[Janeytwo]

Hey All!

Thanks as always for responding! I wanted to write more on this but will have to come back this evening after my grandson goes home.

You know I did want to apologize though for misspeaking. I feel just awful about it.

I didn't mean to say that living as an adoptee is a bad thing (and thank you Peachy and Brock for bringing that to my attention - this stuff is hard to talk about and I sometimes don't realize what I've written. Thank you guys for being kind enought to call me on that so that I can clarify before I ended up looking like a complete jerko!)

It's just that I've seen so much pain that adoptees have lived with. So much pain that I was ignortant to.

Sometimes I just feel bad about it, but I don't AND I SWEAR THIS , look down on adoptees at all.

I sure hope I didn't hurt anyone. That's not something I'd ever deliberately do but if I did, please forgive me.

You guys and your thoughts mean a great deal to me. You are all the only way that I have to come back, if that makes sense.

Anyway...I'll post more later.

Love and respect you all very much,

[belleinblue1978]

Originally Posted by shadow riderer

Not to interrupt, but I was reading this and a thought just stuck in my head. In ref to people saying to BPs, "I could never do that." or anything similar in any ccircumstance. I always cringe when I hear such things. I've learned in my own life experience one thing. A person never truly knows what they can do, will do, or are capable of doing until they are in that situation.

BMoms, keep that in mind the next time someone judges you with a comment like that. They were not in your shoes. Had they been, they very well could have done the same thing, and probably would have. It's easy to say "I could never", but when faced with the situation, a person might find themselves surprised at what they would, or would not, do.

My standard response to crap like that is, "Well good thing you weren't living my life then."

I refuse to put up with the I could never do that stuff. Of course I'd been refusing to put up with stupid adoption related comments for 26 years by the time I placed kiddo. You'd be amazed.

[belleinblue1978]

So I'm one of those first moms who doesn't let her grief eat her alive. I don't sit around on holidays in deep throes of grief, I don't look at pictures and sob because my son isn't in them, I don't do those things to myself and to him, because they won't accomplish anything.

Do I miss him? Sure I do. Have I had moments of grief so deep that I was afraid I was never going to see the top again? Oh yeah. Those first months were very dark for a lot of reasons.

I don't think that goes against nature though. I think that means that we all survive in a different way. I guess I believe in pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and keep on going on. Not that I haven't had help doing that, I've had plenty, I don't think it is a on your own activity. You find the resources to help you and and then you keep going. That doesn't end the grief or the sadness.

I didn't want my first mom to be depressed and sad forever. It makes me sad and angry now that placing me caused her so much damage. I can't do anything about that, and realize that, but the feelings are still there. I won't let my son ever wonder that. When he is old enough, like his 70's HA, I might tell him a bit about the raw pain, but he is going to know that even though I missed him I have still had a full happy life. To have anything less would be letting my son down.

[JustPeachy]

You know I did want to apologize though for misspeaking. I feel just awful about it.

Janey, please don't feel bad about this. I didn't bring it up to "call you on the carpet," but just to point out that, from my perspective, it is not inherently a bad thing to be an adoptee. I understand your clarification, though, that in reading about the pain or difficulties that adoptees can go through, a birthmom can feel responsible for that, for putting them in that position to begin with. We don't want our children to have pain related to our decisions to place them.

Thanks for clarifying what you meant.

[Janeytwo]

Okay....I'm back! Long post coming... RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!

Little did I know when I started this thread that I would:

A. Put my foot so far into my mouth that it'd become part of my pulmonary system! Again, my apologies to any adoptees I offended. Yikes!!

B. That I would discover myself talking of things I thought I'd long buried and forgotten

C. That it's still so hard and embarrassing when people say nice things to me.

D. That talking about this rips open other people's wounds even though none of us means to do that when we open our mouths.

E. That it's a good thing I'm learning from all of the good folk in here because if I met my children with the limited amount of knowledge I have of all this....that would be a disaster!

Geez! This stuff is something else!! It's like I'm some kind of brambly weed with 20 foot roots and I'm being ripped from the ground and I'm the idiot gardener doing it!

Let's see....I should write back in order of those who posted since my initial post. (Good grief! I sound like an insurance form).

BrockBaby You're 100% correct about the history stuff. How skewed my thinking becomes sometimes.

