Support 4 #WASO

This is my post supporting the Weekly Adoption Shout Out (#WASO), episode #36, whose suggested theme is “support”. :}

I could, to fulfil this theme, go over the many points I’ve made under my Post-adoption support tag, but those who’re already reading me ‘ve probably read much of that lot already, and those who’re new to this blog via this post aren’t gonna wanna wade through a tag’s worth of posts before you’ve finished reading this first post. Thus, instead of talking about the lack of post-adoption support that adoptees receive, I’m going to talk about the support that I have had. Predominantly, this support has been from within the Adoption Community, however, I do have the privilege of having some exceptional non-adoption related friends, many who have seen me at the lowest points of my life. That those people are still willing to be associated with me is in itself is priceless support.

The Adoption Community is, like all niches, a conglomeration of extremes. I’ve been lucky enough to find some of the sanest (they’ll deny every word of it ;)) of the bunch that there is. I’d love to do name lists ‘n’ stuff like that, but when I do that I’m always worried I’ll upset someone by them not being remembered in time for listing, so instead I’m going to talk about how important the type of support that adoptees can give other adoptees is.

I haven’t, sadly, had all that much opportunity to talk to adoptee-comprehending people in Real Life(tm), thus the virtual support I get through my Internet connection is pretty much the only chance I get to acquire conversations with people with whom I don’t have to preface everything I say about my life with why it’s adoptee-triggery. I am talking to people who’ve accepted that no matter what their current station in life, the effects that adoption and all that it entails has had upon their lives actually has influenced the way they deal with Life(tm) and the triggery things it throws at us. This is what we mean by adoption honesty.

It doesn’t matter if we’ve been ‘lucky enough’ to have ragingly successful careers, or managed to bag a Job For Life as soon as we left school, or not found a Job(tm) until we’re beyond 40; our adoption continues to impact us on a daily basis in ways that the non-adopted don’t (usually) realise. Genealogy is big business and there are ad’s from Ancestry and Genes Reunited across T.V., radio, everywhere now – yet what does the adoptee get told? this yearning for some stranger who gave you up because of a biological link is a slap in the face

Adoptees have to deal with this sort of stuff often, and so finding educated adoptees who’ve been able to help me learn where the information about $subject is has been incredibly helpful in learning how to deal with such seeming dichotomies. We aren’t supposed to want to know from whence we came, unlike the rest of the population. We’re instead supposed to form an attachment to our adopted lines, which stops when it hits us anyway ’cause we don’t count. We’re not blood.

If bloodlines don’t count, then why is 23andme and all t’other tracing companies growing so fast?

Other adoptees understand how confusing these thoughts get, and the gamut of emotions they can engender. Other adoptees help guide us down in ways others can’t begin to get near.

See, Joss DOES grok adoptees

In the Jezebel post Joss Whedon Is Pissed That There Aren’t More Superheroine Movies, Joss yet again demonstrates (again inadvertently) that contrary to the belief of some he DOES grok adoptee stuff.

How can I tell this? From his quoted comment that says:

I read a beautiful thing Junot Diaz wrote: “If you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves.”

Ok, so this is probably intending to be from a “feminist” angle, but given that the two other tabs I’ve had open for the past few hours are Adoption is a Feminist Issue and Mother chimps crucial for offspring’s social skills, I think they all fit well into one post. Of course, I could waffle trying to artistically tie it all together, but I’ve been stuck here ages trying to clean up enough to be able to respond to Sir @martinnarey’s call for explanation, and so I’m knackered, so I’m just linking ‘n’ going to bed.

Stop trashing adoption

Yet again I’m being accused of being all manner of awfulnesses for daring to be a voice against the sanctified glorification of adoption that is common in discourse around the subject. I’m not linking anything ’cause I don’t want to be reading such stuff tonight to find it, as I’m currently on hiatus from adoption for as much as I can manage because I have been sent over the metaphorical edge by some of the stuff I’ve encountered of late. In order to retain my sanity, I’ve been minimising my time around the subject, but I am the only admin. in some of the FB groups I run and so at least occasionally I have to go in to at least check for spam and such like.

