Coping
It’s been 8 months now since discovering I was adopted. Since then, I have gone through a multitude of emotions.
Shock, anger, and grief primarily.
Some days I’m still in shock to the fact that I am adopted. I am no longer a biracial person for starters. I’m now just one race. I have, and am still learning to accept myself as both an adopted person, and a person of one ethnicity.
I’m still shocked that the ones who raised me (my parents) denied me my truth. They both lied to me for more than 30 years. They had me believing that they were also my mother and father. All the stories about my birth, nothing but lies. And in doing so, they took away my roots. They took away what makes me, me.
As another LDA put it, "I continually ask - why? Why was this kept a secret from me? Why are there still secrets? Why did my adopted parents, who instilled the life lessons of honesty, truthfulness, and integrity, turn around and willfully deny me the knowledge of my true identity?"
“The more you gain by pretending, the less you're actually gonna have.” - Genie (Aladdin, 2019)
And because of this, I’m also angry. I’m angry at them. Angry at their decision to not tell me. I’m angry at being adopted. I’m angry that I may never know why I was relinquished. I’m angry at this fucked up predicament I’m now in. My parents did provide for me. Of course there were problems. And I can’t help but think how many of these issues that I had growing up could have been better if the truth was known?
“Relationship built on the foundation of lies is destined to fall". - Abdulazeez Henry Musa
I grieve for the loss of my roots. I grieve for the loss of a biological family that I don’t know. I grieve for my biological mother and wonder what circumstances she had to face that lead to my relinquishment. I grieve as I wonder if my father knows I even exist. I grieve for not knowing how I came to be in this world.
As for my parents, I haven’t spoken to them in quite some time. I did recently send them a letter about everything I’ve been feeling. I did my best to just share my thoughts and feelings about all this. I wasn’t trying to place blame, or point fingers. Because, even though I am still angry, I still want to keep the door open to communication. Sadly, I don’t think either of them have read it yet. In fact, my a-mom said she didn’t need to read it to validate my feelings. I literally don’t know what to think about that. I plan to post that letter in full, here on my blog. If it can help someone else who reads it, well, at least someone else is reading getting something out of it.
Anyway… It is now a new year. Since my last post, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years have come and gone. It was some of the first major holiday celebrations since discovering my adoption. And they were hard. I thought about all the happy memories that I once had during holidays. And I couldn’t help but feel like those happy memories were just created for the sake of my adopted parents. For them to believe in the family they wanted was right in front of them. I both hate and miss those memories now.
A couple months ago I shared the following in a Facebook group I’m a part of:
“I hate the silent moments of my life now. All I can do is think about this discovery. Every now and then I drive home, and all I want to do is keep driving. Take a break from everything and be alone. I'm overwhelmed by it all. The shock, the anger, the grief, etc. The trying to figure out just what exactly I want now from my adopted family. The not knowing where my roots are. The paperwork and all the hoops I need to jump through to get my adoption paperwork. The hope everyday when I open AncestryDNA, or 23andMe that there might be finally a close match and not just distant ones.”
I still hate the quiet. But I'm sure I'll learn to cope better in time. Because that's just it. In some situations, there really is no healing, just coping.
