Grateful Bred
“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
It’s funny how many people ask me about my adoptive parents, when I tell them about my search. Usually, it’s asking what do they think about my search. Well world, it’s not about them. It’s about finding my roots. Too many adoptive parents look at an adoptee searching as an attack against them, or as a sign the adoptee is trying to “replace” them. Well, unless they were terrible aoptive parents, probably not true.
I’ve been told I should feel grateful for being born and adopted by some. When I compare my adoptive life to some others I’ve met, I have to agree I was lucky in many ways, but why is having your past hidden a reason to feel grateful? I had a good life, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know. Nature abhors a vacuum, and my genetic history is vacuum.
I’ve been told I was chosen. Okay, this one just makes me feel like a pet.
I’ve been told how grateful I should feel because I have parents who truly wanted me. Where do I begin on this one?
I’ve been told that it was such a wonderful thing my biological mother did in giving me up. Huh? How do you know? How do you know what my life might have been? How do you know what life she might have had? I tell these people to go watch a Disney movie. You know, where the Mom gives her life to save her child because she loves them, or those that the parent will go where angels fear to tread to save their child. Yeah, doesn’t make me feel so “lucky” in that sense. Why doesn’t she find me? Also, what does it say that my first lesson in love is to give the thing you love away? (A little Primal Wound Theory for you there.)
I want to join all three of my familys. My family by birth, my family by adoption and my family by marriage. When I do this, then I will feel lucky.
As for my parents? They are fine with me searching, they even help. Like my mom says, “We are curious too.”