A Reality of Domestic Violence: Coming to Terms With Having a Parent who did Something.....Awful

**Sensitivity warning.  This post addresses the topics of sexual abuse, domestic violence, and rape.  If you are sensitive to these topics, you may not want to continue reading.**

One of the number one questions I get asked is "how did you come to terms with your conception circumstances?"  This is despite the fact that I do not always talk about the issue or share my conception circumstances with others.  I will answer questions and help another person, absolutely.  However, just voluntarily sharing the more sensitive parts of my pre-adoption narrative is wrought with ambivalence.  Rape is stigmatizing, both for the women who have experienced it and the sons and daughters who were conceived from rape.  People even assume that all women who conceive from rape have abortions and that individuals of this conception circumstance don't exist.  So, ignorant things get said, and we hear and read them, right in front of us because no one realizes that this conception circumstance could ever be a part of a real person's real reality.  These comments and responses and the way we and our mothers are spoken about in the media are hurtful.  This sentiment and shame in society surrounding this topic are silencing.  I rarely am presented with opportunities to interject my own perspective into existing dialogue because existing dialogue is infrequent in a society that exudes shame for us and our mothers.  With rape being brought up in the media now in the context of abortion, nearly constantly, as the GOP is in the spotlight, this isn't a topic I can ignore right now.  I cannot read article after article and see newscast after newscast of ignorance and misinformation without saying something.  There are many adoptees and biologically-raised/non-adopted adults who share this in common with me.  Several of my friends, in fact, share this circumstance.  Three, who will be referred to as "April," "Amy," and "Jill" to respect their preference for anonymity, have helped me write this post to address the topic in the adoptoin community that needs to be addressed: how have we come to terms with controversial conception circumstances?  April, Jill, Amy and I are three adoptees who are willing to share our answer.

April and I are reunited adult adoptees who were conceived from rape.  Jill is an adult adoptee and adoptive mother who was told by her original mother that she was conceived by rape later into their reunion after years of telling Jill a different story about her conception.  Each of us were told at a different time in our lives and in different ways.  Amy is an adult adoptee who conceived while in a sexually abusive long-term relationship and surrendered her daughter to an open adoption.  April and Jill sent the portion of their narratives quoted here to me via email.  Amy and I spoke over the phone.

I Have Been Giving my Answer to this Question for a Long Time.....
My answer to this question has not always been helpful and I am not claiming that it will be any more prolific or profound in this post than it has ever been, but I can say that I've been thinking more about what answer I give in an effort to truly be helpful.  I want to be helpful, not only to individuals who share my conception circumstances but to any individual, adopted or not, who has had to come to terms with the fact that they had a parent who has done something wrong.  My answer for myself has always been "I really don't know how I came to terms with it."  I'm realizing this is not entirely quite true.  It's not that I don't know, it's that I have not, until now, spent a great deal of time analyzing my thought processes and feelings on the topic.  Perhaps the phrase "come to terms" is a bit misleading as it almost indicates that a person is never impacted again by something or feels hurt by it.  In short, I am not a victim; I am a survivor.  I do not let my conception circumstances to cause me to feel badly about myself.  However, I will not lie and say that something so profoundly unjust as this circumstance does not, from time to time, bother me.  Is there a word for that emotion?  The feeling that hits you in the hollow place in your stomach when something is so profoundly unfair it knocks the wind out of you?  I will get to that later.

The Back Story: How my Parents Told me
I clearly remember the day I found out about my conception circumstances. I was fourteen years old and about to deliver some type of pro-life debate at my Conservative Christian school, of course, using myself as an example of "choosing life" (I wasn't a feminist or an adoptee rights activist back then). Part of the "personal experience" I planned on using in the debate was the story I thought of how my original parents screwed up, got pregnant as teens, and how they "did the right thing" and gave me up for adoption. Up until that point, I assumed this was my story because of stereotypes. I had never been told about my biological father, probably because it wasn't age appropriate until that time, and because I never honestly cared about him. This sounds terrible and I don't know why this was but I was never concerned about who my father was. I was curious and concerned about my original mother and sometimes about one of my original aunts and maternal original grandmother. I hardly ever wondered about my paternal side.  This could be  explained by my connection with my original mom from pregnancy and birth, because my agency narrative centered around her, or  because I identify with her as a woman.  I simply don't know.

