Sick of caring about everyone else's feelings when no one seems to care about my own

[Fab74]

As I read posts and view profiles, it seems we're all, in one way or another, hard at work pacifying someone involved in the adoption process of our child. Don't you ever get tired of it? Why must we always be the ones to hold back by fear of allienating someone? Why can't we just be?

We don't seem better off for keeping to ourselves what we wish we could express so what's the point? Our lives become agony the second our child is placed for adoption and this will never end so why are we always to add on to it by worrying about preserving everyone else's feelings when no one seems to care about ours: not the agencies, the aparents (although they say they do), our own children to a certain extent, our own families, our spouses, and society as a whole? No one ever concerns themselves with us but us. Have we become the enablers to this stigma? We're not monsters and have done what we felt was best for our children for those who were able to decide for themselves, so why do we allow everyone else to define our self-worth in the triad and in society, only to meet on forums such as this one for comfort.

Adoptees and aparents seem to have each other but who do we have other than another bmother to share our grief with and who accepts us without carrying any judgement?

[vampporcupine]

We don't have anyone but each other. That's because what we were given by laws of nature and/or by God was taken from us and transferred to someone else. This leaves us all alone...until we stumble upon a group to find out that we aren't the only ones.

I used to care about what my daughters aps thought or felt until a couple years ago when it hit me that they truly wished I had just gone away and disappeared off the face of the earth to ensure they were the only "parents". It was hard to come to this realization but I did. Family doesn't care, after all it was usually with pressure from them that we lost our children so to acknowledge our pain would place guilt upon them as coconspirators in the abduction and sale of our children. After i came out of the fog i had talked extensively about what happened as i was falling apart with the memories which had returned. I was told that my husband and raised children didn't "sign up for this" and had he known i was damaged goods that he wouldn't have wanted me. My children have taken the same attitude and i no longer talk about my lost daughter who also has no interest in me. I have stayed to at least be with and have my last two children. No one cares but us. It is true but I doubt that it will ever change.

[HereWeGoAgain9]

This makes me so very sad.

[aprilz1225]

 you know i come here with an open heart and respect. vampporcupine, not to disrespect your hubby and ALL of your children... how jerky of them.. i mean for real! is this how they would want you to treat them if the shoe was on the other foot... if it was they who placed is this realy how they would like to be treated...i'm sorrry that is waaay wrong... As an adoptive mom, don't get me started on your daughters "family".. i pray you know with in your heart that it is a good chance that it wasn't her own doing  or yours, for her to take her snotty ways. I hope birthmoms find that not all of us are like that...

Quoting vampporcupine:

We don't have anyone but each other. That's because what we were given by laws of nature and/or by God was taken from us and transferred to someone else. This leaves us all alone...until we stumble upon a group to find out that we aren't the only ones.

I used to care about what my daughters aps thought or felt until a couple years ago when it hit me that they truly wished I had just gone away and disappeared off the face of the earth to ensure they were the only "parents". It was hard to come to this realization but I did. Family doesn't care, after all it was usually with pressure from them that we lost our children so to acknowledge our pain would place guilt upon them as coconspirators in the abduction and sale of our children. After i came out of the fog i had talked extensively about what happened as i was falling apart with the memories which had returned. I was told that my husband and raised children didn't "sign up for this" and had he known i was damaged goods that he wouldn't have wanted me. My children have taken the same attitude and i no longer talk about my lost daughter who also has no interest in me. I have stayed to at least be with and have my last two children. No one cares but us. It is true but I doubt that it will ever change.

 

[aprilz1225]

 yell , kick, scream, throw something! just own how you feel and make those who are uniformed with how a birthmom feels, feel it! i think it would do alot of good for those around you.

[drfink]

Quoting vampporcupine:

We don't have anyone but each other. That's because what we were given by laws of nature and/or by God was taken from us and transferred to someone else. This leaves us all alone...until we stumble upon a group to find out that we aren't the only ones.

I used to care about what my daughters aps thought or felt until a couple years ago when it hit me that they truly wished I had just gone away and disappeared off the face of the earth to ensure they were the only "parents". It was hard to come to this realization but I did. Family doesn't care, after all it was usually with pressure from them that we lost our children so to acknowledge our pain would place guilt upon them as coconspirators in the abduction and sale of our children. After i came out of the fog i had talked extensively about what happened as i was falling apart with the memories which had returned. I was told that my husband and raised children didn't "sign up for this" and had he known i was damaged goods that he wouldn't have wanted me. My children have taken the same attitude and i no longer talk about my lost daughter who also has no interest in me. I have stayed to at least be with and have my last two children. No one cares but us. It is true but I doubt that it will ever change.

oh I am so very sorry they treat you like this.Husbands ,even good ones ,can be total jerks at times.I.Do you have any clue why your children feel this way? Are they jealous that you love another child that isn't one of "them".So sorry hugs to you.

