, it wasn't worth the loss of brainpower. And really, I am pretty stable emotionally at present. We will see what the future slings at me.
On the family front, I am enjoying my growing relationship with C, and it sounds like we might have a face-to-face meeting at some point in 2012. We will see, but I am cautiously hopeful. And excited. She is a steadfast, wonderful friend, and I look forward to our frequent conversations. It turns out that we are very much alike in some ways, and it's great to see myself mirrored in her. Again, there's that curious mix of nature and nurture that just cannot be denied. She visited my brother recently, went to the same brewery, and ended up picking out exactly the same sweatshirt that I did--without coaching, apparently. Interesting. When relationships with first families can mean more love, without stress, they're pretty amazing. I am pleased that C set such great boundaries and is transparent about her expectations; we both are able to say what we need and it's working well.
I hope to see my brother before too long, if I can swing a trip down south. I miss him. I haven't seen him since late August, which isn't all that long, but given that he's moving in a year and a half, I feel all kinds of desire to maximize his proximity while he's close. And he's being kind about that. I had an adoptee flip out in December when I was worried that he was pushing me away, but we survived it. I think he found it bewildering, but he is sticking with me. So bonus points for him.
I am also not a secret to anyone in my uncle's family anymore, and I went out on a limb and sent them a Christmas card. That felt great. I don't expect anything in return, but I wanted them to know I am thinking of them, and that the door here is open anytime.
Work is finally feeling like something fluid again. Not that I am an expert, but I have a feel for the ropes and go in happy and confident that I can make it through the 8 hours, and that I have something wonderful to offer my patients. Some days are harder than others, to be certain, but each day I learn something new. I want to commit to learning and trying many more new things this year, and trying to become more confident with antepartum patients (the ones we're trying to keep pregnant).
I also want to try to write more, now that my brain is back. Oh brain, how I've missed you. I went to Berkeley on my way back from San Francisco the other day and stopped in at Moe's, one of the best used bookstores on the planet. I bought an old copy of prose poems by Baudelaire, and I want to work on my French again. I can feel the joy washing over me. What doesn't matter, doesn't matter. Such a relief.
2012 is going to be great. I wish all of you a wonderful year. I know there's much sadness out there, and that there's much fighting to be done to change things for adoptees. We will do it. New normal, go!
My resolution is to accept that I have found a new normal for myself. It might not be where I wish it were, or a perfect place, but it's a place where I can breathe and feel some balance.
I had not been feeling myself for much of the autumn, thanks to the
So off I went to the ER again, to round out 2011. Many blood tests and a CT and neurology consult later, it turned out that some people can have random, acute episodes of "confusion" (that I would more properly characterize as rank stupidity) on Topamax, even on stable doses. My dose was cut in half, and a day or so later, I felt 100% better. So I am back nearly at square one with what to do with pain medication. Sigh. On the other hand, I am really, really, really glad to have my brain back. While I did enjoy the emotional stability that Topamax gave me, it wasn't worth the loss of brainpower. And really, I am pretty stable emotionally at present. We will see what the future slings at me.
On the family front, I am enjoying my growing relationship with C, and it sounds like we might have a face-to-face meeting at some point in 2012. We will see, but I am cautiously hopeful. And excited. She is a steadfast, wonderful friend, and I look forward to our frequent conversations. It turns out that we are very much alike in some ways, and it's great to see myself mirrored in her. Again, there's that curious mix of nature and nurture that just cannot be denied. She visited my brother recently, went to the same brewery, and ended up picking out exactly the same sweatshirt that I did--without coaching, apparently. Interesting. When relationships with first families can mean more love, without stress, they're pretty amazing. I am pleased that C set such great boundaries and is transparent about her expectations; we both are able to say what we need and it's working well.
I hope to see my brother before too long, if I can swing a trip down south. I miss him. I haven't seen him since late August, which isn't all that long, but given that he's moving in a year and a half, I feel all kinds of desire to maximize his proximity while he's close. And he's being kind about that. I had an adoptee flip out in December when I was worried that he was pushing me away, but we survived it. I think he found it bewildering, but he is sticking with me. So bonus points for him.
I am also not a secret to anyone in my uncle's family anymore, and I went out on a limb and sent them a Christmas card. That felt great. I don't expect anything in return, but I wanted them to know I am thinking of them, and that the door here is open anytime.
Work is finally feeling like something fluid again. Not that I am an expert, but I have a feel for the ropes and go in happy and confident that I can make it through the 8 hours, and that I have something wonderful to offer my patients. Some days are harder than others, to be certain, but each day I learn something new. I want to commit to learning and trying many more new things this year, and trying to become more confident with antepartum patients (the ones we're trying to keep pregnant).
I also want to try to write more, now that my brain is back. Oh brain, how I've missed you. I went to Berkeley on my way back from San Francisco the other day and stopped in at Moe's, one of the best used bookstores on the planet. I bought an old copy of prose poems by Baudelaire, and I want to work on my French again. I can feel the joy washing over me. What doesn't matter, doesn't matter. Such a relief.
2012 is going to be great. I wish all of you a wonderful year. I know there's much sadness out there, and that there's much fighting to be done to change things for adoptees. We will do it. New normal, go!
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Open letter from an adoptee
An adult adoptee friend of mine wrote an open letter to APs and PAPs that I think is very powerful. Another friend who blogs published it on her blog. I am linking to it here. I believe that it's very much worth a read, as it stresses how important it is to think of things from the adoptee's point of view. It's not so much that APs and PAPs aren't important, or that adoption is necessarily bad. Again, I know that my adoption had to happen, and at this point, the only things that I find really egregious are my lack of primary caretaker for those first 10 weeks and the terrible lies that were told to both C and my aparents. That didn't have to happen. My loss was my loss, and I have to work through it. I am doing the best I can, and I appreciate it when people around me try to understand.
I think that much of my frustration over the past months has been what I perceive as a staunch unwillingness to see things from an adoptee's point of view. I get that there are other ways of looking at adoption. I am an adult. Truly, I get it. But there is also no need to ignore that there is a child involved, a child with feelings who also needs to have his or her say. Try not to speak for this child. I am not saying that *I* speak for your adoptee, either. Just listen and remember, and don't say that *my* child isn't like you. *Ask* your child rather than speaking for her. And don't ask leading questions, such as, "You're happy, aren't you?"
http://iadoptee.blogspot.com/2011/12/please-read-this.html
I think that much of my frustration over the past months has been what I perceive as a staunch unwillingness to see things from an adoptee's point of view. I get that there are other ways of looking at adoption. I am an adult. Truly, I get it. But there is also no need to ignore that there is a child involved, a child with feelings who also needs to have his or her say. Try not to speak for this child. I am not saying that *I* speak for your adoptee, either. Just listen and remember, and don't say that *my* child isn't like you. *Ask* your child rather than speaking for her. And don't ask leading questions, such as, "You're happy, aren't you?"
http://iadoptee.blogspot.com/2011/12/please-read-this.html
Monday, December 05, 2011
Mistakes
I have been thinking about mistakes rather frequently of late, of my own and of others.
In terms of my own, I have been recounting some of my life to C, the good, bad, and the ugly. She has been so warm and kind about all the warts, and tells me to forgive myself. I told her about my broken engagement back from my early 20's, something I am not at all proud of. It was a time when I very badly hurt someone I loved, and in retrospect, I might have done things extremely differently. She agreed, and in my telling of the beginning of the whole sordid story, her first response was so funny, and so like my own, that I wanted to go through the phone and hug her. "But you weren't really related, so what was the big deal?"I loved that she understood, without the parental raising of eyebrows and the judgment. Sigh.
