Reclaiming the Sippel-Herr Family Honor

Adoption Issues and the Purpose of Our Blogs

Ruth — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 07:41:57 +0000

reblogging this

Adoption issues and the purpose of our blogs
by Ruth Sippel Pace – September 3, 2011 -
To clarify the position of the birth sisters of Joan Wheeler:

We have already dealt with “adoption issues,” YEARS ago. Joan Wheeler was adopted out in 1956 and we were reunited with her in 1974. We have dealt with the issues of seperation and reunion more than THIRTY YEARS AGO!

We do not need to be lectured anymore on those issues. We have read, we have researched, we have learned. We did our duty in feeling sorry for Joan a long time ago and moved on. What people fail to understand is that our issues with Joan is NOT about adoption or reunion at all! It is dealing with Joan’s BEHAVIOR! Interfering with a minor child, telling them not to obey their parent, lying, stealing, stalking, calling people’s job to get them fired, writing letters to people saying their spouse impregnated other women – these are some of the anti-social behaviors that Joan Wheeler has engaged in that affected us. Then the final straw, writing and publishing a book that contains gross lies and misrepresentations – for the sole purpose of ruining people’s reputations. And those lies in the book fell into the legal definition of slander and libel and caused the book to be pulled from publication BY THE PUBLISHER.

Are Joan’s anti-social behaviors caused by her adoption? Perhaps – but THAT DOES NOT EXCUSE THEM! Adofl Hitler was abused as a child. We give him no sympathy. Now I’m not daring to compare the slaughter of 6 million human beings to the pain that I endured as a victim of Joan Wheeler – the point is – I WAS HURT AND HURT DEEPLY BY JOAN WHEELER AND I DON’T GIVE A DAMN THAT SHE WAS ADOPTED OR NOT! She does not get to garner sympathy by using me as her footstool.

The topic of adoption does come up from time to time on this blog. This is because it’s Joan Wheeler’s obsession – to relate EVERYTHING in her life to adoption. This includes us, her birth sisters. She insists that we have problems due to HER adoption! She may be partially correct, but not in the way she thinks – our problem with Joan’s adoption is because we are sick of hearing about it. Our lives do not revolve around adoption and we wish that Joan would understand that.

As to people wanting to lecture me to “forgive and forget and move on.” – Been there, done that. I had already moved on. And so did Gert. We were more than willing to live our lives in peace and quiet and indeed were doing just that since around 2004! It was when Joan put that lying book out in November 2009 that we said “ENOUGH! The world will now learn the truth about Joan and we will hold nothing back!” And Joan continues to this present day to lie about us on the internet. And we will counter every lie she spouts with THE TRUTH!

Anyone who can’t handle THE TRUTH can just leave this webpage right now. And don’t look back. As noted author Harlan Ellison says, via a sign on his door, DIG OR SPLIT!

Our standing up to the bully Joan Wheeler via our blogs IS NOT AN INVITATION FOR PEOPLE TO COME AND PASS JUDGMENTS ON US AND OUR LIVES.

By publishing that filthy book and maintaining her websites of lies, Joan has trampled on our civil and human rights. AND OUR CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS ARE NOT NEGOTIABLE.

– thank you D.G.

Gert here:

thank you Ruth for reposting our positions regarding adoption issues and Joan Wheeler. When others have been in OUR shoes for as long as we have, dealing with and being victimized by Joan Wheeler, then and only then, can they have the right to judge us.

We do not give self-righteous opinions to ANY OTHER person, adoptee or not, other than Joan Wheeler…who has abused us, in oh so many ways, over the years, and then wrote a libelous book full of lies to exploit us and other family all over again!

Make no mistake….if Joan Wheeler was truthful….her book would still be available…it is NOT, because it is libelous!

Take a close careful read of our two blogs….they DOCUMENT every lie and deed that Joan has done and is still doing. We shall always expose her for the dirt she has done to us. When she wrote a book she opened herself up for full disclosure by us…deal with it.

If anyone who reads our blogs, don’t like what they see there then I suggest you just don’t come back. We are NOT interested in hearing how we ought to give Joan some slack or that we should write our own book….these blogs ARE OUR BOOK!

So take your self-righteous goodie goodie words some place else…we have done that, been there and have the scars on our backs to prove our worth!

Teaching moments lost…on Joan Wheeler!

gertmcqueen — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:12:14 +0000

Opinions…everyone has them! Some are good some are not so good, some don’t help anything or anyone. What positive results happen when one voices their opinion? Do we ever really think about how our opinions affect others? No! We just give our opinion, doesn’t matter on what topic, we have a opinion and we let everyone know it. When we tell our tales, of woe, to others, are we just expressing our private pain versus HELPING anyone else? When does ‘telling our story’ turn into a pity-party and stop being of help? Why are we not re-educating others and helping them over-come the pitfalls that we have encountered ourselves? How do we know that we are doing any good when we tell our tales of woe? How many people have ‘the other’ truly in mind when they write or tell about their ‘negative’ situations.

Case in point…Joan Wheeler’s opinion that her ‘hellish/traumatic’ life was the result of the trauma of adoption and that all the abusive men that she has had abuse her is BECAUSE they did not understand her and her adoption. She also goes out of her way to tell her opinion that her blood siblings caused her great trauma. When she does tell her story she says that it is to HELP others, but she DOES NOT give anyone any postive avenues or helps to AVOID the hellish/trauma of her life. The reason of course is because Joan Wheeler only knows how to talk she doesn’t know how to listen and get the need help that she herself needs.

The following essay/opinion is about Whitney Houston, but, I feel that it serves a good illustration of how lame Joan Wheeler’s position is about telling the world about the pitfalls of adoption. Joan Wheeler has NEVER done anything in her life to improve it, or to solve her constant NEED to be around abusive people. She wrote a lying libelous book pointing the finger on everyone for her troubles, but not once has she ever gotten RID of the abusive MEN in her life…its too easy to blame the blood sisters as the cause. Well, we have proven, by getting that lying book pulled from the market, for its libeous materials, and, we shall continue to speak out against the lying that Joan says about us on the web and any other place.

Perhaps others will learn from the following what Joan Wheeler never has learned.

A teaching moment lost

by Perry White…Watertown Daily Times Feb 17, 2012

There is no doubt the death of singer Whitney Houston at the far-too-young age of 48 is a sad, sad tale. Death is always sad, and of one so relatively young, doubly so.

Equally sad, perhaps, is how this event has been embraced by the public and by the media who have been carrying the story for the past few days. Here is a personal tragedy that we should be using to teach ourselves some things about values, about the consequences of choices we make, about more carefully selecting the paths we go down.

The Whitney Houston story is not new; it is the classic tale of fame gone off the rails, of wealth bringing not happiness but pain. In our increasingly fame-centric society, the long, long trail of tragedies nearly identical to Whitney Houston’s doesn’t take a long stretch of memory to recall: Monroe, Morrison, Joplin, Belushi, Cobain — every generation has its symbol.

All of them have found that the talents that have taken them to the pinnacle have not extended to give them happiness, or inner peace. Instead, they found addiction, pain and, in some measure, a self loathing that has destroyed.

You would not consider this, however, if you were watching television or reading newspapers or websites. You would, instead, find paeans to Houston’s talent, wrenching tributes to her in her passing and morbid curiosity about the “how” of this death — but very little about the why.

For young women, this should be a potent lesson about the dangers of bad love, because by most accounts, Houston’s life started its serious downhill trajectory when she hooked up with Bobby Brown. Some relationships are not made in heaven, and the turmoil, both public and private, in this one is played out in households across the nation, and the north country, on a sadly daily basis. In Houston’s case, the public eye was like the gasoline that makes the fire roar.

In the real world, women should never feel compelled to enter into or continue forever a relationship that is physically or mentally abusive. One of the most important decisions women face involve selecting a mate, and that mate should be disqualified if he, or she, causes more pain than joy.

Which comes to the biggest lesson that Whitney Houston’s life can present: all of our choices have consequences. Every time we make a decision, it creates ripples in a pool that spread and cannot be called back. Sometimes the ripples are gentle, as from a pebble quietly dropped. Sometimes, they are seismic, like dropping a bowling ball off a tall bridge. But always at the center of the ripples are the actions we take as individuals.

Houston’s drug and alcohol problems were well documented and by those accounts far ranging. I have heard TV interviews since her death wherein speakers suggested she was getting things under control because she was only taking prescription medication. This is like saying the fire department has successfully saved the house’s foundation. Addiction is marked by the principle of substitution: it isn’t cured by moving to a new substance.

If young people take anything away from the Whitney Houston story, it should be how unrelated wellbeing and addiction are.

Houston appeared to have it all: beauty, immense talent, wealth. But her choices, many of them destructive, were unrelated to what she had. They seemed to be fueled by what she didn’t have: happiness and peace.

And while we should be using her story as a cautionary tale, we appear to be dropping the ball there. Perhaps it is because many people lust for fortune and fame, and its failure is disturbing. Perhaps it is because society has become so numbed to the constant sadness of stories like these, at every economic level, that the tragedy has to be put behind the stardom in Whitney Houston’s case to make it palatable.

There is nothing celebratory about Whitney Houston’s life. In the end, her immense talent and her stunning beauty succumbed to her incredible string of bad choices. And nobody seems to want to reflect on that, because it is far easier to ignore it.

eagoodlife

Perhaps you’re too young to remember Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday concert when Whitney stood up to be counted against apartheid which eventually led to his release and being awarded the Nobel Prize? Her performance was warm and more than competent.She made the right choice that Day!!
Gert here:

eagoodlife….thanks for that info…I didn’t know that… even though I am ‘old’ enough. I just don’t follow Whitney Houston’s or Nelson Mandela’s activities….

The point of the article about her was that many people, including Whitney, did NOT learn how to get abuse and addictions out of their lives! I used that article to refer to a adoptee, my birth sister, who has NOT learned to get abuse and addictions out of her lives and how she blames everyone for her problems.

This blog is NOT interested in any adoption issues….we are only interested in EXPOSING the harmful deeds and words of Joan Wheeler against us, the birth siblings.

By all means take a look around at this blog and it’s sister-site… ruthsippelpace.wordpress.com so that you will know the purposes of our blogs.

Furthermore…I made a decision some 25 years ago…that I will no longer have any mental, emotional or physical abuse happen to me again….and…I have been FREE of any form of abuse within my life…except from Joan Wheeler….hench these blogs to show her lies and hate.

That is the PURPOSE of this blog and the use of the article about Whitney….to LEARN SOMETHING…that a person CAN get abuse and addiction OUT OF THEIR LIVES!

eagoodlife

They can and then need to be super careful about not abusing others and being mindful of the rights of others to make their own choices.
Ruth

When Whitney Houston died, I went on facebook and expressed my disgust at the way people were “celebrating” her life. Flags at half-mast? When we have homeless veterans – veterans that risked their lives for our country? And what was Whitney? A JUNKIE! A junkie wrapped up in a beautiful face with an incredible voice.

Substance abuse has gotten so out of hand in our society – to the point that we no longer think it is abnormal. When a child is brought up their parents (mother + father, or single-parent) who abuses substances, than that is all that child knows – drug use and alcoholism seems normal to them.

This is the same with domestic violence. When a child is brought up with abuse around them – then they think that that abuse is normal.

We birth sisters of Joan Wheeler have long suspected that Joan suffered abuse – both physical and mental – at the hands of her adoptive parents. I know that she suffered verbal abuse from her adoptive mother. Because I witnessed it. I witnessed several screaming matches between Joan and her amother. Horrible. The screeching, ear-splitting yelling! ugh.

Joan chronicles in her book that both her aparents were alcoholics. And Joan is an alcoholic as well. And she in turn, was abusive – verbally, mentally and physically to her ex-husband and to her children. She has been verbally and mentally abusive to me. I think she knows what would happen if she dared to be physical with me. – I’d lay her out flat. And her whole book is emotionally and mentally abusive to us, and many other people.

