First Linda’s comment about the breath-taking and all of that:
Submitted on 2012/01/14 at 6:51 am
I watched this earlier with Dan. It’s Primal Wound Friday here. He rolled his eyes and said, “Hell…I could teach this class…anyone who loves an adoptee could teach this class.” I corrected him and said, “Anyone with a brain who loves an adoptee.” The whole thing took my breath away. Anytime I hear someone describe that part of my life in such an honest fashion, it takes my breath away, and then I say, “Ummm, duh.”
We cannot imagine a pre-trauma life, because it started on day one. Doesn’t matter why we were relinquished, we were, and it sucks. Mac and others who dismiss our trauma do so because they cannot stand the fact that they played a part in someone else’s trauma- either willingly or unwillingly. Or, maybe not. Maybe they are just thundercunts.
I have read as of late that British people are trying to get Americans to stop saying “awesome” as it can be meaningless. So far my favorite responses were, “but I am from California” I am and secondly, “We will stop saying awesome when you stop saying brilliant.
Non-sequitors aside, when I watch the video that I posted on my last post, I get strangely triggered. I mean on one hand it is good, it is more evidence that what I have been saying is real, it is more evidence that the MAC and her ilk who ridicule adoptees are wrong. So mean they are, and really I don’t believe they even have the slightest inkling of how mean they are, I think they feel quite righteous in their cruelty. I think they think I am the mean one and they are quite reasonable to ridicule us. I remember when Jess posted that quite cruel piece to adoptees by Mercer that she invited me to read it, imagine my shock and horror when someone who I considered a friend was promoting a piece that ridiculed the biggest pain in my life. When I pointed that out to her she got defensive, she didn’t say, OMG so sorry, I made a mistake, she attacked me. She attacked Kara, and continues to, an experience she never had but she feels safe enough to ridicule. Must be nice to be so smug in your position, oh but your mother never gave you away now did she? That is not your cross to bear.
That is mine, that is Karas who is the subject of ridicule like Amanda for being “too intellectual” Okay, we can’t all write such genius articles that say things like, “Are your kids bored during the summer? try going to a museum or a park” no we leave that to the big brains like Jessica P3gis who knows how adoptees feel and how ridiculous our feelings are, we could never fathom taking our kids to a park or museum. /snark.
Oh like we don’t recognize her words, how she is so tired of adoptees trying to control the adoptee narrative as Kara pointed out to me yesterday, how tired she is of our trope, how lame and boring we are. It is time for us to move on. She probably got the word trope from Kippa, who I totally miss being my friend but has proved that I am not so important to her. Well why would I be? My thoughts and feelings are those of a hysteric, someone who is not worthwhile, someone who invents trauma when she is not busy in her spaceship making out with BigFoot. Seriously, I suck ass. I am a made up ass-sucker who gets her rocks off pretending that I suffered. When that is totally unreasonable, just because I was abandoned, just because I spent the first hours, days, weeks, who knows? Not me alone uncared for that has had no impact on my brain development or personality. Nope. That is just another way to pathologize me and make me what I really am, sub-human.
No wonder I liked punk rock so much and by that I do not mean Green Day fuck Green Day. Up with DRI. and Dead Kennedys and yes the Sub-Humans. That is what I am, sub-human, not real, not important. Is there any message that makes it stronger than the fact that I am not allowed to access my own birth-certificate? Is there? There are all these adoption bloggers, oh so enlightened who blog about open adoption, how many of them are blogging about their efforts to open our records to make us have a level playing field, who care about our well-being.
I have seen zero, none of them.
An adoptee friend of mine asked me tonight why I brought MAC up again, had she done something recently? No I admitted, it is just the smoldering and seething resentment I carry from the time she commented on Dawn Fr3idman’s blog, Dawn took away my comment but left MACS that said I “hated all birthmothers” because Dawn is a relinquishing mother groupie and super-hearts all mothers that give away their babies. You should totally make her aware of yourself if you gave your baby away, she already loves you, it doesn’t matter the reason. If you are an adoptee, not so much, not so interesting, sorry, but half-humans are so not sexy. Oh and MAC did some kind of lame-ass half-apology when chided by an adopter, adoptees expressing their outrage so did not matter, but why would we being walking abortions and all?
