[RobertHafetz]

Originally Posted by FallenChild

Many adopted adults I have spoken to speak of a VOID. Not being adopted I can't even imagine what that might mean, but it seems important. Can anyone share any ideas?

Ths is a copy of a letter I sent to the NJ Assembly in support of an opebn records bill. I tried to explain the missing piece in adoptee identity.


There is a question we all ask often during our lives. It is at the core of everything we think feel and do. It manifests itself in our most mundane tasks as well as our extraordinary ones. It defines our center, the place from which we view everything including ourselves. That question is simply; who am I? We all struggle to answer this question, sometimes in vain. The self is our foundation. We cannot describe our self simply and objectively, as we can a snowflake, a rainbow, or a sunset. Our self is unique, invisible in structure, but permanent. It is also private, held within. We can give an organ to another but we cannot exchange our self with another. I can learn and understand by contact with others and increase my own body of knowledge but I can never enter that other’s self, or can they enter mine. Yet we yearn for closeness, love, and belonging from others. We are incredible beings both in nature and in actuality. Beautiful and complex, and in the midst of all of this we can become lost within ourselves. We, the adopted, feel alone in the presence of others. We have meaning in our lives and yet we feel we are without direction. Wandering, looking, and searching, for our self. Members of the adoption family are more sensitive to this question because the birth and growth of our self has been disrupted and damaged by a process that does not recognize what it has done.

We regard the nine month period of gestation as a process whose integrity must be maintained. We support it with intensive medical supervision and psychosocial support. If there is a disruption in this process we label it premature and take extraordinary measures to maintain its integrity. We want to insure that nature takes its course without interruption. The result is the physical birth of a baby.

The psychological birth, of the infant’s identity also follows a natural process. It is rooted in those first days and months of mother and child interaction (Pine 2000). The mother and child are at times virtually one being with the child developing increasing periods of self awareness. The bond that is present between mother and child, at this time, is a fundamental part of the of the child’s emerging identity (Mahler, Pine, Bergman, 1975). This is a process as natural and vital as gestation. When the process of physical gestation is interrupted we strive to maintain its integrity. However, we don’t think twice about disrupting the process that nurtures the infant’s identity.

Try and imagine how an adopted adult feels about who he is. Look into a mirror and see your reflection gazing back at you. Now smash the mirror into small pieces and put it back together so it casts your reflection once again. You see your image through the many cracks and distortions caused by breaking the mirror’s integrity. This is what I, as an adopted adult see when I gaze at myself. To survive I create an incomplete self that resembles me but isn’t completely me. In order to restore my mirror I need to know my name at birth, my mother’s name, to know her image and her likeness. I need to remember that which was taken from me as an infant because I just can’t forget it.

As an adult, as a citizen, I own a property, in my own person. Please give me the deed to my person, my name, just like everyone else has.

[JDY]

This is my first post here (although I have lurked for a while), Im 38 & have recently found my bmum, we have corresponded but not met.

I just want say that I know what the void feels like too but Im not sure how well I can describe it. The lack of ancestry that some others have said is what it really resonates with me. Someone mentioned how they talked about relatives. I love my amum & loved my adad (now deceased) as much as anyone could love parents but the rest of their families have always been 'dads' brother' or 'mums gran', we have never been a close family & their relatives have never felt like family to me.
I always describe my adoptive 'brother' as 'the boy they adopted' (hes' another story).

I still find it difficult, actually more difficult with time to be around families, it fills me with a tremendous feeling of loss. I have never felt I belonged anywhere.
I was adopted at just a few months old, a fact that some of people think that means because I don't remember my bmum that I shouln't 'miss her'.

I often wonder though if subconsiously we do remember being babies, I was looked after by my bmum for a few weeks, then a foster mum for a couple of weeks before I was adopted so whos' to say that crucial bonding time being disrupted does not have an effect on a childs personality & life?

[Raina0831]

Originally Posted by JDY

...I was adopted at just a few months old, a fact that some of people think that means because I don't remember my bmum that I shouln't 'miss her'.

I often wonder though if subconsiously we do remember being babies, I was looked after by my bmum for a few weeks, then a foster mum for a couple of weeks before I was adopted so whos' to say that crucial bonding time being disrupted does not have an effect on a childs personality & life?

Hi, JDY,

I find it interesting how the experts suggest singing, talking, reading, and playing music for our unborn babies. Yet, when a baby is adopted, "their womb experiences" suddenly have NO effect??? It just doesn't wash with me and sounds like you are thinking along the same lines. Our birthmother's voices are our first experiences with the outside world. How can it not have an effect on us, when our home (the womb) and the comforting voice we've heard since our hearing developed, are suddenly taken away from us?

I do believe that the extent of that effect can be a deep wound for some and for others, just a mild curiosity. I think a great deal of it is based upon how loving and nuturing our aparents are/were.

Raina