Lacking Permanency

After I learned who my original grandparents were (both of my parents were adopted and died knowing effectively nothing about their own familial roots), I began to learn about the impacts of adoption. I read a really good book on this subject – The Primal Wound by Nancy Newton Verrier (definitely highly recommended for anyone else who is interested in understanding). I also joined a group about adoption that is all about facing the realities. Member of the whole triad of original parents, adoptees and adoptive parents belong to this group and I have learned a lot about the issues from the diversity.

From letters written by my adoptive grandmother in the late 1930s to the Tennessee Children’s Home staff – Fanny Elrod and Georgia Tann – there are indications that my mom had been upset the whole time she was being taken by my adoptive grandmother by train from Memphis to Nogales Arizona as a 7 mos old infant and that she may have been drugged by a doctor upon arrival there to calm her down.

Though letters from my adoptive grandmother in the early years of my mom’s life indicate that she was over the moon happy with my mom as her adopted child, I know that my mom never felt she lived up to my grandmother’s high standards. I understand this personally as she was a phenomenal woman and I had my own run-ins with her opinions about me that were deeply hurtful.

My grandmother grew up not far from me in Missouri. Her mom was lazy by my grandmother’s accounts – only interested in her bible and not in her household – and both her mother and sister were fat (confirmed in photographs of the whole family together). My grandmother maintained a very trim figure all her life to match the trim figures of her sisters-in-law and worked hard at that by denying herself fattening foods to maintain her figure. She criticized me once in a public place quite loudly for taking a dinner roll and putting butter on it. I didn’t even speak to her for a whole 24 hours I was so upset.

Adoptees do not feel special because someone chose to adopt them. They always feel at risk of being rejected and abandoned all over again if they don’t live up to their adoptive parents’ expectations. For that reason they become people pleasers as my own mom definitely was. She was described very positively after she died by the people who knew her but I wonder now – at what price internally did she accomplish that high regard ?

You Can Start Over

There is not much a child can do about the circumstances of having been adopted. When a adoptee matures into adulthood, there is a chance to reframe the experience, to find ways to make the unique experiences that an adoptee goes through – a strength.

There is not a universal agreement that adoption harms the self-esteem of adoptees. Studies seem to indicate it does not but adoptees will often highlight the ways that it did harm their own self-esteem. I trust the adoptee’s perception over that of a researcher.

Without a doubt, an adoptee suffers the loss of their natural family connection. This impacts the development of their identity. Often, as an adoptee matures they have an understandable interest in their true genetic information.

Compared to a true orphan who cannot regain the physical presence of their original parents, an adoptee will have a sense that out there somewhere are the people who are related to them genetically. It is like missing a limb that one knows should be there. There will always be an uncertainty and often a level of grief or anger over a situation the adoptee did not create. There is often a fear that if the adoptee does not live up to the expectations of the adoptive parents they could be rejected, abandoned or sent back to some place that is not a home.

In every person’s life there are emotionally charged milestones – marriage, the birth of a child, or the death of a parent – when the unique issues of having been adopted are more keenly felt. In fact, it is often in giving birth to their own children, that an adoptee begins to really want to seek their origin information and if possible, experience a reunion with the people they were taken away from.

It is not possible to undo a life that has always been informed by having been an adopted person. It is possible to seek a perspective that empowers rather than victimizes the adoptee. An adoptee can seek to take control over their life and it’s further direction, something most of them lacked (control) in their childhoods.

A Different Universe

Coming to terms with the loss of one’s natural mother within an adoptee’s awareness will not be complete in a lifetime.

This is what I believe is true.

On the surface, an adoptee placed within a decent family may not show any signs of deep though subconscious trauma but I believe this is always embedded deeply within.

From all I have unexpectedly learned, after discovering who my original grandparents were and something about their lives at the time each of my parents’ adoptions occurred, I now know the wound of separation is always there. It is unavoidable. It is the natural truth of the matter.

Often adoptees behave in ways while they are growing up that confuse the adoptive family and their closest friends. Some of this confusing behavior even occurs during their adulthood. I have seen it with my own parents.

The truth about adoption is that the wounds are not visible in the way a physical accident would leave obvious impacts. They are psychological, emotional and mental. You can’t see them by looking at an adoptee.

All the love that an adoptive parent is able to give will never touch this pain that will always be deep inside the adoptee – caused by having been given up by the one person most of us believe we will always be able to depend upon. It really isn’t possible to simply exchange one mother for another and life then goes on as though no disruption ever happened.

Being adopted is similar to being put into a forever box of different than, not the same as, all of the non-adopted people around you.

It is a good thing that adoptees are finally trying to understand the pain of relinquishment and speaking honestly and out loud about their suffering.

There isn’t really a solution to the situation but it is the beginning of awareness and that may yet bring about reforms to the practice of adoption that will spare at least some children in the future from suffering similarly.

Why do people adopt babies ? It comes from a deep desire to protect and love a being that is capable of loving you back. It is useless to expect from an adoptee what a parent expects when they give birth to a child naturally and then raise that same child.

Adoption is an entirely different universe. That is a story that may not be capable of delivering the happy ending you as an adoptive parent had hoped for. This is the reality. Time to accept the truth of it.