But back to why the video hurt so much, because it felt like a non-adoptee articulating why being given away and adopted hurts so much. I know some people like to say it is just the being given away part that hurts, no I disagree. it is being adopted as well, given the job description that you can’t fill. At least for me, praying every night as a child that I could go back to the orphanage because at least there I wouldn’t have the burden of being such a disappointment. I know all the things that the speaker speaks of so well, I talk to adoptees all the time and for all I know the speaker is an adoptee.
I am viewing it though as if he is not, as if he is a real person and that hurts in its own way, to be acknowledged hurts in its own way, yes, I am fucked beyond belief, there is no pre-trauma me. I hope that I can somehow climb back to a pre–trauma me but I was left, I was abandoned over and over again.
That is the reason for the long-suffering resentment against MAC and Jess and my former friend who turned on me so cruelly, yes, I have to deal with all of this, and that is not enough I have to deal with this along with the ridicule of the the people who were meant to care for me the most, adopters as a class, natural parents as a class. Even dysfunctional adoptees like Marley Greiner and adoptee rights activists as a class. I am supposed to be shamed and humiliated because yes, my mom giving me away hurts like hell, trying to be a person that I gave my whole heart to trying to be and FAILED, that hurts like hell too.
Despite the fact that I am old, despite the fact that I have tried every goddamned way I can imagine, that I know of to heal myself, I am still so unbelievably fucked-up and that is heaped upon me over and over by people like MAC and people like Mercer and Jess, that is so inexcusable, and they have never offered me a real apology. Which again with the righteousness, again with the half-human thing.
I started this blog because an adoptee friend of mine blew his brains out, I am alive because I love Tomtom and very much wanted to kill myself at one point. I have had to live with rejection that non-adoptees cannot even imagine. Thanks MAC and thanks Jess for your continued support in harming all adoptees.
Its a Mary’s Danish Binge Weekend <3 90s
Joy: I cannot understand how anyone can think that a life-altering experience like being given up for adoption and then raised by people who are not like you does not forever change how you perceive the world and the people around you.
You have reminded me again that it isn’t just the being given up, it is trying to fit into a mold that doesn’t fit. I saw it with my daughter. It made everyone unhappy–not only my daughter, but her adoptive parents also.
But where is the link to the trigger that you start with?
Just the previous post, the video is what I was referring to. I know it defies reason and logic the way some people make a mission out of setting out to discredit adoptees. My God we are not even allowed our feelings!
And then they fall into a heap of self-pitying tears if you say no to them, no it is not an acceptable or kind or nice behavior that you want to tell us that our feelings are unacceptable. I mean irony of ironies they see themselves as the victims. So pathetic really, I cannot even imagine being such a worm.
As Winston Churchill said, who— I love me some Winnie, “We are all worms, But I do believe that I am a glow worm.” lol.
Ah, the video. I posted it permanently for the time being at
firstmotherforum.
Of course it would be triggering. Did you ever read Second Choice?
No, I will google it.
Who’s it by?
Second Choice: Growing Up Adopted is by Robert Anderson, MD. “A psychiatrist looks at his own black-market adoption.”
blurbs by BJ Lifton, Joyce Pavao, and Annette Baran
I am entering here cold. don’t know all the history, but do know some of the players.
You need to take a large heaping dose of this reminder: all comments posted online are far more hurtful than anything anyone would dare say in person!
