Archive for the “Personal” Category

(Scroll down or click here to read Adoption 1 and Adoption 2 first.)

One of the things that pisses me off most about being adopted is the comments I get. (Not blogging comments — people say these things TO MY FACE!)

One comment that is consistently in the top ten:

“You must be so GRATEFUL to your adopted parents for taking you in!”

Translation: You’re a charity case, and a burden, and I’m superior to you because my parents wanted me.

I’m as grateful to my parents as any child should be to their parents for the time and money it takes, and general pain-in-the-ass it is to raise a child.

But this expectation of society (and of some adoptive parents) that adopted children should be MORE APPRECIATIVE than other children is just one big, gigantic crock of steaming horseshit.

For God’s sake, I was a 9 day old baby! And there was a 2-4 year waiting list for babies at that time. So don’t canonize my parents for taking in this “unwanted” baby. They were blessed with a new member of their family; they did not volunteer for a lifelong case of charity work. They do not deserve the admiration and awe of others who say, “How wonderful of you! I know I couldn’t take in someone else’s bastard child and raise it as my own!”

Sorry, but I don’t care if society, or even my own parents, see me as some sort of “second quality” person who should be eternally grateful for everything that everyone else gets as a matter of course. Like I’m some horrid person that was a huge burden that mooched 18 years of handouts from my parents, yet my brothers were gifts from God to my parents and owe them nothing because they were biologically theirs.

I’m grateful I had parents and a home. I’m grateful I’ve never known abject poverty or physical abuse from my parents. I’m grateful for the exact same things that everyone who was raised in a decent home should be grateful for.

But do I owe a bigger debt than those who were raised by their biological parents? No, and fuck anyone who thinks so.

Second most popular quotes (a tie, boys and girls! How exciting!) :

“You went looking for your biological family? How UNGRATEFUL of you!”

“So, your parents loved you and raised you your whole life, and this is how you show your APPRECIATION?! Searching for your *gasp* ‘real’ family?”

AGAIN with the “grateful” and the “appreciation”! Jesus, but people love to point fingers and tell you that you’re not deserving of what you have, and should make amends immediately. Where they are entitled to what they have, and don’t need to be even 1/10th as grateful as they think you should be.

I found (what’s left of) my biological family (maternal side) in 2001. (My biomom was killed by the church of $cientology in 1995. I found two half-brothers, an aunt, a step-aunt, and a second cousin).

When I told my mother that I had found my biofamily, she began with the theatrics and hurt feelings. I stopped her cold.

You see, my mother is way into genealogy. Around that time, she had discovered in HER family heritage an uncle that had fought in the Civil War. She found his gravesite and some stories about his life and everything. It was interesting to me, and she was incredibly excited about it.

So when she started her pouting about my seeking out my relatives, I explained it to her this way:

“You know when you found that Civil War uncle, and all the genealogy stuff you’ve dug up over the years, the stories and the pictures and how interesting that is?”

Mom replied, “Yes?”

I explained, “Well, that man is someone you never met. In fact, most of the relatives you’ve found information on are people you’ve never met. But it’s INTERESTING and important to you, right?”

“Well, of course it is.”

“So, why are adopted people not allowed to have the same curiosity? Why are WE not allowed to have an interest in our blood heritage?”

It shut her up, because she realized she was being hypocritical. She dropped the hurt martyr thing immediately.

Some in this society truly believe that adopted people have less rights and more obligations than other people. I don’t know if it’s because they think only horrible children would be rejected by their own parents, or maybe they think only horrible parents would “reject” their child (and since we are related to these irresponsible people, we as adopted children are guilty by genetic association). Or maybe they’ve read Cinderella’s tale of rescue one too many times. I really can’t say for sure what it is. And the bad attitudes are certainly the exception, not the rule.

Know this:

I’m grateful and appreciative for all my life’s blessings. But, despite being adopted, my debt to the world is no more and no less than any other person on the face of this beautiful earth.

(Read Adoption 1 first, if you haven’t already.)

The concept of “home” has always been my Holy Grail. I have spent my whole existence focused on obtaining a home, even though I technically had one. Why did I feel this way?

My mother says that I was told I was adopted “all along.” But this is not true. I remember the first time I heard it. I remember the day because it was also the first day I realized that my mother could lie to me. So if you’re expecting a touching Hallmark moment, where the parent tells the child with a tear in their eye that adoption day was “the day the family became complete”, you are about to be disappointed.

I remember I was in kindergarten. My younger brothers weren’t in school yet. I looked like my brothers, except for the eyes. Mine were brown, theirs were blue-gray; a good blend for my mothers’ hazel eyes. My father had brown eyes, but we were all brunette. I was the only ugly one in the family, which is important because my mother very much cared about the opinions of others. But I didn’t realize that I was ugly yet. Looking at just skin and hair coloring, I blended.

