Adopted Child* “Waking Up” By Julie A. Rist   I am an artist. I was trained as a traditional portrait painter in the mid- to late 90's. I did lots of portraits, and I did them fairly well.

I always wanted to make art but I was always so blocked I could never think of anything to paint. Thus, the portraits.   I had found a subject matter without having to come up with something on my own!   This was my 2-dimensional life, the life I lived when in denial of the truth of my life.   I had no feelings strong enough to want to express in my art.   I was a "happy adoptee."

Then my mother found me.

I have always been a curious person (except when it came to the truth of my life).   Yet this event made me curious, too.   I was curious about the reunions of others, about the dynamics involved in reunion,  about how one should (or shouldn't)  proceed.   I needed to know how to feel about it (because I seemed to have no feelings about it - or about anything else of any depth).

As  I listened and learned, I became curious about the experiences of other adopted people besides myself.  

I encountered people in various stages of emergence.   I encountered those who  were adamant that adoption was wonderful, that they had a perfect life, and that their adopters were their parents, period.   But they were there on the boards, getting curious.

I encountered adopted people who were in the anger stage of their emergence from denial  (their grief process).   I encountered people who were in the shock stage, the depression stage... and every stage in between.

I see now that it can (and usually does) take years to undo all the work done to create the original "happy & grateful" mindset.

Eventually, I began to untangle the web of lies, the betrayal, the patronizing platitudes that made no sense.   I began to see the real picture - the unvarnished truth, the truth of my life.  

I could only see this through eyes washed by tears - the tears over my loss, my mother's loss, my family's loss, and the pain my adopters inadvertently administered  to me daily as I grew - resulting in a very unhappy and shallow person with a very big, winning smile.   I had believed all those years  that every single flaw in me was due to my own  inherent inadequacies.

Sometimes, I am curious to a fault and I don't know when to stop.   So I went on, beyond adoption books like Verrier's The Primal Wound and taught myself all about pre- and perinatal psychology and development.   I read papers, articles and books by people like Chamberlain, Verney, Siegel, Emerson.    There are so many studies and resources that I now find it mind-boggling that we still abuse neonates as we do.   There is no other conclusion than the fact that separating infants and mothers is a human atrocity.

I don't know exactly when it happened.   One day,  after  a great deal of inner work, study  and tears, I  just didn't want to paint portraits any more.   I wanted to paint other things.   All of a sudden I had SO much to say and I wanted to say it in my art.   So... I have started to say it.

Some of my work is what people would call surrealism.   I guess that's a reflection of how I feel about my former life. The twisted reality of  my truth, the twisted  reality of me  was surreal indeed.   It still is - I can't change the past.   I see clearly now, but my past will always be surreal.

It's a weird place to come from and yet live fully, 3-dimensionally, in reality now.

Is that corpse the near-death of my former self?   That was my fear - that if I went to the edge of the abyss and looked, I would die.   After all, I expected to see an awful person - unlovable, unwanted.... unkeepable - someone who should die.   What a surprise to discover I was none of those things!   It  was hard  to look, though.   It hurt to see that my life had been a lie and that the lie had been uncomfortably perpetuated by my adopters.   It was hard to see that they hurt me so badly when they were only doing what they thought was best (they believed and acted on the lies they were fed by the adoption agency).

What's in that abyss is a foreign universe - a place wholly unkown to you where your true self lies.   It does not feel like a safe place to go and, sadly, most don't ever go there.   It's a long and painful process.   SO much has to be processed and one has to re-assess one's past at every stage.   To have it all come at once might indeed kill you.   And you must do it virtually alone because most people want you to stay in denial so they don't have to question their beliefs or face their  fears.   They want you to think, act and live like a zombie so they can be comfortable.

Little bits of denial fall away one at a time, like teeth in a diseased mouth.   Halfway through, words move across those remaining rotten teeth  Saying things like "I still believe adoption is good. It's just mine that wasn't."

Ignorance is not bliss.   Ignorance is safe.   It's hiding your head in the sand and, in the case of denial, saying that the view is "great!"   People cling to their denial like a drowning man clings to his sinking boat.   For what?   To protect a seemingly sacred lie at the expense of their own truth?   Maybe their own truth is that they can float or fly or swim.   How will they know if they cling to that sinking boat?

Copyright © Julie Rist 2004

- Back to Adoptees Speaking Out -

*Note the terms "adopted child" and "adopted children" are used on this website for search engine purposes. Origins Canada fully recognizes and respects persons who were adopted as adults, not perpetual children.