Why Don’t I Feel Like Everyone Else? Or Do I?

I have not gotten very far on this blog because… Well, just because. In just the few short weeks since my first post my attitudes and feelings toward adoption and AA’s has begun to morph. Oh, don’t worry…I’m not saying I’ve totally jumped the fence and have a whole new opinion. But I am much closer to the fence than I was before.

You see, when I first started this blog, "No Greater Act of Love", my intention was to counter the many negative adoptee blogs and anti-adoption messages I was finding on the WWW. But I am having trouble finding the words. I believe my problem is that there just CANNOT be “right” or “wrong” answers to the questions surrounding adoption. I can sometimes be a very black and white individual and unfortunately for me, in this discussion, those colors do not exist. I started this journey seeing only the “right” side of adoption…how it had affected me in a positive way. I started my research only looking at the warm, fuzzy stories. Stories about how, after a long, painful period of infertility families were finally created through the miracle of adoption, how children were rescued from impoverished situations and given a chance at a life they might not otherwise have had, how young women were given the opportunity to choose a better life for their child while also getting a chance to start their own lives over. How could adoption be “wrong”? Everyone wins!!!! The child, the adoptive family, the birth mother! It all seems so “right”!

But, alas, my research continues! I have allowed myself to read the stories written by BP’s and AA’s. In these stories I read about coercion and lies. I read about sealed records and lost families. What I have learned in just these few short weeks is that adoption is not and CANNOT be seen in black and white. While some things about adoption ARE “right” there are equally as many things that are so “wrong”! My experience as an adoptee might have been a positive one but my coping skills and my life are not another person’s and I cannot expect them to see things and feel things the same way I do. There are people who really struggle, on a daily basis, with being adopted. It affects their desire to parent children, it affects their relationships, and it affects their day-to-day function. The same is true for BP’s. The affects of this “adoption miracle” on their lives is anything but a miracle.

Once upon a time I firmly believed that the anger and pain felt by these 2 members of the adoption triad (and any other person with “issues”) was a result of their own inability to take responsibility for their lives! I felt that if they would just leave the past behind and not blame other’s in their life for their own problems then they would be fine. Hey, that’s what I’ve done, right? Surely if I can do it so can everyone else! I’ve had some pretty crappy things happen in my life but do I let that affect me? Well…maybe I do and maybe I don’t. But just because I feel that I am capable of moving on does not mean that everyone else has to or even CAN! Everyone is entitled to their pain and their anger and their heartache! EVERYONE! So, why don’t I feel like everyone else? Well…I think in some small way I do. And if I don’t…that’s OK! I’m entitled to my feelings and no one can tell me whether how I feel is “right” or “wrong”!