Joan was damaged way before she was reunited with us, her birth sisters. And for her to continue to blame us for her damaged life is unfair and needs to stop.

And as much as I have some modicum of sympathy for her – for her abusive childhood – my sympathy stops when she in turns abuses me. She needs to learn to stop her rotten behavior. And to stop going on the internet and saying that we, her birth sisters are jealous of her and blame her for our mother’s death. She needs to stop saying that we hate her because she was adopted and had a better life than us. And she needs to stop saying that all of our problems stem from the fact that she was adopted.

No, we write our blogs not because of any adoption issue – or that we are jealous of Joan – we write our blogs because of Joan’s own actions.
- eagoodlife
  
  Just as you are entitled to express your opinions isn’t she entitled to express hers? Her experience will not be your experience who is to say any of you are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’? We can’t dispute experience, it is ours, we lived it, others may not like it or like us expressing our views.In life there are many viewpoints, in adoption and the adopted life many, many experiences which are not always understood by non-adoptees. Why don’t you write your own book giving your views?
Ruth

True, Joan’s experiences cannot be fully understood by us, but that is not the point of our blogs. We are not interested in writing a book – we are giving our views right here on this blog and our other blog “Refuting a Book of Lies: Forbidden Family” at http://ruthsippelpace.wordpress.com/

I suggest you look over that blog, particularly these 3 top pages listed on the banner of my blog:
Read Before Commenting on this blog
What is Demanded from Joan Wheeler
Why Forbidden Family was pulled from publication

Joan is entitled to her opinion, but when she is putting forth falsehoods, she steps over the line. So many people put forth lies and misrepresentations of others, and try to get away with it by saying “well, that’s my opinion or viewpoint.” This is what Joan has done. What Joan has done has twisted the facts of her adoption – she accuses us, her birth sisters of ruining her life – which we have not done.

In her book, which Joan continues to say is “the truth,” Joan reports that I have an arrest record, was placed on probation. This is completely false. On my blog, I have posted the actual court documents that prove that I do not have an arrest record.

When Joan reports on the internet “details” of her adoption, she always gives a false story – she is telling stories of MY childhood – and she is telling wrong stories. This is NOT giving an opinion. This is lying.

What we ask, nay DEMAND, is that when Joan puts forth her views on adoption, she keeps them to the subject at hand: adoption. Her viewpoints of MY experiences as an infertile woman is flawed. She made a mockery of my miscarriage in her book by saying that I “merely claimed to want children.” That is not expressing an opinion. She was never inside my head. But she was there when I had my miscarriage – she saw my tears.

So her OPINION that I merely only claimed to want children is a lie. And most of her views and opinions are lies.

The purpose of this blog and its sister blog, is to refute the lies that Joan has written in her book, on various internet sites and to restore the honor of our family, which she has dragged through the mud. She has not only slammed us, but extended members of our family, our parents, our uncles, my cousin.

She gives only HER twisted side of things – for example, my cousin – who was one of the sweetest persons on the planet. She would not play Joan’s games. When Joan sent her harassing mail, Gail sent it right back. Gail notified the police department. The police told Joan to stop. She didn’t. The police placed a harassment charge on her and a one-year order of protection was handed down. But Joan writes in her book that it was Gail who filed the charge. But what is Joan’s “opinion” on HOW she ended up in court? She wrote that it was ME who “poisoned” Gail against her, and when she (Joan) was merely writing Gail on a medical issue, Gail (being poisoned by Ruth) filed harassment charges on her.

On November 3, 2009, I was notified by email that a family member had died. Joan was originally named for this woman (Doris), so I knew that Joan should be told. I called my father and asked if he still had Joan’s phone number – because I knew that a few months earlier he and Joan had gotten into a fight. My father said yes, he was tired. He gave me the number. He knew I was going to call Joan. I did. What was Joan’s reaction? “How did you get this number?” “Dad gave it to me.” “BIG mistake.” “Whatever, I’m calling to let you know that Aunt Doris died the other day.” “Thank you for telling me this, but I don’t want to hear from you, YOU F’ING B, M.F’ER.” She began screaming obscenities at me. She was screaming so hard I couldn’t understand what she was saying.

Her OPINION on this legitimate phone call? I was harassing her. I was calling various family members to get her phone number out of them to harass her and interfere with her life. And she puts this warped OPINION of me and my respectful communication to her as an attempt to create trouble for her. And reports this on the internet. NO, this is NOT an “opinion” – this is a LIE, it is SLANDER, it is LIBEL.
Gert here…

The two comments by eagoodlife seem to be contradicting themselves…

The first one…says….They can and then need to be super careful about not abusing others and being mindful of the rights of others to make their own choices….

Oh here we see that eagoodlife recognizes that the offender NEEDS to be careful about NOT abusing again and be MINDFUL of the RIGHTS of others! That’s great…that is what we have been saying right along…

But then….eagoodlife seem to have a very different opinion….saying….Just as you are entitled to express your opinions isn’t she entitled to express hers? Her experience will not be your experience who is to say any of you are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’? We can’t dispute experience, it is ours, we lived it, others may not like it or like us expressing our views.In life there are many viewpoints, in adoption and the adopted life many, many experiences which are not always understood by non-adoptees. Why don’t you write your own book giving your views?….

What gives here? Since WHEN does the criminal get the RIGHT to express their opinion??? this is no court of law here…Joan already had her right to express herself…and NOW she is paying the prices for lying and expoiting!!! The punishment is OURS to give out. Her experiences have NOTHING to do with our lives…she has no right to lie about us, period. She did NOT live my life nor anyone else’s life, but her own….just because she didn’t like my childrearing of MY children, did not give her the right to interfer with MY parental authority and call false child abuse reports on me!

Don’t give me this self-righteous nonsense about I can’t understand the adoptee because I’m not one bullshit….I have been the VICTIM of this adoptee….read the blogs and LEARN about the behavior of the adoptee called Joan Wheeler.

So please tell me…which is it…should the adoptee, who caused the abuse to me, my sisters and brother, my father, my mother, my children, my entire family….BE SUPER CAREFUL NOT TO ABUSE US over and over again and be MINDFUL OF THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS….or…should we the victims of the adoptee…bow down and ALLOW the adoptee the right to continue to tell her experiences, which are libelous, slanderous lies…because we don’t understand her???

Which is it….Please get real!

Is adoption about keeping secrets or about taking care of a human being?

gertmcqueen — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:20:28 +0000

According to Joan Wheeler, adoption is NOT about caring for a person, it is about lying and keeping secrets. On the public forum for Adult Adoptees Advocating for Change someone posed this topic for consideration and discussion:

Adoption within family vs total stranger

December 22, 2010, 12:31:06 AM »

what do you think is better? I feel like adoption within a family is far more complicated than it is with a total stranger, but would in the end be better for the child and mother. i feel like it would be emotionally more taxing for the child and the birth mother if they saw each other regularly growing up but couldn’t be with each other. But on the pro side, you know who your child/mother is and you get to check up on them frequently and be there for each other.

Then Joan Wheeler, AKA 1adoptee, gives us her views. She is answering someones quote, Joan’s words follow the quote.

Re: adoption within family vs total stranger

« Reply #12 on: December 22, 2010, 04:45:15 PM »

Quote

To find out that everyone else but you knew who’s child you were and yet, couldn’t be bothered to tell you! I’m sorry, I’m seriously upset at the thought that the hell I experienced was somehow better.

Same for me. Everyone else knew who were my natural parents and extended family and they kept it to themselves. What’s worse, my adoptive family knew who my natural family were and some even socialized, went on camping trips and such together. Guess they thought because I was adopted that I shouldn’t know – ever – and they went on with their lives knowing the truth. When I found out the truth, it hurt, especially knowing that all these people were God-fearing people and good, upstanding Catholics! Praise the Lord! No sinnin, just keep Joannie away from her blood kin ’cause she ain’t supposed to know! And guess what? Even though it was treated as a stranger adoption, I was adopted by a distant cousin of my deceased natural mother. The older generations knew the family connections and kept it to themselves, then they wondered why I was so hurt and angry for a childhood away from my own siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles. What liars! My adoptive family willfuly kept me apart from my own siblings and this was for my own good? Nope. I don’t accept it. Even if this were treated as a relative adoption, it still would be an adoption. There’s mindblowing identity issues with being raised by your own family but in different relationships. In reality, my adoptive fatehr was my step first cousin twice removed (meaning that they thought the distant realtionship wouldn’t matter being treated as a stranger adoption). Sounds crazy, but once I got out the charts and traced both famly trees I could see how the two families were intertwinned. My adoptive father’s older half brother was a blood cousin to my natural mother. He was twenty years older and took her as a child to a local amusement park. talk about messing with the adoptee’s head. Why the secrets if everyone else knew?

Gert here: As usual Joan doesn’t really answer the question nor does she give us any concrete solutions. All she has done here is repeat her story, like that will help! Look at her ‘tone’, you can ‘feel’ the anger she has for being adopted! That is what is totally inside of Joan…anger! She will never learn, that, by the very nature, of the act of adoption, that it MEANS that the identity is CHANGED and that it is IMPORTANT for the development of the child and family unit to survive without the original family connection. She OUGHT to be glad that she was found and knows her birth family and that she has her original birth certificate. Others don’t and she could care in the least, all she can do is scream her hate and anger.

Joan says….willfuly kept me apart from my own siblings and this was for my own good? Nope. I don’t accept it

Gert: of course she doesn’t accept it for the very reasons I just stated! All she is willing to SEE is that she was kept apart and in the dark…nothing else matters to Joan. She condemned the adopted parents and they will stay condemned. Joan doesn’t understand the pyschological upheaval that would occur if the child knew the natural parents and could not be with them, and at the same time, be bound to be with ‘strangers’ called the adoptive parents! There are solid reasons for the change of identities in the process of adoption.

Joan says….Everyone else knew who were my natural parents and extended family and they kept it to themselves.

and

Guess they thought because I was adopted that I shouldn’t know – ever – and they went on with their lives knowing the truth.

Gert: again, that’s the nature of the business of adoption…only those ‘who needed to know’ know, those that don‘t need to know don’t, like Joan, didn’t know. Get over it already! NO infant gets the right to be told anything that the state and parents deem they should not know.

Joan says…. When I found out the truth, it hurt, especially knowing that all these people were God-fearing people and good, upstanding Catholics! Praise the Lord!

and

What liars!

Gert: Okay, I shall grant you that finding out about ones background, ie being adopted, can be a shock and that perhaps a person can be/is hurt, but that doesn’t give Joan, or anyone else for that matter, the right to call the adoptive parents liars. They and their ‘church’ were OBEYING the law of the land. In the discussion of adoption a religious organization, and/or their doctrines, have no bearing on the issue of BEING adopted. Some religious doctrines, such as the Catholic Church’s, may indeed be out of touch or unreasonable, but we are NOT talking about religious doctrine…we ARE talking about the institution of adoption. The laws of the land MAKE such laws for their citizens, and whether the Church or it’s believers like it or not, THEY are bound to obey the laws of the land BEFORE the church. Joan believes as if only her opinion matters against the thousands of years that human beings have been adopting others and have developed laws and institutions to accomplish the ways and means of giving orphans, of any strip, a HOME WITH PARENTS!

Joan says….traced both famly trees I could see how the two families were intertwinned. My adoptive father’s older half brother was a blood cousin to my natural mother.

