I keep thinking about this Adoption Horrow Show [ link ] and how it sets back humanity on all levels a couple of thousand years. And I keep re-reading what I initially wrote when I saw this:
Adoptees have no will. Adoptees do what they need to do to survive, even if at the expense of their corporal and cerebral integrity. Adoptees are seen as “dolls”; as “playthings”; as props; as ceremonial fetishes. Adoptees are the super-mediated offering of a narcissistic society completely out of control.
And I’d like to ask: Can you recall as an adoptee doing something that was a matter of your physical or mental survival along these lines? Meaning, did you ever give in (past mere childhood) to the whims of your adoptive parents along these lines purely as a function of a desire to survive? If this is how much adoption has devolved since we were children, what horrors must await future adoptees? How much more can adoption devolve?
Transracialeyes 
Yes, I did, constantly. Always to protect their illusion. I’m talking mental illness. Serious stuff.
Of course, don’t we all? It is another reason so many liken adoption to slavery.
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It certainly is useful to follow the link Daniel provides and read the Facebook comments to get refreshed about the discourse of adoption. It can be easy, discussing amongst ourselves, to lose sight of what gets said openly in public as if it were completely normal. It’s fantastically unguarded. Though I would add that it originates more in the discourse about children generally–it’s symptomatic of that discourse, not the source.
What strikes me most about the photos: he looks dead. Probably due to his age, it looks more like a Kindertotenbilder (a memorial picture of a dead child), which would be ironic were it not so obviously not ironic.
In all of the various ways I have metaphorically killed myself I could identify this devolution. I don’t believe I’ve wasted my life, but I can’t get the world to acknowledge otherwise. I feel excluded from the public domain, awkward when I try to make my presence felt, unwelcome if I succeed–putting it this way is an overstatement to a certain extent. I can think of contrary instances, but aren’t they the exceptions that prove the rule then? I don’t know how to connect with people or it is, rather, they don’t know how to connect to me. It would be easier if I loathed myself, then my own despicability would explain why I’m of no use to the world, why I’m not called upon, why no one has any need for me.
I don’t think this is only my personal problem. I describe it, not to be narcissistic, but because I assume it is not a unique experience. Nor am I saying it is only a problem of the current times–the disintegration of social life, the lonely crowd, all of that. It is not a question of loneliness at all. *hmm…this trail trails off here.
I think we all do without realizing it. I interpret this as adoptive parents ‘speaking’ on behalf of the adoptee. Our stories, voices, and opinions are seldom heard. It’s almost as if the a-parents did this (the ‘birth announcement’ above) for themselves, to show off. I don’t know, I’m making assumptions. But there’s something to be said about lack of acknowledgement of the adoptee’s story – before adoption, and how they feel (e.g. being added to a family rather than contributing – there’s a power dynamic there that I can’t articulate).
I had to play along in order to survive. I’ve hated my adoptive mother for as long as I can remember, yet she lives with me and my family. There is no me, never has been.
When I first came to Lebanon I fell in with the ex-patriate American community at the university, for want of other connections. Thinking back, there was nothing more offensive then their “teaching” me how to “be” Lebanese, as if it came down to a list of mannerisms. Worst thing though was when they decided my nickname should be “L’il Orphan Danny”….