AM I AN ANGRY OLD MAN? YOU BETCHA I AM BLOODY ANGRY

Many people have often commented that under my resolve there is a angry man inside that gets out and creates havoc. It has always been that way with me fro a very early age. Knowing now that this is part of the Dysthymia I was recently diagnosed with, does give me comfort but does not help me manage that anger.  Most time i direct that anger to create a positive outlook but just occasionally a trigger is introduced which because i had opened up my heart to the wrong people whilst trying to fit into the "group" in the last half decade, many who despise me freely use such triggers. like Scientology and other cultish religions they will use what ever information they have on you to cut one down to size so that you know their place in the pecking order. The problem is i have never known my place in any pecking order.

Yes I am angry that my grandmother and the Salvo's saw fit to sell me like a piece of meat
Yes i am angry that my adoptive parents purchased me
Yes i am angry they never told me I was adopted
Yes i am angry that i was gang bashed as a 11 year on my first week away from home and had to go and cry in a hotel room by myself
Yes i am angry that I had to fight a person three years my senior at high school so that the city kids knew i was not going to be bullied.
Yes i am angry that at 16 years of age i would sleep under a brothel on weekends rather than go back to the farm
Yes i am angry that a sleazy old insurance rep tried to hit upon me under the pretence of driving lessons when i was still 16. He found out i was not going to be easily taken
Yes i am angry I was adopted and never found out
Yes I am angry that a 11 year old boy died in my arms when i was 18, a life snuffed out so early
Yes i a angry at people who fail to tell the complete truth about their adoption experiences and are led down the garden path by those with specific agendas
Yes I am angry at the small cadre of people who tried to destroy the right of adoptees to be heard
yes i get angry when adoptees  and their legitimate needs are ignored
yes i get angry when some mothers till resent the fact that we supposedly intruded on their game
yes i get angry when I think of all the lies and falsehood that surrounded my life for so long
yes i get angry when people deliberately try to tear me down because they resent my legitimate views
yes i get angry at the fact that i have a inherited mental health condition and a inherited medical condition and that one feeds on the other making life a misery sometimes.
yes i get angry about people who professed lifetime friendships but who jump faster than a speeding bullet during the rugged times
Yes I am angry that my mother refused to meet me and i only had 13 short months with my father

Mostly i get angry at what i have no control over and that includes my anger when triggered


BUT  I am also proud.
I am proud of my twenty years service to my country which i love
I am proud that i will never quit no matter what adversity is placed before me
I am proud that i have out of this past forged my own unique identity based upon all my experiences not a past from a some family that had no desire to raise me
I am proud of the fact that my adoptive parents who were typical 1950's working class tried their best to raise me and that they taught me the value of honesty and hard work, something lacking amongst some in the adoption community
I am proud of the fact that may have helped to ensure their was no cash splash to a few activists of adoption justice and that most funding will in some way assist all affected
I am proud of my wife who for the last two years has shown that there are far worst things that can happen in life than being adopted.
I am proud of my children who after having to put up with a angry young father still have to pt up with a angry old father.
I am proud of the life i have led and will continue to lead despite the efforts of some very nasty people who wish i was dead and gone.
I'm proud that i can bring a fact driven basis to the debates on adoption and many other issues because in so many cases facts have been replaced by shady truths

Over all I much to be so proud of. but all my friends please forgive me if someone deliberately creates a trigger that pains and saddens and yes hurts badly and as a result I strike back. That is the nature of my demons. I admit  my demons  . DO YOU!!!!!!!

MUSINGS OF AN ADOPTEE WHO THINKS OUTSIDE THE NORM

Many people may wonder why i am so opposed to removing adoption from the world completely. in general especially with my generations in Australia it is linked  directly with the forced adoption and many of those fears has driven people to be completely dogmatic and view the issue as black and white not the different shades of grey that i see.  There are many reasons why  tend to take a broader approach and this is a short list:

My younger brother was never adopted but raised with us under a guardianship order. After visits with his father on the few weekends he saw him, he would return home very distressed and often had issues with bodily functions for a while after such visits.

