Tag: abandonment

  • Phone Calls that Don’t Come

    Phone Calls that Don’t Come

    The call no one wants is also the call many donor conceived people never get. Nobody wants the call—the one you get when someone is seriously ill or has died. But for donor-conceived people who can’t find their close genetic relatives or are rejected by them when they do, the dreaded yet important phone calls

    Read more

  • The Sting of Rejection

    The Sting of Rejection

    Rejection from genetic family feels like being the kid nobody wants on the team. Do you remember the dread in PE when you were about to play a team sport and the students, not the teachers, would pick teams? I sure do. I remember the stress of standing on one side of the imaginary line

    Read more

  • This Ride is Exhausting

    This Ride is Exhausting

    I was riding high for a couple of weeks. The Atlantic article came out, and in its wake I had doors open for more writing opportunities, podcast interviews, potential collaborations, and more. I was feeling good. Empowered. At peace. I told my therapist I felt as if the grief over my biological father was in

    Read more

  • The Pain of Rejection

    The Pain of Rejection

    Share your joys and sorrows with your family. a fortune cookie Some days I just cannot fathom how I will spend the rest of my life cut off by my biological father and his family. Worth nothing more to them than a stranger on the street when I want so badly to have some small

    Read more

  • When the Party’s Over

    When the Party’s Over

    Happy birthday to my biological father. I look at the picture of the day we first met just under three years ago and still cannot believe this is and always was my life. I still have to tell myself that this previously anonymous and secret stranger is and always was my biological father. I still

    Read more

  • Love is Not Finite

    Love is Not Finite

    If you simply can’t understand why someone is grieving so much for so long then consider yourself fortunate that you do not understand. Joanna Cacciatore Some days are harder than others. I feel Father’s Day approaching, and lately reminders have popped up of how I was created with the purpose of always being an outsider

    Read more

  • Fear of Abandonment

    Fear of Abandonment

    When you fear the abandonment of another, the probability of you abandoning yourself goes up. Vienna Pharaon This one resonated. When I found my biological father and we connected, I did everything in my power to be perfect. I was sincere in my efforts at bonding with him and his wife, but I did my

    Read more