So tonight I got pretty depressed after my friend went home. Stupid I turned to Facebook and was reading my girl friend's profile and stumbled upon her Groups page and found she had joined a group called ADOPTION. Now, for those of you who don't know, I'm adopted and eternally bitter for it. I want to go into a rant about how many pros there are to abortion but it was the 80's so who know if that was even an option. Still, I retain a swift kick to the midsection would have made life that much easier. In any case, I wrote this because its how I feel about my situation and it I really can't see it being posted as a thread in the WC. So feel free to skip over it, I'm sure its dourly depressing but I made sure there was some good imagery.
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Some things you can't get out of your mind.
One thing that makes me sad is myself. I was born for no reason at all, or born for a reason that was improperly conceived or prepared for. Most people know this about me, as I'm ruthlessly uncouth about my own self, I am adopted. Being adopted isn't like being gay, you don't hide it because you know others will laugh and point and joke. You don't avoid the question because the other person is being insulting.
Its just personal.
So personal its almost impossible to deal with. So I stopped dealing with it. I found out when I was very young, either right before or right after James died, I can't quite remember. James, who is he? He was my adoptive father, a great father, one I wish very much was still alive. When did he die? I think some time in September of 1991, its one of the things I've taken steps to forgetting. But some things you can't forget.
I've years wondering. Who am I? Why am I? How come? Who are you? Where are you? Why was not being with me the best possible option you were capable of choosing? Do you even care if I still exist? Would you even consider talking to me now?
What I find most interesting is that never once have I ever asked the question: why do I care about them? Why can't I just be happy here as a Schilbach? Simply, because when your family unit collapses and the weight of being adopted is put onto your shoulders it becomes something of great interest. You use the idea as an escapist reality, you dream up beautiful parents, a loving older brother or sister who heedlessly loves you, a curious younger sibling who wants nothing more than to be your friend. And your dream mother smiles at you with all the love of every smile she ever gave to your brothers and sisters and hugs you like she would lose you again if ever she let go. And father, proud, regretful father, obsessing and fretting, asking and prodding, it becomes annoying but you don't care because he hates the idea that he had to give you away. The family closes around you like warm, protecting hands and your eyes close and if you never opened them again it wouldn't matter because you had a dream family that would love you beyond mortal comprehension.
But it isn't real.
And your eyes always open.
And people you know aren't your real family exist in facade of your dream, an impossible metaphor that exists because reality, quite rightly, is not what you wanted. And the reality eats at you like cancer, only you aren't lucky enough to die from it. You see families, the families of enemies, of friends, of false relatives, of complete strangers. Then your stomach tightens, drawing you quickly away from the happiness of the others and behind you is a family that in your mind doesn't deserve you. You feel sick, anxious, trapped, alone and far away. Nothing in reality seems real. You realize a wonderful thing, that you hate your birth parents more than your adoptive ones. This clearly was only a better choice for them, a gamble for you. An escape for deed makers and a plank for the b*****d. Your fate rests in the hands of people you don't know, the option of jumping into the water isn't even up to you, drowning is the fate left up to the people who gave birth to the ship makers and wood cutters, people completely unidentifiable.
And when the alienation numbs your mind and your ego, and no longer is being adopted something you care about do you realize that you've been given a gift. Something so life altering that you can't help but laugh and scorn anyone with a family. You are pure, like a tree you see yourself as entirely individual, non-identifiable with the people who claim to have raised you. You are a clean slate, your beliefs and wants and opinions are yours because you discovered them on your own. Its such a great feeling that the next time you realize how loving your best friend's family is you die inside. It will empty your lungs and dread will wash over you. You will need to run but the sight is profound, it assaults you and pleases you and you long for it and lust after it and beyond all that you'd be just as content burning them all alive to simply retain the idea that having no real family is just as good. The worst part of it is that all your friend's mothers say they love you like you're one of their own and their fathers treat you like a second son and for a brief, crushing moment you are a part of a family. The next moment your clawing at your skull and wishing skin wasn't so durable because you'd do anything to stomp your brain out of existence if it meant not having to bear the idea that the only people who mean every "I love you" and every hug they give you aren't the people who took you into their homes.
When the time comes for thoughts to attack you of finding those whores and ******** who concocted you for nine solid months you forget to ask yourself: What do I say? It is a question that can't be answered except by the most staunch of planners. If I were to say that I found my parents and upon meeting them I would say: Hello, I'm Justin, I'm your son, can we talk for a while? It would be a sour and stinking thought to have thunk or even supposed. As it stands, I do not know what I would say to them, I would be sure to approach them on a good day, since my mood swings like an unbolted door in a hurricane. I would stutter, my mind would blank out, and it would be no surprise to anyone that I would declare my blood relation and then declare, very loudly and red faced, some terrible, completely inappropriate joke that no one would laugh at.
I think the biggest worry that any adopted b*****d has is: what if they don't want anything to do with me? For some I would think they would merely brush it off as an after thought, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Others would let it deter them entirely as such a blow of rejection might cripple even the most sturdy of people. It is a conundrum of the worst degree. On one hand we may be reunited and capable of absolving our parents for making such a decision. Or, we may react poorly, curse them and hate them.
My problem is that I was born without direction, except that the direction I would follow would not be the one taken by the ones who made me. I don't feel as if I have a right to find them, but at the same time I have every right, but get angry at the notion that they can say they don't want anything to do with me. I have no use for a family now, now that the one I have consists of nothing but a sister and grandmother. I have been so betrayed by those who vomit lies about trust but would not blink at the thought of taking advantage of me. I've grown a cold exterior for the sole purpose that I cannot afford to be soft. Trust is merely another word for stalled betrayal and for those closest to me I apologize as I don't entirely refer to any one of you. Put simply, if my family, both my families, can betray me so brutally, what is stopping anyone else from committing to me the same act of ruthlessness?
It could be a problem, or problematic, that I hanker and so viciously hate people and even more so that in hating them I distance myself from the only family I've ever had. But do I care? No. Do I want things to get better? No. I cannot spare the energy to attempt to fix problems that I shouldn't have to.
I am adopted, a b*****d child of small emotional wealth and I love being able to hate and love so purely. I am a clean slate, I am my own person. I am a force that few reckon with. I owe nothing to anyone for who I am, for I have changed and evolved of my own accord. Should I ever find those responsible for me, pray I'm in a good mood.
And for the people who've found your real families, keep it to your ******* selves. I don't need pleasant, false hopes. I don't need someone telling me I shouldn't get so down about things. I don't need you at all because you are what I want to be, lost, then found.
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