Adoption: Being Told to Be Lucky, Grateful, & Thankful.
"Adoption loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful" — The Reverend Keith C. Griffith, MBE.
"Adoption loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful" — The Reverend Keith C. Griffith, MBE.
Reverend Keith C. Griffith has it correct. Being told what to do and how to feel has been a lifelong trigger of mine that has caused me many problems throughout my life. I have been able to identify that part of why I carry this experience because of being gaslit my whole life on how to feel about being adopted and being told to be thankful and grateful that I was adopted. Not to mention being silenced when I do share my feelings. Society has a picture painted that adoption is always a "win-win" for the child, but they fail to consider all the trauma and loss we must experience FIRST.
If we feel anything but lucky, grateful, and thankful, we are labeled ungrateful, problematic, troublesome, and more.
There are an abundance of things I am grateful for in my life. My health, kids, close friends, sunrise, sunsets, mother nature, coffee, hot tea, bonfires, memories with loved ones, waking up every day with a fresh start, etc. I am thankful for the trees, flowers, birds, sky and the sunshine. I am not grateful for being adopted because to be grateful to be adopted, I would have to be grateful for all the lifelong pain it's caused me.
LET ME SHARE SOME THINGS WITH YOU THAT YOU POSSIBLY DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT ADOPTION:
The harm of expecting adult adoptees to be thankful and grateful is rooted in several misconceptions and harmful stereotypes that can have long-lasting effects on our well-being and our sense of identity.
Here are a few reasons why this expectation can be detrimental:
1. Invalidating our experiences: By expecting gratitude, it implies that the adoptee's feelings, struggles, and experiences are not valid or should be overshadowed by our adoptive status. This dismisses our right to process our emotions and can lead to feeling misunderstood or unheard.
2. Ignoring the complexity of adoption: Adoption is a complex and multifaceted experience that involves loss, identity exploration, and a wide range of emotions. Expecting gratitude oversimplifies the adoptee’s journey and fails to acknowledge the challenges and complexities that adoptees may face throughout our lives.
3. Pressure to conform: Placing an expectation of gratitude on adoptees can create a sense of pressure to conform to a specific narrative or expectation. This can lead to suppressing our true feelings, denying our own struggles, or feeling guilty for expressing any negative emotions related to adoption.
4. Emotional burden: Adoptees may already carry a significant emotional burden related to our adoption, such as questions about our origins, feelings of abandonment, or longing for our biological connections. Expecting gratitude adds an additional burden by placing us in a position where we feel we must constantly prove our appreciation to others.
5. Loss of autonomy: Adoptees have the right to our own emotions and experiences. Expecting gratitude can undermine our autonomy by suggesting that our feelings should align with societal expectations rather than allowing us to navigate our own adoption journeys authentically.
Q. If a woman sat down and told you she couldn't conceive a child, would you tell her she should be thankful and grateful for that?
Q. If you met someone who said they lost their entire family, mother, father, and siblings in a terrible car wreck, would you say they should be grateful for that?
Of course not, so please stop saying this to adopted people. It's abusive, and it's manipulative. We’re tired of the gaslighting. We're no more thankful for being adopted than she is for not being able to conceive her own child or the person who lost their entire family in a car wreck.
For The Record, While I understand many adoptees might feel thankful or grateful for being adopted, they should be able to form that conclusion independently. They shouldn't have to experience conditioning from early childhood. Society is guilty of not examining what they have been told to believe about adoption more closely. They have also been gaslit, conditioned, and coerced to believe adoption is a "win-win," but I hope this article stirs that narrative up a bit. I hope those who want to understand the adoptee experience more widely open their heart to the other side of adoption, the one that’s almost always ignored: the adoptees.
How is being separated from your birth mother a win-win?
How is starting your life with relinquishment trauma a win-win?
How is secrecy and lies in adoption a win-win?
How is fighting the world for your truth a win-win?
I can't begin to tell you how often non-adoptees have told me, "Aren't you so lucky, thankful, grateful you were adopted!" throughout my lifetime.
Am I lucky my adoptive family took me in when my birth mother tossed me to the wolves? No, I am not. I wanted to stay with my birth mother.
Am I grateful I will be grieving my loss until I die? No, I'm not. This is a full-time job at times and impacts every area of my life.
