Adoptee Story: Anonymous
November 19, 2020
Adoptee Story:
Shared with us anonymously
INTRO: A fellow adoptee shares their story with us, anonymously. This is a heartbreaking story of one adoptee, who is far from alone having this kind of story. Failed by the system, failed by many who were supposed to be there to protect them as a child. There’s a message at the end for fellow adoptees…
“My story started off innocuously enough, like many do. I was born to 2 loving parents. Sure, they were young, inexperienced, and poor, but that didn’t make them bad parents. It didn’t make them unfit parents. I was fed. I was clothed. I had toys. I was loved. I was never abused. We had what we needed. Life was ok. Until the day a “friend” of theirs stabbed them in the back. My parents went to jail for the actions of someone else, and I was placed in foster care at about 2 years old. That’s where my nightmare began.
I was placed with a long-term foster care couple at that point. Now, understand when I say this couple should NEVER have been allowed to foster. They have several health conditions that made it dangerous, to begin with, and they would end up proving very abusive. They lied to the state to become foster parents. And my social worker KNEW it. My social worker was my foster mother’s best friend. When my mom got out of jail, my social worker convinced the judge in my case that I shouldn’t be returned, on the basis that my foster parents were “more stable, more financially well off, and more religious”. My social worker and FPs kept my parents in court for a year with bogus step after bogus step in the “Action Plan”. For example, my parents were found in contempt for not attending a workshop at a particular charity, despite a letter from the charity saying they no longer performed that workshop. During that time, my parents were constantly berated as parents, told that they were unfit, informed of their shortcomings, and told that they would never be able to give me the opportunities that my foster family would be able to. Eventually, it worked.
When I was 3, papers were signed. I will never forget that day. I’d had visitation with my parents routinely for that 18 months (6 months in jail, year post). To me, it was play time. However, after papers were signed, my parents walked away. I ran after my mom, screaming “Momma, playtime. Momma! Play!!” I still have nightmares about it to this day. When my (now) adoptive mother grabbed me, I struggled. I bit her. I drew blood. I was never, from that day on, calm in her arms. I did not run to her for comfort. I would bite, kick, scream, and fight her. Why? Because my body and soul remember how she stopped me from getting to my mother. And I never forgave her for that. I couldn’t. My body never knew how.
Less than a year after my adoption, my APs (in my young, shattered viewpoint) betrayed me again. They adopted a baby boy… they son they’d wanted. It wasn’t until YEARS later I’d overhear it, but they adopted me as the plan C. They couldn’t have kids. They wanted a baby. I was close enough to a baby when I was placed with them, but I was clearly “broken” already. This baby boy? Oh, to them, he was perfect. And he would remain that way. Growing up as plan C is not easy. Being told “If we’d have been able to have our own kids, we wouldn’t have had to adopt you…” really put me through the wringer. Especially once they did have some kids of their own. There was a lot of abuse of all kinds growing up. I still struggle with the aftereffects. I was told that I’d been abandoned, that my parents were both dead, that I wasn’t wanted. I was told I should be grateful that they had adopted me. Otherwise, I’d have had nowhere. I didn’t know at the time those were all lies.
Mental health is a definite struggle for many of us. Adoptees are 4x as likely to attempt suicide. I first thought about suicide when I was 6. I first attempted it at age 11. No one outside the house realized I was drowning. I’d learned early on to hide it behind a smile. I was always laughing, helping others, or nose deep in a book. I was in and out of therapy, but all my therapists insisted on bringing my APs in every session. There was no trust in those relationships. I felt alone. I had no other adoptees in my circles. I was surrounded by people who were living with their biological families, telling me how beautiful it was I was chosen to live with this other family. I felt like a fraud. I wasn’t happy. All I wanted was to go back to my family.