Gert: The two families were not that intertwined…it is only in Joan’s mind that she believes all this nonsense. I never knew about the connections and didn’t SEE any intertwinning going on as I was growing up. The family didn’t need to tell anyone about ‘connections’…a baby was placed out of the family into adoption and NO ONE spoke of that baby AGAIN. Even if and I do say if, there was a ‘cousin-ship’ it was so far in the distance that it was not important enough to have played any important part in either Joan’s or the other siblings’ lives. It is only Joan that makes a mountain out of a mole hill.

Joan says….He was twenty years older and took her as a child to a local amusement park. talk about messing with the adoptee’s head.

Gert: so someone, who was a distant cousin, took our mother to a park! The way Joan is relating this makes it sounds ‘dirty’ or something! But Joan has a dirty mind-set anyway so this doesn’t surprise me.

Joan says….Why the secrets if everyone else knew?

Gert: Because… stupid! the act of adoption means that the original birth parents and birth name of the one being adopted are SUPPOSE to be changed and kept secret for the safety of the on-going development of the child and the integrity families. But Joan and the others will never understand the complexities of adoption.

Ruth

Joan says: “What’s worse, my adoptive family knew who my natural family were and some even socialized, went on camping trips and such together.”

Okay – Here’s Joan doing her own dam twisting of the facts again.
My mother’s sister Catherine went to grammer school with Helen. When my mother was sick in the hospital, my mother’s brother and his wife took Joan in as an infant. After my mom died, my uncle asked my father what he was going to do about the baby. Because his wife was going to have a baby and there were other kids too. Catherine talked to Helen and Helen said her brother and his wife couldn’t have kids and wanted to adopt – so they asked my father (NOT at my mom’s funeral, like Joan likes to lie about). My father consulted his pastor and then agreed to the adoption. He re-married several months later. He had one year to change his mind about the adoption. He didn’t.

Helen and Catherine continued to socialize – and why not? They had known each other since they were children. Their children would go on camping trips together – another time, Catherine took her kids to an amusement park. By coincidence, The Wheelers took Joan to the amusement park on the same day and they bumped into each other. My cousin Gail was the same age as Joan and looked at Joan and was confused. Because Joan looked just like me. Her mother told her not to tell me about this little girl and Gail obeyed her mom. She was TEN years old.

and this is what Joan is bitching about. They kept the LEGAL requirements of the adoption – silence. Do you think it was easy on Catherine to see Joan – her sister’s child and not reach out and hug her? All Joan thinks about is herself.

And then bitch and moan about Gail – I can’t remember where it was – it might be in the book, but I think it was somewhere on the internet where Joan condemns Gail for NOT telling her that she was her cousin! What the f did I just say? They were both 10 years old, neither one knew who the other was. Gail’s mom told her nothing but just told her to keep quiet. Gail never knew this girl’s name, where she lived, why she looked like her cousin Ruth. The next time the girls saw each other was in 1974 – 8 years later – POST-REUNION! So why is Joan blaming Gail for knowing her adoptive cousins (Helen’s kids) and keeping secrets from her – because the LEGAL system required it. And Gail didn’t know anyway!

As to this one: ” He was twenty years older and took her as a child to a local amusement park. talk about messing with the adoptee’s head.” – “He” – a Wheeler, distantly related to “her” – my mother – took my mother to, coincidentally, the same amusement park!

NOBODY WAS MESSING WITH THE ADOPTEE’S HEAD! For god’s sake – the amusment park was Crystal Beach Amusement Park in Ontario, Canada, a popular amusement park – where everybody went. If you grew up in Western New York and Southern Ontario and the Niagara Frontier – there was a big chance you went to Crystal Beach. I’m sure there were chance meetings there all the time.

For crying out loud – it’s like me saying I went to DisneyLand in the 60′s the same time George Clooney went there and we were both kids and I didn’t know that 30 years later he would grow up to be a handsome movie star. And he didn’t give me an autograph when we were at Disneyland. – no, I never bumped into George Clooney, I’ve never even been to Disneyland – but I used this scenario to show you what stupid nonsense goes round and round in Joan’s head – put there by herself – not by anyone else. she’s such an ass!

Ruth

oh – well by the way – I graduated high school with actor Jeff Fahey – star of the movie The Lawnmower Man – dam, he never gave me his autograph when we was at Bennett together. And the little punk didn’t take drama classes with me. He should have re-arranged his classes so that we could have been in the same drama class together.

And my goodness – funk rocker Rick James dropped out of Bennett just before I got there! What the hell!? What was his problem? He didn’t stay in school – didn’t he know that moi, Ruth, was coming there the next year? He should have stayed in school because Ruth was coming and he needed to be there to meet Ruth.

And Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortenson grew up in Watertown, New York – let’s see – he’s about the same age as me. When my foster parents had a cabin up near Black Lake, we would be in Watertown. Why oh why didn’t Viggo come and see me? And Gert lives in that vicinity – Viggo – you’ve not gotten hold of Gert yet?

People’s lives get intertwined all the time – and little coincindences like this happen all the time. It has nothing to with delibrately “messing with anybody’s head.” Joan is such an ass.

gertmcqueen Gert here…

Hey Ruth…I didn’t know that you knew Rick James!! Why didn’t you tell me?? You should have told me! I’m stunned and shocked that you lied to me. Why are you keeping secrets from me?? I worked with someone who knew his mother and my friend NEVER told me that her friend’s son, Rick James, went to the same school that you went too! I’m shocked, I’m stunned!! You have been keeping secrets from me all these years…ON PURPOSE

And another thing…just because I told you that Viggo is from Watertown, doesn’t mean that he lived up here when you and I went to Black Lake! You make it sound like Viggo SHOULD HAVE made contact with YOU because of me…BTW oh how I wish he would make contact!!! But, no I don’t know Viggo! But I’ve probably have seen him at the MALL! and I’m keeping that a secret from you because, well just because I can!!

And yes, Crystal Beach was the place to go….I took my children there when they were toddlers…how come I didn’t see…my god…was THAT Joan I saw that day at Crystal Beach?? I’m stunned!!! I thought that those Wheeler’s were good Catholics…I was in those days…and if they saw me, in the late 60s and they KEPT JOAN FROM ME…they must have seen how MUCH I look just like their little adopted girl Joanie…and they didn’t stop and say Hello!! They kept secrets from me!!! I’ll never get over this!! How am I ever going to get over this traumatic situation? My life is so full of lies and secrets! I thought they were DISTANCED cousins, those Wheelers…why oh why didn’t they say hello to me?? that day at Crystal Beach in the 60s?

I’ll just never get over being destroyed just because they never told me the truth about Joan!!

Ruth

oh Gert – get over it! and grow up. and by the way – why don’t you READ what is written? I didn’t say I KNEW Rick James – I said that he dropped out of school BEFORE I got to the high school. – Besides YOU lied to ME – you kept secrets from ME! – you worked with a woman who knew Rick’s mom and YOU NEVER TOLD ME!

You have ruined my life! The lies, the secrets – you have messed with my head – we can never have a relationship – because of the secrets and the hypocrisy. The falsification of information – I can’t handle this. I’m going inside my head and listen to the voices. Perhaps I can reach my pre-natal self, who while residing in my mother’s womb, I listened to some Elvis Presley music – I’m pretty sure it was Elvis – they didn’t tell me when I was born what songs were on the radio when I was in utero. oh the pain – the pain of it.

gertmcqueen

gert here:

Ruth because of YOU… I stayed up all night long, in my self-pity, lamenting and crying and tearing my hair because I didn’t READ your message right! I knew, I just knew that you would be after me, harassing and bullying me, just because I’m the eldest! You want me to be your big sister and make me into what your inner life is telling you that I ought to be..but..I’ll show you…I’ll spend the rest of my life telling everyone, over and over again, how nasty you are and how mean you are to me,…just because I didn’t READ what you said and I just THOUGHT I knew what you said…

No…I didn’t lie to you, you never ASKED me if I knew anyone that knew Rick James! How am I to know what you wanted to know??You have to TELL ME so I know what to lie about or not lie about!

Your life is the life I MADE UP in my head…so how could I have ruined your life? I don’t want a relationship with some who DOESN’T fit the pattern that I created IN MY HEAD…so no I did not mess with YOUR HEAD….it’s all IN MY HEAD and I ought to know…whats in my head.

Elvis…you really think that was Elvis you heard…in utero?? yes…the pain of it all….

Ruth

you know Gert – I have had it with your attitude. – I’m trying to do something here – trying to instruct people on how to think – an you keep interfering – so I’m gonna show you – I’m gonna write a book about the dangers of interfering relatives – especially those who are second cousins ten or eleven times removed – you do know that we didn’t come in on the Mayflower – or do anything important in the Civil War and just because someone married someone 150 years ago – I will make sure I devote lots and lots of time in my book for that – because it’s important. ANYthing I have to say is important.
And I don’t know why you are bringing Elvis Presley in this conversation – it wasn’t Elvis I heard in utero – It was Perry Como. And I know what I heard – because I even know what food was ingested by my mother when I was utero – I remember the smells – I was a very smart fetus. I even think if I was hypnotized I’d be able to remember the sound of your voice.

Ruth

Readers – in case you think we’ve gone completely daft – the above comments were written in “The Joan Wheeler Style” – the contradictions, the ridiculous accusations, the stupidity of it all – the blaming of innocent people – the bullshit about distant relatives (who cares?) and yes – she has talked about her “pre-natal” self as if during gestation she was a cognizant being that understood sounds, smells, voices of the outside envrironment.

If Joan were a serious scientist, doing research to see how much a fetus comprehends in the womb, I would think what she had to say would be fascinating. But when she got on the Adult Adoptees Forum and started discussing songs on the radio and what foods our mother ate – I knew she was just bullshitting. – and those members on the forum didn’t even blink an eyelash! Are they as stupid as Joan? Apparently so. I mean – what fucking fetus can determine and be cognizant of the difference between a roast beef sandwich and a bowl of soup or a plate of spaghetti? Give me a fucking break!
gertmcqueen
Gert here:
Attitude!! hey I’m not the one with an attitude…I’m just telling my story, from my point of view, if that’s good enough for Joan Wheeler than it ought to be good enough from you! How long will your book be? 1,000 pages? You gotta to have more pages than Joan because there is so much more information about me that you could write about that Joan doesn’t know!! Have you been keeping up your daily workbook of notes that you took from every conversation you had with every relative you ever spent 30 minutes or more with? You do have to exploit them all for a good book!

what’s the matter Ruth, can’t you remember what you wrote about from one comment to the next? You most certainly did bring up Elvis, who is a far cry from Perry. Smart fetus? Sounds like you have been reading too many books on pop-psychology or maybe have you been reading Joan Wheeler’s book? Of course you have! that book certainly has given you alot of smarts!

And yes…readers…this is what happens to you if you study Joan Wheeler like we have

Joan Wheeler continues to lie and lie on another adoption site, but she got caught! part one

gertmcqueen — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:51:44 +0000

On the following pro-adoption website I found more lies by Joan Wheeler. Joan went there with malice intent to bully and condemn them. The owner/manager of this site is Erica. I have included a couple of her comments here as well. It NEEDS to be pointed out that Joan Wheeler and others like Daniel Ibn Zabd from the Adult Adoptees Advocating for Change and their forum go to pro-adoption sites and browbeat and bully. Be aware of these people and their tactics who are so full of anger and hate that they can’t accept anyone wanting to love a child.

http://findinggodsfingerprints.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/adoption-where-do-you-begin/

This is a very long piece, so it will be in two parts. I don’t feel any real need to give alot of comment on Joan’s words. But, I do feel the need to point out lies or fabrications or nonsense. My purpose here is also to show how Joan is just a raving manic. To read Joan’s words and see my immediate reaction, via a few words, really does show the insanity of what Joan speaks. So…I shall, in bold, point out such within Joan’s comments. Any statements, within Joan’s comments, in bold are Gert’s.

Joan M Wheeler says: October 27, 2011 at 6:39 pm

“Adoptions are so expensive, how do you pay for them?

