Last month was National Adoption Awareness Month. I missed it but I'm going to share some arranged thoughts from journal entries I wrote down last month, but from a different angle than I have in the past.
This post is for adoptees.
(I was born and abandoned, at birth, in Daegu, South Korea in 1979 and transported to Michigan land to meet my family at 4 yo).
It’s natural for me to put myself last. I’ve been this way since I was a child. This IS the real me. Because of my life experiences I can feel what others feel and innately look for the lonely, injustice and exploited. But there is also this other side that tells me it’s been a self worth issue; a thing I hear many adoptees experience.
I’ve always struggled with feeling enough. Enough for school, a job, enough for friends, enough for advocacy, enough as a human and then some. And this feeling has only heightened as a disabled woman because I have even more to prove (against more odds than the average) to a society who often observes disabled as pitiful, sad, low rung, unloveable and unable; a similar glance of pity that exists when someone learns I’m an adoptee.
Both my husband and I (also a korean adoptee) grew up fairly adjusted (some adoptees don’t). But ultimately our first taste of others was loss and abandonment. So I ask, even in the best of circumstances, how could it not affect us deep within the hidden pools of our being; our subconscious where fragments patiently wait to be unboxed? No one wanted us, and even if they did, they couldn’t have us, and this is something we carry deep within our human well for the rest of our lives, no matter how great or loving of a family we may have found.
Abandonment as a child is scary trauma, and as both my parents have died I’ve been unpacking and wrestling with different vistas of my life. I now have dreams I’ve never had of my orphanage days and wake up uncontrollably crying.
In the circle of adoption the narrative is often less about the adoptee, with more focus given to the adopters because it’s a romantic feel good story of the good rescuing this “poor” child (just like non disabled often become the hero of disabled stories). As a child I often heard about adoption from the perspective of various adopters: how hard and expensive it was or how much family sacrifice had to be made to get me. As an adult I know what this subconsciously tells a 4 year old with no family who needed to prove the validity of their (potentially temporary) existence within 4 new walls.
What about the child riddled with hidden and tormenting trauma but too young to possess language to describe it? I heard less about the little child who’s been god knows where or what’s happened to them during the time they had no chaperone. It’s not talked about enough but sexual and physical abuse is all too common within institutions like orphanages, foster homes and even adoptive families (quite a few adoptees I know have been).
my baby pic.
So much trauma within my first four years of life. And I was alone for all of it. How could this not affect me? We all expel trauma in different ways. Some in anger, addiction, self-destruction or self-worth. I think for me it’s molded an understanding for those who feel the same way, but alas I know there’s much hidden hurt.
What we’ve gone through is often invisible and I think many adopters (non maliciously) are ill-equipped with this (cultural or adoptee) education, understanding or even sensitivity. We come as “happy” packages meant to make a family whole or even “save marriages”, as so many admit, whether they are adoptive or biological parents (what a burden on a child), while being forced to culturally assimilate to a new society and fit into a family filled with their own issues. Our confusion, fear and uncertainty masquerades itself as naughtiness or socially removed after arrival, and many times our trauma is reduced to bratty, difficult, emotional, moody…bitchy. And then as children we internalize this as more proven examples that there really was something wrong with us, catapulting, in some, a form of people pleasing to prove we are loveable.
Don’t see this as criticism of adoptive parents. Parents in general do the best they can. But see us. Hear us. We are not like your other children who were born in the womb. We were whole humans with a past before you that we may move forward from, but never forgotten. While, overall I didn’t feel different from my siblings in my parents eyes, I was, and will forever experience life from a different lens.
I think a lot of my life I’ve felt lonely and unloved (crying as I “say” this out loud). It’s not because I haven't been loved in my life, yet it’s how I’ve always felt. Some redirect this unworthiness into anger or addiction, mine was turned into being the perfect child; all A’s in school, doing lists and lists of house chores, high performance, being good and obedient. Much of this is innate, but I now see self worth also plays a role in my quest to give to others.
Overachieving is also a common trait for adoptees. I’m an overachiever. Nothing I do is ever good enough. I can get multiple full ride college scholarships, attain all A’s through school, multiple design and advocacy awards and I still think it’s not enough. I’m not doing enough, I’m not good enough.
I saw this clip from The Minimalists where they share why we feel compelled to live up to others’ expectations (or maybe it’s ours) and for this personality type everyone else’s problems or emergencies become ours. This is/was me all the time. I’ve had so much responsibility since I was young. I always performed high in academics and have been working, volunteering, doing pro bono, and forms of advocacy since I was 13. None of this was ever asked for, encouraged or routined in my family environment. And it wasn’t because of ideology or religion, it was because I could deeply feel when others needed help and this provoked me. But this also set up a human who always puts others first at her own expense. This vulnerable personality type was often hurt by relationships where I was the giver.
In my life I’ve done an obscene amount of free design work and personal sacrifice — always trying to help everyone else and giving my talents for free to nonprofits, churches or projects. And if on rare occurrence I did ask for money when friends’ asked for design work for their startups or projects, I’d do it for an obscenely cheap price. While this is nice and comes from a genuine place of believing in the group and wanting to help, it’s begun to wear on me as I’ve come to realize so many from my past took all my free work and good nature as if I was a public vending machine. This isn’t anyone’s fault but my own because I allowed it. It’s also coupled with the fact that creativity is the most respected and disrespected industry. Non-creatives don't understand what goes into art or design and are always looking for free or barely priced work.
