Friday 6 June 2014

What the apology meant to me, cont.

After a series of meetings with the government I knew that they were not going to give adoptees like myself, an apology that reflected the pain, suffering and trauma that we had experienced. For weeks after the meeting I agonised over accepting such an apology.  For years I had lobbied to bring adoptee's issues to the attention of the government and public. I had fought with all my being and had put my personal story of childhood trauma out on display for all the world to see and read. It certainly was not easy by any means, the toll on me was at times crushing, in reality I had begun my lobbying since 1982 this was now 2013. All my years of lobbying had boiled down to this one day, to one speech and it seemed as if those offering the apology could not bring themselves to apologise for all the years of suffering at the hands of my abusive adoptive parents.

 As I sat there in front of those sent by government to liaise with the victims of former forced adoptions, to hear our stories, to know what was important to say and not to say on the day in formulating the written apology, I steeled myself and asked the question, would adoptees be apologised to for being abused by their adoptive parents? The reply hit me like a hard block of ice being flung against my chest and at the same time being slapped with full force across my face. NO! Then silence fell upon the room as the people sitting with me at the table drew in their breath, alone in their own painful thoughts as the shock set in. I too fell silent, my head dropped and the tears began to rise, I did not want them to see me cry. I did not want to let them know that they had won over me with their insensitive agenda and political game plays.

My face and posture obviously betrayed my inner feelings, as the one who had said, "NO!" finally turned again to look at me and asked the most shocking question, "Did that answer upset you"? he asked. This was to be a question that was to be the most telling of all detail of how sadly lacking is the understanding of government officials, which emanates from nearly every political arena's I had spoken to over the years. After a full senate enquiry, State apologies and the Australian Institute of Studies report on former forced adoption and adoption, exposing and highlighting the extensive, trauma and abuse upon adoptees, left me completely dumbfounded at this response.

My shock turned to anger, as it did for the other adoptees in the room and it was there and then that those present were obviously sent to placate us into a paltry apology, and leave out the significant words that address the wrongs specifically against adoptees.  Each adoptee present driven by years of suppressed emotions erupted and the roomed filled with accounts of the most horrific abuses encountered upon innocent children. They sat there as we offloaded years of agony and suffering caused by the failure of those who were responsible for placing  us in homes where we were abused. Through shattered tears we shared how the physical and mental scars have not diminished over the years. Some of us enduring many hospital visits and operations and how our prognoses of the future will stilled be filled with continued pain, both physical and mental. The suffering of our childhood abuse never stayed in the past, it haunts us well into the our adult life and often dictates the life we live or the death we may choose.

An apology for the abuses at the hands of our adopters was paramount to me as it was to many other adoptees. But, for some unexplained reason we were told it was just not happening despite our pleas, our truths, the studies, the research, the broken minds and bodies and even those adoptees who's pain drove them to end their lives. Adoptees would not hear the same type of apology given to the Stolen Generation or Forgotten Australians, yet we suffered the same abuses, the same losses and the traumas.

to be continued.....