iphoto and my adoptedness

When I get all weepy over the Faces tool in iphoto, my adoptee is showing. I had been saving and importing pictures of my nfam. As I tagged several of my aunts, the tool popped up several pictures of myself, and sometimes my daughters as possibly being one of the aunts. And then came the weepiness. After growing up not looking like someone else, sometimes it really gets to me when it hits me that there really are people who look like me, that I have a clan.

From comments from a random stranger at the gym on how much my youngest and I look like each other. Or from family members saying I really look like Grandmama Elsie. Or that one of my daughters looks like cousin so and so. Something that so many take for granted.

There are times where its too much, and in all honesty, I get weirded out by it. After all, its still something I'm getting used to. And I wonder how I will fare in a room full of them when I am finally able to make the trek back home to visit. It's one of those things that will be exciting but so scary at the same time. I grew up with no genetic mirrors. That's my norm, sadly, and having people resemble me on a huge level is something that is partially frightening to me. And that's just looking at photos. How will I feel when I'm in a room full of relatives, many of whom bear a striking resemblance to my daughters and I? Adopted, I suppose.

Dismissing Adoptees

Seems we adoptees just can't win. We are either so traumatized by our bad experience that our opinions aren't valid because we are the "minority" and it "almost never happens". Or if a bad experience wasn't had, the simple loss of one's mother, father, family, culture, possible language, medical history, and factual documentation never seems to be enough of an "excuse" to speak out against the practice, and some dark reason for speaking out is thereby invented. Unless a person is crapping skittles, somehow their opinion isn't valid.

All the "get over its", the "you are angry/bitter/joyless/in need of the Christian God" , the "be gratefuls that you weren't thrown in a dumpster/aborted/raised by a crackhead ho." The "my babysitter's cousins' hairdresser was adopted and she is FINE FINE FINE". They boil down to this for me: STFU. I don't want to have to be made uncomfortable by your pain, your truth, or a confrontation of the beliefs I hold so dear. I don't want to have my ethics/morals questioned. So its easier for me to just say you are traumatized, or bitter, or angry, or any of the other stupid crap used to dismiss adoptees on a daily basis.

Medical History and the Adoptee...the gift that keeps on giving

Our family is currently going through something that would be incredibly difficult to even start to process, diagnose, or understand without even a modicum of medical and family history. As it is, I can't provide my daughter's doctor with enough information to satisfy. I am however lucky enough to have nfam that I can ask. Every available family member has been duly quizzed, and poked and prodded within an inch of their tolerance I do believe. A big part in diagnosing what is going on with my baby girl, is having a strong family history of it. At least the history gives them an idea of where to start.

It's at this time that I think of every adoptee out there who has no inkling of their medical history, not of their choice, but a situation forced on them, and the effect it can have echoing down generations to come. I think too of the adoptees who don't care to search, and what "gems" might be in their history that may affect their children, or their grandchildren, so on so forth.

Those who say genetics don't matter can kiss my everlovin butt. Because they do. Especially when someone's health and well being are up in the air.

Friends

I'm stunted socially. It's just a fact. I think my radar is broken, or tuned to the wrong frequency. My intense fear of rejection has kept me by the sidelines for years. Even in the adoptee group I am part of, I fear being myself, or really opening up, and jumping in, though I am doing better with that as of late, but even so, that's on the internet, if this were face to face, I have no doubt I would be doing my level best to blend into the woodwork.

I have made friends over the years, I'm not some friendless wonder. But it's certainly not an easy thing for me to accomplish, and an even harder thing to maintain. I have a tendency to either put up with too much, or nothing at all, and I haven't found that happy medium that most people seem to manage before they hit 20. My uncle tells me there is nothing wrong with me. That he isn't inclined to friendships outside of the family, he likes being a homebody, and certainly doesn't feel there's anything wrong with conducting one's life like that. So I wonder is it just who I am, at my core, or is it a bit of that with a side of not knowing which end of attachment is up. Would this seem so unhealthy to me if I had been raised knowing people who were happy not having a social life to speak of.

Nmom kept me for a month. Then went through 2 foster homes in rather quick succession due to illness with my first foster mother. Then I was placed with my AP at 6 months. That's got to have a profound effect on someone. All those experts that say a child's personality is cemented in the first 3 years of life, well that first step for me was a doozy. It's like I had enough time to get comfortable, then suddenly, the people I'd adjusted to were just gone.