Your first paragraph is so true !!!! You express it well ,right on the button

HUGS

[drfink]

I agree.What gets to me is even with truly well intentioned people ya have to explain why it sucks.There are those open hearted open minded people but you still have to explain ,kind of justify in a way the suckiness of it all.No expects PAPs to explain their desire for someone else's child ...SMH.Why is one set of feelings so much more understandable and accepted in a heartbeat than the other set of feelings.

[Fab74]

Do you ever feel like you are expected to apologize? Have you apologized? I have not and never will. I wish my circumstances had been different then but I will not apologize for being the best mother I could have been even before my child was born.

It's a strange thing, to be someone's mom and be stripped of ever having the right to claim that title or call ourselves that to our own children. Instead, we do this in secret amongst ourselves with the conviction that we are indeed those children's mothers but we promptly change tunes in front of our own because we don't want to scare them away or hurt anyone's feelings. I've always signed my emails to my daughter as "your other mother" because it's important for me to assert who I am, no matter how much she or her parents want to pretend or reject the fact that I am her mother too. Ironically, surrogate mothers seem to get more credit than we ever will. Heck, I have a friend who is currenlty caring for a crack baby whose addicted mother was able to maintain custody. The court seems to think she is a fit mother.

How the hell does that work?

I'm sorry to read your story vampporcupine. I always wonder how someone can look in the mirror, see their birth parents and still go on pretending we never happened. I don't know my birth father who left my mother when she told him she was pregnant a second time with me, and I still wonder if those traits I know not to be my mother's are his. This will stay with me forever and although he may not want to have anything to do with me and my older sister, I can't help but wonder about him. I think this is true for all adoptees. How can anyone say they're not affected or curious when a part of their identity stares them in the face every single day of their lives? And when they look at their own children, do still go on pretending? If it does work, someone please tell me what the trick to lacking empathy is so I can put at least this issue to rest.

I hope your daughter eventually finds out for herself it doesn't have to be as complicated as everyone is making it out to be for her. As disillusioned as I have become, I still hope they all do someday if only for their own sake.

[susie703]

I think this is why it is important for us moms to speak out!  The adoptees themselves and us mothers of adoption loss didn't have anywhere to speak out before the www.  Since we weren't able to tell our side of the story ~ everyone outside of the loss only had the "sunshine and rainbows" version of adoption to hear about and believe.   

Hell, I myself thought that there was something wrong with me because of the feelings/beliefs I began to realize after reunion.  I was beyond myself with relief when I found this place and saw that I wasn't crazy ~ there were others out there just like me!!  What I was feeling was normal.  I wasn't wrong, wasn't crazy, wasn't "bad". 

Only when enough people speak out about the horrendous loss and grief occurs with relinquishment will adoption be looked at in a different light.  Will we see the necessary change and adoption reform in our lifetime?  I am doubtful about that, especially here in the U.S., but I do know that we are beginning to make a difference. 

Until then, I'm here to support others living this hell without our children, to support family preservation so that another mother doesn't know that same hell, and to support adoptees in their rights. 

[HereWeGoAgain9]

As an adoptee, despite always hearing how we were chosen, wanted, made our parents so lucky & grateful to get us the underlying (or overt) premise remains. We should be thankful, grateful, in debt somehow that we were abandoned & not aborted. Well yeah, I mean thanks for that. I guess? Or something.

[vampporcupine]

 

Quoting aprilz1225:

 you know i come here with an open heart and respect. vampporcupine, not to disrespect your hubby and ALL of your children... how jerky of them.. i mean for real! is this how they would want you to treat them if the shoe was on the other foot... if it was they who placed is this realy how they would like to be treated...i'm sorrry that is waaay wrong... As an adoptive mom, don't get me started on your daughters "family".. i pray you know with in your heart that it is a good chance that it wasn't her own doing  or yours, for her to take her snotty ways. I hope birthmoms find that not all of us are like that...

 Aprilz, this is the attitude from the whole of society so what would make my raised family or my daughter's adopters different? I am not making excuses for their lack of empathy at all, trust me, I believe all of them will be held accountable one day.

BUT.... 

Even you have come here and heard the lifelong pain and torment that a mother separated from their child goes through and yet you desire another mother to endure this so that you can adopt another child. I am not trying to sound cruel nor am I crucifying your character as I am sure you are a pleasant and kindly woman (so it seems from things you have written) what I am trying to point out is that no one HEARS. I mean really hears. I have seen one pap come here and change her want of another mother's child into HELPING a mother to keep her child. She did this against the opinion of society, social workers AND her own family. She has gained a daughter and granddaughter for her true Christian example and was doubly blessed for it.

As for my daughter's adopters, one day they will be held accountable for their behavior. This is something I believe through my entire being.