Being so far divorced from the experience of living adoption, many Normies think it's appropriate to lecture or try to "teach" us about how it feels to be adopted. It's comical really, considering how far outside their capability for understanding the very idea of being adopted really is.
"But I have a friend who is adopted, and they're just fine!"
I doubt that. I REALLY doubt that.
I always look "fine" on the outside too, even if you know me really well. Paul Sunderland can be quoted as saying something like, "Adoptees can test off-the-charts depressed, and still smile, laugh, and function like they are "just fine"." It's absolutely true. We are well-trained in the art of subverting our real feelings, especially those about our adoptions.
I learned very early in life, as many adoptees do, that how I really felt was not only of absolutely no value, but also unwanted and inappropriate. If I was unhappy, I was making everyone around me unhappy. It was deliberate, to make "mom" unhappy. I was overly-sensitive, "taking things too personally". Too soft-hearted. I was using my tears to manipulate those in authority, to shirk my responsibilities, and I needed to stop crying before they gave me something to cry about.
I learned that keeping up appearances was job one. Keep "mom" happy. Keep that nylon smile pulled tight over your face, because she wasn't happy if I wasn't ecstatic myself. If I didn't "appreciate" her parenting or provisions properly, I wasn't worthy of kindness or even acknowledgement most of the time. "Mom" was the queen of the silent treatment/cold shoulder.
I learned not to talk about my adoption. I learned to hide my feelings about it. I hid them so well, in fact, that when the subject of my adoption would come up, my rote response to the standard apologies was, "It's OK, it doesn't bother me.", all the while humming the themesong to "I Dream of Jeannie" in my head to drown out adoption in both word and thought. I believed it didn't bother me while I was searching the mirror for resemblances to my "mom". I believed it didn't bother me when I was searching every box and drawer in her house for any information she had hidden away about my adoption. I genuinely believed being adopted didn't bother me when I was trying to hang myself in my closet at eight years old. Whenever adoption came up, I put my head down, shut my mouth, and tried to tune it out.
Even in therapy, my feelings were not appropriate or proper. They were flawed, and to be corrected until I felt proper feelings; until I felt how adopted children are "supposed to feel". My misery was not to be validated and dealt with in a healthy fashion. It was to be fixed and reorganized until I felt happy, lucky, and grateful. My "therapist" told my "mother" everything I said, so that she could "police and correct" my "faulty, flawed emotions". This was an early incarnation of what is now termed "RAD Therapy".
And no one ever guessed how miserable I was. My closest friends at the time now say things like, "I knew something was off," did you? I doubt that. "but your family always looked so happy." Now that part I believe. We always LOOKED so happy. Or, "I thought something was wrong, your life was too perfect."
"Your family looked so happy."
"Your life was too perfect."
"Your mom was always so cool."
I've even heard from people who grew up with me, "I don't believe you. Your mom was a kind and generous woman. How dare you say these awful things about her."
I learned early that her happiness was the happiness that mattered. That's why I was there. I was there to be the child she always wanted. And when I messed up, I wasn't the child she always wanted, and it terrified me. While I was terrified of her, what scared me most was that by screwing up, by being imperfect, I was giving her permission to leave me. I was making it easier for her to "send me back". She didn't have to say it aloud (though she sometimes said it anyway), it was implicit. It was always just there. Some part of me always knew I was expendable.
But it didn't bother me at all. I was TOTALLY OK with being adopted. I was so Ok with it that I almost never spoke of it around my peers. In fact, most of the kids I grew up with forgot I was adopted at all. Even with the only other adopted kid in the county, adoption wasn't a subject of conversation. It didn't bother us that we were adopted, you see. We were "just fine". Never mind the risky behaviors we participated in, or our desperate bids for attention and affection. I personally fell hard for the first boy who showed me any real affection and took to drinking and popping pills. But being adopted didn't bother me. I was "just fine". I mean, maybe the parents I got WERE "better" than the ones I would have had otherwise. Hell, if you caught me on the right day, I would have told you they were pretty great, and I was "lucky" to have them. And in those moments, I believed it. Just as much as I believe now that I was lied to, manipulated, and gaslighted into believing it.
Not believing it would have torn me apart. I had to believe it, really commit to the illusion, to survive. I had to believe it so they could believe it. What they believed, what society believed, was what mattered.
I had to believe it so they could believe it. Chew on that for a moment.
When I did dare to feel unhappy, no one understood it, least of all myself. What did I have to feel unhappy about? I was "lucky". I wrote endless poems about feeling lost and drifting. Chalked up to teen angst. I wrote short stories about young mothers struggling to parent. Adoption was never a part of those stories. Little did I know. I wrote about unrequited and unconditional love. I wrote about the stranglehold my "mother" carefully kept on me.
Teen angst indeed. And all those babies who won't stop screaming right after they are "placed" just have colic. Right.
Sure. Angst. RAD. Colic.
