By Ande StanleyAll you had

To do

Instead of saying

I love you

Was to tell me

The truth

Trust is essential in relationships. Honesty is one of the foundations of ethical behavior. When we grow up with lies, when we are denied the ability to make informed decisions, when we are taught that our senses are untrustworthy, when our identities are erased and we are made invisible, the ability to be in true authentic relationship with others is greatly hindered or made impossible. This inability for intimacy to exist within a context of deception is true for everyone, not just for people like myself. Trust is the engine of society. We need to be able to trust ourselves and others in order to be mentally, emotionally and physically healthy. We need to trust to be successful socially and economically. What happens to a person whose trust is betrayed at a deep and foundational level?

The last thing my adoptive mom said to me was that I must believe how greatly I was loved. I want so very much to believe in what she was saying. I long for that connection. My chest hurts and my eyes burn just sitting here and thinking about what that would mean. To be seen. To be heard. To be real, in a deeply intimate relationship with my adoptive family. The problem is that I don’t believe her. I believe she loved what she needed me to be, what she needed to fill the void in her own ego, to assuage the pain of her own failures and rejections. She never loved me because she never knew me. She knew the fiction that she created when she insisted that I not know that I was adopted.

I grew up thinking there was something incredibly wrong with me. I had no other explanation for the sudden silences and the awkward responses. I tried and I tried but never seemed to be enough. My older sister and our dad had an ease of communication and a closeness that, no matter how much I desired to live in that space, was beyond my reach. My youngest brother and our mom existed in a give and take where his protection and nurturing seemed to take precedence over that of mine and my other younger brother. He and I were the odd ones. We looked different, sounded different, acted different. To look at pictures of the six of us together now, I can immediately see what strangers saw—that we did not belong.

I had no mirror. I still have no ability to conceive of how I appear to others. When I asked why I didn’t look like anyone else in the family, I was told that of course I did. A child needs to believe their parents. By insisting that I did look like people I did not resemble, my mother set in motion a mental process that required me to deny the evidence of my own eyes. What I perceived to be real was in doubt. I could not trust what my eyes could see.

My mental health suffered because of the lies. Because I was told that my senses were unreliable. I was over-imaginative, being dramatic, making up stories. Better that I be the crazy one, the identified patient, than to simply tell me the truth. I looked and acted and was different because we weren’t related. Funny how liars felt comfortable accusing me of lying when they set in motion a family system that constantly had to be reinforced with more lies. It’s no wonder I never felt close to my adoptive parents or to their children. When lying is the basis of a relationship, you live in fear of being caught out in your lies. The more lies you tell, the more lies you must remember. I can only imagine how exhausting and anxiety producing that must have been and how much easier that made keeping me at a distance. Keeping me Other.

My physical health suffered due to the lies. My mom was more comfortable accusing me of hypochondria than willing to be honest with me and say we were not genetically related. I was warned of health problems that ran in my adoptive parents’ families, went so far as to have tests done to rule out some of those possibilities, even considered mastectomy—all based on false health information. I went wrongly diagnosed for genetically heritable conditions because there was no history of them in “my” family.

Being lied to has emotional consequences as well. If you systematically deceive and manipulate a person for decades, and when they discover the truth they are devastated and enraged, do you have a right to accuse them of being unbalanced? When they begin to learn to name their emotions and establish necessary boundaries that change the family dynamics, is it okay for you to command them to stop being disruptive and upsetting the people who created the trauma? Do you have any business telling them that they are responsible for the mental health of the people who hurt them?

When the people who you are supposed to be able to trust most are the ones who betray you? I was taught to not trust myself. Then I was taught to not trust anyone else.

My mom said she would have told me about my adoption at some point. She was hurt when I said that I had no reason to think she actually would have done so. Even 20 years after I found out by accident about being adopted, she was still telling me lies. I think the habit was too ingrained by that point for her to do otherwise.

And then she died.

I wasn’t the only one who was the victim of my adoptive parents lies. Their natural children were also. I can’t imagine what it does to a child to be told that they must always be on guard around a sibling. They must always lie to that person and never let on what they know. The habit is ingrained in them as well. They cannot hear or see me. So we do not talk. I was tired of being invisible.