I’m sick though, of being asked things like “when are you going to stop trashing adoption?”

This post then, is the answer to “when will 7rin stop trashing adoption?”

I’ll stop trashing adoption when just two very very simple things happen.

1. I’ll stop trashing adoption when http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/38120 has been passed into law, thus giving the ADOPTEE the right to make THEIR OWN choice.

2. I’ll stop trashing adoption when https://adoptedintheuk.wordpress.com/tag/post-adoption-support/ is available to ALL ADOPTEES from professionals fully conversant with the devastating impact that the process of adoption can have upon the psyche of the adoptee.

That’s it.

Nothing more.

That’s all that’s needed to be done to get me to stop trashing adoption.

And now I’m going to go to bed, and may be AFK for a while as I am still trying to get my head back together and stop myself collapsing massively, since I can’t get any post-adoption support, and can’t currently keep fighting to get it ’cause I’m utterly exhausted from so many years of it. There are so many of you out there who I miss ’cause of my self-imposed exile, but I really need to be strict with myself ’cause I’m >.< that close to a meltdown, which I don’t have time for.

Taking newborns

I first started this post in reaction to 6th March’s Daily Wail Mail article, social workers arrived at hospital to take woman’s baby while she was in labour.

A mother is demanding an apology from social services after her baby was taken away from her as soon as she was born.

Kelly McWilliams, 36, claims that social workers arrived at her bedside while she was in labour and took her newborn daughter Victoria into foster care.

I’d already posted about this subject before (AMBER ALERT! Missing child snatched!) and wanted to look at it in more depth. However, due to my entire crapness at getting things done, the post has been sat here as one of my many unfinished drafts.

Friday just gone (5th April), there appeared yet another post about a Social Services (Staffordshire, again) snatching (literally) a newborn from its mom. This time, it’s an extremely harrowing video showing the newborn being snatched from its screaming mom’s arms.

Sadly, this is the same family as appeared in my previous reblog where the SWers were waiting in the delivery suite for the mom to give birth so they could take the baby away from its mom straight away.

While I, like all the other adoptee advocates I know who’re campaigning for changes to the Institution of Adoption, realise there are people out there who’re harmful to the wellbeing of the children they create, I am absolutely convinced that unless a newborn is in immediate physical danger from its mom, then it should not be removed at birth.

Heck, it’s even advised that puppies are kept with their moms for up to the first eight weeks, or else there is a greater risk of separation anxiety, yet Social Services (and especially Staffordshire) – despite all the evidence of the need of babies for THEIR OWN mothers – in their accumulated ‘wisdom’ are happy to wade in and disrupt those very important early weeks.

SWers cite “concerns” for the baby’s welfare for actions such as this, yet unless those “concerns” are that the mom will be an IMMEDIATE threat to the baby’s physical safety, these SWers are acting contrary to scietific research that demonstrates why newborns should NOT be removed from their mother.

I’d already done the following research when I first started this post, and so because I’ve got to go out, and because I want to get this done in time for inclusion in this week’s #WASO hosted by The Boy’s Behaviour, I’m leaving you with the list of posts that I’d already filtered through that relate to those important first weeks in which yes, even people NEED THEIR OWN moms UNLESS that mom is going to be an immediate physical danger to the kid.

The First Hour Following Birth: Don’t Wake the Mother!

The First Hour After Birth: A Baby’s 9 Instinctive Stages

Care Practice #6: No Separation of Mother and Baby, With Unlimited Opportunities for Breastfeeding

Ms McWilliams, from Scawthorpe, Doncaster, says that she was separated from her baby for three months and allowed to see her for only six hours a week under close supervision until a court ordered that Victoria should be returned to her mother.