One afternoon, my mother had our baby books and was showing us pictures and locks of hair from our infanthood. The cover of my baby book had writing on it, and I asked my mom to read it to me. She read: “Our Adopted Baby.” I remember the sensation of all the blood draining out of my head in shock, and blurted out in surprise and distress, “I was adopted?!”

She was incredulous and inexplicably snotty. “Yes, we’ve always told you that you were adopted!” she snapped at me angrily. I was unprepared for this sudden anger and it scared me. It was obvious that I had done something wrong in her eyes. Then she got even more pissed and said some stuff in a glaringly hateful tone. (I don’t remember the words, but I remember the tone, and can even see her and the chair she was sitting in, the incident so impressed me at the time.) Then she dismissed any questions I had and changed the subject.

I may have only been six years old, but I knew bullshit when I heard it, even if I didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate it. I knew that my parents had never told me I was adopted.

But yet, mom just said they had told me “all along”.

Either she was lying, or I was mistaken and had “forgotten” I was adopted. Parents don’t lie, so it had to be my fault, my mistake. That was my first lesson. Tis’ far better to accept responsibility for situations for which you are not culpable, than it is to admit that you can rely on no one around you. I decided I must have forgotten. But, how does a child “forget” they were adopted?

Even at that young age, as my mother sat in her tacky green ’70s chair surrounded by three children hanging on her every word and dying to have their sticky fingers touch the black and white photographs — even then, as I made the decision to accept her hint that I was somehow feeble-minded for forgetting such a fact, I knew somewhere deep down that I had never heard that I was adopted until that day.

That has always been my family’s way of handling things. Or one of the top five ways:

• Deny, deny, deny
• Find a way to shake any responsibility
• Quickly change the subject
• Refuse to admit anything is “wrong”
• When caught in a lie, stick with it and accuse the other person of needing “psychological help” (that one rang big from my mother in my teenage years)

I came out of the proverbial adoption closet on the playground the next day, telling all my friends about me being adopted as I swung on the swingset. I remember one kid saying, “that means your real parents didn’t want you!” but comments didn’t phase me. I just said, “Get off my case, toilet face!” and kept swinging.

I was happy and full of hope. I felt special. Not special to my parents, but special as in different than my classmates. At that young age I couldn’t understand why, but I felt like finally knowing I wasn’t born part of that family… well, it explained everything I had always felt but my young mind couldn’t pin down. I had always felt it wasn’t a family of five in that house, it was a family of four and I just kind of hung around, like the houseguest they had to be nice to, but that they wished would just go away.

Just an aside question from the adult me: What kind of attention-seeking fuck buys a baby album with the title “Our ADOPTED Baby”? Danger, danger, Will Robinson!

Say the word “adoption” to people and you get a very interesting array of reactions.

Adoption is portrayed in the media in one of two ways: Either the adopted child is embraced wholeheartedly and lives an idyllic life, for which they are expected to be eternally grateful to the parents who were kind enough to take their charity-case ass in, or the opposite extreme — the noble and saintly parents who adopt a kid and get a “bad apple” and suffer the rest of their lives.

No matter how you view adoption or adoptive children, for some reason, there is still a stigma about it.

Although I’ve written my adoption tales, experiences, and opinions elsewhere, and those that have followed my multiple blogs throughout cyberspace have heard this crap ad nauseum, I’ve decided to re-post them again. Cyrus was good enough to share with me his adoption story, and mine is nothing compared to his - holy crap! But I think it’s good for people unfamiliar with adoption to hear more stories than just the fairy tale sugar-sweet ones, and the ones where the adopted kid turns into a nightmare, destroying small cities and making the sainted adopted parents cry bitter tears.

:deep breath: Here we go.

So I return to work today after yesterday, a day from hell.

My boss has been telling me month after month, “You are the senior trainer on that site. You need to take AUTHORITY. You need to take RESPONSIBILITY. You need to tell the management there that you are the sr. trainer and should be treated as such. You need to tell the other trainers you are the sr. trainer and they have to listen to you.”

So after 9 months of dealing with the crap of another trainer who has been bossing me around since I started there, I finally came out and said it. “I’m the Sr. Trainer and sometimes I have to make decisions and I hope that you all (both trainers) can start to trust that.” Then the bossy trainer said, “I’ve had meetings with my boss about EXACTLY what your job is. Your job means nothing. Your job description is the same as mine. I had my boss send me a copy of your job description and you have no say in what goes on here.” (In other words, the job description that says I have no extra authority or responsibility is the same one she has - she claims - yet SHE has been the “boss” and called the shots for the 1 year and 10 months I’ve worked there… she gathers her authority from the fact she started 5 months before me.)

