I'll grow up to be just like Mommy, right?

Once I officially became a Chatham, I never looked back.

I never thought of Korea or of who my Korean mother or father might have been. I never fantasized about their appearance or whereabouts or imagined their distant pining for me. It never dawned on me to even entertain a thought about either one of them. As far as I knew, I had never seen them or touched them. I had no memory of either one. They were more like two people who had never existed. So, I forgot, or rather, it was more as though there was nothing to remember and therefore, nothing to forget.

I moved on.

I became the "typical little American girl” who attended school in ruffled dresses and shiny white shoes, who played with Barbie Dolls and Cabbage Patch Kids, who played dress up and tried to walk in her Mommy’s high-heeled shoes. I loved Minnie Mouse and Miss Piggy. My favorite fairy tales became Cinderella and Snow White.

During these younger years, I watched my Mom every morning with awe and anticipation as she sat at her vanity, curling her golden hair and lining her big blue eyes. I hoped to grow up to be just like Mommy one day—except for the fact that I had hair like obsidian, eyes like almonds, and a nose that didn’t slope, that I was not genteel or graceful and that I did not know how to maintain emotional serenity.

Although I had all but erased any awareness of my Korean origins, as I grew up as the only Asian among not only a family but a community dominated by White culture and standards, it did not take long before I began to encounter interminable reminders that growing up to be just like Mommy or like anyone else around me would require more than what I had to offer.

The Silent Suffering of the Adoptee

The following is some pretty vulnerable and intense stuff. I don't necessarily know why I feel compelled to share it, other than to try to communicate the kind of silent suffering that adoptees often endure, and the intense lostness that persists coupled with the lack of understanding from those around us.

My experience may be a little more on the extreme side of the spectrum, simply because I am an extreme kind of personality--deeply emotional, incredibly passionate, prone to melancholy, and inherently rebellious.

And although I may have expressed and acted it out in extreme, even frightening, ways to some, I know that I am not alone in how I suffered and wrestled amidst unresolved confusion, unrecognized grief, and profound pain--all for which I could not identify a cause, because no one around me seemed to have the first clue about the consequences of adoption on a person's life.

I also want to admonish those who would come to the conclusion that I did what I did because I had "bad adoptive parents" or because I was a freakish kind of exception--be cautious and careful, slow and humble when making such conclusions...the pain and suffering of an adoptee remain no matter how loving and how caring an adoptive home may be...and so often that pain and suffering goes unrecognized because we, as adoptees, have no safe place to express it.

So, we put on our smiles. We adapt. We push to achieve and to please, because we know that's what the people really want to see. And hence, our suffering becomes ours and ours alone.

If you were to meet me, you'd never know, outwardly, that I would have ever acted out in such ways or that I can be so fragile at times. Adoptees know how to appear strong. We know how to perform our expected role. We know how to please those around us. We know what folks want from us, and we know how to deliver it.

I was 19 years old when the events recounted below occurred. I'm 35 years old now. A lot has changed in the 16 years between. I have changed a lot in the 16 years between. I am in a different, I believe healthier, place now.

It all feels as though it was a lifetime ago. But the pain still festers. The silence often lingers. And I am still trying to find my way...

But I think at least now I know what I am looking for, who I am and who I want to be...

I share the following account to give voice to and to honor those fellow adoptees of mine who have suffered in silence, who, like me, are still trying to find their way--hoping that we can know we need not suffer alone...

* * *

[The below poem is to preface the personal account that follows it]

THE STRANGER

when you hop in your car and begin driving to you don't know where.

just anywhere. but here.

without any plan of return,

you’re thinking that this might be it.

and it seems to

surface seemingly from nowhere.

jumps inside the

labyrinth of your mind and gets. lost. it is

lost until you find it. it has been there forever

just wandering around and

suddenly your thoughts stumble upon this:

Stranger.

and at first:

you tell it that it is trespassing and that.

it must leave. immediately. but

then

it

puts on the moves. it’s a smooth.

talker.

and it says that it's here to help. you.

if you would just show it the way out, it will. help you. it tells you

it knows you don't want some stranger inside your head.

it starts to make sense. to you.

it starts to sound. logical. to you.

And so you show it the way out, and

you hop in your car. And

you’re driving. You’re going down.

South.

Away.

And then

when you’re six hundred miles south—

you start to think again.

and you wish you hadn't let that stranger out.

because that

Stranger--

is you.

* * *

Lesson # 1955:

Running = Dying = Resurrection

I awaken.

