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If you’re a person of color, especially if you’re Black,
and you’re hanging out with your white friend(s),
and they start talking shit about cops while the cops are in hearing distance,
you turn around and you walk as fast as you can without bringing attention to yourself in the opposite direction and you never talk to that friend or those friends ever again,
because they do not have your safety in mind.
If you can’t just throw away a friendship away like this and you try to explain to them why their actions are not okay and they don’t get it, then at least never go out in public with them. Take care of yourself, because they won’t.
I love how Tumblr can teach me more about how to survive and navigate this world in a single post than the adoptive parents who “rescued” me could in 18 years.
53 notes (via glitterlion)
Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory,perception and sanity.[1] Instances may range simply from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred, up to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.
Sometimes it is as literally as simple as telling someone that they’re crazy.
I didn’t like it when adults would walk in on me dressing or taking a shower. I would yell, and my adopted family told me I was crazy. Also, I cried a lot, expressed myself in “gender nonconforming” ways, and didn’t like talking to people. I got called crazy so often I believed something was really wrong with me.
The gaslighting and ableism to trans and queer adoptees especially who do not conform to adoptive families’ cissexist and heteronormative fantasies is horrific.
My adoptive mother (an anti-social narcissist) is always gaslighting my sisters and I. For her, gaslighting involves not just telling us, with certainty, what “actually” happened, but what we think and feel. If I say I need to go to the doctor, I’m not really sick. If I say I don’t want to be in a relationship, I’m told that I really do; I was in one before. If I were to tell her I wasn’t a girl, she would tell me I really was, I’m making it up. It’s horrible and pervasive, and it took me my whole life to figure out that I’m allowed to have an opinion on how I feel and who I am.
But we must be so grateful to be adopted by our SAVIORS.
931 notes (via the-queerdo-brigade & createsomething)
i love how this White Savior industry figureFUCKhead goes to all this considerable trouble of contacting me about my “birth mother and additional background information” when I never had a scrap of background info to begin with
but refuses to tell me unless they get to talk to me directly over the phone on THEIR terms on THEIR extremely limited bourgie ass Eurocentric schedule whilst I’m in an entirely different continent
oh sure, no big you power-tripping child-trafficking money-grubbing suck up spawned honky piece of shit
and now they’re 2 hours late for work and thus our appointment.
lol srsly it’s a wonder how these child sellers manage to turn any profit, much less multi fucking billions.
2 notes
you’ll have to forgive me if I’m a bit remiss in responding to asks & fanmail or anything
my international for-profit adoption agency is trying to get in touch with me personally with regards to my “birth mother and additional information about my background.”
which is funny because aside from the orphanages I was in and a necklace (yes I do have an orphan trinket, no I am not a TV trope), there has never been a scrap of background information to begin with. They won’t even say don’t even know where I was “abandoned” or how I was “found.”
I’ve cut off contact with those who should be cut off, changed my name, and travel around so much that the fact these White Savior(tm) wheelers & dealers have even managed to make me aware of their efforts is almost impressive. seriously what a fucking mindjob. my partner is lovely but bio spawned and cannot begin to grasp any of this.
I have never ever heard of an international adoptee being actively sought out by a major agency — it is ALWAYS the other way around. Someone PLEASE tell me if they’ve ever heard otherwise because I don’t know what the fuck is going on and what kind of shit these child peddlers may be trying to pull. But I am sure to be letting yall Bastards know soon as I find out…
Til then I guess. Stay glorious and eternally Ungrateful.
X
6 notes
yilduza said: also, stop writing books about how ppl with x diagnoses are evil or abusive and write books about abuse warning signs and survival that aren’t based on unreliable and ableist premises (& ignore that we get abused too)
^
Reactive Attachment Disorder
Borderline Personality Disorder
Oppositional-Defiant Disorder
The list goes on…
To say little of how some of these diagnoses (especially the first and third) hugely intersect with racism and are automatically imposed upon anyone whose identity goes beyond sheltered, white Western standards (namely international &/ transracial adoptees and foster children)
Funny how Eurocentric societies believe themselves intrinsically superior and quick to deem all other cultures as less superstitious and gullible, meanwhile wallowing in their own superstitions that are actually far worse and more abusive, couched in shit-brained pseudoscientific miasma and rammed down on people with the full weight from centuries of global oppression.