So I asked what part of my job performance led bossy trainer(BT) to have secret meetings with her boss about MY JOB DESCRIPTION (we have different bosses). BT stammered around and never answered. Truth is, she has had so many complaints filed against her but has kept her job over and over because she deflects those complaints and tries to focus the attention elsewhere by complaining about me.

So I called MY boss and told her what’s going on and she was pissed off and said, “Yes you DO have authority, they have to listen to you, get the other trainers on the phone NOW.” I said I would but if she was going to backpedal and not support me, after I finally did what she had been badgering me to do for months on end, that it would not be forgotten. She promised to support me.

She didn’t. She got on the phone and basically said that any decision would be made by the training “team” (which in BT’s mind meant “made by BT” as it always had) and if no agreement could be reached it would be escalated to the two managers out of state. So she basically threw me under the bus.

BT is 40 percent of the reason I’m miserable at my job. You can’t reason with her, logic with her or deal with her. Any word out of her mouth, she’ll deny two seconds later. I’ve never once seen her take responsibility for her inappropriate behavior. If I have a bad day or get upset about something, she’ll throw it in my face every chance I get as an example of how I “can’t handle this job”.

I’ve tried every way I can to deal with her. I’ve tried every tactic I could. I’ve tried talking to my boss, her boss… nothing works. I’m at my wits end.

To top it off, we have training coming up and I created the invite for the staff SIX DAYS AGO. I put a sign up sheet in the mail room SIX DAYS AGO. But the staff manager has refused to send out the invite for six days. She says there’s nothing wrong with it, she just hasn’t “had time” to click on “forward” and mail to one distribution list. (Takes all of four seconds.) This manager has been retaliating against me since last fall for declining a particularly unreasonable training request, and her sitting on these invites has caused mass confusion to the staff. But she’s doing it on purpose - to make training look disorganized. She has all the power in the local office and there’s nothing I can do about it.

This is typical shit I’ve been dealing with for over a year and I just can’t stand it. Yet I’m trapped because most trainer jobs require travel and I can’t travel because of my dog.

My stress levels are through the roof.

No one has a perfect life. Everyone has crazy stress, unhappiness, barriers to overcome. I am not special.

So why do I seem to be the only one unable to deal?

I would think that having a spouse and kids would be more stress - not everyone’s home life is a happy one. Yet I find myself making excuses… “Yeah, nothing at work gets to him. But he goes home to a family that adores him at the end of the day.” Does that really help people cope all that much? Or is that an excuse that I use because I am not handling things as gracefully as other people?

Every day is a new reminder that I’m not doing this life right and I don’t know how to right things. I can’t find a cure for myself. I can’t find a way to change this personality that seems more prone to take a toll on the world than make a contribution to it.

Am I expecting too much from life when I expect a reason to endure it? “I don’t have anything to live for!” is quite the melodramatic statement, but I wonder… do most people have (or find) something to live for? Or do they find a way to live without purpose, success, or any sort of reason? Is that why people are so driven to have kids - so that there’s a reason for it all and it’s not all so stupid and futile? (Even if that is a reason, still don’t want ‘em, thank you.)

I could make it through just focusing on little joys - the next season of The Office, my dog, my pictures, lame internet jokes. But when I go to a job where I’m constantly reminded that I’m not good enough… that I cause more turmoil than solutions… that every reaction or feeling I have is wrong… it’s exhausting and makes me feel a bit beat up every day. I suppose everyone’s job is like this, but when the job is all you have, it makes one a bit myopic. But does a lack of objectivity - which we all have - make all my feelings invalid, an overreaction? I sincerely doubt it, but now even my feelings seem to be something else for me to apologize for and dismiss as unreasonable without examination, because they are mine and therefore automatically wrong. If I’m to believe those around me, such action is the only right course.

I guess everyone needs one source of joy that can inspire them to set aside everything else, all the bullshit, and have a reason to get out of bed every day. I’ve lived so long without a reason for joy that I don’t think it’s ever going to happen, and I know I’m not the only one in that boat by a long shot. So how come others can plod on, and I seem to have such turmoil about it?

OK, this post made no sense. And I haven’t even been drinking! I suppose these very words can be used as further supporting evidence to my “wrongness” but goddamnit, I’m sick of everyone else’s feelings and frustrations being valid except mine.

At the end of the day I just want a reason for going through it all and I don’t have one, and I wonder if I ever had one. I know I’m not alone on this but I don’t see anyone else struggle so publicly and awkwardly as I do, so what’s wrong with me? I must be weak, too impulsive, self-indulgent.

Would the universe giving me a straw to grasp be just one more joke - a dangling carrot, not really something that could ever be held in the end?

I’ll keep on keepin’ on, but the wrongness of my fit in life clings to me like a bad perfume. I wasn’t meant to be here. Someone messed up. I didn’t get the life I was meant for - a life where my overall footprint on the world would be at least a fraction positive. If I had been born one day later I would have been raised by a totally different family. If I had been born one year earlier in my biological mother’s life I would have been given to a couple of a completely different religion. If my parents had asked for a boy on the adoption application - what they really wanted in the first place - I would have gone to a different family. Was I just one impulse decision away from ending up where I was really meant to? Is that why nothing ever seems to fit?

