Ungrateful November

November is a hard month for me. I write about this every year. It's NAAM (National Adoption Awareness Month), which means the adoptee/adoption community is posting nonstop and, while I support adoptees in their voices, it's overwhelming for me (is there really anyone not aware of adoption?). It's also the month of my adoption day, so that's hard. And then it's Thanksgiving, which I don't like for many many many reasons, both personal and political, but today I want to specifically address my Mount Everest of struggles all year, let alone during November: gratitude. 

I've always chafed at the idea of gratitude, of practicing gratitude, of being thankful as a concept. I know you're all judging me now, calling me ungrateful and selfish, but stick with me, please. 

I wasn't good at it as a child or teen, especially in Mormonism when it was all "count your blessings" this and that but don't admit anything is hard or bad. Just count your blessings! You could be starving and your mom beats you and you're having self-harm thoughts, but "it could be worse!" "Count your blessing!" BARF. I hated toxic positivity before I even knew that was a term.

Then, when I left religion and finally settled into atheism as the view I was most comfortable with (witchcraft notwithstanding - I'm an atheist witch, not a pagan one), I figured that I was uncomfortable with gratitude simply because I didn't believe in a cosmic being who gave out blessings or gifts and therefore didn't feel cosmically grateful, if you will. Like, I've never had an issue feeling grateful to specific people or groups of people for specific things (as in, I'm grateful to my spouse or my friends/fam for their love and support) or even grateful to non-personified things (like, gratitude to the earth for it's beauty, etc). But since I don't believe in a deity, then WHO should I feel grateful TO for bigger things, for nebulous concepts? It's never sat well with me. 

But my therapist encourages it, the practicing of gratitude, and I know the research that says how healthy it is to practice gratitude, but I've never wanted to. It makes me irritable. I also don't like the idea that not feeling grateful makes me some kind of doom addict, a bitter person, a downer. Maybe, dear reader, you only hear the doom and gloom because this space is how you experience me, but I do have moments of great joy, or even ones of quiet contentment. I love the beauty of a moment, of nature or a kitten purr or delicious food or especially witty prose. I'm not all ingratitude, but there's a deep part of me that feels like I spent so long being told to be grateful that I feel like ingratitude is a fair place to be, that it deserves some time in the sun. 

A few weeks ago, I was scrolling Instagram and I saw a fellow adoptee (and I can't remember who it was and can't find the post, apologies) post something to the effect of: adoptees are told to be grateful for adoption so long that the idea of gratitude is grating. 

And I said to myself, "AHA! That's it!" Of course it's also to do with adoption. Of course. I've been told to feel grateful my whole life to something that ultimately harmed me and so I find the whole idea of gratitude false. It feels fake. It feels phoney. Because I was faking it! Because I had to. I had to pretend gratitude lest I repeat history and lose yet another family. It wasn't thankfulness; it was abandonment trauma. 

I've gotten to a place of acceptance with my adoption, but not forgiveness. I accept it happened and I can never change that and will always have to live with it, but I don't forgive the many people who made that choice for me without my interest at heart. And I'll never be grateful to something that irrevocably changed my life without my consent. 

So I was telling my therapist all this at our last session and she validated me of course, but we didn't get into the idea of gratitude and I told her what I told you all, that I have no issue with gratitude toward someone or some THING, but I don't feel nebulous gratitude for generalities. And she asked me something like, "If you're in nature on a beautiful day, you don't feel grateful to feel alive in that moment?" 

And I said no. 

And then it dawned on me that it's because I do not feel grateful to be alive. Again, I go back to: if you're grateful to be alive, WHO are you grateful TO? A god? A parent? Both parents? Maybe a doctor for saving your life? Those are things to point to! And I don't have anyone that I feel grateful to for being on this planet. I can be in that beautiful moment and appreciate the beauty my eyes behold and be glad I was there, but I don't feel any gratitude to anyone for being brought into this world, because, ultimately, I still believe that my birth was a mistake and that I wish my first mother had made a vastly different choice and I still resent her for it. 

Don't get me wrong, I want to stay alive. Now that I've worked so hard to heal myself and keep myself alive and heal my trauma and mind, I want to keep it that way. I have no plans to change that alive status, but I couldn't always say that. 

My therapist challenged me to find a way to hold these disparate ideas: that I can be grateful to be alive while still believing my first parents chose wrong. 

So, a week later, here's where I am: 

I'm grateful to myself for staying alive, for doing the hard work and trudging through this life. 

I'm grateful for the support of people who have supported me, validated me, and loved me along the way and helped me feel worthy of life and deserving of love. 

I'm not grateful to be alive, but I am glad I'm still alive despite the attempts not to be. 

I'm not grateful for adoption, but I'm glad certain people are in my life that I wouldn't have known otherwise and I'm grateful for their love. 

I'm grateful that, despite the genetics I was given from someone who ultimately took her own life, I found something in myself to defy that tragic legacy. 

I don't need to thank some cosmic gift that gave me rebelliousness, tenacity, and surviving will, but I am glad that I have those things in me and thank myself for tapping into them time and again.

There. I did it. I practiced gratitude. You're welcome.