I feel something like sound and moisture pour out of my mouth. I think I am screaming for help.

One of my brothers appears in the doorway of my bedroom. He looks like an angel. No, he looks confused and terrified.

He yells out.

* * *

I wake up in the ER. They're making me vomit.

* * *

I stay in the care of psychiatric professionals for months. I run through Prozac and Zoloft and Effexor. My shrink is an egocentric Freudian thinks-he-knows-it-all. He experiments with me like a hamster, poking at me with his snide smiles and slivered eyes.

* * *

Just three months prior to the episode of the overdose, my parents had hired a private investigator. I had disappeared from my college campus during a weekend.

They probably never would have known had I not stolen three hundred dollars in cash from their personal bank account. I would have taken more, but the ATM would not let me withdraw more than that.

I woke up in a hotel room somewhere in Tennessee to a loud banging on the door. It was the private investigator. He had found me.

The funny thing is—to this day—I still have no recollection of how I ended up in that hotel room. I just remember getting in my car, turning the key in the ignition, and merging onto the freeway. After that, I don't remember a thing before awakening to the loud banging on the hotel room door, and even that’s a bit grainy and hazy.

* * *

After the private investigator tracked me down, I do remember standing next to my Mom, getting checked into a psychiatric unit. As my Mom signed papers, I noticed a wrinkled curly-haired woman wandering around stark naked. The nurses tried to corral her—she swatted at them like they were giant insects. Another woman, thin with long black hair, walked laps around the unit with a plastic look on her face, clutching a handbag closely to her body.

As I stood there awaiting my fate, I felt equally terrified yet relieved.

* * *

I was in the coo-coo’s nest for only one week that first time.

In comparison to all my fellow comrades on the unit, I must have appeared as stable and as sane as the U.S. Constitution to most of the doctors and nurses.

But I was sure to tumble that assessment.

* * *

Less than three months after my release, on Easter morning, I decided that I wanted to sleep. For the rest of my life.

What better day to sleep than on the day of resurrection.

I thought that if I could somehow die like Jesus then maybe I could somehow be resurrected like Jesus. I imagined that I could lay to rest forever all my wrongs and all my pain, all my loneliness and all my selfish crimes. And upon my awakening, all that would be left would be everything good and happy.

But it doesn't work that way. I wasn't able, that day, to kill the darker parts of myself. It's all or nothing. And I came up with nothing. Or perhaps, I was secretly hoping to find it all.

It would seem that no resurrection came to me that day. At least, not the resurrection for which I was looking.

Instead of waking up anew, I woke up vomiting. And like I said, I got a three-month vacation, munching on anti-depressants and playing hamster for the shrink—somehow still waiting, still hoping, for that elusive day, when all that would remain would be good.

* * *

[For more personal accounts of my experiences "Growing up as a Korean-American adoptee" click here.]

The Yellow Elephant

Lesson #1770 :

Square peg + massive force =

jam into round hole but still does not “fit”

I’m a semester away from high school graduation. The last place I want to be is in the midst of a family reunion with loads of people swarming about.

I have not seen most of these people in at least ten years.

Besides intensely disliking large gatherings, I even more intensely dislike large gatherings with people whom I’m supposed to pretend to be happy to see when in fact neither one of us can remember the other’s name since the last reunion we attended—whenever that was.

Nonetheless, I am here. I feel lost, awkward. I’m a feral Siamese—hanging out with packs of Great Danes, German Shepherds, and St. Bernard’s—skittish, freaked, and ready to scratch your eyes out.

I scan the packs, trying to find the one St. Bernard that I can actually trust. He’s my hiding place under the bed when I have no bed under which to hide.

I finally spot him.

I simultaneously admire and envy my youngest brother, Geoff. He makes this all look so easy.

I sit there quietly, watching Geoff and the ease at which he mingles through the crowds of family and relatives.

Suddenly someone taps me on my shoulder, “Hello there. Are you supposed to be here, honey?”

“Excuse me?” I say.

“Did you come here with someone? Are you supposed to be here?”

“I’m sorry, what? I don’t understand.”

“This is the Chatham Family Reunion.”

“Oh, I see—uh, yes, I know. I’m Missy. That’s my Dad over there.”

“Oh, really? I’m sorry. You’re who?”

“I’m a Chatham. I’m adopted.”

“Oh. Really. Yes, okay.” The woman furrows her eyebrows. She still looks a bit confused and equally perturbed. She quickly turns away and wanders off.

I sit there feeling small and misplaced. Someone, please, get me out of here.

But I have to stay.

