My entire life has been artificial. I feel like the only real thing in an artificial life that I have been forced to live. The mere premise of adoption seeks to create a seemingly real situation for those whose adoption was based on the birthmother surrendering the child out of shame for having the child out of wedlock at a young age, being persuaded by the religious factions, not having enough money to raise the child, and being adopted by a married couple who struggled to get pregnant and had the money to adopt a child. The idea was to supply a childless couple with a child to help them get over their grief and give them a replacement, and to give the birthmother a way to move on with her life as if the “ugly situation” never occurred. Many adoptive couples even chose not to tell the adoptee that they were even adopted, or told them much later in life. Adoptees call these adoptive parents mom and dad because they are raising them. Even though giving birth to a child certainly doesn’t make a person a parent, raising a child really doesn’t earn them that title either.
My birth certificate is artificial. Yup, that’s right. The only document that is allowed to be legally falsified without any penalties. My legal birth certificate states that I am born to my adoptive parents. My real one is sealed up in New Jersey. Thanks to a new law finally passed in NJ after much deliberation, in 2017 I am finally able to obtain my original birth certificate in the same manner everyone else is. Even though I have already made contact with my birth parents, having that piece of paper will mean alot to me. Knowing that I am finally able to have something other than the artificial farce that I currently have in my.possession will mean alot to me. Even though the original one can only serve as a historical document, that is still important to me. To have proof on paper that the real me exists. When I originally began the process of searching for my birthparents, NJ, the state where I was born, told me they didn’t even have record of me. I had to go to the Florida adoption agency where my adoption was finalized in order to find somewhere that knew of my existence. It may not sound like much, but to see those words in an email, that the State of New Jersey has no record of you….that stings….especially when you have lived a life shrouded in secrets and mystery and lies and cover-ups your entire time on this earth.
I had to act in an artificial manner growing up so as to keep my parents anger at bay. I couldn’t ask too many questions about my birthparents because it was made very clear to me how betrayed they would feel if I ever searched for them. I tried so desperately to fit in to the persona my parents wanted me to be because they made it very clear that who I really was, wasn’t acceptable to them. Any difference in me that they didn’t understand or approve of was berated and attributed to my genetic heritage. Because I ate differently with a knife and fork, I was chided for that being the “English” in me and that was said in a very condescending manner. (Funny side note-though that was what was listed in my adoption papers, that I was German and English; once I found my birthparents I found out I was really German, Swiss, Irish and Welsh….no English in me…so the abusive comments were even based on wrong information and incorrect). I knew from a young age I wasn’t being true to myself and was struggling to find my identity.
Affection felt artificial. My mom forced it upon me. It was for HER benefit not mine. I always felt, from a young age, as though I was there to fulfill her need for love rather than the other way around. She was abused horribly by my witchy grandmother, and for that I do pity her. But I was not her little pawn to do her bidding for love. I should have never been seen as the way to make up for what her mother failed to give her. My parents failed at a lot of things, yet I don’t use my daughter as a means to heal those wounds. She charged me as a young child with a huge responsibility when it was me who had suffered the trauma of being ripped from my birthmother that was pre-verbal, that I could never express even if I tried to, and I would never have been allowed to. I had to keep my feelings to myself so as not to hurt theirs. It was always about them. They saw themselves as the hero who rescued poor little me from a potential life of despair and gave me a wonderful life where they supported me monetarily and showed up at my events. And therefore they were wonderful parents in their own eyes and boasted about it all the time. No one on the outside knew about all the times my dad would come home from work screaming his head off about God knows what and talked about wanting to run the car off the road into a telephone poll and commit suicide. Yup, I remember hearing that one as young as 6 or 7. And I didn’t even remember how much that upset me until I was triggered by that when my step kids were living with me and their good for nothing mother would tell them all the time about how she tried to or wanted to commit suicide and would do it for pity and attention from them whenever they weren’t paying her enough of it or if they had hurt her feelings.over something just to rope them back in. It hurt me to the core to watch another parent do that to kids and then to know that they were on her side and despised me at the time because of all the lies she was telling them about me.
The artificial personalities of my parents in general are something that will be explored in depth throughout this blog. My Dad is such a malignant narcissist it is beyond imagination the kind of stunts he has pulled. He is as fake to the core as they come. He can be one of the most charming people. He literally has everyone fooled except for those who know me personally and have gotten a small glimpse and 2 of my cousins on my mom’s side and the handful of people he has cut out of his life who have dared to go up against him. My husband’s family thought he was great, until my bridal shower happened, and still not even quite then,moreso when my baby shower occurred because that was when my mom sent my sister in law a nasty email and she finally saw it first hand. That was 6 years in to my relationship with my husband. My bridal shower was 3 but that was still only them hearing about it via my husband where it was something that affected them that my parents had done. They are so cunning. But last year when they started to involve my daughter in to their schemes, that’s when I finally started to realize I was not the crazy one. I finally caught my dad flat out in bold faced lies that I was able to confirm. And I was not about to let him start affecting my daughter the way he has affected me. That’s when I laid down the boundaries. That was also a big portion of my depression. Changing the dynamic of my relationship with them. I finally stood up to them in a way I never had before. I told them all about themselves and how much I saw through their games and antics. I told them I was no longer going to play along just to keep the peace the way I had been all along. I wouldn’t be artificial anymore because they have never known the real me. I have always tried so hard to vie for their approval and hid my true self in order to achieve that and still never have, so I am just going to be me, because I am proud of who I am, regardless of what they think of me. This has been a very hard change for me to make.
via Daily Prompt: Artificial
One day at a time 