Why do some adoptees experience strong feelings and others don't?

Question

I came on here for more information and found out a lot of adult adoptees have anger, rightfully so for some experiences, and I have learned more of hte issues. I took this information to five adopted people I know very well, and asked them if they agreed? One did for sure, but the other four said they had no anger on being adopted, their birth parents did all they could and made a choice, their mom and dad are those who adopted them, and the birthparent (their word not mine) is someone they have a relationship with but it is a friendship. Three of these friends had their names changed and said they had no issues with that and were glad their parents (adopted) were able to name them. The fact that they did not experience negativity around their adoption does not negate the fact that many here have their own experiences and feelings, but it does beg the question whether their positive experiences can be discounted because they differ from some of the ones on YA.

Answer 1

Everyone expresses their feelings differently. I have strong feelings about adoption, but I'm the kind of person that sits back and listens and I see that as a major flaw in me.

Answer 2

Why is it so hard for people to believe that people might not be telling them everything?  Why is it so hard to think about this with an open mind and realize that some things are too personal?  Some things might hurt other people so we don't say them.  Do you think that my adoptive family knows that I wish I wasn't adopted???  No way would I ever tell them that! I don't want to hurt their feelings.  I also think that as adoptees we go through stages and it happens at different times for everyone.  Maybe even not at all!  

Sunny's answer was perfect.  Why the thumbs down?  She wasn't making that up?  Why does everyone say that they are gong to keep an open mind and learn from each other when they have no intention of doing so?  She didn't say anything offensive or untrue!  Thumbs up Sunny!

Answer 3

Wow, that chubby woman in red ‘sounds’ so familiar, like a social worker I know…

Anyway, why do some adoptees ‘experience’ strong feelings and some do not?  I am adopted, and have known hundreds of adoptees through the years.  I’m going to throw out lots of examples of adoptees I know, and have known:

-They don’t care, or are not interested.  (My amother is not interested in history! Can you imagine?!)  Some people are not interested in digging deeper.

-They are people pleasers who don’t want to upset their adoptive families, or the general public.

-There are people who need a lot of control.  They can’t afford to be interested, or have ‘strong’ feelings.  An adoptee's 'past' is a tight box that might unleash, well, who knows what?  They aren’t willing to invest the emotional energy to even take a peek, so they move on.  Adoptees have no control over their early life; many aren’t willing to give control up in adulthood. Having 'strong feelings' is like walking out onto an emotional tight rope!

-Some are in such deep (conscious or unconscious) pain, shame, loss, they can’t face it, so they say they are not interested.  Of course there have been LOTS of adoptees who were not interested at 28, and are desperate to know more at 51.  You just never know…

-They are either too young or emotionally immature to be in touch with something that society tells us should not be acknowledged or explored, besides, if they had a ‘good experience’ they shouldn’t want to, right?

-Some resent that they have been burdened with the extra job of being adopted.  So they refuse to act interested, because interest might lead to a search, and, well, they are tired of being different, and don’t want to invest their energy and emotional capital in the effort.

-Some (your friends) might just be telling you what you want to hear.  And feel deep down that it is NONE of your business to know more than the 'spin'.  For me and many adoptees, adoption is/was our Achilles’ heel.  It is such an intimate subject, and you don’t know WHO will say WHAT to you, sometimes it’s just easier to trot out the company line, everything was great, I had a great life, I’m not interested, yada, yada.  Before the age of 28, I never shared how I felt with anyone except my husband, and BFF (also adopted), and I was 6 years into reunion!  It was just too difficult to listen to the pushback.

-Some don’t want to upset the apple cart.  Adoptive mom & dad were very generous (and still are) and they do not want to risk future down-payments, tuition for the kids, vacations, or the all-important inclusion in the will.  I know personally 3 men in their mid-to-late 40 who have told their wives (who I heard it from) that they will search, but after mommy & daddy die, they want the moolah.  

So my feeling based on 40 years of relationships with hundreds of adoptees is that it is FAR more complicated than most believe it to be.

Answer 4

What does their positive experience tell us?  What would you have us derive from it?  

Why do some PEOPLE experience strong feelings, and some don't?

Let us assume there is an operation.  It can be helpful.  In many people, it causes a lot of pain.  In others, there is no sense of pain.  Do we discount the positive experience?  No.  But what does that have to do with the pain that many feel?  Should we tell people considering the surgery that some people do not find it painful?  Is that helpful?  What do we do with their experience?  Their experience isn't helpful.  Listen to adds for drugs.  Do they talk about all the positive side effects?  No.  They talk about possible complications.  But when we talk about possible complications on here, people keep complaining that a few angry adoptees are ruining it for everyone else.  

Every question like this one simply seeks to discount adult adoptees here.  I have very bad news for all the PAPs and APs who seek to discount our perspective (not all of you, just the ones who want us to shut up), there is no test to tell whether your child will be one of us one day.  

If you don't want to hear the negative, then quit reading here.  (As for the positive, most the "angry" adoptees here have acknowledged that there can be positives.  So your only point must be to keep us quiet about the negatives.)