These strangers are my family—whether they believe it, or don’t believe it.

Whether I feel it, or I don’t.

We are all family.

* * *

Even though that happened almost twenty years ago, it still makes me wince.

I don’t remember what the woman looked like or who she was. But I don’t feel too bad about it, because I’d bet a million bucks that if she saw me again, she’d still ask me ever so kindly, as though I were a five-year old foreigner, Are you supposed to be here, Honey?

* * *

[Click here to read the entire series on "Growing Up as a KAD"]

It's not for pity's sake

A a few months ago in a post titled, "Why being adopted as an infant does not nullify adoption loss", I listed some examples of how being adopted affects my daily life, even in the most mundane, daily activities, whether shopping with my mom or boarding an airplane with one of my older brothers. More recently, I have shared a few examples in a series, "Growing up as a KAD," of what I experienced as a Korean-American adoptee growing up within an American- and Caucasian-centric community.

I want to clarify that I share such examples not to try to elicit pity or to try to demonstrate that I'm some kind of victim of a unique, unprecedented suffering (which is clearly not the case), but rather simply to exemplify exactly what I stated above (and in the original post): being adopted affects an adoptee's daily life beyond infancy and into adulthood--really for a lifetime.

The reason I'm making this seemingly redundant clarification is that some of the comments that ensued in the discussion following the original post seemed to indicate that particular readers were missing the point. Also, this is a topic that, much to my chagrin and exhaustion, many adoptive parents and the like continue to question and doubt or misunderstand and ignore. As Raina wrote, "There are people who are, at this very minute, talking about adoptees. They’re discussing whether we have a right to our opinions and emotions. Whether we should speak out or shut up. There are actually AP’s who are debating the pros and cons of listening to the voices of adult adoptees."

The fact that adoption affects our lives as adoptees from infancy through adulthood seems to face consistent questioning and skepticism--the validity of our emotions and experiences undergo a peculiar mix of scrutiny and dismissal--and therefore, requires ongoing clarification and explanation (which I find ridiculous and annoying, but nonetheless, necessary).

I think it came to the forefront of my mind again recently, because I myself am pregnant and will be holding my own infant child some time early next year. Experiencing pregnancy and anticipating motherhood emphasizes for me personally yet again that being adopted is a lifetime experience with lifetime consequences--and the fact that I was adopted as an infant certainly does not preclude me from experiencing these ongoing, daily consequences of being adopted. In fact, no matter the circumstances of any given adoptee's adoption, there are always long-term consequences. It's your choice whether you decide to acknowledge this truth.

Furthermore, even more poignant is the truth that although I was adopted as an infant, as I approach motherhood, I still have to recognize and manage the ways in which my experiences as an adoptee could potentially affect the way I will parent my child-to-be. Now, if that doesn't exemplify for you how profound and reaching the very real repercussions of being adopted are then I don't know what in the world will.

In a previous post, I briefly discussed some of my initial thoughts and emotions regarding the unique ways in which I am experiencing pregnancy as an adoptee. This is again, a clear example of how being adopted affects my life as a whole from infancy through adulthood.

It is such a detrimental and oppressive misconception that those of us adopted in infancy will somehow bypass the consequences of being adopted whether they be the ongoing grief and loss or the daily discrepancies and discriminations we face from those around us.

Understand this--I don't feel sorry for myself. When someone makes an ignorant comment or treats me differently, I don't obsess about that person, and I know full well that the person who interacted with me in such a way doesn't waste another second thinking about me once the interaction is done. But again. That's. Not. The point. I am not attempting to demonize any particular individual nor am I trying to build a case as to why my sob story is more "sobby" than yours.

I recall these examples truly and simply to help others understand why and how being adopted is a lifetime experience that comes with ongoing daily consequences that are not nullified simply because one was adopted as an infant (or otherwise) or because the adoptive parents are viewed as near saints. Whether a momentous life event like marriage or giving birth or a more mundane event like going to school or stopping by the grocery store, adoptees encounter consistent reminders of the fact that we are adopted and how that permanent status has changed our lives forever in both small and big ways--regardless of when or how our adoptions have taken place.

So, the next time you catch yourself thinking that those of us adopted as infants or adopted by the metaphorical equal of Mother Theresa herself (rest her soul) got the better end of the deal, because you think we won't experience the negative consequences or difficulties beyond infancy...