What Will The Future Bring ?

I’m not good at predicting the future. Sometimes I misread my intuitions. Even so I trust a kind of momentum and tendency in Life to bring about whatever my heart desires the most as well as protect me from my fears and misunderstandings.

I’ve been writing this blog daily for almost a year now. It amazes me that I usually find something to say. Certainly, my journey over the last two years has been remarkable. Not everyone affected by the erasing of their personal history is able to make the progress I have. My compassionate sympathy for all of those who like my own mom have been rejected when they have made the attempt.

What made the difference for my own self ? I believe it has been a combination of undeserved luck and persistence not to give up. Doors have opened in almost miraculous ways at times that I did not see ever coming into my own reality.

What kind of advice can I give others ? One is to educate yourself as close to reality as possible for stories and delusions do not serve the individual or collective good. Another is to be gently persistent. Furthermore, if someone becomes upset with you, try your best to understand where they are and allow them to work through their own wounds and traumas at their own personal speed and willingness to accept.

I am grateful for all the progress I have made so far. I have no idea where I will find myself next on this journey but I do have some hopes, goals and dreams. I wish you all the best of good fortune and protection for your vulnerable parts as we journey together into the next new decade and the next yet best to be and hopefully with not too many hurts and disappointments.

Living In The Fog

Adoption Fog – the hazy perception that everything about adoption is (or should be) simple, straight-forward, beautiful, and most importantly, not questioned.

Adoptees are told what to think, not how to think. They are told the perspective from which they should see their adoption. They are told to be grateful. They live in a fantasy land. They were too young or too afraid to realize the truth of the situation they are living in or to feel the full impact of it. I can see now that as I began to understand the stories of my parents adoptions, I was in a fog before and in the early part of that process of believing the unicorns and rainbows version of adoption.

Coming out of the fog can mean enlightenment and healing. Along the way, there are painful realizations and personal acknowledgements. Coming out of the fog does not necessarily mean searching. One can be searching and still be in the fog. Maybe simply curious about family and heritage.

Adoptees are conditioned from the beginning to be grateful. They were “chosen”. There is a story, ingrained lovingly, about how the biological parents were not able or did not want to take care of the adoptee. “They loved me so much they had to give me away so I could have a better life. I was saved by my adoptive parents from life as an orphan. Adoption is a good thing. Without it where would all the abandoned, unwanted children go?”

While such stories are meant to be comforting, it is often scary for the child. To be “chosen” by one family means to be “unchosen” or rejected by another one. And it is that fear of rejection that causes many adoptees to become people pleasers.

It is only natural, that as they come to maturity, they begin to understand that their very lives fulfill a desire on the part of their adoptive parents. Adopted children are therefore often fearful (either consciously or subconsciously) that they could become rejected again.

There really is no such thing as a well-adjusted adoptee, or even child of two adoptees, even if it appears to be so. The contradictions are simply too big to reconcile.

What Is Normal Anyway ?

Growing up in my immediate family, adoption was the most normal thing. After all, both of my parents were adopted and they were “normal” or were they ? Until recently, I didn’t know that being adopted could leave traumatic wounds at such a deep and pre-verbal level the person isn’t even conscious those feelings are there.

Now, my mom was a Georgia Tann baby and when she was a schoolgirl in the early 1950s, the scandal in Memphis broke into national news. Her adoptive mother admitted she had been adopted there but that she was not one of the stolen babies. Life went on and she got pregnant and married in time for me to be legitimate.

Fast-forward to the early 1990s and the Georgia Tann scandal hit national attention again with stories on 60 Minutes and Oprah among others. My mom learned that she had not been born in Memphis but had actually been born in Virginia. She could not reconcile the disparity of this in her own mind and learning about some of the most extreme atrocities perpetrated by Miss Tann, my mom knew at a very deep level that she never should have been adopted and that her adoption was somehow inappropriate – that last word was one she used when she tried to get her adoption file from the state of Tennessee but was rejected.

What is normal, anyway ? Normal is what you know. We knew adoption was real and we knew that our parents were being raised by people who did not give them birth. We knew that ALL of the relatives we knew as such, were not related to us. It is a bit odd to re-think that now but at the time it was what we knew as a reality.

“What makes us normal is knowing that we’re not normal.”
~ Haruki Murakami

Now, I do know that my parents being adopted was not a normal situation. And I even know that I have been a victim of adoption fog. Even as I was discovering who the people were that actually gave birth to my two parents.

When A Child Kills

Learning about these statistics fascinated me the way a car accident often fascinates us (in horror) as we pass by and are grateful we are safe.

Adoptees are 15 times more likely to commit parricide (kill one or both adoptive parents) than biologic children. Of the 500 estimated serial killers in U.S. history, 16 percent were adopted as children, while adoptees represent only 2 or 3 percent of the general population.

Dr. David Kirschner has been an expert witness in 20 homicide cases in which the accused was adopted, usually as an infant, or in early childhood. In every case of these adoptees who killed, he found a remarkably similar pattern, including a history of sealed original birth records, a childhood of secrets and lies (re: birth parents and genetic history), frustrated, blocked searches for birth parents, and untreated, festering adoption issues of loss, rejection, abandonment, identity, and dissociated (split-off) rage.

