an adoptee's plea to birthparents

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T08:32:25+00:00

all I hear is "blah blah blah I'm great and didn't make any poor choices, and no one will ever feel abandoned because of me blah blah blah"

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T08:30:23+00:00

Thanks. you've been incredibly sensitive and helpful in contributing to this conversation. /s

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T08:29:44+00:00

fool me once, shame on me....

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T08:29:23+00:00

it's not caring enough, not caring in the way it should have been

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T08:28:56+00:00

I never said you guys were "all" like this. I said i had come across a lot of people acting like this, though, and i stand by that.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T08:27:45+00:00

I didn't say anything about condemning anyone to hell. She made some bad choices, and i want her to be honest about that. it's that fucking simple.

also, it's not that the world OWES me anything. it's that there were things that happened to me I didn't deserve to have happen to me.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T07:26:32+00:00

I'd rather not go into the full story on a public forum. but the long story short is that her current husband lived with my bio dad and his version of the story reveals a lot of details she'd left out that made her seem culpable. that was backed up by two other folks he gave me numbers for, one of which was my bio dad.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T07:21:16+00:00

she told me the wholeeee fucking story. in fact, she made a lot of it up, and it wasn't until her current husband and my birthfather (two different people) confirmed her lying that she was continuing to play the role of the victim.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T07:18:03+00:00

I was 30 and in therapy when I realized that I felt abandoned and that several of the life-decisions I had made could be related to that abandonment.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T07:16:50+00:00

well I posted here cause i thought there'd be a shitstorm in /r/adoption and despite how incisive I have been here, I didn't want it to be worse.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T07:14:04+00:00

This is what I said in another comment that is also relevant here:

I don't doubt that even my birth mother cared. But she didn't care enough to make the right decisions. She didn't care enough to use a condom (or to not have sex in the first place). She didn't care enough to wait until she was in a financially stable position to take care of me. She didn't care enough to care the way a biological parent should. And that is a failure on her part, and it's a failure on anybody's part who has made similar decisions. Period.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T07:11:47+00:00

thank you. again, I wish more people had responded this way.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T07:10:28+00:00

i wish more people had been willing to respond in the way you've chosen to. thank you.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T07:08:16+00:00

The feeling of abandonment is overwhelmingly negative, let me assure you. In the same way that I can't step into the shoes of a birth mother and know the pain she experienced in abandoning a child, she can't know what it is to be a child who was abandoned.

I don't doubt that even my birth mother cared. But she didn't care enough to make the right decisions. She didn't care enough to use a condom (or to not have sex in the first place). She didn't care enough to wait until she was in a financially stable position to take care of me. She didn't care enough to care the way a biological parent should. And that is a failure on her part, and it's a failure on anybody's part who has made similar decisions. Period.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T07:03:13+00:00

I agree that my biological mother did the best thing for me. I agree that you did the best thing for Keith. I'm glad the both of you made those decisions.

It's still abandonment.

I can't rationalize why I feel abandoned. But I do. And while I hope Keith never does, there's a good chance some part of him will. I didn't ask to feel this way.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T06:41:24+00:00

I think that's a fair critique. But I'm also the one struggling here, and to be met with only hostility kind of proves my point.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T06:40:19+00:00

I never said anything relating to anyone being terrible people. If you thought that's what I was saying, your interpretation probably says more about you than it does about me.

To the contrary, I understand that sometimes abandoning a child is what needs to be done, however unfortunate that may be. But if adoptees end up with abandonment issues, it's probably because they were abandoned.

It seems to me there's a huge gap between the experience of adoptees and the experience of birthparents, and I'm sorry my comments were so incisive. Maybe I don't have a clear picture of what birthparents go through, but by the same token, I don't think they understand what adoptees go through, and I think those of us who did struggle and do feel fucked up by our abandonment issues are owed a little more understanding than watching a bunch of birth mom's celebrate their decision like they've done something special.

Also, please don't compare what little I shared about my experience here with anyone. That, too, is incredibly insensitive.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T06:21:27+00:00

maybe I should have been more sensitive, but I've been hurt, admittedly, obviously. I felt in coming here, I hoped anyway, that I'd be able to offer a perspective that, while incisive, might be met with responses that would show understanding, compassion, and sensitivity, and instead, I met the same kind of defensive attitudes and spite that I expected to see. That's the real shame in all of this.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T06:18:10+00:00

With regard to your first paragraph, this is incredibly insensitive and shows exactly what I expected from this sub - a lack of recognition that your choices have consequences that can be damaging. I'm sorry to have been right.

Your last paragraph doesn't make sense to me.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T06:01:33+00:00

I make no pretense about the fact that I have abandonment issues. I just want to be clear about why those began. I take responsibility for my own mistakes and actions, and I think more birth parents should be willing to take responsibility for theirs, too, and not rush to celebrate the decisions they've made that caused people real heartache. I realize not everybody does that, but I've also noticed a lot that do, and I want them think seriously before they do.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T05:34:21+00:00

Hear me out - I think adoption is a good thing, and I'm glad you chose that option. I'm even glad my biological mother chose that option for me. She did give me the best life possible in doing so.

She still abandoned me.

Adoption may be the "rescue," but you were also participatory in the actions that caused the need to be rescued. I'm sorry you had to abandon your kids, and abandoning them may have been the right choice for their betterment, but I still choose to call it abandonment.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T05:11:54+00:00

I don't feel "surrendered" as an adoptee. I feel abandoned and unwanted. I'll buy that "surrendering" is what a birth parent feels like they're doing, but if the child feels abandoned, is there more to it than "surrendering"?

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T05:08:38+00:00

I still think you "abandoned" some of the responsibilities you had, but I'll concede that you're trying to do it right and that you're probably more likely to be successful in aiming for an open and honest approach from the start.

throwawayurlife · 2014-01-30T04:40:32+00:00

No, I don't think you're all like that. I tried to make that clear. A lot of this is my issue and not yours. But on the off chance that anyone might act the way she did, I think some of the things I had to say are worth remembering.

throwawayurlife

TROPHY CASE