THOUGHTS, MUSES AND RANTS OF JAH

Christina Gochnauer June 13, 2021 There is a dark secret lurking in the shadows of the adoption community. No one wants to talk about it for a variety of reasons. It’s difficult to articulate, it’s embarrassing, it can feel ungrateful or unloving. However, the fact remains that many adoptive families suffer from poor mental health. It is no one’s fault in particular. It is borne out of a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality and a desire to represent adoption in a positive way. Hiding the mental health issues that can come along with adoption is toxic and can be dangerous. Suffering in silence is not necessary, but sometimes it can feel like it is. Sometimes it can feel like the only option you have is to scream into a pillow, cry in a closet, binge eat a tub of chocolate ice cream, and isolate yourself from the people around you who don’t seem to understand.  Children who are adopted may often feel a sense of disloyalty to their biological parents if they attach too stro...

I came across Bob Hartlen (R.I.P.) quite a few years ago. Back in 1999 I think it was. We texted back and forth and I sent him donations to help with the costs of his group and with his endeavor to keep the horrors of the Ideal Maternity Home (Butterbox Babies) alive in the public’s consciousness, similar to the Holocaust, so that “NEVER AGAIN” would refer to both. He founded a group seeking to locate and connect those who survived the Ideal Maternity Home (IMH). https://canadiancrc.com/Butterbox-Babies_Killers-Child-Trafficking-Canada/Butterbox-Babies-Survivors_BOOK-LIfe_After-The-Ideal-Maternity-Home.aspx Since his passing, maintenance of his group passed from person to person until it resided in the hands of unfeeling people who lacked empathy. That is sad, considering how many people Bob helped while alive. In true transparency, I was removed from the group’s records, kicked out and banned from their Facebook presence. That came as quite a shock because all those I met and chatted ...

 Have you ever gotten into discussions with others as to who you are? What makes you tick? Are you different than “normal” people? That is a conversation I have had all too many times after revealing I was adopted. After listening to Buddy Rich on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, I began developing my own version which tends to differ each time. I am friendly, I am forceful, I am kind, I am loving, I am angry, I am sad, I am happy, I am confused, I am quirky, I am complicated, I am blunt, I am tactful, I am simple, I am smart, I am silly, I am alert, I am moody, I am considerate. I am all those things and more, just like you. However, unlike you, I am adopted. The average person knows nothing about what it is like to be adopted, the various dynamics involved, let alone ever knowing or discussing adoption with an adoptee. The overwhelming reaction by the uninformed is, “Wow, you are so lucky to have been adopted.” Lucky? Yes, the unscarred by education about adoption think it is luck t...

The silenced history behind the horrors of residential schools for American Indian children led to a cultural genocide that still has negative effects on Native American communities. Apr 21, 2022 • By  Marietta Korfiati , BA History & Archaeology, MA in-progress   From the middle of the 19th century until the late 1970s, the American government decided that housing in residential schools should be compulsory. Residential schools were buildings specifically structured for Native American children. For many decades, Canada and the United States violently abducted children from their families and placed them into cold, emotionless, and abusive environments. The most famous residential schools were in Pennsylvania, Kansas, California, Oregon, and Kamloops in Canada.   What resulted in this criminal legislation was the fact that Native American culture was officially treated as a terminal disease in American society. The purpose of the residential schools was to exterminat...

  WE WILL RESIST https://youtu.be/yxnmBHLqOyw I will never understand why red blooded Americans choose to get their news from only one foreign source rather than the myriad of American media outlets? They seem to have come to believe that an alleged bigoted tyrant from Australia (Rupert Murdoch) will tell them the truth rather than brainwashing them into believing what he wants them to believe, similar to Russia, China, Iran, N. Korea, et al. Would these same people listen only to Hitler had they lived in 1930s Germany? As an aside, I also read and listen to Canadian and British news sources, among others, for a more worldly view.  I’ve said this before, that those who should read this won’t, and that I post not for them, but for that one person who will relish in the fact that there is someone who thinks and believes as they do. The rest can scroll on by.  There is one thing missing from the following treatise. It does a wonderful job equating how American and European w...