I was 19 when I finally was able to leave their house and support myself. NAAM2020 marks 12 years since I ceased communication with my adoptive family. I’ve been living in reunion with my mom and dad since 2009. It hasn’t been an easy road, for sure, but it’s been worth it for me. It took months of phone calls and video chats before I finally agreed to meet up with my mom. When I hugged her after so many years, it was as if a huge weight had been lifted. I felt instantly like I was “home”. I didn’t understand HOW I could feel like that, I just knew I DID. I cried. It was the start of so much healing, and so much grief at the same time. Grief for the family we lost, for the people we could have been.
I often think about the years we missed out on, because someone decided they were a “better family”. It’s taken years of therapy as an adult to be able to come to terms with everything that happened to me as a child. I cannot change the past. There is no fixing what happened. As my altered birth certificate proves, adoption is final. There is no “undo” button. Even though I legally changed my name, I cannot change my BC, and I cannot change the abuse. I can only accept my past and use it to speak out in hopes that it doesn’t happen to someone else in the future.
To hopeful adoptive parents, and adoptive parents alike: Please, understand, adoptees live with trauma. Understand that these children, EVEN IF adopted as infants, have trauma imprinted upon their psyche. Understand that good quality, appropriate, and adequate therapy will be needed in many (if not all) cases, (even when you think that nothing is wrong.) Please, listen to adult adoptees. We are working for the best interest of your children, and every child involved in adoption.
To couples battling infertility, please, understand I say this with upmost love and care: Please seek therapy to fully understand and work through your infertility BEFORE you seek to foster or adopt. Please. Children understand more than you thank, and they internalize A LOT.
To all the other adoptees out there, know you’re not in this alone. You’ve never been in this alone. It gets better. You are enough. You are valued. You are loved. You are worthy. “
End of Article
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.
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3 thoughts on “Adoptee Story: Anonymous”
Thanks for sharing your story. Very courageous of you.
Amanda, I so appreciate your strength in sharing your story.
Triggers … I can too well emphasize with this narrative and hope with time you can move on and find at least peace knowing that it is in the past. I was kidnapped from my maternal grandparents who protected me from my own parents for 18 mos. of my life. My brother and I were transported to Idaho from Ohio where our little sister was born. We 3 were taken to Nebraska where my sister and I were abandoned-she terrorized and clinging to me while the felonious parents took our brother back to Ohio.
I was physically and psychologically abused by my parents and later sexually, emotionally, psychologically, and physically abused by my adopters.
Find all of the traumas exhibited on a child and you will find at least 99% which are mine-long before ACE scores became known.
I was born into an immigrant family from Hungary and Magyar was my first language and culture from my mother who did not want me, this was witnessed by others. My identity was stripped from me, my religion, my origins, my siblings, my ancestral history but I fought back. We are of our DNA and its haplogroups-something no court can take from us. Our OBCs are ours, not the states nor the adopters. Our truths are also ours-protected by the 14th Amendment and other federal and international laws. Our rights are not and cannot be political, and we must fight against who attempt to politicize them.
It is humans who traumatize children, not decrees or other inanimate objects. Beware of the myths you come upon and of groups with their own agendas. Fight for your own rights with your own voice, and never accept another’s NO! when it should be YES!
Those who’s custody was relinquished by their mother at birth or with in the first year or so have no recall of events of in utero or extra utero experiences-but do have the memory, which begins about the 6th week of gestation. One also doesn’t knw the incidents leading up to the relinquished custody, something only your mother will know. Beware of accepting information that has no basis in fact, and especially avoid myths or outright lies.
The only thing we are in together is the tag of being an ‘Adoptee’. After the each of us has a different story. and remember that we who were abandoned have much different circumstances than are yours who were not. Abandonment of a child is a felony; relinquishment of custody is not.
The best piece of advice I can give any adoptee is to avoid being “adopteecentric”. We each wear many hats and have many functions and activities in life. Being adopted is just one piece of our fabric called life.
Best wishes to all. Happy holidays. And try to remember to seek the good of your existence, not the trauma of it. Everyone has trauma in their life, it is not exclusively yours or mine.