My mother could not handle meeting and i believe by leaving her alone to keep her normality did remove any stress by some one "who is not her son stalking her" and helped to extend her life in peace.

On the other hand by using Adoption services Tasmanian as the middle person , I was able to meet my father, who i had traced and whilst it was for only 13 months, they say i extended his life.

I did not tell my Adoptive Mother when i found out I was adopted back in 1984 for five years, but the fear in her eyes when I did tell her is still in minds eye. I reassured this lovely elderly lady that it did not matter (but it did). She passed away 12 months later.

Contrary to what many think any adoption process is different in so many ways. In fact there are so many combinations that to put a blanket abolition of adoption is tantamount to deny people any choice. That is contrary to what a democracy is today.A lady with a unplanned pregnancy must be given choices given any circumstances and these choices are made sometimes with great distress everyday:

should i have  abortion
Should i give the baby up for adoption
should I keep the child

I would not dare advise a lady on any of these. They are her choices, not some ideologically fruitcakes  choice because they pissed in the ear of a unthinking politician.  We have encouraged people to get out of the way of people wanting abortions, so why is it so difficult to keep out of the way of someone whose beliefs exclude abortion so adoption is the only option they consider.  I know some will say she has no choice but here in Australia we encourage them to keep their child so in fact she is exercising her choice. The state has adoption laws to ensure the child is not commodified by fancy lawyers and to ensure the child go to a suitable family with the minimal chance of abuse happening.  In Victoria in 2012/13 there were 46 local adoptions the majority babies under 5. But no some of these self styled experts prefer to have that baby with someone who does not want it and who knows where that would lead. Talk about Big Brother

Now lets think about the known adoptions which NSW uses.  Here we are talking about children who have been with  long time foster carers for a lengthy time, In limbo waiting for their parents to actually become responsible citizens.  Should that child usually over 5 have to wait for their entire childhood in limbo or should there be a line in the sand.  If the child wants to be legal member of that family how dare some people who have a narrow mindset prevent such happenings. Do you hate children because it seems like you do by not respecting their desires. How dare you!!!!

Then there is the stepfather adoptions.  Why cant a child be adopted by a stepfather, which cant happen without the consent of the father if they are alive.  Again how dare you dictate.


There are so many other situations from adoption by extended family, persons saying they are the father on the birth certificate knowing they are not but willing to accept the child as their own, stepmother adoptions. There are so many scenarios its impossible to list. So if these people wee to think outside the square, use some of their braincells not their hearts to think outside their own dogmatic position just maybe they will understand the complexities of all this.With adoption the child will be able to enjoy some stability which may have been lacking, the family has a child for life regardless of any breakdown that may or may not occur. They are part of that family for life and today they never lose who they initially are so heritage is no longer a issue.  The family can move around the country and overseas without going through hoops that permanent care/guardianship's order would entail.  They have autonomy.  The child is automatically in the inheritance list but not on the original parents list. That is way it should be, NO double dipping. Yes there will always be a cost, a cost borne by every child that has to be separated from original family. but with today's open records it would be easy to determine any inherited mental health and physical issues and they can be sorted out and treated from day one thus minimising any issues. we now know from the Danes and the swedes that many issues that persons removed have can also be tracked back to their original parents unlike the faulty USA style research which does not look at the bigger and longer picture.

I have not looked at international adoption because that is again ore complicated and i leave that to people like Lynelle Long to deal.

AS a Late Discovery Adoptee, I have a different perspective on life and adoption. And twenty years in the military, working for many years in a working class hotels and then doing door to door research interviewing has allowed me to view things from may different aspects. People have called me a latecomer to activism, not a true adoptee because i did not know of my adoption.. Everybody has their own truth about their adoption and whilst  may be a faulty truth it is theirs. but facts never lie and those who try to ignore them are narcissists .  The truth about my adoption seems to change every day but the facts surrounding my adoption never has. it is time for the hardliners to realise that the truth they sprout may not necessarily be the facts and is definitely not some other persons truth .

THE VITAL NEED TO PROTECT THE PRIVACY OF PERSONS NOT WISHING BIOLOGICAL FAMILY CONTACT

One of the biggest problem we have in the adoption community s the right to have contact and the right to privacy. This conflict is never ending and coupled with the draconian non information laws of South Australia it will be a permanent stain on society.

