I recently discussed this awkward topic with a non-adopted friend, and I feel it’s important to share my thoughts here. While the emotional toll of being adopted is real and lasts a lifetime, adoptees who search are often viewed as outliers, rebels, or just plain angry.
In an excellent blog, (see below) at theadoptedones.com, the author discusses how as adoptees, we are forced to discuss our experiences defensively. No matter how carefully we tread, revelations of our true feelings are dismissed as radical.
Flickr/Daisuke Murase
In fact, searching adoptees are honest representatives of what happens when personal records are stolen, or sealed away. (A side note- I heard on the news this morning that a recent IRS hack resulted in 300,000 stolen identities. People are outraged, yet adoptees have their identities stolen and are labeled ‘damaged’ for seeking rectification.)
–Excerpt from theadoptedones.com—
The Art of Dismissal must be part of adoption 101 – How to negate any valid information you do not want to hear, especially from ‘adoptees’. It does not matter what we do or try, the defense mechanism raises that shield and they refuse to read and listen to what is actually written. I can almost see them composing their reply while skimming the words.
- I am sorry you had a bad experience.
- Not all adoptees feel the way you do.
- How do you know it is because you were adopted – biological children have issues too.
- Studies show adopted children do just as well as biological children.
- The reason more adoptees access mental health services is because we worked so hard to be parents that we are more aware and seek help, unlike parents of biological children.
- How can you feel loss for what you never had?
- Why can’t you just be grateful for what you have now?
- My children will not feel like you do.
Read the rest at adoptedones.wordpress.com
Searching adoptees are cast as the emotional slingers of unfounded slams against a system that values the rights of adoptive parents more than those of adoptees.
My recent novel ‘Waving Backwards’ explores some of the soul-wrenching darkness that adoptees experience in search. No matter how ‘good’ your assigned parents are, there is a sliver of every adoptee’s soul that is cut away with the severing of heritage, and identity. Thank you to adoptedones for this poignant blog.
Blessings for a search that heals,
V.L. Brunskill
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V.L. Brunskill 