When Adoptees Face Push Back

You've faced it before.

Sharing your truth with a stranger, colleague, friend or family member...there it is.

Push back.

push·back

[poosh-bak]  

noun

1.

a mechanism that forces an object backward.

2.

opposition or resistance to a plan.

3.

the forcing of an enemy to withdraw.

They are dismissive of your feelings, and your story.

They try to tell you how an adoptee should feel or what they should believe,  even though you have been adopted all your life, and they are not.



They tell you they know plenty of people who don't share your experience and don't believe what you do.

They want you to stop sharing, because if you keep it up, you will scare potential birth mothers and adoptive parents. 

If they have already adopted a baby they accuse you of trying to steal their joy.

They want you to go backwards, retreating to the place where you were before you opened up, before you started healing.

They pray to God that you and adoptees like you will shut up with all this crazy talk about changes in adoption. Too bad God is already at work on adoption reform and adoptee equality. Two prayers banging into one another. Always an interesting situation.
 

Your narrative makes them sweat.

Even though it's true. 

Even though it's yours. 

But let's not confuse anyone with the facts. 

Maybe it's not an outright demand. 

Sometimes it's passive aggressive strategies designed to put you back to a time where they were safe, untroubled by your words and the discomforting yet undeniable truths that result.

They lived in peace while you languished...your truth stirring inside you, trying desperately to make it's way back back up to the surface from down in your heart and back up out of your mouth.

And now you have disturbed the peace.

And you feel sucky. But not so much that you are willing to turn back from the truth.

Because living a lie is even suckier. 

My friend, it's you who I want to speak to today.

And, I'm literally going to do that. 

I'm going to speak.

God told me to bring you a message today. 

If you don't believe in God, just know, He still believes in you. 

Yeppers, the big kahuna He tells me stuff. Now I'm gonna tell it to you.

Okay, are you ready to get started?

I'll use my Bible once, but I'm really not preachin' or anything...we're just going to chat in my dining room.
 

Warning: Don't expect a Hollywood production. I recorded this by propping my iPhone against a box. And yes, I already know my hair desperately needs highlights. 


 
p.s. Yesterday I got a letter in my e-mail box, (among the many others in my burgeoning box -- sorry it's taken me more days than I'd like, to answer) from the publisher and executive editor at Adoption Voices Magazine, asking me to be a contributor. I never sought this out. It's due to you guys who have read here, liking what you read and passing it along. That totally blows me away and I humbly say...ummm wow. And thank you. <3 I love you all.