In “the good old (post Internet) days” we had actual real in-person search and support group meetings. We NEVER had any of this fighting! Oh, people were talked about behind their backs, but ya’ know as “rude” as we had grown up being taught that was…it’s a whole lot LESS hurtful than being told off right to your face – or to your computer screen! We used to talk about disembodied “talking heads” on TV. Now we have fingers that seem totally unconnected to heart and soul typing out foul, hurtful words. Nov. 29, 07 I blogged: “Loss is anger producing. Whether you’ve lost your keys and are storming around the house cursing and beating up yourself or blaming someone else for having moved them…or whether a loved one has died. Hurt is also at the base of most anger. Hurt and loss are deep emotions and no matter how much we ‘deal’ with them, they resurface.” I followed with a blog about “mean girls” and woman’s inhumanity to women.
May 17, 2008 I revisited the subject of anger and judgment in a piece entitled “Empathy and Kindness.” I just re-read it and it’s worth a read: http://familypreservation.blogspot.com/2008/05/anger-and-judgement.html
And in Aug 2008 I wrote on Emotional Bullying: http://familypreservation.blogspot.com/2008/08/emotional-bullying.html
Some people just live to dominate and would rather be ‘right” than be caring. Some cannot forgive no matter how many sincere apologies I make (even while never once apologizing for the hurt they sent my way – even if unintended). I call those people former friends and move on.
I hope you read some of my writings on these issues and find it helpful…Ya gotta do a lot of cheek turning and walking away. I also block those who, like MAC, cannot contain themselves and come to my blog ONLY to start fights. Life’s far too short for me at this point in time…As someone said recently, I have far more yesterdays than tomorrows. Life is too short and too precious to waste on the haters! I am willing to do battle with the industry and the ignorant, but NOT with those who SHOULD know better!!!
Your points are taken Mirah, I just feel that adoptees are already placed at such a disadvantage for a myriad of reasons in regard to developing their own sense of selves. The initial abandonment, forced or otherwise, the expectation of adaptation into something they cannot be with a history of abandonment. The gaslighting—being told that one is not worthy of the facts of their own lives, the commodification, etc. it goes on and on.
People do not listen to us when we are kind and reasonable, my relationship with MAC did not start out this way, my relationship with Jess certainly did not either, but rather MAC asked me what I naively thought were sincere questions in order to dismiss me, it is a little game of hers I have seen her play since, Jess was totally out of line as well and when we reasonably pointed that out to her that she doesn’t know our experience and was being dismissive she went on the attack. Right? These are both women who are supposed to at least morally have an obligation to support the well-being of adoptees due to the fact that they are both in parental roles in re: adoptees.
They have proven time and again that they have no interest in anything but promoting their narrative on top of the people who actually live the experience. I have a tendency to be very honest both on line and in real life, and you know what? In real life I have a reputation for being very, very sweet. Its the same me, of course people aren’t constantly trying to dimiss/ridicule/hump my leg and beat me with the orphan-bat in real life.
There, made the bitches unsearchable. Let nothing now interfere with their right to ridicule adoptees with impunity, let nothing interfere with their hope that by feeding off their child’s pain they can finally make themselves interesting. Maybe even have a career? Oh then feeding off their child’s pain is so worth it. Because it is not like their children are real people with real feelings right? I mean how could they be, their own mothers gave them away so they are just easy prey.
Carry on good women, carry on, just leave us adoptees to clean up the carnage behind you.
Joy,
Many thanks for baring your soul and standing up for us again. Those episodes with MAC and Jess and Dr. Moreau were incredibly painful. I was naive then, and believed that they were willing to listen to what I had lived. Nope! It was all about telling me how wrong I was in interpreting my own life and feelings. They know little to nothing about me, and forever after Kippa and Jess have been particularly spiteful. I know the “trope” is theirs; they are not half as clever as they think. And if the worst they can level at me is being “too intellectual,” well ouch! I laugh. Fuck them.
In the same elapse of time I have developed a relationship with my nmom that is healthy and thriving. She doesn’t belittle my experiences or feelings, and she considers it a tragedy I had no primary caretaker for the first 10 weeks of my life, not a big fucking joke. That’s what matters.
Love you.