At any rate, my adoptive mom, a devout Christian, couldn't bear me getting up there and telling this story I somehow made up and thought was true because she didn't want me to lie. She doesn't lie to me and didn't want me passing on a false story. So, she being the secretary at the school at the time, decided to tell me right before my speech/debate.

There was not much I could do with that information at that point. I just blankly said "OK" and walked out of her office. I did not have time to be emotional or react because then people would have asked me what was wrong and I did not want to tell them. I quickly adjusted my speech by simply taking out anything where I might have mentioned "father" in it and went on about my day.  I remember asking myself "do you want to think about this now? Nope. Ok then." And I went on as if I had never been told.

Jill did not grow up with the knowledge of her conception circumstance.  She was told, suddenly and in an unexpected way out of the blue by her original mother after they reunited:

About 2 years into our reunion, we were having a political discussion. She is a die-hard Republican.....me not so much. We got on the topic of rape as a reason for abortion and she yelled into the phone at me, “I WAS DATE RAPED AND I DIDN'T KILL A BABY!  I remember that day very well. Immediate shock and denial. I ran a hot bath for myself, got into the water and called my husband. He couldn’t believe she said that to me. I hung up and cried."

April was told by her original mother upon reunion.  Both she and her sisters had been conceived the same way from an on-going, sexually abusive situation.  April said "that took a few days to sink in. I'm ok with it now as I realize it's not any of our faults. She also made it clear although we were unplanned, we were never unwanted or unloved to her."


My Mom: the Hard Job of Doing "the Telling"
While I don't necessarily think it's an ideal thing to tell your son or daughter something like this in the middle of the day just before they're about to go do something important, it strangely was fine for me.  I was not sat down in a room with my parents while they nervously shifted their weight in their chairs, fumbling over their words trying to find the perfect way to tell me.  That would have sent the message to me that this is something secret, shameful, and something to be embarrassed about or that is a topic I should be nervous talking about.  My mom, an incredible woman, somehow told me in a way that condemned the actions of my biological father but did not make me feel bad or make me feel ashamed of myself.  I do not know that they told very many people about my conception circumstances as I was growing up.  I can understand why a parent may feel compelled to share this with curious friends and inquirers.  This is especially because people tend to think bad things about original mothers and even comment to adoptive parents how awful they think she must have been for creating a child she couldn't care for--it is understandable to want to tell the story to make the original mother, who is not there and cannot defend herself from this ignorance, more real.  More like she is--a real person with real feelings who went through a real dilemma (whether rape was a circumstance or not).  But to my knowledge, my parents did not share the circumstance extensively for which, I appreciate.  For one, it is my narrative and mine to tell.  For another, I would be the one who would have to live with the ignorant responses and treatment of the people who would have known.  One cannot assume another person won't be ignorant--the fact of the matter is, many people are.

My adoptive mother is currently writing out her thoughts on telling me which I will post as a guest entry to this blog later.  I am not suggesting for any parent who differs from what my parents did to be hard on themselves.  There is no road map for navigating this issue in adoption.  Amy is in an open dialogue with the adoptive mother of her daughter and they plan to tell their daughter information at age-appropriate times and work out who does what telling as a team.

The Right to Know
I was in a class one day where we got on the topic of adoption and circumstances of adoption.  Someone raised the question of knowing one's origins in the conversation.  Another student responded "it's probably better for an adoptee not to know."  I held onto my desk for fear of falling out of my chair in shock.  How can someone say that?  How can someone decide for me what I'm better off knowing or not knowing about my life.  Good or bad, I have never regretted knowing anything about my life pre-adoption.  I am thankful that my parents never hid anything from me and that I have an open and honest original family as well.

Coming to Terms
I did not think about what my mom had told me right away but I did start to think about it later.  I needed to think about this and evaluate what it meant as a part of my origins and narrative.  I clearly remember summarizing in my head as an adolescent: did my father do something bad?  Yes.  Does that make me bad too?  No.  This basic reasoning empowered me to continue coming to terms with this knowledge as I grew older and developed more reasoning skills.  People have both teased (even mocked) and expressed fondness of my "academic" nature when I write.  So, you've noticed a coping skill I've utilized which is, whether it is appealing to any given person or not, is a positive coping skill.  I have learned to love learning and use learning to overcome obstacles.  It is a normal part of being human to ask questions to alleviate stress.