And then I had an adoptee moment a few weeks back when I lost it for a moment and thought that someone I loved was pushing me away and letting me down. I jumped into survival mode, attack mode, "you don't love me," and away we went. On the one hand, I had to say something. On the other hand, it's hard for me to disentangle my emotions from the rationality when I feel that my core is being threatened, especially by someone I so desperately love. If it's someone I don't care about, pffft. I can walk, or be snarky, or find some outlet that doesn't eat away at me or the person involved--usually. But those closest to me know what it's like to be subject to the eruption of my anger. It's fast and cruel. It burns up quickly, however, and usually I am over it in an hour or two, a day or two max, and then I am back to my sunny self. Thankfully, we worked through it and are moving forward. I am glad 1. that I was able to speak out, because it *is* hard for me, even when I do it not quite in the way I wish and 2. that he stuck with me, even though I know it drove him around the bend and he hates conflict. In retrospect I *know* I was testing him. I want to be important and loved, and sometimes I fear that I am not loved in the way I want to be loved. I just have to have faith. As Mark says, it takes time to get to know me and my foibles (I know I can be intimidating/irritating), and if a person is willing to stick around, that means a great deal. Actions mean so much more to me than words. Show me you love me; I always try to back up my words with actions! We will see what happens now.
I don't harbor grudges, really, but, to quote the good Jane Austen, speaking through Mr. Darcy, "My good opinion once lost, is lost forever." By that I mean I don't give people free passes to treat me like shit, and in adoptoland, there's been more than enough anonymous adoptee baiting. I also cannot sit back and smile and be excited by people who pat themselves on the back felicitously about having made brilliant decisions for themselves, involving placing their children, while they tacitly expect their children to react with the same felicitousness about their decision.
Why do people not understand that adoptees, as children, are acted UPON? We have no say in what goes on in the adult world around us. As grownups, we may look back and think that everything that happened might have been for the good of the adults involved, for certain, but still think that it had long-lasting ill effects for *us*. I am tired, so very tired, of adults writing about themselves and not being able to step, for a moment, out of their shoes and their experiences to think what it might be like for a child to live a life governed by what they did. That their choices made a rift in history immensely profound for that child. And yes, some children really, really, really may think, "Wow! I am so happy that I was placed on this path! Wow! I cannot imagine having been raised by my first parents AT ALL. Wow! This is the only possible path for me." I have met people like that. I won't argue with you. But so many of these adults writing seem so cocksure about what is *right* that I have lost faith in humanity for once and for all. Perhaps it is the subset of people writing where I read. Perhaps it is simply my cold, hard heart. But I weep for the children who have to deal with this lack of compassion, this lack of ability to admit that mistakes are possible, that other people's feelings come into play.
People argue that adoptees don't understand that adoption involves both positive and negative aspects. Duh!?! Whose life is completely black and white? Ever hear of grey?
People who say, "But *I* didn't want to parent!" and know they didn't want to parent. Fine. Good thing you didn't. Still doesn't mean that your child won't wonder what it would have been like to have been raised by you, or struggle to reconcile placement with rejection. You can tell your child it wasn't rejection until the cows come home, but it may still *feel* like abandonment. "Why *wasn't* I good enough to keep?"
Being rejected by a parent in childhood is a shitty thing, pretty much one of the shittiest things a person can live with in his or her life. As children, we don't have the emotional tools to understand the hows and whys, and it takes a very long time, sometimes forever, to get over it.
I suppose I try to understand the bravado and the ambivalence and the coping mechanisms of the first parents in all this; giving up/placing/surrendering a child must be a horrific thing. I can't speak to the emotional impact on them because I didn't do that deed. I couldn't even begin to think of it, and thankfully never had to.
But as an adoptee, the offhand comments, the iciness, the lack of compassion, the snarkiness and brutality of some people, APs and first parents both, seem so ridiculous. Aren't they adults? Aren't they parents? And yet the feelings of the children, when brought up, are brushed off, even laughed at, especially when adult adoptees suggest that there is an issue. I become so tired.
I read on a blog today, in the comments somewhere, that it's a terrible shame that some parents suck so badly that they yell at their kids in Target, when there are so many infertile people who deserve kids so much MORE. I sometimes yell at my kids in Target, so I guess that makes me an unfit mother. I suppose I had better report myself as an unfit mother and put my kids on a list for adoption for more worthy parents, but my boys would probably immediately be diagnosed with RAD and drugged because they'd want me back. Which would be so WRONG. Because they can't be attached to me; there's no emotional or biological connection, even after all these years. Anyone who can pay for it deserves it MORE. It doesn't matter that I am married; have my degrees and my job; it's the craving that trumps it all? Really? Yes, I am being snarky, but I am fed up with entitlement.
My children are treasures, and I wouldn't trade them for the world. I love that they look like me and have inherited looks and intelligence and sports skills and gestures and facility for languages from me, and that I can see myself in them. I love that I am learning more all the time about how much I am like my fmom and brother. I love how I am like my amom and adad. I am a complicated mix of influences, and I am grateful to have the respect of all the people in my life who understand how difficult this is for me to unravel (as I try to understand how it is for them).
Rather than becoming rigid and posturing when mistakes or contradictions are pointed out, could more parents perhaps admit those mistakes? Just maybe?
In terms of my own, I have been recounting some of my life to C, the good, bad, and the ugly. She has been so warm and kind about all the warts, and tells me to forgive myself. I told her about my broken engagement back from my early 20's, something I am not at all proud of. It was a time when I very badly hurt someone I loved, and in retrospect, I might have done things extremely differently. She agreed, and in my telling of the beginning of the whole sordid story, her first response was so funny, and so like my own, that I wanted to go through the phone and hug her. "But you weren't really related, so what was the big deal?"I loved that she understood, without the parental raising of eyebrows and the judgment. Sigh.
And then I had an adoptee moment a few weeks back when I lost it for a moment and thought that someone I loved was pushing me away and letting me down. I jumped into survival mode, attack mode, "you don't love me," and away we went. On the one hand, I had to say something. On the other hand, it's hard for me to disentangle my emotions from the rationality when I feel that my core is being threatened, especially by someone I so desperately love. If it's someone I don't care about, pffft. I can walk, or be snarky, or find some outlet that doesn't eat away at me or the person involved--usually. But those closest to me know what it's like to be subject to the eruption of my anger. It's fast and cruel. It burns up quickly, however, and usually I am over it in an hour or two, a day or two max, and then I am back to my sunny self. Thankfully, we worked through it and are moving forward. I am glad 1. that I was able to speak out, because it *is* hard for me, even when I do it not quite in the way I wish and 2. that he stuck with me, even though I know it drove him around the bend and he hates conflict. In retrospect I *know* I was testing him. I want to be important and loved, and sometimes I fear that I am not loved in the way I want to be loved. I just have to have faith. As Mark says, it takes time to get to know me and my foibles (I know I can be intimidating/irritating), and if a person is willing to stick around, that means a great deal. Actions mean so much more to me than words. Show me you love me; I always try to back up my words with actions! We will see what happens now.
