Tuesday 10 June 2014

THAT LITTLE BOY

That little boy
May 22, 2011 at 11:47pm
Theres a little boy inside of me trying to get out
he wants to kick and scream
yell and shout
and also wants to  lash out
This little boy he just wants love
from one no longer here
he wants to live in a different time
that never did begin
Please rest in peace my little boy
for one day will come
when we will join and be as one
when my work is done

Back in 2011, I wrote this small poem to explain how much in conflict i was with myself.  My mother had passed away four years before , i had gone through the honeymoon period of meeting a brother for the first time, A sister who we tracked down  as she had been adopted and i met my father who was aged 84.  I was working through why i was mourning a person who I never met as a adult, the sister hating me because I put in the trace that led to her finding out she was adopted, my father died 13 months after finding him. I was for the first time reaching out to people who were , or so i thought like me. i developed a friendship with one man, got to know some mothers and learnt of the pain they had gone through, seen part of my mothers diary which confirmed what was being told.  I got involved in the Inquiry into forced adoptions and quite frankly the continual pain and suffering was overwhelming. people were actively pushing me to show my feelings and not revert back to the rational, objective standoffish person I was.  Until then i had never sought the company of others and had started to believe that i missed out on much in life.  Oh how wrong i was!!!!!

Whilst I was showing that I was in a huge moment of weakness which others decided to use and exploit, my rational self was digesting the information checking it against actual data and found that whilst the truth showed so much  was done that was incorrect immoral and quite frankly illegal the personal histories often did not gel with the cold hard facts.  For example many mothers showed their contempt, with justification , of the hospital/home staff but very few would freely admit the complicity of their parents.  Whilst they refused to even admit societal attitudes were involved, nearly every submission mentioned the societal mistreatment of them.  I then queried much of what was being said including the experimentation that went on in children's homes for the majority of adoptees were never in such homes and this inquiry was about adoption (or so i thought)

Well the sky fell in . People were being advised to steer clear of me, I was called naive, a person who was subjected to the Stockholm Syndrome, was abused just because i said adoptees are now adults not children and we have our own voice. it seems i was upsetting the trodden path and had to be put in my place. Being a male i was then also called a misogynist for daring to challenge the accepted story, At one time i said we needed more submission for the inquiry only to be told that there was enough and no more are needed by some mothers because to have more submissions would entail their line of thought could be challenged. when i showed that people had actually lied to the inquiry, official complaints were lodged and I then had to provide my evidence. The culprits were never taken to task because  SENATE REFERENCE COMMITTEE INQUIRIES ARE NOT HELD UNDER OATH and thus are not subject to the truth of law, something that still concerns me today because some good people may have been slandered and it is on the public record. When the report was handed that very morning i was still being told by a mother that this is not about us the adoptees but only about the mothers. Thankfully the good senators did listen to us and understood our plight.  it was during this time that the person who was my friend or so i thought started to warn people away from me.

After the report the quest for state apologies went into full mode and many good people were involved. i was invited to speak to the local Ballarat media and also the local newspaper and ABC Open. I kept all matters factual and mostly about how i felt;yet still the abuse kept coming where even ABC Open had to stop all comments on my post. we had adoptee zealots from South Australia falsely believing that their rights were far more important than the mothers in relation to the veto's in that state and also that the mothers had responsibilities towards us. Having just told a mother that any attempt to use the family court to bypass contact veto's by seeking access to their children was a disgraceful idea, I ensured i was consistent by vigorously challenging the adoptees. For that i lost another friend and mysteriously a claim was posted on this blog that i was a paedophile at the same time. this was a week before the Tasmanian Apology. later on that at Xmas time that year 2012, another person posted my name on a Facebook page that outs paedophiles. luckily my dear daughter saw it and complained to the administrator.

The apology came and went and still,these people considered me a enemy not a ally in their cause because i used statistics and facts not rhetoric and mantras.  To unsettle me four people were actually involved in making a phony Facebook page and another accused me of not being a adoptee because i dared to tell that a study showed that the small majority of persons surveyed had good relations with their adoptive parents.

So the battle to tell the actual truth not gilded has been a horrific journey further exacerbated by my wife's illness. but i would do it all again but the poem would go something like this

There is a little boy inside who will  not come on out
he wants to hide and shrink
and  shut his little mouth
for fear of speaking out

This little boy he wanted love
but love was strangely missing
betrays and lies were commonplace
even though quest was righteous

Go back and hide my little boy
the real world is too painful
for one so tender just like you
deserves better, so much better

I will fight the good fight for you
even though the quest is lonely
I will protect you with my shield
Until the job is over




1 comment:

  1. That's beautiful Murray. It's been such a hard long fight. But there were achievements, gains and successes. The truth has always been important to both you and me which is why we keep going despite all those who can't recognise it - the truth.

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