According to society:

“happy” adoptee = grateful adoptee

“angry adoptee = ungrateful adoptee

Something society cannot compute:

“happy” adoptee = outspoken on the unpleasant aspects of adoption (aka…. ungrateful)

Adoptees feel a much more complex mix of emotions than simply happy or mad. We’re deeper than that and have so many reasons to feel so many different ways. Below is my simple list of complex emotions all thrown into one human being.

Are some adoptees, in fact, angry? For me, yes, that is one of many different emotions I feel. I’m personally fighting mad that original birth records are closed. This is the one aspect of adoption that I can tell you I’m pissed off about and if I’m going to wage a war, it’s against the outdated legislation that is holding our identities prisoner. Yes, I’m angry that our histories (medical and genealogical) are locked away from us.

I feel sad about my adoption on so many levels. I’m extremely sad for my first mother who didn’t feel as though she had a choice to keep me and by my mom. My heart literally hurts for what she went through; connecting with me for 9 months, giving birth, and then never seeing my face until I was 30 years old. The pain and trauma she has suffered is overwhelming even now and she seemed surprised when I told her she had PTSD from it. She was telling me how she couldn’t even remember her frame of mind post-birth and trying to go on with her life. She. can’t. remember. anything. How sad that is missing a piece of her life. Yet, she is on the script of how adoption was the only choice and I was better off for it. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t. I told her, there is no way of knowing if it was better or not and THAT makes me sad too. I cry for her and the loss of what could have been. I cry for my grandmother (her mother) who just went along with the doctor when he just assumed they were going to do an adoption. He didn’t ask her what she wanted to do. He told my grandmother that she was pregnant and at the same time, gave her the information for adoption. My grandmother suffered greatly for the rest of her life from the loss of her grand baby. My birthday and holidays were very hard for her. She didn’t have the luxury of PTSD erasing her memory, as it did for my mother. I cry for her, too.

I feel guilty. Oh let me count the ways I feel guilty 1) I feel guilty for being the source of my first mother’s pain, although I know it wasn’t my fault. 2) I feel guilty for wanting to know my first mother when I had a family that loved me and even spoiled me. 2) I feel guilty for finding my first mother because my it hurt my mom’s feelings. 3) I feel guilty for spending more time with my first family than my adoptive family. 4) I feel guilty for enjoying that time with my first family. 5) I feel guilty for showing up into my first family’s lives, disrupting their lives and making my new found brother and step siblings feel uncomfortable not knowing if I had bad or good intentions of coming into their lives. They felt threatened by my appearance and I understand that; it made me feel bad. 6) I feel guilty for wanting my first mother to tell me who my first father is, knowing how much pain that caused and brought back her feelings of shame. 7) I feel guilty for wanting to disrupt his life someday and show up on his doorstep. 8) I feel guilty for feeling.

I feel confused most of the time regarding my feelings. I am supposed to feel “grateful” for a better chance at life? Yes, that was a statement with a question mark. I was raised knowing I was adopted. I was told that I was special and that I was chosen. Although those words made me feel special and chosen as a child, the older I got, the realization came that I wasn’t really special or chosen; I was part of a blind and closed process. The fact is, my adoptive parents applied for a baby and they got one. They didn’t know my first family, nor was I part of a line up of babies that they got to know and thus “chose” me. So how was I supposed to process that as I got older? For me, it manifested in me not just wanting to stand out but NEEDING to stand out in everything that I did, whether it was school, sports or work. If I don’t stand out then I feel like I don’t matter. We are told as children that we’re special to be adopted while at the same time told we’re no different than other natural families. That is a conflicting principle that children are supposed to sort out. Truth is, the adoptive parents were just repeating the script that had been told to them by adoption agencies and years of propaganda. We are raised in confusion; some of us just choose to ignore it while others choose to speak about it.

I feel frustrated that adoptees are labeled in the manner above by society. It’s aggravating that we can’t speak without being labeled. No one likes to hear the other side of adoption (everyone already knows the happy side of it) but refusing to see the other side limits the benefit of adoption. That is why we’re here, this is why we’re speaking; not to end adoption but to make it better. It’s frustrating not to be able to speak without being judged or labeled whether it’s by our adoptive or first families or the general public. My adoptive family can’t understand why I needed to find my first family; they never will. I know they gossip about me and my decision behind closed doors. Adoption agencies don’t want us to speak up because it will scare off their prospective birth mothers. First families don’t want to hear the down sides because it keeps them from feeling validated in the decision to relinquish. It’s frustrating as hell to be told how to feel and if you don’t say what someone likes, you’re labeled. We’re human beings with free will, just as anyone else in this world. We have the right to speak and now, we finally are, regardless of backlash. We’re breaking the chains that bound us and it feels SO GOOD.

I feel happy that I my own personal journey has landed me in a very positive and happy place. I did have wonderful parents and family. My childhood is stock-full of happy memories! I was afforded every opportunity that any daughter should be afforded by her parents. I am very close to my family and feel ties to my hometown where I was raised. I feel a commitment to them and love for my family. I am also very happy to have a place in my first family’s lives. I’m so happy to have them! I have fun with them and we are getting closer and closer as time goes by. Navigating the protocol has been tricky and I have to manage my expectations and feelings but it’s new and we’re all trying very hard to come out better for it. I’m so happy to know where I came from.

I’m grateful for the loss I’ve suffered and disappointments in my life because it has all led me to the biggest blessings. I wouldn’t trade much of what I’ve been through to have what I have today. But I choose to talk about those losses and disappointments in the hopes that others can learn from those lessons and can avoid those pitfalls. I choose to talk about the complexities in adoption so that industry, legislators, and adoptive families can learn from them and make adoption a more solid and beneficial system for children who truly do need loving homes and families. I’m grateful to be part of this process and a part of the adoptee community. We answer to ourselves only and we are compassionate to each other’s emotions and experiences; there’s no better community in this world.

While decades of script have dictated the above equations and emotions, adoptees have only just now begun to be heard on our complex and various experiences. Some might say we have a long way to go to actually flip the script but I think social media (and traditional media) are going to help us flip it quicker. To my fellow adoptees, we’re all in this together and we are making a difference. Let’s not let the “haters” or ignorance slow the momentum we have going right now! We’re going to be a part of history and one day, our “flipthescript” movement will be studied and we will be the group that changed the face of adoption.