I don't harbor grudges, really, but, to quote the good Jane Austen, speaking through Mr. Darcy, "My good opinion once lost, is lost forever." By that I mean I don't give people free passes to treat me like shit, and in adoptoland, there's been more than enough anonymous adoptee baiting. I also cannot sit back and smile and be excited by people who pat themselves on the back felicitously about having made brilliant decisions for themselves, involving placing their children, while they tacitly expect their children to react with the same felicitousness about their decision.
Why do people not understand that adoptees, as children, are acted UPON? We have no say in what goes on in the adult world around us. As grownups, we may look back and think that everything that happened might have been for the good of the adults involved, for certain, but still think that it had long-lasting ill effects for *us*. I am tired, so very tired, of adults writing about themselves and not being able to step, for a moment, out of their shoes and their experiences to think what it might be like for a child to live a life governed by what they did. That their choices made a rift in history immensely profound for that child. And yes, some children really, really, really may think, "Wow! I am so happy that I was placed on this path! Wow! I cannot imagine having been raised by my first parents AT ALL. Wow! This is the only possible path for me." I have met people like that. I won't argue with you. But so many of these adults writing seem so cocksure about what is *right* that I have lost faith in humanity for once and for all. Perhaps it is the subset of people writing where I read. Perhaps it is simply my cold, hard heart. But I weep for the children who have to deal with this lack of compassion, this lack of ability to admit that mistakes are possible, that other people's feelings come into play.
People argue that adoptees don't understand that adoption involves both positive and negative aspects. Duh!?! Whose life is completely black and white? Ever hear of grey?
People who say, "But *I* didn't want to parent!" and know they didn't want to parent. Fine. Good thing you didn't. Still doesn't mean that your child won't wonder what it would have been like to have been raised by you, or struggle to reconcile placement with rejection. You can tell your child it wasn't rejection until the cows come home, but it may still *feel* like abandonment. "Why *wasn't* I good enough to keep?"
Being rejected by a parent in childhood is a shitty thing, pretty much one of the shittiest things a person can live with in his or her life. As children, we don't have the emotional tools to understand the hows and whys, and it takes a very long time, sometimes forever, to get over it.
I suppose I try to understand the bravado and the ambivalence and the coping mechanisms of the first parents in all this; giving up/placing/surrendering a child must be a horrific thing. I can't speak to the emotional impact on them because I didn't do that deed. I couldn't even begin to think of it, and thankfully never had to.
But as an adoptee, the offhand comments, the iciness, the lack of compassion, the snarkiness and brutality of some people, APs and first parents both, seem so ridiculous. Aren't they adults? Aren't they parents? And yet the feelings of the children, when brought up, are brushed off, even laughed at, especially when adult adoptees suggest that there is an issue. I become so tired.
I read on a blog today, in the comments somewhere, that it's a terrible shame that some parents suck so badly that they yell at their kids in Target, when there are so many infertile people who deserve kids so much MORE. I sometimes yell at my kids in Target, so I guess that makes me an unfit mother. I suppose I had better report myself as an unfit mother and put my kids on a list for adoption for more worthy parents, but my boys would probably immediately be diagnosed with RAD and drugged because they'd want me back. Which would be so WRONG. Because they can't be attached to me; there's no emotional or biological connection, even after all these years. Anyone who can pay for it deserves it MORE. It doesn't matter that I am married; have my degrees and my job; it's the craving that trumps it all? Really? Yes, I am being snarky, but I am fed up with entitlement.
My children are treasures, and I wouldn't trade them for the world. I love that they look like me and have inherited looks and intelligence and sports skills and gestures and facility for languages from me, and that I can see myself in them. I love that I am learning more all the time about how much I am like my fmom and brother. I love how I am like my amom and adad. I am a complicated mix of influences, and I am grateful to have the respect of all the people in my life who understand how difficult this is for me to unravel (as I try to understand how it is for them).
Rather than becoming rigid and posturing when mistakes or contradictions are pointed out, could more parents perhaps admit those mistakes? Just maybe?
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Commitment
In the spirit of feeling sick to my stomach, my friend Linda was friended on FB by someone who was going around friending adoptees. It turns out this woman had adopted a girl and then disrupted the adoption because the girl was "too difficult" and putting her other family members at risk. While I understand that people have problems and not everyone is easy to get along with (Nancy Verrier wrote poignantly about this in The Primal Wound: the adoptees who act out versus the adoptees who hurt themselves), I believe firmly that if you make a commitment to a child, you stick with that child FOREVER. You cannot "return" a biological child simply because they are difficult. So WTF with giving up on an adoptee?
Sigh.
This month is HORRIFIC.
Linda wrote a post about this woman, and her exchanges with her. Curiously, this woman claimed that Linda, an adoptee, doesn't understand adoption. Huh?
Oh, and yeah. This woman blogs and is turning her experiences with this poor child into a book. So the child will be commodified and made public and shamed even further. How positively lovely for this poor child! How DARE this mother make a dollar off the tortured experience of this child. When, oh WHEN, will this child's feelings come FIRST? When will she have been punished enough and shown that she means nothing to these people?
Shoot me now. Again, we are not human to so many people. WHEN WILL PEOPLE WAKE THE HELL UP? It's shameful.
Sigh.
This month is HORRIFIC.
Linda wrote a post about this woman, and her exchanges with her. Curiously, this woman claimed that Linda, an adoptee, doesn't understand adoption. Huh?
Oh, and yeah. This woman blogs and is turning her experiences with this poor child into a book. So the child will be commodified and made public and shamed even further. How positively lovely for this poor child! How DARE this mother make a dollar off the tortured experience of this child. When, oh WHEN, will this child's feelings come FIRST? When will she have been punished enough and shown that she means nothing to these people?
Shoot me now. Again, we are not human to so many people. WHEN WILL PEOPLE WAKE THE HELL UP? It's shameful.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Courage and Gratitude
I love the Italian word for courage/bravery, coraggio, because it sounds so much stronger and full of fortitude than our English word. Put an exclamation point after it, and it's just hot. Coraggio!
Friends tell me all the time that they value me for my courage. I don't think that I am so much courageous as dogged. I don't like to give up. I know what I want, or my heart knows what it wants (especially if I think it's right) and I just cannot let go. Sometimes not giving up can take me places that other people have told me, conversely, that they think are just plain dumb. (And, in truth, sometimes those places are dumb. I am human, not infallible.)
C called me this morning to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving and to thank me for not giving up, even in light of all the obstacles, and to say that she's thankful to have me in her life. I really never thought I would receive such a phone call, and all the pain is worth it for words like that.
That said, I am feeling rather fragile (in French, as my ex used to describe me) and have been for a few days. I think it's been the dark pall of Adoptember; the nastiness of APs arguing that their racist comments are all sunshine and light (really?); the throwaway comments people make about adoptees; the ongoing assumptions that if adoptees disagree with you, it's because our parents are terrible people who beat us and locked us in basements. See Von's post about these weevils. An AP wrote, "By all appearances its adult adoptees that are still mad about being adopted. Most of these adoptees were born American and adopted at birth and they take issue with how their parents handled things." Which makes me furious, of course, because my parents are possibly the most wonderful, ethical, kindest, generous, courageous people out there. They will bend over backwards to help you, and they taught me that keeping your word is the most important thing you can ever do. So these horrid people climbing out from under rocks? You might be APs, but you cannot aspire to be ANYTHING like my parents. Who would tell me not to give you the time of day. I would go farther and call you a waste of space on this planet, in my current evil-soaked mood. But that's not my parents' fault. It's because YOU claim to be Christian and lead the most un-Christian sounding lives, and say the most un-Christian sounding things I've heard in quite some time. There's just no escaping these people, or their stain on adoption, or what they do to their kids, taken from abroad. And it makes me sick. Oh, and the waffling about searching for natural families in China because it is "too hard"? More sadness.
