Sour Grapes

From my all things adoption group – an adoptee after reaching maturity should not have to deal with this in her adoptive mother but I have seen such bad behavior before in one of my adoptee relative’s adoptive mother as well. So sad.

How do you help someone you love, who is on the fence and struggling, come out of the adoption fog ? Or do you even try ? The person I am talking about is going to be my daughter-in-law in less than a month. We have become close and she is great. She is only 20 years old. I’ll call her T.

T expressed to me that she was curious but scared to reach out to her birth mother. She eventually did so behind her adoptive mom’s back. Her adoptive dad has passed. She said her birth mother was very nice and she told T that she tried to make contact many times throughout the years but that the adoptive parents would block her and change their numbers. T told me she didn’t know who to believe because her adoptive mom said this was a lie. T asked me why would her adoptive mom lie and so, she tended to believe her adoptive mom over her birth mom. I gently asked her to think about who would be more motivated to lie about this.

Anyway when her adoptive mom found out that T was contacting her birth mom, she had a complete emotional breakdown and made T feel so bad. She even said maybe it was a big mistake even adopting her blah blah blah.

I met her adoptive mom last week at the bridal shower and she told me that she was totally fine with T meeting her birth mom but she would not let the birth mom emotionally abuse her with lies.

T has since blocked the birth mom on social media and says she is scared and creeped out. These situations have shoved her way back into the adoption fog. I’m so sad for her because I know that this is important for her mental health. She deals with a lot of anxiety and often struggles with her adoptive mom. T was adopted with 2 her biological sisters who also are struggling with anxiety and mental health.

What can I do with the most love to help her ? She has some leads on her biological dad but now says she is even more creeped out by him. Someone told her he may or may not have shot someone in the past. I wonder who she got that idea from?? Eye roll.

She is definitely afraid of getting in trouble with her adoptive mom (who is paying for the wedding). Her adoptive mom also helped her get a car, after T went back into the adoption fog in submission. Another Eye roll.

My own comment is simply – why do adoptive mothers behave this way once their adoptee is a grown person ? Clearly exerting financial leverage (I saw my mom’s adoptive mother do that with her). They had the child all to themselves all the child’s life. I saw this during a loved one’s (adoptee) wedding. Previously, I would never have thought that woman could be that way but . . . adoptive parents it seems also have their own triggers.

Adoptive Parents Being Bad

This is sad and cruel but this actually happened in a group of adoptive parents. Their answers will stagger you –

hugging a porcupine!

Or Superman holding cryptonite!

Trying to row a boat with one arm

Speaking a different language

Having a root canal with no anesthesia

Talking to a brick wall

Talking to a room of screaming monkeys who throw things at me

Talking to the wall and it doesn’t respond

Panning for gold

Reasoning with a rock

How repulsive. These women shouldn’t have any children in their care.

These comments occurred in what is termed a “safe space” for adoptive parents to vent their frustrations.

An adoptee shares in response to one I didn’t include above – “I dont know (cause thats the only response i get!)” that this is an adoption trauma response. If an adopted child doesn’t feel safe, they learn not to give opinions because that puts them at risk for abuse. To those who thought that whole experience was a lark (or a laugh) – Your adopted child is showing traits of trauma, that isn’t a funny joke.

One women admitted – I’ve joined some of the RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) groups. It opened my eyes to how much a large number of Adoptive Parents seem to really hate their children. And have zero clue how the typical child behaves. Always ranting and raving about how bad their “rad” is when half the behaviors are things my neurotypical zero trauma biological kids do. I’m so disgusted by these people but I can’t make myself leave the groups.

So . . . this is just one reason why adoptees are forever scarred by the experience.

Forbidden Words

One can be human and do really bad/evil things. This is a sad truth of reality and society. There is a sickness in men, sadly. It is as old as humankind and it takes what it wants whether the object of its passion is willing or not. We give that behavior names, rape, incest.

It becomes complicated when that bad behavior results in the conception of a child. In abortion language there is often an exception for this situation that allows a women to take away the physical memory embodied as a fetus and go on with her life. Of course, she will never forget regardless.

Some of these “results” end up being adopted. Some adoptees have such an unfortunate experience that they wish they had been aborted but not all adoptees feel that way. In fact, there is no one size fits all when it comes to adoption experiences.

Perpetrators are real people with real problems who do something that healthy people cannot justify. They may have stressors in their life. These may cause them to act out in inappropriate and inexcusable ways. Pretending that men who commit rape are born broken and inhuman takes away the responsibility they should still bear for their actions.

Anyone conceived in rape or incest must embrace their own inherent self-worth and insist upon their human rights. Know this – what any ancestor did whenever they did that whether it is directly related to a subsequent person or not – this is not who we are individually.

At one time, such an event would have labeled the result a bad seed with flawed genes. While it is true, we inherit much from our genetic foundation, we also have the free will to make of our own selves what we will.

The #MeToo movement is an effort to bring sexual violence out into the light of awareness so that we can begin to understand how such things happen and why such behavior is wrong and how all of us can do better.

This is not a blog for or against abortion. It is a plea to give all people, including adoptees regardless of their origin story, human rights – dignity, heritage, truth.