We have a money tree that we planted in our backyard. It is awesome. Oh, how I wish! Most families that choose adoption raise the upfront ransom adoption fees.”

As an adoptee, this statement is so offensive. And her statements never are? You think you are being cute, that this is your attempt at humor. Joan is herself being offensive here. Are you aware that many adoptees feel as though they were kidnapped from their mothers at birth? Warped thinking In fact, many mothers have been stripped of their babies at the moment of birth. This is a moral outrage and a human tragedy for the mother and her newborn. Both suffer from physical and emotional loss of each other for life. Even when the mother “decides” to relinquish her baby a few days or weeks after birth, there is still life-long pain and anguish for both mother and baby. exaggerations Shame on you for taking advantage of a young mother in this way. Bullying someone on their own site. Shame on you for also joking about ransom money. Condescending attitude towards the owner of the site. There is no ransom for you have no intention of returning the child to her or his mother. You want the baby for yourself. Why not raise the money and give all of it to the mother so she can raise her own child? unrealistic thinking and individual outrage

“But, just because our hearts were broken, it doesn’t mean there is any less need for families to step up and care for orphaned children.”

Be careful here. Bullying, intimidation Are you aware that many orphans are not orphans at all, that the child may have one parent still alive? generalizations I know what I’m talking about. No she doesn’t. My mother died when I was three months old. She left behind her husband of ten years and four older children. Our father did not receive any help to keep his family together in 1956. LIE At his wife’s funeral, a Catholic priest said to him, “The baby needs two parents”. And a woman approached him and said, “I know someone who will take your baby.” Her brother and his wife became my adoptive parents. LIE

My adoptive parents took me and raised me as an only child. Adopted not took. They knew I had four full blood siblings living six miles away and they never wanted me to know them. That is the essence of adoption. I lived my childhood in a bubble. nonsense When I turned 18, my siblings found me and told me the truth about my adoption, something my adoptive parents did not do. I never blamed my father for relinquishing me to adoption because he was in a terrible situation. LIE, she resents the fact. If he had help to keep his family together, I would have been raised with the family I was born into. Only her belief not fact of circumstances. My mother died, never giving her consent to the adoption. Utter nonsense! While she was alive, the plan was for me to stay with the family, but she was dying. My godparents took care of me during those first few months of my life. Yes, I do feel kidnapped. Nonsense…drama!

And my birth certificate was taken from me, sealed, and an amended (falsified) birth certificate was issued to replace it. That’s the nature of adoption I am deeply saddened that I not only lost my family due to adoption, but my name at birth was stolen from me. That’s the nature of adoption. After being found by birth family she destroyed each relationship with her hatred over adoption I am 55 years old and not legally allowed to obtain my birth certificate. She has her certificates…what’s her beef? Instead, I have a document that says a mother gave birth to me in the hospital, but there are no hospital records to record this birth because it didn’t happen. I resent this imposed identity theft. LIE, its just adoption. What would make it a little easier? How about an adoption certificate to document the adoption, not a fake birth?

Adoptive-parent-wanna-bees and adoptive parents have a lot to learn from us adoptees who have been speaking out. Start reading about adoption reform. browbeating, intimidation and bullying

Erica says: October 27, 2011 at 11:18 pm

I apologize for being offensive with my comment about the adoption “ransom” on my blog. You are right, I was trying to be “cute” and use the present lingo among some adoptive families. Often times, families are very much trying to provide a loving, stable home for a child; a child they long for and desire to cherish. A child that can only become part of their family by paying domestic adoption service fees upwards of $60,000 (I am not embellishing at all and have actually seen these types of fees). I have never looked at the “ransom” remark from an adoptee’s position before and I appreciate your insight. I have since removed it from the post and will choose not to use that term in the future!

As far as the “orphaned” children remark; I should have been more clear. When birth-parents terminate their parental rights, children do become “orphaned” even if their birth-parents are still living. They do not have a legal mother or a father and become wards of the state/country. My point was that people should be caring for children who do not have a mother or father; be it from death or termination of parental rights; and avoid the excuse that we were crushed when our adoption failed. It saddens me to hear your story, and I would agree that there are many birth-parents that have the experience you describe. I think it is a tragedy. However, I also believe there are many birth-parents who are not coerced or manipulated into choosing an adoption plan. I personally know many women who have chosen adoption for the sole reason of giving their child what they were unprepared for!

Joan M Wheeler says: October 28, 2011 at 7:01 pm

Erica: Thank you for your apology and for removing the word “ransom” from your post. how gracious of Joan as she proceeds to belittle and browbeat…she now has the woman’s attention!

It is shocking to hear of the $60,000-plus in adoption fees. This is very much like buying a child. If that money was raised and given to the mother (and father) to raise their own child, that would be better than to manipulate any one into giving up their child. This is truly class war-fare and the younger, poorer classes don’t win. Flawed logic and self-righteous indignation.

Yes, social orphans are created when parental rights are terminated. I have always understood that as I have been at this (adoption reunion and adoption reform) since 1974. Only in her dreams, she’s never done anything positive, only bullying and confrontations. I understand your desire to have a child, to take someone else’s child is wrong. That’s a personal opinion. Adoption is not taking it is a form of giving. Even when parental rights have been terminated in cases of abuse or neglect, the child has a right to her or his birth certificate and family. Guardianship should be established while family relationships are preserved. This is not a cure all, there is no one size fits all in families. Adoption is a selfish act. Personal opinion, not fact.

Natural parents who “choose” to relinquish “for the sole reason of giving their child what they were unprepared for!” do so because they were not given supportive alternatives. And she is an expert here!

My adoptive parents knew what they were doing. Sure, they wanted to adopt, which is not a crime. A few years ago, my adoptive mother told me something she had kept to herself. Again, another lie is revealed: Sure is because this tale is a complete lie, never happened. The Christmas after I was born, and two weeks before my adoption was to be finalized, my adoptive parents bought a Christmas tree and presents for my four older siblings, ages 3, 6, 8 and 9. The kids were in bed when they delivered and set up the tree and gave my father the presents. They must have had a babysitter for me so they could do this act of charity. My adoptive mother told me that she and my adoptive father wanted to do something nice for my natural father and his children so they would have a nice Christmas. Imagine how my natural father felt receiving these gifts in exchange for his 5th child? His other children never knew where the tree came from or the presents. This is a tale that was told to Joan by the adopted mother who was herself flawed. It is a disgrace for Joan to keep telling this fabrication/lie.

You do not mention anything about the “new” birth certificate created for the adoptee. Do you not see that this document forces the adoptee to live a lie? Personal opinion. How can you justify lying on an official government that says you gave birth when you didn’t? Personal opinion and browbeating. Just because the government does it and has done it for decades doesn’t make it right. So are alot of things, but that doesn’t give Joan the right to bully a adoptive parent. This is part of what adoptees and our natural parents are fighting to change.

Daniel is right: “adopters are thus the greatest of hypocrites.” And adoptees are not?

Erica says: October 30, 2011 at 2:55 pm

Joan, I am very pressed for time right now, but I am working on a post for this week that will discuss an adopted child’s birth certificate… to be honest, it isn’t something I’ve given much thought to. And, quite frankly, there are many things the government does that I do not agree with! Our son will know as soon as he is able to understand that he has been adopted and who his bio family is. His adoption is never something we’ve even considered keeping from him.

Joan M Wheeler says: November 1, 2011 at 6:43 pm

Erica: I hope you and other adoptive parents can learn from what I am telling you about birth certificates. Browbeating and intimidation and bullying.

Adoptees do not like this sealing and falsified birth certificates at all. Everyone has something they don’t like…doesn’t give you the right to browbeat people over what you don’t like. This is identity theft at its worst. personal opinion There are countries in which the adoptee is allowed to keep her/his birth identity and birth certificate and an adoption certificate is issued, but, as Daniel points out, it is our Western thought that dictates how we, as Americans, view the adoption of a child. It is only in the last few decades that American adoptees have spoken out against adoption practices and laws which have destroyed our natural families and our identities. and they, the adoptees, do it by bullying, browbeating and intimidation

If you haven’t given this much thought, other adoptive parents don’t as well. Perhaps if we had more adoptive parents stand up for what is morally correct, then adoptees will have the truth of their births and the truth of their adoptions. This confrontation does not educate, it alienates! Who’s morally is Joan talking about…hers? You can not impose your own morality on others. Change the laws, through regular legal means, not by bullying adopted parents and other pro-adoption people.

The only reason I have my original birth certificate is because my natural father gave it to my adopting parents when he relinquished me. Otherwise, I am legally forbidden access to it in New York State. Go and lobby the law-makers, not people who want to love and care for a child.

If a child becomes an adult at age 18 and parental permission is not needed for any other decision a young adult will make, it is illogical to keep adoptees locked into a legal prison. personal opinion In some states, the adoptee must have written permission from both natural parents and both adoptive parents before the court will issue a non-certified original birth certificate to the adult adoptee. Some states stamp the words “for genealogical purposes only” or “not valid” across the original birth certificate. This is insulting to adoptees then lobby the law-makers — to have the truth of our births NOT certified by our state governments or declared NOT VALID. An attorney explained to me once that “the operable” birth certificate is the amended one. Yes, I get that. My legal birth certificate, the one with my adoptive name and my adoptive parents’ names on it, does not reflect the actual facts of my birth, yet the document is “proof” of my birth to these parents. This document is my formal identity. This does not make sense to any reasonable person. Makes sense to any person who UNDERSTANDS the nature of what adoption is! Joan does not WANT to understand.

When I show my two birth certificates to people, they are shocked that this goes on in this country. “They don’t STILL do this, do they?” My response is: yes, they do. Dramatic effect aimed at intimidating this adoptive parent.

When the order is issued from Family Court or Surrogate’s Court to proceed with an adoption and change the child’s name, the Registrar of Vital Statistics then takes the information from court documents and creates a new birth certificate for the adoptee. He then signs the document and embosses it with the raised State seal. Thus, he places his official seal and signature on this new birth certificate, certifying that the information is true. In reality, the information on each and every adoptee’s amended birth certificate in the United States of America is an absolute fabrication, mixing birth facts with adoption facts. Some adoptees’ actual birth dates are changed. Some adoptees who have been taken across state lines have two or three birth certificates, one from each state they pass through, with changed information each time.

I can’t even address what happens in adoptions from foreign countries. Yes I can, but it would take too long. Partly: Adoptive parents are required to have a new birth certificate issued in their names and the new adoptive name BEFORE the child leaves the home country and BEFORE the adoption is finalized. The US Dept of State and The Hague websites describe the process. Yet, the United Nations says that every child has a right to a name, a nationality, family and parents or origin. The United Nations wants every birth to be registered and certified.

Good information, but that is not enough for Joan, she now has to tell her life story, which is WRONG.

Additional information about my adoption: Here is where Joan really goes off the deep end, none of this is needed to be told. I was baptized at the bedside of my dying natural mother when I was three months old. LIE, didn’t happen there. The baptism was officially recognized by the Catholic Church. After it was done in a church service, I Gert, remember seeing Joan/Doris at that event, not at the bedside. My natural father gave this certificate to my adopting parents, too. Three years later, my adoptive parents wanted a new baptismal certificate issued in my adoptive name, with their names as my parents, so they could enroll me in Catholic School and I could receive the sacraments. So, a priest from the parrish in which I was baptized, filled out the new document. He signed it and embossed it with the raised seal of that particular Catholic Church. He lied. Drama! Joan Wheeler was not baptized in 1959, she was never baptized. The truth is that Doris Sippel was baptized in 1956. If I were to follow the rules, doctrines, of the Catholic Church, or the word of God, I would have to use the name that God recognized at the moment of my true baptism in order to: become a nun, get married, and perhaps other sacraments. Drama Today, I could care less about the religious doctrines because the Catholic Church lied to me all through my childhood. What else is new? I left the Church for personal reasons when I was 14. When I was 18, my adoptive mother threw all of my identity documents at me when I told her I was found by siblings she never wanted me to know. The nature of being adopted means NOT telling about the birth family, something Joan refuses to accept. I was sure I would never again believe in a faith that lied so much. While I was growing up, I was taught that lying was a sin. As an adult, I see that lying by state officials and religious officials is the norm. Take it up with the law makers. Most of this is for dramatic purposes to continue with the browbeating and bullying.