There are moments when none of us can keep our word, to be sure, but these people, in adopting, should have chosen to put their children and their children's needs first. I am not sure they did. Every time I cross paths with people who don't keep their word, I feel a little bit of contempt. If I have nothing more to do with you; fine. But if you choose to sell me down river, I will remember.
I was crying last night and trying to get all this pressure off my chest, this awful pressure and pain, and my younger son came over. He said, "Mommy, who did this to you? I will find them and make them pay." He is six! With a few notable exceptions, this is the first time in my life that someone has been 100% on my side. Some adoptees can only find family if they make their own! Again, sad. I guess this is what it means to put "family" first, and fuck everyone else--remember, I am not an alien, and didn't fall from the sky. I love my son's loyalty and coraggio, but he can save it for now. I am a big girl. It warmed my heart that he didn't prevaricate, and he won't go back and tell me that someone else is more important, and shut me out and be silent. Not my son. I hope he *will* tell me, though, when he thinks I am doing the wrong thing. Because that's *also* what family does.
I am grateful for friends and my good brain and what there is left of me. Off to work to deliver some little people. Maybe they can cheer me up.
Friends tell me all the time that they value me for my courage. I don't think that I am so much courageous as dogged. I don't like to give up. I know what I want, or my heart knows what it wants (especially if I think it's right) and I just cannot let go. Sometimes not giving up can take me places that other people have told me, conversely, that they think are just plain dumb. (And, in truth, sometimes those places are dumb. I am human, not infallible.)
C called me this morning to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving and to thank me for not giving up, even in light of all the obstacles, and to say that she's thankful to have me in her life. I really never thought I would receive such a phone call, and all the pain is worth it for words like that.
That said, I am feeling rather fragile (in French, as my ex used to describe me) and have been for a few days. I think it's been the dark pall of Adoptember; the nastiness of APs arguing that their racist comments are all sunshine and light (really?); the throwaway comments people make about adoptees; the ongoing assumptions that if adoptees disagree with you, it's because our parents are terrible people who beat us and locked us in basements. See Von's post about these weevils. An AP wrote, "By all appearances its adult adoptees that are still mad about being adopted. Most of these adoptees were born American and adopted at birth and they take issue with how their parents handled things." Which makes me furious, of course, because my parents are possibly the most wonderful, ethical, kindest, generous, courageous people out there. They will bend over backwards to help you, and they taught me that keeping your word is the most important thing you can ever do. So these horrid people climbing out from under rocks? You might be APs, but you cannot aspire to be ANYTHING like my parents. Who would tell me not to give you the time of day. I would go farther and call you a waste of space on this planet, in my current evil-soaked mood. But that's not my parents' fault. It's because YOU claim to be Christian and lead the most un-Christian sounding lives, and say the most un-Christian sounding things I've heard in quite some time. There's just no escaping these people, or their stain on adoption, or what they do to their kids, taken from abroad. And it makes me sick. Oh, and the waffling about searching for natural families in China because it is "too hard"? More sadness.
There are moments when none of us can keep our word, to be sure, but these people, in adopting, should have chosen to put their children and their children's needs first. I am not sure they did. Every time I cross paths with people who don't keep their word, I feel a little bit of contempt. If I have nothing more to do with you; fine. But if you choose to sell me down river, I will remember.
I was crying last night and trying to get all this pressure off my chest, this awful pressure and pain, and my younger son came over. He said, "Mommy, who did this to you? I will find them and make them pay." He is six! With a few notable exceptions, this is the first time in my life that someone has been 100% on my side. Some adoptees can only find family if they make their own! Again, sad. I guess this is what it means to put "family" first, and fuck everyone else--remember, I am not an alien, and didn't fall from the sky. I love my son's loyalty and coraggio, but he can save it for now. I am a big girl. It warmed my heart that he didn't prevaricate, and he won't go back and tell me that someone else is more important, and shut me out and be silent. Not my son. I hope he *will* tell me, though, when he thinks I am doing the wrong thing. Because that's *also* what family does.
I am grateful for friends and my good brain and what there is left of me. Off to work to deliver some little people. Maybe they can cheer me up.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Losing My Shit
It's been a while since I've posted twice in a day, but I read something a little while ago that stuck in my craw and it's bothering me so much that I cannot let it go. I went to my adoptee refuge and discussed it and decided to write about it here.
A first mom wrote to another first mom in blogland today. The firstmom is wanting a baby, her firstborn, back. Or a replacement baby. Or something like that. But what really hurt was what the mom wrote:
"when you do have your second firstborn..."
Umm, how the fuck does that work?
I guess you erase having your first child in your head, and pretend s/he never happened, and raise that new one as your firstborn. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
I know that's what C did. She told me. And that's why it's so triggering for me. She told me once that she considered herself as only having one child. I know that's changed now, and each situation is different, but it's a horrible throwaway thing to hear a mother say to another mother about a child that is supposedly "loved." Hmm. We adoptees have excellent skills in smelling bullshit.
Knowing that the first mother who wrote the statement above WANTS a relationship with her FIRST firstborn, I personally wouldn't be writing shit like that in cyberspace because if her FIRST firstborn reads that, he probably (I can't guarantee it, but probably) will have the same gut-wrenching visceral, painful reaction that I am having that is going to involve some pharmaceuticals in a very short order.
Why, oh why, can these women not THINK about what they say about their children. Oh yeah, see posts below about how we are not human and we have no feelings. We cannot be erased. I know we are all trying to cope with less than optimal experiences, but this is tripe.
Sigh.
A first mom wrote to another first mom in blogland today. The firstmom is wanting a baby, her firstborn, back. Or a replacement baby. Or something like that. But what really hurt was what the mom wrote:
"when you do have your second firstborn..."
Umm, how the fuck does that work?
I guess you erase having your first child in your head, and pretend s/he never happened, and raise that new one as your firstborn. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
I know that's what C did. She told me. And that's why it's so triggering for me. She told me once that she considered herself as only having one child. I know that's changed now, and each situation is different, but it's a horrible throwaway thing to hear a mother say to another mother about a child that is supposedly "loved." Hmm. We adoptees have excellent skills in smelling bullshit.
Knowing that the first mother who wrote the statement above WANTS a relationship with her FIRST firstborn, I personally wouldn't be writing shit like that in cyberspace because if her FIRST firstborn reads that, he probably (I can't guarantee it, but probably) will have the same gut-wrenching visceral, painful reaction that I am having that is going to involve some pharmaceuticals in a very short order.
Why, oh why, can these women not THINK about what they say about their children. Oh yeah, see posts below about how we are not human and we have no feelings. We cannot be erased. I know we are all trying to cope with less than optimal experiences, but this is tripe.
Sigh.
