u/Domestic_Supply

Is absolutely a coping mechanism based in delusion.

Just been thinking about this recently. My great grandmother lost her second daughter to adoption. She was the only person who knew my biological mother was going to relinquish me. She was so traumatized by the adoption she had to view it as some sort of generous act to keep going. She painted it as such to my birth mother too. The delusion is contagious.

In reality my birth mother didn’t want to raise a mixed race child. She didn’t want to raise me because she knew I would have health problems from her drug use. Very selfless! (/s.) She wanted her boyfriend at the time to stay with her and she put him over me. This is a pattern she repeated over and over again in her life. Men over her children.

She expected me to say “thank you” to her. I never did, and I was clear I was not grateful for this experience.

The ugly truth is that some birth mothers choose adoption when they just don’t want to keep their children. (This is not aimed at women and girls who had their children forcibly removed or stolen, or those who were coerced or wanted their kids.) I’m talking about the demographic of women and girls who would rather give up their children than “ruin” their future. Or religious women who would rather keep their standing in the church than keep their kids.

Religion too is the bad guy here. Why are we demonizing and shaming the practice of creating life? Such a weird concept to me. (And btw classism isn’t a valid reason to be against people having children.) Also, personally I believe we need to empower teenagers to keep their kids if they want to. Also empower them to have reproductive autonomy so they don’t create people they don’t want.

I’m not against women opting out of motherhood, but they shouldn’t have the right to forcibly estrange us from the entirety of our families, call it selfless and then turn around and tell us “we did you a favor!” No, you threw us away because you’re embarrassed. I’m not grateful to be your shame garbage.

It is selfish to create people just to abandon them. I’m really sick of this narrative that it’s somehow out of love or some kind of favor, when in reality, much of the time, it’s done for selfish reasons. (Not always obviously and this isn’t meant to demonize women who didn’t have a choice.)

My grandma called me the other day and said that. She unfortunately fell back into her alcoholism after my abuelito was murdered. I have a lot of compassion for her because I get it. She lost her mom (my great grandmother) and her husband in a 2 week timeframe. I feel like I lost them and her too.

They wanted to raise me. So many people did. She always comes back to that when she’s been drinking. She cries about it. Her latest thing is that she wants to sue her doctor because he knew my family wanted me and he coerced my mom to stay silent about me for the 6 months when they could have hired a lawyer. Now I’m related to him. I hate him.

Last night I had a nightmare about my adoption, and then about my birth mom. All this pain and anger has nowhere to go inside me. I don’t let it ruin me during the day so it comes out at night instead.

To be honest I wish my birth mother just had an abortion. I didn’t get the better life adoption promised me, I ended up as a ward of the state in an institution where they were testing medication interactions. I got TB too and now my lungs are fucked up. My shortness of breath is like a constant reminder of a secondary abandonment. It’s just a lot to hold this week. There’s a wildfire near me and I can’t breathe and I can’t tell if it’s anxiety or my dream life spilling into waking life.

My grandma isn’t talking to my mom right now. She said my adoption is part of it. I don’t know if that’s true but it’s sad. I don’t understand how people think this is better than abortion.

(No advice wanted, I am venting.)

They could just do their own research. Lots of adoptees speak out on social media. It’s annoying and lazy. If people disagree I’m happy to scroll past and delete this post but it seems like a lot of adoptees here share my opinion.

I am considering becoming a therapist for adult adoptees, especially transcultural or transracial adoptees. I think we need more of that. What do you all think?

My concern before starting out on my journey is that school was triggering for me. I was in boarding school during HS and it was not a good situation. My past makes the classroom setting a challenge but I’ve been working on that with my elder. He teaches a class at the local college and I took it for no credit last semester to see how it would feel. It was hard but I did okay. Thinking of doing it for credit this semester.

My other concern is how it would feel to be operating within a field that is based within white supremacy. And it is a field that has done me a great deal of harm. I was basically medicated away since I was 9 because my parents didn’t want to deal with me at all. And then as I got older, my therapists said I needed to be more grateful or just have a different outlook on adoption, or didn’t address it at all, all of which were damaging to me.

Despite all of this, I think I could be a help to adoptees if I could get through school. Are there any therapists in here? Any advice for me?

I was basically her slave growing up. We have been estranged for 6 years, after she asked to study me for her abnormal psychology class. She tells her family members that I don’t talk to her anymore because she didn’t invite me to her birthday party and I was mad about it. (Which is ridiculous.) I didn’t cut her off either, I said I couldn’t have a one on one relationship with her anymore but I was still fine interacting for family events. The families response to this was to uninvite me to all family events. I’m genuinely so glad I live clear across the country from these people.

She’s not a good person, or at least she wasn’t 6 years ago. She put her friend’s nudes in a photography exhibit that the friend’s parents attended, and the friend explicitly told her not to and she didn’t understand why the friend was mad. She slept around without protection while she knowingly had an STI. She read several people’s private journals including her dad’s and likely mine too. She’s a thief and has no empathy.

