March 27, 2019Dear Adoption, Contributor

gallery Dear Adoption, I Hate You

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Dear Adoption, I Hate You

I hate that my mom gave me away to strangers.

I hate that I have always wondered who she is, what she looks like, how her voice sounds, if she ever thinks about me.

I hate that my adoptive parents love adoption so much because it gave them me.

I hate that I am supposed to be perfect and better off.

I hate that I hate something everyone else seems to love.

I hate that I have had a really great life but I still wish I had the first life I was actually born into.

I hate my nose.

I hate my skin.

I hate my feet.

I hate that I don’t know whose nose, skin or feet I have.

I hate you, Adoption.

I hate that you are so painful but claim to be healing.

I hate that you claim to put fires out but don’t acknowledge everything that was scorched is what actually matters the most to me.

I hate you, Adoption.

From,
T.N.
16 years old
Basketball
XBOX

///

Interview with the writer:

DA,: Why did you decide to write this piece?

T.N.: I actually wrote it in my diary when I was 15. I started reading Dear Adoption, and I wanted to be someone who shared to help someone else not feel so alone too.

DA,: At Dear Adoption, we don’t reveal the identities of writers under 18. If you were 18 would you have still written anonymously?

T.N.: I don’t really know how I will feel when I’m 18 but I don’t think I want my family to know I wrote this. I would feel so bad if it made them feel bad and it probably would.

DA,: Do you think your family knows you feel this way at all?

T.N.: I feel like they don’t because they really love that I’m adopted and my whole family is always talking about how happy they are that I came from India. I don’t really talk about my feelings very much.

DA,: Is there anything else you want to say?

T.N.: I just want other people to know that being adopted is a lot harder than you think. I wish my parents knew or that they could know that without it making them feel bad. I couldn’t handle if they felt bad because they knew I wish I wasn’t adopted. It doesn’t mean I don’t love them. It’s just a lot harder than people think.

This piece was submitted by a 16 year old adoptee from India.

19 comments

  4. I think you are brilliant and brave for sharing your honest feelings. I’m adopted and I remember how hard it was as 15/16 and I wish I had been half as articulate as you. It still is, but I think together we can help each other. I hope you feel you can reach out to the adoption community and chat if you want. You’re awesome.

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  5. Your parents will love you even if they knew. Your parents probably want to be there for you and support you through these feelings. Don’t worry so much about making them feel bad. Not telling them might make them feel worse that you had to struggle with this feeling alone. Much love!

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  6. It is hard. I’m almost 45, have met my bio parents who love me, and it is still hard. It’s hard. It’s hard to grieve the life you craved. It’s hard to accept that it will never be. It’s hard to love your adopted family and feel these feelings and it’s hard to accept they’ll never understand as you do as they have not walked your path. It’s hard. The beautiful thing is if you are willing to dive to the depths of your soul and grab those pebbles of strength to keep going that all are not able to you will come out stronger! This path is not for the weak. I don’t know you but I understand and send love ❤ You will be okay. And you are helping others by sharing.

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  10. I came to this post in a round about way but deeply understand the emotional suffering expressed.

    I am the child of two adoptees. My parents died without knowing very much at all about their origins – some names that didn’t lead anywhere. In only the last year, I have uncovered all four of my original grandparents and have learned something about their backgrounds and stories. I continue to find living genetic relatives.

    I know, even though my mom had “good” adoptive parents, that she struggled with the fact that she was adopted. She was specified by her adoptive mom and sourced through the Tennessee Children’s Home Society and as I have learned more, her contention that she was inappropriately adopted was correct and in fact, her adoption was illegal for more than one reason. Tennessee rejected her effort to get her adoption file in the early 1990s. Now that I have it, I know that her mother never intended to lose her and was forced into a corner by Georgia Tann who had a paying, repeat customer in my adoptive grandmother.

    My dad’s mom was unwed and she went to a Salvation Army home to have him. I never thought I’d be able to find his dad as he wasn’t named at the time of my dad’s birth. Happily, it mattered to my grandmother. She left breadcrumbs in her photo album that were a clear road map once I met my cousin who had that photo album.

    The wounds of adoption passed down through my family – with both of my sister’s ending up surrendering a child to adoption. One of my other nephews was taken from my sister because his paternal grandparents were worried he would lose a connection to his Hispanic culture (he is biracial) and the case was heard in El Paso TX which is predominantly – you guessed it already. I wasn’t even able to raise my daughter, because her dad refused to pay me child support, eventually he ended up supporting her after all but it was my loss, not his.

