Being Adopted: First Reactions

So, here you all are, reading my first ever post on my personal adoption story. Expecting something big or expecting something small, I don't know. All I know is that everything I am going to say on my blog will be honest, humourous at times, heartfelt at other times and 100% Kira. I thought I would start off with when people first know i'm adopted. So here goes:

Okay, so when I tell people i'm adopted for the first time I get mixed reactions. Sometimes they seem really confused - scrunched up faces and the "thinking face". Sometimes they seem really surprised, "Oh! I did not know that!" Sometimes they get really hella awkward, "..... okay....?" and all I can do is laugh because they start squirming so much that you'd think they were having the Sex Talk with their parent. And sometimes they feel really bad, "Oh crap! My bad! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I hope I didn't upset you!" when really it isn't that big of a deal. Then there are THE MOST GLORIOUS PEOPLE THAT LIVE ON PLANET EARTH. The awesome, amazing, fantastic people who just say:

"Oh, that's cool!"

As an adoptee, you just want to hug them and say, "Thank you for not freaking out!" Because that's really all we want. We don't need your sympathy, your sad looks as you see a person who seems 'broken', and we definitely don't need your apologies. We just need to know that you're okay with that and won't let that impact our relationship, but also acknowledging that we're different. So yeah, for many adoptees, the first time they tell their friend they're adopted, it's a tense time because we are constantly bracing ourselves for everyones reaction. It's constantly a 'reaction watch' where we judge how well a person handles the news. Some people handle it well and some people handle it poorly. Depending on how bad or how excellent you do, is how we decide if we want to humiliate you and tell all our adopted friends how badly you handled it (we'd never admit to that though lol) or applaud you by how well you did.

We understand that not everyone (non-adoptees) knows how to handle information like this and so reactions will vary. If you are a non-adoptee, think before you say something because we just want you to treat us like everyone else, so react calmly and even throw in a, "I've never had an adopted friend before!" and a smile and you're golden. If you're an adoptee... dude, hang in there and try not to punch anyone in the face, okay? :)

Thanks for reading my first post! I hope you could relate to it or found it insightful and you'll hear from me soon!