Am I thankful I got a family when I could have ended up in foster care or a family that didn't want me? No, I am not because they had ulterior motives. They were abusive, and I was nothing like them, constantly feeling like an outsider looking in. Being unwanted and given away by your mother hurts! Bonding with adopters isn’t guaranteed. Forced bonding with strangers is traumatic.
Am I grateful I had a family to call my own? No, I wasn't their first choice, and I have always felt second best because of it. They didn’t choose me. They got the next baby in line. My adoptive mom only adopted so she would have a personal caretaker and someone to care for her at the end of her life because she didn’t want to go to a nursing home.
Am I thankful I have had a million therapists, and none of them have been well-informed on relinquishment trauma? No, it's been a terrible waste of time and money. Like many adoptees, I have been left high and dry when seeking therapy and healing relinquishment trauma.
Am I thankful my birth mother chose life? No, I am not. I wished I had been aborted most of my life. My pain was that great! If you haven't experienced maternal separation at the beginning of life, with zero tools to navigate this wound, you have no clue how it feels to be abandoned by the person who should love you the most, your mother. Today, of course, I am thankful I am alive. However, I could have been spared a lifetime of pain that is being passed to my children and their children if I never existed. That’s a hard pill to swallow. For most of my life, I felt like a walking dead woman, hollow and empty inside. That’s what relinquishment trauma, and adoption do to people.
Am I thankful I have a forever family who loves me unconditionally? No, because their love always has been and always will be conditional. Because of the broken bond, love is not able to be felt. It is meaningless. Love is abandonment. Love is pain. Love is loss. No, love isn’t enough, or a house full of stuff.
Am I grateful because I have no medical history directly impacting my and my children's health? No, not I am not. I am pretty pissed about it and have every right to be.
Am I lucky I have spent the last decade essentially estranged from all my adoptive family and birth families? No, it hurts all by itself, but to opt out of the game of "adoption" that I didn't sign up for initially, I have left. I picked myself to save myself, but what it cost me is inconceivable.
Am I thankful I found my birth parents? I am thankful for my truth, but I had to fight like hell to get it. It should have never been kept from me, to begin with! I have zero respect for 100% of the secret keepers in adoption. None. In the baby scoop era, possibly because times were drastically different. But this is 2023, and times have changed. Adoptees are speaking out now, but are non-adoptees listening? Secrets & lies are never okay, even more so in adoption when whole human lives are involved.
Am I grateful my birth parents rejected me once I found them, and I experienced that life-altering rejection all alone? No, I am not. It almost killed me. I am still not over it, and I never will be! Have I accepted it? Yes, but that doesn't mean it still doesn't hurt.
Am I thankful I had a second chance at a mother when my own didn't want me? Actually, no, the f*ck I am not. My adoptive mother was mentally ill and had no business adopting two children eleven months apart. She stole my childhood and was emotionally and mentally abusive. She traumatized me on top of the trauma from relinquishment. I never bonded with her, ever. Definitely not thankful.
Am I lucky adoption has been a tremendous mental mind f*uck? Am I lucky it disrupted my view of the world and how I view love? No, absolutely not.
Anything rooted in secrecy is going to cause lifelong pain!
WHAT I AM THANKFUL FOR WHEN IT COMES TO ADOPTION:
I am thankful I survived adoption and am surviving and thriving each day. But it’s taken far more than what it’s given.
I am thankful I have connected with many unique adoptees worldwide who have changed my life. So many fantastic relationships have been built.
I am thankful I am brave enough to share my story to help myself and other adoptees. It’s taken 49 years, but here I am
I am grateful that the pain from relinquishment and adoption didn't kill me because it tried for 45 of my 49 years on earth.
I am grateful I didn't perish when I wanted to exit the world. Instead, I found enough strength to find purpose in the pain to help other adoptees by creating something needed in Adoptees Connect, Inc.
I made these conclusions independently; no one told me to feel this way.
See the difference?
What's wild is that most people don't have this expectation of non-adopted people. Why do they feel such a need to place this expectation on adoptees? Giving them the benefit of the doubt, many people are parroting what they have heard others say. They aren’t free thinkers, and they haven’t taken the time to examine the bigger picture regarding adoption. I believe some of them know adoption hurts, but instead of acknowledging this truth, it's easier to gaslight the adoptee with the lucky, grateful & thankful narrative. Hard feelings make people uncomfortable. I’m all about making people uncomfortable.
