The Planet Glinebong
By Anon
TW: Brief mentions of Self-harm, suicide attempts, disordered eating, C-PTSD, sexual assault & bullying
Ever come across the planet Glinebong? It has two suns and it’s winter all year round…
Nah, I’m just kidding. That’s actually the word belonging; only the letters don’t belong in that order, an anagram. I don’t feel I belong in any order.
Do adoptees ever belong?
My friends, I belong there.
But families? No
I will always be the outcast. Perhaps I am bitter. Oh well, we can’t all be perfect!
What is a family anyway? No truly…what is it? Someone you share blood with? Then I have none now. Someone you are legally tied to? Well….does my work count since I’m under a contract. Someone who raises you? A village raised me…and no-one…and my adoptive mum…and myself alone. The people you share a kinship with? What does that even mean? With people who say “you’re part of the family/furniture now?” Cute but I don’t believe you…just don’t sit on me I guess?
Either way, I don’t belong there.
Like many adoptees, I spend my whole childhood people-pleasing to the max. You know, that constant behaviour to try and be perfect with just the slightest hope that I wouldn’t be cast aside again. Abandoned by the system like an old sock in a landfill. Trash.
I was the perfect student, As across the board. Every extracurricular. The perfect child any parents could wish for. Outgoing. Polite. Well-mannered. Witty. Kind. Sexy-but-not-too-sexy. Flirty. Always stretching myself to please everyone. But doomed to never ever be happy with myself. I don’t think I was ever actually peacefully happy between the ages of 10 and 20. I was certainly never at peace.
Let’s ignore the bullying. The undiagnosed autism. The rampant self-harm, the numerous suicide attempts (bleach, overdose, drowning - you name it), the eating disorder, the completely spiralling mental health and black dog that followed me around. The C-PTSD and the many sexual assaults and harassment that dotted my past few decades.
Maybe I belong in a secure ward? But then I’d be a walking statistic, yet another care experienced person failed and placed in our fucked-up prison system. Or maybe since I didn’t get a home, I belong without one. I kind of enjoyed it when I was homeless. I wasn’t judged by other homeless people. I think I belonged there…maybe…
I’m trying to learn to belong in my own brain at least. And I’m not body positive but I’m beginning to accept the weird, semi-permanent meat and bone sack I inhabit. I think I belong here?
I belong up hills, in wilderness, in raw nature. The trees don’t care that I don’t fit social standards.
Big fluffy dogs, I belong with them. I think I’ve always seen eye-to-eye with dogs. I mean, they’re all adopted come to think of it. If you don’t sugar-coat it, they are taken away from their families and given to strangers. So if you get an adopted dog, what you’re really getting is an adopted, adopted dog. Figure that one.
I’ve got a firm love of the ‘found-family’ term. Probably because the persons I feel closest to and most understood by are friends. I’ve got some who see my soul. Ones who will actually listen to how harmful adoption is. How it is the only occasion where human trafficking is both legal and socially acceptable. The only place where those stealing a child are painted as heroes and the victim in the equation is someone stripped of their entire heritage, roots and sense of belonging. Oh, and expected to be grateful for the experience.
Society asks: “But where, oh where would you be if you hadn’t been taken into foster care?” “They did what they had to - aren’t you thankful social services intervened? Aren’t you glad?”
Nah, not particularly.
I’m not a fucking doormat anymore. I want a world where I wasn’t born. Where my mother had the support and education to decide not to have me because she didn’t really want me, a world where she hadn’t been under social pressure to have kids. A world where she herself wasn’t sexually abused as a child. I wish my mother could have been happy. Been peaceful. Found herself. Where she belonged.
Anyways, adoption still exists and I’m not getting any government support for it any time soon so I guess big love to other adoptees and I hope one day we can all make it to somewhere our souls feel at home.
Here’s to us reaching the planet Glinebong, safe journey my friend.