#adoptee

It’s odd how certain thoughts and ideas pop into your head.
Churning and turning over and over and over….
See how the myriad facets of that thought present their varying colors and perspectives. Sewing themselves into the fabric of your mind.
Amazing!

What does that have to do with anything?
Well, this morning my mind wandered to how one generation’s life and experience influence those that follow.
I know that this is something that we in the West don’t often consider.
We think that each person is an individual who is capable of building her life on her own. Through hard work and grit people can slough off any and all encumbrances and create a successful life…for themselves.

But, is that an entirely accurate idea?

I’m not so sure.

My Dad’s mother died when he was very young. His father remarried.
Eventually, his father, an alcoholic, left them and moved away. So, he was raised by his step-mother.
It was late in his life when he told me anything about that time in his life.
His step-mother was truly a bitch. She abused him in passive-aggressive ways that left lasting scars.
As a result, he withdrew into himself.
He became known to others by his quietness. His high school yearbook noted that he didn’t say much, but what he said was profound.
He never experienced true intimacy with anyone.
Yeah, he had a special relationship with my mom. His love was as deep as the ocean. His devotion to her unwavering. But, even with her, he held his feelings close to himself. It seemed that only after his mind began to fail him toward the end of his life that he began to open that long-closed box that contained his heart.
Nature and Nurture.
Joined to create a New Thing.
Dysfunction.

As I wrote before, I was adopted.
I was torn from my mother and placed in an institution.
I was given to my adoptive parents while still and infant.
But, damage was done.
All of the experts agree that attachments are necessarily created, bonds of love and trust, at this early age.
Although my adoptive parents cared for me, gave me their name, and provided stability and security for me, they will always be at best High Level Foster Parents.
It seems that only those who do the adopting consider that their new child is truly theirs. No one who keeps these stats and stories ever really asks those who were adopted. No one seems to really consider our insight into our own lives.
I don’t want to take anything away from my mom and dad. They loved me and supported me in their way. I will always have deep gratitude for the life they provided and the sacrifices that they made.
But, the ability for me to make intimate links with anyone was diminished. If not totally destroyed.
I withdrew into myself.
I tried to emulate Mr. Spock. Suppressing my emotions, stuffing my feelings, became my ultimate goal.
We all know that’s an impossible task.
Rather, my emotions raged like a class 5 hurricane. They found no true or constructive outlet. So, as I worked to contain the storm within, damage was done.
Nature and Nurture.
Joined to create a new thing.
Dysfunction.

Those are two generations in which similar circumstances created similar narratives.

My brain goes to these places as I try to come to grips with dysfunction, not only in my own life, but in my family and among my friends.
There is something to the idea of generational influence. For good or ill; better or worse.
These are things that we have absolutely no control over. They have been handed to us by those who came first.

We can, however, make choices on how to engage these things.
I know that I will never be able to experience a truly intimate relationship with anyone. There are too many issues deeply embedded in my soul to allow that.
But, I can push myself to learn new ways to deal with that.
The first and perhaps most important way is to be honest with myself about these things.
Second, I can learn to forgive those who preceded me. Both the one who gave me away and the ones who took me in.
They are no more perfect than I am. I have to be able to extend them the grace to be human.
Third, and perhaps most important, I must learn to forgive myself.
Because I am acutely aware of my own shortcomings, my own “sin,” it’s easy to find myself swimming in an ocean of guilt and shame.
That’s hard.
The guilt and shame were truly earned.
But, I can’t…I mustn’t…live there.
That compounds hurt upon hurt.
That leads to death.
Spiritual; emotional; physical.

We give too little consideration for anything beyond the tiny sphere in which we live.
We think, mistakenly, that we are an individual who is a self-contained entity with no ties to anything outside of ourselves.

That’s a lie.

Don’t believe that for an instant.

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I came across that hashtag on twitter yesterday.
Since I am one, I decided to see where it would lead.
To say that I was unprepared for what I read would be understating things.
The amount of hurt and anger radiating from these tweets would rival the sun’s heat.
I was truly taken by surprise.

I didn’t experience the same emotions that many of these other adoptees did.
As I reflect back on my childhood, I really don’t know why I didn’t have those feelings.

Abandonment.
Loneliness.
Isolation.

Perhaps my adoptive parents were just different than others.
Maybe they cared enough that I didn’t consider myself anything less than their son.
Even though they never hid the fact that I was adopted, they always treated me like their own.
So, maybe I was special in that regard.
I grew up with nothing but gratitude to them for giving me a chance at a good life.

I do remember asking about my birth parents. What I don’t remember are answers to that. Like many of the folks tweeting about this, my adoptive parents deflected that question. They tried to get me to focus on what I had with them. Not what I might have had in another life.
I really can’t blame them too much for that. They had feelings that they wanted to protect. I suppose the prospect of rejection from the person that they felt they had sacrificed so much for was difficult for them.
You see, my adoptive parents had tried for nearly a decade to have a child of their own. Physical issues didn’t allow that. They wanted to have children, though. So, they took the only avenue that was open to them.
Adoption.
For that, I should be grateful, I guess.