This conflict is the result of the changes from closed adoption to open adoption that occurred in the 1980's.  The sad thing about all is that it divides people who believe their rights are more important than the other persons rights. And examples of the abuse of those rights can be directed to the old Victorian legislation where adoptees could find about about their mothers and even if the mothers had a contact statement in,place the adoptee could ignore it with impunity. I was told by others of adoptees stalking their  others , of an instance where a adoptee posed as a market research interviewer to get into her house.  Whilst many have said the use of the AVO system should help , it has in every state been shown to be a paper tiger. one only has to look at the number of assaults and murders of people  who have AVO out to protect them understand a disturbed obsessed person would  not take any notice of that. hence in the past most states have severe financial penalties for people breaching contact veto's.

The senate reference committee recommendations in the Forced adoption policies and practise report at page xxxiii Recommendation 15 states in part

" All parties have an ability to regulate contact, but that there be a upper limit on how long restrictions on contact can be in place without renewal"

This showed that the reference committee was aware of the rights of some people to have their privacy respected, but also recognised that people do change their minds over the years especially as we age.

The nationwide common implementation of this recommendation still has not occurred with differing states having differing rules and regulations and very few implementing the time limits. it is interesting to note that South Australia with it draconian laws does have a 5 year renewal period.

Now how do we as citizens who respects others rights implement such common rules. well first of all using the stick of massive fines and jail does not work and only traumatises people who already have experienced much trauma.  But we need to ensure that breaches are kept to a minimum.

One solution may be that after the interview where a person receives the information, the relevant authority try to arrange a one off meeting at the authorities office so that both parties can a, have their rights in the future protected because there is no longer a yearning to make contact. The contact is in a controlled environment and reason can be presented either face to face or through the intermediary. There could be more than one meeting under supervision

One month after that contact they find out if the party who as the veto wants it to remain and if they do then have the penalties for breaching.

Like all matter pertaining to adoption there is no simple solution, and like everything else compromise by all concerned has to be the order of the day. This solution may never work but it should be put in the mix when discussing changes to adoption laws again in Victoria.

The need for adoptees to have their medical conditions professionally assessed

I have been seeing a psychologist for over four years ever since i had a breakdown in  Echuca.

I have been treated for PTSD. I have been very open about this because I believe if i can get one person to see a professional as opposed to those who practise instant cures I have done my job as a adoptee who advocates the traditional treatment line. As part of my application for non liability treatment through the department of veterans affairs Australia, I was required to have a assessment from a psychiatrist.  As a result of that assessment i now believe that i have had the condition listed for most of my life but by sheer willpower have managed to keep the symptoms at bay most of the time until the the early 2000's. By most of the tie I mean that there were many times where anger and rage was so intense that i could not remember what occurred. I managed to control that eventually but yes the remnants of that anger still manifests itself whenever i am threatened or people try to treat me by any form of abuse micro or macro. As a result of my character flaw, many who claimed to support deserted me and then spread the word i was not to be trusted.  Many like Lizzy Howard(Brew), Cameron Horn and Christin Coralive us that flaw against by ridiculing me making false claims and even false Facebook pages about me knowing i would react and then they may actually devalue what i was attempting to do, that is present a logical face to adoption and paint a non rhetorical picture of the costs to adoption without the claims of male adoptee being killers, drug addicts and losers.

I now put myself out on a limb for further ridicule by showing my psychiatric evaluation with the names of the medical practitioners removed. I do this in the hope that at least one other adoptee no matter where they live will say, hey that seems like me maybe i should go and get evaluated. If that happens i will be so happy.  I know those who despise what i stand for will again use this against me and yes, probably I will overreact against their sickening activities. I also hope that in the future those within the adoptee community will treat those of us who have these issues and how we respond will treat them much more kindly than i was treated

Merry Christmas all and I truly hope you can enter the festive season with joy in your heart

An Adoptees Letter to First Parents

Recently I read a letter from a adoptee to their adoptive parents. In a attempt at pure plagiarism and balancing the books I offer this letter to natural parents.


