Thread by @LilSallyScoop

A 🧵 for my non-adopted friends: If a person talks about adoption in a negative way, please don’t dismiss it with a tale of your mailman’s sister’s neighbor’s daughter who had a “good experience”.

She is me.

And while I had a “good experience”, I am not ok for it. 1/

How many people do you know that will openly talk about their trauma with you? Adoptees are particularly good at keeping on a happy face because we’ve been asked to play pretend our entire lives. What you see on the surface in no way means there is not a war raging inside us. 2/

National Adoption Awareness Month, #NAAM, is November. Please let the #adoptees in your life know that you’re an ally and recognize the complexity that adoption brings beyond the publicly accepted ☀️ and 🌈 narrative. 3/

If you’re able, speak up and challenge those who say adoption is a beautiful thing. Tell them to seek out and listen to adult #adopteevoices, and sit with what we say without getting defensive or arguing. Don’t let them #notall us. Really digest it. 4/

No one is owed a baby. If someone really cared for the well being of a child, they’d seek out one of the legally free older children in the foster system who will age out soon and needs support. 5/

If someone really cared for the well being of a child, they would recognize adoption is a permanent solution for a temporary problem and rally around that family in crisis to do everything to keep them together and lift them up. 6/

Adoptees are 4x more likely to attempt/complete suicide and are over represented in other crisis settings, yet this isn’t recognized as a massive issue as a result of the system as it stands. Something needs to change. Adoption is not ☀️ and 🌈. It affects real peoples lives. 7/

Adoptees grow up, and our voices are constantly dismissed as negative or angry, but no one wants to look at the reason why. Those calling us angry don’t want the spotlight shown back on them for participating in a system that causes harm. 8/

It often isn’t until an #adoptee is well into adulthood that they can fully understand how being adopted has really affected all parts of their being and shaped their lives. Adoptees are perpetually infantilized. We’re Peter Pan, and treated as we never grow up. 9/

So, to my non-adopted friends, please stand with us, and help amplify our voices. Please help our voices be heard during #NAAM, and in the future. #adoptionisnotbeautiful #adopteevoices 10/10

I am utterly overwhelmed by the response this has gotten. I wrote it hoping to reach two dozen friends to give them a bit of perspective into the things I’ve been wrestling. To those sharing or taking the time to sit with my words, thank you.