How do we, as adoptees, deal with rejection from our birth family members?
I’ve been fortunate in that only siblings have rejected me..not the dreaded mother or father. But it still hurts. A lot. And it’s really not surprising.
Most people don’t understand what it’s like to be despised on such a primal level. Sure, there are a lot of people who fight with their siblings, or who don’t get along with a brother or a sister. But those kinds of things happen in normal families because of conflict- actions or words.
My sister Nicole? She just hates me. Not really because of anything I’ve done to her, or vice versa. But because I exist- and frankly, it just pisses her off.
How do we, as people who have grown up outside of our families of origin, cope when we discover that in reunion, we aren’t as welcome as we would have liked?
I wish I had the answer. After nearly 10 years of conflict…I’ve learned to just live with it. I try to comfort myself with the fact that its not “ME” as a person, but me as an entity. Nicole couldn’t possibly hate me, she doesn’t know me! We were friends as young children, but puberty (and the notion that I wasn’t going away..as she’d hoped) promptly ruined all of that for us.
Now, at a very tender age, she is expecting her first baby. It’s a niece or nephew that I will never know, who will never call me “Auntie A”, who will be deprived of his only aunt just as me and my sister were deprived of each other.
How do we heal? How do we make amends? Apologies don’t work- what are we apologizing for?
“I’m very sorry I exist, Nicole. I’m sorry you aren’t really an only child. Sorry our father loves me too.”
With my particular case, talking doesn’t work. Neither do letters. She insists, as she always has, that she hates me and that she will never love me. She talks to other half- siblings of ours who HAVE done some pretty terrible things to her. Just not to me. I am her only full sister- the only sister with whom she shares a father. She hates me because she is jealous that I too have a connection with him.
Um…..my bad.
How do we move on, my adoptee friends? How do we just “accept” that sometimes our own families will probably never love us, simply because we exist? Luckily- the problem most commonly lies within the other person. Most people cannot imagine hating or being hated by someone they don’t even know. Let alone someone they don’t know who is also their brother, or sister, or daughter.
I find my only salvation is to wait. Maybe one day Nicole will change her mind, maybe one day she will understand. She is very young. We still have time.
Do I hold my breath? I do not. Do I wish her well? … I try to.
But mostly I just accept it for what it is. I add it to my list of unique situations that being relinquished for adoption puts me in. Another unfortunate thing that I have no control over, but that will affect me for the rest of my life.
How do you all deal? Did your families welcome you back into the fold? If not, what helps you?
3 commenti:
What has helped me? By doing exactly what you are doing- "I try to comfort myself with the fact that its not “ME” as a person, but me as an entity. P/A couldn’t possibly hate me, she doesn’t know me!"
It has taken me a while to get there, and it still hurts, but that is what I have done.
They hate what I represent- living proof that our Mother has lied to them their entire lives.
When I first made contact , I apologized to them, but no more. While I do feel bad that my existence was a shock to them, I won't feel bad for doing what our Mother should have done years ago.
It's all so complicated, but it doesn't have to be that way. Quite frankly, it's sad that we adoptees are continually placed in the position of trying to clean up the messes of the adults (parents) in our lives.
Time is on your side, just wait, don't hope too much and maybe one day your sister once she becomes a mother may see things differently.I came as a complere surprise to my father's children who for all their lives knew nothing of me, over 60 years.Some accepted, some didn't, some rejected after a time and some I closed the door on.The important thing is to remember you have choice. Good luck!
Maybe she's just immature and will grow up and get over it at some point. If she was acting this way at 30 ...forget about her. Since she's only in her teens, there's some hope there. Alot of people act very selfishly at that age.
Posta un commento