Putting it in words
I can't ever remember a time in my life when I didn't use reading or writing as my emotional escape. Books have always been very attractive to me, and a person's writing could either make me fall in love, or dream of a better way to keep my solitary-self busy, active and occupied. Yes, for me, words have always had great personal meaning to me... because words and meanings are things I can keep and follow.
Books to me are personal diaries, and reflections of our eye-seeking souls, so my book-collection says a lot about the company I like to keep. In fact, the books that I DO decide to buy and keep say a lot about where I've been, and where I loved to stay, but no way does that small collection of mine reflect how deep and extensive my reading-travels have actually gone.
My first-time access to a computer-connected-to-the-Internet was in 1997-8. I think it took about a week to figure-out this thing called "Group Forums". Wow... a social-networking idea based on personal interests and hobbies. <hmmm> Whoda thunk of such a clever thing? I had no hobbies, and reading was my main interest, so my first-Internet-pick was a site called Mothers of Multiples. The choice made perfect sense: I was a new mom to twins, but a seasoned mom to older ones... I saw a reason and purpose to join such a group of posting-readers, and the set-up seemed easy enough to operate, so I dared myself to assume a Nurse-Role - with a maternal-mission, and introduced myself to a group of virtual moms.
It didn't take long to realize I was an Outsider among this inner-group of support-seeking mothers. I was adopted, had no idea twins were in my family, and didn't need IVF to bring me my baby-bundle. I was also home, alone, each day ... and many nights... with four children, with no outside help or family coming to visit me, bringing me those grand-mommy-treats like food or baby-sitting services for the blown-away breastfeeding mom of twins, (and MORE). My profession kept me apart even more, because when I saw as a simple problem with a simple solution, I'd offer advice that soon became a series of bitter debates over who's opinion had more value, and why. Nothing personal, but I could care less if anyone followed my ideas/suggestions or not... I just thought personal and professional experience mattered and had some real value. My alienation grew even deeper after 9/11 because hub-man was called to work at Ground Zero in NYC for 14-16 hour days, and keeping that schedule for months. I remember at one point, I had actually stopped speaking, because there was no one to talk to.
I simply did what I had to do to take care of the kids. I shut-down any and all personal feelings inside, and during those quiet moments I was free to do some reading, I allowed myself the heart-crushing experience of reading from living people, learning for the first time, just how different my life was, compared to so many others... especially among mothers.
I left that MOM support-site to find a new-home. [I managed to keep a friend or two... but only the sickest woman remains on my mailing-list]. She accepts I'm a crappy friend who's incapable of small-talk, but she loves the letters I send her on occassion, anyway.
Out of boredom, and social frustration, I did a quick search on Adoption... WOW. I was not expecting to see so much crap! It was laughable, really, because there was SO MUCH being sold and told about the virtues of adoption, yet rare was the place where you could learn about the aftermath adoption causes. Adoption, as it was written, was for children (and stray cats, dogs and horses...) but not for adults.
I decided to search for my mother.
Boy... was that a fun mistake! I learned more about the workings behind church and state organizations, and it sickened me. I thought I had seen it all in my Nursing Profession, but no where is censored paper-pushing more abundant than within the adoption-support community. For instance, the rules and regulations related to legal documentation outside the US makes adoption a whole new issue (with a world of new problems) many American-born Adoptees just can't see or completely understand. It's a matter of personal-experience...and the paper trail begins in the country where an adopted child was born. You see, a person can write as many letters to as many people connected to the adoption industry, asking for help, but the bottom line is, if your documents have been falsified, you're NOTHING to nobody. [Want to find-out how legal your own documents are? Try applying for a passport without a driver's license or photo ID... (yes, it DID happen to me...because that's the sort of hair-pin I am...just plain LUCKY!)] Years after accepting my parents past is something I will never learn, I got the nerve to ask a member of Bastard Nation, "What good is an Open Record, if the written information has been completely doctored and falsified?"... the response I got was typical.