The Fourth Trimester – AKA: Why Your Newborn is Only Happy in Your Arms

Developmental milestones: Separation and independence

Attachment And Separation: What Everyone Should Know

Margaret Mahler and Separation-Individuation Theory

The Mother-Baby Bond @ Scientific American

Pre and Peri-Natal Psychology: An Introduction Part 1 by Thomas R. Verny MD, D.Psych, DHL, FRCPC
http://www.adultadoptees.org/forum/index.php?topic=31192

Found some videos by Dr. Thomas Verny on prenatal and perinatal psychology. I found them very interesting. It’s too bad this stuff isn’t common knowledge.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJBO0C1iYp8
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUb_5F12V6A

---

---

UPDATE: 12 April

There’s been another video released; Father Of Snatched Baby Speaks Out

Paul Roberts and his wife Asha had their one day old baby taken last week by Staffordshire Social Services personnel assisted by the police. He spoke to Brian Gerrish about the circumstances on today’s UK Column Live.

ARTICLE | APRIL 11, 2013 – 5:23PM

---

---

UPDATE: 06 September

In an effort to protect their own villainous behaviour, Staffordshire SS attempted to get the first video in this post banned. Thankfully, as reported in the much maligned Daily Fail, I mean Wail, um Mail, sensibility has prevailed, and it’s now no longer banned.

Martin Narey is wrong. #justsaying

Martin Narey is entirely wrong in his belief that…

@emmalangman Not always. Very often children entirely secure with adoptive parents, no sense of loss. Love and permanence what counts.

— Martin Narey (@martinnarey) November 7, 2012

… and that …

@emmalangman @brigid39Entirely agree But the sense of loss often minimal, particularly if neglectful birth parents not romanticised

— Martin Narey (@martinnarey) November 8, 2012

So very very wrong.

Socialisation is what makes being adopted so hard. The socialisation adoptees get IS different, whether it’s politically correct to admit it or not.

Read Verrier and Lifton and Kirschner and Brodzinsky and learn that it’s actually far far harder than you currently believe. No matter how much you want it to be, it’s not “better”, it’s just different.

I have other post in progress, but just wanted to point ^that bit out.

Narey on Adoption

Martin Narey answers some parents… but not the adoptees.

 

Embedded above, rewritten below by me (so any typos’re likely to be mine, and I apologise in advanced if I got any wrong – all corrections’ll be followable by any thread :p); originally pimped out on Twitter by Mr. Narey himself.

{quote}

This is an open letter to some people who use Twitter to challenge my views about adoption. Some of those people have written or e mailed me and have received replies (albeit often necessarily brief replies). Others have preferred to stay anonymous and that’s fine. Some who tweet and blog have been abusive. I don’t much like that but I understand it because I believe it reflects an anger and sometimes a helplessness about their individual cases. I would, I am sure, feel the same way were our positions reversed.

I have never denied the reality that sometimes children are taken into care unnecessarily. It would be silly to believe otherwise when we have a workforce that is fallible. But I believe, and all I have read and seen supports this, that we have a far greater number of cases where we leave children at home when they should be removed. My interest is in children who are neglected (I know that children are taken into care for other reasons). I believe that, as a society, we tolerate neglect for too long. We do not, as many people believe, have record numbers of children in care. At the end of the eighties the care population was half as big again as it is now. And that was at a time when there were at least three times as many adoptions.

So I believe the case for care, for intervening earlier to stop neglect and then sourcing a new permanence for a neglected child is overwhelming and of course I shall continue to argue for that.

Incidentally, I do not – as many tweeters suggest – profit in any way from adoptions. And Barnardo’s, which I ran for six years never, in all that time, made any profit or surplus from the very small number of adoptions they dealt with. Nor do I have any power to intervene in cases. So I cannon, even if I wished, help to achieve the return of anyone’s child.

My role is simply to offer a view to Ministers about adoptions. That view is based on my experience at Barnardo’s and, since my resignation, many, many days spent visiting local authorities, voluntary adoption agencies and speaking to adopters and the adopted as well as children in care and charities which support families struggling to keep their children. Some people call me the Adoption Czar, evoking an image of a large salary and a retinue of staff. Those things, like the Adoption Czar title, are inventions of the press. I have no staff and last year my total earnings from the Department for Education were about £40,000.

