Hi, there I am Fiona I’m an adoptee. I was adopted at 8 months old after being in two different foster placements and 2 hospital stays. I have my great-niece from the family I was adopted out of on a Special Guardianship Order. Unusual I know but it’s working well.
Do Adoptees look adopted?
How many times have you said to someone, Do I look big in this? Do I look too skinny in this? Or even saying to a friend, did I look like a numpty there? Have you ever found yourself saying to anyone or even to yourself – Do I look adopted in this?
Feeling everything that I felt and still feel to this day as an adoptee has not been an easy road to walk, but I have walked it through good times and not-so-good times. Many were the moments when I felt like chucking my life in the bin. I suppose for me it was a case of always thinking that nothing worked out for me, marriages, two failed, failed to have children. By the way, I am the only person in my family to not have children of my own. Even finding my maternal biological family when I was looking into the old fertility issues, I was so disappointed not to find one single infertile person………..
This old blogging journey is actually proving fairly difficult if I am honest as I share from week to week and continue to write my third book on adoption trauma, I am finding more things that I need to look at and pray about. Being a Christian woman, a woman of power for the hour and all that, I have come to realise that there are a few areas where I need to admit I am still not feeling the freedom.
I thought I would show my most current picture of myself, still rocking the squinty eye, squinty teeth look. I think I look brilliant on the outside but I realise that all is not so great on the inside. Over many years I have been seeking that ultimate freedom on the inside to just be ME. There was a season when I was more me. After my second marriage broke down I made a pact with myself to just be Me, It worked really well. adoptee or not, life can sometimes get the better of us and we forget to just be ourselves. Sometimes it’s the old poor me’s that gets the better of me.
My husband tells me often that if he sees me walking, maybe heading to the shops or just out for a walk I look sad. At first, I had to think about whether I was sad walking and not sitting in the warmth of the car. I am naturally a thinker, so my theory is that I am just deep in thought. I have also had a look at other people who walk on their own I don’t see them grinning from ear to ear as they walk along so it’s definitely not just me.
I have wondered though is it me as an adoptee that just looks a bit on the sad side a lot of the time? I can say that a lot of the time there does seem to be a battle that rages on in my mind about the way I feel as a person. I tend to not really feel good enough in most areas of my life. Even though I know that I am actually good enough. As a wife, I continually feel that my husband could do better. As a friend, I forget constantly to text or call people. Then get a dose of the miseries when they don’t call me instead. I send an encouraging message to someone and get blanked. My immediate response is that they don’t care about me. Then I remember that I am not the only person on the planet. People are busy and have lives to be getting on with.
Don’t you want me by the Human League, is a great 1981 hit that I really loved. The chorus – Don’t you want me. Proper adoptee tune.
I have my adoptee top ten hit parade.
I will be sharing that soon. Some great tunes in there.
After a huge digression off subject. Back to the question. Do I look adopted in this? Of course, as an adoptee I don’t look adopted, I would not recognise another adoptee simply walking down the street. Would you?
Only adoptees know what they truly go through, just as only those who have lost children only know how that feels. Only those that have lost parents know what that feels like. I have had to mourn the loss of 5 parents. Another blog coming soon on how that happened.
Thank you for reading my blogging journey so far. Next Monday I will be sharing on Warning I’m Adopted.