I am always troubled by people who want to quantify problems, issues or what ever.   You know what troubles ME?  People who spend upwards of twenty years (or more) in therapy and STILL aren't any better.  People who can't figure out that whining about one's problems is NOT empowerment .  Being a perpetual victim (and allowing others who have a vested financial interest in your continuing misery, i.e. therapists and workshop hosts to label you as such) is NOT empowering .  Why is it that so many people believe that happy people are in denial , and that only miserable, whiny victims are empowered ?       I think that ecogizing problems, dealing with them, and moving on IS an empowering experience (and GOD, I hate that word - it's so politically correct), although I realize that is not a particularly popular suggestion among therapists/workshop hosts, as it might actually lead to someone feeling better, and we wouldn't want THAT to happen, would we?  I mean, if too many adoptees, birthmothers, and adoptive parents get their heads together and actually DEAL with their problems and move on to a happier life, there goes the gravy train.  Don't worry - the therapists/workshop hosts have an answer which addresses the fact that some triad members actually reach this point and DO get on with their lives, instead of spending each and every waking moment wallowing in misery:  They're in denial . What is a real tragedy is different things to different people.   I used to believe that adoption was something from which no one could ever recover - I was wrong.  Sure, it was a tragedy for me (and for lots of others), and it caused me lots of needless grief, shame, anger, and unhappiness, but GUESS WHAT?  No one else can make YOU unhappy unless YOU allow them to do so.  We all hold the keys to our own happiness - some people simply never choose to use them (or are told by their therapists or some workshop hosts that their newfound happiness is a sign that they've slipped back into denial ).  If all this touchy-feely new age claptrap is so great and healing for people, why is it that no one ever seems to get any better? Gee, could it be that wallowing in pain and misery and helplessness and victimhood ISN'T actually empowering after all? What I hear from you is the Americans have no right to complain about anything, compared to Russian citizens. What is that?   Because she is fixated on Russia and thinks that life under a communist dictatorship would be paradise.  Funny how she bitches about the lack of rights in amerika - I wonder how long she'd last if she went to Russia and bitched about THEIR political system and THEIR human rights abuses?  Maybe she'd mail us a postcard from Siberia and let us know.  I'd love to see her try to start a group like BN over in Russia - how long do you imagine THAT would be tolerated?  Life here sure isn't perfect, but at least we won't get shot or shipped to off to a forced labor camp in the middle of a frozen wasteland if we bitch about it or form groups to try to change it.  We don't have to wait in line for an entire afternoon to buy a stale crust of bread.  Hint:  Lots of peopole are trying to get OUT of there and come over HERE, NOT the other way around - what does THAT tell you, Marley? All of us can always find someone worse off than us, but how does that help us today, with the issues we are struggling with in this life right here and now? I really can't figure out how it helps at all, Marley. Am I missing something?   Yeah - an adoptee trotting a revised version of the you should be grateful argument, which is what her comparison of Russians and Americans was all about. It seems to me that this may be a difference in view point. Like you see the glass half empty and I see it half full. I see the healing of my fellow triad members by discussing issues.   Discussing issues means what?  Wallowing in misery?  Calling happiness denial ?  Telling people that they are not truly empowerd unless they are reduced to lifelong helpless victims? At the conference I helped plan, the two workshops that were considered the best were about what goes on for us psychologically. that tells me that people really want information about all of this so that they can choose what personally fits for them and get past all the crap. do you see that as victimology?   If it's all about wallowing in misery and bemoaning their fates, yes, it is victimology.  I know, I know - I've slipped back into denial , as I no longer see myself as victim.  Victims don't have power, Jean - victims are by definition helpless.  I realize that victimology is popular as it allows the victim an easy escape from taking responsibilty for his/her own actions, own life, and own happiness.  We are becoming a society of whiners who point fingers and spout blame, rather than take personal responisibility (and I don't just mean triad members - I am talking about society in general).   Taking responsibility and working towards change requires actual WORK and EFFORT, whereas being a victim (by definition) requires nothing but the ability to sit around and bemoan one's fate.  Often this comes in the form of workshops in which people sit around and pick apart each and every thing wrong with their lives and show how it is directly connected to being adopted/being a birthmother/being an adoptive parent/being an alcoholic/having alcoholic parents/being a survivor of child abuse/etc., rather than actually addressing the problems themselves and what can be done to fix them.  Sure, it's nice to be able finally to put a name to what you're feeling, but it doesn't do you one jot of good if you believe that this is the end of the battle and spend the rest of your life going around complaining to everyone who will listen that you've got _____________ (fill in any trendy new psychobabble talk-show-of-the-moment syndrome HERE) and blame all of your problems and unhappiness on ______________ without ever addressing what can be done to cope with or lessen the effects of _____________, or even heal it and move along.   Let's consider hypervigilance. Adoptees have described this as a part of their experience as an adoptee year after year, phone call after phone call, without anyway of knowing that others have also described this. have you heard this also? That is one of the symptoms of PSTD and worth discussing.   If you get a headache, Jean, do you run around telling all of your friends that you have a brain tumor?  If not, why?  I mean, headaches are one of the symptoms of a brain tumor, aren't they?  If you have a headache, you MUST have a brain tumor.   In other words, did it ever occur to you that IN ADDITION to being a symptom of PTSD, hypervigilance might also be a symptom of SOMETHING ELSE as well?   Maybe some OTHER sort of syndrome which hasn't been recognized yet, and which manifests itself in certain adoptees, maybe those with certain dispositions or personalities?  Oh boy, now THERE'S a concept.   Here's another concept:  Maybe instead of trying to fit the symptoms of adoptees (and birthmothers) to match the definition of PTSD, maybe, just MAYBE we should instead investigate what sort of symptoms they DO have and put a DIFFERENT name to THAT cluster of symptoms instead.   Sorry, I forgot - that wouldn't be nearly as fun, as it would entail a lot of extra work, number one to catagorize all those symptoms and do the studies and publish the results and all that boring stuff, and number two you'd have to work really hard to elevate your new syndrome to the heights which PTSD currently enjoys on the talk show/amateur psychology circuit.  Forget I ever mentioned it - it's a whole lot easier to ride the on the coattails of PTSD, rather than try to figure out what's REALLY bugging adoptees and birthmothers.   Why should I be surprised that the cult of victims wants to take the easy way out on this matter?                                                 - Kim at Pitt.