Forbidden Family

Oh dear! I seem to have inadvertently caused Mara a conniption. So, it is time for clarification and an apology. I am so sorry, Mara, to have implied that you  are an impostor! Or, to give the impression of a hacker in my  website! Neither are true!

Mara requested that I post her Rant on the Census so I did. But, as the person who posted the post, the automatic setting on this blog’s Theme Options automatically “signs” the post with the screen name of the person signing in to post! Since I am the Admin, even as I sign in NOT as Admin, I have to choose an identity to post the post. (Perhaps I need to create a specific one for Mara! Now there’s an idea…why didn’t I think of that before! Mara, we’ve got to talk…This means that Lori C and Mary F might also need screen names as Guests here!)

For me, I picked the following names for myself: “imposter”, “legitmatebastard”, and “halforphan56″ and “halforphan”. These “fit” my different moods when I write. For some unknown reason, I decided to use the name “imposter”. I could just shut off that part of this blog’s Theme Options that automatically inserts the user-name or screen name, but I rather like the option.  (Doesn’t help that I am a terrible speller! The name “imposter” is registered and it should  be spelled “impostor”, so I will try to correct this, but it may not be something I can change!) Those are my four screen names, but since I am a legitimate published author, I was told by a business consultant, that it is better for me to sign each and every post with my business signature, that is why I use the formal signature at the bottom of every post.

In writing my apology email to Mara, I said that the screen name “imposter” came from a situation I had ten years ago. Now, as I turn that email into a blog post, I can think back to the time the situation actually occurred. It was 1993 and a boyfriend I had at the time could not understand how I could have two names and two families and be an only child in one family while being the middle child of ten in the other but actually the youngest of five while the other siblings were additions to the family. This boyfriend was going on and on getting madder at me by the second. He ranted that I was “aka” Doris but my real name is Joan, but then he said that I can’t be “Also Known As” because that’s a term usually used by the police to indicate someone is a criminal who commits fraud by signing another name for themselves to embezzle money or some other from of identity trickery. This guy thought I must be an impostor, so he yelled at me, “Oh my God! You’re an impostor! You’re a fake!” And so our break-up occurred because of his inability to grasp the complexities of my identity change due to being adopted.

 My explanations: To have an online identity, a person picks a nickname, or a screen name, or a user-name for her/himself. For me, picking one or more alternative identities was a difficult task as I had been a writer for 30 years who used both of my real names on by-lines. I have been known in the Buffalo area, and in some syndications and publications, by my legal name and my birth name. So, when it came to choosing a screen name, this was tricky for me. A screen name hides a person’s real identity online; it is a safeguard against real-life predators who can find the person at their home or place of employment and harass them. This meant a real internal struggle with my own identity.

And, for those of you in the mental health field, we do see an increase in mental health problems associated with hiding behind multiple online identities and “becoming” those online identities and “believing” oneself to be those new identities. For a person with real identity confusion — and that is what adoption has imposed upon me — choosing a screen name was a difficult small task. I have tried very hard to integrate my two real identities to make myself whole, so picking new identities damn near forced me to think contrary to a healthy mental state. So, this is my disclaimer. I simply cannot think in terms of creating a new screen name for myself because I can’t become a new person. So, “halforphan” or “halforphan56″ fits my description of myself. So does “legitmatebastard”. Those are the three screen names I use most often. There are times when one screen name fits better to the topic I am writing about. For example, it is better to use “halforphan56” or “halforphan” when posting something on orphans, and it is better to use “legitimatebastard” when I am writing about bastard issues because I am not a real illegitimate bastard as I was born legitimately, but I am a legitimate bastard as NYS declared me a bastard when the state took away my legal right to my real birth certificate and issued a falsified birth certificate to indicate I am the legitimate child of two people who adopted me, but that certificate indicates that they gave birth to me.

You should be confused at this point if you are a normal non-adopted person. I am neither. I am not normal and I am not non-adopted. I live with this identity confusion every day. This is why I am considered to be mentally ill. Am I afraid to go public with that statement? No. Why? Because this was imposed upon me by adoption itself. Other people and the institution of adoption created the problems for me. These problems are also with other adoptees. We do not share the identity confusion in exactly the same ways. Confused? Good. Now you know what it feels like to be an adoptee who knows both names. Being an adopted person who does not know their birth name can also drive an adoptee into frenzied frustration with a closed system that does not allow us access to our records for clarifying for ourselves what we need to know for healthy personal development. And for ADOPTEES’ SAKE, don’t misinterpret this post as an excuse not to open adoptees’ birth and adoption  records because of the assumption that “letting” or “allowing” us know our original identities will cause us harm!!! This discussion can go on into infinite circles unless the general public begins to accept that the CONCEPT and the ACTUAL removal of a child from  her/his family of birth and formally changing that person’s identity IS the basis of identity confusion and harm to the adoptee.

Look, people, this just goes to prove that the entire concept of child adoption is detrimental to the central person adoption was meant to help: the adoptee. Adoption, itself, creates identity confusing and pathology. As psychotherapist Nancy Verrier states in her two books (The Primal Wound and Coming Home to Self) the mental health profession needs to come to terms with the realities of the problems inherent in the adoption system itself by not pathologizing the adoptee and not pathologizing the mothers and fathers of adoption loss.

By extension, the legal and judicial systems of the States and the Federal Government had better start re-examining the institution of adoption. Family preservation is of prime importance, extended kinship care with tender loving care, and finally, legal guardianship, should be mandated as the only forms of child care for families in crisis. Adoption is NOT an option for the betterment of parents and children in crisis.

 Want to adopt? How about changing YOUR attitude and adjust YOUR thinking to, “I think I’ll be the legal guardian to a child who needs a loving home so that I can prevent that child from suffering permanent separation from natural blood kin and siblings and I can also prevent that child from suffering identity confusion. I don’t have to adopt, but I can help in more constructive ways.”

 ~ ~ ~ Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

Comments are welcome.