I am disgusted with the generalizations…
For real folks.
“Bipolar disorder is not at all uncommon in birth parents & is often undiagnosed. So you’re taking the chance of that simply by adopting, unless you are adopting directly from someone you KNOW does not have bipolar disorder.”
Oh for the love of all that is holy…where does this crap come from?
I can honestly say, of all of the IN REAL LIFE birth parents I know, only ONE has bipolar disorder (and none of the ones I know who don’t, show any manifestation of the disease…) - however, of all of the IN REAL LIFE adoptive parents I know, THREE has the official diagnosis and two of them REFUSE treatment.
I am not saying I am a bench mark.
I am not saying that there is anything, at all, wrong with those who have bipolar disorder, I’m not. What I am saying is, that’s a pretty disgusting generalization to make about birth parents as a whole.
I am just floored. I don’t even know what else to say…
How can someone just generalize like that? It’s so darn painful…it really is! This is the crap I fight, daily, by simply being a birth parent. Don’t even get me started on the crap I hear about us unbalanced adoptees…of course, we get all that from our birth parents who have bipolar disorder, I’m sure.
Disgusting. Totally and utterly disgusting.
Filed under General Stupidity, Lables | Comment (0)Dealing with Difficult Stuff…
Yeah, I didn’t know what to title this - it’s basically an all around ‘difficult stuff’ type post - but what I most want to talk about is how best to deal with hearing hard things. Things you don’t want to hear, are a first mom. Ya know, the stuff that makes you want to pull out your hair and go outside and start throwing rocks at passing cars.
Today, I got an email from S. We’d been talking on GTalk the night before, about an appointment she had today that was super important. She’d sent me some stuff and she wanted me to review it then send her any notes or comments I had. Sure, no problemo.
So, she just randomly stops responding - I’m thinking she fell asleep, cuz she’d already taken her medications and to say that they’d be enough to tranquilize a large Quarter Horse would be a small understatement. Anyway, I didn’t think anything of it - and just went on about my business.
This evening, she emails me to tell me that she’d passed out and fell down last night. Her parents (whom she is staying with) called 911 and she was taken to the hospital (why do the British omit ‘the’ from in front of ‘hospital’ when they talk about it?) and admitted for overnight observation.
*sigh*
Let me count the things that run through my head with regards to these drugs:
- What if there’d been a fire or something - when medicated, she does not stir for anything, including alarms
- What if M had hurt herself and was calling for her?
- What if someone broke in and did (insert random heinous act here)
She takes a lot of drugs. Drugs to get her going in the morning. Drugs to keep her going in the afternoon. Drugs to mellow her out in the evening. Drugs to put her to sleep at night.
I hate this. I don’t want to hear this. This kills me!
I have suggested in-patient psychiatric observation to try to get things more normalized. I worry. I worry about her but most of all, I worry about M.
How can I tell her that I don’t want to hear this stuff? I just can’t deal, not right now. It’s hard, because I’ve been there for her through so much…I’ve just reached my limit, you know?!
Filed under Communication, Mental Health | Comment (0)Remember to read your labels…
This topic comes up in the community from time to time and every time, I am confused by some of the opinions discussed. Now, understand, I am not saying they are wrong, they are just different from my own - and well, they confuse me.
Take, for example, the “I’m the mom, she is not the mom, she will be the birth mom, nothing else” comments when the discussion what to call First mothers in open adoption. Ok, I think I can sort of understand that. Yes, you change diapers, kiss booboos etc. Got it.
What I don’t understand is these same people who refuse to share the label of mom or mother, are perfectly content with having their adopted child call the parents of their child’s first mother ‘grandma’ and ‘grandpa’. What’s up with that? It’s like, everyone is totally ok to use normal and accepted labels (aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, grandparents) but when it comes to mom or dad, all bets are off.
I understand there is some ‘entitlement’ to the label - but is there not equal entitlement to the others? Why is it ok for some, but not all?
I dunno, maybe I see this differently because M calls me mom and well, there just isn’t a problem. It takes way more than a label to make a mother a mom and there are many different levels of mothers.
Well, that’s all. Just thinking out loud.
Filed under Communication, Mothering, Open Adoption, Stereotypes | Comment (1)Is it the ‘perceived choice’ that makes it different?
As an active member in the adoption community, I see a lot of posts and messages made by hopeful adoptive parents who grieve the loss of a child that was never placed with them or reclaimed during the legal time period allowed. I feel sorry for these people, I do. It’s awful, the loss of a child you’ve grown to love and call your own. Often, these hopeful parents are given unconditional support and I will admit that I too, offer unconditional support. As I said, the loss of a child is hard.
So I wonder why when a first mother grieves openly about loss and regret, often many of the same type of loss and regret shared by hopeful parents in a failed adoption, they are labeled as ‘bitter’ or ‘angry’.
Is it because first mothers and fathers made the ‘choice’ and they are therefore not entitled to grieve the loss of their child?
Often, in a failed adoption where a mother (often referred to as a birth mother, even if she is parenting, because she had once considered adoption) has made the decision to parent, she has done so because that feeling of loss is so profound, she is unable to follow through with their plan, even if she is ill-equipped and unprepared to parent.