In my new Church, which I have been a member for 28 years, my minister and I talked at great length about this. She probably did for any time she can she will talk for hours! If a child were to be dedicated in our church, the church document would never be altered. If that child were to be adopted out and have a new name, our minister would not issue a new document to suit the wishes of the adopting parents. A religious ceremony would stay intact, which is as it should be: separation of church and state. Somehow I doubt this…no church in this country can do what they wish when it comes to vital statics of the country’s citizens! Joan does not understand the separation of church and state here. This is misguided logic used with the intent to intimidate the woman/readers into believing everything Joan says is correct. Key word here is ‘dedicate’ a dedication into that church/faith is NOT the same as a baptismal certificate used for identification by the Catholic Church. Another key word/phrase is ‘wishes of the adopting parents’. The wishes are BECAUSE the parents want a certificate in a particular church/faith. Joan was born and baptised and adopted all under Catholic Church eyes and therefore the amended certificates had to be altered, within the same faith.

So I have been willingly lied to by my State, my original Church and religion, and by my adoptive parents. This social construct called adoption is very damaging to the person who is adopted. Personal opinion, take it up with the law-makers.

Erica says: November 1, 2011 at 7:21 pm

Wow Joan, thank you for all that information. I do post on this topic more tomorrow and hope you will be involved in the conversation. I appreciate your insight and am saddened knowing your story is not an anomaly. I can totally understand and respect how you would feel lied to by everyone and everything that you should have been able to place your trust in. These are stories, us adoptive families need to hear, recognize and understand. My question, because I do not know, not to antagonize, (and it doesn’t sound like this is your experience, so maybe it is unfair to ask you) what is the opinion of adoptees (you know more than I) about trying to protect the identity of a birth mom that does not want to be known to the adoptee with a sealed original birth certificate?

Again, asking because I don’t know: Would you have felt differently about your changed birth certificate(s) if your adoptive parents and original church body had not lied to you and kept your adoption/birth-family a secret. Had they shared with you the names of your birth family and allowed you to engage in a relationship with them if you (and they) wanted, would that have changed your perspective?

For our son’s birth-certificate, all of his information is completely accurate as far as birth date, time, weight, etc. His name was changed from “Baby Boy (and his birth-mothers last name)” to the name we chose for him and then, we are listed as his parents. I fully expect he will have questions growing up, and we intend to be as honest as possible to ease as much confusion as possible

Joan M Wheeler says: November 2, 2011 at 3:04 am

Erica, my boyfriend’s father passed away, so I might not be able to be a part of discussion here for a few days. But she has lots of time now to hold us all captive with her story of lies.

I would like to answer something I left off of another comment: of course she must have her complete thought put out there, Your question: What about children left abandoned at hospitals, police stations, fire stations? Ahh, Baby Dumps! drama again! has Joan ever considered those people that were forced into sterilization by the government and their ‘need’ to have a child and the only way they can have a baby is to adopt? They should be illegal because all they do is provide a source for babies to be adopted. Making it illegal does not stop it from happening. Stupid logic! And what happens to these children if the practice of adopting them is illegal? Are they put out in the trash, like the dumps she calls them? Frightened pregnant teens or young women may not know how to get help, so they turn to these places as a last resort. There is no education, no real help for the mother who is just left with emptiness and grief for the rest of her life. And these Baby Dumps are advertised as a legal way out: just drop off your newborn and no questions asked. This is the moral thing to do? I don’t think so! Just hear and feel Joan’s moral outrage! Get real! So, you finally found an instance where I MIGHT consider adoption in the best interest of the child. Really though, the best interest of the child and the mother is to get education before the birth to set up support systems so the mother and the father can parent their child. Totally unrealistic! Joan sounds as if she has the cure-all of all of society’s ills! Please get real! You can’t force a person into a class room any more than you can force anyone to give any support. Joan really needs to find her utopia somewhere else, cause it isn’t here and never will be. Human beings will always do things according to the basics: eat, shit, sleep, have sex and NEVER think of consequences. That is reality!

You might be getting the idea that I am anti adoption. Could have fooled me! I am. Why? Because no person should have to live through the hell I’ve lived through. It is a self-inflicted hell and she can get out of it any time she wants but she doesn’t want to. Joan’s adopted parents were the problem with Joan. While that’s too bad, it really hasn’t anything to do with the institution of adoption and it certainly has nothing to do with the birth family and Joan’s lies about us. In just grieving the deaths of all of my parents….Here is the chronological breakdown: natural mother died at age 30 in 1956. Adopted father died at age 67 in 1982. Natural father died at age 86 in Jan 2011. Adoptive mother died at age 95 in March 2011. That’s a lot of parental loss. Does she want a medal? Drama, intimidation, browbeating. I and my siblings also grieve over the loss of our mother, in 1956 and our father in 2011 and we resist it greatly that Joan exploits our parents!

My natural father and I developed a relationship and were close for awhile, but nobody liked it when I wrote in the newspaper about adoptees rights.LIE, we didn’t want her to write about our lifes. I didn’t name names.LIE, she did and that is where the conflicts started. But I think he felt guilty, Fabrication, that is her ‘feeling/thiking’ not the truth, he did not feel guilt, he did what had to be done at the time, period. even though I told him I didn’t hate him for relinquishing me. There were years between contact sometimes, because she caused much trouble and conflicts and was told to leave him and the family alone and then we’d get back together for years. There was a big misunderstanding when I was care-giving for both my natural father and my adoptive mother at the same time for a few years. LIE, she did not care of natural father, only took him to a couple of appointments. It became obvious that I needed to end the relationship with my father because of a disagreement. LIE, she tried to get him to pay for her car repairs and when he refused she argued with him to the point of where he told her they can not see each other and that she had to call first before she came over. I decided to keep peace in my home to concentrate on taking care of my adoptive mother.LIE, she was NOT allowed to see my father after she caused more trouble. I had a feeling my natural father was going to die and reached out a few days before he did. We made our peace. LIE, her adopted mother was very sick, Joan was afraid and went unannouced to my father’s home and browbeated an elder woman, his wife, into finding out what hospital my father was in. Joan then went there unannouced. When the family found this out we wrote about it on the blog. When my father did die, Joan was forbidden to attend the service and be near the family at the viewing.

My adoptive mother never really apologized for lying to me and keeping my siblings from me. Joan browbeat her till the day she died. She couldn’t understand the whole experience because she loved me so much that she didn’t see the harm in what she did. In her last few years, we did talk about adoption and birth certificates and the adoption reform movement. Mom was genuinely upset when we watched an adoptee on TV and Mom said, “You should be on TV”. She was proud of my reform work, but she wasn’t always that way.

In one of my posts here, I said that my adoptive mother threw my adoption papers and my birth certificates and baptismal certificates at me a few days after I was contacted by phone by my eldest sister – the oldest of the 5 of us. Mom screamed at me that “these papers mean nothing to me anymore – we were just your babysitters”. These words and actions of the adoptive mother are the reasons why Joan is anti-adoption, because the parents who raised her were flawed and were afraid they would lose Joan, while that’s terrible that is no reason for Joan to exploit them and the birth family and the institution of adoption and go out and browbeat and bully other people who want to adopt.

Mom never understood me on the topic of my birth certificates; until a few years before she died. She asked me for all of my “papers” so I gave them to her to read. The next morning, she said, “You are right. This birth certificate does say I gave birth to you. I did not get the chance to experience giving birth. Someone else did. You should have an adoption certificate instead.” That was the closest she came to seeing my point of view.

You ask: “Again, asking because I don’t know: Would you have felt differently about your changed birth certificate(s) if your adoptive parents and original church body had not lied to you and kept your adoption/birth-family a secret. Had they shared with you the names of your birth family and allowed you to engage in a relationship with them if you (and they) wanted, would that have changed your perspective?”

I have struggled with this since I was 18. Everything was dumped upon at the same time and took decades to resolve. Excuse for not taking responsibility for her own actions. She was already looking on her own before we made contact. I got a phone call from a sister I never knew, telling me I have 4 older sibs, 2 same age step brothers, 2 younger step sisters and a baby half brother. I was told my birth name, and the names of my natural parents from this eldest sister. These are facts that should have been told to me by my adoptive parents at some point in my childhood. These facts could not be given to her by either set of parents…that’s the law. All at once, I experienced a deep and profound loss of a childhood with these siblings, and loss of my mother whom I was never allowed to grieve or see her grave. I also felt a loss at not knowing my natural father.

I think people have this grandiose perception that when an adoptee has a reunion with their natural family that they are happy to be reunited. I was, but the shock at such a young age, the realization of being deceived, and the overwhelming emotional task of putting my life back together, all of this was too much to ask of an 18 year old still in high school. At 18 she was considered an adult and the agency and lawyer I spoke with before making contact said I, as sibling, had the right to contact her. If Joan was unable to handle adulthood, at age 18, that is not my fault. I was an adult and mother at age 18 and so are many other people. I should have been told the truth from the very beginning and I should have had ongoing, relationship building visitation with all of my natural family from the very beginning. But then, I shouldn’t have been separated from my family at all. Wishful thinking and lamenting that gives her the right to browbeat other people.

Back to what happened when I was 18: By all means…forget the fact that she is now 56 years old and still acts like a spoiled 12 year old. Combine the relationship-building with my siblings and my father, and new aunts and uncles and cousins, while maintaining adoptive family relationships, and while applying for college and graduating from high school, it was just too much for me to handle. My sisters did not handle contacting me in the proper way. They took control and did not even involve our father in the decision to contact me. They overstepped their bounds. We had a brother, too, and all four siblings were wrong to contact me in the timing and manner that they did. They did not take into consideration how my adoptive parents would feel. Had my natural father made contact, he would have contacted my adoptive parents first to decide how to tell me and arrange for a meeting. My father could not contact her, all this rehashing is the only way that Joan has to convince the world that she has been victimized…she never tells about her own rotten deeds to the birth family that only wanted to love her. This was 1974 and no one knew how to do this because there were no books, no guidelines and no professionals to help. Accept one’s life for what it is. Mistakes were made in the reunion process, many people’s feelings were hurt, despite efforts to make things right. My relationship with my adoptive parents suffered as a result of this intrusion. While I welcomed my natural family back into my life, resentment built up on all sides. Because of her behavior and trouble making. Each person had their own view of what happened in 1956 and I was told some real horror stories. I had to decide who was telling me the truth and who wasn’t. So she repeats the horror stories told to her by the adopted parents and she lies about everyone and everything.

Then there was the issue of the birth certificates and baptismal certificates. My understanding of the legalities involved evolved over time, research, and joining adoption support and reform organizations. Neither my adoptive family nor my natural family approved of my involvement. They did not approve of my going public and writing about my experiences and ideas for reform. I was viewed as an outcast, so I was rejected by natural family and adoptive family. Because of her trouble making. In 1979/80 I and my second husband started adoption of my son and daughter. Joan interferred, we told her to butt out, she refused, she alienated my children against me, she called false child abuse reports on me twice…that is the major reason I reject her. Then in 1992 at a brief family gathering she lied to my face, said she loved me, but within 24 hours she was yelling at my father to help me because my mental health was in danger because of my religious beliefs! My father kicked her out of his house. In 1998 she wrote letters trying to get me to contact her again. She also tried to enlist my daughter, when she worked for an insurance company, to commit crimes by getting medical records from the state medicaid system. These acts were only against me, she did more to others. Joan Wheeler is dangerous…beware of her.