So what advice can I offer those who feel their children have been wrongly removed? It is this. Fight your case of course. But do not seek to do so by attacking adoption in general. Whatever the circumstances of your case it is demonstrably true that thousands and thousands of adoptions are successful. The number which breakdown are much lower than commonly believed (new research from the University of Bristol is likely to confirm this) and there are thousands of adult adoptees willing to speak positively about their experience. I am very close personally to four such adoptees and have met hundreds of others.

Nevertheless, I believe (and say frequently) that adoption is only appropriate for a small minority of the children taken into care in England, largely those neglected by parents who are unlikely ever to be able to be successful parents. It is indisputably right that for those children adoption brings stability and compensates for that neglect.

So, continue to pursue that which you believe in. But don’t undermine the specifics of your argument by ignoring the reality of neglect and the need for us as a society, when parents cannot be supported to offer decent homes (often because of drink and addictions) and if good quality kinship carers cannot be found, to find an alternative stability through adoption. Those who might advise that the way to seek resolution of your own cases is by seeking to undermine adoption are – at best – misguided. Instead I offer this advice sincerely, concentrate on demonstrating that the authorities have made grave mistakes in _your_ case

Kind regards

Martin Narey

{/quote}

Big Shiny Adoption

Before I respond, I’d just like to clarify that as well as being an adoptee, I’m also a massive Joss fan, and a Lokean too. As such, there’s only one part of this article that I’d like to criticise…

{quote}
All joking aside, adoption is an awesome thing. It brings children to families who perhaps cannot have children of their own … and it brings families to those children who … don’t have one
{/quote}

So sayeth Arse-bot, over at Big Shiny Robot.

Unfortunately – especially in America – adoption is no longer about providing children with families. Unfortunately – especially in America – adoption is far more about providing adults with children.
Unfortunately – especially in America – adoption is nothing more than BIG BUSINESS.

The Finances

“The National Council for Adoption: Mothers, Money, Marketing, and Madness” parts One & Two goes into minute detail about how much PROFIT is made by so-called adoption “charities” from their trade in human life.

Additionally, Babies for Sale provides a PRICE LIST showing how a child that is not a ‘healthy white freshly-squeezed womb-wet’ can cost far far less – what with the disabled or the traumatised or the non-whites not even being as high as second-choice on the wannabe-parenting dream scale.

Finally on the theme of cost, this thread is a bunch of adoptees discussing how much each of them cost – along with the impact that such knowledge has had upon their lives.

Everyday Discrimination

Sadly, the truth of the matter is that adoptees in much of America are much maligned by their own Government – to the point that they are legally and lawfully discriminated against.

Got a (fake) birth certificate filed over a year after birth? Tough luck if you want anything like a passport or a driving licence then, because many adoptees are now finding that they are now ineligible to be provided with such things due to rules introduced in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks. Same goes for applying for jobs that require some forms of identification. I know adoptees who have experienced all these forms of discrimination directly.

Even if you’re not one of the adoptees suffering from discrimination that way, should you actually wish to get at YOUR OWN factual (as opposed to “amended”) birth certificate – sorry, but unless you’re in one of the few states that allow adoptees access to such things (six of them I think, though it may now be eight), then you’re pretty much out of luck. Even if you can (possibly) get at it, chances are that – unlike the other 98% of the population, you may actually have to go to court and beg and plead with the judge/s you’re petitioning in order to get what most of the rest of the population can walk into an office and get handed over the counter with almost no fuss at all.

Adoption Records by State is a useful list of lengths adoptees have to go to to get at something given willy-nilly to the rest of the population (since don’t forget, these laws also affect those who have been adopted by step-parents too – not just those of us who weren’t even good enough for our own families to want to bother with).

Of course, this also affects international adoptees in ways that are even more devastating, with some being deported back to their original countries

The Emotional Costs

Being adopted, contrary to popular belief, is not “wonderful”.