It didn't take me long to find and join a cyber adoption community. Adoption.con read as one of the best adoption resources I could find at the time, (considering it was the only one that featured an adoptee support group, and didn't maintain a militant focus on Open Records). I believed that's where I would fit-in best, based on their understanding the different meanings adoption language brings a person, and the many different adoption issues I was having with my own Search, and emotional recovery. I was desperately needing help and understanding with all that I was reading and learning. Within months, I got bashed, blasted and banned from that "support community". I was pissed... especially since I was getting so many private messages and letters asking me to keep writing, because I was asking and discussing the things that mattered to many. I did the unthinkable to me: I changed my name and re-joined, knowing who and what I was dealing with. After the third outting, I left for a lower-class of misfits: Adults with RAD.
I quickly rose to the top among the bottom-dwellers, since I wrote about adoption, abandonment and abuse. It was a mostly silent community, but the more I purged, the more I got in personal response and reaction. It was through my own writing at the RAD site that I began to see for myself, how words and expressed meaning are two different things for the adult who has been adopted and hurt by it, and the one who was spared that experience. Words like "Betrayal" and "Disgust" were not at all the same in the minds of many. I began using the term True Blue RADs, which sparked grief among those who wanted to be just as miserable as me. Hey... is it my fault there's always a hierarchy-system, even among misfits?
It was around that time a fellow adoptee and I coined the phrase Pound Pups... yep... we were the ones who were not cute enough to be kept, and not good enough to get first-dips in the parental meat-market. We were the sloppy-seconds who had to wait a while before "someone good" came around to take us Out and In. Our papers got changed and our purchase became complete and final once the black holes and missing pieces to our real Life-Story got labeled: "Top Secret". As such pups, we learned to accept the scraps given by strangers, and to give a look or word that showed appreciation so no grief would be had by any other. The more we shared our inner-thoughts about various family-situations, the more we discovered Pure Gold in our written communications! Every email ended with "Bartender?!? " and a really big laugh.
Meanwhile, as the RAD site became more popular, and more social people were starting to visit and post within the hidden-pages, I agreed to become a moderator, making sure themes and topics remained clean and useful. I soon saw how quickly "my domain" was changing, right before my wondering eyes, and I began to realize my soulful Bleeding Grounds was changing for the comfort sake of those who did not relate to the Full Orphan Experience.
I was being attacked for using the wording I always used when writing personal issues, and my thoughts and opinions were once again being met with hostile attacks and the token "you do not represent me" and "I don't care for your insensitive remarks". [Adoption.con flashbacks!]
I was being told not to bark in my own underground community.. a place that was quiet and inactive when I arrived... a place I helped nurture so it could grow, and become bigger (thanks to my daring writing skills and style)... and I was supposed to be gracious and kind? Are you freakin INSANE?!?
I had enough of the "misunderstandings", so I sent my private good-byes to those who knew where I was coming from, and why I was going, and I was lucky enough to find and keep a friend who said we could email, instead.
A few months later, PPL was born.
I am a solid-believer that life-experience creates it's own language, which explains why some people "get" what I'm saying... and why others give me the ol' Deer-in-Headlights Stare. Depending on a person's triggers, a conversation will either stop dead in its tracks, or go to the next stage of mutual growth and understanding.... it all depends on how much a person uses words with hidden and complicated meanings. I have often said to close-contacts, "I can always tell who has been adopted, abused and then abandoned... it's all in the language they use, and how that person uses his own form of communication with others". Yes, I believe We are a sub-species of the human-kind, and our darkness sheds more light into the problems family-relationships cause the person with a hungry wanton need for love, trust and above all else, safety. Need an example or two? Go read The Animal Within descriptions found in the PPL User-pages... I believe any decent reader can see and feel the difference between words and meanings, and how important effective communication is in a real-life working relationship.
