The Myths About Adoption

Start at the beginning of this blog.

As previously mentioned, I went to live with them at age 3. I had a fairly established personality by that point, which would cause all sorts of problems...

When I've told various people that I was adopted as a child, I hear the following idiotic comments:


"Well, at least you knew you were wanted." Uh, no, I never felt like that. She actually said (to the adoptive father) when I was 13, that they needed to send me "back" because she couldn't deal with me anymore. I had put a bag of clothes down two feet too far to the left, and she hit the roof. Actually, she hit me. Repeatedly. Then she kicked me. Yes, for setting something down too far over.

"You were chosen." In my experience, being "chosen" meant getting singled out for a beating.

"You went to a better home." Maybe not. I went from a loving home--where I was cared for by my maternal grandparents--to a traditional, nuclear, "good on paper" family and was beaten frequently within a few weeks of arriving. 

The reason I was put up for adoption was because my grandmother had died, and my grandfather was too old to take care of two small children himself. I later found out that my birth mother was pretty worthless and neglected the both of us, but we were both adored by her parents.

It was the 70s, and support for single (particularly the never-married) mothers wasn't easy to come by, so without her parents to raise us, it was left to her, and she had never been too interested.

"Your parents love you as much as they love their REAL children." Yeah. Sure. She never hit her "real children" so hard they lost the hearing in one ear and saw black spots for several days. Her "real" daughter was taken to the doctor frequently while I had to suffer in silence over blood in my urine, trouble breathing, and brain-crushing migraines. 

I've had three major spine surgeries due to problems from scoliosis, which she saw that I had (and commented on frequently) but waited 8 months to take me to a doctor. I had already finished growing by that time, and there was nothing they could do. It certainly didn't stop her obsession with how "twisted" and "crooked" I was, according to her.

When she heard me wheezing (from undiagnosed and untreated asthma), she would get angry and ask if it was my "stress syndrome" making me do that. Sure, woman, it's "stress." I was diagnosed with asthma in adulthood when I was able to seek out medical care for myself. My situation was made worse by going so many years without treatment.

As I've written already, I am a pretty strong supporter of adoption. I think many times it works out better for the child and the parents. It's love that makes a family, regardless of DNA and who the kid looks like (or doesn't). 

I also don't judge those parents who regret adopting due to their child having severe attachment problems. When I first went online about 15 years ago to find others like me, I came up pretty dry. Most of what I read was anti-adoption views from women feeling like their babies were stolen from them, even though they made the choice to relinquish their child into the care of someone else. Instead of regretting their own decision, they blasted the whole institution of adoption.

After doing more digging, I finally found a few websites and was able to find others online with experiences similar to mine. Somehow finding out that I wasn't alone helped a lot. 

I hate that others have had to go through it, but until there is more awareness about maladjusted adoptive parents gaining access to children and being able to talk their way through interviews and make their lives look so perfect so they can obtain children with impunity, this will keep happening.

What Was Wrong With Them?

Abusive Adoptive Parents: Who Were These People?

Neither of them was ever diagnosed with any mental illness or personality disorder.  They were both the kind of people who said that depression or any kind of sadness could be cured by reading the Bible. If I ever looked like I might be "depressed," it was because I wasn't letting the Holy Spirit live through me, or some other stupidity.

She once told me that she would be an awful person without Jesus. She said that she would be so bad that I wouldn't be able to deal with her, if not for Jesus. For the sake of argument, let's say that Jesus did keep her from being any worse. I cannot imagine it, unless her belief in Jesus actually kept her from killing me. But I don't thank her Jesus for that. I lived through so much abuse that if there had been a Jesus, he was obviously ignoring what was happening in our house. 

I also learned that attention was almost always a bad thing, and that "flying under the radar" was sometimes the best way to stay safe, although I could almost never get away to do this.

She tended to use me as her figurative and literal punching bag and apparently had this need to know where I was at all times. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere else in the house and be by myself. It's like she needed me there to take whatever anger she had at the time. She didn't treat anyone else like this. 

She was obsessed with what I wore, what I ate, and what expression I had on my face every second of the day. I was never free from her grip. 

I will elaborate more on all of these issues, but once I finally realized in about 2006 that it's more than likely that they were both narcissists--and she was obviously a malignant narcissist--suddenly so much of my childhood made sense. It didn't make it any easier to deal with, and I'm still struggling with it today, but sometimes knowing what the problem was makes it easier to start the healing process.

Who Were These People?

I use the term "parents" loosely because I don't consider those people to be my parents. My younger brother and I went to live with them and their two biological children when I was three. He was 19 months old. Our adoption wasn't final until I was twelve for some reason, and I've never gotten a straight answer from anyone, including the state foster care/adoption system. 

He and I were foster children for nine years, and we had few, if any, case-worker visits after we were dropped off for the first time. I am a supporter of adoption and foster parenting, but my own experience in the system didn't turn out so well. I suffered physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, and medical neglect as a foster/adopted child.

The "parents" were the "good on paper" kind. Nice house, married, two kids already, big yard, stable income, and avid churchgoers. As if church attendance means anything. What wasn't apparent to anyone outside of the home was new mommy's temper and pathological insecurity. As it turns out, she was crazier than a shithouse rat. New dad was not home much and missed most of the insanity.

I have come to realize that they were likely malignant narcissists. Combine that with the sanctimony of being Southern Baptists in the Deep South, and there was no way I would get out of there without some serious damage.

And I didn't.