Adoption, Abandonment, & Depression part I
I received a blog-challenge of sorts today telling me to get my shit together. I decided to start blogging, as did many of you, as a kind of therapy, and while most therapists probably wouldn’t put it so bluntly, sometimes you just need a kick in the ass to get you started.
So, let's start with why I’m here. I decided to start blogging after reading blogs by some other guys who seemed to be having similar marital woes as me; poor communication, financial problems, lack of intimacy, lack of sex, lack of kinky sex, etc, etc, etc. Sex seems to be a popular blogging topic, and I could talk about that all day, but that’s not the real problem. That is just one of the many symptoms.
Have you ever heard something that just made sense? In one split-second flash of enlightenment this little piece of information makes all the strange things in your life make sense. Well that happened to me yesterday. If I were in an actual $125 / hour therapy session it would be called a breakthrough. You would think having a breakthrough would make you feel better but it didn't. I felt worse yesterday than I have ever felt. So what was this great revelation?
As long as I can remember I’ve known that I was adopted. That’s not the breakthrough. My parents were always open about it because they thought it would be more devastating for us to find out by accident or later in life. I say "us" because I have a younger sister who was also adopted. She's not by biological sister either (that's always the first question people ask). They even offered to help us find our biological parents when we were old enough. I never asked for their help because even though they offered, and would have helped, I think they were a little insecure about it and I would never want to hurt their feelings. But it was never a secret or even a taboo subject. Everyone at church knew. All the teachers at school knew. When we moved it became common knowledege in our small town pretty quickly. Some kids at school would ask questions, but there was never any teasing or the typical childhood cruelty about it. Looking back I'm kind of surprised by that, but I think most kids didn't really understand it well enough to make up jokes about it. Being adopted never bothered me. There is always the thought of possibly looking for your biological parents, but I was always happy with my situation. My mother was probably young and she did a brave thing by giving me up. My parents were older (late 30's) when they got me and had no other children. My mother had a son from a first marriage, but he had died of polio a few years before I came along. All things considered I thought I was most likely better off. Actually I had a great childhood. I was actually happy to have been adopted.
(Interesting Side-note: When I was in 6th grade I was in a spelling bee. I was one of the last three contestants and I got the word “adoptee”. Well of course I could spell it! If anyone in the class knew that word it was me! In fact I had just seen it on the word list right before the spelling bee.
“Adoptee, a-d-o-p-t-e…”
I couldn’t say the last “e”. I knew it was there. I could see it in my head, hear it in my ears, but it would not come out of my mouth. I missed it. I was out on the word “adoptee”. That’s either great irony, or some kind of Freudian subconscious shit.)
One of the things that sparks an adoptee’s interest in their past is the birth of a child, and so it was with my wife and I. After my son was born we started looking for my birth parents. My wife was the driving force behind this while I was pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. I had done just fine without them for 22 years, but the thought of a happy Oprah Show type reunion was appealing. I was willing to look as long as my parents didn’t find out. I wasn’t sure if they would be hurt, but I didn’t want to take any chances. After about 3 years of searching through old papers, calling hospitals, lawyers, and state records agencies we finally found my mother. She was living in Houston.
Vaya con Dios mis Amigos,
Michael
So, let's start with why I’m here. I decided to start blogging after reading blogs by some other guys who seemed to be having similar marital woes as me; poor communication, financial problems, lack of intimacy, lack of sex, lack of kinky sex, etc, etc, etc. Sex seems to be a popular blogging topic, and I could talk about that all day, but that’s not the real problem. That is just one of the many symptoms.
Have you ever heard something that just made sense? In one split-second flash of enlightenment this little piece of information makes all the strange things in your life make sense. Well that happened to me yesterday. If I were in an actual $125 / hour therapy session it would be called a breakthrough. You would think having a breakthrough would make you feel better but it didn't. I felt worse yesterday than I have ever felt. So what was this great revelation?
As long as I can remember I’ve known that I was adopted. That’s not the breakthrough. My parents were always open about it because they thought it would be more devastating for us to find out by accident or later in life. I say "us" because I have a younger sister who was also adopted. She's not by biological sister either (that's always the first question people ask). They even offered to help us find our biological parents when we were old enough. I never asked for their help because even though they offered, and would have helped, I think they were a little insecure about it and I would never want to hurt their feelings. But it was never a secret or even a taboo subject. Everyone at church knew. All the teachers at school knew. When we moved it became common knowledege in our small town pretty quickly. Some kids at school would ask questions, but there was never any teasing or the typical childhood cruelty about it. Looking back I'm kind of surprised by that, but I think most kids didn't really understand it well enough to make up jokes about it. Being adopted never bothered me. There is always the thought of possibly looking for your biological parents, but I was always happy with my situation. My mother was probably young and she did a brave thing by giving me up. My parents were older (late 30's) when they got me and had no other children. My mother had a son from a first marriage, but he had died of polio a few years before I came along. All things considered I thought I was most likely better off. Actually I had a great childhood. I was actually happy to have been adopted.
(Interesting Side-note: When I was in 6th grade I was in a spelling bee. I was one of the last three contestants and I got the word “adoptee”. Well of course I could spell it! If anyone in the class knew that word it was me! In fact I had just seen it on the word list right before the spelling bee.
“Adoptee, a-d-o-p-t-e…”
I couldn’t say the last “e”. I knew it was there. I could see it in my head, hear it in my ears, but it would not come out of my mouth. I missed it. I was out on the word “adoptee”. That’s either great irony, or some kind of Freudian subconscious shit.)
One of the things that sparks an adoptee’s interest in their past is the birth of a child, and so it was with my wife and I. After my son was born we started looking for my birth parents. My wife was the driving force behind this while I was pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. I had done just fine without them for 22 years, but the thought of a happy Oprah Show type reunion was appealing. I was willing to look as long as my parents didn’t find out. I wasn’t sure if they would be hurt, but I didn’t want to take any chances. After about 3 years of searching through old papers, calling hospitals, lawyers, and state records agencies we finally found my mother. She was living in Houston.
Vaya con Dios mis Amigos,
Michael
posted by Michael at 11/16/2005 06:55:00 PM
3 Comments:
Well I see you got your 'shit' together and started some real therapy issues. Good for you.
But as your therapist (or at least 1 of your therapists) I feel that you are holding back. Almost like you are not telling us everything.
HHMMMMMM. What could be giving me that idea?
Oh I know!
You left us hanging!!!
As your therapist I feel you need to let go and tell all there is. Not bits and pieces.
but I do see we are making progress. Let's continue this in our next scheduled appointment.
CH
Oh, suuuuurrreee... play the cliffhanger card... most bloggers don't resort to that ol' tactic until they see a decline in their regular traffic...
;-)
Anyhoo... in this very brief intro to your adoption story, I notice that familiar adoption refrain... not wanting to hurt the feelings of the adoptive parents, hiding your feelings of curiosity about your origins,possibly some guilt about the search (not sure about that one... I'm guessing), and keeping secrets.
Very curious to see where you go with this discussion...
Manuela,
I'm new to this so I don't really have "regular traffic" yet. I didn't start out with the intention of leaving a cliffhanger, but I do my blogging at work so time was/is limited.
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