Reflections of an Adult Adoptee

People thought that because she was adopted, she must know everything about adoption. Friends would ask her about adoption, the hows and the whys, and she had no answers. She didn't know about adoption. She knew she was adopted. And she knew she'd lived with fear for several decades.

Fear? Why should she feel fear? After all, adoption is a wonderful solution for children who might not otherwise have security, homes, advantages, families — the last now grown to include extended families in cases of open adoption. Right? She agrees. But you just don't know what's going on in the mind of a child.

She was adopted at 14 months. She was walking, talking, and calling her birthmother "mama." She had a name: Linda Marie. And then suddenly she had a new name, and her birthmother was relegated to the non-existence of a "parent who for some serious reason couldn't take care of you." End of discussion. Her adoptive parents took over, and she guesses she was supposed to be just a cute little well-adjusted changeling.

She doesn't have many conscious memories of early childhood other than always knowing she was adopted and always telling lies. With help, she has put together pieces of a picture of a little girl who believed she must not have been "good enough," ergo bad, so she was given away. The fact that her adoptive family was loving, financially able to provide advantages, etc. mattered not at all. The fact that her birthmother made a choice she believed was best for her mattered not at all. It was totally outside her ability to comprehend. It didn't really matter who the people were around her, or anything about them. What she could and did understand was that she had to be "good enough" or she would be given away again.

Being "good enough" simply meant being what other people seemed to want. She believed it was important that they like her, accept her, and want her, even when she didn't feel anything inside for them. Being excluded or pushed away was terrifying and she would do anything to avoid it. The means were not important. The end result - being wanted, loved, accepted - was what mattered.

Other adopted kids have shared this feeling of not being "good enough." Many react by becoming perfectionists or overachievers. She resorted to deceit and lies. And the lies came without thought. It was never a question of how much of the truth to tell, but rather which lie would be more readily acceptable.

Times of stress, low self-esteem, fear, and anger generated inappropriate responses. Lying was just one symptom. There were others.

She remembers the day her sister (adoptive and half-birth sister rolled into one as she learned later) was brought home. She remembers hatred and fear. Members of her family laughed uncomfortably when they told of the time she tried to hurt her sister in her crib. She was 2 1/2 and her sister was a newborn. They explained it as sibling rivalry. She knew it to be a life-and-death struggle. Somehow, she had not been good enough, and if this new child turned out all right, the old one would be given away.

And so she waited for the axe to fall. But in the meantime, her little life revolved around trying to make herself appear good and this sister appear bad. Then, when it came time to choose, they'd give the new one back and keep her. She didn't understand the concept of choosing two. She thought they could only choose one.

She doesn't know how her sister survived.

Her dad was diagnosed with cancer when she was about 5. This would mark the beginning of a 10-year losing battle, and also the beginning of a 10-year period of reduced parental involvement in her life. If her attempts to make herself appear good, popular, and obedient, using any and all means of dishonest behavior, were noticed by her parents, confrontations were few. Their attention was diverted by her father's illness and the other commitments of their daily lives.

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