And as a full time disabled advocate of 15 years (alongside full time 9-5 job) it’s even more because followers have expectations and constantly ask me to do this or that for them or “why aren’t you answering me?”. I don’t really make money from advocacy and don’t do it for money. I really do care. But as much as I want to help the world, I’m burnt out. I’m an advocate but people forget I’m disabled with my own life, and it’s hard balancing wanting to help everyone, while not forgetting about myself.
There’s this project that has been in the works with this company (share more later) who will be using and elevating my personal advocacy art, and I provided a quote that I felt was high but they respectfully accepted, acknowledging what I’m worth. And this made me realize how much I’ve disrespected myself in my work and what I have to offer, and I’ve learned it’s harmful to be so available for everyone to use. I’m definitely not a pushover and while I loathe confrontation I will always defend myself or what's right. But there's this other side that always says “yes” if I think I can be of help, and I’m trying to get better at not doing this.
I’m learning to say, “no, no and no” but not exactly because I've learned and more because I just physically can’t. My body constantly feels like it’s dying, and my lack of energy and ailing health has forced me to stop pleasing people and express when I can't stretch myself anymore. This declining energy has also forced me to re-evaluate relationships. With an exceptional year of mishaps, loss and grief, I have less physicality to deal with the stress and so I began mentally cutting toxic or superficial relationships with boundaries, because at this stage of the disease I’m deeply physically struggling and stress is the number one way to progress my fragile body faster.
foster mom and I in 1983 before leaving for America, and 2010 reunion in Daegu.
I’ll always remember what my foster mom said to me when I had a chance to meet her in Daegu, South Korea in 2010. After I shared what I did with my life, my foster mother (Kyung-Sook) cupped my face, like only a mother would without giving attention to my disability (unusual for Korea and ethnocentric cultures in general), and told me she wishes my biological parents could see me so, “they could see what an amazing person I always was and became.” It meant so much that someone out there who knew me as a child in korea said I was something worthy.
When I look into the eyes of “Young-eun Kim” (aka Kam) in this passport photo to America, I wonder what she saw. Did she mostly see kindness or danger? And was loneliness there since her inception into this world? I’d like to tell this frightened and insecure little sentient girl (often reduced to “emotional”) that she became someone who cared about others, and how proud I am of her because of this one life feat. I’d also tell my young self that you don’t need to earn love cause you’re enough, just as you are.
As I sit here without parents and lack of familial connection, more than ever I truly realize I have a whole family (history) out there waiting to be discovered. I feel a sense that a family I’ve never met knows about me and, perhaps, even thinks of me, and there’s this permission to move on and continue searching for a past I never got to know.
For adoptees, we don’t know a whole portion of our life. We see this unknown past as a dark hole and if any abuse came our way in the journey of finding a home, it exasperates this trauma like a bomb, whether quiet or loud. There is nothing left except maybe a few rice tissue papers documenting your beginning in technical adoption jargon. Our origins contribute to shaping who we are but it doesn’t have to be all of us. We are a sum of sequence events that build our roads, and as I’ve gotten older I’ve seen the world of adoptee and disability collide. Both have offered me my challenges, solace and identity.
I want to stress my implicit sharing is not anti adoption. Some of these things I share aren’t necessarily the fault of parents or this or that, yet emotional residual bits that inevitably occur in this journey. But there are millions of orphan children worldwide needing love and security so I want to end with this final thought.
Adoption is often seen as a problem solver but this is oversimplified. Adoption is often a band-aid exposing social systemic issues that exist. Adoption can be wonderful and needed, but in parallel the origins of social issues need to be dealt with to truly lessen separation from family in the first place, such as Korea's unnecessary stigma against single moms which leads to abandonment. I fully support and encourage adoption but so much trauma, pain and even deception can exist for the adoptee.
The general public says to those who are pregnant but don’t want children,” just adopt it out”. Easy, right? Except all the trauma, and social structure issues to support abandoned babies and children is already overwhelmed. In the US, over 400k children alone are in foster homes, and brown and black kids are woefully adopted far less. Why aren’t these “problem solvers” (just adopt it out) adopting? These same problem solvers are most likely not adopting children themselves because they “only want children who are my blood” sending off that age-old societal tinge that something is wrong with us. (I also can't stand the ignorant obsession with “my blood” or “one blood” but I digress.)
The problem with these inactive “problem solvers” is they don’t understand that children are often in and out of adoption systems, orphanages or foster homes thus often victims of physical, sexual or emotional abuse. And so many are in the system until they’re legally kicked out at 18, if they, at 15 or 16, haven’t already become a subjected to addiction, crime and even prostitute runaways from foster or adoption homes due to abuse or undealt with trauma. It’s easy to tell people to simply “adopt it out if you don’t want it” but there’s an entire world of issues, barriers, traps and misery within these systems that us adoptees must face, so we must be more responsible with adoption and surrounding policies.
Returning to Korea for the first time in 2004.