26 notes (via dickensian-werewolf & mommy-cuteella)
Children subjected to coercive techniques often have histories of severe abuse, neglect, multiple out-of-home placements, and adoption. Practitioners of coercive therapy often tell [adoptive] parents these methods are the only ones that will work to keep their child from becoming a serial murderer or sociopath.
We know that people with a history of abuse and traumatic losses are more sensitized to traumatic experiences and retraumatization when exposed to stimuli or physical coercion that is likely to remind them of the original abusive situation. Coercive therapy is terroristic and abusive as well as dangerous. Literature confirms that similar techniques are used in brainwashing: The subject is degraded, belittled, may be physically abused, is told it is for his benefit, and is thus coerced to consent. Hacker (1976), an acknowledged expert in terrorism, writes, “Coercion, having obscured its brutal origins, is then at its most triumphant when the victims are compelled to experience submission as a voluntary decision.”
Coercive techniques are antithetical to all we know about helping survivors of trauma. Trauma treatment is intended to empower survivors—not to frighten them, have them give up control, and make them assume a submissive posture. Coercive techniques foster the development of trauma bonds based in terror; they do not facilitate healthy attachment.
We would not be permitted to use these methods on prisoners of war or convicted felons, but we permit it for our children—children who have no voice.
”6 notes
[TRIGGER WARNING: child abuse & humiliation, sensory & food deprivation, torture, ableism]
“By taking away control, I mean taking away the right to decide anything: what to do, what to eat, when to go to bed, what to wear — everything!”
“Only when the child gives in to the idea that control belongs to the adult, can healing begin. If you cannot take away the control, you might as well give up. One of the foster mothers I recently worked with established the number-one rule in her home as, “I am the boss and your job is to learn to love it.”
”[…]When a new set of foster caregivers took [the boy] in, I had them take everything away right down to the bare mattress on the floor and a bucket to sit on. His caregivers picked out what he would eat, what he could do and what he could wear. He had to ask permission to talk or to use the bathroom.”
— Catherine S. Cain, Attachment Disorders: Treatment Strategies for Traumatized Children (2006)
“The rule of thumb when dealing with an unattached child in the classroom or elsewhere, is Believe the parents, not the child.”
“The adoptive mother often becomes the target of rage that would be more appropriately directed at the birth mother.”
“One parent purposely allowed a child to become lost in a mall, but kept an eye on her as her distress level increased before being ‘found’… a recreation of the early distress/relief bonding cycle.”
— Foster Cline, Can This Child Be Saved? Solutions for Adoptive and Foster Families (1999)
“These children need a different kind of love — the type that forces them to love others.”
“Intrusive therapy involves physical holding and sometimes verbally provocative techniques that bring on expressions and feelings of loss, pain, rage, helplessness, and finally hopelessness — the process through which a person must go to form attachment.”
“God used intrusive techniques himself.”
“This six-hour session [of a 150-lb. mother sitting on her prone 8-year-old son, as described by therapist Milton Erickson] would be illegal in some states.”
— Foster Cline, Conscienceless Acts (1995)
“Not only do many religions emphasize that accepting suffering is beneficial, many prescribe specific ordeals such as fasting, rigorous prayer rituals and ‘turning the other cheek’ to create both an intellectual acceptance as well as emotional and behavioral acceptance of the belief system.”
“The child needs to be confronted, ‘manipulated’ if necessary through paradoxical and other interventions, some of which may have the appearance of ‘ordeals,’ in order to achieve the greater good of maintaining the placement by quickly bringing about change.”
“‘Ordeals’ are stressful, trying, troubling, difficult and make people miserable and uncomfortable. Using paradoxical techniques can often be perceived then as undesirable and torturous, with no rationale.”
Deborah Hage, “Paradoxical Techniques” Foster Care & Adoptive Community Training Program (2005 - 2013)
“Many therapeutic philosophies argue that when children have been physically or sexually abused they have a heightened need for boundaries to be respected. These theories maintain that to touch an abused child is to re-traumatize the child. Holding therapists would be philosophically opposed to that line of reasoning. Rather, they would argue that child who have been touched in abusive ways need to be touched and have the touch followed by a loving, positive, resolution. They need to be held close through a high state of arousal, thus duplicating the high state of arousal which occurs during the height of the abuse.”“Generally, the best course of action is to let the adoptive parents decide which child/children they have been able to achieve some sort of attachment with and then remove from the home the child/children they consider to be less functional.”
