I think being in reunion can be harder than not being in reunion sometimes.
We adoptees have to balance not just our emotions, but those of our adoptive families and of our kin.
APs….please listen real clearly…RESENTMENT IS REAL.
Currently I’m dealing with my sister who at first seemed like she loved me and wanted to be around me. Now, almost 9 months after original reunion, she despises me.
As a person with a psychology degree, and an MA in Theology, this is what I gathered and analyzed over the past few days of experiencing her anger.
#1-She lives in a fantasy world. I was the baby of the family and when I left, it left a hole in her heart. Regardless of the reason…she still sees me as the young baby.
#2-She experienced intense trauma. For her, my trafficking lead to my mother’s death. She witnessed my mother spiral out of control until finally the depression took over and weakened her body…causing her death. She was not just touched by trauma, she was hit with it. In the Haitian culture, getting help for trauma is minimal and even recognizing it can be seldom.
#3-Because of her trauma and her fantasy world, her expectations of me is to be submissive because I after all was the baby of the family. She looks at me and remembers the few days we spent together…maybe the few years. I was hers, and she was mine. She can’t get past that phase….she can’t get past that age in her life where we were not together. She is stuck in this world between me living with them and then all of a sudden me being gone.
#4-I remind her of my mother because when I left, that is when things went out of control. When i was stolen, taken, abducted, trafficked, that is when my mother began to go crazy in her mind. My sister had to witness all this pain….my sister took on the pain. My sister LIVES EVERY DAY with this pain.
#5-I lived a different life and had trauma of a different kind. I don’t have much memory of what it was when I was a little one, but my sister, yes…she does. And when she sees me now…as an adult, with kids and married, she can’t look at me and see me as all grown up…because the growing up did not happen with her, or around her, or to her…the growing happened outside of her. So it is hard for her to see me as someone other than her little sister.
#6-As much as I tell her how hard life was living with Narc 1 and Narc 2, she still believes I had a better life. So she envies my life…she wished for my life. And she can’t understand how white people raising a black kid would not yield awesome fruit. She wanted the life I had….or what it looked like.
#7-She is emotionally stunted. When she was around 15, my mother passed away. Everyone was getting ready to move to the USA and then my mother, the primary beneficiary died. All the opportunities that were once present in her life ceased to exist. She became the “mom” of the home and my younger brother was put into an orphanage. She blames me. I left equal mom dying.
But, in all of this, I forgive her because in some ways, I get it. I understand her lack and inability to think through and process. She has never had the opportunity to sit down and sort everything out. All she has done all her life was wait for people to serve her…..in her mind, she deserves this and that and does not take responsibility for her actions. She is stuck in time. And she is stuck in situations, or events. She seems to be incapable to letting go and allowing herself to process.
So in a way, she is what I was as a young child. She is impulsive, she is angry, she is confused, she is sad, she is scared, and she is traumatized. I was all of these things….for different reasons…..maybe for similar reasons…I was all of these things…..and more. But thanks to groups like these, and other adoptees I have found along the way, and my wife, and people who reach out, I have learned to be receptive….I have learned re-parent myself, i have learned understand that it is OK to be afraid, and sad, and mad, and confused. What is NOT ok is to hurt others while sorting out your feelings.
My sister has hurt me and she continues to hurt me because to her, I’m the reason for my mother’s death. And at first that thought made me cry. And then I got to thinking…..this makes perfect sense….and if she has not matured out of a certain phase, the odds of her understanding the complexities of her own emotions are low.
My sister hates me…but she has not taken the time to understand why. I get it though. And I forgive her. I won’t ask for forgiveness though because I have done nothing wrong. I was a baby when I was stolen, and I am an adult when I was recovered. 
Lifting Taboos 