Nicknames
I have been mulling over the nicknames that APs and first parents give their kids in blogland as a screen for their identities. I fully understand that it's not okay to blog using their real names. But some of the nicknames make me truly queasy. I have discussed this over time with different adoptee friends of mine, and the other day someone wrote a comment over on Linda's blog about how that Five of My Own woman uses insect nicknames for her adopted daughters. I finally decided to write about the nickname issue to see if people would be willing to discuss it.
I have written before about how I feel that many adoptees (myself included) are treated in society at large as less than human. [N.B.: I do not include my aparents as offenders, many friends of mine, and certain members of my natural family who are trying very, very hard to throw off received wisdom.] Adoptees are so often treated as aliens who are expected not to have feelings, and when we express feelings, we are told that those feelings are invalid, we are laughed at, we are lectured on how we don't understand "science," or we are presented with predictable litanies about our ungratefulness. I don't think I need to list those things here. You can get a great summation from Von, right here.
I have nothing against cute nicknames or sweet epithets for children. My own father calls me "Pumpkin" quite frequently, if not "KJ," my initials. I call my sons "weasels," with love. They are squirmy and active. The thing is, however, none of these nicknames are carved, statically, into the public domain. They are fluid.
I would HATE it if my parents had blogged about me and created a public persona, out of my control, in which I was known as "The Pumpkin." I always struggled with self-image, and the thought of people knowing, or thinking, of me as a large orange vegetable, whether they intended it with love, would have been fucking horrifying. It is a private name, now public because I have told you, but still. My aparents didn't use it to create a one-dimensional version of me, insinuating that there was this gooey love, when I would suspect quite the opposite: especially when my life was being plastered all over the place, with lists of MD visits, my trials and tribulations, pictures of zits and braces. "The Pumpkin" this, "The Pumpkin" that. Whether it was my amom or C, writing about "The Pumpkin," wailing about "The Pumpkin" and how she made them feel: how much control would I, "The Pumpkin," have had over this? And would I have wanted to be "The Pumpkin"? No. Fucking. Thank. You.
My amom would never have done that, even if she were parenting me actively now. My other mother would not do so, either; privacy is everything to her.
So I wonder about these adopted children with their nicknames, taken from heavily sugared pastries and insects and furry animals and people of diminutive stature. Is it about creating identities for them that allow parents to show the public on the Interwebs that they're awesome parents? So loving and intimate? Because some of these parents don't ever fucking see or touch their kids. What intimacy? Puhleeze.
From where I stand, cutesy-ass foodstuffs/objects/animals seem so one-dimensional as identities, and doesn't allow these kids to be fully human. I predict that these young adoptees will struggle under the burden of the non-human THING (pastry, insect, movie-figure, what-have-you) and won't get to be who they are in this rarified atmosphere. Perhaps that's the point, though.
I don't know what the better option is; perhaps a pseudonym, an initial? I like that M calls her daughter "Ms. Feverfew."
Remember, we are HUMAN. Please DO NOT dehumanize us. It isn't "cute." It's sweet to use diminutives and nicknames in the privacy of a home, to express endearment. On the Interwebs, it's a little like making out in public to make a point about possessing a partner: gratuitous.
Many thanks to those of you who are parents and who already blog about your placed/adopted children as human beings.
I am curious to hear what other people think. I know, that because I am an adoptee, my opinions will be flamed!
I have written before about how I feel that many adoptees (myself included) are treated in society at large as less than human. [N.B.: I do not include my aparents as offenders, many friends of mine, and certain members of my natural family who are trying very, very hard to throw off received wisdom.] Adoptees are so often treated as aliens who are expected not to have feelings, and when we express feelings, we are told that those feelings are invalid, we are laughed at, we are lectured on how we don't understand "science," or we are presented with predictable litanies about our ungratefulness. I don't think I need to list those things here. You can get a great summation from Von, right here.
I have nothing against cute nicknames or sweet epithets for children. My own father calls me "Pumpkin" quite frequently, if not "KJ," my initials. I call my sons "weasels," with love. They are squirmy and active. The thing is, however, none of these nicknames are carved, statically, into the public domain. They are fluid.
I would HATE it if my parents had blogged about me and created a public persona, out of my control, in which I was known as "The Pumpkin." I always struggled with self-image, and the thought of people knowing, or thinking, of me as a large orange vegetable, whether they intended it with love, would have been fucking horrifying. It is a private name, now public because I have told you, but still. My aparents didn't use it to create a one-dimensional version of me, insinuating that there was this gooey love, when I would suspect quite the opposite: especially when my life was being plastered all over the place, with lists of MD visits, my trials and tribulations, pictures of zits and braces. "The Pumpkin" this, "The Pumpkin" that. Whether it was my amom or C, writing about "The Pumpkin," wailing about "The Pumpkin" and how she made them feel: how much control would I, "The Pumpkin," have had over this? And would I have wanted to be "The Pumpkin"? No. Fucking. Thank. You.
My amom would never have done that, even if she were parenting me actively now. My other mother would not do so, either; privacy is everything to her.
So I wonder about these adopted children with their nicknames, taken from heavily sugared pastries and insects and furry animals and people of diminutive stature. Is it about creating identities for them that allow parents to show the public on the Interwebs that they're awesome parents? So loving and intimate? Because some of these parents don't ever fucking see or touch their kids. What intimacy? Puhleeze.
From where I stand, cutesy-ass foodstuffs/objects/animals seem so one-dimensional as identities, and doesn't allow these kids to be fully human. I predict that these young adoptees will struggle under the burden of the non-human THING (pastry, insect, movie-figure, what-have-you) and won't get to be who they are in this rarified atmosphere. Perhaps that's the point, though.
I don't know what the better option is; perhaps a pseudonym, an initial? I like that M calls her daughter "Ms. Feverfew."
Remember, we are HUMAN. Please DO NOT dehumanize us. It isn't "cute." It's sweet to use diminutives and nicknames in the privacy of a home, to express endearment. On the Interwebs, it's a little like making out in public to make a point about possessing a partner: gratuitous.
Many thanks to those of you who are parents and who already blog about your placed/adopted children as human beings.
I am curious to hear what other people think. I know, that because I am an adoptee, my opinions will be flamed!
Thursday, November 03, 2011
Hubris
I feel as though I cannot escape the hubris of so many pathetic people at the moment. It is horrible and haunting. At the best of times, you can stand back and just await the sure hand of Nemesis, but she is slow moving these days, and I feel claustrophobic looking all around me at the idiocy.
I am sure that many of you know all about hubris, but some of you don't, so bear with me while I explain. Those wonderful ancient Greeks had fabulous concepts for bad behavior. Hubris, defined by my trusty old Attic Greek-English lexicon, describes it loosely as being violently overbearing, or stepping above one's station to the detriment of another (violating them). Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, describes it as "doing and saying things that cause shame to the victim...simply for the pleasure of it." Sound familiar, readers?
Lots of this in adopto-land, especially leveled at adoptees. I wish in my life recently it had been confined to adopto-land, but that's another story.