Had I been allowed contact with my siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles and my father from the beginning, some of the pain would have been relieved. She will not accept the life she was given! John Lennon lived with his aunt while his mother went on to have other children. The siblings visited with each other, just like cousins visit each other. But there is one big difference: John Lennon was never formally adopted by his aunt so his birth certificate was never changed and no one tried to hid his siblings from him. He just lived with his aunt while his other siblings lived with their mother. I’m not sure about their father, but one sister, older than John (I think) was given up for adoption. She probably does not know to this day who her brother was. See the book: John Lennon, My Brother by Julia Baird. What does that have to do with us the birth familyof Joan? We object to having our family and our lives exposed and exploit by this woman.

Does all this negativity demean the objective for adoptees to be able to contact and reunite with their natural family, or to have the legal right to their original birth certificates? No. My reunion went sour because all people involved, including extended families, were ignorant of what adoption did to me, to my adoptive parents, to my natural father, and to my siblings. No, it went sour because of Joan’s behavior and mental illness. Peoples’ perceptions were built by society’s taboos and myths. Take it up with the law-makers, leave the birth family alone and stop harassing other people. I had to live them down and by doing so, by exposing the truth of adoption’s effects on all of us, I was the target of ridicule. Untrue, she wants to be a victim, she loves her pain, which is self-induced. She is a target of ridicule because of this type of nonsense that she uses against anyone who is pro-adoption.

While I once thought that had I been given the opportunity for visiting my siblings during my childhood that most of the problems would have been solved, I no longer see it that way. Hence, I do not approve of open adoption. Why? Because the adoptee still suffers the loss of the family of origin and the loss of the birth identity. There is an amended birth certificate created and the lies never stop. And, why give up a child to open adoption when all that’s really needed is actual help and supports to keep a family in crisis together? Pie in the sky thinking…what she wants needs to be done by the laws of the land, she will never accept that she was abused by the adopted family and she has spend her entire life making everyone paid.

If I had visitation with my siblings in an open adoption, I would still feel left out. Why do they get to be a family without me? Self pity. Why was I the only one to be let go to adoption? It goes the other way around too, as I found out. My siblings were jealous and envious of my secluded childhood. Nonsense, we were all adults when we found her…we all had our own lives. They felt that I got material things that they did not get; that I was spoiled and had the attention of two parents while they lost their mother and gained a step mother they didn’t want. Sure my adoptive parents had the time and money to spend on me, but we weren’t rich. Isn’t that why I was given up — to have a better life? No, she was adopted because her mother died and her father had no means to care of her. fact of life. But why have this better life when my reunited siblings used my life as a weapon against me? And because I wasn’t raised with them, I did not know their inside information: stuff that siblings do together. So she lies and fabricates things. For us, they eventually saw themselves as “us against Joan” because I was the little sister who knew nothing. I had to be put in my place. Fantasies in her head…

You asked me: My question, because I do not know, not to antagonize, (and it doesn’t sound like this is your experience, so maybe it is unfair to ask you) what is the opinion of adoptees (you know more than I) about trying to protect the identity of a birth mom that does not want to be known to the adoptee with a sealed original birth certificate?

Any mother who does not want to be contacted should have counseling to heal the deep wound of giving up her child, which is an act that goes against nature. Until she deals with the grief, shame and whatever else she’s feeling, she’s not going to be free inside herself to accept that she has the moral and ethical obligation to face her adult child and explain her actions. Many pregnant women were chained to the bed, drugged and “de-babied” or “raped of their babies at the moment of birth”. These women were traumatized and they did not make the decision to give up their babies. They then bury the pain of their loss so deep that they cannot face their own grown daughter or son. Bad things happen all the time. There is no one-fix for all…Joan just likes to talk about things she knows nothing about for the dramatic effect. Joan does not live by all the advise she gives out. She is a mental case that refuses to get the help she needs, she blames every one for her inner problems.

Mothers do not need protection from their own adult children. That is a fabrication of the closed adoption system. Mothers have been coming out of the closet since 1976 to say that they never wanted to give up their babies, but were given no choices. Look up CUB: Concerned United Birthparents; Origins USA; American Adoption Congress; Adoption Crossroads at https://www.adoptionhealing.com/.

Certainly, if a mother or father does not want contact, their wishes should be respected by the adoptee. But in no way should that natural mother or father prevent the adoptee from accessing the original birth certificate. The truth of conception and birth should never be withheld from an adoptee. There are states that want to enforce laws to have the mother’s name redacted from the birth certificate. That is a very dangerous path to take. You give birth, you had better tell the truth to your adult child. You adopt, you had better tell the truth to your adoptee. Who pays the price in the end for the “rights” of the parents to have their way? The adoptee is the one to suffer because all the parents want the control. Since when does a 55 year old adoptee need permission from any parent to do anything or obtain any document? Mommie, may I please have my birth certificate? Give me a break. My children were considered free adults at age 18. Moral outrage again….Joan knows what everyone else should do…particularly they should tell the truth…but Joan never speaks the truth, never.

What if the adoptee decides she doesn’t want contact from meddling natural or adoptive family? When does the adoptee receive protection from unwanted contact? Anyone has the right to say no to contact: if harassed, press charges. Joan is an expert on harassments…the birth family has told her for years to leave us alone, she didn’t, she doesn’t, and then she wrote a lying book about us all! We, the birth sisters, were able to get the book removed from publication, by the publisher, when they did see the libelous material in the book they NEVER saw before printing. That’s the danger of self-publishing outfits. Joan got a print-ready deal, the publisher never read the maniuscript, unless and until they did a complaint. We sisters complainted, provided documentation and the publisher pulled the book. So now Joan has to continue her lies by having 2 websites devoted to lying about us and her hatred against adoption. She goes out and browbeats and harasses people like Erica on this site.

Erica, your adopted son should not have a falsified birth certificate. He should have an adoption certificate that accurately states the facts of adoption. I appreciate that you will be honest with your son. The system is not perfect.

Erica says: November 2, 2011 at 8:46 am

Joan, so sad to hear about your boyfriend’s father. Thank you for taking the time to post such a great, well-thought out comment. I really appreciate it! I am enjoying conversing with you and learning more about you on here. I will be unable to get back to this til later, but wanted to respond right away! I will be praying for you and your boyfriend. Loss is so difficult!

Joan M Wheeler says: November 2, 2011 at 9:16 am

Thank you, Erica. I’ll check back, if I can. If not, it will be a few days.

I hope now that everyone, including Erica, has a clear understanding of Joan Wheeler..her comments are not well-thought out and they contain many many lies, as I’ve shown.

end part one….

Joan Wheeler continues to lie and lie on another adoption site, but she got caught! part two

gertmcqueen — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:50:52 +0000

introduction part two:

On the following pro-adoption website I found more lies by Joan Wheeler. Joan went there with malice intent to bully and condemn them. The owner/manager of this site is Erica. I have included a couple of her comments here as well. http://findinggodsfingerprints.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/adoption-where-do-you-begin/

We start part two with my comment on the site, that was placed in between Joan and Erica’s dialog.

gertmcqueen says: February 8, 2012 at 3:43 pm

I am birth sister to Joan Wheeler, you really ought to see the other side of the story
check out the birth siblings blogs@ gertmcqueen.wordpress.com and
ruthsippelpace@wordpress.com Amongst many things, Joan Wheeler violated the adoption process I was in with adopting my own son, in 1980…

Joan M Wheeler says: November 1, 2011 at 10:09 pm

Erica says:

So, what would you propose as a solution for unwanted pregnancies that lead to unwanted children (I understand this not the case for all)? What about incest or rape that produce a child? What about a child born addicted to drugs, where the mother wants to choose adoption, so the child will not go to CPS? What about children left abandoned at hospitals, police stations, fire stations? What about women who are incarcerated that have no familial contact or support? What about professional birthmothers who are more concerned with gestating a child for profit, rather than parenting? What about grandparents who do not want to raise their teenager’s child? As we were going through the adoption process, these seemed to be the bulk of the adoption situations here in the US (you can find many posted adoption situations all over the internet). Is it in the best interest of a child to be raised in a family where they are unwanted or a constant reminder of a horrible crime?

My answer, Erica, is this: Here is were Joan can get on her bully pulprit and show how brilliant she is, for the most part it’s all bullshit. Look behind the curtain here!

Unwanted pregnancies that lead to unwanted children: if a mother truly does not want her child, then an extended family member should be found to be a guardian. The father may want to parent his child and often times he is not even considered. The child benefits by being raised by extended family and the birth identity is not changed.

Rape or incest that produce a child: these children have a mother and a father and no one has the moral right to deny the truth to these individuals. The true mother and the true father, no matter what the circumstances, must be named on the child’s birth certificate because facts are facts. Care in raising such children means that proper counseling should be available. Such individuals do grow up and become productive citizens. As an adoptee, I knew of one such woman. She was the product of brother-sister incest and rape. She was an adoptee who petitioned the court to open her records and the judge awarded her request. She was shocked to learn the truth, but it was HER truth and no one else’s. As for the infant who may not be wanted by a mother in these circumstances, again, crisis intervention is of high importance. Under the proper care, many of these mothers do keep their children and love them in spite of the rapist-father or incestuous father. Ask Jaycee Dugard how she feels about her two daughters conceived by rape. Their father may not be of right mind and is a criminal, but he IS their father! If a mother does not want the infant conceived by rape or incest, again, then every effort should be made to keep that child within the family of origin. If that is not possible, then guardianship, not adoption, is in order. Maintain as much integrity of that person’s identity and family connections with cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents. Not adoption? NO. Never adoption. The mother of a rape-produced child has an obligation to her child to tell the truth of conception and birth. This is morally correct. The father who is a rapist, though he is in jail, has the right to know about his child and to explain himself when that child reaches adulthood. Think I’m crazy? A good friend of mine: her son’s pregnant girlfriend stabbed another pregnant woman to death. She gave birth three weeks later in jail (where she is serving 25 years to life) and the baby was removed from her care. That infant and her two other siblings were given to the father to raise. And the mother is not only named on the birth certificates, but she is in phone contact and mail contact with her three children who know their mother is in jail. The mother has visiting rights to her children, but they live across the state, so they have not visited with her yet.

What about a child born addicted to drugs, where the mother wants to choose adoption, so the child will not go to CPS? Children have rights to know their own parents! Being born to a drug addict is no excuse to sentence the child to life-long identity theft and family theft. I am a social worker and have worked with such mothers. LIE, she has NEVER worked as a social worker because she is can not hold a job because of her mental disabilities. Most of her ‘talk’ about all these situations are part and parcel of social work, she reads and talks about it, she goes to conventions, but she NEVER has held a job as a social worker…beware of the lying. CPS and other agencies get involved with a list of tasks the mother must accomplish in order to be reunified with her child. If the drug addict cannot overcome the addiction, the child is placed in foster homes and family connections maintained, especially if there are other children involved. Drug addict or extreme abuser or neglect? Of course remove the child into protective custody! Find someone within the family to care for the child, if that is not possible, legal guardianship is preferred over permanent adoption which results in the destruction of the child’s personal and family identity.

What about women who are incarcerated that have no familial contact or support? See my comment above. Being in prison does not mean these parents are not parents. They are! And they have rights. And they have visitors and their children visit them and write to them. You cannot punish the child for the crime that a parent commits. The child has a right to know her own mother and father, siblings, extended family. Period.