Now, I want to make it perfectly clear, I don’t consider adoption scammers birth mothers - they are con’s, pure and simple. What I am talking about here is the real life, totally committed to making an adoption plan situation.
In the end, because the adoption world is centered around ”pre-birth matching” - someone has to experience pain.
My question, however, is why does one and sometimes two sides of the triad see the pain as ‘less’ - that a woman who has placed, a first mother, she should ‘get over’ her loss. Often, parents who lose children never ‘get over’ that loss. So why, I ask, are first mothers often confronted with the attitude that they must ‘move on’?
The only thing I can think of is that most feel first parents make the choice to experience the pain, where adoptive parents are often left without a choice. Somehow, this choice is supposed to make it less painful.
Pain and loss is pain and loss - regardless of who is suffering it. Suffering from pain and loss as an adoptive parent is hard I am sure, but suffering from pain and loss is hard for first parents as well, that I know. Yes, I made a choice and yes, I do have to ‘live with it’, but that doesn’t make the pain less. It just makes it different.
Filed under General Adoption Issues, General Stupidity, Mothering, Stereotypes, Type Therapy | Comment (0)When views change - “Bitter Birth Mother Syndrome”
If you had asked me thirty years ago what my thoughts where on adoption, at the age of five, I would have likely said something like, “It’s ok”. It was at that age that adoption started to become really complicated for me. Having been adopted by a woman who was a birth mother and never wanted to adopt but adopted to make her husband happy is…well…different. She called me a “Whore like that real mother of yours” a lot. The sins of our fathers.
If you had asked me twenty years ago what my thoughts were on adoption, at the age of fifteen, I would have likely said something like, “I think it failed me. My birth mom is a bitch”. It was about that time that the physical abuses I faced were at their peak. I had just suffered a broken collar bone and left arm from a rough man-handling at the hands of my older male cousin, because my mother could no longer ‘control’ me. You can read that however you like, at 15, I was six feet tall, she is just under five feet tall. She couldn’t hit me and not be afraid for her life is what she meant. She solicited the help of her twin sisters much older son to come take care of that for her. I had reached out to my birth mother and she had closed me out. I think I understand why, now. At the time, it hurt like hell.
If you had asked me fifteen years ago what my thoughts were on adoption, at the age of twenty, I would have likely said something like, “No thanks! Not for my unborn son”. I was pregnant at the time and the very last thing on my mind was placing that child for adoption. I’d had a hellish personal experience and to be honest, it wasn’t just me. There was a friend of the family who had also adopted and I remember he and I used to chat a lot about how different we were treated vs. our biological counterparts (our adoptive parents natural children). Like it or not, we’d both been the ‘last ditch effort to keep a marriage together in the battle against infertility’ and ironically, we substantiated the stereotype that adoption truly is the cure for said illness.
If you had asked me thirteen years ago what my thoughts were on adoption, at the age of twenty two (almost), I would have likely said, “Oh god…”. I was pregnant with number two, parenting number one and struggling my rear-end off to make ends and everything else meet. I knew, right at that moment (and it’s about right at that moment, 13 years later). I admit freely that my first thought was abortion, given my experience thus far, and I remember feeling so devastated that I was beyond the ‘point of no return’. Hate me if you will, but before you do, walk a mile in my shoes.
It took me a long long time to really come to terms with my only real option - which was adoption. I couldn’t have parented, I know that and it hurts like hell, but the reality is what it is and my choice was adoption. Period. I was scared to death that I was sending my unborn daughter down a path of heartache and pain. I wanted assurances that weren’t there. I had crazy requirements that I wanted met, all to ensure that my daughter would not suffer a similar fate to mine.
I was so careful. But I failed.
I know, in my heart of hearts, I made the right decision for her. Nothing about my life would be the way it is now if I hadn’t placed…but is that so bad? I don’t know.
What I do know is that I failed. The system failed. Don’t they know, when the system fails, its the child who pays?
So now, because I am angry about what my daughter is being forced to go through, I am considered Bitter. I have joined the ranks of the “Bitter Birth mothers”…not by choice, but by force…because I know for a fact that all of this could have been avoided, if the system just hadn’t failed us. Failed her. Failed me. Failed her brother. We all failed and in the end, she pays.
This poor, innocent, loving, amazing, wonderful girl pays.
Filed under Abortion, Ethical Practices, General Adoption Issues, Law Changes, Reform, Unplanned Pregnancy | Comments (3)You might have missed me, but I doubt it…
I’ve removed the site wide password, but because of the nasty folks out there, all comments require approval. Yes, I am censoring my blog. It’s mine to censor. Complain if you must. I have decided to protect a few of the posts I made during the lowest of lows. If I know you and you want to read them, email me!
I’ve decided it’s time for me to move on and so I no longer feel I have to censor my thoughts and feelings, like I previously did. This is a good thing, because the support I get from my readers is important to me.
There has been a lot going on - but I won’t go back and rehash old news, I will simply start fresh, with today being a new day.
I am still working on fixing my RSS Feeds, so if it’s broken for you, I’m sorry. There was a lot of emotion involved in me shutting down, but I am at peace with that now.
At any rate, I am back, miss me?
Filed under Emotional Healing, Support | Comments (2)