The Drama Of It All

There are times when I think if I hear or see the word "adoption" one more time, I will scream. I don't think there is any other sanctioned, supposedly warm and fuzzy institution in the world that has caused as much dysfunction as adoption, American-Style, and I include organized religion in the group of contenders. To beat that one out for top disruptor of sanity, it has to be bad.

No, we're not all nuts and wackos...just most of us, mothers, adopted people and slavering PAPs and the God-like facilitators. Once I used to worry about whether or not our nation and our world could survive nuclear proliferation and ecological dangers. Now, I just figure that, like the big businesses that pollute, the adoption industry will keep growing and gorging itself on trafficking in human flesh. Its titanic weight will eventually crush the reproductive rights of women and destroy families just as polluting industries are destroying our planet's ecology.

All the pain, anger, frustration, dysfunction and grief have become a way of life for mothers and adopted people. There is always something about our lives that is just a little bit "off," even for the most stable  of us. I have to step back from it at times or I honestly believe I will go under and never come back up. The emotional demands of the situation, the obsessions and fears sometimes are like a tsunami, just waiting to drag you down and keep you there. Hey, it out does any soap opera I've ever watched.

There are people in this muck and mire who will exhaust you with their angst. Reaching out to them is like inviting Dracula in to dine. By the time you can break away, you are drained. There are times when I have wondered if taking up drinking or drugs would help. We can't fix each other, yet I sometimes get the feeling that we are latched on to the idea of being fixed by each other like a leech on a Hippo's butt.

I don't have any answers. God, how I wish I did. For me, using the 12-step approach has, at least, allowed me to retain my sanity. But what we have here, with the aging-out of the EMS mothers, our adult children approaching middle age, is a whole new ball game for the mental health community. Certainly, no one seems to want to do any real, in-depth research that might help the mothers who had their self-esteem put through the wood-chipper or genuinely question the identity issues of the adopted. For some, adoption is a sacred cow and, for others, the goose that lays the golden egg. It means that what research is done by the mental health professionals is done by just a few timid souls who will try to lop off a few diseased branches of a sick tree while ignoring the fact that the roots are rotten. Anyone who really digs in is challenged, vehemently, by the posturing industry and those that industry benefits.

Basically, if anyone sees through the hype and mythology to see the giant cluster-fuck this institution has generated, they are called crackpots and dismissed. There has to be someone, somewhere who will listen and seek answers with an open heart and mind rather than acting as an apologist for the industry that has thrust so many into the maze of adoption confusion. I keep hoping that some brave, highly credentialed,  mental-health researcher with a lot of grant money and a nice-sized staff will jump in and save the day. I can dream, can't I?

Until the hero arrives, we have only each other and ourselves as tools to give us  the best chance of healing. The 12-step program says that when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, you will do what you need to do to find recovery. Well, I'm sick and tired, all right....tired of the lies, the enmity, the predation, the ones who wallow in their misery and the cause of the misery itself.

I am sick and tired of all the damn drama.