Never the real culprit. ADOPTION.
But being adopted didn't bother me. I was "just fine". "Grateful", even.
"But I have a friend who is adopted, and they're just fine!"
I doubt that. I REALLY doubt that.
I always look "fine" on the outside too, even if you know me really well. Paul Sunderland can be quoted as saying something like, "Adoptees can test off-the-charts depressed, and still smile, laugh, and function like they are "just fine"." It's absolutely true. We are well-trained in the art of subverting our real feelings, especially those about our adoptions.
I learned very early in life, as many adoptees do, that how I really felt was not only of absolutely no value, but also unwanted and inappropriate. If I was unhappy, I was making everyone around me unhappy. It was deliberate, to make "mom" unhappy. I was overly-sensitive, "taking things too personally". Too soft-hearted. I was using my tears to manipulate those in authority, to shirk my responsibilities, and I needed to stop crying before they gave me something to cry about.
I learned that keeping up appearances was job one. Keep "mom" happy. Keep that nylon smile pulled tight over your face, because she wasn't happy if I wasn't ecstatic myself. If I didn't "appreciate" her parenting or provisions properly, I wasn't worthy of kindness or even acknowledgement most of the time. "Mom" was the queen of the silent treatment/cold shoulder.
I learned not to talk about my adoption. I learned to hide my feelings about it. I hid them so well, in fact, that when the subject of my adoption would come up, my rote response to the standard apologies was, "It's OK, it doesn't bother me.", all the while humming the themesong to "I Dream of Jeannie" in my head to drown out adoption in both word and thought. I believed it didn't bother me while I was searching the mirror for resemblances to my "mom". I believed it didn't bother me when I was searching every box and drawer in her house for any information she had hidden away about my adoption. I genuinely believed being adopted didn't bother me when I was trying to hang myself in my closet at eight years old. Whenever adoption came up, I put my head down, shut my mouth, and tried to tune it out.
Even in therapy, my feelings were not appropriate or proper. They were flawed, and to be corrected until I felt proper feelings; until I felt how adopted children are "supposed to feel". My misery was not to be validated and dealt with in a healthy fashion. It was to be fixed and reorganized until I felt happy, lucky, and grateful. My "therapist" told my "mother" everything I said, so that she could "police and correct" my "faulty, flawed emotions". This was an early incarnation of what is now termed "RAD Therapy".
And no one ever guessed how miserable I was. My closest friends at the time now say things like, "I knew something was off," did you? I doubt that. "but your family always looked so happy." Now that part I believe. We always LOOKED so happy. Or, "I thought something was wrong, your life was too perfect."
"Your family looked so happy."
"Your life was too perfect."
"Your mom was always so cool."
I've even heard from people who grew up with me, "I don't believe you. Your mom was a kind and generous woman. How dare you say these awful things about her."
I learned early that her happiness was the happiness that mattered. That's why I was there. I was there to be the child she always wanted. And when I messed up, I wasn't the child she always wanted, and it terrified me. While I was terrified of her, what scared me most was that by screwing up, by being imperfect, I was giving her permission to leave me. I was making it easier for her to "send me back". She didn't have to say it aloud (though she sometimes said it anyway), it was implicit. It was always just there. Some part of me always knew I was expendable.
But it didn't bother me at all. I was TOTALLY OK with being adopted. I was so Ok with it that I almost never spoke of it around my peers. In fact, most of the kids I grew up with forgot I was adopted at all. Even with the only other adopted kid in the county, adoption wasn't a subject of conversation. It didn't bother us that we were adopted, you see. We were "just fine". Never mind the risky behaviors we participated in, or our desperate bids for attention and affection. I personally fell hard for the first boy who showed me any real affection and took to drinking and popping pills. But being adopted didn't bother me. I was "just fine". I mean, maybe the parents I got WERE "better" than the ones I would have had otherwise. Hell, if you caught me on the right day, I would have told you they were pretty great, and I was "lucky" to have them. And in those moments, I believed it. Just as much as I believe now that I was lied to, manipulated, and gaslighted into believing it.
Not believing it would have torn me apart. I had to believe it, really commit to the illusion, to survive. I had to believe it so they could believe it. What they believed, what society believed, was what mattered.
I had to believe it so they could believe it. Chew on that for a moment.
When I did dare to feel unhappy, no one understood it, least of all myself. What did I have to feel unhappy about? I was "lucky". I wrote endless poems about feeling lost and drifting. Chalked up to teen angst. I wrote short stories about young mothers struggling to parent. Adoption was never a part of those stories. Little did I know. I wrote about unrequited and unconditional love. I wrote about the stranglehold my "mother" carefully kept on me.
Teen angst indeed. And all those babies who won't stop screaming right after they are "placed" just have colic. Right.
Sure. Angst. RAD. Colic.
Never the real culprit. ADOPTION.
But being adopted didn't bother me. I was "just fine". "Grateful", even.
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