Don’t Delete Your Comment, PLEASE!

January 17, 2020

I never felt a connection to my adoptive mother and I have always carried a lot of guilt as a result of not being able to love her the way I thought a daughter was supposed to love a mother. I made a post about this on social media. This was in turn inspired by a comment that someone made on my Facebook page in response to Sara Easterly’s adoptee story, and how she mentions not feeling that her heart was in it with her and her mother’s relationship.

A soon-to-be adoptive mother made a comment and asked how she can avoid her future adoptive son from feeling this way. Several adoptees replied and offered their point of view, as adoptees. They gave her very valuable information and they were honest with her. What she did in return broke my heart. It is nothing new. It is nothing out of the ordinary. It is something I have seen happen many times before. She deleted her comment.

Why is that a problem?

It was her comment, and if she changed her mind and deleted it why is it an issue big enough to warrant its own social media post AND blog post?

Deleting a comment, which has replies, doesn’t just delete the comment, but it deletes the entire thread of comments as well. In this case, becoming a way of silencing adoptees who are speaking up, sharing their stories and providing information valuable not just to her as a soon-to-be adoptive mother, but any adoptive parent willing to listen to and learn from us, for the sake of their adoptee child.

I have two reasons for writing this post.

The first one was to simply highlight the issue with deleting a comment made to a post in a social media comment section, where several people have taken the time to provide answers in a thread to that comment.

Here’s a tip to my fellow adult adoptees to avoid your comments from being deleted like this – make a new comment and tag the person you are replying to. That way, if they delete their comment, yours still stay. They don’t delete your words; you have control over your reply.

My second reason is to get the information that was provided in the replies out to you as best as I can. To anyone interested and wanting to take part of it, adoptees and non-adoptees alike. And on some level it also has to do with making sure that adoptees get the last word on this, and that our words don’t be deleted like they were in this case.

I was able to connect with one of the adoptees who provided a reply, and who was willing to send me her reply for this blog post. You can find her and follow her on Instagram at 12_thirtyfour, as she is a fellow adoptee working to raise awareness on the adoptee perspective.

To the question “What can I do to prevent that my soon-to-be adoptive son will feel disconnected from me as his adoptive mother, and subsequently guilty for that?” my fellow adoptee replied:

“I would say that while you can’t change how he feels…you can’t change the trauma that has happened to him and the loss of his first mama that is bringing him to the point of needing to be adopted, you can always be willing to actively work to let him know that you are a safe place for him to talk about his feelings and thoughts on the trauma he experienced, even if those thoughts and feelings make you uncomfortable. The more you are able to be open to the conversation, the more he may possibly be able to open up and process which in turn strengthen you relationship.”

And I could not agree more. I second this reply with all my heart. I cannot recall my exact reply to the post, but I will say that it is absolutely KEY that adoptive parents understand the importance of them providing a safe space for the adoptee to speak honestly in, about their own adoption.

I tried once when I was young, and it was met with silence. My attempt went ignored. And I never brought it up again. I shoved those feeling and thoughts so deep down, I didn’t even know I had them until many years later, when anxiety and anger outbursts made it absolutely necessary for me to re-visit my childhood, and I landed on my adoption.

There is no way of changing the way a person feels by telling them to feel differently, by trying to convince them that the situation does not warrant their feelings.

As an adoptive parent it is imperative that you are able to leave your own feelings and experience with adoption out, to be able to fully hold space for your adoptee child. It must be understood that while adoption brought you something you longed for; adoption was preceded by the greatest loss imaginable for the child.

In addition to this, your adoptee child’s life has a part in it that has nothing to do with you, that you are not part of. Yet, if we are being completely honest here, I think many adoptive parents end up on the receiving end of adoptees’ anger, as they are the only tangible thing directly connected to the adoption, and somehow then also the loss, and abandonement.

And it is a crucial part of who he is.

The question then, is not what you can do to avoid your adoptee child will feel this way with or about you?

Instead the question is what you need to do to prepare yourself to be the adoptive parent who is able to hold space for him if he ever ends up feeling this way?

I would say that listening to adult adoptees is going to be the best way to get the information you need, and the information that can truly help you and subsequently him.

It won’t be easy.

It won’t be comfortable.

But it will be necessary.

If for no other reason, for your adoptee child.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart, for spending this time with me on This Adoptee Life.

All my love to all of you.

– Amanda Medina

PS. We are all in this together

Amanda Medina

I was adopted from Medellin, Colombia to Sweden in 1985. I was about a year and a half when I started my life as an adoptee, and it would take 32 years until I was ready to face what that means, what that has always meant, and what that will always mean.