Amy identifies with this coping skill as well.  She regularly reads research pertaining to rape, abuse, relationships, genetics, behavior and illnesses.  Amy told me she feels it is "part of understanding what happened.  It's not hindsight, you can't go back and change it.  But knowledge can help you keep it from happening again or to others."  Amy agreed that passing on being informed about these issues to her daughter is important as well.

Trying to learn about something is how I deal with things that bother me as well as overcome challenges.  What has personally helped me in my life come to terms with any number of hard issues was to be informed about those issues, reach out to others who can relate, and do what I can to make positive change.

What have I learned?

The Lies
Coming to term is an important part of dealing with a tough narrative.  People can be cruel and ignorant; it is important to have a filter for this cruelty and ignorant and always be able to go right back to the solid foundation of self-love and embracing your own worth.  How are people ignorant?  People blame the rape victims (our mothers).  People get into abortion debates that go beyond standing up for a woman's choice and instead paint individuals conceived by rape out to be sub-humans who fall out of the realm of God's favor (see my recent post on CNN's faux-choice prejudiced rant).  Some people believe that something is just fundamentally flawed and wrong with every person whose parents did something flawed or wrong.  It is really no wonder parents of children of this conception circumstance ask me how I would suggest they help their children deal not only come to terms with their conception circumstances--that's only part of it.  Dealing with societal ignorance and the horrendously untrue things people will think and say about other human beings is just as challenging, if not more so.

The Truth
The truth is, we inherit a lot of things from our parents as well as learn things from our parents.  Personality, who we are, and behavior, what we do, are shaped by so many factors within and outside of us.  We also make our own choices.  I do not know why my biological father did what he did.  I do not know why he was such an incredibly selfish human being.  But I am not him.  I inherited his Irish and German roots.  I inherited my creativity in part from his mother, who was a hairdresser.  But I did not inherit his bad behavior, his selfishness, or his disregard for other people in his life.  I do not feel sorry for myself because my narrative has this very negative part to it.  I do not feel bad about myself because of what he did.  It is what it is.

Amy agrees.  She believes it is important for her daughter to embrace the good things about her ancestry and acknowledge that she decides who she wants to be.  She is not defined by the actions of an ancestor.

Jill wrote her truth:

"25 years ago, a friend gave me the book, “The Missing Piece” by Lee Ezzell. The lessons I have learned from that book, growing up adopted and raising my adopted daughter are this: Like Lee, I too believe that every person has a purpose, regardless of their conception story.  We don’t control the cards we are dealt, but we can turn negative circumstances into a beautiful life."

April remembers reading somethingng online that helped her.  She recalled that it said that it is good to "think of it in terms of "the conception was caused by rape" instead of "the person is a product of rape." It is no reflection on you whatsoever. Nobody is responsible for anyone else's behavior. "


She went on to say:

 "I was reunited in my early 30's. It did take a couple of days to proces that info. I accept my story now, and life makes more sense to me knowing it. I always say it is better to deal with the truth than a pretty lie or the unknown. Adoptees are not any less capable of accepting negative facts about other family members than anyone else. We do not need to be shielded from our stories, whatever they are. I know that I personally never did anything wrong to my [original] mom & it really helps me to know that she sincerely feels the same way too. It also helps knowing that the circumstances of our [original] mom's rape had nothing to do with the circumstances that led to our adoption years later."

The Abortion Topic, Support, and Self-Esteem
Unfortunately, there is a dearth of helpful and supportive information out there for people like us.  When this topic is brought up in somewhat of an intending-to-be-supportive realm, it is usually in the context of how a given adoptee is so grateful for not having been aborted.  It bothers me that adoptees draw this conclusion, especially those just going off of an agency narrative, because I too blanketed and stereotyped myself, my mother, and my mother's decision-making process due to the agency narrative in correlation with societal stereotypes.  Other people find rallying around the pro-life movement and expressing gratitude helpful.  I do not.  Perhaps at one time I did but looking back I feel like thinking of myself as "should have been aborted and grateful I wasn't" was not as good for my self-esteem as I thought it was.  It is also unrealistic to expect all adoptees to process this conception circumstance this way.  I do not want to be expected to be more grateful for my life or that the adult in my life cared and provided for my needs than anyone else is supposed to be.   I do not want to be a poster-child for adoption or the pro-life movement just to be heard or voice the issues.  That's not my job and I never signed up for it.  These issues can and ought to be talked about in the context of real life and in the quest of offering real support rather than the usual context where our voices and narratives serve to provide political fuel for one cause or another.

