Truth Challenge: Day 17

Day 17: A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.

When I started to come out of the fog, I did as much research online as I could in order to educate myself. Actually, now that I think about it, I started doing this research long before I came out of the fog. There are a number of books that have been published about adoption and I shied away from them for a long time. I heard about some of the big adoption books out there, “Primal Wound” being the one I heard about most. I have a confession to make. I never read it. I read the article and didn’t agree with it so I never read the whole book.

While I didn’t agree with “Primal Wound” I think that there are probably valid points in it and I started to look at other books to read regarding the subject. I read a reunion book which was great to provide a roadmap, but I needed something more. I ended up getting and reading “Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience” by Betty J. Lifton PhD. I read it in about three days during my finals and a busy time at work. This means I had no time to read at work or after work because I was in class. So I pretty much stopped sleeping and I didn’t care.

I never bought into the whole psychological argument that adopted kids were different from other kids. I didn’t see myself as damaged because I failed to mourn my natural mother. However, there were so many things in this book that spoke to my soul. I had a highlighter and I figured I’d highlight things I identified with so I could find them again. I had highlighter on almost every page. There were parts that I didn’t identify with, but they were a minority. Lifton spoke about the guilt, the fantasies, the shame, and the uncertainty. She spoke of the lack of identity, the importance of knowing where you come from, and the failure to identify with being born. Heavy stuff.

This book really opened my eyes and made me realize the most important thing. I wasn’t alone. There are 7 million other adopted Americans out there. Adoptees make up 2-3% of the American. While it may be a small number compared the rest of the US population, it is still a great thing to know that there are others out there who do feel the way I do, generally speaking that is. It just made sense to me that there are others out there who psychologically come from the same place as me, generally speaking that is.