Dear Mother/father or both,


When i was born I was taken from my mothers arms either at birth or some weeks after.  In some cases it could have been many years later and was unilaterally allocated to new parents to be raised as if of their family.  As babies we knew nothing of the events that made this happen; all we knew was that the person who nurtured us was no longer a part of our lives.

As our first parents we are all aware of the pain you have endured with the removal of us and you will always have our empathy and admiration. but please never forget that the unremembered trauma that we who were adopted as babies often started with the emotional stress you had whilst you were carrying us in your room. I know you never meant for this to happen but it did from the minute you realised that you were pregnant and that the possibility of having us in your lives was never going to happen despite a deep seated desire for it to be so.  Then there was the trauma of us leaving you forever, again for babies a unremembered trauma. For some we were to be bonded with our mothers until adoption. we would have been breast fed and nurtured by you only to be dragged from your arms when we were about six weeks old. For others it was the cruel taking at birth never ever to be with their mother.

But this is not remembered because as babies we only remember some events from three years of age. The older children would have a very concise experience of what happened which happens today with child protection placement and many people adopted from other countries.

But by not having a memory how do you expect us to know how you felt, how do you expect us to have knowledge of that traumatic event and even feel pain. it does effect us daily by virtue of the fact that it has helped to develop our personalities and safety levers which we have used to , in most places grow up and become productive and good members of the society that initially had decided we were second class citizens.  For mothers, the few  who actually chose to, our removal and adoption allowed them close a chapter on their past and to create a new life as if we never existed. but for the  majority it was always a memory and emptiness in your hearts that sadly will never be mended.

As children growing up we all experienced the many facets of life and depending upon whom our adoptive parents some had a really loving childhood, others had a childhood full of brutality and many also had a a fair to middling childhood. you can be assured that the small majority appears to have had a reasonable to good life and  a large minority were sadly subjected to some for of emotional of physical abuse. this is most unfortunate and i am sure not what the so called experts were telling you back at the time of birth. but do not believe the exaggerated claims of most adoptees having a brutal life, that adoptees commit suicide because of being adopted (although it may have been a small contributory factor) or that your son may have developed criminal tendencies or even murder.  If your child is gay do not blame the adoptive parents because the odds are this developed whilst in the womb and i  fact may have been a result of the stress experienced whilst there.

Like you , adoptees have had at many periods over their lives emotional issues that truly needed professional support but none were available. So forgive us if we have fallen into the arms of charlatans and other quick fix bloodsuckers. However this will slowly be sorted and hopefully there will be a vast range of professional services that will help them, and for that matter you to accept that which can never be changed.  But from experience the road is long and many pitfalls will occur but keep on getting back up.

Attempting as two mature adults to unite again is one of the most terrifying events of all. you have two adults , not mother and child, but two mature adults who have led completely different lives and have had no shared experiences.  The failure rate is high and if we do not  develop a relationship, it is not any ones fault. The myth of the maternal bond is just that because the bond was shattered all those years ago.  Try to read the signals coming from your adult child. Do not condemn their parents without their lead nor express gratitude towards them for the same reason. How their adoptive parents have raised them have also influenced their lives and as with any parental relationship there are good bad and in the middle. but their parents have spent their entire life with them whereas you have not. it is difficult and many say they deserve to know the truth but don't try to shove it down their throat in one go. Assess the situation and answer truthfully when they ask questions. Be honest as you can and please do not throw back to well documented rhetoric and mantras. We adoptees have a good radar for that and mostly we can see anything that appears out of place.  After the initial meeting of all goes well the honeymoon period will start and that is a time of joy for many. but all honeymoons end as after that both adoptee and parent will have to work very hard at maintaining a adult relationship based upon equals. There will be no go zones which should be respected and hopefully over the decades life will be good.

