Adoptee Week: Not Feeling Included

There are so many issues that adoptees deal with. One very common situation for adoptees is feeling left out of their bio family and/or their adoptive family. Maybe this is not a problem you deal with, but many do feel this way and I want to offer a different way to relate. If you have a recommendation for adoptees that has helped you, please put it in the comments.

Relate is the root word in relation. To relate means to have a connection as in a relationship.

When you see pictures on social media of bios or adoptive family together at birthdays, holiday party or other events having fun, is your first reaction to think, "They don't even know I exist."

Issue: You feel like you are not included.

Your mind goes into overdrive thinking about all the ways they are conniving behind your back to leave you out and hurt you. When in reality, they may not have been thinking of you at all. Why? They don't have a strong relationship with you. They may not have invited you on purpose because someone they have known for 20 or 30 years could not handle it emotionally, yet. Their relationships are stronger with people have known longer.

Trap: They are doing this to hurt you.

What do you do?

Number One: Don’t get offended. You don’t know the motives for situations. You have not been there during conversations about YOU. I've heard adoptees say they were handed to strangers. It only makes sense that when you do not know someone for decades, they are strangers, also. Now, bio think the adoptee is a stranger. It takes time to build trust. It takes memories. It takes time and many times to build a relationship that is comfortable being inclusive. And it takes longer when more people are involved. Don't get offended.

Number Two: Many people are selfish. Many people don't like change. When family seems comfortable, many people don't want to add another person to mess up the dynamic. Have you had this happen when a family member gets a boyfriend or girlfriend and they start coming to family events? Some people will never be okay with you, but being overbearing makes you seem pushy and possessive. Be OK with it. Maybe it’s not the right time. People are selfish...don't be that person.

Number Three: Take the initiative. You be the one to text, send cards, invite on outings and get together even if it is when you are driving through town. I realize this is harder when they live far away, but there are ways to connect. Be the one who is kind and thinks of others. It will finally pay off and be seen as caring.

Number Four: What are you going to do when it doesn't work? This step is so important. Decide beforehand what you will do when you see the social media pictures and you were not invited. Decide how much of it you will allow to affect you. I've heard of people setting a timer or time limit. They say, "I will think about this for an hour or until tomorrow at 9am and then I will let it go." If you really think about it, they are not thinking about you anyway so you are only hurting yourself.

Reality: Taking a different approach can change the whole relationship.

I know a person who sits in the shadows, does not interact, gets upset because she is not included and does not accept invitations when she is invited. Once, she wrote a long post about not being included, no one talking to her and not being invited to anything. I'm not sure what she was trying to accomplish, but many were really confused because they had tried to do all those things. Her reality did not match the situation. It is important to try and see things as they are and decide what part you have in it and what you can control and what you can't.

When there is an absence of relationship, an absence of time spent, an absence of memories made, there will be an absence of inclusion. Taking the initiative, over and over and being patient can change a relationship in time.

What are some ways you have been included or been inclusive that would help other adoptees on their life's journey?

Adoption Reimagined: Intro

Purpose for this book is for 3-fold: understand all perspectives with compassion; accept without personal compromise; educate with boldness.

Adoptive Parents:

Adoption Reimagined offers hope to adoptive parents by encouraging them to instill their traditions and heritage in their child as they build a foundation on love, acceptance, honesty and trust. These ideals can help their child navigate feelings of abandonment, rejection and uncertainty as they learn about their beginning. It is important that parents realize all their child’s feelings are valid and can co-exist together. Parents can redirect children to learn to ‘camp out’ with the beneficial emotions that give hope and future while getting strength from the negative feelings to advance ahead.

Adoptees:

Adoption Reimagined offers healing to adoptees by inspiring them to adopt healthy strategies that reroute pain caused by adoption. While revisiting these painful areas is inevitable, strategies can help adoptees take back stolen power and control in their life as they decide to not ‘camping out’ in the past. One powerful tool is to boldly and kindly educate others about adoption issues.

"Use your past experiences to educate so someone else's future will be better." Erin E. McEndree

Birth Mothers:

Adoption Reimagined cultivates peace in birth mothers by helping them discern personal growth from the hard lessons in life. Lessons like grace and forgiveness can alleviate the pain of loss, guilt and shame.

Those Who Love Us:

Adoption Reimagined is also for those spectators who love someone in the adoption arena. Awareness and knowledge is the key to being able to have helpful dialog with someone you care about.

Adoption Reimagined: Chapter One: Perspective

What's your perspective on adoption? There are many. Are you the adoptive parent? The adoptee? The birth mother? Or someone who loves one of us? Are you in a black hole of feelings looking up towards light and harmony you can't reach?

If I ask 100 people to describe their part in adoption, I will get 100 different perspectives, many different details, a distinct focus from each and diverse parts of a single theme. None are wrong. Each is explaining from the same foundation, but because of past experience, personalities and upbringing, all will focus on different aspects of the same situation. That which ties us together is only a blip at the beginning. After that, so many factors mold us, change our trajectory and present many paths. There is not one aspect, emotion or characteristic of adoption that 100% of those dealing with adoption issues have in common except for the word adoption.

Even the word adoption means so many different things to people. Depending on which area of adoption you are dealing with, definitions change. It all comes down to perspective. My mom said adoption was a blessing that allowed her and my dad to have children; they could not otherwise. My birth mother said adoption was a necessity her parents chose, but the hardest thing she ever had to do; she had no voice and no choice. She still deals with the decision others made for her to this day. I say adoption is a fact in my life, but never defined my life and didn’t cause difficulty in my life. That is three perspectives that are true for us, but there are more perspectives that differ that are also true.

Being able to hear others different perspectives, views and feelings about their story and at the same time, not inserting yourself into their story, is the most helpful quality each person with adoption issues can do for one another. Sadly, being able to say, “I hear you. I empathize with you,” is hard for many. This chapter focuses on the characteristic of goodness even when there are differing perspectives, feelings and circumstances.

Goodness is the quality of being decent, having integrity and showing qualities of virtue. I have heard a definition of integrity as what you do when no one is looking. I would also add that integrity is not caving to differing ideas when attacks or pressure is applied. How would anyone even know if you had integrity or not? They will observe your actions, comments and reactions. Goodness is not debating over disputable matters, trying to get someone on your side of a matter or trying to change their views about a commonly shared subject.

The overflow of your heart pours out integrity and goodness or indecency and iniquity. Your character pours out largely based on what you stand for and what you value? Are you divided in how you present yourself to others? Do you portray certain qualities for certain people and other qualities for another? Goodness is not divided. It is having the same characteristics with your family, at work, at the grocery store and on social media and even with the adoptive parents, adoptee or birth mother/parent in your life. Not knowing what you stand for and what you value will propel you into a fake life trying to please others, compromise for others and lobby for their approval, all the while feeling devalued, used and unimportant.

Challenge: Be the light in the darkness so that you add light to where you are. You just may find out there is a ladder you never noticed. Your light will shine on everyone around you and seeing their 'light' (perspective) may help you with some darkness of your own.