Jill described a scenario when an adoptive parent at her church commented to her that she should be grateful to her original mother for not aborting her.  The problem when people talk to and about adoptees like this is that it sends the message that there's no purpose to our lives or that God doesn't care about us.  God does not cause, will, or plan rape or any other kind of suffering.  But God does not hate, dismiss, or ignore the children conceived through it.  It is shocking more people cannot make this distinction.  Jill wrote "I admire my birthmother for her decision; but I am not grateful to her for that very decision. There was a reason I needed to be on earth and here I am. The rest is a mystery to me."


April worked out the abortion stigma and the difference between an unwanted pregnancy and a loved child conceived born from an unwanted pregnancy:

"I think there's a difference between :
1) expressing they wish they had handled the situation differently back then by choosing abortion2) expressing they wish the adult person should not be here NOW. The latter is a personal attack on the adoptee & it's a cruel thing to say. The former is non-personal, just talking about the situation before you as a person ever entered into it."

When Amy and I got into the topic of abortion in the context of rape and the abortion debate, she had something I found particularly profound to say:

"If you feel it is a life and have a connection then you love that being with all your heart and it doesn't matter how you conceived.  I believe most women who decide to give birth do not think of it as anything other than their child.  People think that most women who conceived of that circumstance who give their child up for adoption just want to get rid of that child.  I just don't believe that to be the case.................The name I gave my daughter means, 'innocent.'"

She continued later:

"I never once didn't want my daughter with all my heart. Through the whole pregnancy I was trying to find a way that I could be a good enough mother for her and I didn't feel like I could find a way. But I wished I had been good enough. I wished I could have made myself good enough."

Parents, it doesn't matter if you are pro-choice or pro-life.  When the majority of the support and dialogue in regards to this issue is offered in the context of how an adoptee's narrative can be used to further a political cause, rather than to provide support to that adoptee and other adoptees and individuals, there's a problem.  A big, ignorant, insensitive, societal problem.  It's unacceptable.  That's why it was so important for me to write this blog entry--to give a new perspective on support that is not centered around coming to terms with rape using the concept of gratitude that your mother could have aborted you.  Perhaps that's one way of coming to terms but not the only way.  All of the adoptees who helped create this post are pro-choice and do not view this issue in terms of the abortion-adoption dichotomy.

Concerns I Had
One of the biggest concerns that I had when I reunited is that I might look like my biological father and it might be upsetting to my original family.  Adoptees can tend to absorb two opposing messages: 1) that looks within a group are important and signify belonging and 2) that looks within a group are not important and do not signify belonging.  For instance, not looking like my parents does not mean I do not belong in the family.  Sometimes I have felt left out looking different than the rest of the clan.  However, I know I do belong, even if I don't look the same.  On the same note, I notice other biological families really embrace and treasure resemblance.  I don't think it is wrong for them to feel that way either.  What really helped is my family was not upset to see me.  I receive plenty of compliments that I look just like my original mother.  Looks have not been an issue for anyone.

On that topic, Amy told me:

"[My daughter] does look a lot like him. And talk like him. And make jokes with the same sense of humor as him. Sometimes I feel like I can just see him in her, like I'm sitting there with him in some way.  But it what it makes me think is of all the good things in him, and all the very real love. And the love I had for him. And I feel like this little person is a chance for all that was truly good in him to shine and to be a beautiful force in the world."

She expressed that she wishes for her daughter's father to have been the happy and healthy person that she knows he could have been.  She feels the best of each parent, not the worst, gets passed on to the offspring and that no child is born condemned by the misdeeds of a parent.  Amy's story is a reminder that domestic violence isn't just date rape or being attacked by a stranger.  It includes on-going abuse between partners who may love each other but are not in a healthy relationship where each partner shares equal power and a committment to protecting the other.

