You Don’t Look Adopted

Point A:

It was never my intention to hurt him so, but I just felt this deep connection to him, like we had known each other for years. I truly believe it was an adoptee connection after the fact. Although the loss of this friendship affected me, it was what he said about me that stopped me in my tracks: “You don’t look adopted!”

That one statement made me so sad. In his world, adoption was not a good thing. The only people he had experienced as adoptees were like him, lost. Yet he only knew the me at college, in that one class, twice a week for an hour. He didn’t know the lost me. The me that is always searching to discover who she truly is.

It’s been five years since I’ve seen or talked to David. I think of him often, or truthfully think more of how I invaded his private world. The world he was so uncomfortable with he chose to leave it all behind. I had to do some soul searching about appropriateness in my openly expressing my adoption and reunion stories. Why do I do it? Is it to help me or others? You told me not to be so hard on myself. Maybe I was just there to be a stepping stone in David’s journey.

A couple weeks ago, out of the blue, I received a Facebook message from David! He was now on social media and wanted to let me know that he had met his birthmother. Although it was not the storybook ending like ours, he was still thankful for the brief reunion. Even through the ruin, he seemed to have found the treasure in it all.

Point B:

As I think back through my elementary and high school years, my memories of adoptees are very different from yours. From the time I started kindergarten until I graduated high school, I knew two girls who were adopted. Paula joined my third grade class and I can still see her big brown eyes shine when she let me play with all of her fancy dolls in her huge room. I don't remember how we found out that she was adopted but I do remember it being “strange” to us. We had never known anyone who was adopted. I don't remember hearing of any of the kids teasing her about being adopted but I've often wondered through the years if that didn't happen frequently. Her family moved after the end of that school year. Then there was Karen. She was a year older than me but her parents owned a retail store in our town and our mothers became acquainted. I really liked Karen and she was a lot of fun to be around. Over the next three or four years, their business thrived and they were well liked in our small town. However, they made the decision to move to a bigger city because they believed that Karen was or would be treated differently because she was adopted.

The next chapter of my life began on my 17th birthday all alone and scared on the front steps of the unwed mother's home 346 miles away from my family and friends. It is a birthday I will never forget.

I first began talking about adoption twenty years after you were born. I was scared to death to tell anyone that I was part of the adoption triad. To say that I WAS A BIRTHMOM. But with a lot of help from you and a great counselor, I have gained my courage to tell our story and speak up to help change ADOPTEE RIGHTS. Now that we are celebrating our 25th reunion, I find it very interesting yet upsetting when people say the following comments to me:

• YOU SEEM STUCK

• YOU NEED TO MOVE ON

• YOU NEED TO GET OVER IT

I've been asked more than once why giving you up still bothers me since we have a great relationship and have known each other longer than we've been apart? I've never had any way of explaining it to them. Unless you've experienced adoption yourself, you will never understand. But I think I will start saying the following comment whenever I'm asked any of the comments I mentioned above.

ADOPTION IS TRAUMA
This fact is not dependent on your ability to recognize it.

Image Descriptions:

1. Feet stuck in mud with footprints around — Overlaid text reads: “You say I’m stuck. You say I should move on. You say I should be over it.” A raw visual metaphor for adoption grief and judgment.

2. Pearl resting in moss framed by flowers — Overlaid Rumi quote: “Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.” Suggests hope and healing through brokenness.