— Deborah Hage, For What It’s Worth: Philosophical and Theological Musings (1999)
“Parents must take complete control[…] Often, this also requires therapeutic holds. There are Sequence One and Sequence Two holds which may seem scary and even barbaric at first.”
“More often than not, the child will resist. At this point, one parent applies gentle but firm pressure on the shoulder in a small “pinch” manner. (Remember Mr. Spock’s famous Vulcan shoulder grip from Star Trek? Think of this.) […] Next, you instruct the child to go to his or her knees and ultimately lie face down on the floor.”
“If a pillow, jacket, or towel is available, place it under the child’s face because it is very important for the child to lie face down during the therapeutic hold to prevent spitting, biting or direct eye contact. It is often overwhelming and guilt-inducing for the parents when direct eye contact occurs with the child. In order to avoid the tendency to abandon the holding time technique, make sure the child is lying face down.“While one of you jockeys your weight over the child’s buttocks and lower legs (thus straddling the child), the other parent lies across the child’s upper torso and pins the child’s arms down by the sides of the body[…]”
“Total Adults Only. Isolation from any type of activity, friend or other sibling. Early bedtime, no talking to others, no television, play or any type of recreational activity. No hiding out in their room which is often preferred. Must stay in immediate sight and close proximity of parents or responsible adult at all times. Hard labor activities occupying any and all free time.”
— Ronald Federici, Help for the Hopeless Child: A Guide for Families, With Special Discussion for Assessing and Treating the Post-Institutionalized Child (2003)
Programs founded and/or propagated by Cain, Cline, Hage, Federici & co. have collectively received millions in taxpayer subsidies, with their published works often promoted as “bibles” in adoptive and foster parent circles. Some states have officially required the recommended treatments as a condition of adoption.
Excepts posted per request.
23 notes
Mother’s day brings out complicated feels for me for a host of reasons. But, not sure either way what to get mother 1 or mother 2.
Mother 1: Retired professor, evil, hyper religious, hates everything, wants nothing, lives life according to science.
Mother 2: Wears leather, does needlepoint, likes food and sex. Neither of which would be appropriate to give her.
What do you give your mother’s for mother’s day? Biological/first mothers and/or adoptive parents?
I need ideas. And I need to do the shopping and mailing of gifts before I foreget/with time for them to get there.
that’s tomorrow, right? May 12? am lousy at keeping track of holidays and i change timezones often, so damn. this is coming too late for gift ideas (sorry about that), but-
most of the bio spawn (and I’m singling out the well-to-do variety for this) i know don’t even bother with presents, they just send a card or phone in greetings? lol and they call us ungrateful.
you’re a total sweetheart to devote such time and headspace to gifts for your mother(s). afraid i’m not much help on this front — can’t send greetings to mother 1 without bumping up against the awkward specter of “greetings maman on this most auspicious holiday, the days when your penchant for locking me outdoors at night while i was barefoot in pajamas got the better of you” and mother 2’s name i don’t know or whether she’s even alive. so i’m going to my partner’s mother’s house and giving her a chia pet plant.
…
yea today’s a mite more complicated for class bastards. hope your day’s a good one in any case. X
[ETA: also “hyper religious” + “lives life according to science”
with the disclaimer that i am no white-identified atheist humanist and know how ‘science’ has supported genocide as much as religion has in Eurocentric contexts
if you happen upon some free time tell me how does that combination even work ]
2 notes (via fairyonacidbanging)
It happens more than you know.
(Source: brandx)
20 notes
It bothers me a lot that I will never know the name my birth mother gave me or even the actual day I was born. These may seem like incredibly insignificant details to other people but you only notice how important they are when you don’t know your ‘real’ name or real birthday. Does it bother you guys too?
Yes, but moreso on a political level. Personally* it doesn’t bother me anywhere near as much as people ignorant enough to buy into the ableist superstition that adoptees are “primally wounded” burgeoning serial killers will assume.
I empathize with and support any and all adoptees who are greatly bothered by the erasure of the profound makings of identity. We are a marginalized and oppressed class. We are NOT “attachment disordered” we are NOT “damaged goods,” and we do NOT have “Ted Bundy disease.”
(*It IS a total infuriating pain in the ass being denied access to one’s medical history/ having it erased altogether tho)
17 notes (via theadoptionblog)
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