Please, take some time to think again...and again, as many times and as long as is needed, until it becomes second nature to catch yourself thinking that those of us adopted as infants (or otherwise) did not get the better end of the deal. But rather that we simply were the recipients of a deal over which we had no control, and although this is not unique to adoptees alone, we, along with the truth of our experiences, remain uniquely dismissed and criticized for our need to be acknowledged.

Nonetheless, we must ultimately learn to navigate and manage the complex and ongoing consequences of that deal, regardless of whether you or anyone else ever cares enough to choose to recognize the very truth that so many deny.

Middle School Math: Asian - Oriental + Chink = Run

Lesson #1201:

Middle School Math:

Asian - Oriental + Chink = Run

To any White friends I made during middle school, I was everyone’s little “Chinese” friend, except for the obvious fact that I was not actually Chinese.

“But it’s all the same, right? You’re all Asian, right?”

“Sure, we’re all Asian, but it’s kind of like you’re all White, but you’re not the same White as the White people in England or Australia or Ireland, or something like that.”

“What does it matter any way? Korean, Chinese, who cares?” Just as Alice finished up her sentence, I felt something hit me in the back, and then in the back of my head.

I turned around.

“Hey, you oriental! Hey, chink! Do you understand that?!”

Alice ran away.

I still felt a bit disoriented. I heard cackling and loud, raucous laughter. I was trying to figure out what was happening, when I felt another object hit me in the forehead. I looked down the hill, and I saw a group of three boys laughing and pointing.

One of the boys had a giant soda cup. He reached in and pulled out a piece of ice. At the same time, I saw one of the other boys pick up a rock. They both began to throw their found objects in my direction.

A part of me stood there in disbelief, not wanting to comprehend what was unfolding. I didn’t want to believe that this was actually happening to me. Finally, it all began to process, and I realized that they were indeed throwing rocks and pieces of ice at me.

Move your legs and feet, dumby. Get out of the way. Do something. Don’t just stand there like your some kind of idiot.

I turned back around and started running with my head down, trying to cover it with my notebook.

I couldn’t believe what was happening. I thought to myself, surely, this is a mistake. Surely, I’m having a bad dream. But the throbbing at the back of my head told me that this was anything but a bad dream.

I stopped for a second and looked back again. I had made it over the crest of the hill. I couldn’t see the boys anymore, which hopefully meant that they couldn’t see me either. Maybe it was all a mistake. Maybe I misheard what they said.

The street ended at the top of the hill where it met with the street on which I lived. I took a left. Just two houses down on the left, I reached my house. I made my way up the driveway. I got to the front door and dug out my house key from my backpack.

I paused. This is my home, right? I looked around at the yard and the front of the house.

I unlocked the front door. It cracked open; the alarm was beeping. I keyed in the code. No one else was home.

I made my way up the stairs to my bedroom. When I reached the top of the stairs, I examined the arrangement of family photos perched atop one of the cabinets.

I wanted to take them all down and bring them to school, so that everyone could see that I was just like they were. I’m the same. See, my family looks just like yours.

I got to my bedroom and closed the door. I put my book bag down.

I stood in front of my long-way mirror. I turned to the side and then back facing forward.

Every time I saw myself, I was still surprised to see this short, black-haired, almond-eyed girl staring back.

But the world never forgets what it sees. And it does its best to make certain that I, too, won’t ever forget the way it sees me.

* * *

Alice and I did not talk anymore after that incident, which clarified that what had taken place that day had not been a bad dream or a mistake.

I never told anyone about what happened, hoping that pretending as though it never happened would make it hurt less.

My mom eventually asked me about Alice. I told her that I didn’t like Alice anymore, that she wasn’t a nice friend. My mom didn’t ask me any more questions. She simply said, “I’m sorry. Well, don’t you worry, honey, there are more nice friends out there to be made. Don’t worry yourself over the duds.”

I wanted to say in response, “What if I’m one of the duds?”

But instead, I just gave her a smile and said, “Thanks, mom.”

* * *

[Click here to read the series on "Growing Up as a KAD"]

Kindergarten & Racism: Welcome to the Real World, Kid

Lesson #501:

Kindergarten + Playground = Education

Choing-chong-dong-dung! Choing-chong-chung-chong!

My classmates are jumping around in and out of my face, in a dancing, clown-like way. They’re all laughing and pulling at the corners of their eyes.

I crinkle my nose and squint my eyes, as I pull my head back, and wonder to myself, What are they doing? They look and sound so silly.

I look behind me. I look around me. I feel confused. Why are they doing that?

I feel something in my chest sink. Something about this hurts, but I’m only five years old, and I can’t make sense of it.

