[Note: You can read more on author Mary Anne Cohen on the Lifemother's Frontlines page.]

Is there a better way to frame and discuss our experience as mothers who have given up a child than the language of self-help and 12 step groups, medicine and trauma? For many, that language seems to work well and has been rapidly embraced by adoption reform writers. There is relief in seeing difficulties one has experienced described and categorized as symptoms of a syndrome, not personal failings or quirks as many assumed when they suffered in silence and isolation. There is value in seeing the larger picture of the surrender experience in general terms. There is comfort and solidarity in knowing that one did not suffer singularly, but that countless other women have gone through a similar experience with similar effects throughout their lives. Birthmothers speaking out about their lives over the years have enabled some to postulate syndromes, life-long wounds and trauma, and to propose a variety of healings and cures, all of which work for some, and none of which are relevant to all. I do not mean to disregard the good this has done in some cases, but to urge that we look deeper and wider for ultimate meaning and true dialogue on what it means to live as a birthmother.

The trauma/medical model is a first step in speaking clearly about what it means to have given up a child, but it should not be the last or only way that we conceptualize our experience. Lists of symptoms adding up to post-traumatic stress disorder or birthmother trauma may be true for some of us, some of the time, but they are not the entire varied and complex picture of our lives by any means. They are a shorthand and a shortcut for pointing up real harm done to many women, but in the end they are limited and limiting, and leave out more than they include. While the cures that go with the disease work for some, they do not work for all, nor do they often touch the core of grief. Treating symptoms is needed where such symptoms exist and where they interfere with leading a normal life. Phobias, obsessions, delusions, and depression are serious and need professional treatment, but such symptoms are neither truly universal in all who have surrendered a child, nor are they always rooted mainly in that experience.

What are the words that speak more clearly and deeply of what we have lived and know? They are old, plain, strongly evocative words, found in the Bible and Shakespeare; and in all the world's great literature. Loss and grief are words and states that we know; shame, sorrow, anger, fear, resentment, envy, hate, lust and love. All these words are huge, open-ended; they each contain a world of emotion, complex and ever-changing. We need to speak of forgiveness, and sometimes the inability to forgive, of truly amazing grace in some reunions, and crushing disappointment in others.

In reunion there is joy as well as pain, sometimes mingled together. In some instances the joy erases the pain. In others nothing touches it. Nothing is true for every mother all the time. Life goes on and perceptions and circumstances change. Our stories change as we see them from another perspective, not because the earlier version was not true, but because there are so many truths that fade and bloom depending on our point of view.

As mothers who surrendered in the last half of the 20th century, we have been victims of injustice and pawns of a rotten adoption system, but that is not all we are, nor all that we can be. We are not our wounds, or our trauma, or our symptoms. Constantly focusing only on that level of our experience, on what is sick and what can be cured, or not cured, on what is lost instead of what can be regained greatly limits us and our capacity for empathy and activism. It freezes us in time, forever the young defenseless girl who lost her baby, when we have grown far beyond that in our real lives. Trying to fit all of our lives into one template chops off vital pieces of many individual stories and souls, and leaves us with a composite that is at best partially true for many of us.

We need to be able to speak about our lives with words that are fluid, precise, meaningful and beautiful, in prose that expands and enlightens. We have those words, and we have examples of such prose and poetry as well, if we look outside of the adoption ghetto. We do not need jargon, social science or medical terms except when speaking of specific cases where these terms apply. We can spend years fruitfully exploring shame and its ramifications in our lives, drawing not on TV psychologists or dubious adoption experts but on the many great minds who have written on this topic in fiction, poetry and fine prose. The same can be said for love, loss, faith, betrayal, reunion, rejection, reconnection and yes, even healing and redemption; the whole gamut of emotion that is the human condition and the adoption condition.

For those of us in long-term rejection or only partial acceptance, volumes can be written about the virtue of patience, and how hard that virtue can be when it is the only way to go on. For those who have found a death or severe disability, so much can be said about grieving what is lost forever, not for a time, and accepting what truly cannot be changed. For those in happy reunions, we need to always encourage their joy and help them through temporary difficulties, to focus on the wonder of what is found, not on the years lost. We each have our own cup, empty, half-full, half-empty, or full and brimming over, and each needs to be able to speak of her own cup as it is and to see it as it is, not through the distorting lens of what ought to be or what is typical.

We need to be realistic about our pain, and also to honor the pain of others. Loss to adoption is not a death, although in the early years it can feel that way. Adoption loss is not equivalent to the Holocaust or other global catastrophes. Separation is not the same as incineration. Our loss is real and grievous but it is the not the worst thing that can happen to a human being. Where there is life there is hope, and hope for reunion eventually is something to cherish. Reunion can change some things, and make them better, even if it cannot cure all our pain. Giving up a child for adoption is a tragic and difficult life experience, but it is one that can be lived with. For most of us it is not a disease or mental condition, but a sorrow to be honored and admitted and dealt with , with compassion and forgiveness for ourselves and others. Rather than isolating ourselves in our unique pain, we need to keep connecting with the larger world and with the human condition in general. We have already endured much, and can keep enduring more. In time, the pain may become less as wisdom and acceptance grows. We are stronger of heart than any syndrome or symptom, and we can move beyond the past to enjoy the present and future.

It is vital that we keep examining our experience, and that we speak clearly and honestly about our own lives, even where our stories or emotions do not fit the current list of symptoms or the favorite adoption myth of the month. Poet and unwed mother Muriel Rukeyser once said "If one woman told the truth about her life, the world would split open." Keep telling your truth, with strong, vibrant, tried and true words!
 

Copyright © 2003-2004 Mary Anne Cohen