What is the point of these questions?
Really.
Pain is Pain, and it hurts.
Period.
Really.
But
the difficulty of their situation
does NOT erase
nor does it even EASE
the pain I deal with personally.
So, why, just why do we do this?
Why do we feel the need to have a screaming match of
“MY PAIN HURTS MORE THAN YOURS!”?
Don’t we see what that does?
Having those screaming matches,
boils down to talking over someone else.
It is drowning them out so their voice cannot be heard.
It is standing on the person we’ve just trampled.
Why? Really – why do we feel this is okay?
Why do we feel the need to push others away and
create fictitious distinctions of
‘more pain’?
What do you want?
Are you looking for pity?
Or does it just make you feel better about yourself
because you can put others down?
I personally think it is ridiculous,
What I think we all want
– and what we all deserve
is simple.
A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T.
I don’t have to experience exactly the same situation
as another person
to acknowledge that they hurt.
However,
In order for that acknowledgement to be sincere,
I CANNOT
minimize,
marginalize,
or dismiss it
by
comparing it
to anyone else’s hurt
-–not even my own.
A mother who was tied down and/or drugged
so her baby could be taken and adopted out, that hurt her.
Can’t we simply acknowledge that it happened to her
(and many others)
WITHOUT dismissing it with the ending words of,
“BUT…. most mothers do have a choice.”
Why judge and compare them?
It does no good.
Mothers with a closed adoption hurt,
just like mothers with open adoption hurt.
Whether the adoption was
closed, or open,
the adoptee hurts too.
If you want your experience to be acknowledged,
then seriously consider
Are you acknowledging the experience of others
without judgment?
Judging who has more pain is
merely skewering others in the back,
and walking callously away.
That’s what the adoption agencies and adoption professionals do.
Suffers
More
?
Who 
Good post - There's enough pain in adoption to go around for all of us.
ReplyDeleteThank you, S. Yes, there is enough, too much pain already.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post - this isn't a contest to see who hurts the most. We all hurt...and that's the ugly truth of adoption.
ReplyDeleteLetters... "contest" exactly! We should not have to feel like it is a contest or turn it into a contest. We are all (original moms and adoptees) losers in this one. The winners are the money grubbing agencies.
DeleteSo true Cheerio.
ReplyDeletethanks for your support, WP
DeleteI agree... and the contest appears to go on from there to everyone involved in adoption. No one has a monopoly on pain. Hurt isn't about who hurts more, the fact is we all hurt but it is different. Far better to focus energy into empathising with each other and understanding one another's pain than competing!
ReplyDeleteNice to see you blogging Cheerio!! :) Missed you xxx
yes, Myst - the hurt is different - even from those in similar situations. The hurt is different between Moms from BSE, it is different between Moms with open adoptions. The hurt is also different even between adoptees thenselves.
DeleteYes, I thnk it is more beneficial to focus our energies in understanding and supporting each other, instead of dividing with competition.
I don't have a lot of free time these days, wish I could blog more. Thanks, Myst!
I have always felt that it is impossible to quantify pain. And I believe it was in a Futurama episode that made this satirically clear "my pain hurts more because it's mine." Creating a scale upon which to measure pain dismisses the real problem: mothers and infants were used to artificially manufacture families for the profit of a third party. Period. And whether or not one or the other person hurts *more* is utterly irrelevant in the whole picture. If you need personal validation or sympathy - you are entitled to it, and I wholeheartedly encourage you get seek it, demand it, and get it. BUT NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHER PEOPLE'S PAIN!!
ReplyDeleteAfter all, that's what many adopters do - they seek to mask their own pain in a process that creates pain for others - all to make themselves feel satisfied and get what they want irrespective of the real needs of those they are causing harm. Let's not perpetuate this narcissistic cycle.
Everybody Hurts.
-didi gosson
thank you, Didi.
DeleteI'll agree that we cannot forget the source and cause of the pain, and fight that - not one another.