I'd like it to be just my personality. Because that would be easy, and not require taking time, effort, and frankly, pain to overcome. It would be easier for me if my pull to attempt to form friendships was just a perception of what I felt people should do rather than what I wanted. I suppose it's time to find a therapist that specializes in abandonment issues to help me figure out what it is I really want, and who I am underneath this mess. I can't help but feeling like I am gipping myself out of some very meaningful relationships and experiences by staying house and family bound.

Reunion and Generations

In a few days from now, it will have been 13 years since I met my first biological relative, my first born daughter. She was the first person in my life that I looked at, and could see parts of me staring back. It was an incredible moment, to feel that bond to another living person. It was primal, it was beautiful, it was things being as they should be.

It smacked me between the eyes in a rather painful fashion when I first reunited with my sister again, that the years lost, the time, the people, they weren't just my losses, they were my children's losses too. This is their family too, not just mine, and they didn't consent to being clipped from the family tree any more than I did. This is their reunion as much as it is mine.

I remember how sharply my daughters watched us all interact during my sister's first visit here. They commented on similarities in looks, mannerisms, and they were so excited about it. They are drinking up everything right along side me. It's fascinating and sad at the same time. Because we shouldn't have to do this, this should have been our birthright from the start.

My sister and I, together, are trying to find our younger half sister. Reunion has definitely changed, and added to my perception of what family is. And I so desperately want to find her. But she's good at staying hidden I suppose. I can only hope that one day we will find her, and my girls will be able to know all their aunts.

Adoption and Christianity...does God ever say no?

I remember when I was little, no more than 6 or 7, crying and carrying on to amom. The night before in my prayers I had asked God for a popple or some such nonsense, and when he didn't deliver, I was highly upset. I think I'd taken the whole "ask and you shall receive" bit a touch too literal. Amom sat me down and explained that just because I wanted something, even if I wanted it real bad, didn't mean that God wanted me to have it, or thought I should have it. i've long assumed that it was just her way of quieting me down at the time, but looking back, perhaps it meant something much deeper. That God wasn't in the business of handing out popples, or anything else for that matter just because someone wanted something real bad.

I figure if that applies to popples, it should apply to procuring a child too. I've read some doozies of blogs as of late. Where all sorts of weird and wonderful things seem to be considered sanctioned by the Christian God. Including a scary level of desire to procure another's child. Where friends are offering up prayers for speedy paper signings from scared young women, or praying for God to work his "will" on a young mother who is poised to change her mind, so their friends can start their illustrious careers as parents. Where some hopeful PAP squash any mention of a child's history and biology, and use their religion to do it. Where vultures justify away publicly musing away about how best to bring up adoption to a recent widower. I'm no stranger to scripture and faith being used to justify away poor behavior, my amom used them both to explain away and justify to herself harming my abrother and I. Perhaps reading these things is just far too triggering to me and I should stop. But at the same time, I wonder, just how much of this kind of behavior is really sanctioned by the church, by other Christians? Has this kind of behavior and attitudes become commonplace? Are there any blogs out there from former PAP who badly desired to adopt but felt they were told no by their God, and went on to do something different with their lives?

Does God ever say no?

Identity

I answer to 3 different names. I was known by all 3 before I even made it out of my first year of life. 3 different last names too. Then added 2 more through marriages in my adult life. I have learned that identity is as slippery as a greased weasel for me. I can wear these different names, and they all mean something different to me. I mostly go by Anha. It was the name my father gave me, and it's the one that mostly "feels like me". But Amanda and Aimee are in me too. And I have never figured out how to put all of them together and be one whole person. Adoption took that away from me, and I'm really not sure if I can ever really get it back.

I have found out a lot in the last year. Things that I would have discovered years ago had I not run screaming from a potential reunion with my natural father's family, and that fact is not lost on me. I spent so many years trying to find the keys to a culture that wasn't mine any more than my adoptive parents culture. My ndad had given me his step father's information, as he saw his stepdad as dad. I found out that my natural mother really wasn't coerced, and in fact had been locking herself away in the bathroom and desperately calling relatives to avoid harming me. I found out that one of my aunts was asked to adopt me, and she said yes, and went through the process, but in the end my natural mother refused to do it, saying she needed to cut all ties with me.

I do know some things. I know I have many people in my life whom I love, and know they love me. My life is rich and full of love, despite growing up adopted and abused. I know that I am beginning to find my voice about the mess called adoption and what it does to people. And maybe for now, that much identity is enough.