Friday, September 23, 2016

Adult Adoptee Mold

source Songgwangsa


I recently learned that even among my fellow adoptees and countrymen , unfortunately my outlook on life after my epiphany is not accepted by them. According to some or most of them my reunion experience or the simple fact that I know who my birth family is-should not and cannot be considered as life altering or the thing that will make my happy and complete my life.


Excuse me, but do they know me and my struggle or my circumstances, most of them don't. To me my reunion was everything they say it cannot be. It was life altering, an epiphany and it did complete my life. Please don't try to belittle my experience or underestimate it's impact on my life. Once again I am reminded that there are no manuals, instructions or general understanding one how we as adult adoptees and females are supposed to live our lives. So far I know that my views on my own life are not generally accepted, acknowledged or even respected. To be honest I feel like an outsider among the already stigmatized. Sadly to say... Some of them believe me to be a radical, extremist or rebel but I cannot see how my honest conviction and devotion towards my first family would make a person with these kind of views...

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I don't keep clining on to the past, I assure you but my past have influenced my life so I acknowledge that. To know who we are most of us most know who we were in the beginning of our lives. Anxiously and eagerly I look forward to a future where I can embrace my Korean heritage and learn to know my biological siblings.

Of course I realize it will not be easy but life rarely is easy, without challenges in life we cannot grow as people or learn from our mistakes. The family dynamics in a birth famiy were one family member was raised in other family is not uncomplicated. Especially not if you now find yourself separated by different languages and cultures.



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If there is a will there is a way, and my love for them will never alter or disappear completely or eternally. I am a member in my birth family-one of them, another daughter to my Korean mother and father and a sister to my seven siblings. Never will I deny how much I love them or what they mean to me, knowing about them has altered my life. Getting to know them has made me determined not to settle for less -or relive my mother's destiny or repeat the choices that my sisters' made.


Maybe I have struck a nerve, what I encontered during my last experience with the KAD community was a mixture of fear, jelaousy , anger and sorrow. If it was it is no excuse to make me feel like I don't belong like I should have to abandon my opinions and lifestyle and cobcious chooses that I made so far... If you have not walked a mile in my shoes you have no reason or right to judge me. I am proud to be an ethnic Korean, more so than I am to be an adoptee or more so a Swedish adoptee. Because the adoptees that I have come to know, rather superficial is not people I would like to be associated with just like I at times am ashamed to be a Swedish adoptee.

Recently my dad commented and said something like "do you really think it's that special to be an ethnic Korean", comments like these. Makes me ashamed of my adoptive parents and the society where I was raised and grew up. I don't think it's special to be an ethnic Korean it is just another ethnicity. But it is important to say that you're a South Korean, not just any Asian. In that regard it becomes significantly important. The thing is though parents loves their children unconditionally, and somehow soceity assumes that every child therefore most love their parents.

My Amom and I have a very complicated relationship, I love her I do, but I wish my love wouldn't be assumed or taken for granted. I wish my love for the woman that raised me would be appreciated for what it actually is. That love is sacred it's the same exact love that I would have developed for my birth parents. The love I share for her has never been at the expense of my birth parents. I still love my birthparents and even all my siblings.