I know that the way she turned out is largely due to how she was raised. She’s the biological (IVF) child of a mentally unstable woman who was struggling with infertility. She was the golden child to the extreme.

But now she wants to come “see where I live” and get together. My APs likely gave her my address too which is a huge violation. I was making so much progress with them and now I’m thinking of going no contact again.

I will wait and see how I feel tomorrow but I’m thinking of writing back: “Hello ___. Unfortunately our relationship is not and has never been healthy for me. I apologize for any harm I have caused you. I hope you are doing well and wish you all the best for the future, sincerely. I hope we can both continue to grow and flourish, but that will have to take place separately. Take care.”

This is also the worst possible time to receive such a letter. My partner is leaving for a week and the elder I’m close to is out of town. I don’t feel good at all. I’m furious. Just needed to get this out.

UPDATE: I asked my APs if they gave her my info. They said yes and apologized if “that was bad.” I said it was disappointing and they apologized again and acknowledged it was “wrong and thoughtless.” I’ll be sending her a postcard back with what I wrote earlier in this post. Hopefully that’s the end of it and I don’t hear from her again. Though I know it’s likely that she will drive by or show up unannounced. I decided I’m going out of town to a gathering that week, with my bestie. My elders might come too. So all should turn out well.

I just need to vent.

I’ve been working with an elder within the Native community who I’ve posted about a while ago. It’s taken me to some interesting places, and it’s been incredibly healing. One organization I’ve come into contact with is facing the reality of genocide and focused on healing from it. (I won’t say their name but if anyone is interested lmk here and I might DM you about them.)

The main organizer is not adopted, but adoption routinely comes up in discussions and at events. It isn’t the main focus but it is always acknowledged as part of our trauma. Everyone knows someone who was “adopted out” as they say. It’s heartbreaking to see how adoption is and was weaponized and how literally everyone knows someone, or is related to someone affected by adoption. Sometimes people hug me and tell me welcome home.

To sit in a room with 50 people, most of whom are not adopted, and have them all recognize and call out adoption as a form of genocide is such a crazy experience. It has shown me I am not alone, that we “angry adoptees” are not crazy, we are not over reacting. It makes sense that this is how we feel.

Stealing a communities children is stealing their future. It is disrupting their present. It is destabilization and harm. While the validation feels good, it also hurts. It hurts to know and *to see* how this has affected people. I’ve seen people cry. I have heard absolutely heartbreaking stories. I don’t know where I’m going with this, I just needed to get it out.

I’ve written extensively about my situation here so I’m sorry if you’ve heard most of this already.

I’ve known bm & family for about 17/18 years now. They found me. In the beginning reunion was good. I was accepted into my family with enthusiasm and open arms. I have a huge, loving family, many safe extended family members and even grandparents who hired a lawyer to get me back.

My bm is an addict and has burned many people in the family. She thinks *I* abandoned *her* because I moved away shortly after reunion. I was unhappy where I was and wanted to go back to the city I was raised in, across the country from her. She weaponized my sister and sent me abusive messages through her over this. Ironically, she had plans to move to another country, basically 2 years after reunion. So she had no plans of being a stable presence in my life, yet expected that from me. I stayed in touch with the family and kept my relationships when she left but made little effort with her, while she made none. (She also abandoned my youngest sister in her move, who was still a minor and in HS.)

My bm moved back to the US after Covid hit. Not because of the family but because she found out her abusive white supremacist husband was poisoning her (which his ex wife had tried to warn my bm about.)

Shortly after, I decided to move to be closer to my family too and try to repair our relationship a bit. I felt bad for her and assumed she was sober. Things were amazing for 9 months (funny, right?) Then two elders in our family died. One very suddenly, and one was on hospice. My bm didn’t handle the stress of this well and went back on drugs. She started acting shitty towards the family again. (Though, looking back she always had been a bit weird. I think I was in the fog about her.)

Since taking a step back from her, (going no contact,) I was sort of forced to take a step back from the entire family. But, recently, more people are waking up to her bullshit. She tried to steal two different family properties and has alienated almost everyone. Including children. She’s emotionally abusive.

I guess I’m feeling a little vindicated because my auntie found out about her trying to push me out of the family and she apologized to me. She said my bm isn’t allowed at the family property anymore and that she hopes I will start coming by more. I saw some of my very young cousins while visiting my grandpa and they were so happy to see me they cried! I didn’t realize how much I had been missed. It was a lot. I feel bad that I haven’t been more involved. But I just could not be around my birth mother. It’s damaging to my mental health. I will still avoid the gatherings that she’s at but I’m so glad I can go to the property still.

Just venting. It’s a lot of emotions and I’m just processing everything.