First, with the death of Steve Jobs, there has been much discussion about how his being adopted influenced his life and career. Most people can accept that his being adopted had something to do with the formation of his personality. Even he mentioned how being adopted informed his choices in his Stanford speech in 2005, whether we take that as myth-making or not. Certainly, he searched for his family and had ongoing relationships with his mother and sister. Yes, he was a prickly character and was well known for being hard to get along with. Many CEOs share that quality. But there are some people, namely the "scientists" with the blinders on, who have written that being adopted and losing his family can have had NOTHING to do with his personality because he was simply a product of his time, and all those other assholes are assholes, and look at Donald Trump, who isn't adopted. Well, "scientists," trying to erase Steve Jobs' own life and story and narrative is hubristic. He said that his natural family mattered, and if his intimate partner said that his personality was like shattered glass because of his being adopted, I take her account over all those NCFA-sponsored "studies" that show adoptees are all right because they find homes before six months of age. I love that Steve Jobs was an asshole because I am sure he didn't waste his time worrying about people like the cabal, and as I wrote elsewhere, I invoke the Steve Jobs asshole option from here on out. As C said, as well, "Stop being so 'nice.' It's bad for your health." She is soooo right. And I am making progress. I say "NO!" much more often, and more loudly.
Over the past few months, the same old factions have realigned. There are wonderful APs, but their first concerns are making things palatable for other APs. They don't want to get too dirty with us for fear of scaring off potentially "nice" other APs. Fair enough, I get it. We hew to our own.
There are some fmoms who really will go the distance with us, and I am so happy to have them in our corner. But I am also tired of being hung out to dry by the fmoms who can only hear their own pain. When I began talking to my own fmom I would walk on eggshells and worry that she would hang up on me when I would mention my APs because the most vociferous ones in blogland would always mention that talk of APs was like a stab to their hearts, etc. I would backpedal and sweat and worry that I had offended her, and prostrate myself. She, by contrast, is a person who seems to have dealt with her shit, or at least isn't laying it on me like a ton of bricks. At one point during all my freakout worry when I mentioned the drama, she basically said, "What were you supposed to do, raise yourself?" And it was done. She recognizes that the past is the past, I am who I am because I combine what she gave me and what my APs gave me, and that's just how it is. So there's no drama. It's such a relief. She reminds me so much of my dear Lori C! No more holding hostage or shaming me for using the "wrong" words. As an fmom you may have had no choice, you may have had a gun to your head, it may have been the worst day of your life, but I wasn't there, I am not your kid, I love both my moms, and I am okay with that. I know you have your own pain, and it's your pain, not my pain. I can't absolve you, I won't play the pain game. I am sorry that you're sad, I can support you, but please don't displace your anger onto me.
But really, who will stand up for adoptees, as when an unbelievable AP woman (I cannot bring myself to call her "mother") posted a picture of her beautiful daughter, adopted from Asia, pulling at her eyes and asking, "Mommy, do I look Chinese?" What. The. Fuck? (Read Joy's response to it. I don't want to link to this woman's blog and give her traffic. Yuck.) And when called out on her racism, she told reasonable people, including a Taiwanese international adoptee, to "take a chill pill"? Where do these people come from, and how do they pass home studies? Oh yeah, the money part. HUBRIS. She has lots of it. She kept telling us she wouldn't listen because Von and Mei-Ling weren't being polite (they were) but exactly how polite, for how long, can you be to a racist person who is degrading you? In my mind, you shouldn't be polite at all. That's an unreasonable request, and one meant to further degrade you and silence you, US. And in the end, who was arguing? It was only adoptees. No APs, no first parents. Just adoptees. And the racist woman's Greek chorus of racist friends. Horrific. There was no point in arguing, because there was no listening, just accusations and defensiveness. Dialogue is impossible with such people. It breaks my heart, but my heart is always broken at such times. This poor little beautiful girl will grow up and know her mother degraded her on the Internet. What a horrible thing to bear, and what's worse is that her mother is blind to it. Willfully so.
The upshot is that I have triple the resolve to take care of my own tribe. We adoptees are all we have. I see, more than ever, that we are still the commodity, still the silenced part of the "constellation," still the plaything out there that people seem to want to shame like a toy, a non-human. Well, fuck that. I *am * a human, a smart human, and a human with a voice who very much refuses to be a doormat. I might not have the balls of Steve Jobs, but I will pretend that I have his training balls.
And those of you who are acting hubristically: there is punishment. Beware your lack of insight and compassion. There is always Nemesis, who brings about divine retribution if your infractions displease the gods. Maybe you will overstep that boundary. Maybe you are Christian, and don't believe in all this. If so, do you believe that shaming people for pleasure is something that Jesus would think was appropriate?
Thank you, Joy, for stirring me to write again.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Lineage
When I was eight and living in England, I discovered a wonderful series of children's books written by Lucy M. Boston about children of a family living in an expansive old castle called Green Knowe, originally built at the time of the Conquest. I devoured these books, but remained enchanted above all by the very first one, The Children of Green Knowe. It chronicles one Christmas holiday, when a little boy of seven is shuffled off to his unknown Great-grandmother Oldknow, who lives in the castle. The boy, Tolly, is an only child, his mother dead; he has been living at boarding school, abandoned for all intents and purposes by his father, who has remarried and lives somewhere off in the Empire with the stepmother. Tolly knows little about his mother's family, and it is this lineage he discovers when he goes to visit Green Knowe.
I cannot tell you how many times I have read The Children of Green Knowe. But not once in the past 11 years, and not once since I faced all of my own adoption demons or really contemplated my losses. Wow. I have absolutely no idea how I read the book so many times as a child without sobbing uncontrollably. I have no memories at all of my own feelings as I read this book 100+ times. Which is very strange. I was talking to my husband about this, and his answer: "I am sure that you numbed yourself up. You were young. You had no hope then of finding your family. It was all a fantasy for you, so maybe you lived through Tolly?" Maybe.
'Come along in,' said Mr Boggis. 'I'll show you in. I'd like to see Mrs Oldknow's face when she sees you.'....
'So you've come back! she said, smiling, as he came forward, and he found himself leaning against her shoulder as if he knew her quite well.
'Why do you say "come back"?' he asked, not at all shy.
'I wondered whose face it would be of all the faces I knew, she said. 'They always come back. You are like another Toseland, your grandfather. What a good thing you have the right name, because I should always be calling you Tolly anyway. I used to call him Tolly.'
Did I fantasize about going back, being recognized? I wish I could remember, but it's all blocked out.
I do remember walking through stately home after stately home with my parents, looking at portraits and the collections of likenesses and seeing how important bloodlines were, and feeling that I was a changeling. I could have been anyone, anything. Were these my people? Maybe. Maybe not. There was no way to know. I did lots of fantastic thinking, lots of pretending, lots of searching for likenesses, lots of dreaming about the heroics of Van Dyck's Cavaliers. Perhaps that's when I developed my interest in portraiture that's endured to this day. Interesting thought.
As a footnote: I was very pleasantly surprised to find myself related through C, albeit distantly, to another one of my favorite English children's authors, Edith Nesbit. It was an incredibly wonderful gift to find I share her bloodline. She is the inspiration for one of the chapters of my dissertation. ;-)
Now off to work to help some new individuals enter into the world and start their own journeys.
I cannot tell you how many times I have read The Children of Green Knowe. But not once in the past 11 years, and not once since I faced all of my own adoption demons or really contemplated my losses. Wow. I have absolutely no idea how I read the book so many times as a child without sobbing uncontrollably. I have no memories at all of my own feelings as I read this book 100+ times. Which is very strange. I was talking to my husband about this, and his answer: "I am sure that you numbed yourself up. You were young. You had no hope then of finding your family. It was all a fantasy for you, so maybe you lived through Tolly?" Maybe.
'Come along in,' said Mr Boggis. 'I'll show you in. I'd like to see Mrs Oldknow's face when she sees you.'....
