Wonderful article, Tony! Thank you for sharing it with me.
I have struggled with these issues my entire life. I don't even remotely resemble ANYONE in my adopted family. I have a child and a grandchild who look like me, but I had never met anyone older with whom I share physical features. When I met my biological father, I had a very hard time holding a conversation with him at first. My resemblance to him is striking and remarkable. I couldn't stop staring at his face and body, especially his hands for some reason. It was a bizarre, primal and visceral experience, and so helpful as I try to develop awareness of my physical self. It's almost as if I finally know what I look like, after being unsure for the first 50 years.
The weekend I met my birth mother was overwhelming and stimulating. We spent 2 days together and she commented on a lot of my mannerisms. What mannerisms I thought? I felt like I hadn't seen myself before, not just by looking at her, but by what she was observing and commenting on in me. That first evening when I got home, I looked in the mirror and tried to notice what had not just been missing but which I hadn't seen, even though it had been there all along. Those subtle aspects that are proof of belonging. The missing shadow. An incomplete self.
Wow, Tony, you are busting open this phenomena at the beginning of a new and welcome age of understanding and uplevelling of consciousness.
Thank you for accessing this information and sharing it with us.
I had an argument with someone this weekend about the right to know who one is, our identity. The person couldn't see beyond their own reckless behaviour in their youth(and believed a woman on the pill was a form of contract that gave him the right of confidentiality/privacy against any potential future protege). It's hard to help people make the shift towards thinking in the place of the adoptee/donor conceived, rather than reacting to their own imagined fears. Perhaps this is why laws and rights have been so long in coming and hard in changing, as many in power see only their own perspective and not those who've lost.
I mention this because I rarely engage with people in public on the topic, because of how it makes me feel, the strong emotion it evokes. However, it does feel like something powerful is shifting at the moment and to engage in the conversation, is a sign of wanting to strengthen the voice and give our perspective muscle, something that is helped by the support and volume of #adopteevoices speaking up today.
And then there is the genealogy. I didn't realise how strong those threads are beyond the living. I have just begun that journey and it is incredibly powerful, inspiring and so relevant!
I'm looking forward to more of what you have to share Tony. Thank you.
Fabulous article on a topic that has fascinated me since reunion with my bioDad… For the first time, I resembled someone! and I finally understood a dimension of “family” that had been missing my entire life.
The discovery rocked me & my understanding of what it means to be human and belong, and upended everything I previously thought about adoption as an unqualified societal good.
Looking forward to reading more on this, thank you, Tony!
as a child, before I knew I was adopted, I would constantly look at myself in the mirror and was heavily shamed for it. I feel I was trying to figure out who I was - and at times it felt like the person in the mirror was my only friend/family. as I got older, I would have a recurrent nightmare about not seeing my reflection in the mirror - I’ve only just now made the connection that I was processing being adopted (as an infant and again at age 2).
Wonderful article, Tony! Thank you for sharing it with me.
I have struggled with these issues my entire life. I don't even remotely resemble ANYONE in my adopted family. I have a child and a grandchild who look like me, but I had never met anyone older with whom I share physical features. When I met my biological father, I had a very hard time holding a conversation with him at first. My resemblance to him is striking and remarkable. I couldn't stop staring at his face and body, especially his hands for some reason. It was a bizarre, primal and visceral experience, and so helpful as I try to develop awareness of my physical self. It's almost as if I finally know what I look like, after being unsure for the first 50 years.
I'm excited for Part 2 of your article!
The weekend I met my birth mother was overwhelming and stimulating. We spent 2 days together and she commented on a lot of my mannerisms. What mannerisms I thought? I felt like I hadn't seen myself before, not just by looking at her, but by what she was observing and commenting on in me. That first evening when I got home, I looked in the mirror and tried to notice what had not just been missing but which I hadn't seen, even though it had been there all along. Those subtle aspects that are proof of belonging. The missing shadow. An incomplete self.
Wow, Tony, you are busting open this phenomena at the beginning of a new and welcome age of understanding and uplevelling of consciousness.
Thank you for accessing this information and sharing it with us.
I had an argument with someone this weekend about the right to know who one is, our identity. The person couldn't see beyond their own reckless behaviour in their youth(and believed a woman on the pill was a form of contract that gave him the right of confidentiality/privacy against any potential future protege). It's hard to help people make the shift towards thinking in the place of the adoptee/donor conceived, rather than reacting to their own imagined fears. Perhaps this is why laws and rights have been so long in coming and hard in changing, as many in power see only their own perspective and not those who've lost.
I mention this because I rarely engage with people in public on the topic, because of how it makes me feel, the strong emotion it evokes. However, it does feel like something powerful is shifting at the moment and to engage in the conversation, is a sign of wanting to strengthen the voice and give our perspective muscle, something that is helped by the support and volume of #adopteevoices speaking up today.
And then there is the genealogy. I didn't realise how strong those threads are beyond the living. I have just begun that journey and it is incredibly powerful, inspiring and so relevant!
I'm looking forward to more of what you have to share Tony. Thank you.
This is excellent. The article and your analysis.
Fabulous article on a topic that has fascinated me since reunion with my bioDad… For the first time, I resembled someone! and I finally understood a dimension of “family” that had been missing my entire life.
The discovery rocked me & my understanding of what it means to be human and belong, and upended everything I previously thought about adoption as an unqualified societal good.
Looking forward to reading more on this, thank you, Tony!
Thoughtful and thought-provoking, thank you.
Your writing about adoption (that I've read) is thoughtful and thought-provoking. Thank you.
thank you for this.
as a child, before I knew I was adopted, I would constantly look at myself in the mirror and was heavily shamed for it. I feel I was trying to figure out who I was - and at times it felt like the person in the mirror was my only friend/family. as I got older, I would have a recurrent nightmare about not seeing my reflection in the mirror - I’ve only just now made the connection that I was processing being adopted (as an infant and again at age 2).