Adoptee Remembrance Day 2021

Today we remember what we lost

This last year has been a real opportunity for personal growth for me, a 50-something Adoptee.

I’ve solved cases for close friends, who now know who gave them their DNA. I’ve made new friends in our Adoptees Connect Phoenix group, and solidified my core belief that adoption permeates all aspects of one’s life.

Life is complex. This subject is complex. At the core of my activism is my understanding the Adoptee Rights are Human Rights. In no other incidence in American life can the government keep documents and information about YOU, your actual own story, from you in a legal agreement that was signed my a minor (birth mom) and it is all about you, but you have no rights to it. Some arbitrary people decided what happens to me? Talk about ZERO AGENCY.

So recognizing that there are pre-verbal trauma chemicals that made me different than I would have been, generations of women without agency (and I’m the 2nd generation ADOPTEE. How was my birth mother, also an adoptee effected? Did this alter my DNA? Is this the sins of the father’s kind of permeation?) and the recognition that my granddaughter has adoption and misappropriated parentage down EVERY SINGLE BRANCH OF HER TREE. Oh the tangled web we weave.

I grapple with the not fitting in with my adoptive family really (they’ve never understood me, or on some level, really liked me.) not really fitting in with the birth families either (nothing but nice, but I’m not their kid. It’s not the same.) Is this my super power? I fit no where, but everywhere.

My therapist said something to me Wednesday, first time I’ve seen her since March. “Adults can’t be abandoned.” Wait, I’ve been abandoned a number of times! What about that cheating husband? Or that one who kicked me to the curb at the first hint of Alzheimer’s the disloyal piece of…? She reiterated, an adult who is capable of taking care of themselves can’t be abandoned. They’re complete all unto themselves. A helpless infant, or abandoning your father who needs help on every level – that’s abandonment. Other things that FELT like it, are not.

I’m going to have to sit with that one awhile. That feels like a truth that resonates like understanding my anxious attachment issues, or my automatic reactions, and having no desire to be a robot or manipulated by feelings not facts. Agency. I want agency.

So today, I want to acknowledge how far I’ve come, but how far I have yet to go. My intention is to speak about this subject truthfully, frankly, with empathy, but without fear of disapproval. I think that about many aspects of life these days, wanting to be lovingly truthful and not afraid. And to do so from a point of love, not hate or shame.

So think about how you’d feel not having access to who your actual parents are. What genetic predispositions you have. Not having someone you look like or have genetic affinity with. Feeling alone in the world, no one to ask (and if you do, as a kid, it upsets your parent so you never ask again. Instead you make stuff up in your head. ) And when you do seek you’re labeled aggressive, ungrateful, disloyal, get over it. Really stop and think about how you would feel if you had ZERO access to your info. Adoptees are 4x’s more likely to attempt suicide. There are 5 million of us in the US since WWII. It’s complex, and we don’t want to be dismissed or shamed. WE didn’t get us here, some other people did, and we have no access to answers or often acknowledgement by those who actually made us!

Listen to your Adoptee friends. With compassion. Please.

“Adoptee Remembrance Day – October 30th serves several purposes. It raises public awareness of crimes against adoptees by adoptive parents, an action that current media does not recognize. It also allows us to publicly mourn and honor the lives of our brothers and sisters who we have lost who might otherwise be forgotten. It raises awareness about adoptee suicide, shining a light on a difficult topic. Through these actions, we express love and respect for the adoptee community. Adoptee Remembrance Day reminds others that we are their sons, daughters, parents, friends, and lovers. Adoptee Remembrance Day gives our allies a chance to step forward with us, memorializing those who have died too soon, and it also recognizing the loss all adopted people experience, before they’re actually adopted.”