It's also important to distinguish that relinquishment, separation, and adoption trauma are separate events! Not everyone knows this.
Consider Reading: The Vital Contrast Between Relinquishment Trauma, Separation Trauma, and Adoption Trauma and Why We Should Know The Difference.
Instead of expecting gratitude and thankfulness from adoptees, creating a supportive environment that allows adoptees to express our feelings openly, providing access to resources for processing our adoption experience, and respecting our autonomy in defining our own narrative is essential.
For any non-adoptees who have made it this far, who might know or love an adoptee, I challenge you to dig deeper than what you have been told about adoption. Please open your hearts and minds to the reality that before any adoptee gains adoption status, we lose our whole world first. Placing an expectation that we should be lucky, grateful, and thankful is destructive.
I appreciate your consideration. Do you want to help adoptees? Please share this article in your online spaces and email it to everyone you know and love. That one share could change an adoptee’s life forever! Many thanks for considering my request.
Consider setting up a virtual one-on-one wellness table talk session with me if you need a lifeline or someone who understands. We can meet weekly, once a month, or once a year. You pick what works best for you. I added some more times for availability to accommodate those who want to navigate a healing journey and a better understanding of the adoptee experience. I am here to support you! Let me know if you need a different time than the listed ones, and I can set a specific time for you.
Click here to learn more and book your table talk today.
Q & A
For the adoptees here, how does the expectation of being thankful and grateful about being adopted make you feel? How has it impacted you in life? For those who have been told to feel this way, how have you moved past it? Were you able to reach this conclusion on your own for those who are truly thankful and grateful they are adopted?
I see you; I feel your pain for all the adoptees who feel forgotten, lost, and alone. Please don’t give up, and know you aren’t alone in feeling like you do.
I have compiled a list of recommended resources for adoptees and advocates. You can find it here: Recommended Resources for Adult Adoptees and Adoption Advocates.
Adoptee Remembrance Day - October 30th is approaching. You can visit the website here to learn how you can get involved.
Thank you for reading and for supporting me and my work.
Understanding is Love,
Pamela A. Karanova
Here are a few Adoptee Remembrance Day articles I recommend reading:
Adoptee Remembrance Day: Today by Light of Day Stories
Before a month celebrating adoption, a day to recognize adoptees’ trauma by Religion News Service
Adoptee Remembrance Day by InterCountry Adoptee Voices (ICAV)
Adoptee Remembrance Day by Adoptees On
Adoptee Remembrance Day by My Adoptee Truth
Adoptee Remembrance Day Presentation by Brenna Kyeong McHugh
Adoptee Remembrance Day – October 30th by Bastard Nation
It’s Hard to Smile Today – My Tribute to Adoptee Remembrance Day – October 30th by Pamela A. Karanova
Adoption BE-AWARENESS and Remembrance By Mirah Riben
Adoptee REMEMBRANCE Day by Janet Nordine, Experience Courage
Adoptee Remembrance Day – October 30th YouTube Poetry Hosted By Liz Debetta
Listeners Acknowledge Adoptee Remembrance Day by Adoptees On
I am thankful and grateful to be alive, and having my own likes and dislikes and finally having autonomy. Being adopted however is not something I am grateful for. To be given a trauma that is life-long, and never ending, isn't something I'd wish on anyone. There's a reason little kids start bawling when they are "jokingly" told they're adopted. Then there's the "Aren't you glad you didn't stay in that orphanage in Moldova?!" Like, believe me if I had a choice I'd be with my own people in Moldova. Everything Is conditional in adoption, if we don't fit the mold our adoptive parent(s) force us to we usually get institutionalized. And long story short, my sister has tried to kill three separate people (and I was one of them) by strangulation - and somehow I am considered unstable and ungrateful. Finally I am grateful to have a therapist who recognized my trauma for what it is and said I don't have BPD and just am insanely traumatized. (Which isn't great - but being told I'm basically a manipulative abuser for 11 years when that wasn't the case at all, is traumatic enough too) I am grateful for hockey and NHL season though!!