Tag: adoption identity
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Honor an Evil Father on Father’s Day?
Sherrie expected that her missing birth father would be a wonderful man. Just the opposite was true as she uncovered DNA secrets from Ancestry.com. So, how does she and others with a “nightmare father” give “honor” to them on Father’s Day. Sherrie shares what has set her free.
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Words that Trigger Trauma in Adopted and Fostered Kids
Dear friends through adoption, Cognitive dissonance occurs automatically and involuntarily for many adoptees, but adoptive parents and other people in an adopted child’s life can inadvertently trigger mixed feelings. I believe that for the most part, the following types of statements are well-intentioned and borne from ignorance. Nevertheless…we need to know what they are so…
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An Adoptee’s Search for the Missing Face
An adoptee searches for a face in a crowd that resembles her own. If we could only see the face of the lost birth mother/father, the hurt would magically disappear. The grief would be resolved and the life-long repercussions of traumatic adoption loss would be mitigated. Oops…adoptee fantasy. True, those who have found the missing…
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Adoptees Explain Boo-Hoo Birthdays
Let’s think about the concept of birthdays for adoptees. First, what does a birthday represent for the non-adopted person? For most, it’s a happy time, built on the foundation of being welcomed into the world. A time for birthday cakes, parties, and balloons. Now consider an adoptee’s birthday. What does a birthday represent for him?…
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One Adoptee’s 69th Birthday Reflections
“Look!” the people around the campfire called out, pointing to the cypress trees that lined the famous Monterrey, California grill. Suddenly, a bagpiper came out of the woods, playing a melancholy tune. She wore authentic bagpiper regalia, walking through the field toward us. It was a special touch to an evening that we didn’t think…
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Amazing Research News For Birth Mothers and Adoptees
Thanks to science, we now have a deeper glimpse into our Creator’s heart that cherish’s birth mothers and their sacrificial gift in adoption….and for the child that is adopted. We all know from Dr. Thomas Verny in The Secret Life of the Unborn Child that: ~the birth mother’s heartbeat and warmth of her body makes…
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Forgiveness A Command, Reconciliation An Option?
The longer I walk this journey called adoption, the stronger my belief is that the key–the whole key–to being healthy and thriving, to having a cup brimming over with joy, is to learn to forgive. How I wish I would have known some of the things I’ve learned lately about forgiveness and reconciliation. In Dr.…
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What If Your Adoption Glass Is Half Empty?
If our adoption glass is half empty, we’ll be growing something in our hearts that is downright malicious. Something unseen and destructive. Something that keeps us from growing and moving toward maturity. Something that keeps us looking at life in a distorted way. We will fight for our rights to be heard and even become…
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I Need to Know the Truth About My Conception, Birth, and Family History, No Matter How Painful the Details May Be
The late Betty Jean Lifton, author of Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience, describes the adoptee’s growing awareness of his desire to know more about his biological family as an awakening: “The act of adoption puts us under a spell that numbs our consciousness. When we awaken it startles us to realize we might have…
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Your Name Is Inscribed….but Where?
Jesus carried you close to his heart
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Why Adoptee Birthdays May Be Difficult and What Parents Can Do
It’s a bright and sunny fourth day of August, back in the year 1950. In a back yard on Oakland Street, preparations are underway for a birthday party for a seven-year-old named Sharon Lee. That’s me. Dad and Mom move the picnic table to a shady spot under the big oak tree and then cover…
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How Can Adoptees Know What Their Life Is Worth?
A single thread in a tapestry Though its color brightly shine Can never see its purpose In the pattern of the grand design. And the stone that sits on the very top Of the mountain’s mighty face, Does it think it’s more important Than the stones that form the base? So how can you know…
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Mother’s Day Tips for Rejected Adoptees
When I returned from my reunion with my birth mother twenty years ago and called to thank her for the visit, she announced to me that she wanted no more contact. Twenty years ago, there wasn’t anything written about this experience and I felt so ashamed and was sure the rejection was because of something…
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One Adoptee’s Thoughts About Her Birth Mother on Mother’s Day
Even though my birth mother was unable to receive the love I longed to give her, and even though she has passed away, I still have a deep love for her. I wish I could tell her: • I am bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. • You were a voice for…
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Adoption Pearls from the All-Adoptee ICU
A lesson from nature teaches us that pain is the catalyst that makes the precious pearl. Through all the tough issues adoptees work through in the All-Adoptee ICU, pearls of wisdom are formed. Here is my “take” on the pearls. How about yours? 1. Anyone can make love, but only God can create a life.…
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All-Adoptee ICU Signs of Recovery
Here are a few of the signs that adoptees have healed: • “I have a unique life purpose…I can see how God is working in my life!” • “I can now take rejection in stride!” • “I can now see my adoption experience through God’s eyes!” The link for the All-Adoptee Online Group is: all-adoptees@yahoogroups.com.…
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All-Adoptee ICU Success Stories
There’s nothing defective about adoptees! We just need a special kind of help.