This sub-group of adopted killers who he has seen consistently had a strikingly similar fantasy of the birth mother: That she was an all-giving, all-loving, nurturing, wonderful, perfect being. He had expected to find conscious anger/rage directed at a malevolent, rejecting bad mother – but instead there was this paradox of an idyllic birth-mother-fantasy image. The anger and rage toward birth parents was there – but deeply repressed, often dissociated and cut off from consciousness, and ultimately acted-out with violence toward the adoptive parents or others. In these extreme cases, the split, false, secret self described by many adoption experts, had evolved into a more malignant, clinical Dissociative Identity Disorder (aka Multiple Personality Disorder).

Adoption has long been neglected by mental health experts, as well as the criminal justice system, in the search for causes of eruptions of extreme violence. Some adoptees believe that they have been conceived out of wedlock in the back seat of a car or by a prostitute. One adoptee who has written about her search for answers was conceived in an act of rape. Regardless of the sad circumstances that lead to a person’s birth and relinquishment – truth is always the best policy. In the absence of truth (due to sealed adoption records and changes in identity details) an adoptee and even their children are left to make up stories to fill the gaps in real information. I know that happened to me and within my own family.

Not every adoptee will suffer in the extreme this way but every adoptee deep inside has issues of abandonment and rejection. For this reason, I do believe we have to find a better way to care of children who need a stable home with loving, caring parental figures. No identity changes, no hidden familial truths. Honesty is the best policy going forward.

It’s About Identity

My first awareness of the impacts of adoption on my parents was the Georgia Tann, Tennessee Children’s Home Society scandal. There are a huge number of adoptees that have been impacted by what happened in Memphis.

So, the only “anger” I was aware of was related to criminal behavior in adoption practices. I thought that was what the anger was about.

As I have revealed my origins, my original four grandparents (both of my parents were adopted), I have also become involved in more generalized adoptee groups. I have begun to learn what the issues are and also about how those issues affect not only the adopted child, but the original parents as well as the people who adopt and raise these children.

It has finally coalesced for my own self to be about identity. It was a lack of identity beyond my two parents that troubled me in my middle school years. It is interesting that the issue of not knowing where one originated troubles adoptees almost universally, while many people who have no adoption impact in their own families seem to not even care about who their ancestors were.

I think it is because the adoptee KNOWS that they don’t know. While any other person not affected by adoption “knows” that if they ever became interested, someone in their family line could clue them in.

There are some descendants who I am grateful have embraced me and my need to know. Others seem dismissive or reluctant to welcome in “the stranger”. I simply have to accept that I have been given some gifts of identity that some adoptees are still struggling to obtain.

Sealed adoption records which began as early as the late 1920s have done a lot of harm to an adoptee’s ability to know where they come from. Unbelievably about half of these United States still refuse to open the records to adult adoptees. This is simply wrong. No other citizen of this country is denied knowledge of their origins.

Safe Haven Babies

How does one preserve the identity and heritage of a baby dropped off under Safe Haven laws ? Is this a case where adoption is the only recourse ?

Safe-haven laws are statutes in the United States that decriminalize the leaving of unharmed infants in specially designated places. The child then becomes a ward of the state. Safe-haven laws typically allow the original parents to remain nameless in a court proceeding to determine the child’s status.

Some states treat safe-haven surrenders as child dependency or abandonment and a complaint is filed against the parents in juvenile court. Other states treat safe-haven surrenders as adoption surrenders and void all parental rights.

Of course, eventually, the ease of accessing inexpensive DNA tests and the matching sites 23 and Me as well as Ancestry may reunite the child with some member of their original family.

Yet, in the meantime, what to do ?

Critics argue that safe-haven laws undercut temporary-surrender laws, which provide the buffer of time for parents who are unsure about whether to keep or relinquish their children. Supporters argue that anonymity protects infants from potential abuse by their parents. Fathers can find themselves shut out of the child’s life without their knowledge or consent.

And I still do not have the answer to my initial questions . . .

What Is Enough ?

My mother doubted her worth as a human and as a mother. She never believed she was good enough. Adoption did that to her. She felt broken and torn.

My mom tried very hard to know her roots. She appealed to the state of Tennessee for her adoption file. Though her father was twenty years older than her mother and her mother had already died, she was denied because the state didn’t really try too hard to determine her father’s status. He had been dead for 30 years, when she made her attempt.

She did an Ancestry DNA test and had a profile, hoping against hope to learn some truth. At least, she had some idea of her ethnicity from that effort. She tried to complete family trees but since they were based on persons who adopted her and adopted my dad, she quit and said to me, “It just didn’t feel real.” Of course it didn’t. From a genealogy perspective – it wasn’t the truth.

I now have the complete story for both – my mom and my dad. I wrote everything up in a limited edition book given to family, so that what I worked so hard to learn would not be lost with me, if I died.

There is no risk-free exposure for the children of adopted parents. I know. The wounds and damage passed down my family line and other children ended up adopted too.