The one giant no no that mothers and fathers should never tell an adoptee is that they are immature, inexperienced have been brainwashed and don't know what they are talking about because the mothers  know best. Just as adoptees will never ever fully understand what our mothers and yes some fathers endured, you will never know what adoptees feel and have endured. each experience is unique, each method of handling the fact they were taken is different. there is no common mantra or life that adoptees have led.  In each case the adoptee is a unique person but is fully experienced in adoption as they have lived it all their lives. Some may have actually lived it without knowing that they were in fact adopted. They have the double jeopardy of the trauma of pre birth, removal then the final betrayal of realising their history is false, the triple whammy of trauma you may say. but inexperienced naive or brainwashed they are not. They are all human beings who have led lives that should be validated and accepted just as your life as our original patents should be validated and accepted. You both are equals in this tragic drama called adoption.


Please listen to these words our natural parents and hopefully they will assist in the difficult times when you relate to your sons and daughters who were removed so early in their lives

The Cancer of Hate

During the Senate inquiry into Forced Adoptions and the subsequent Apologies up to even recently I was subjected to a very vicious hate campaign directed towards me . Certain people vaguely threatened to harm me if i went to the Handing down of the senate report, on the eve of the Tasmanian apology claims were made I was a paedophile which were later carried on by a twisted adoptee where i was named on a outing Facebook page. Even in the last 12 months twisted individuals sought to destroy me putting up a false Facebook page on my name. I remember one day a full day was conducted on a Facebook group that illegally used the Australian coat of arms to attract members with the implication it was a official site, on attacking me.  Most of this is in the past and this is to impart upon all that i know what it is like to have a hate campaign conducted against you.

But what i endured is nothing compared to what is being endured by residents of Australia by the hate groups that have arisen which are instilling hate and bigotry within our community. There are many of them but i will mainly talk about what i read on the site of The Australian defence League-Soldiers Facebook page.  but i note that this organisation is opening Facebook sub groups all over Australia spreading their hatred to members of the Australian Islamic community in the guise of fee speech. but is it free speech to say things like the following:


" those fukn muslim pigs!!!! 
slaughter the fukn lot of them"


"Fuck it. Go get them. Kill them all and hang their bodies from a bridge."


"Lets get some muslim scum and give them the full on Aussie fight they want. Wipe them from the history books permanently"



The above is just a small example and yet the Government of the day whilst shouting loudly , and with some justification, about the hatred coming from a small number of extremists who use the cover of Islam to justify their hate campaigns, is strangely silent when others wrap themselves in the Australian flag to use a cover to spew their hate and bile. we know ASIO and police authorities are actively monitoring the Islamic extremists yet they have done nothing to those who spew the hate from the other side. yet as we know the Oklahoma bomber was a extreme right wing person and ASIO dropped the ball many years by concentrating on communist sympathisers when i fact the danger was the extreme right wing from a Baltic state. hence the raid on ASIO by the then Attorney General.

We as Australians have a responsibility to publicly out these hate groups to the authorities and our politicians regardless of who they are. The Australian Defence League-Soldiers were actually compiling a list of Islamist and left-wingers facebook profiles for whatever reason they had. A the name implies it would appear that former and serving members of the military may be involved. One can only imagine Hitler style brownshirts pounding on the "undesirables doors in the middle of the night to help educate the recalcitrant.  The rule of the thug replacing the rule of law and the freedom to disagree.

Now i have many friends on my list of friends who have legitimate concerns in relation to the role some of the extremists , especially those who have headed overseas to fight in other people war. But they don't run about threatening people they express their concerns in a legitimate way and good on them for doing it  because that is what democracy is about. as a retired RAAF member I too have concerns about the security of our nation and our reliance on materials support from overseas suppliers. I also have concerns at the events going on in the middle east and other hotspots around the world.  But what we think and talk about is not about hatred based upon race religion etc it is about being Australians and the many varied peoples who are so proud of our country. This is about ensuring the hate mongers are removed from their phony covers of using patriotism of religion to preach their hate. But we cant do it whilst our leaders also use those props to support their causes.

I am sure our prime minister has a good heart and has no racist intent. but by reacting to speeches conducted at Islamic centre in the manner he did inflames what is a delicate situation.  he has aggressive tendencies as shown by his use of the term " shirt fronting President Putin"  In Australia a shirt front means this:

"An aggressive scruff of an opponents jumper is often called a shirt front and is an illegal and reportable offense (but again, often subject to interpretation). In some cases, for example, one player will grasp his opponents jumper and aggressively pull and push him trying to make contact with the lower jaw with his fist."