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An ICU for Hurting Adoptees?
Where can you take an adoptee for intensive help? If you go to the psych unit at the hospital, they don’t even mention adoption-related trauma as a possible issues of depression, anxiety, or self-destructive thoughts and behaviors. There is a place, online, where adoptees can go and be with other adoptees who’ve been where…
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Adoptees Ready to Launch?
Children want and need to become their own persons. Adopted kids seek autonomy, too, while at the same time needing a safe place to verbalize the conflicting emotions that being adopted often evokes. The task of individuating for the adopted child is unique as well as complex, for it involves the dual-identity once again. With…
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Yikes…Tell the WHOLE Truth?
Many parents who adopt are terrified that their children will someday learn about the negative aspects of their child’s birth family history. “What if my son finds out that his birth father is in prison? What if he discovers that his birth mother is a prostitute, or drug addict? What if my daughter learns that…
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Before You Were Born
Before you were born, God was there bringing you to life and saying, “YES” to who you were and all that you could be. He put His arms around you even before you knew your mother’s touch. He cared for you as no one ever could. He has been your closest friend and constant companion–…
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Maximizing Pressure-Packed Days
As children of God, we are all in the wonderful process of being healed by our Great Physician, Jesus. His healing can be evidenced in a new-found appreciation for life, as we learn to enjoy Him. Webster’s defines appreciation like this: “To be grateful for; to value highly; to place a high estimate on; to…
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Adoptee Fantasies
All children have a secret place where they can fantasize about having better parents when they are disillusioned with their own. Freud called this the family romance. However, when the non-adopted child later learns and accepts the fact that his parents have both positive and negative characteristics, the fantasy dissipates. It is not that simple…
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A Letter to My Granddaughter, by an anonymous father
Dear Baby, Although I consider myself a literate and learned man, I confess that these are the hardest words I have ever written or read in my nearly fifty years of life. I want to tell you about the circumstances of your conception and birth. Since I won’t be able to do it in person,…
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Change An Adoptee’s Name?
Changing an adopted child’s name is of great concern to parents of internationally and domestically adopted children. One mother wrote, “When a child is adopted at age five or six, or later, do you feel it’s appropriate to change the child’s name? Should we ask our child? Doesn’t changing the name give the message that…
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How Adoptees Think About Their Birth Mothers
All children, adopted or not, have secret places within where they can fantasize about perfect parents. They travel to these places when disillusioned with their own parents. Freud called this the family romance theory. When the non-adopted child learns around age seven or eight that his parents have both negative and positive characteristics, their fantasies…
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The Granddaddy Fear of Many Adoptive Moms
The subject of birth parents is a frightening one for many moms with adopted kids. Do you mean that my child has two mothers? What if my child reunites with the birth mother and loves her more than me? Do you think I should tell him he has two mothers? If you are in an…
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How To Grieve Adoption Loss (Russian Translation)
Dear friends, Last year, I had the privilege of presenting to a Russian group of social workers. The principal from the Russian school here in Indy translated the points for me. I am hoping that this may reach someone out there who speaks Russian, or some of our guests that were here that day at…
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How to Grieve Adoption Loss
Dear friends, I just finished taping a radio show with Rebecca Vahle, Supervisor of the Family to Family Adoption Program of Denver’s Parker Hospital. Here’s what I promised listeners. It’s a way to help your children work through unresolved grief and loss. Shoot me a reply if you have questions! How to Construct A Grief…
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Adoptee Mixed Feelings and Thanksgiving
There’s a certain, undefinable sadness that hovers over the heart of an adoptee that is aging….at least this one. Memories of loss paint a melancholy, forboding, lifeless, un-iniviting landscape. But today of all days, we should be thankful! It’s Thanksgiving, after all. Mixed feelings are running rampant inside of me! Anybody out there identify? I…
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Confessions of An Adoptee Hoarder