My own children have also been victims of the lies. They were already in school by the time I found out. Their identities changed as well, along with their ability to trust other people. They endured the years of watching their mom falling apart and trying to put herself together again. They suffered loss also, and it is hard to forgive my mom for that.

The lies robbed me of family—adoptive and my own. Robbed me through the process of making intimacy impossible with the people I grew up with and whose name I legally carry. Robbed me of the opportunity to reach out and connect with my first families because so much time had gone by before I was able to find them. Robbed my children and grandchildren of opportunity. Time that none of us can recover.

All they had to do was tell me the truth. Grant me my power, my autonomy, my ability to know and be myself. If they had done that, been honest, then they could have been themselves as well. We could have established relationships based on choice and openness and understanding. But that didn’t happen. It is too late for the majority of the relationships. Thankfully it is not too late for me and for my kids and for my grandkids to learn how to be in authentic relationship with ourselves and with others. I am not sure I will ever be able to fully trust anyone, but I hope to learn to trust myself. I want to know what it is to say I love you and know that I truly grasp what that means. I want to hear someone else say I love you to me and know that it is said by someone who knows me.

You taught me to hide

So I stayed hidden

You concealed me from myself

Called me a

Dreamer, a

Fabulist

I lived in paper towers

A broken

Rapunzel

You fed me on

Fairy tales

You created a

Fiction

Pressed hard

With your pencil

Wrote over the lines

You erased

With your lies

But,

Everything comes out

When the paper

Is held up

To the lightAnde Stanley—an international, stranger, closed adoption adoptee—discovered her adoptee status by accident when she was in her early thirties. A writer from an early age, in recent years she is learning to use her voice to speak out about the trauma caused by denying adoptees their identities and autonomy. She spends her days painting, writing, and harassing her husband of more than 30 years. Visit her blog The Adoption Files. Find her on Twitter @AndeStanley1.BEFORE YOU GO…

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AnonymousThe Girl’s Mother left The Girl’s Father when there were just two young boys—before The Girl existed. She left the alcohol and physical abuse. She actually divorced him, though none of her children were aware of that until 83 years later, when a granddaughter stumbled upon the records online.

The Girl’s Mother built a small home for herself and her sons. Life was good and she was happy. She had a boyfriend, though no one remains to speak of him, and she was happy for the first time in years. She was as kind as the day is long, plus some, and deserved every happiness.

The Girl’s Father had been raised by a harsh and demanding mother, thereby creating a son of similar demeanor. One day post-divorce, The Girl’s Mother opened the door to her ex-husband and his angry mother. The angry woman said, “You will take him back and you will make it work.” Wanting to do right by her sons, The Girl’s Mother allowed The Girl’s Father to move back in. Best guess is that until that day she’d had as long as two years of happiness, free of this alcoholic anchor.

The Girl had been born during one of her father’s many temporary stretches of sobriety, and he loved her from the start. The Girl had given him back his family. Many years later, he told The Girl that on the day she was born, he went to the home of her mother’s boyfriend and told him that she would never be his now—that HE had won. This was the first The Girl had heard of a separation and a boyfriend.

The Girl grows. There are now two older brothers, a younger brother, and a younger sister. The older siblings like to point out her differences—her different-colored hair, her build, her personality. What they don’t know is she already feels different—odd. She doesn’t feel like she belongs. She is her father’s favorite but her mother’s attention isn’t as easily obtained. Years later, when he is a grown up with children of his own, one brother acknowledges that The Girl’s Mother raised her with a higher level of indifference. He tells her that he has doubted her place in the family and always assumed she was adopted. As if she hasn’t felt this disconnect her entire life.

