Adoption denial. What does it feel like? A fellow blogger, Suz, (who everyone should check out ASAP if they haven't already) posed this question on her own blog, http://writingmywrongs.com/ .
This question intrigued me to the point where I had to spend a few days thinking about how to respond. As an adoptee who actively works hard everyday attempting to convince myself that adoption doesn't matter- how do I do it? How do I look into the eyes of my birthsisters and say they do not matter? How can I think of my birthmother and think "she is no one to me anymore?" How do I speak to my birthfather once every two weeks and think, " this man is merely a nice acquaintance with whom I share DNA. A friend. Not a father." Is this so called denial easy for me, does it come as naturally as breathing? Or is it something I have to practice- a mantra that must be repeated, memorized, absorbed.
Perhaps another question could be, "how can I not?"
Sometimes the knowledge of my adoption and the experience of my subsequent reunion is so overwhelming, so deeply engrained in my personhood, that the only thing I can do to purge myself of those feelings is to negate them. To negate myself, even.
"I am one of billions of people. 100 years from now I will be gone, all trace of my personhood returned to the earth. No one will remember my story, the situation in which I was born will no longer be relevant. I have been displaced yes, but also placed. I belong to the clan with which I reside. The past does not matter, even I do not matter."
For my birthmother, I am one of over half a dozen children. All but two have not remained with the biological family. By convincing myself that I am not alone, I have also convinced myself that I am not important. To my biological family, particularly maternally, I am simply one of many. One of many failed parenthoods.
"I do not belong with them, I never belonged.They have proven this to me. "
My biological family, as an entity, chose to expel me from their family. And somehow, I think this essential fact is somehow forgotten, misplaced, brushed aside. But it has not been lost to me. The family to whom I was born pick and chose children- raising some, placing others. But that's not my business. I have no right to question, no right to pick over their decision, no right to make them feel guilty for their choice. But on that some level, I am somehow expected to accept them without hesitation, to love them, to connect with them, to regard them as my family. Why?
"She is not my mother, she is not my mother. He is nice but not my father. That girl is not my sister." I repeat this over and over. I have myself nearly convinced. Some people are astounded at my callous, others applaud me and commend me for not allowing those archaic notions of biology to control my own definition of family.
There are a few members of my birthfamily whom I love. Most significantly, my older sister, Pippi, whom I only reunited with within the year. She is the first one I connected with, the first one whom I can really say I love. She too was placed for adoption- and so we are two women: the cast out, the two biosisters reunited on the outside. But even we know that we are not sisters. And how could we be? We tried the word out once or twice.
"This is my sister, Amanda." or "This is my sister, Pippi." But the words tasted funny, unfamiliar. We dropped the title almost immediately. I care for her, deeply even. But who is she? I have yet to find the correct definition. Perhaps we cannot be defined. I do know, however, with certainty what we are not.
I deny because it is the only truth in my adoption that I can find. The only piece of my personhood that I dare claim.
"She is not my mother, he is not my father, she is not my sister. She is my birthmother's mother, not my grandmother. He is my birthfathers brother, not my uncle."
Selfishly, I ask "why should I acknowledge those who do not acknowledge me?" But truthfully, I ask "Why should I pine for something that cannot be found in it's entirety again?" My reunion is not a look into the past, but a glimpse into something unattainable- into the family that could have been, that might have been, that almost was, but simply isn't.