'So you've come back! she said, smiling, as he came forward, and he found himself leaning against her shoulder as if he knew her quite well.
'Why do you say "come back"?' he asked, not at all shy.
'I wondered whose face it would be of all the faces I knew, she said. 'They always come back. You are like another Toseland, your grandfather. What a good thing you have the right name, because I should always be calling you Tolly anyway. I used to call him Tolly.'
Did I fantasize about going back, being recognized? I wish I could remember, but it's all blocked out.
I do remember walking through stately home after stately home with my parents, looking at portraits and the collections of likenesses and seeing how important bloodlines were, and feeling that I was a changeling. I could have been anyone, anything. Were these my people? Maybe. Maybe not. There was no way to know. I did lots of fantastic thinking, lots of pretending, lots of searching for likenesses, lots of dreaming about the heroics of Van Dyck's Cavaliers. Perhaps that's when I developed my interest in portraiture that's endured to this day. Interesting thought.
As a footnote: I was very pleasantly surprised to find myself related through C, albeit distantly, to another one of my favorite English children's authors, Edith Nesbit. It was an incredibly wonderful gift to find I share her bloodline. She is the inspiration for one of the chapters of my dissertation. ;-)
Now off to work to help some new individuals enter into the world and start their own journeys.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Irritations
I have been standing up for myself, which is new for me, but long overdue.
As I mentioned last month, I had a repeat of the radio-frequency ablation of my celiac plexus that went badly, and the fellow hadn't done his homework before the procedure. I went to see the attending, and coached by my brother and my friend Katie, I asked to speak to the attending alone, I explained why I thought it was bad form, and unsafe, that the fellow hadn't read my chart. Of course, the attending had all kinds of rebuttals, but I stood firm, and used my RN skills and experience to rebut right back. As a patient I just didn't feel safe having an MD not know my story, my risks, my reasons for the procedure. How could he answer questions that I posed if he was unprepared? If he needed to prep, he could do so outside the room, before entered to consent me. It was shoddy. End of story. I know I was a thorn in the side of the attending. I don't care. It's not my job to be easy. I am living with a giant medical mistake, and it sucks. Fuck them.
Then at work, I had a difficult assignment one night, including a patient with twins in preterm labor. She was in pain and had terrible edema (swelling) from the waist down. Her covering MD was the perinatologist, whom I like very much, but he was scrubbing into a case in the OR when I had time to call him to ask him to assess her and see if I could get an order for pain meds. He asked me to call the second MD on call, who was, horrors, the MD who had delivered Tobey and left amniotic sac inside me and who is rude and likes to torture RNs. I sighed, took vitals, lined everything up and braced myself. I called him on our intercom devices and asked if we could talk. He responded snidely, as usual, and asked me to call him on the triage phone. I decided that I would walk to triage, rather than risk him hanging up on me. So I walked to triage and stood there, while he talked to other RNs, and he ignored, ignored, ignored, ignored, ignored me. Five minuted later, I begged for an audience, and he said, "I told you to call me." I went on to talk about my patient, he asked for vitals, which I responded were normal, and he berated me about hypertension/hypotension, as if I don't know the difference, and I walked out. I couldn't stand the treatment anymore. I walked to my Charge RN, and told her that the MD was not engaging with me and had basically told me to fuck off. He came after me and told her that I (!) was acting inappropriately and that she should assign a new RN. At that point, I lost it. No more "nice" Kara. It was liberating! I know it probably wasn't the place or time, but at some point, people need to know that they cannot just stomp on people because they are tired or angry or have low blood sugar. If he was busy, all he had to say was, "Kara, I will come to the room in 10/20/30 minutes. Call me sooner if her condition deteriorates." Fine. That would have been GREAT. But no, the passive-aggressive shit was out of control, and I WAS NOT TAKING IT. And at some point, I WILL have it out with him, privately, about how he needs to come down off his holier-than-thou doctor perch because he made one hell of a huge mistake with ME as the patient. I showed him compassion by not suing his ass. So fucking show ME some compassion on the floor.
I have also been thinking a great deal about losses, sadness, and respect. My life has changed radically for the better having my first mother back in my life. The more we talk, the more I find that we have in common: we lived very similar lives into our twenties. The more I share with her, the more I find that I am able to let go of my past, the things I have been holding onto so tightly. When I tell her about things I thought I wanted so much, she says, "Why?" and all of a sudden, it's true: I have permission to open my hands and let the cares fly away. How is it that she can understand me so well without knowing me? If I have no bond with her? If, as my husband likes to describe the empiricists' worldview, the uterus is made of inert metal and the fetus develops independently of its mother, unaffected by anything? It's fucking absurd. Thanks, I needed a good laugh this morning.
Ah, yes, and the feeding. Yes, feeding is important. How we feed and nurture babies is extremely important. But the first nine months that the fetus develops within the uterus is also important (hence my previous comment about the uterus not being made of inert metal, and the influence of hormones, etc.). Yes, I am certain that the future of science with reveal all kinds of things about the effects of the intrauterine environment on fetal brain development. We don't know those effects now, but to say they don't exist is ridiculous. I speak about skin-to-skin and protocols and the importance of mother and newborn bonding because that's my job at work. There is science behind such protocols, and the peanut gallery loves to pelt with peanuts because they say I don't know my science. In the postpartum units at work, and in most hospitals, RNs work closely with mothers and babies on feeding, and hold classes, to make sure that feeding is working well. Eye-to-eye contact is important for that formation of attachment between caregivers and babies. Propping up bottles and lack of body contact isn't good for forming attachment. No. Agreed. We need to continue to work with parents on that. My husband was terrible with that and I had to take him to task over and over. He has his own issues with his family, being German, and not knowing how to be intimate with children or anyone for that matter. We were talking about that this morning, and he said that he's horribly sad for missing out on that with our children, because he will never get that time back.
Then I think about my own case. My mother was very stressed out during her pregnancy. I was born. My mother left. I was in the NICU. I had no primary caretaker for 10 weeks. I was probably propped up with a bottle, or an RN fed me, attentively or distractedly--who knows? I was given phenobarbitol to shut me up to stop me from crying sometimes. I was in foster care. When my aparents came to meet me at the agency, I was brought in with a bottle that had a hole that was huge, and that I had to gulp from or drown on the formula. My amom said it made her want to cry. From the beginning, she said I didn't want to cuddle, unless I was exhausted. I was always pushing away, "wanting to explore the world." Was it that, or did I already react against close touch? Who knows? I did bond to my parents, and I love them unreservedly, but I am also hugely anxious and worry about people leaving me all the time. To this day. I think I am invisible. To this day. Some of my anxiety is probably genetic, but some of it is undoubtedly shaped by my early experiences of loss and not having a primary caregiver. Because I have probably some of the best aparents anyone could have, and I got them at 10 weeks old, if anything is "fixable"--because a child who is adopted before six months should be "fixable"--why wasn't I "fixed"? As in "issue free," just fine, no problems? I was told I was adopted from the beginning, so everything was fine according to the empirical plan. I didn't find out about the Primal Wound until I was 40. It's not like Nancy Verrier screwed me up all my life, I bowed to a cult of authority, and I am blind to reality. This is what I have LIVED. It's my truth.
