Let us not compare

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I recently came across a Facebook post in one of the adoptee support groups I'm that read "I'm reminded that I'm Adopted everyday that ends in Y".

I can't remember the exact comment below, but someone had commented saying why is that so bad, and that they felt there was honor in adoption.

There seems to be a lot of this going on in a few of these supports groups that I am in. Someone shares something bad or negative, and an adoptee with a good experience counters and makes a generalized statement telling everyone that adoption is a good thing because it was good for them.

When I write my story, my experience, and my thoughts, I do my best to only write mine. I'm the expert in my story. And that's it. I'm doing my best to learn everyday to have better insight, and perspective. 

I commented on the post as well, and here is what I did write:

I acknowledge that not everyone has had a bad experience.

But to use that to tell me that adoption is a good thing, well, it's not that simple.

If adoption is so amazing, then, as a late discovery Adoptee, why wasn't I told I was adopted?

Why is it that I have to fight for my rights to know where I come from?

Why can't I have my adoption paperwork to look for my roots?

How do I know that a life with my biological family would have been terrible?

I think it's terrible that as an international Adoptee, my mother probably thought I would have had a better life (for the record, it's a different life, not better). And while she probably has thought about me constantly, I was raised to believe that she never existed.

I was raised believing that the white woman, and brown man who adopted me were my actual biological kin.

There is no honor here.

I am not grateful to have been lied, deceived, and manipulated. I am not grateful that even after learning the truth, my adopters still lied, and tried to just sweep it under the rug.

If you've had a great experience, I am happy for you. Honestly, I am. You have a right to share your experience. Share your story. Let it be the example of what should or could be done. But please don't use your experience to tell me how to handle mine.

And that's really it for me. That last line there. I don't share my experience to tell someone how to handle theirs. I simply do it to let others know how I handled it. And if whoever is reading finds something useful, then take it.

Groups are a great place for support. I have found a lot of help for myself from many of them. Even if all I do is lurk. Someone, regardless of whether or not they had a good or bad experience, will have a unique perspective that I may have not seen. It helps me process my own thoughts.

And if it's a post I don't relate to at all, or have zero input that would be beneficial, I just keep scrolling.

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