I've been reading some blogs by other adoptees.. I do it often, so it's not really random. At the beginning of my search, I thank the gods that I found the community founded by the fabulous Elaine P. when I did. Christ on a crutch, I don't know how I'd be right now had I not stumbled onto that page.
Anyway, this isn't going to be a long blog, the time change makes me want to go to bed at 4.30, so you can imagine how I feel at 7.08.. but I've come to a giant conclusion-it was something I had supposed was true, but now I feel it's absolutely true, not just a theory. Please feel free to chime in-I'd love to hear perspective either way.
I feel, as a grownup who was adopted as a baby, searched for her mother, only to find her ashes are scattered in the Gulf of Mexico and I will never ever know her.. that it would be easier to find a mother already dead, than to be rejected again.
I understand.. maybe, perhaps.. that there COULD be hope if the mother is still alive and on the planet.. but I will swear that I doubt that's the case.. not for me, anyway.. I've got the wound.. it's shredded me.. I honestly don't know if I would have the fortitude some of the adoptees I admire have.
I know life, in general, is putting one foot in front of the other--to keep going.. when the going gets tough and all that crap.. so ,another cliche, we do what we have to do, and it is what it is.
My sadness these days is pure grief.. the what could have been.. the questions, unanswered. The wishing, the wanting.. all of those plus more, I have, and they have annihilated me. I know I will stand again, but for my comrades, the ones who have lost the hope, have had the second rejection.. you're on my mind and heart tonight. I'm just so sorry.
So, this is to you, the ones who have found, and have had the knives pushed in even further. It quite possibly could even be worse than the first wound, I have no way of knowing, but I suspect that is the case.
You have my respect, and my sympathy.. I just wish we all could have gotten lucky to have found living, breathing mothers that wanted us, still.
I really, really ache for you, my sisters, my friends, my allies in a war we never asked to be in.
9 comments:
Interesting....so, how would you apply that wanting a living breathing mother that wanted you to the opposite side? I am curious about that.....
i'm not applying those angels on earth that pray for their lost children to come home one day to either side. I would say that would be the benchmark.. something we all strive for, including mothers-i know you, as a collective group, before finding, would hope to have a positive reunion, as well, and definitely would be devastated to find out your child had already passed away.
I'm not sure I have given mothers enough credit on this blog, as I've tried to work out my (many) issues, but I hope to my very last breath that my mother wanted me, and just couldn't hold on anymore.
I guess that's the difference in between me, and the other adoptees that have had that second rejection (not because they met, tried to develop a relationship and it just ended up poorly, but the ones who have tried to locate and were met with extreme hostility,( EP would be the MOST extreme case I've heard of, so far.
I guess I "left out" adoptees who have had positive reunions because, while I'm SURE that is still a hard and emotional road, I juxtaposed the two most negative in my own mind, and tried to glean some positives.. "at least," etc.
I just feel awful for either side being rejected, it's only from my stance that I can empathize with adoptees because I am one, but I definitely have compassion for all of us.
I get long-winded, let me know if I answered your question!
@juxtaposition, I guess I am one of the anomolies. I have yet to reject my child, but suffer a lot because of things that other adoptees say and do...rejection actually works both ways as we both know.
I think, truly, that the day we stop walking on eggshells and accept that we are different, flawed and totally able to love and be loved as long as we choose to be loving and understanding, then the idea of rejection will come to where it should be - in the past.
The opposite thing is, and I mean this is the nicest way, what happens out in the world. My daughter would have been delighted, relieved, happy, to have found I was dead...yep, fact. She was thrilled when she thought I was dead. So, when someone says it would be better somehow, I have to wonder exactly how angry they are with their mothers.
I lost my husband of 27+ years in March, so I get the grieving part in spades. And anger at the loss, the perceived rejection, is a part of it...I definitely get that.
I wish you well - if you ever need a shoulder, let me know. We can cry together.
Thank you. I am one of those with the knife in deeper.
I have thought very hard about the very same question that you posed. In some ways, if my mother were dead, my brother might not have felt he had to dump me. I would have unanswered questions and lots of grief. I would never have known how she really felt about me, but perhaps ignorance would have been bliss.
It's a horrible place to be in, and to have to ask such painful questions. I appreciate your love and support, and I am so sorry for your loss.
Lori, rejection sucks no matter which end you're on. It's terrible, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. It seems a cruel cosmic joke sometimes that my mother was someone who felt quite okay telling me to my face that she wished I were dead, when there are plenty of adoptees out there who never search. Why couldn't she be mother to one of them, and I the daughter to a mother who *wants* her daughter, only to be turned away. It sucks.