    Sometimes, life isn’t fair. If my parents had not been adopted, I wouldn’t exist. My adoptive grandparents were all good people. But I now understand how much suffering is involved and do not favor adoption or mother/child separations and wish we valued both more as a society and supported them in whatever way was necessary to keep them intact.

    I also write a blog about the issues – https://missingmomhome.wordpress.com/

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  11. As a mother who adopted, I often wonder if my children feel this way. I don’t want to assume they feel this way but I can’t help but imagineer is exactly how I would feel. It is definitely possible to love the people you are with and yet at the same time wish your life had been different. But yes, some parents would be totally offended at that conundrum. I love my kids but wish they never had to go through heir pain and trauma. Am I saying I wish they weren’t with me now? No. But in a perfect world adoption wouldn’t exist. Lots of big emotions and definitely hard to express it to the people who could possibly be offended or take it wrong. It’s good you’re able to express it here.

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  12. This is a powerful piece that will definitely help other adoptees feel less alone. Thank you for being strong enough to share it with us. We talk openly with our kids about how adoption sucks for them, that we understand why they’re sad or angry or confused, but that can only help so much. It’s a lifelong struggle.

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  15. I hate adoption too. I hate my adoptive parents, who heaped so much abuse on me that I left when I was fourteen. I hate that nobody believed I was abused BECAUSE I was adopted. I hate the people who told me I should “get down on my knees to those people who took you in.” I hate that I will never get justice for any of this. I hate the courts and the judges who continue to perpetuate this. I hate that when I’m asked for my parents names the law requires me to write lies. I hate that my real mother and father are dead and we had less than five years together. I hate adoption. I hate being looked upon as an ungrateful ingrate and liar for complaining. I hate the idiots who insist I ‘Have” to forgive all this. I hate that nothing will ever make me whole. I hate you adoption. I hate you, hate you, hate you.

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    • You nor any of us have to forgive any of them, mainly because they aren’t sorry one damn bit. You hold true to your justified anger and let it give you strength and validation!

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  16. Someone needs to tell this boy RIGHT NOW that he should not feel bad AT ALL about hurting his “family’s” feelings.
    See, this is the trap they throw so many of us into from the get go, these immature, self-absorbed, control freak adopters.
    OUR feelings should come first, OUR opinions should matter most to us, NOT some fake family we don’t belong to, that we never asked to or gave our permission to live with.
    It’s also how they condition us to be “grateful” which is sick, none of us should be grateful for the pain adoption and adopters cause us.
    When we slap duct tape over our mouths and keep our feelings to our selves WE MAKE OURSELVES doormats as well, we make ourselves slaves, we make ourselves 2nd fiddle IN OUR OWN LIVES!
    So TN, please honey, remember this old and wise saying:
    “To thy own self be true” and don’t ever, ever, make your adopters more important than you BECAUSETHEY AREN’T AND THEY NEVER WILL BE.
    YOUR LIFE IS ABOUT YOU NOT THEM!!

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  18. I feel for you. It was clear that my a-mom regretted adopting me, she was mean, and cruel, and frankly, most people meet her and jump immediately to evil or psychotic. I was 5 when they put me down for the night and told me exactly how I was going to die, due to a genetic condition. When I thought about it and asked if it was going to hurt, they just laughed and left the room. I heard, yeah, I imagine it’s gonna hurt a lot! As my door shut for the night. That’s the treatment I got, but if I ever asked about my bio mom the “mother” would break down sobbing. So the “father” pulled me aside and told me that asking questions hurt her feelings, so I really just needed to think about them as my family, for her sake if nothing else. After all, they chose me.
    This is a super unhealthy rhetoric, and it caused so much damage in my life that I didn’t wind up finding my bio mom until my mother-in-law got me an ancestry kit.
    By the time I located her, the fate that had been described to me at 5 had already come to pass.
    A healthy version of love wants you to learn to be complete, along with whatever that entails.
    It is my hope that your family loves you wholly, but in order for adoption to actually work, trust and empathy NEED to be in place. Communication is the only hope that any of us have if we desire that relationship to continue. My a-dad and I are kind of trying to work on it, and we both see at least some of the abuse now.
    Try a test convo. Poke and prod a little bit, but it sounds like you might have one of the few decent adopter families out there.

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