I think in this world, acknowledged and unacknowledged traumas are a key way of dividing us. Someone with a debilitating fear of spiders for example, is going to be dismissed as childish by at least a portion of society, even if their phobia forces them to stay inside, hyperfixated on erradicating all spiders in their space. And yknow, that person may not be depressed, they may not have anything else other than their phobia, but their phobia is disabling. And they go online and see people validating those with disabling depression, and I just think that when something engulfs your life so largely, it's hard not to take that as 'the world doesn't care about my phobia. They just care about depression'.
I've battled with this feeling a lot thoughout my life. I've thought 'noone cares about adoptees', and I just didn't understand why. I remember my school doing an assembly on Autism, and all I could think of was 'well, there's more adopted people than there are autistic people, why aren't we doing that assembly?!' . I tried to make that assembly happen, and was told no because the school had an adoptee who didn't know they were an adoptee. Fucking disgusting behaviour, imo, limiting the education of an entire school because some adoptive parents didn't want to have an uncomfortable conversation. I could have done some good there, I could have taught people what the school refused to teach. The only mention I ever heard of adoption in that school was in health class, where they said 'some people in the UK choose to put their children up for adoption. This is very uncommon'. I felt gross hearing that. That school spent hour long lessons on how to clean your teeth, yet can't even acknowledge that adoptees grow up and sit in your classroom.
It's a kind of outrage you feel, like you're being snubbed in favour of another cause. It's jealousy - I know I feel jealous of people with traumas that are talked about, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. Jealousy is only ugly when you act on it. Feeling it means you're human. But in the real world, I gotta know that it's not the fault of other communities, it's noone's fault other than a society that likes to sweep adoption under the rug.
Recently I feel like the transracial adoptee movement has hit the mainstream, and I see people talking about it as if interracial adoptees don't exist. So I'm going to say that I think being adopted by someone who is the same race as you is an unacknowledged trauma. I think people dismiss our adoptions and pretend we look like our adoptive families. I think our adoptive families get away with pretending we are birth children, which lets our history fester in it's wake. I think not being told about our adoptions is a disgusting thing, and it happens because adoptive parents think 'oh, we can get away with not telling our kid they're adopted, they won't guess otherwise'. I think that even adoptees who aren't told about their adoption are adoptees, and I know they feel the same level of pain as I do. I think interracial adoptees are commercialised and objectified.
I think 'matching a child to the adoptive parent' is not always in the childs best interest. I was put in fostercare at 2 weeks old, and I stayed in it for 2 years because the UK system didn't want my foster carers to adopt me. They wanted to 'match' me to someone else. My parents were considered too old, this being part of the same ruleset that prevented transracial adoption in the UK in the early 2000s. I was desireable as a newborn. People want to adopt newborns. I think if they succeeded in taking me away from my adoptive parents, I would have been trapped in the fostercare system - two year olds are less desireable after all. I have trauma from feeling objectified because of this knowledge. I think anyone would, if they know money was spent, lots of money in court fees and all that, to take me specifically away from my family. And that's a trauma created by the idea that 'every adoption should be a perfect match'. That's why I think the adoptee community needs to come together as adoptees and be a group of it's own, because otherwise we create an artificial divide of people. I think 'adoption should be a perfect match' as an ideology is unrealistic. Sometimes it's just as important that a baby stay with their first match for example, to prevent further trauma. The UK adoption system almost bankrupted a working class family of fostercarers because they felt that it was more important for my adoptive parents to be a young, rich couple. A family of fostercarers who dared to do exactly what a fostercarers is meant to do - love their child unconditionally, to the point that they wanted to stop fostercaring and adopt me. And even though my folks are older, and don't understand autism or any of the stuff that makes me different from them, I still think this is the perfect place for me.
So yknow, I have different experiences to a transracial adoptee. I think mine are less blatantly obvious, because racism is pervasive in this world and disgusting. It makes sense to me why the plight of transracial adoptees is so loud and important. Hell, even your word is being stolen by the 'trans race' community that's trying to essentially cosplay as other races. I also think the adoptee community should be more united - and we should listen to each other, and work as a team. Because Jealousy is a human emotion, I think we're all projecting and feeling jealous of each other, when in reality, we're all jealous of folks who aren't adopted. And that's okay friend. Jealousy is okay. Taking actions based on jealousy isn't, but the feeling? It's okay. I'm jealous of folks who have something they can point to and say 'that's the root of all my problems', because I don't think I have that. Doesn't mean I'm gonna be a dick about it, and it also doesn't mean my feelings reflect reality. Just like how the idealised idea of interracial adoption doesn't reflect reality. It's two different sides of the same coin, like many things in the adoption world. I think the true path to change is changing the views and mentality of those who aren't adopted. Because they just. Don't. Get. It.
