First published by Lavender Luz—“I’m going to find my real mom!” I shouted at my adoptive mother when I was teenager. I’d learned that this hurt my adoptive mom’s feelings, and these words, I came to understand, had power.

But I didn’t always use these words as a weapon, and deep down, I didn’t intend for them to be. The “real mom” tumbled out of me without conscious thought, coming from an unspoken place of longing, since infancy, for my birth mother and pain over the very real feelings of relinquishment. A time or two I shared with her more vulnerably that I wondered about my “real mom.” In neither case was the “real mom” making a statement about my adoptive mom as being lesser or being unreal. It both cases, “real mom” was really about my grief.

Like many adoptive mothers, mine took issue with the word “real.” She took her job as my mother seriously and felt offended by the suggestion that she wasn’t real. She cried. She tried to educate the word out of me. She’d remind me of all the ways she was my “real” mother: packing my school lunches every day, showing up at all of my gymnastics meets, engaging with my teachers, volunteering in my classrooms, standing by me through struggles with friends or boyfriends.

She was a very good mom, no question—in fact, an exceptional mom in most ways. But I wish my mother had paused to realize the inherent compliment I was giving her when I mentioned finding my “real mom.” I felt safe enough with her to lash out in anger. But more importantly, secure enough in her love to reveal my inner, deep, usually very private feelings. The person closest to me was my adoptive mom, after all, and I relished sharing myself with her. My deepest yearning was for my adoptive mother to know and love me—ALL of me.

It is only natural for adolescent adoptees, as we develop and grow, to change and transform when it comes to our understanding of adoption. Relinquishment affects us differently during adolescence—already a time of great sadness and pining over the lost innocence of childhood. Feeling an additional loss of our first family, and our origins, can be even more overwhelming—so much so that our protective brains try to numb it.

So when my mom tried to talk me out of my grief and steer me away from the “real mom” who was a part of me, I shut down. I did what any Good Adoptee would do: I gave her what she wanted, and in doing so I refrained from being honest. I kept myself hidden. I’d already lost my first “real” mother. I couldn’t afford to lose my next mother—my equally “real” adoptive mother. I learned to toe the party line in my family, morphing myself into the daughter my mom needed me to be and hiding any parts that might disappoint her or threaten her love.

This sort of worked for my mom. But it didn’t work for me. Over the years, I became unhealthy emotionally. I learned to censor myself with my family. I had to lie to my mom, as well as to myself, about who I was and who I wondered about. Psychologically I had to pretend I wasn’t adopted and that relinquishment didn’t shape my identity in significant ways. I was forced to live “in the fog” of denial and numbness.

My mom had no idea that I kept her at an emotional distance. From the outside, everyone, including my mom, thought we were a bonded mother/daughter duo. And we were indeed close in many ways. But my mom did not succeed at winning my heart—which had been tucked safely away in a thick, protective case—particularly closed off to her. Mothers go away, my pre-verbal brain had long ago noted. It felt dangerous to get too close to my adoptive mother. How could I believe her love was “real,” if I’d never been able to show her my “real” self?

So … was it really working for my mom? It wasn’t until she was dying and I was in my forties that our relationship finally had its moment of truth.

My new book is a spiritual memoir about our complete mother-daughter journey. I published Searching for Mom in hopes that by sharing my real and raw perspective, I can help others understand the often-misunderstood hearts of adoptees … and ultimately find hope. I share the story specifically for adoptive parents—and for adoptees. I hate that it took my mom’s death for our relationship to deepen. My wish is for adoptive parents to win their adoptees’ hearts well before that, and for adoptees to know what it’s like to bask in the feeling of being fully known and loved—for ALL that they are.

Sadly, the more adoptees are silenced, the more we stay secretive … and the more we stay secretive, the more we enable the false narrative about adoption that our culture has been fed: that adoption is purely a saccharine-sweet fairy tale—a happily-ever-after story that starts and ends when a family gets the child they’ve longed for. Yes, it can be happy. It was that for me. AND … it was also very hard.

Adoption is much more complex and nuanced than we as a culture have been led to believe by viral YouTube videos and messaging from adoption agencies or the Church. What an adoptive family gains is a direct result of what an adoptee has lost. Scientifically, there is a bond created between mother and child—pregnancy and childbirth were designed to facilitate that. No matter the noble, tender, loving circumstances, when that bond is disrupted, there will be some level of fallout.

Let’s continue to share the fluffy and happy stories. We all need those in this day and age, for sure. But let’s balance it with equal discussion and honesty about adoption’s heartaches and complications—the mother-longing that adoptees carry inside, whether consciously or unconsciously, that leads to a terminology battle between “real” mothers. Acceptance of the inner conflict is the only path toward equipping adoptive parents to understand the adoptee’s psychology. That’s the only way we can truly bring about closer, more authentic relationships for everyone. The truth is that’s the only “real” that matters when it comes to adoption.

© Sara Easterly. All rights reserved.
This essay was first published by Lavender Luz.