Adoption has a life-long impact on the child, positively or negatively. I have heard some adoptees who have loving adoptive parents supporting their search for birth parents and respecting their cultural origins. Others, like me, struggle to overcome the sense of incompleteness and different feelings and beliefs about who we are. But there is a path to heal the broken heart.
We don’t walk around with a broken arm or leg so we don’t appear to be disabled in some way. Likewise, no one can see the broken heart of a baby that was given up for adoption.
Does anybody think a baby would voluntarily leave their mother? “Well, how would the baby know anything?” I heard adults say to themselves as if they needed to be convinced that what they did was not going to impose the slightest thing on another human being.
What a baby can sense and know is already widely discussed. In this link mentioned, you will see perspectives from the birth mothers, adoptive parents, and adoptees. It is like all parties involved in the adoption come to this platform to vomit their pain.
Yet, no one can undo what happened. Is that all we can do, vomiting the pain? As far as I can see, we have two options for adopted people:
1. Unconscious child’s option
We can lash out in pain and blame the birth mother or think we are unlucky being adopted by abusive or irresponsible parents. We may appear to be sad but deep down we feel like grumpy yet powerless victims. Depression, disease, addictions are part of our daily struggle.
But there’s always the other side of things. This is not exclusive to adopted people. Thousands of people feel the same, albeit their stories are not about adoption.
2. Responsible adult’s option
We can also choose to take adoption as our unique path to personal healing and empowerment. Others have their own paths. They might be born with impaired eyesight or a rare disease. They may lose their parents at a young age by divorce. Whatever that is, we are grown-ups now and can find better ways to deal with what happens inside our broken hearts from things of the past.
If you think that you are still feeling raw with your rage and grief, take your time. There is a time to be a victim and it is perfectly fine. Just avoid dumping on others but definitely welcome and validate your feelings and emotions. It is your personal internal process.
Within the scripts of our adoption story lies the key to personal awakening to the human journey and to a healthy and happy life. The best gift to our broken-heart child inside is to be their loving parents and take care of them. If your birth mother is open to connection or if your adoptive parents are supportive of you, that’s awesome.
If not, trust that you can live without.
Life is a journey towards the healthy, wholesome you. Even in a world that’s full of homophobia and heterosexism towards adoptees. So why not use the adoption as your unique path to blossom?
So what’s great about my adoption?
I found myself resisting writing about this topic. How interesting! The truth is, I DO know I have benefited tremendously from being adopted. Maybe it is the victim part of me that is reluctant to admit that being adopted can have advantages? She rather lives in her small miserable world and blames others so she can feed her victimized ego.
STOP IT! I recommend that you watch the short Stop It clip, a comedy about how you should stop anything in life that does not serve you. I was laughing my head off while aching in my heart when I watched it. It took me another six months after watching this clip to relate its theme to my own life and took action accordingly. Right! Here are the benefits of my adoption:
1. Free from family values input. I am free from being influenced by either family’s core values. Although I grew up with the knowledge of two families, both families don’t feel they totally ‘own’ me as a daughter. Instead of inheriting them from the two families, I found my own values. It was a lonely path but it was my path.
2. Being different. I am happy that I was not raised by my biological parents and ended up like their children. I don’t share their mentality that they are superior to everyone else in the world. My birth mother probably could never understand when I thanked her for giving me away. Personally, I just think that was Grace to me under the guise of adoption.
3. A path of self-exploration. The burning desire to belong set me on the path of self-knowledge, spirituality, and conscious living from a young age. Again, it was a lonely journey but it was, and still is, my journey. The journey has led me to where I am today and I cannot be more grateful!
Certainly, I don’t arrive at this realization just by accident. It took a few decades and lots, lots, and lots of inner work from my end. The truth is that my two sets of parents did their arrangement from their own agendas. Their decision had nothing to do with me. Period. All I can say is: the journey has been absolutely worth it!