So our Prime Minister is espousing the use of aggressive behaviour to the leader of another country,much like what the Australian defence league is espousing towards people of the islamic faith

This hatred has to stop as it is destroying the delicate framework of our society built up over 100 years.

Failure to do so will make our country so much more dangerous and fearful

THE UNCERTAINTY OF LIFE

This post today is not about adoption but starts from the moment the then prime minister of Australia did offer a heartfelt apology to all those affected by past adoption practises. it is about the continual uncertainty that life brings and is a lesson for all adoptees and other people to understand. The lesson is that there will always be major trauma and events that affect you and those around you that you love and that to sheet home blame to others or what may have happened when you were a baby is to ignore the reality that life for all its wonderful glory does involve tragedy, trauma and all of life's not so  wonderful events and these shape you and  test you.

For many years my life has been mixed up in adoptee activism which sometimes has taken me from the emotional connection to  my loved spouse, Sheryl. Sometimes i questioned my commitment to her in this period as being led into the "light of healing" and leaving the comfort zone of rationalisation and logical facts had for me become a disaster with emotional confusion, a emotional breakdown many miles from home and a questioning of my own values. This had happened before when i discovered I was adoption but the generous abuse of alcohol and loose women in a foreign land had deadened the pain, albeit at the expense of the welfare of my family. So this time having gave up drinking in vast quantities, i felt every inglorious heartache, every piece of abuse levelled at me because i was considered a uneducated brain washed moron. Some felt i had leadership qualities but for me personally I always felt uncomfortable even being thought of in that role. so even that caused conflict within me. many wanted me to bare my soul which i did and then it was used against me in later disputes.  A old boss of mine once said " Murray you are too honest for your own good".  he was right because being honest with people within the adoption community is a recipe for future heartache.

Bu the time of the apology this was broadly receding as a important issue because i felt i had regained my equilibrium . So off to Canberra I set off two days before the apology, the 19 march 2013.  The next day was to prove a life altering time for Sheryl and myself.  There was a message on my phone for Sheryl to ring the breast screen people at Ballarat as they needed her to come back. I called Sheryl and she contacted them and when i was meeting with our local MP Catherine King that morning of 20 march 2013 she was back at breast screen having a biopsy, two lumps had been found.  A week later we were sitting in a private room at breast screen being told that the tumours were malignant and that they were triple negative. The next few weeks are a blur; we saw the surgeon at the hospital and Sheryl was admitted for a full mastectomy of the right breast and full ancillary lymph nodes removals on 23 April 2013 two days before ANZAC day. The operation was successful and 5 days later Sheryl came home.  In subsequent days we were told the 13 removed lymph nodes were negative but in the last month we found out that three were in fact positive. Why we were not told I don't know

Sheryl was due to start chemotherapy by early June bur was delayed due to problems with a seroma drainage, One session she was actually drained of 700 mils of fluid, the equivalent of a large bottle of beer.  Her first session of chemotherapy, using a broad spectrum drug as there is no targeted treatment for triple negative cancers seemed to go off without a hitch until the ninth day after when I had to rush Sheryl to hospital with a raging temperature. That night she went tachycardia in front of me and passed out. Thankfully that was in emergency.  Sheryl remained in hospital for the next nine days, 5 of them she was mostly delirious.  I believe the only thing that stopped me from breaking down was the Lexapro medication i have been on.  I could not cry but inside i was very very distraught.

As a sideline this was also the time a person who claims to be Maori, indigenous , Irish and any other racial mix she decides on at the time decided to launch a vicious attack upon me on the Adoption truth and Transparency Facebook page further adding to my distress.  This person who has a love of dingoes was acting like a dingo around a child at Uluru, striking whilst i was at my weakest.  I sought help and support from whom i considered to be friends by asking them to remove this person from their list. Instead they rebutted and rejected me one of them saying , Cancer is temporary; adoption last forever. Well Nim, the cancer may not last forever but as you will read, the after effects can and for Sheryl do last a lifetime.