What about professional birthmothers who are more concerned with gestating a child for profit, rather than parenting? I have never heard of this term: professional birthmothers. Sounds like you made this up. Yes, I am against surrogate mothers of any type. There is the surrogate mother who is impregnated with the sperm of a donor who may be married to a woman who does not want to be pregnant or cannot be pregnant. This type of surrogate mother uses her own egg and then receives a fee and relinquishes her baby. There are surrogates who are impregnated with a fertilized egg and then relinquish the baby to a contractual couple or single parent. I have researched this for decades and have written extensively on this topic in my local paper. I went to Washington DC in 2004 to address the President’s Council on Bioethics: http://bioethicsprint.bioethics.gov/transcripts/june04/session7.html

And how did Joan get all the money for conventions and such…from the adopted mother! And who raised Joan’s two children while Joan is either going to adoption conferences and such or causing trouble with family members or sick with her mental illnesses…the adopted mother raised the children!

I am no fan of sperm donors or egg donors or embryo transfers. No embryo can be legally adopted so there is no such thing as embryo adoption. Adults who partake of these follies are playing God with the lives of the children who are created this way. Should be illegal. Just ask the adults who are products of these inventions of the rich to create children for themselves. These donor-conceived people do not appreciate being forced into a life of lies. The adult children of sperm donors and surrogate mothers are writing their own blogs about how it feels.

 What about grandparents who do not want to raise their teenager’s child?
They will regret turning their backs on their own grandchild someday.

Some parents are severely mentally ill and cannot parent their children. Still, everything that I’ve said here still applies: do not think that adoption is the answer. Read and re-read this comment until you understand that the truth browbeating, belittling, bullying of birth and the birthname and the family of origin are extremely important to adoptees who would much prefer not to have been adopted.

I have been involved in adoption reform since I was 18 in 1974. The stories I’ve heard would curl you hair. Adoptees are resentful. Listen to us.

http://forbiddenfamily.com This site is misleading…it’s the title of the now pulled from publication book because of the libelous material in it and it is a hate site against the birth siblings and those that adopt.

Joan M Wheeler says: November 1, 2011 at 7:01 pm

Daniel says: “How much more love is expressed taking care of someone I don’t legally make mine?”

I’d like to point out that there is another option that is rarely given a glimpse these days. It is the legal option of being a legal guardian. I once knew a man who lost his mother when he was three years old. A few years later, his father also died. His grandparents left his identity at birth intact and chose to be his legal guardians. He was loved, well taken care of, and had a happy childhood, and was kept within his original family. But in these last few decades we hear of grandparents adopting their grandchildren, thus, all that identity changes occur, relationship changes occur, and the adoptee lives a life of confusion and falsified birth documents.

Strangers who want to give a home and love to a child who needs a home can do so without changing her or his birth name, without casting aside the family of origin, and maintaining contact with extended family and immediate family. This would truly be love because then, the parent figures are not making the child theirs. Adoption is an act of possession. Personal opinion colored by her hatred for the institution of adoption.

I am not saying I do not love my adoptive parents. I do. I resent the lies and the changing of my identity. I also resent being forced away from the family I was born into. Read up on Stockholm Syndrome. That’s how I feel. This situation was forced upon me. In order to survive, I developed attachments and love toward the people who adopted me, but I grieved for the loss of the parents and family I was taken from. True, I was relinquished, but the infant adoptee instinctually feels the loss. Adoptees do feel abandoned. Obvious mental concerns here…she has been abused, it comes out in all her statements…she was abused sometime in her young life by someone in the adopted family…because she WAS NOT known to the birth family until she was 18. Her own way of getting revenge for all the resentment she has is to constantly tell her versions to anyone who adopts.

Joan M Wheeler says: November 2, 2011 at 11:13 am

While I do not know Daniel personally, I do agree with everything he has said on this comment section. Because he is another one of those adoptees on that forum that find and go after pro-adoption people, like this site. We are adoptees of different backgrounds. Daniel was adopted from his homeland of Lebanon, brought to the States, and has moved back to his homeland. I was born and adopted in Western New Your State. I did not have to move back to my homeland. I grew up in the same city in which I was born.

It is difficult for adoptive parents to see our point of view. You’ve already adopted your children and some of you may be in the process again. To you, you want a child and see religion and your spiritual beliefs as guiding you to help a child in need. But Daniel and I WERE those children “in need”. Daniel has a deeper understanding of the world view of what it is like to be adopted into America from a distant country, distant to US that is. He knows how it feels to be deprived of his native culture and language. Me, I am a domestic adoptee, a grey market, private adoption. But I am no different. When Daniel speaks of power and control, people of money and the poor, I know. Why not accept the life that was given instead of hating it and everyone in it.

My father not only lost his wife to an early death, but he had just secured a job that would keep him for life. It didn’t pay well, but the job was secure. He was hired for life. Everything that he worked so hard to achieve: education in his field, building a family, and then, poof, it was all gone, except the job. He had no choice but to go to work every day. Not correct….this is a personal assessment of my father’s life that the adopted mother put into Joan’s head. In the lying book Joan goes out of her way to paint my father as being ‘dirt poor’ but here she says he had a job, education…lies…lies…lies…she can’t keep them straight!

Meanwhile, my adoptive mother had to quit her job as a condition of the adoption so she could stay home all day to take care of me. Here is the agenda of the adopted mother and Joan…that the adopted parents had to give something up when they adopted and then later in life, they WANTED something from my father…who was better off then them! Worse than faulty logic…it’s more like a blackmail attempt. The main reason that Joan was placed for adoption was that there was NO ONE to care of her, and the adopted parents were able to TAKE care of her.

My adoptive father had a good paying, life-long secure job that paid slightly more than my natural father’s job. The court wrote all the financials down in the home study. Clearly, my adoptive parents paid cash, in full, for a house out in the suburbs. It was a modest home, but my natural father did not own a home. I went to a private school, had a huge yard to play in, and had a bedroom to myself. Perfect little family. We had more money than my natural father did, not by much, but when the number of children is taken into consideration and the fact that my father re-married and would have to support her, too, well, the money didn’t go very far. Blackmail attempt logic….she did attempt it with my father, but he was not stupid and he told her to get out! The issue is that Joan and the adopted mother CAN NOT use what happened in 1956 with their situation in 2009 as a reason to say that because the adopted parents ‘babysat’ for the child for 18 years and now they are in financial need for my father to pay them back!

Upon reunion, my siblings used this against me. They were jealous of my house, my yard, my education (private grade school, private high school, private college). They were jealous that I had a bedroom all to myself. They were jealous that I had hand-sewn clothes and curtains and bedspread. According to them, I had all the luxuries they did not have while they grew up. When their step mother died a few years later, they went into an orphanage and foster home. The stable home I grew up in was seen by my siblings as a luxury that they did not have, so, upon our reunion, they picked on me, called me a spoiled brat. Joan is putting things all together and mixing things up. We did not know her until we all were adults….all we kept telling her was that she should be gratiful for what she has, but she never has been thankful….only resentful. She has to tell all these things, which are falsehoods, about and against us, the birth family, because she hates her life and us. They had each other. I was raised an only child, deprived of them. I was lonely and alone for my childhood. The setup had been made long before our reunion. I was set aside from my siblings in a different world. Because of our differences, despite all that we had in common, our relationships could not last. It’s about her behavior and nothing else. Also, I was the only one given up for adoption and therefore, the only one who needed to learn about adoption and had to go to mental health counseling to piece my life back together. I was shunned because of that. It would have been nice if my natural family and adoptive family supported me in counseling (and if they went to counseling, too) so that they could get a better understanding about adoption and how it affected them. It would have been nice if my natural and adoptive families would have been open to reading the adoption reform books that I read (adoption psychology, adoptive family structure, laws), and attended adoption conferences to learn. But no one else wanted to take that step. I learned; they did not. I was highly criticized for “being obsessed” with adoption.

Here’s other facts that I figured out when I went through family histories: this is all so unnecessary…it’s all based on flawed logic and has NOTHING to do with us the birth family that she constantly exposes, exploits and harasses because she has a hard-on against adoption…she is dangereous.

There were a total of 36 half orphans in my two adoptive families, and my natural mother’s family. My natural father’s family did not have any half orphans. A half orphan is a child who loses one parent to death. There were aunts who lost a husband, cousins who lost a husband, and all those children added up. More importantly, in the psychology of three out of four of my families, this is what happened:

Long before I was born and adopted, my future adoptive father’s father had a wife and two children, born around 1908. The wife died, leaving her husband with 2 children. He got married again. This wife had 8 children, the eldest of which became my adoptive father. But the father died when the eldest of these 8 children was 11 years old. This happened in the 1920s. The eldest child quit school and became the man of the house. He scavenged the streets, picking up broken furniture and radios to fix to earn money to support his mother and keep his siblings together. The two older brothers were in the service and they sent home money, too. These siblings were allowed to know each other and adoption was not an option; they would not lose each other because their father died. They were also allowed contact with the father’s extended family. Remember that I told you about the two older brothers whose mother had died. They had not lost touch with their deceased mother’s family. That family line is directly related to my natural mother. But, because I was later adopted, I was never supposed to know this fact, or any of this history, because adoptees just aren’t supposed to be told anything about their blood lines.

My adoptive mother’s mother died in 1918 of the flu. She left behind a husband and 4 children. Their father worked six days a week, paid for their keep in an orphanage, and visited his children every Sunday. The kids grew up knowing each other, knowing their father, and knowing their deceased mother’s family. In fact, the father absolutely would not allow the nuns to allow any of his children to be adopted out. He went back to Italy, married a second wife, and she moved here and had a daughter – half sister to the other children.

My natural mother was the 11th of 12 children. When my mother was 13 years old and most of her older siblings were grown, her mother died. Her father remarried when she was an older teen, but my mother, her younger brother, never were given up for adoption. All the siblings were allowed contact with their deceased mother’s family. My natural mother did not know that she would grow up to have 5 children, and die when they were under the age of 9. My natural mother never imagined that her youngest child would be given up for adoption by her widowed husband. Why is she exploiting my family? Because she hates her life!

With all of these 36 half orphans combined in three out of four of my families, I am the only one who was relinquished and then adopted into a closed and secret adoption. If it was alright for all the others to be kept by the remaining parent and allowed sibling contact, and allowed extended family contact, why was I deprived of the same rights? I was treated as an outcast, as someone who didn’t fit in, as a spoiled brat, as a chosen child. All of the adults KNEW the family connections and THEY allowed themselves to visit between my blood family and my adoptive family, conveniently leaving out my natural father and myself and my siblings. The Surrogate Court believed that my adoption was a closed and secret adoption, but the court did not know that other relatives made up their own rules and played a different game. See the problems here? The Court Judge told my father to stay away from me and my adoptive parents while they raised me, but the Judge did not know that my extended adoptive family would be socializing with my deceased natural mother’s family. They did so because we were related anyway! But they held it against me because, as an adoptee, I should never know the truth.

I should have been kept by my father, just as all the other half orphans in these families. THEY had the luxury of family connectedness and THEY all prevented me from those same connections. Hypocrites, all of them: especially my adoptive parents. My natural father was used. He did not know about this ongoing contact, if he was told it was going to happen, he would have made other plans for me. Maybe he would have kept me. He told me so years into our reunion. He wanted to keep me but felt pressure to give me up.

Am I resentful? Yes. All those years of growing up hearing these words spoken at Mass: “bow our heads now and pray for the faithfully departed”. I was never allowed to properly grieve my mother’s death, never allowed to go to her grave, nor was I told how she died. That all took place after my reunion.

I had a different life than my siblings. I might have been better off as a child, in certain monetary gains, but what I lost is immeasurable.