Lori, that shoulder thing goes both ways..
I agree with you there needs to be more understanding and compassion on ALL sides..in my own personal story, I feel like a lot of the propaganda from "back in the day" (which, unfortunately, still exists today) destroyed any progress I could have made ten, twenty years ago. I was just under the assumption that my "bmother" (as I knew no other word back then) just didn't want me.. and that all the things I have heard from other adoptees (again, propaganda), as I had heard myself, were true.
It took a lot of time to get to that compassionate place-some days are harder than others.. there is anger.. I just wrestle with it.. mostly at myself right now, believe it or not. I should have known. I should have FELT her slipping away from life. I should have searched earlier, but my anger was in the way.. I wonder if she thought of me-I choose to say she did. It's better than the alternative.
I don't understand.. and then I do understand.. how people can just be.. human. I hate that your daughter would take joy in the fact that you were dead. It makes me sick to my stomach. I'd trade her any day of the week. I've met so many mothers who ache for a great relationship, who want to know person-and love them and explain the "why" of it all... and they never get the chance.
It's just a cruel cosmic joke that there are so many adoptees who want their mothers, and so many mothers who want their children. I just wish the matching and pairing up could be a little different.. so much love to give, if we would only allow ourselves and others to be human-flawed, broken, bent, scarred, healed, etc.
Ms. M.. that post was inspired by something you had written. I see who you are, and it just tugs at me.. everything any mother could wish their daughter became, you have in spades. You're smart, intelligent, beautiful, an amazing contributor to society.. I know the rejection completely obliterates in your eyes everything amazing that you are, though, it trumps it all. I just hate that she won't see it.
A while ago, I came to the conclusion that my mother didn't reject this person I have grown to be.. how could she? she didn't know who Rachel was.. just for some reason, she "didnt have the resources, or the option to wait and find out." I tried so hard to detach myself (Rachel, the adult..) from the whole scenario.. because she just didn't know. To be an adult, though, to be on a level playing field (as we are all adults now)SHOULD equalize everything, but sadly, it doesn't if you aren't given the chance to show her who you became.. I hate it, I absolutely hate it.
I know we both know mothers that we just dream could be our very own. I'm just so sorry it didn't happen that way.
Lori, also, I feel like I didn't explain my intent well with the original post. After I read your post about it, it left me sad, because I left you up-ended and it really wasn't my intent at all.
By no means do I wish that my mother was dead.. ever. I am so devastated that she's gone. Had she not been gone, I'd still have hope, even had she been at the point in her life where she couldn't or wouldn't want to meet me.
What I was trying to say is ONLY with those two devastating scenarios would one possibly be "better" or "easier to take emotionally." I was looking at the end result, not the entire journey. I intentionally left out the people who have been in reunion, the good stories, the amazing ones and the not so amazing ones. Never would I wish death on a mother, or her child. I was simply wondering if it would be easier on a heart at the end of the journey not to "feel" rejected.
I've always wondered..in any relationship..would it be easier to bear death, and know someone didn't leave you intentionally, than to be left, hated?
Freud would have had a field day with me, I know.. I know.
Anyway, my apologies.. I truly take the responsibility for not explaining myself the way I should have. There was absolutely no malice, no ugliness intended.
I read this a while ago and I have debated chiming in. I was not adopted, I was in foster care. My parents worked very hard to have me made a ward of the state. They have always been in and out of my life on their whim, not mine. Sometimes I envy people who don’t have to know the parents who have rejected them and who don’t have to face being rejected over and over again.
Yes some birth moms were young, mislead and so forth but a lot just wanted out of the responsibility and to get on with their lives. Of curse I would expect even those to have the better sense to come out and say THAT.
My husband has a blended family, and it works better than any I have ever seen. What is the secret to their success? Each of his parents were married with 3 kids, they went to the same church. With in months of each other each lost their spouse, one in a car accident one due to illness. They married shortly latter and had my husband.
The moral? No ex-spouses to run interference, no kids playing their parents against each other, death can make some things less complicated.
I like what Sunday said- "death can make some things less complicated". Absolutely.
I have died a million times over the past 24 years in reunion, all by the hands of my first Mother. (her words, actually, lol)
I have asked myself that question- would it have been easier to have found her after she had died.
In some ways, yes. In others, no. I still have many unanswered questions, and a dead woman could not answer me. But, my first Mother is as cold as a corpse, and lies to anyone who will listen to her, so it IS like she is dead in that sense.
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