The Sound Of Silence

Of Humans and Animals

So my crazy adoptive mother got herself a new dog. I'm always going to have issues with her and her dogs because they became more important to her than me starting about the time I was 13. That said, I couldn't help noticing in the email she sent me about said new dog, all the language similar to that used by human adopters.

Apparently this dog was "abandoned," was in "foster care," and is now with my adoptive mother in its "forever home." All of that sounds suspiciously like how we talk about relinquished infants/children.

I got email from her entitled "Hailey's forever home pictures" (the dog is apparently named Hailey) with photos attached. Gag.  In my experience only people who have never had biological children of their own think having an animal is the same thing.

 

Living on Red Alert

Paul Sunderland talks about it in his video. Tonight my wife wanted to rearrange some stuff in preparation for the impending arrival of our new baby. One of these changes involved moving my treadmill to a location where I would have my back to one of the doors leading outside. I basically lost it, I'd be way too uncomfortable with it in such a position to actually use it. I'd like to attribute this feeling to my sixteen years as a police officer but really I had these feelings before that. I wonder if I was attracted to the job in part because my constant vigilance is normal behavior in that circle? Then, of course, I started thinking "wow, I am nuts, no wonder no one wanted me." Isn't adoption fun?

Healing Series: Anger

The Adoptee Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday.  Like many adoptees my birthday has traditionally not been a particularly happy day in my life.  Up until recently I never knew why that was, but it always felt wrong.  Mostly I spend it torn between wanting to forget it is happening and hoping the people close to me will recognize it.  This year was somewhat different because I was visiting my mom and family.  So, there was something more of a celebration than there is historically.  It was a nice change and I had a good time.  I wish my wife and kids could have been there also, but otherwise I couldn’t ask for more.

There has to be a catch right, otherwise why am I making this post?  The catch, as it often is, is my adoptive parents.  On Sunday (the day before my birthday) I got a call from my adoptive mother that my adoptive father was in the hospital.  His health has been pretty bad for the last several years so that news didn’t come as a particular surprise.  I spent a lot of time over the last couple of days wondering if I needed to go there and trying to get more information about his condition so I could make that decision.  Each time I talked to her she told me I didn’t need to come and when I talked to him he sounded better than he has recently.  I eventually decided not to go there.

When she called me on Sunday evening my adoptive mother said something like “happy birthday for tomorrow.”  Once she said that she told me briefly about my father’s condition and then told me about her ailments and how many people were around to help her.  She assured me that she was fine, though why she thought I would be more concerned about her than him I am not clear on.  I talked to her three times yesterday (twice after she failed to call me after getting new information despite telling me she would call if she found out anything new).  She never once mentioned my birthday.  I talked him once.  He also didn’t mention my birthday (though this is understandable since he is in the hospital).  I talked to her again today on my way home, again no mention of my birthday. 

Normally my adoptive mother sends me a couple of (usually creepy) ecards for my birthday and also mails one.  When I got home today no birthday card had arrived nor had I received any ecards. I can understand the lack of ecards (if she is concerned about him) but a mailed birthday card would have been sent prior to his hospitalization.  I can only assume that my birthday simply isn’t that important to her.  He husband also doesn’t seem to be that important to her as she has yet to visit him in the hospital. 

This is just one example in many of how she has been indifferent to me over the years.  I’d be a lot more likely to understand if everything with my father had caused it, but it doesn’t actually seem to be related.  I’ve always felt like I wasn’t a priority to her and this is just one example of why.

I’m very glad I have my natural family now.  I always enjoy the time spent with them.  Unfortunately every visit there is also somewhat melancholy because of all the family pictures I am not in, the family anecdotes I don’t know, and the experiences I didn’t share.  Combine that with the traditional birthday depression I tend to get and being basically ignored by my adoptive family and I end up posting here whining about it.  Thanks adoption. 

Shame

I haven’t written anything in a while.  That isn’t because I was suddenly “cured” of my various issues; I just didn’t have anything new to say.  I’m not sure I have anything new now but I still feel like it is time to write something.  The last couple of days have been hard, not for any particular reason that I can identify, but hard all the same.  Perhaps it is because my birthday is approaching, perhaps because I hate the winter, perhaps because the holidays are over, or perhaps some of all of that.  Maybe someone knows but I sure don’t.

I did come to something of a realization recently.  I hate having my picture taken, I hate looking at pictures with me in them, and when I am forced to take a picture in a group I always try and work my way into the back so I cannot be seen as well.  I also hate mirrors and seeing myself in them.  I’ve always felt that way, at least as well as I can remember, but I have never really thought about why.  I don’t know for sure that any of these issues have anything to do with adoption but based on some reading I have done I believe it is a possibility.  I think I am ashamed that I exist and therefore don’t want records of my existence created through photographs or to be reminded of it when I look in a mirror.  This is probably something I should discuss in counseling; now that it has occurred to me perhaps I will bring it up. 

There is more, but right now it just seems too much like whining.  There are plenty of people much worse off than I am so I think I have whined enough for now.  I should be doing homework anyway.

Nancy Verrier Interview Pt 3

Nancy Verrier Interview Pt 2

Nancy Verrier Interview Pt 1

A link worth a look

The writing below is excellent,  better than anything I could hope to turn out.  It is, of course, adoption related.

Worth a look

Of 42 and Fish...