When Sheryl had her second round of chemotherapy, she lasted four days before being back in hospital for 5 days this time with thrush from the sinus's through to the stomach .  When she was admitted her blood sugar levels were 30 ,( Sheryl being type 2 diabetic). This I have been told that have been the catalyst which has left her the way she now is. She had developed a allergy to the antibiotics pushed into her during the period she was delirious.

Thankfully the final course of chemotherapy only resulted in a short time in emergency.  Her chemotherapy main drug was a drug called docataxyl which can have a adverse reaction to diabetes sufferers and can cause long term damage.

From the time of her admission until then we had been coping on a very reduced source of income, mainly my military retirement pension and some income from the limited work i could do. To manage I had been juggling the bills and using credit cards that I had previously cleared out to zero balances. but this could no longer go on.

When it appeared that the reaction to the chemotherapy for Sheryl was extremely negative, with very bad neuropathic pains in the legs which were swelling up, numbness in the left hand, Lymphodema in the right arm, and poor cognitive skills, we knew plan A was out the door, so we applied for a Disability Support pension for her in September 2012 After 8weeks she was refused based upon the fact that they needed to see if the damage to her nerves etc were permanent at the first anniversary of the operation. in the Interim they put her on Newstart with no job search requirement . Upon checking i found about 60 percent of Newstart recipients are people parked there with no requirement to seek work.  One fortnight she received about 45 cents Newstart when my pay was a little high.  gain because i could not put a full effort into work because i had to look after her meant our income was dropping rapidly and the hole was becoming bigger.

I applied for the Carer payment and allowance in late October 2012 after she had been refused the DSP.  By christmas no decision on my application was made hence the hole became bigger, To help a little , I successfully converted my home loan to a interest only loan for twelve months thus reducing the repayment burden.  After a enquiry in February this year the carer payment was approved and the allowance a week later. In April 2014 Sheryl was approved for Disability support and whilst our income is some twenty to thirty thousand less than before, at least we have consistency.  We are climbing slowly out of the hole.

But Sheryl's chronic neuropathy continues, She cannot walk any distance without a walking stick, we are now looking at the pro's and cons of buying wheelchair for her so at least we can move around without her becoming tired and in pain. She still uses Endone twice  a day and lyrica twice a day to control the pain. She regularly attends hydrotherapy, Lymphodema clinic and and a counsellor.  but the pain is a constant and quite often i try to avoid her in the morning until the pain killers kick in. She tries to help me around the house, mainly because we mere males never do it the way a woman does, but that is also very limited. She has been to emergency twice this year due to temperature spikes and reactions to antibiotics. We never know from one day to the next how the day will be.

This is now our retirement life, not exactly what we had envisaged but she has been cancer free for twelve months and we can still laugh at each other. it is a prime example of the uncertainty of life. often at night i ponder what can i do to improve Sheryl's life so she can have some enjoyment because her enjoyment would lift a giant weight off my shoulders. I also think about myself and how i will handle it in the future as i age. It has made me really understand that she is my life and whilst i may get sidetracked on adoption issues and yes a pretty smiling face sometimes, my loie without her would be very hollow indeed.

I have not written this to elicit sympathy for i know that we are not alone, there are millions of couple worldwide that have the experiences we have. Rather it is to show those adoptees who wallow and cry woe is me, i was adopted., how cruel people are because they don't empathise , that they should look at how fickle life experiences are and how unpredictable life can be. This is something we have been taught in womb, when removed, how families have treated us. The world and governments do not owe us anything. It is our responsibility to soldier on, looking for help from professionals not fly by night quick fix experts. it comes back to the motto of "forging meaning thus building identity" .

It is not about you and your birth , it is about being a person who lives a life to the best they can and we are flawed.  Society will offer sympathy then get on working out how to get the new smart TV they want. Get used to that. Those adoptees who decided i was not worthy of their friendship because i spoke my mind forcibly are prime examples of stiff bickies attitude in society. they express words of sympathy and empathy but underneath they are only concerned with their own feelings and attitudes. And like dingoes they circle the wounded warriors who have a concern for the future and those who will be joining us