My name is David DeMarco and I am an adoptee born in 1971. In another life I would have been Ryan Gremillion, though that universe ceased to exist the day I was born. Being the child of an unwed 16 year old certainly would have brought upon a negative social status and shame to the family at the time. Many adoptees have that same shame over their very existence, isn’t that ironic?! With birthdays as constant reminders if the day we weren’t wanted, couldn’t be kept, and were forced unknowingly into what one male adoptee author calls a “Parallel Universe”. The first mother and biological family encouraged to just forget this “mistake” and never talk about “it” again. Of course the adoptee doesn’t have this advantage, who do we really see when looking into a mirror?!

53 years into this a lot has happened, I have spent most of my years, since age 6 at least, in a state of fight or flight, emotional neglect after already being adopted & walking on eggshells through your youth is hard, being rejected only after your biological family gets to know you years later is hard, being a male adoptee with both pride as a “provider/decision maker”, and some real deep emotional turmoil is hard. And trying to connect with other humans deeply, in any way shape or form while carrying all this shit around has proved to be life’s biggest challenge. I believe now people are meant to connect, though I didn’t always think that. My way to connect was to avoid, at an early age I found the mind-altering effects of alcohol to take me out of fight or flight if only for a night, then another night, then every single night for three decades. I chose a profession that would allow total isolation, where I could have to depend on no one but myself. Somewhere along the line my chosen isolation became a painful loneliness, I am continuing to fight and grasp on to or unfold who or WTF I really am. The years of my own biological kids growing into adults was a bliss-full distraction, that has given way to again being lost in my identity. Now close to 6 years sober I feel everything, some good, but a lot of discomfort in my own skin. I’m my own worst critic, just my adoptee thing…