So, I just laugh. Not because I think they’re funny, but because I guess that maybe I should laugh, too, so that I at least look like I get the joke, even though I have no idea what’s going on.

* * *

Once I get home from school, I race to the bathroom, because I’ve been holding it since afternoon naptime.

I flush the toilet and go to the sink to wash my hands. I step up onto my little stool so I can reach the faucet. I turn the water on, and happen to glance at the mirror.

As I catch a glimpse of my reflection, I am surprised by what I see.

I splash some water on my face. I try to smile. I hurry down off of my step stool and slap the light off.

All of a sudden, what happened at school during recess begins to make sense. And I realize that the other kids on the playground weren’t talking to me—they were making fun of me.

* * *

After five short years of living, a kind of harsh light began to crawl out from underneath its rock.

That day on the playground, it flexed its shoulders and pushed up the rock until the rock stood on edge.

The light quivered a bit, and then gave the rock one last heave.

The rock tumbled back and landed with a thud. The light began to pour itself out into the open.

That kind of light does not know how to lie. It is brazenly honest.

When I got home from school that day, the light had followed me home. It hit the mirror, and for the first time in my life I became uncomfortably aware that somehow I was never going to be like all the other kids.

I had begun my education.

That day I learned that grown-ups don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to words. That day I learned that words hurt more than sticks or stones ever could.

* * *

[Click here to read the entire series on "Growing Up as a KAD"]

How a 6 year old tried to explain her adoption to her peers

Lesson #642:

Heaven = babies – orphans = perpetuate fantasies/ticking time bomb

Heaven dropped me like a bomb.

At least that’s what I used to like to tell all my little friends at elementary school in Mayport, Florida when I didn’t know how to explain why I looked so different from the rest of my family.

“I dropped out of the sky from heaven. I didn’t come from my mommy’s tummy like you did. I came straight from heaven,” I would proudly declare.

My little girlfriends at recess would widen their eyes and coo, until one of them would speak up and ask, “But, wait, I thought you came from an orphanage.”

And just like that, my logic slipped into my Kool-Aid and dissolved.

“Well, after the orphanage, God took me back up into Heaven, and then he brought me back so that I could be with my family.”

“You’re weird,” one of the girls would say.

“Do you remember the orphanage? Was it like the movie ‘Annie?’ ”

I could feel them ebbing away, “Uh, no, I don’t really remember. Not really. I was just a baby.” Their faces would fall with discontent and boredom.

“Let’s go swing!”

And off they would go to the swings, while I stood there alone, watching them laugh and whisper in each other’s ears secret things that I knew I would never know.

* * *

[Click here to read the entire series on "Growing Up as a KAD"]

What I learned as a 5th grade Korean-American Adoptee

Lesson #1002:

Korea = 0

During the fifth grade, while my family and I were living in the Philippines, I remember a girl named Jill. She and I were in the gifted class together at the elementary school on the U.S. military base, Subic Bay.

I remember her so well because everyone thought we were sisters. We were the same height. We both had long, straight hair--slick and black like motor oil--and almond-shaped slits for eyes. Our skin was the color of burnt caramel from playing on the jungle gyms in the tropical sun during recess. Our birth dates were even the same, June 5, 1975.

But the similarities always began to fall apart when the knowledge came out that she was Japanese and I was, well, what are you?

Korean? What’s Korean? Is that like Chinese? Is that a country? I’ve never heard of Korea. Are you lying? Are you making this up? Tell the truth.

* * *

Although we were living in the Philippines, we were living on a U.S. military base, attending schools consisting of primarily Caucasian children who had not yet been alive long enough to know that the world was inhabited by other Asian countries beyond China, Japan, and Vietnam.

People often refer to the Korean War as the forgotten war.

While I was growing up trying to explain to my friends from where I had come, it wasn’t only the war that had been forgotten. It was as though the country had been forgotten, and with it, as though the people from whom I had come never existed.

Sometimes, I would wonder if Jill really was my long lost sister. Maybe I was really Japanese, but for some reason, my papers had mistakenly or subversively identified me as “100% pure Korean.”

Maybe Korea was a make-believe far-off land contrived to keep children like me in the dark, away from the families to whom we truly belonged, or maybe to protect us from peril that would otherwise endanger our lives.

Or maybe, I was who the papers said I was, and it was simply that Jill was not my sister, and I was not Japanese, and Korea was an insignificant place, so poor and so forgotten, that no one cared to inform their children of its people or their existence.

* * *

[Click here to read the entire series on "Growing Up as a KAD"]