Adoptees face a multitude of psychological issues that the non-adopted rarely experience. However, being such a vast subject, I’ll resort to saying please visit the link included for further details.

“Adoption Loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful” – The Reverend Keith C. Griffith, MBE

Finally, for a far more coherent rebuttal of the quoted text than anything I’ve managed to throw together yet, please go read Amanda’s post, “The Opposite of Adoption“. In fact, if you’re AT ALL interested in adoption and its effect on the adopted, then please go and read lots of posts in Amanda’s exceedingly articulate blog.

---

---

 

ETA: Tue 15 May 2012 @ 02:42

I’ve mentioned in one of these The Avengers posts, the wealth of other articles and blogs on the subject. Unfortunately, I’ve been having a hard time tracking down all the ones I thought I had read. Thus this ETA section of this post will be dedicated to linking to articles and blogposts on the subject, sometimes (though not always) from adoptees themselves. Feel free to nominate any posts that you feel worthy of inclusion, should I have missed it. I may not add them all, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be suggested.

May 06
Disney, Adoption and The Avengers… by Doug7856
… with alex9179’s reply being my favourite explanation of the scene yet.

May 10
Some in the Adoption Community Angered by ‘Marvel’s The Avengers’ by Arse-bot

May 11
Was ‘Avengers’ joke cruel to adoption community? by msnbc.com Entertainment (has link to msnbc.com Entertainment website post on the issue)

‘Avengers’ Joke Does Impact Kids Waiting For Adoption by Beth Robinson

May 14

Why I Found “The Avengers” Line Offensive by Amanda

My thoughts on the “he’s adopted” line from the Avengers/I’m an angry adoptee by kostvollmers

NCFA is not the “Expert” on Adoption Issues by Susan P

May 16
That ‘He’s Adopted’ One-Liner in ‘The Avengers’? Not Funny. by Jessica Cromwell

May 17
An Angry Adoptee Fangirl Responds To Avengers Adoption Joke by Triona Guidry

The Avengers attack on adopted children is mean and unfunny by Andrea Poe

In an article proving how spot-on the original complaints are, Natalie Zutter goes to great lengths in demonstrating her own lack of lack of comprehension.

May 18
Avengers: He’s Adopted Joke Creating Controversy by Scott Johnson

May 20
Another “The Avengers” Interpretation: Your not a “Real” Member of your Family by Amanda

May 21
Stigmas About Adoption Remain, and Hurt Families by Abbie Goldberg

May 29
I Belly-Laughed all the Way Through the Avengers by Earth Stains

ETA: Wed 05 September 2012 @ 00:04

He’s adopted – Thor (Avengers) Facebook page

===========================================

Not about the controversy, but where I got the link to Tom Hiddleston’s article: A little homework for you…

Also not directly related, but something I found while ‘liking’ EB’s Team Loki (Tom Hiddleston) fan page: How to tell Loki that he’s adopted.

Adoption Essentials

I wrote the following in reply to an iloveadoption (like a hole in the head I do *vom*) thread; and I’m sharing it ’cause I think it concisely summarises what *I* believe is essential to the future of adoption…

I’m not for adoption for anyone, at least not until it involves the supply of an adoption certificate that names all four (or more) parents; and that the adoptee is guaranteed access to that certificate for the entirety of their lives.

If we’re gonna trade kids like we trade everything else in the world, at least make sure they’ve got a truthful paper-trail that THEY can follow whenever THEY wanna follow it.

… and before I got around to posting ^that, I also came up with …

Your parents can’t’ve been the best parents in the world ’cause mine were. I’m also (raised) an only child and would’ve been spoiled rotten even if I hadn’t’ve been. If I hadn’t seen so damn clearly what family is *meant to be*, then adoption wouldn’t hurt so damn much!

Responding to positive propaganda

The following post was created in response to a couple of emails I received from a bmom, who was responding to my posts on the Y!A Adoption section.