Answer 5

yes there is always parts of everything that has a good and bad part to it.

i hold no anger to my birth mother at all, as she did all that she could do and wonted a better life for me when she put me up for adoption.

my adoptive parents have a lot to answer for but and that is something that they are going to have to deal with when the time comes.

the reason that i do not like the system is that they know that the rates of child abuse if about 50% higher in adoption yet they do not do anything to keep this down or closer inspection after the adoption is done.

also the fact that it is so secretive is another issue i have with it, in that my birth mother has gone on and had yet another 5 children after me and the way the laws are i could well have not known them and meat up with them latter to find out that and had a child to a sister even there is something i think that is so wrong about that

Answer 6

Does it have to be either negative or positive?  Can't it be both?  I had a positive experience with my adoptive family but a negative experience with adoption.  I have had a pretty good life, I went to college, I have a good job, I own my own home, I have a great boyfriend....I am not an angry mess.  All that being said, I did not choose to be adopted, I did not choose to lose my family, my history, my sense of self.  I did not choose to feel like I have to please everyone and do and say the right things all of the time so they won't reject me.  If you met me last year and asked me how I felt about adoption I would have told you that I was thankful that my birth mother cared enough about me to give me a better life.  I wasn't angry.  I felt the way people thought I should feel.  It wasn't until recently that I realized all of the ways that adoption has affected my life.  Your friends may be in that stage, they may stay in that stage, but you can't ignore the fact that a lot of adoptees have issues caused by adoption.

Answer 7

As with anything in life, no two people think or feel the same about any given subject.  

Why would adoption be any different

Answer 8

No one's "experience" is discounted.  An experience cannot be discounted because it just "is."  

I'm adopted.  I've never been angry with my nparents over it.  I have a very close relationship with them over our 6 year reunion.  My ndad really expected I would be angry, but was surprised to find that I didn't feel that way toward him.

I also had a close relationship with my amom, who died a couple of years ago.  Because I was adopted at 2, I don't like that she changed my name.  I really don't think that in the 60's people thought that much about it, though.  But, I really would advise people not to do that.

I do know that being relinquished at 13 months and adopted at 2 years into an entirely different family did have an emotional effect on me.  My amom knew it, too and accepted it to be a sensible conclusion for that to happen.  

Although I have a good, stable and enjoyable life, my adoption will always be a part of who I am because it changed my life so much.  It really doesn't matter to speculate a whole lot on whether that was a so-called change for the "better" or not, because the bottom line is it was a huge change.  

My biggest concern with adoption is about the laws and practices that need reform.  When I get passionate, that's the point from which my passion rises.  The laws in my state don't allow me the same right to my own birth certificate as non-adopted people.  People given up for adoption but who aren't adopted DO HAVE that right.  The fact that I got adopted took it away.

Answer 9

Well your friends were definitly right about feeling a friendship with their bmom rather than a mom - daughter relationship, at least for me.

My bmom is a great woman, I love her dearly, but she will never be "mom" to me. She will be a great friend that I will always love and respect as the woman who gave me life.

My anger in adoption lies 100% with my adoptive parents. They adopted me only to put me through years of abuse.That was their fault, no other aparent.

Yes I encourage moms to parent rather than relenquish their children. After suffering the heartbreak that I've experienced after relenquishing my twins, why would I want to see any other human go through that? I don't. If a mom really wants to place her child for adoption, thats her decision, but if what's stoppping her from keeping her child is materialistic things, like not having the items needed for a baby, and I have the items here, or know where to get them in her area at no cost to her, then I feel I should be sharing that with her.

Placing a child for adoption was the worst heart ache I've ever felt in my life. And in 16 years, that pain has never eased

Answer 10

The important thing to remember is that we are all individuals, and will experience what we experience, regardless of what those around us think, say, or do.

As a PAP, I think it's my job to prepare for the worst AND the best.  No matter what my children experience, I'd better be willing and able to handle it, and handle myself.  And even if they might not experience anger over the loss of their identity, I'm still not going to change it to suit my needs.  There's just too strong of a possibility that it COULD hurt them, for me to be willing to take the chance.

Answer 11

Well, dearie, some just love to complain.  it gives them a reason for being.

and also, keep in mind that those you see on the internet are going to be angry, that's why they're here.

your friends who don't have issues with adoption aren't trolling about the internet looking for support, looking for an outlet or anything like that because they don't care.  They don't need support and it doesn't mean that they're in "denial", it just means that they're lives are not shaped by adoption in their day to day living.  They do not care about their adoptions, they do not care about their records or anything like that.

I know quite a few people who are adopted and they are good people.  They truly don't care about being adopted.  

just keep in mind that the people you see here need an outlet whereas your friends (and many of mine) don't feel they have to release anything through outlets like this.

As you said, the feelings of people on here can not be negated but I will say that many go overboard in their treatment of others on this forum.  Their blanket statements can sometimes be ludicruous.  

I stumbled onto this forum and i've read many of the past threads and i have to admit, i shake my head alot because i just can not believe the venom that i see here.  if i were considering adopting, even through foster care, i certainly wouldn't do it now.  No one says they have to be 'grateful' but it would be nice if they didn't refer to their parents as greedy infertile kidnappers.  When they make blanket statements like that, they have to throw their own parents in the mix and that really is sad to see.