All I know for sure is that I regret who I am, and that is one fucked up thing to live with.

And the world shares this regret, which I think is even worse.

So I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday flat on my back. Fever/chills, body aches, congestion, sore throat, and coughing until each cough made my ribs hurt. Yesterday afternoon the congestion started to break up and I thought I was going into the home stretch - WRONG!

This morning I woke up with a headache so bad I couldn’t stand. I knew it was a tension headache triggered by three days of laying on the couch, and now gone out of control. So I thought a hot shower might help, but then I thought I was going to pass out so I got out of the shower with soap still in my hair. Managed to call in sick by 5:30 this morning, and after that the vomiting started. What’s this? Severe pain and dizziness isn’t enough (and oh yeah I’m still coughing) - now I have to have nausea and vomiting too?

Have you ever, either by accident or by a loss of temper, done something or said something that you instantly regretted? Maybe not something so bad that you’d turn yourself into the authorities, but something that left you feeling so guilty that you not only expected the universe to get even, you actually welcomed the vengeance that you knew was coming, because until it came you would live your life not only consumed with guilt, but consumed with dread, waiting for the other shoe to drop?

Yes, I admit I didn’t correct the Quiznos worker when they forgot to charge me for the sea salt and vinegar chips. Yes, I admit I didn’t go back and re-align my car when I noticed my parking job had my driver’s side wheel go over the yellow line enough to make the next space over unusable. Yes I admit I don’t bother to recycle my beer bottles.

After the last four days of penance, I can honestly say that my dues are paid and my conscience is clear.

Imagine you are a corporate trainer.

Imagine teaching back-to-back new-hire classes, which always means overtime hours (you’re salaried so you’re not paid for them, and comp time is not allowed). It also means working through almost all of your lunches and breaks, and occasionally working on your days off as well.

Imagine having to “perform” from 8:30am - 5pm M - F, talking and entertaining classes and teaching complicated policies and processes, and doing this pretty much without a break for months on end, while still having hours of job responsibilities other than your in-class training. And when your students are on their lunch break, you’re furiously scrambling around making sure handouts are ready for the next day, researching questions, answering the 20 pieces of email that came in in the past hour and a half (at least some of those have extra work for you to do in your “free time”).

Now imagine that, from that moment on, as the years pass any mistake the employee makes on the job will always be your fault because their boss claims you didn’t “teach them good enough” in the 2 or 3 weeks you had them in new hire training back in 2006.

If a productivity policy is finally enforced 6 months or a year after a person is on the job, and that person doesn’t like the fact they are finally accountable for the work they do, imagine if the director of the entire office blamed you for the poor staff morale because you didn’t “prepare” the new employee that this might happen, despite the fact that you DID prepare the employees for this, except they have forgotten because the productivity policy was not enforced for the past two years and now suddenly it is.

If an employee who has worked for the company three months, six months, a year, is caught breaking a rule (like talking on their personal cell phone at their desk), imagine if nothing is said to the employee but you get told you didn’t train the rules well enough, even though this rule was repeated at least a dozen times during new-hire training.

Now imagine all of that, and then imagine that, after almost 2 years at the company, the new-hires you are training today make at least $500/month MORE than you, and that’s after you’ve had two yearly raises at the company, AND A PROMOTION! Keep in mind you have at least the skills the new-hires have - that was a requirement before you were hired. Plus you have more skills which qualified you to train them. Add in there that they can get paid overtime (you can’t), and they will continue to make exponentially more than you as time passes, since their raises will always be bigger.

Speaking of raises, now imagine that your boss is in another state and has never bothered to come out and observe your job performance. Imagine that your boss admits she’s never bothered to read even one of the post-class surveys to see the glowing reviews your students give you. In fact, you’ve probably only talked to your boss on the phone about four times in the past nine months: two of those times are because you called her repeatedly and insisted on a call back, one of those times she was required to call you to do your yearly performance review, and only one of those times did she call you to check in and see how you were doing.

Now imagine if that boss gave you a merely average performance review, citing the score on the basis that you had “personality issues” because you reported problems with another trainer - problems that were also being complained about and reported by dozens of other managers, coworkers and students LONG before you even worked at the company.

Then imagine if you found out that other trainer - the one with multiple complaints about them, and who is currently on a “written warning” 90 day probation (denoting serious concerns about job performance… it’s the last step before someone is fired) - got the SAME PERFORMANCE REVIEW THAT YOU DID, and the same raise.

Wouldn’t you want another job, despite the fact that when it comes to the actual work, you love what you do and are very good at it?