I wasn’t expecting the start of this post to explode quite so much as it did, and so I decided that I would try to make the most of this post to help get some of the things I feel about adoption out – however, as usually happens, once I’d stopped writing and gone to sleep, restarting proved problematic, as I had lost the thread of where my writing was going, and so after the first question, my answers become more abrupt, and much less involved.

---

 
I can see this going one of three ways:

#1 – It’s entirely likely that both of us could get fed up of doing what, to each of our own selves, looks like bashing our own head off a brick wall, and say to ourselves “fuck it”, and give up on this conversation.

If, however, the conversation continues, there are two remaining probabilities that could occur, each of which is merely a mirror of the other:

#2a – I manage to make you understand why I – as someone who states that I was abandoned to adoption, truly feels that way. This could not happen until I perceived you as coming out of what I view as “the adoption fog”, and so it would mean that you would have completely changed absolutely everything you’ve believed in (about adoption) up until now.

#2b – You manage to make me understand why you – as someone who states that adoption is a good thing, truly feels that way. This could not happen until you perceive me as coming out of what you view as “believing the lie”, and so it would mean that I would have completely changed absolutely everything I’ve believed in (about adoption) up until now.

Wanna play? ;)

Either way, I’m now going to answer the questions you asked, and respond to the statements made within both of your messages to me, in order to attempt to explain to you, and help you to comprehend why I feel the way I do.
 

I know it must have been difficult for you to be placed for adoption. But, know you were not abandoned.

Which shows exactly how little you actually know about the circumstances surrounding _my_ adoption. To answer one of your later questions/statements, yes, I have met my mom, and I’ve also met my dad. I’ve also met two of my brothers, but am having trouble mourning my brother who died at seven months old because all I can currently see his death as is karma kicking my mom’s arse for abandoning me at the same age my brother was when he died, less than a year before he died.

Yes, it _was_ abandonment. I can say this with absolute certainty because I’ve heard the “exact” details surrounding my adoption, i.e. I’ve heard the story from the perspectives of those involved – namely my four parents, as well as having read case files from Social Services.

It absolutely *was* abandonment. My mom couldn’t be arsed with putting the effort in to raise the second of the two kids she’d thus far sprouted, to the point that Social Services were looking at stepping in and putting me into foster care. I was going to be put into care on the Wednesday, had someone not already taken me away the situation. Fortunately for me, the aparents that I grew up with turned up to see if they wanted me on the Saturday, after finding out that I was up for grabs.

How they found out is interesting, and again helps to clarify my explanation of why I see it as abandonment.

Despite any and all appearances to the contrary, my bmom actually *is* human. With this enchantment called humanity, comes the ever popular model most commonly called “flawed”. This is something I accept and understand and comprehend completely. That my heroes will contain “flaws” is a something that I have long since accepted, and long ago deemed as unimportant in relation to my feelings towards them; thus I have no issue with accepting that my mom is flawed.

Another part of the whole being human stuff involves talking to people, and – as people do – my mom discussed her desire to get rid of me with the people that surrounded her – e.g. those she considered to be friends. Luckily for me, the couple whose next-door neighbour went around to tell them that her sister had telephoned because her mate had a mate who wanted to know if anyone wanted her 7 month old baby that she didn’t want, were damn good people. Not perfect, admittedly, but damn good.

I was utterly and deeply lucky, because it could have been anyone who walked through that door in order to look at the 7 month old baby that was going spare. The only “lucky” part to my adoption was that I was “lucky” not to have been palmed off on to someone considerably worse.

A massive number of adoptees experience abuse from one or more adoptive parent, which means that those adoptees given away by their mothers just because their mothers think that material goods are more important in life than their child getting its own mother’s love and its own mother’s protection have suffered abuse *because* they’ve been adopted.

Adoptive parents are just as likely to suffer from the same problems and issues as are faced by biological families. The western culture is rife with divorce, and given the number of times the world economy has crashed in recent decades, pretty much every adoptee can be faced with growing up in a life of (relative to “the dream”) poverty, sometimes coupled with single parenthood, and sometimes not.