There was something missing, though.
As a young child I had no idea what that was.
I had neither the ability to process those feelings, nor the language to express them.
So, for the most part, I stuffed them.
I remember when I was 12 I was talking to friend who was also an adoptee. When I shared some of my regrets at not knowing anything about my birth parents, he told me not to think about them. His feeling was that his birth parents didn’t love him enough to keep him. So, screw them. They weren’t worth the effort to even consider.
I accepted his logic. Hey, it made sense to 12 year old me!

And, I lived with that assessment.
I never gave my birth parents another thought.
Yeah, I was reminded that I was a type of singularity with no roots every time I went to the doctor and had to answer the question about family traits with, “I’m adopted.”
But, even that became a point of pride with me. It made the doctor squirm a bit. I liked that.

When I got married I suppose my wife and I discussed the fact that we had no idea what kind of genetic issues might lie hidden in my closed adoption records. But, we didn’t let that stop us from bring new life of our own into the world. Yeah, it might have been helpful. We realized, though, that even in the most solid families with a great pedigree having children can be a crapshoot. Likewise, birth families with a history of physical and mental issues can produce a perfectly well-adjusted child. As they say, There are no guarantees.

What changed the equation for me was the night I received a phone call. The person on the other end introduced himself as the husband of my sister.
Hmmm…I don’t have a sister.
Or, do I?
My first inclination was that this was a scam of some sort. Even though the voice gave me all sorts of details about the person he said was my birth mother, I had no way to corroborate those. I knew nothing about her.

We met that evening.
I took my wife and we drove to the place that we had arranged.
When we walked in I spotted them immediately.
Over in the corner of the restaurant was a young woman who was more frightened than any deer caught in headlights.
Yep! That’s her!
We sat down and introductions were made all the way round.

The story of their surprise trip was, well, interesting.
It turns out that our mother was emotionally handicapped. At some point she was, as my newly minted brother-in-law said, “Taken advantage of” by an older man.
Voila! Enter Me.
Our mother was living with her parents who were apparently abusive. They force her to give me up.
Now, we need to understand that in the year that I was born was during a time when abortion was illegal. Mothers of children born in our circumstances were shunned and treated like whores. The social stigma of this was a price too high for them to pay.

So, I was placed in some kind of orphanage. At least,that’s what I was told.
When I was 6 months old, my adoptive parents entered. I had a rather pronounced birthmark on my upper lip. So, at that time I was considered “handicapped.” That didn’t stop this couple from taking me in as their own.
Again, I should be grateful. I could have easily languished in “The System” for years. But, I was placed in a warm and loving home.
And, I never really looked back.

After I met my sister, the time came for me to meet my birth mother.
You see, the whole reason that my sister tracked me down was because our mother, besides her disability, was overcome with remorse for her lost son. She lamented the choice that had been made for her by her parents. So, my sister and her then husband thought that if they could locate me that would bring some closure and peace to our mother.
So, we drove to their place and met her.
The meeting was good, I think. Our mother was overjoyed at finally finding me. We did all of the first time meeting stuff with hugs all around and tears and all of that.
We set up a time for them to come to our place and visit.

Then, I told my adoptive parents what was happening.
I’m not sure what they felt. Hurt? Anger? Fear? All of the above.
My mom said that she had feared this day. She asked question about what I had learned. When I answered them, she admitted that she knew the answers were correct because she had the documentation that identified my birth mother. She had my original birth certificate with the name that my birth mother had originally given me.
She knew these things and never told them to me.
Again, I can understand her actions. I get it.
I’m not sure that I will ever agree with them, though.

Be that as it may, this is the life I’ve been given. I have no choice but to accept it an get on with it.
And, it has been a good life over all.

There were things, though, that didn’t seem to add up.
So, I began to seek counselling.
Over the years those folks I talked to have all stopped when I told them of my adoption. All of them point to that one event as being the primary shaper of who I am. And, in every case, I doubted them.
After all, I was only 6 months old! How much could that short time be problematic?

Well, apparently a lot.
The lack of emotional connection in the earliest DAYS of life can have devastating effects on a person.
How?
In my case it is most pronounced in my own inability to form and maintain any close emotional connections with others.
This has snowballed into people considering me aloof, selfish, closed, and distant.
And, people are right!
I am all of those. And, more.

Are they a result of my separation and disconnect from my birth mother?
Maybe.
Or, do they have their roots in the fact that my adoptive dad was also aloof and seemingly unable to make deep emotional connections?
Maybe, I got hit with a double-whammy!

In any case, here I am over six decades later still wondering…still imagining.

Will anything be proven by anger, hurt, or any other negative feelings toward either my adoptive parents or my birth mother?
Oh, hell no.
That would only amount to me punishing me for something that I had no control over.

All I can really do is try to live into the life that I have created with my wife and our family. No, I don’t do it all that well. Like I said, close emotional bonds are not something that I am capable of.
But, I can’t blame those who came before me for what I have done with the raw materials that I was given by means of both nature and nurture.

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Tag: #adoptee

From Generation to Generation