Amanda at Declassified Adoptee has done it one more time. I wanted to link here just in case there are any readers of this blog who don’t know about her, which is doubtful to say the least.
Fallacies of the Angry Adoptee and Happy Adoptee Dichotomy: Are there 5 Stages of Being an Adult Adoptee?
Too often are adoptees assigned to two different categories, either “angry” or “happy,” usually based on how stereotypical or counter-stereotypical what they have to say about being adopted is. This false dichotomy is used to establish the framework by which adoption and being adopted can be discussed. All it takes for an adoptee to be invalidated and removed from consideration at the table of adoption discourse is for someone else to label them “angry adoptee” and therefore irrational–incapable of having a valid view of something they’ve lived for most of their lives.
Go and read the post…really, read the post it is enlightening.
The adopted ones blog 
cb
July 26, 2011 at 10:56 pm
I’m sort of between stage 3 and 5 but have to think about stage 4 (i.e. good things about adoption). I have decided to take stage 4 as meaning good things about my actual life as is (I refuse to do the: “I am much better being adopted by my APs because life with my bfamily would have been such and such” – anyway in my case, I don’t think life would have been worse with my bfamily, just different, and refuse to do a comparison). I think I am getting closer to 5 with the occasional glimpse of 3.
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cb
July 26, 2011 at 11:09 pm
I suppose one good thing about actually be adopted is that I don’t feel tied to anyone at all anymore – I have 2 families and I care about them both.
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The adopted ones
July 26, 2011 at 11:16 pm
It’s a pretty freeing feeling isn’t it even though kind of hard at times to realize the reality.
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declassifiedadoptee
July 30, 2011 at 4:26 am
From the feedback I’ve read, I probably didn’t do a good job describing the stages in my post—oops 🙂
The stages are more based on 1. how aware an adoptee is about issues in adoption and 2. what part of the path to healing that they are on. I think from my post, many people got the impression that it was a scale of how positively or negatively an adoptee thinks about adoption.
For example, at stage three, an adoptee is drowning in awareness on issues in adoption and their focus is mostly on the loss involved more than anything else. Therefore, they are more likely to be depressed. At stage one, an adoptee isn’t aware of any issues, so they are more likely to view adoption more happily. At stage 5, while an adoptee is as aware of issues as they were, say, had they visited stage 3, they are less likely to focus as much on the loss aspect because by this point they have found considerable healing.
This is my interpretation of what the authors meant to convey, that is.
I think I am at stage 4. I don’t really know 🙂
Thanks for sharing the link!! ❤
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The adopted ones
July 30, 2011 at 1:17 pm
Amanda, I see so many (non-adoptees) discuss “healing” and it always sort of creeps me out because I think they truly believe that it is like healing from surgery and all will be better once your child has “healed” from the grief.
Do you think there is a better term/description that could be used – i.e. acceptance of the loss (the raw pain stage in 3) vs healed from the loss? If you agree their is a false sense of security out there, then I would love to see you do a post on how people perceptions may actually dismiss the life-long impact of adoption and the 5 stages – did that make sense? You have a better way of explanation of the hard topics than I ever will.
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