I have no idea what percentage of the general population are estimated to be alcoholics, but I have – as of yet – found no reason yet to explain why the number of adoptive parents within that percentage wouldn’t be proportional to their percentage within the general population.

Shit happens to everyone, and being adopted no more guarantees that you will live the dream life that all adoptees are supposed to get, than you would have lived if you had stayed with the mother who didn’t give you away.

I have – for an adoptee – led an exceedingly charmed life. My aparents sprout from relatively sane and functional families, who pretty much all possess a genuine and caring work and moral ethic, and so – like an adoptee living the dream, I have grown up with a fantastic amount of scaffolding upon which I have been able to build myself upon. My afamily (aunts, cousins, granddads, etc.) are what families are *supposed* to be. The vast majority are in happy, life-long relationships with people they love and trust and care about enough to have *chosen* to have and raise kids with, and those who aren’t seem to be on at least friendly terms with those they have separated from.

In other words, I have grown up seeing all of the people around me NOT being abandoned, and I have seen how so much more solid their lives and relationships have been. I have seen how families are meant to work, instead of the experience I had, of being abandoned so that someone else could do all the hard work.
 

I know it is difficult growing up and not having that piece of your idenity.

Do you? Do you *really* have any clue what it is like to have to grow up in a world with no familiarity to help guide your path? Do you *really* know what it is like to grow up in a world where every time you fill in a medical questionnaire, you have to write “unknown” for every single answer? Do you *really* have the vaguest clue about what it is like not to know ANYTHING about your own history, or identity, or even your own ‘race’?
 

Maybe its time you find it in other things. Hobbies?

Oh yes, because having a hobby TRULY makes up for not having lost your own family and not having your own identity! Besides which, I have plenty in my life to keep me occupied, thanks very much. I don’t need any more time-sinks.
 

It is time you stop beating yourself up about what happened to you thirty some years ago and start living.

I’m not beating myself up about what happened to me thirty some years ago, what I’m doing is living with the consequences of what happened to me thirty some years ago. This does not mean that I’m not living, as you suggest, it instead means that I’m still – even now – trying to learn and understand how the world works because up until September 2009, I had no way of seeing what I might become, or of seeing how people I comprehend react to the world.

If I wasn’t living, then I would not be able to type this reply out to you because, well, I’d be not alive.
 

Find a counselor who cares and can begin to move you more forward into using this experience to catupult you rather than bring you down.

I would *love* to be able to find a counsellor who can help me begin to “get over” this experience, however, counsellors that understand the issues of adoptees are few and far between, and sadly, we can’t usually get such help free of charge, despite this being a result of something that was done to us, rather than as a result of anything we did to ourselves.

Also, you presume too much if you think that abandonment can be in any way mitigated by counselling. Being abandoned cuts to the core of the being, and since (in my case at least) I was too young (at seven months old) to even begin to comprehend anything other than abject misery at the loss of everything I’d ever known and ever loved, it is not something that can be rationalised away. Rationally, I understand that I did grow up in what was probably a safer and more caring environment compared to my maternal biological siblings, but I most certainly did NOT grow up in a safer and more caring environment than my paternal siblings – in fact, my paternal siblings grew up living the life that I spent my childhood wanting to lead.
 

If you never find satisfaction in life, then what is the hope in living?

I don’t need to hope to live, thanks, sadly, it just comes naturally – and satisfaction has bugger all to do with life, unless you’re very lucky.
 

Life is about taking challenges as they come and takeing responsibility for your life.

You’re presuming that I don’t take responsibility for my life, which is entirely incorrect. I take complete responsibility for everything I do or say as an adult who can comprehend the psychology behind the things that I do and say – what I refuse to take responsibility for, however, is the abandonment that I suffered, because that abandonment was not by my own doing. Abandonment is what happened to me, not what I did.

As for taking the challenges as they come; do you think I would still be here and alive if I hadn’t taken them as they came?
 

Sorry you had a tough life.

Why, when it wasn’t you who abandoned me, should you be sorry?

