CULPABILITY

The definition of culpability is meriting blame. A friend recently used that word with me. It is an interesting word in adoption. Who is meriting blame in adoption industry? I think many are. I believe the state. I believe the adoption agencies, their attorneys, and their lobbyists. I also believe sadly even adoptive parents.

Many that visit my blog truly get what is going on. They realize that the road of adoption isn't easy. So this isn't really about them.

A situation has come up in my own life. I think this individual does not want to admit the culpability that she played in the adoption. To do so would be admitting that she is wrong. To do so would admit that her choice hurt someone else deeply and forever. She does know that kind of wound can't be healed. To do so would be admitting that a supposedly perfect adoption agency was and is very unscrupulous. This agency was and very possibly still is very corrupt. Their intentions are definitely much less than honorable. I don't think she wants to even think that the industry took her, the first parents involved, and her child. I know that what I know of it is sickening. I feel used, discarded, owned, and very dirty. I don't think this person wants to even acknowledge this about herself and her child. That really saddens me because she is denying her child's adoption experience. All of those feelings are being ignored. I know that feeling. Its happened to me. So many times my voice gets silenced by the "you should be grateful's." My feelings get silenced by the "what about my feelings." Sometimes I don't even feel like talking about my feelings of adoption. What is the point? They won't listen anyway. That is when adoptive parents do become culpable. They think that their children won't go through it. They think that their love will overcome it. What these types of adoptive parents don't understand is that they are helping their child build a wall around that part of their souls. The adoption wound goes deeper and darker than their love does. That wound sadly can't fixed with their love. Adoptive parents then begin to think its their fault. Maybe it is especially when they deny their child that part of themselves, their heritage, their identity. We as adoptees are part of both worlds. We are both nurture and nature. I would not be who I am without both. To deny the nature side would be to deny myself who I am.

I came across another email list where the adoptee was feeling the loss big time. I am a member of this email list. Adoptees feel loss. No ifs ands or buts about it. Some are vocal, some are reserved, some hide. My being vocal about adoption laws helps me deal with my emotions. When I am feeling the loss, I write angrily. I through a hissy on here. It gets my feelings out to where they are healthily managed. Sometimes though they can't be so easily managed. That is when I have to be alone away from family and friends because I would do serious damage. The people that I love would get hurt. I feel that adoption sadly has done enough of inflicting of harm. I refuse to harm another person.

I hear this story about an adoptee who has this situational severe depression. Reading this story struck home for me. I get that way. I beat myself up emotionally. I can get really down on myself. Yep there are times where I could very easily walk into one of the pastures and end it. I am brave enough to put a bullet in my head. Wouldn't take much for me to do either. Now I know that scares a few of my readers. I have to speak the truth. I didn't think it was adoption related until I read that email. What this person described was me to a hilt. Thinking that I was just responding to the writer it got sent to the whole email list. I did have to answer a few emails about it. It was the first time that I was honest with myself and others. Loss for me still has no words. I just know that I hurt. When the scabs are rubbed off, the wound oozes the blood and pus that are in my soul. I may come off confident, happy, and strong. It just isn't that way all the time. Right now when I feel that way, I call two women. Sometimes I just deal with by myself. One of which I have known for a year and half. I don't know how many times she has been my first mother for just a few minutes and I her daughter. I wish to hell that she wasn't so far away. Another is a woman that I have only known for a month or two. She gets it though. Again a healing moment comes along for the both of us. I think its the same for another adoptee born four months before me. She and I were adopted from the same agency. Of course she is further along in her spiritual emancipation. I have to respect that about her.

When I come out these situations, I usually write up a storm. No I didn't have one this week. It was just a couple of words that struck me as odd yet a perfect fit to adoption. After reading some first mother blogs, adoptee blogs, and even a few adoptive mother blogs, I realize that I need to discuss more of my feelings concerning adoption. Will I hurt myself? No I won't but I still beat myself up really good every now and then. Sadly there is nothing that anyone can do about it. Maybe giving me my truth, whether it be good or bad, would help. Maybe even actually meeting my first parents would help. I just don't know. I just know that adoption as it stands makes me feel dirty, used, and cheap. I was discarded once. Now I am too afraid that it will happen again. I literally gag on the thought that I was someone's profit not just once but three times.