What's Still Tough
Having a positive outlook on myself and on life does not mean that I do not still feel sad from time to time.  First of all, this is a sad topic involving injustice.  Thinking about what happened to my mother, all of it, from my conception to being a young, pregnant woman, to losing her first daughter to adoption, is just a sad, horrible, thing to have happened to her.  Also, the ignorant things people say and think about rape victims and their offspring, and how we are insensitively used in political arguments as I mentioned before, is frustrating.  While I have come to terms with how I feel about the situation and don't much care to hear the ignorance of others, I won't deny that it is frustrating to hear ignorance.

Other times I still find myself getting upset is when it comes to medical issues.  Every time I go to the doctor and give family medical history, it is a reminder that I have an extensive history of multiple types of serious cancers; a history passed down to me from him.  There was no two people, in love and who wanted a baby, sitting down and weighing the pros and cons of conceiving while giving careful consideration to some serious medical issues in the family, when it came to my conception.  I had my first (thankfully benign tumor) at the age of 21 and had surgery with significant risk of permanent facial drooping and paralysis, all with no family medical history.  I deal with this medical history because of the selfish, abusive actions of a man who cared nothing about me or my mother; I suspect that will always be bothersome to me.  I dealt with being an adoptee with no family medical history growing up, all because he couldn't be bothered, at any time, to care about anyone but himself.

Exclusion Within Adoptee Rights
One reason all parents really need to get on board with the Adoptee Rights Movement is the message that demanding equality sends to all adoptees.  It sends the message: "you're equal and we accept you!"  Original and adoptive parents, please want for your children to be viewed and treated equally under the law.  As some of you know, my birth state allows conditional but relatively easy access to both the original birth certificate as well as the uncensored state-held adoption file for adult adoptees born after Georgia Tann's era (post-1950s) and open access for adoptees of Tann's era (born pre-1950's) as an amends to that infamous adoption worker's astronomical misdeeds.  One of the stipulations to access is that adoptees who were conceived from rape have to go through an additional process in order to obtain their own pre-adoption information.  I cannot even begin to explain well enough the message that this sends: that rape victims have a state-sanctioned reason to be ashamed, that those conceived from rape should be ashamed as well, and that unequal treatment for adoptees is reasonable because they are stigmatized by something completely out of their control.

Reacting When an Adoptee Shares
Sharing tough circumstances in our lives like these is never easy. Many adoptees choose not to share at all. Even with anonymity in this post, it was hard for April, Amy, and Jill to share their feelings.  How people respond to an adoptee who shares is really important.  Responses that have helped me are not ones who sought to say something profound or insightful, to be totally honest with you.  Responses I have found helpful were not negative, avoided stereotyping, and avoid telling me how they think I must feel (or should feel about it all).  Some of the best things people have said to me in return is simply "thank you for answering my question about that," or "I am glad you have so much support."  Simple replies are sometimes the very best.

Concluding....
Rape happens in this country 700 times per day; that's about once every two minutes. Various studies report increasing instances of sexual assault on college campuses and alarming percentages of college women (as much as 70%) disclosing they have experienced forced sexual contact sometime in their adolescent and young adult lives. Only a small percentage of rapes are actually reported and I believe this is due to the shame.  This topic is very hard for women to talk openly about.  I can only hope that by talking about it that progress can be made for those healing from the trauma of rape and in preventing rape from happening.  These things are never easy for women to share and certainly not for adoptees conceived from rape either.  I checked an enormous academic database while writing this post and found an alarmingly scarce amount of information relating to supporting adoptees another individuals conceived from rape as well as providing information to parents to are providing support to children with their sensitive issue as a part of their narrative.  I can only ask myself why people aren't talking about it and then ask myself why I haven't been talking about it.  There is a great deal of shame for us, myself, April, Jill, and others, as well.  How I "came to terms" with this issue involves working out each of the topics I talked about in this entry.  It was no small task.  If I can help even just one other person by sharing my experience it has made breaking that silence and sharing my thought processes well worth it for me.

Please stay tuned to Declassified Adoptee for a follow-up from my adoptive mother on this topic.  Also stay tuned to Lost Daughters as we may be adding feedback from adopted women who were conceived from rape there.  For those who are wondering, my original mother is open to writing about her thoughts and feelings and is not purposely being excluded from this dialogue--she is busy and has not had time for writing anything out.