No. I feel that reuniting with my mother and my brother put me on a path that has led me out of a dark valley, and now I stand on a ridge, looking down. I knew I was lost and anxious and depressed and sad, but I had no idea I was in that valley, and how blind and depressed I was for all of those years. How much sadness I had repressed, or how much anger and how much self-hatred I had. I asked for help, but no one knew how to help me because no one believed it had anything to do with my adoption. Just like the empiricists STILL want to say it doesn't. It has meant the world to me to have C acknowledge me as a person. I think that has a great deal to do with my ability to stand up for myself in a way I have not been able to do so before.
Being adopted before six months didn't "fix" me. Finding my family didn't "fix" me. There is no "fixing" me. What's broken is broken, but I can move ahead with the help of people who care about me.
If some people are unaffected by adoption, that is their gift. More power to them.
As I mentioned last month, I had a repeat of the radio-frequency ablation of my celiac plexus that went badly, and the fellow hadn't done his homework before the procedure. I went to see the attending, and coached by my brother and my friend Katie, I asked to speak to the attending alone, I explained why I thought it was bad form, and unsafe, that the fellow hadn't read my chart. Of course, the attending had all kinds of rebuttals, but I stood firm, and used my RN skills and experience to rebut right back. As a patient I just didn't feel safe having an MD not know my story, my risks, my reasons for the procedure. How could he answer questions that I posed if he was unprepared? If he needed to prep, he could do so outside the room, before entered to consent me. It was shoddy. End of story. I know I was a thorn in the side of the attending. I don't care. It's not my job to be easy. I am living with a giant medical mistake, and it sucks. Fuck them.
Then at work, I had a difficult assignment one night, including a patient with twins in preterm labor. She was in pain and had terrible edema (swelling) from the waist down. Her covering MD was the perinatologist, whom I like very much, but he was scrubbing into a case in the OR when I had time to call him to ask him to assess her and see if I could get an order for pain meds. He asked me to call the second MD on call, who was, horrors, the MD who had delivered Tobey and left amniotic sac inside me and who is rude and likes to torture RNs. I sighed, took vitals, lined everything up and braced myself. I called him on our intercom devices and asked if we could talk. He responded snidely, as usual, and asked me to call him on the triage phone. I decided that I would walk to triage, rather than risk him hanging up on me. So I walked to triage and stood there, while he talked to other RNs, and he ignored, ignored, ignored, ignored, ignored me. Five minuted later, I begged for an audience, and he said, "I told you to call me." I went on to talk about my patient, he asked for vitals, which I responded were normal, and he berated me about hypertension/hypotension, as if I don't know the difference, and I walked out. I couldn't stand the treatment anymore. I walked to my Charge RN, and told her that the MD was not engaging with me and had basically told me to fuck off. He came after me and told her that I (!) was acting inappropriately and that she should assign a new RN. At that point, I lost it. No more "nice" Kara. It was liberating! I know it probably wasn't the place or time, but at some point, people need to know that they cannot just stomp on people because they are tired or angry or have low blood sugar. If he was busy, all he had to say was, "Kara, I will come to the room in 10/20/30 minutes. Call me sooner if her condition deteriorates." Fine. That would have been GREAT. But no, the passive-aggressive shit was out of control, and I WAS NOT TAKING IT. And at some point, I WILL have it out with him, privately, about how he needs to come down off his holier-than-thou doctor perch because he made one hell of a huge mistake with ME as the patient. I showed him compassion by not suing his ass. So fucking show ME some compassion on the floor.
I have also been thinking a great deal about losses, sadness, and respect. My life has changed radically for the better having my first mother back in my life. The more we talk, the more I find that we have in common: we lived very similar lives into our twenties. The more I share with her, the more I find that I am able to let go of my past, the things I have been holding onto so tightly. When I tell her about things I thought I wanted so much, she says, "Why?" and all of a sudden, it's true: I have permission to open my hands and let the cares fly away. How is it that she can understand me so well without knowing me? If I have no bond with her? If, as my husband likes to describe the empiricists' worldview, the uterus is made of inert metal and the fetus develops independently of its mother, unaffected by anything? It's fucking absurd. Thanks, I needed a good laugh this morning.
Ah, yes, and the feeding. Yes, feeding is important. How we feed and nurture babies is extremely important. But the first nine months that the fetus develops within the uterus is also important (hence my previous comment about the uterus not being made of inert metal, and the influence of hormones, etc.). Yes, I am certain that the future of science with reveal all kinds of things about the effects of the intrauterine environment on fetal brain development. We don't know those effects now, but to say they don't exist is ridiculous. I speak about skin-to-skin and protocols and the importance of mother and newborn bonding because that's my job at work. There is science behind such protocols, and the peanut gallery loves to pelt with peanuts because they say I don't know my science. In the postpartum units at work, and in most hospitals, RNs work closely with mothers and babies on feeding, and hold classes, to make sure that feeding is working well. Eye-to-eye contact is important for that formation of attachment between caregivers and babies. Propping up bottles and lack of body contact isn't good for forming attachment. No. Agreed. We need to continue to work with parents on that. My husband was terrible with that and I had to take him to task over and over. He has his own issues with his family, being German, and not knowing how to be intimate with children or anyone for that matter. We were talking about that this morning, and he said that he's horribly sad for missing out on that with our children, because he will never get that time back.
Then I think about my own case. My mother was very stressed out during her pregnancy. I was born. My mother left. I was in the NICU. I had no primary caretaker for 10 weeks. I was probably propped up with a bottle, or an RN fed me, attentively or distractedly--who knows? I was given phenobarbitol to shut me up to stop me from crying sometimes. I was in foster care. When my aparents came to meet me at the agency, I was brought in with a bottle that had a hole that was huge, and that I had to gulp from or drown on the formula. My amom said it made her want to cry. From the beginning, she said I didn't want to cuddle, unless I was exhausted. I was always pushing away, "wanting to explore the world." Was it that, or did I already react against close touch? Who knows? I did bond to my parents, and I love them unreservedly, but I am also hugely anxious and worry about people leaving me all the time. To this day. I think I am invisible. To this day. Some of my anxiety is probably genetic, but some of it is undoubtedly shaped by my early experiences of loss and not having a primary caregiver. Because I have probably some of the best aparents anyone could have, and I got them at 10 weeks old, if anything is "fixable"--because a child who is adopted before six months should be "fixable"--why wasn't I "fixed"? As in "issue free," just fine, no problems? I was told I was adopted from the beginning, so everything was fine according to the empirical plan. I didn't find out about the Primal Wound until I was 40. It's not like Nancy Verrier screwed me up all my life, I bowed to a cult of authority, and I am blind to reality. This is what I have LIVED. It's my truth.
No. I feel that reuniting with my mother and my brother put me on a path that has led me out of a dark valley, and now I stand on a ridge, looking down. I knew I was lost and anxious and depressed and sad, but I had no idea I was in that valley, and how blind and depressed I was for all of those years. How much sadness I had repressed, or how much anger and how much self-hatred I had. I asked for help, but no one knew how to help me because no one believed it had anything to do with my adoption. Just like the empiricists STILL want to say it doesn't. It has meant the world to me to have C acknowledge me as a person. I think that has a great deal to do with my ability to stand up for myself in a way I have not been able to do so before.
Being adopted before six months didn't "fix" me. Finding my family didn't "fix" me. There is no "fixing" me. What's broken is broken, but I can move ahead with the help of people who care about me.
If some people are unaffected by adoption, that is their gift. More power to them.
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