The Girl learned early that being a daughter—especially the quiet and different middle daughter—meant there would be expectations. She began waitressing when she was 12 years old, with most of her earnings going in the bank and the rest going to pay her way and buy her own school clothes. The Girl’s Mother didn’t have such expectations of her other children. Because The Girl had a strong work ethic and a kind heart, she was often called upon to help, and she minded her younger siblings on the days she didn’t have to work. One day, The Girl’s Mother sent The Girl’s often troubled brother to retrieve her from school. He hadn’t made his truck payments and would inevitably lose it. When The Girl was a teen, her mother instructed her to empty her savings and pay off the son’s truck, telling The Girl she would own the truck. However, because he was a son, The Girl’s Mother would not make him keep the bargain. The Girl then had no savings and nothing to show for her kindness. The subject was closed. She was just a daughter.

Even after a lifetime of pleasing only to be held at arm’s length by her own mother, The Girl is still a fixer. She flourishes when she is needed. She has unknowingly carried forward the family legacy of ‘sons over daughters.’ She is always fixing her own son, which makes her feel important—included.

Still striving to connect, The Girl moves her family 1,000 miles to be near her parents. When her mother calls, The Girl comes. The Girl’s children love their sweet grandma, but even as little bubs they feel from her a lack of emotion or possibly even interest. A disconnect exists between The Girl’s Mother and The Girl’s children, but not between The Girl’s Mother and her son’s children who live nearby. The Girl’s children are, after all, just the children of the middle daughter.

The Girl stumbles through her journey. She wonders, “Where do I fit?” She doesn’t feel she belongs. She is sad. The feeling of not being enough, of being a square peg in a round hole, is still there all these years later. An emptiness permeates her, and life is a daily struggle. The Girl’s son continues on his path of self-destruction and selfishness. The Girl uses her father’s alcoholism to excuse her son’s behaviors. There’s always an explanation for his poor choices. The Girl’s Mother loves her grandkids but, quite obviously, the son’s children mean more to her than the daughter’s.

The Girl’s Daughter seeks counsel during a rough patch in her marriage. The Girl has previously advised her separated son to return to his wife and stay together for the children. Yet she advises her daughter to leave her husband while she’s young enough to meet another and, possibly, have a son. The ultimate prize.

Life continues, and The Girl’s expectations and hopes have dimmed. The Girl’s daughter is grateful to have had daughters and, gradually, also thankful that she won’t blindly perpetuate the cycle of superiority of sons. Not having a son also means her daughters won’t suffer at the hands of a brother as she did, struggling from age 5 to 16 to keep her brother way from her—from trying to touch her and expose himself to her. He was physically violent, too, throwing things at her and hitting her. The paint on the inside of her bedroom door was splintered and falling off from him banging on it so hard trying to get in. She was a quiet, religious girl, so it was especially traumatizing. The feeling of filth he bestowed on her during her childhood that she pushed down has left her scarred. Yet, when she told her mother this, her response was, “It happens.” The accused is, after all, her son. Did she feel that prioritizing the son would make her own mother proud? What other reason could there be for sweeping away such a confession?

The Girl’s Husband gets sick, and there are hospital stays and new worries, yet her indifference to her spouse of 58 years continues. It becomes obvious that the indifference in which the girl was raised has followed her into her own marriage.

In an attempt to find common ground, The Girl’s Daughter gives her parents DNA kits. She hopes that between tests and surgeries, they will explore their roots.

The Girl has lived a lifetime of distancing and an inability to truly connect to anyone but her son. She believes it to be based on the fact that she is just a daughter. She’s carrying on the mistakes of the past, handed down from her mother. Today, the effects ripple through the next couple generations: indifference in marriages, the sons being given privileges, the inability to form friendships.

A year on, a widowed woman sharing her home with her overly enabled son and daughter-in-law, The Girl still asks the question “Where do I fit?” This feeling of unmooring, and the question of being, have haunted The Girl from the beginning.

The Girl returns to her DNA test for answers, and the quest to discover the identity of her mother’s unknown boyfriend changes from a simple historical query to a genealogical necessity.

The Girl realizes that her deep-rooted question—where does she belong?—has morphed into a new but equally perplexing one: Was the indifference shown to her as a child rooted in the difference in gender? Or a difference in paternity?