I didn’t have a tough life, relatively; I had a different life.
 

But when are you going to grow up.

LOL. According to my closest friends, never. Apparently I’m Peter Pan’s evil twin.
 

The rest of the world has problems too.

You don’t say?! That is so shocking, and deeply condescending. Do you think that as an adoptee, my adoption is the only issue I am faced with in my life? Do you think that because I am adopted, that everything else in my life runs perfectly? Of course it doesn’t. Being adopted doesn’t help pay the bills (yet), nor do is provide structure and love and care for my daughter – all that being adopted has done is given me insight into how traumatic it is to be adopted, so that I can hope – in the future – to be able to help challenge and change the rules that govern the care of children who need to be removed from their own families for their own safety.
 

I am a birthmother and adoption is not this horrible thing. Stop spreading negative propanganda in something you know little about.

Aaah, so you’re an abandoner, well that answers everything. Speaking as the one who got abandoned, yes, adoption IS horrible. Adoption hurts kids, and adoption separates families.

As for knowing little about adoption – bwahahaaaa! Sorry, but just no. I am the one who has had to live through this, and so I am the one who CAN spread the negative propaganda, because I am the one who has had no choice but to live through it.

How about you stop joining in with the positive adoption propaganda instead, since you’re not the one who has had to grow up living this, and so you have no clue what-so-ever what living with this is like. How about you come out of the rainbow-farting unicorn fog and admit that losing your child, and your child losing her family hurts, instead of convincing other women to also abandon their kids? Why not, instead of buying into the positive adoption party line, you instead help women who are considering adoption find resources so that they can keep their kids, so that their kids can grow up without having to experience the bewilderment of having to grow up in an unrecognisable world that has no familiarity to it.
 

My daughter had a better life because of me.

Did she, did she really? Or did she just have a different life?
 

Speaks four languages and lived in a nice home.

Yes, because being able to speak four languages and having material possessions really does make up for a lack of genetic mirroring, and a lack of genetic history, and a lack of known medical knowledge in which one can protect oneself from potential medical difficulties. Of course being able to speak four languages and living in a nice home makes up for not having your own mom there, someone that you can recognise and understand intuitively.
 

She would have grown up dirt poor if she would have grown up with me.

My daughter has grown up dirt poor, and she’s turned out ok. I grew up relatively well off, but that hasn’t helped in the slightest, since material objects are of little consequence. Yes, having nice things is, well, nice, but it’s entirely possible to live without the nice things, and I would much rather have grown up with my own self being reflected back at me than have grown up with as many toys and gadgets as money can buy.

Material objects can not, and do not, give love.
 

I did not abandon her. I made a responsible decision.

No, you abandoned her. You brought her into the world, and then palmed her off on to someone else to raise just because you think material objects are worth more than a mother’s love.

The responsible decision would have been to either abort, or to raise her yourself – the irresponsible decision was to palm her off on to someone else to raise.
 

Don’t ruin your life with this lie.

I don’t need to ruin my life with this – my life was long ago (at the age of seven months old) ruined by this. It is not a choice that I have.
 

Stand up and take responsiblity.

See, I did, unlike you. I took the responsibility of raising my own child, instead of abandoning her. I took on the responsibility of educating and guiding the daughter that I gave birth to, instead of palming her off on to someone else – unlike you.
 

At every moment, we have the chance to stand up and begin again in life.

Actually, no we don’t. It’s impossible (currently) to turn back time – all we can do from this point on is continue to live until we don’t.
 

My daughter and I have made contact and are close. Have you and your mother reunited? I hope this will bring closure for you.

Sorry, no, meeting my biological family has not – and is almost certain never likely to – “bring closure”. Meeting my biological family has helped massively in filling in some of the gaps in my life, but now I’ve got four families that I don’t quite fit into, instead of just two families.
 

Praying for you.

Please don’t, otherwise I might get tempted to pray for you too, and I sincerely doubt that you would enjoy having my god take notice of your life, because he’s not a very nice person at all.