I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what makes a person good, or bad.
No one is all good, or all bad. I think it’s a matter of perception.
I have been communicating with a paternal cousin, only through Facebook. We have never met in person. She is a few years younger than me, and grew up surrounded by our extended family. I was touched when she said that she was sorry about what happened to me. No one in my father’s family has ever expressed any remorse about my being given away.
I told her that I thought my father was a bad guy, and she assured me that her Uncle was not a bad guy. He just made mistakes, and she was not going to judge him based on that.
That’s fair enough, but it’s a little different for me. I am one of the mistakes that he made, and his choices affected my life in every way. To me, he is the very essence of evil. An entitled man, who liked to stick his dick in women (and sometimes children, if you count 14 yr old girls) with no care at all for what his actions produced. He left dead and abandoned children in his horny wake. He gave me the same amount of care that he would a tissue that he jizzed in. Just throw it away, and don’t think about it any more.
I also shared that my father’s family does not speak to me, and my cousin told me that there had to be a good reason, because they were good people also, who would never turn on someone for no reason.
Maybe she’s right about that too. Maybe they are good people, and I did something wrong. I’m not the most diplomatic person in the world, after all. I definitely said things that were very hard to hear, but what did I really, ever do to anyone, besides being born at the wrong time, to the wrong woman?
Where she sees good, loving family, I see cold unforgiving strangers. We are blood but I am different because my father put me outside of the family, and his blood is better than mine.
It’s all a matter of perception.
If my father is a good man, who made some mistakes as a callow youth, why does he still shun me and his grandchildren? Why doesn’t he try and atone for his mistakes? Are these the actions of a good man?
Why didn’t he say anything to me when my mother died? Does anyone know how much that good man, and his good family has hurt me?
If they are such good people, why can’t I see it? Why are they hiding their goodness from me? They seem to love each other, why don’t they love me, their cousin, their niece, their daughter?
Maybe it’s me who is the bad person, unable to forgive and forget. Maybe that’s why I deserve this.
Marylee's Dream 
I’ve starred in this story! They expected what adoption on TV looks like, a cheerful grateful needs-nothing successful woman who just wants a short crisp business like handshake with the birthfamily and maybe xmas cards. The deal is done, the package was sold, might have fucked up birthmother at the time but she got over it bc it was such a great rational decision. It does no harm to the infant and just starts the baby’s life over with great parents! So if you are in pain … you are acting wrong…and might have weird personal flaws…and it’s gonna be a big hassle for your brelatives with no point to it at all bc they have nothing to do with your pain. So you are the problem here, not staying on script and just bumming people out for no reason. Better get rid of you! Ur not family anyway, you are some creepy stranger who has her own weird agenda to make people feel bad about nothing.
i agree with the Adopted comments in that what she says may be true… but maybe they also feel guilty which can cause a weird twisted response like what you’ve described, too. They have to assert that they are good people, in order to try to assuage the guilt. in order to make it alright that they are not in contact with you. 😦
or maybe they are just immature jerks. could be that. inexperienced, too.
the fact of the matter, though, is that you are not a bad person. i have read enough of your blog to make that determination with certainty. you care for the people in your life deeply, and that includes Ramona, even though you are conflicted about her. i know you say you don’t love her, and maybe i’m wrong but i do see that you care for her but your feelings are complicated. either way, you take care of her, and that is something a bad or selfish person wouldnt do.
i hope that your friendship with your cousin helps you to connect and find some peace. i know it can be insurmountable to try to develop relationships with an entire set of ‘others’ (family) when the others already have each other. it’s a huge challenge. without trying to be flowery in any way, i really do see a certain optimism about your situation, not that ‘everything will be alright,’ but that, ultimately, it will be alright, because it seems to me that you will not really give up until it is. it seems that you really want to make things alright for yourself, and i believe you will, too, but that it is a process, and probably a process that is often painful. but the situation is painful anyway.
well that is my sense of your situation. forgive me if i’m talking out of turn. i don’t mean any harm and wish you well.
Thank you. I don’t feel harmed by either of you, I feel understood. That’s all I want. You don’t have to agree, or share my feelings, but at least admit they have a right to exist.
They want me to be a happy slave.
Maybe they think I’d be happier that way, but I’ve seen the man behind the curtain, and it’s OK to talk about it now. It’s OK for us to think ISA is a bad solution to an inconvenient pregnancy.
If you are going to bring a human into the world, you have to take care of it, and that does not mean trusting it’s fate to anonymous strangers and hoping for the best. That’s not a good plan for anyone. It’s human to make mistakes, and very human to try and make up for them. Very kind, and very human. Is that too much for your child, niece, sister, cousin to ask for?
you sure hit the nail on the head. This is exactly how they seem to feel, and there is nothing that I can do to change that.
What strikes me about this side of the family is, there is not one person who is willing to see anything different.
In Moms family there are a few, but Mom’s family was much more troubled, so maybe they can understand pain better. Dad’s family is perfect, in their eyes, and there fore cannot possibly have done anything wrong. And everyone agrees.
I often wonder if my grandparents would have felt differently, but I will never know.
I’m sorry that this happened to you too. It’s not fun at all.