JustPeachy You're right too. I can't begin to know what it feels like to be an adoptee. You know what I just realized that I think I've been doing? I've been trying to project what that must feel like in order to understand it enough to not make a mistake. THAT'S got to be like the ultimate description of codependecy! Ooo...I hate that disease!!

Dpen6 Thanks for the being enough of a friend to tell it like it is (including stamping feet and pointing finger) . I take it as a compliment that someone would bother to take the time and post back.

Abuse ingrains so much into people; so many lies we tell ourselves in order to justify the shame of being abused to start with. Honestly, I had no idea that the issues of adoption were wrapped around my childhood so tightly. I think it caught me off guard because I had told myself that one had nothing to do with the other. One more conceit to deal with.

Saya For me personally, I love hearing from adoptive parents. They're just parents like me and parenting is the toughest job out there. I guess I'm just letting you know I welcome what you have to say and I thank you for responding to my thread.

When I first came here, I was very ignorant not only of my own suffering but of others. See...for 31 years I'd bought the line that someone spoke of (I think it was Lovemy2Boys)....the fairy tale. That everyone skips happily along through this stuff like a flower girl down the aisle.

When really we're all Dorothy's traversing the Yellow Brick Road just trying to get home.

I have long empathized with women who are looked down on because they can't bear children. And I don't think that that is something I've imagined. I think that society has looked own. That these women are patted on the head with "oh you poor dears" at best and hateful things that I've actually heard people say like, "well maybe they weren't MEANT to be moms". That kind of callousness and complete indifference to the hurt of others. Like women who suffer miscarraiges and there's always one person in the family who says, "Oh well...it was natures way of taking the baby because there was something wrong with it."

People think they're being nice offering up such platitudes.

Maggie Thanks for sharing. You are always so kind-hearted in your posts.


And to leave everyone with a smile I added icing to the stupidity cake of my day. My little grandson has these butterfly wings that he likes to wear when he runs around the house. They are shiny and huge and I think he thinks he's flying or something when he has them on. (He's 2).

Welp, I forgot to take them off before my SIL came to pick my grandson up. SIL is a wonderful man but a "guys guy" if you know what I mean.

So SIL looks at the grandbaby wearing the wings and then he looks at me and says, "Why is my son wearing butterfly wings?" I could read the words behind my SIL's expression at that moment and it translated roughtly into, "I'd love to put my foot up my mother-in-laws patoot right now!"

Ooo Boy!

So it has not been one my better days. Foot in mouth, foot up buttski. sigh............

I think I shall go back to hiding in the codependency thread where I belong!

[dpen6]

Originally Posted by BrockBaby

Peachy...

It's true, not all of us adoptees think it is such a horrible thing being adopted. I like my status as being an adoptee...not saying it wasn't without struggle, fears, questioning, ect...but then who doesn't deal with those things in life...like I've said, it's all about the lenses we look through in life that matters the most.

brock, I feel the same way.....I am GRATEFUL(there i said it),...that I was finelly adopted.

Being an adoptee is not "bad"...it is not necessarily a sentence that neds to be endured but there are siiues sometimes that need to be respected. But for janey yo say they gave them a life sentecne for me...is not a true statement....maybe for some it is.

[Janeytwo]

Hey Dpen6!

But for janey to say they gave them a life sentecne for me...is not a true statement....maybe for some it is.

Hmmm... I never thought about how that must've sounded to you guys.

I was speaking in terms of family and how I've had to endure a lifetime of contempt from them.

And how I sentenced myself to a lifetime of self-hatred in return.

That of course is not my children's fault in any way. They are blameless in this.

Hugs to ya!

[BrockBaby]

Janey,

I was in no way offended by what you said about the adoptee thing. I was just reassuring you that not all adoptees feel bad about being an adoptee. So please do not beat yourself up over that comment. No foot in your mouth, or shoe up any other part of your anatomy...

As for butterfly wings on little boys...I had a little boy that LOVED to walk around in the high heel dress up shoes, and when he was three he would often comment on "liking your shirt Miss Worry" and would always comment when I got my hair done...but he was a BOY BOY too....and I had one boy that would always dress up in my old high school cheerleading skirt (dang..preschoolers wore it..what HAPPENED!??!? LOL) So SIL has no need to worry about his BOY!!! geeeesh!

Do something for you Janey...just because you are worth it!!!!

[Janeytwo]

((( BrockBaby ))) Thanks so much! :-)