Tag Archives: siblings
Adoptive Parents, Adult Adoptees, First Parents…
By TAO
Want a challenge? When you click the More link shut your eyes and imagine the faces of adoptees who want the right to their original birth certificate. Read the rest of this entry »
Reunion and anger…
By TAO
My siblings reacted very badly when they found out I existed. I told myself it was their choice not to know me, and we all have free choice, and even though I was deeply hurt and couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t want to know a sibling, I thought I had accepted it for what it was. I was used to accepting and moving on – that’s what adoption teaches you – this was no different from accepting any of the other parts of being adopted. Put it out of your mind and carry on.
Over the years one sibling changed their mind and wanted to know me. I was thrilled, or so I thought. To know my siblings had always been a dream – as far back as I can remember I had always wanted to know if I had siblings, one of the few precious questions I got to ask as a teen was – did I have siblings?. That question and answer that I did made me so happy, and that even though I knew I would never know them – I had siblings. That knowledge stayed with me and I would day-dream about meeting them, knowing them, being their sibling.
Yet despite being thrilled with the turn around by my sibling and starting off good, soon I started holding back, not being able to talk, not wanting to talk, shutting down. It made no sense and it took a long time of self-reflection to admit that my holding back – was in fact anger at how all of my siblings reacted to me, and my inability to trust it wouldn’t happen again.
Right now we have an uneasy truce, and I don’t know if that will ever change, if I can change. Deeply ingrained in me is keep the peace at any cost, and I don’t know how to be honest about my deepest feelings of being rejected by them – and how that made me feel. That I don’t trust my sibling not to do it again. Trust makes me vulnerable to being rejected again.
Adoption – the gift that keeps on giving.
Siblings you never knew about…
So I ended up in a conversation with someone who apparently has a sibling that was put up for adoption back in the 60’s…It seems weird to talk to someone on the other side of the fence so to speak.
The conversation goes like this…being leary of making contact because obviously there was a reason why the baby was given up for adoption…something wrong…some emotional instability…some good reason…
Nope, sorry to break that sterotype…you grew up after that era and when you were an adult who could recognise how society affects everything…society had changed from what it was back then. I felt so old saying that and in reality I felt the same way until I educated myself but in reality, I only educated myself because I was part of adoption land…really it never would have occurred to me that society back in the 50’s or 60’s was really that much different because I grew up in the 60’s secure in my role as a child, protected from the realities of how adults treated each other. How society dictated they treat each other and to be born on the wrong side of the sheets dictated that both mother and child became ghosts in society. Shunned, dismissed, talked about but never talked to. They were the subject of gossip, malicious, hateful, hurtful and utterly inhumane treatment. Society still needs to pay for what they did to our mothers…and society doesn’t have the guts to admit their wrong doings and to publicly say WE WERE WRONG…
So, if you have a sibling that was put up for adoption back then…take some time and educate yourself what it was like during the era that happened. Understand that it was the entire family that was stigmatized, sanctioned, shamed and there was no other choice to be made and MOST likely the sibling is just as normal as you are.
why is it…
That it is okay to not like aspects in your siblings who you grew up but feel guilty and wrong to not like all aspects of your biological siblings you meet as an adult?
Is it because that makes my ‘dream‘ flawed and reality really is different and I just need to suck it up and get over it?
Because I talk about how much the biological connection means and in reality each of us is shaped by who, how and where we were raised? That the impact of life experiences as an adult shape who we are and expand those early childhood life lessons?
Because they ‘are‘ our sibling and therefore must be perfect? Because being ‘perfect‘ is mandatory? Why is being ‘perfect‘ mandatory? What happens if we are not ‘perfect‘? As a child it meant I could be given away again because they saw that fatal flaw in me that I could not see. Does it mean that if my sibling is not ‘perfect‘ then therefore ‘I‘ am not ‘perfect‘ and I am circling back to my childhood feelings of being afraid of being given away again but in a different way?
I have been extremely troubled by these feelings and can only conclude that it is normal to not always like all aspects of who your sibling is, what makes that person tick. Problem is, that is my logical brain talking – but my inner child’s mind isn’t listening. And that inner child’s mind has been with me a lot longer than my logical adult brain.