Our living room floor was scattered with tidbits of paper, scratched-out notes from my first conversation with birth relatives, photos of generations past, a handwritten will of my birth grandmother, the first card I received from my birth mother, the newspaper clipping with the hand carved ship my grandfather made for Henry Ford back in…
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An Adoptee’s Wish List
If only this could happen, the gaping wound in my adoptee soul would heal. If only… • I knew the names of my birth parents • I could access my original birth certificate • I could see my birth mother’s face • I could know medical history • I could find my missing birth father…
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Sherrie’s “Take” on Her Missing History
Oh, how I hate missing history! I know all about my birth mother’s genealogical family, but nothing about my birth father’s. He is still shrouded in mystery. I remember giving the intermediary-lady who found her these questions: What is the family health history? What nationality am I? Who is my birth father? The third question…
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The Answer When Adoptees Don’t Know Their History
There certainly is a lot of adoptee anger and sadness regarding missing birth family history. Whether its the opening of our original birth certificates, owning only a certificate of abandonment from a foreign country, or finding negative and painful history, and even a tombstone…its all hard to process. In the midst of our finding identity…
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What Adoptees Deserve from Their Birth Mothers
Dear friends through adoption, Remember the metaphor of the Great Eagle and the eaglet? I’ll be the eaglet today and tell you how it felt when I stepped on to the wing of the Great Eagle. Remember…the pain of the nest was too much for me…I couldn’t stand it….I cried to get out of the…
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Adoptee Fantasies Must Wash Away
Dear friends through adoption, Oftentimes, we grow up believing fantasies about our birth family. Some imagine birth parents as a king and queen who live in a castle, concluding that life would indeed be wonderful when reunion occurs. I remember when I met with the intermediary that eventually found Elizabeth, my birth mother. We met…
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What Adoptees Wish Others Would Say About Searching
Dear friends, The reactions of my family members hurt and I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t back me searching for my birth mother. My husband said, “Sherrie, she shut the door 47 years ago and if you try to open it, you may get hurt.” Translating what my Dad might have been thinking…well, I don’t…
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An Adoptee’s Heart-Wrenching Decision to Search
Dear friends through adoption, After hearing my family’s silences, judgments, and sarcasm about possibly searching for my birth mother, I made a very difficult decision. It was a decision that was new to me, even though at the time, I was 47 years old. I was like an overgrown eaglet who had stayed in the…
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Why Would You Want to Search for Birth Relatives?
Good morning, friends! I remember when curiosity was spilling over inside me! I had my birth mother’s name….Marjorie Elizabeth Perry. A real person. My fantasy mother was coming to life. Really? She was real? How could I not find her? I wanted to find her and reassure her that she had made the right decision in placing…
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How To Find Adoption Identity Clues
How do you connect the dots(clues)? Look for mysteries, out-of-the-ordinary stuff, shocking circumstances, and repetition. What makes your mind say “really?” When I was a child, the physician who delivered me visited every week to check on me came until I was old enough to ask who he was. Hmmmm. Something strange there. Anything come…
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Is Searching for Lost Birth Relatives Worth the Risk?
Dear friends, Before deciding to go full blast on our adventure, we must count the cost, don’t you think? See this precious little girl, dressed up as a detective? If we could see her heart, this is what she would look like. Most adoptees in the All-Adoptee Growth Group (all-adoptees@yahoogroups.com) say that they think about…
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You Are Invited to an Adoption Identity Search!
You are invited to join me in what I’m calling an “Identity Search!” It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do or how and if your life has been touched by adoption. We will be searching for clues, confirmations, circumstances, and confidence. Up for the journey with me? I’ll give you an adoption…
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Have You Been Carrying Around Old Things, Like Me?
Dear friends, There’s a photo that I’ve been hauling around in a folder for years (at least 30). Of course, I can’t put my hands on it right now, but let me describe it to you. It features a Jewish man who is weeping profusely, his face mostly buried in a damp handkerchief. If you…