Adoptees wanting to control the adoptee narrative

"*Sorry Campbell, I won’t be reading or responding to your comments on this issue. I see your name and hit trash button."

It's so common to read about adoptive parents wanting to control the adoptee narrative and sometimes the accusation is justified. Other times, it's so not. In fact, something happens the other times that is far worse. Adoptees wanting to control other adoptees' narrative.

It's an adoptee that said what I've quoted above, an adoptee who said my thoughts aren't worth reading or responding to, that just seeing my name is reason enough to consider my opinion trash.

I wasn't entirely surprised, or rather shouldn't have been. I was told what I had to say in defense of yet another person being very publicly and maliciously maligned by this particular blogger would be removed and that's fine, it's her blog. She is entitled to censor as she sees fit, just as I'm entitled to address the hypocrisy in her doing so.

Over the past while I've watched someone I respect and admire be raked over the coals and have said nothing. It didn't sit well with me and even though I know Mary Anne is more than capable of speaking up for herself, she didn't. The juicy little morsel that set off the missiles of hate directed toward her this time was her comparing Primal Wound THEORY to alien abduction and Big Foot sightings while she was involved in a discussion on counseling approaches. Personally, I understand the comparison. It is the same thing. You would think that people who believe in something that isn't common place would be supportive of others who also truly believe in something that not everyone experiences but no, again the dismissed dismiss the dismissed. They're crazy, but I'm not. What I believe is real, don't compare me to those nutters.

Anyway, time goes on and I stay away from the fray. Others pick up on it all, run over Mary Anne, put it in reverse, back up and run over her again. I stay silent along with the others who are silently cheering her while cringing each time the force runs over her again, making horrible, personal assessments of her, all the while repeatedly putting her full name in print, just to make sure the tread marks leave a permanent scar.

Most recently, a discussion on rights and needs takes place on a blog where one of the authors made claims that adoptees who aren't curious have lower IQs, a claim she never takes responsibility for or backed down from. She isn't taken to task by her adoptee supporters, something that I for one can't comprehend but the venom is instead focused on another woman. A mother whose daughter is adopted who at one time had adoptees proclaiming their love for her, "I love you O Solo Mama". Of course, adoptees' love is ever fleeting. It's all dependent on how tenderly you kiss our adopted asses. The minute you look away and have a thought that is contrary, some of them slap your face, put your name up in lights, and publicly declare war. Nothing is off limits. In the instance I refer to in this post, the blogger goes so far as to say that she herself is more protective of Jessica's daughter than Jessica is. As I said in my trashed comment quoting the blogger, THAT is "some serious fucked-upness". Protective is beating the hell out of someone's mother? Protective is making false derogatory comment after false derogatory comment about a child's mother publicly online? Just because she defended Bastard Nation's position that knowing your origins should be an entitlement guaranteed by law but may not be a universal psychological need?

I've gotten to know Jess and Mary Anne quite well and can assure you they are fine parents. They are intelligent, reasonable women who have contributed greatly to my and others' awareness of the need for adoption reform.

We don't always see issues in exactly the same way but here's a newsflash, that's normal. What's not normal is throwing a tantrum and very publicly attacking good, decent people just because they happen to have balls enough to put their true identities out there.

There's still time to grab some balls of your own and show some support for these fine women who you may not agree with all the time but you know are good caring people who not only support all adoptees' rights but also support and take great care in loving and supporting the adopted persons that are in their personal lives.

Anonymous comments are necessary recommended welcome and your identities protected, as always. I will not however publish anything negative as I will be controlling the narrative on this one.

I'll take mine well done please

Death is a constant subject in my life, and in my heart and head. Most days it tries to rule my thoughts. Many times now I let it, as it helps me keep perspective.

It's not my death I obsess about, although of course I think about that too. It's the possibility of the death of those I love and need, and the deaths of two very important people in my life that always hovers near by, waiting to rein in the temptation to make a bigger deal out of something relatively unimportant. The temptation to get more angry at my son or husband than a situation truly warrants, the temptation to hold a grudge or drag out a disagreement to make a point or to punish a loved who's "done me wrong". I most always will ask myself, is this how you want things to be if this important person were suddenly plucked from your life? Poof, gone! It straightens me out every time.

Some may think it's unhealthy to think about the possibility of death as often as I do, so for the most part, I keep my thoughts to myself. There are those there is no need to do so with though, and those are the members of the "I know shit happens club". My son is one of those, something for which I'm sad and grateful. Sad because he had to do important, sudden deaths so much younger than I had to which not only makes him have to feel a sense of loss for much longer than I will and experience a loss of invincibility that I got to enjoy for many more years than he did. Grateful because he doesn't feel invincible which makes him more careful and caring of those who he loves.

I've recently observed someone who's just joined the "club". It wasn't that he'd not experienced loss before, but he's just experienced that kind of loss that shocks and rocks you to the core. The kind that makes you realize we're all not here forever, in the capacity we know anyway. The kind that makes you go wtf am I holding on to shit for?!? Why am I wasting time living without people I could lose forever in an instant?

I don't like being part of the "club", but I am. If I weren't part of it I wouldn't worry so much, or rather exist in a constant state of controlling my worry, not allowing it to consume me but instead using it to guide me and put it to good use in forcing myself not to sweat the small stuff. To let anger and hurt feelings go if the recipient or cause of it are worthy and are someone I'd regret never seeing or talking to again.

I've just been reading about a mom who feels she's not doing her grief of losing her son right and it made me wonder if there is one right way and I don't think there is. What I do think is there are ways to survive grief, that some grief, as in the case of a loss of a child, never goes away. It evolves, it takes on different weights and shapes and sizes, but it never goes away.

For me, it's what I do with my grief that is important. And what I do is use it, control it, feel it when it's safe, share it when it's necessary or relevant, and keep it close and private sometimes to protect loved ones who are still alive. Is this doing it right? For me, I can honestly say, yes. I do my grief right.

How do you do yours?