Letting Off Some Steam

This weekend I felt so down that I had to vent in my journal. Not down from anything that's been happening in my present life. But down in the usual historic sense of being an adoptee. Writing in my journal is the only therapy I can afford besides this blog.

I want to share an excerpt of what I wrote just because I think it's important not to keep feelings private when you feel so completely alone, even surrounded by others close in your life. I think that wherever connections can be made, it's a good thing. I mean, when adoptees read each others' blogs, we connect--speaking for myself, probably the only connection as an adoptee I'll ever find in this world.

Maybe everyone, adopted or not, feels some of these things. All I know is that this is one of those knotty venting days. I know, I know. There's a difference between scratching your ass and tearing a hole in it. But everyone needs to vent once and awhile. The deal is, I need to do it today. Tomorrow is another day.

For some reason the struggle to express my inner world overwhelms me. My entire life has been an exile. Because my exile began at birth, I experience permanent separation as further proof that I am without merit, insubstantial, and rootless. The inability to express my inner world often overwhelms me. I apologize a lot. I haven't yet realized how useless it is to apologize for every little thing because I feel I'm only taking up space. Every thought that enters my head, everything I do is tinged with both lack of self and a relentless rage. Every thought/action begins with insecurity (hesitation, uncertainty, tentativeness and temporary-ness that fade into outright invisibility, the non-existence of non-connection) and ends in guilt.

My head/heart/soul floats unmoored, has never felt at home, at ease, secure, connected; has never known confidence, and twists with permanent anxiety. The image of a hanged person twisting alone in the wind comes to mind. Anxiety is the only permanent home I've ever known. Nothing substantial or visible, but life-long. Anxiety is what has always fueled my existence. Imagine a tree without roots. Its anxiety is forever that it will fall over, its lack of tree-ness final.

I've always been convinced that people throughout my life whom I regarded as friends or lovers, even the only blood family I have--my two daughters--will abandon me sooner or later, forever. This sense of abandonment is the only certainty I carry with me on my journey through life. I envy everyone who knows who they are, where they came from, their roots, blood, and history, regardless of how much dysfunction or brutality they have experienced. How can that be? I think that even in abuse and brutality, knowing who you are gives you some ground on which to stand, some substance from which to operate, to defend yourself because you can say, "Hey, this is the unbroken line of my connection to myself because I belong here, because I have roots. I can punch back from solid being." On the other hand, I doubt anyone would ever say "I'd trade this abuse for the emptiness of not knowing who I am."

Such loss means that this raw, invisible wound that I will carry within me will never heal as long as I live. My mother could have been a miserable, rotten human being for all I know. But at least I would have had the chance to know her and to make my own decision about staying in her life or not. At least I'd have known that I came from someone, from somewhere instead of simply appearing out of a black hole. Instead I was handed to surrogate parents without any of my own information and without my permission.

Even though both sets of parents are now dead, the middle-man third-party state denies me access to this information as if I am forever frozen as a child. An absolute social contract written in titanium. Who are they protecting? "We just can't have adoptees going out to go "find" our natural parents and wreak all kinds of havoc and open untold cans of animosity." No, there's something far more sinister going on here. It has to do with corporate enterprise, as we all know. Has to do with lucrative exchange that keeps the wealthy satisfied. Dirty little secret among a million dirty little secrets that surround adoption.

Okay, I know there are adoptees and foster kids (and even kids in their natural families) far worse off than I am, but that knowledge doesn't mitigate my sense of irreversible loss one iota.

It doesn't ease the loss of the most sacred and sovereign possession a person can own: one's sense of self. With this divisive social contract, the idea that adoptees were adopted becomes more important than the fact that they were born. Conveniently forgotten is the fact that adoptees have only have one mother: the mother who gave birth to them. Surrogate parents can be the kindest people in the world, but they are still surrogate. Meaning, they can never replace what has been lost. There is NO ONE who can set things right again, no matter how much love or money adoptive parents throw at their new possession.

This raw, invisible wound that I will carry within me to my death will never heal. My mother could have been a miserably rotten human being for all I know. But at least I would have had the chance to know her and to make my own decision about being in her life or not. At least I would have known where the hell I came from. Instead I was handed to surrogate parents without any of my own information (surrogate information and lies filled the slots) and without my permission.

And even though both sets of parents are now dead, the state denies me access to this information. I am forever frozen as a child in the eyes of the state, which is forever and convinced (conveniently) that I am going to go "find" my natural parents and wreak all kinds of havoc and open untold cans of misery. Fortunately, I took the initiative (a sick person can only stand being sick for so long) and "found" what was left of my natural family--outside this divisive, irreversible social contract, this corporate-government enterprise, outside what I'm "supposed" to know because this law seals all records forever. The whole thing stinks beyond imagination.