The next generation, The Girl’s Daughter, commits to finding the answers. She spends hours, days, weeks, and years researching. She now knows that The Girl’s Father has no branch in The Girl’s family tree but The Girl’s Mother’s unnamed boyfriend from years past does. There are new ethnicities to study, new family stories to learn, new relatives to meet. The Girl’s Father will always be The Girl’s “dad,” but the unknown man is actually her father.BEFORE YOU GO…

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By Lorah GeraldMy hand strokes the smooth white fur of the rug I am lying on. I move my hand slowly along it. It’s soft and soothing. I rub my face into the fur. My fingers dig into it and pull it close. It calms me and triggers Oxytocin—a hormone associated with pleasurable feelings—to be released by the pituitary gland. My breathing becomes slow and regular. The pain I’m feeling slowly subsides. I start regulating the mental turmoil in my mind. I draw on a memory of when I was happy. The sensation of the fur on my skin reminds me of the love I felt for my dog Brizzie. She was my everything. I spent as much time as I could with her, and I’d miss her when I was working or on vacation. I loved that dog with all of my heart. When she passed, my world crumbled.

I bought this rug to remember how I felt when I’d stroke her fur. She was unconditional love. I could feel it when I looked into her blue eyes. She’d look up at me, the world would fall away, and it would be just us. Our walks together were my happy place. Our connection was pure and uncomplicated. I felt she understood me; she could sense my pain and would come to my side. The love she gave flowed from her heart without pause. When she passed, I could still feel her beside me. Blump, blump, blump she would run up the stairs. I can still hear it. Her movement, her fur, her breath were all still alive in my thoughts but I could no longer reach out to touch her. I wanted to feel her again. I felt like a part of me died when she did.

As an adoptee, I’ve always felt closer to animals than humans. My childhood home was a farmhouse that was more than 100 hundred years old. My backyard had a barbed wire fence separating us from the farm behind it. The cows, horses, and ponies would lean their heads over the fence to eat grass out of the yard. Sometimes I’d gather vegetable scraps or handfuls of grass and hold out my hand to feed them. Their noses moved back and forth in my hand as they chewed the treat I held. They felt soft, like a rabbit’s ear. For a special treat, I asked my adoptive parents to buy sugar cubes for me to give to the horses. I’d slowly walk over to them and touch them, my hand softly stroking their hair. I looked into their gaze. Once I felt trust between us, I’d go to their side of the fence and play in their field. After years, I felt like we were friends. One day, I was told not to go into their field anymore. I understand then that the adults wanted to keep me safe, but it was devastating. I felt as if my friends had been taken away. I agreed to the rules but went into the field anyway when no one was looking. I’d already been taken away from my family, and I wasn’t going to let anyone take away my friends.

Being adopted, it was easier for me to have animals as friends. I loved the feeling of their fur, and I understand now that I was self-regulating my emotions when I petted them. I felt they loved me without complications. They helped heal my hidden pain. I loved all the animals and wanted to take care of them. Growing up, my menagerie consisted of cats, dogs, parakeets, fish, and turtles. My adoptive parents allowed one of my cats to have kittens so I could watch how birth happens. I thought it was gross but I loved those three kittens so much. One was white with a couple of gray spots. The others were tabby cats, one grey and one orange-striped. I was sad that we had to find them homes when they were old enough to be given away. It confused me. I knew my adoptive parents didn’t wait that long to get me. Was I given away too soon? I didn’t want to give them away. I felt heartbroken. It made me think about how I was given away. I knew my adoptive parents never talked to my birth mother. I wanted to know where the kittens were going. Why did my birth mother not ask who was taking me? I cared what was going to happen to my kittens. Why didn’t my birth mother care what happened to me?

Now I sit with my white fur rug, petting it and soothing myself. I remind myself that I am loved and I am worthy. The pain of being given away doesn’t go away. We learn to adapt to it.Lorah Gerald—adoptee, writer, intuitive, Kundalini yoga Instructor, reiki master and ordained minister—writes memoir, inspirational, educational, and opinion pieces and blogs on her website, LorahGerald.com, and as @theadoptedchameleon on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. She hopes to help others, adopted or not, heal their trauma by sharing her lived experiences as an adoptee, educating about breath work and energy healing, and using her natural intuitive abilities.

BEFORE YOU GO…

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