45 years ago today I was handed to two strangers and my mother disappeared. I was 5 days old. #adopteevoices 1/ According to my (adoptive) mom’s account in my baby book, 2 of her friends had helped bring me home. According to my (biological) mother, she and her mother drove me to my new home, and personally handed me over. There was even a tour, or so I was told. 2/

This barcode tattoo on two strangers who are adopted - it’s had my brain spinning about since I saw it. They say it’s a family joke, and that it’s funny. But they don’t see that they’re the punchline. And it’s not funny at all. 1/ This tattoo thread, and the doubling down of how happy everyone is has bothered me so much because I was once the punchline of a long running family joke. It started when I was about their age, 20 or 21. I thought it was hilarious, and even played along. 2/

As a child, I would sit in front of my mirror with the family photo album looking for any bit of similarity between my face and theirs. I didn’t know I was adopted then, and yet I understood that I didn’t see myself in their faces. 1/

https://twitter.com/JeanetteYoffe/status/1453750141077245959

I played it off as having all recessive genes. My parents never knew how deeply this bothered me, because from the point of view as a child, I felt crazy for it. 2/

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/