I got some good news today; my youngest brother and his girlfriend are engaged.  The wedding is in September of next year.  So, I already have an excuse to plan a trip out there then, not that I really need an excuse.  With this news comes the usual adoptee feeling of “great, another happy event/piece of news to make me sad.”  I don’t want to give the impression that I am not happy for my brother, I am very happy for him.  I am already looking forward to going to the wedding and celebrating with my people.  This will likely be an opportunity to meet some extended family I have only heard about and of course it will mean having everyone together.  Sounds great doesn’t it?  I am sure it will be.

So, why is there a “but?”  Well, there isn’t, however there is an “and.”  The “and” is what clubbed me over the head today; it is the same one that does it to me most of the time.  The “and” covers all the similar events I missed in the past.  I missed the engagements and weddings of both of my sisters (or all three of my sisters if one chooses to count the one I haven’t met on my biological father’s side- I can’t decide if I count her or not, she clearly doesn’t count me).  It also covers the awkwardness I always seem to feel because I don’t know people I should know.  I don’t mean just extended family (though of course they are part of it), but also the family I should have been with and should know much better than I do. 

I leave in a couple of days to spend Thanksgiving with them.  This is the first “major holiday” I will be spending with them.  I expect it will be one of many to come.  I hope that means it will eventually just be a happy time.  I don’t want to jinx it, but this is something that has been on my mind as the day approaches so perhaps writing about it will excise it to one extent of another.  I missed 42 of these (does it mean something that it is 42?  I don’t know where my towel is right at the moment after all).  I am thankful I won’t be missing 43 and also sad (there is that and again) that I missed the 42.  Of course that also translates to 42 Christmases (and it will be 43 this year, I won’t be there for Christmas), and 43 Easters, and countless birthdays. 

So happy events that make me sad.  It seems to be the theme of the night, again.  So long and thanks for all the fish, more to come; my sincerest apologies to Douglas Adams. 

Creed - With Arms Wide Open

Being "Chosen"

There is a great myth propagated by the adoption industry and supported by many adoptive parents that adoptees are somehow “special” because they are “chosen”.  I found myself wondering today if I might feel less bad about my experience as an adoptee if I actually had been chosen as opposed to being a single offering; take him or leave him.  Obviously that isn’t something I can find an answer to, but it is an interesting question.

There is a book called “The Chosen Baby” that is about adoption and is aimed at adopted children.  It was (and perhaps still is) recommend as a way to tell ones’ adopted child he or she is adopted.  I suppose it is possible that at some point in adoption’s past there we so many babies available for adoption that adopting parents had a choice of babies.  That was not the case when I was adopted in 1973 and it certainly isn’t the case now (I am speaking of infant adoptions, for older children there is likely some ability to choose).  The only choice my adoptive parents had was whether or not to say yes when I was offered.  Saying no was technically an option but they likely assumed (and would have been correct) that couples who turn down babies don’t get offered babies again.  They did not get to go to a home and pick out the “best” infant from a multitude; they were offered me and accepted.   They made no choice past “yes” or “no”.

Infants are given up for a myriad of justifications.  They all basically boil down to one reason though, we (the adoptees) were not as important to someone who would have been instrumental in keeping us with our natural families as some other concern.  In my case the people who should have had my best interests at heart but didn’t were my father and grandmother.  Other things were more important to them than I was.  They didn’t “love me so much they gave me away” (a justification we often hear from the adoption industry), instead they didn’t love me enough (or perhaps at all) to keep me.

So, was I or are any of us “chosen”?  No, that is simply a cover word used to deny reality.  The reality is that in order to be available for adoption the people who were supposed to care for us decided something else was more important.  The only choice made in relation to me was the choice to make “not being embarrassed” and “not being tied down” more important than me.  That is, unfortunately, the reality of adoption and adoptees live with it every day.  In many of us it creates lifelong feelings that we are not good enough or not worthy.  That is the reality behind being “chosen”.

The Verve Pipe - The Freshmen

Purchase or Person?

There have been a couple of interviews posted to AdopteesOn since mine.  I’ve listened to all the interviews there and all have had an impact on me in one way or another.  I’ve also heard a little bit of my story in each of them.  The more recent of them, as of this writing, was the second male interviewed, Davis.  His interview was very interesting and parts of it sounded very familiar.  However, he also recorded a reading of something he wrote earlier entitled “Am I blood or am I Water”.  I’m linking it here because I found it to be very powerful.  It also sounded very familiar.

It occurred to me after listening to Davis’ interview and reading that I have always felt like property rather than family when it came to my adoptive “family”.  Something was always wrong there.  It was more than just having a different sense of humor, a different way of looking at things, and not having physical features in common with them.  I never felt like a real member of the family, or any family.  It has taken me a long time to even start to figure some of this out and I have to provide special thanks to Davis and Haley Radke for helping bring it to my attention.

I’ve written before that I had a hard time, and still have a hard time, conceptualizing my birth.  I know logically I must have been born like everyone else.  My mom has told me the story, the story I didn’t have for 42 years, so I know it happened.  Even so, I spent the vast majority of my life feeling like I had just popped into existence at 3 ½ months.  Knowing how it began hasn’t helped that feeling to go away and I think that is part of the reason I always felt like property.  My adoptive mother was (and still is unfortunately) fond of saying that I “Cost $15”.  Given my inability to believe in my birth and constantly being told I was purchased by my adoptive mother I developed this feeling that I wasn’t a person but a purchase.  Purchases, unlike people, get returned or discarded if they don’t work out.  I never felt like I worked out in my adoptive “family”.  I also never felt like I had a family.  Go figure.

Davis can be found here:

Am I Blood or am I Water