What is my intention writing here? To educate adoptive parents to tell the truth. And, if I can prevent another adoption, I will be successful. No child deserves to be separated permanently and needlessly from their family of birth. No child deserves to have their birth name permanently erased and sealed and have new name assigned to them on a falsified birth certificate. No her intention here is to browbeat and bully you into NOT adopting, because the only thing she knows is that adoption is the cause of her sickness….when in fact…it is the abuse she had as a child that is the cause…and certainly the birth family have NOTHING to do with why Joan is sick!

Relinquishment is wrong. Adoption is wrong. Adoptees are telling our stories. Take heed of what we say. See the bullying!

Ruth says: February 9, 2012 at 3:54 am

I am a birth sister of Joan Wheeler’s and am appalled at her continued bantering of falsehoods regarding her adoption. She says: At his wife’s funeral, a Catholic priest said to him, “The baby needs two parents”. And a woman approached him and said, “I know someone who will take your baby.” Her brother and his wife became my adoptive parents.

No, my mother’s sister’s childhood friend had a brother whose wife was infertile. My aunt and her brothers asked my father after my mother died, “what are you goint to do about the baby?” My aunt suggested the adoption by her friend’s brother. My father consulted the priest. NONE OF THIS HAPPENED AT THE FUNERAL. I have heard the stories from not only my father, but my aunt, and my uncles.

Joan also says: The Christmas after I was born, and two weeks before my adoption was to be finalized, my adoptive parents bought a Christmas tree and presents for my four older siblings, ages 3, 6, 8 and 9. The kids were in bed when they delivered and set up the tree and gave my father the presents. They must have had a babysitter for me so they could do this act of charity. My adoptive mother told me that she and my adoptive father wanted to do something nice for my natural father and his children so they would have a nice Christmas. Imagine how my natural father felt receiving these gifts in exchange for his 5th child? His other children never knew where the tree came from or the presents.

This is a lie. My father worked as an engineer at Buffalo’s City Hall and was making good money. Six months after my mother died in March 1956, he remarried (Summer 1956) to a woman from a large Italian family. There was no need for ANYbody to send over a tree and gifts. This story may have been told to Joan by her adoptive parents because they lived in a suburb of Buffalo, while we continued to live in the “inner city.” Joan was raised as a spoiled only child, with hand-made dresses. The rest of us, as kids from any large family would, wear hand-me-downs. So what? We also had many fine Christmases provided by my father and his second wife, many gifts from both sets of my birth grandparents and my stepgrandmother and her son and daughters. If anything, we kids PROSPERED with so many relatives!

Joan further says that we birth siblings ruined her life, and our reunion with her. She says that at age 18, she was unprepared for the reunion. She says we were out of bounds. NO, my sister Gert asked an adoption agency and they said that there was no restrictions on siblings to find adopted out relatives. No, we did not consult our father, but after he was reuinted with Joan, he was happy to see his daughter again. Joan made the concious decision BEFORE we found her to search for us, so that negates her statement that she was unprepared. Joan says we ridiculed her for her anti-adoption stand. No we did not. I myself appeared with her for a tv news interview on WGRZ tv Buffalo, New York AND I encourged her to write a book. Sad to say, her book was full of hate directed at her birth family, me in particular. In May of 2011 we were successful in having her book pulled from publication due to the slander and lies contained in it.

Joan also fails to tell people on this site and elsewhere WHY our reunion turned sour. Because she interfered with parental authority, she stole money from us, in my case it was hundreds of dollars, and she called my job repeatedly to get me fired over a false accusation. She sent harassing letters to me, one said that my infertile husband got the next door neighbor pregnant.For Joan to get on the internet and spread such lies, while being guilty of lies herseld speaks volumes of her character.

Click on my name to go my blog Refuting a Book of Lies: Forbidden Family by Joan Wheeler, where we take every lie contained in Joan’s book and present the truth – with documetnted proof of her lies: actual court documents (one of her lies was that I have an arrest and criminal record – which is false and slander) – and actual letter written by Joan herself. I am NOT against adoptee rights. I am just against this particular adoptee who has spread lies about me for more than 30 and ruined our reunion with her because of her immoral activity. She says we wanted to mold our baby sister into what we wanted? NO, all we wanted was someone who didn’t lie to us, create trouble, steal from us, and wreak havoc in our lives.

Pingback: More Lies by Joan Wheeler from January, 2012 on another website « Refuting a Book of Lies: Forbidden Family –

Ruth says: February 9, 2012 at 11:10 am

in one of her numerous nonsense comments, Joan Wheeler mentions that her boyfriend’s father died in November (2011) – like that had something to do with the topic here) HOWEVER, during a check at The Buffalo News just 10 minutes ago, I found that the man died on October 30, 2011. Okay, it was only a couple of days before November, but we see how JOAN DOESN’T GET THE FACTS RIGHT!
I have caught her in many of these little slip-ups in her book. Like the time she was describing a fight she had after a party of my younger brother’s First Holy Communion. She described the day as cold and rainy. I posted pictures of my stepsister who was wearing a dress with spaghetti straps. Full sunlight streaming in the windows! And a check in the library on the mircrofilmed newspaper for that day – the weather was listed as “warm and sunny.”

Nitpicking? Not when you are dealing with the facts of people’s lives – which Joan turns completely around to suit her fantasy of what happened – which in turns means: CAN YOU TRUST WHAT JOAN SAYS ABOUT HER BIRTH FAMILY?
For example, this nonsense about my father accepting a xmas tree the year after she was born – which would make it Dec. 1956 (actually 11 months after she was born, considering she was born in January). In December 1956, I was 4 years old, yet she says I was 3. And she gets all the ages of my siblings wrong.

This is the example of an author of a non-fiction book? Her book that is full of mistakes just like this – plus the lies we found in it. – I see in my previous comment that I am guilty of a couple of typos. Typos are one thing – but as I said, when you are dealing with people’s lives, expecially telling stories about them – the truth is important. By the way – Joan publishled a photograph on the back of her book – a family photo taken in 1955 – before she was born. She lied to the publisher when she said she had full copyrights to the photo. The photo was of me, my siblings and my parents. She published my childhood picture on a book to make monies off my image – but I never gave her permission, in writing or orally to do so. When the publisher found out, along with the documented proof that Joan slandered me – her book was pulled from publication.

Erica says: February 9, 2012 at 11:31 am I have approved of these comments regarding your side of your birth families’ story, but will ask that any future comments from yourself or Joan regarding this topic, be done personally, or on your own site. I absolutely understand your desire to defend yourself, and your family when you feel you are being wronged (especially publicly), but I do not want my site to become the place to do this. I would like to keep the focus of this post for people who are considering adoption and don’t know where to begin. Thanks for understanding!

Ruth says: February 9, 2012 at 1:50 pm

Erica, I thank you for posting my comment – there are two sides to every story and you are fair and gracious to have let my side to have been heard.

yes, people should keep their comments to the topic at hand. And this topic was for adoption. The comments should also be truthful. Because when the truth is not told, or the topic is not adhered to, confusion is the result. I say kudos to those who want to consider adoption. They should know all the facts. I am also for adoptee rights. Truth in their documentation should be a must. However, militant tactics and lies only hurt and confuse people. And make enemies of those who would might otherwise help in ways that are not known.

Erica, please let me extend to you my apologys for the drama posted here. – Ruth

end part two

‘I don’t understand your life and I never will!’; from Forbidden Family by Joan Wheeler

gertmcqueen — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:12:53 +0000

Chapter 35, of Joan Wheeler’s, lying hateful book, is 25 pages of a most bizarre story. It begins with ‘I don’t understand your life and I never will!’ Chapter 36 is here also.

I wish someone could tell me what the PURPOSE of this chapter is! Perhaps I shall find out before I finish it, but I doubt it. I wonder if Joan got PERMISSION from the person, in this bizarre story, to tell ALL when he particularly said HE DIDN’T WANT TO BE IN THE BOOK! On pg 434, she relates an exchange wherein he specifically says ‘I don’t want people to know my private life…’ but she ignores that and tells all anyway! Does anyone know who this guy is so that he can be told that Joan violated his privacy as she has with everyone in her families?

As usual this chapter is filled with Joan’s innermost thoughts that she put down on paper. It does leave one wondering if what she relates here is, in fact, any way near the truth, for she does have a propensity to exaggerate and fabricate. This chapter is so very difficult to read, let alone try to explain it, but I must give it a try for it is only in REALLY reading her that one gets to know HOW sick she is!

She begins by saying that after hearing all possible ‘assaults’, because she is a adoptee proposing radical change, she was ‘…hit with something so outrageous that it took me almost 2 years to comprehend what happened.’ Key fact here is that it took her two years before she figured out that she had gotten herself in an abusive relationship because she is so obsessed with adoption that she refused to see the warning signs! Okay, okay, I’ve jumped the gun, but let’s get this out right now. Joan has a history of being in abusive relationships, she herself is abusive and from April 2006 to May 2007 she was in yet another abusive relationship, which she details for everyone on the planet to know every little detail of it! This helps adoption reform HOW?

Her reasons for ‘sharing’ this with us, amongst other reasons, is ‘…because even someone with a PhD can easily be confused over an adoptee’s reality and this relationship also demonstrates the need for individuals to work on their own issues…’ Huh?

Let me translate here: again, as I’ve stated in previous posts, Joan is biased towards high-income and high educational status, so to her someone who has a PhD really ought to ‘know better’ (showing her bias here) and her liberal use of self-serving platitudes that she regulates for everyone else, but herself. Her mission, and she choose to accept it, that no one forced upon her, is to teach everyone her version of the truth about adoption and its traumas, but, only someone who has worked on their own issues, will ever understand an adoptee. But, Joan has never worked on her own issues. Heal thyself Joan for you know not what you say!

Joan fancies herself as a ‘clever’ writer, but in actuality, she is very difficult to follow because when she writes, she is following her ‘inner thoughts’ and they just don’t come across right on paper. Her story telling is full of drama but, and this is important, if you really want to know her ‘inner mind’, as her family does, every now and then she lets a clue out. Pg 430 has such a clue. ‘…sometimes I couldn’t write until a scene played out in a dream.’ There you have it…she isn’t telling a ‘true’ story…she is telling ‘a’ story, one that comes from her dreamscape. Gotcha!!

At first glance it looks as if she is attempting to ‘explain’ how this relationship began and progressed, but at every turn there is either a huge warning sign that she ignores and explains away, or, she explains her own behavior in the past tense, as she does at the time of writing about this episode, that took place in 06/07, by that time she had overcome her own negative behavior. Sounds like a typical Joan statement about herself; she used to be that way but she isn’t now. Sure! Okay! Right! Tell me another fairy tale!

She sees BUT ignores that he is a ‘frightened, fragile man’ and that he was an ‘authority figure’ telling her what she should and should not write. She witnesses his outbursts of anger and his repulsive attitudes but does nothing, choosing instead to see ‘…the differences between us as opportunities for shared learning’. Oh boy! At the age of 50 you would think that she would have learned something! And she worked on her issues?? When??

He criticized her work, she felt insulted and continues to ‘show him’ as she has done with everyone who voiced opposing opinions to her. She enjoys the confrontations; even though she can’t stand it when someone opposes her, she needs to confront them, even if it gets herself into more and more trouble. She is addicted to confrontations! Over time this guy began to ‘demand that she finish the book’ and ‘…his rants turned into bullying that wore me down.’ But she hung in there! ‘…I patiently understood and accepted him, looking beyond his rage to the pain underneath’. What she should have done was run like hell away, but no, not Joan, she has to fix him and show him the error of his ways with his inner turmoil!

And on and on it goes, pathetic! What does all this ‘relating’ of an obvious sick relationship have to do with adoption reform? Well to Joan it shows, again, how being an adoptee, with a public mission, meets with hostilities. She has to show the adoption world how great she is as a social worker, by describing her attempts at ‘getting through’ to this very troubled person. On pg 437 she relates how she ‘confronts’ this guy about his ‘…sudden brutality after the first night we were intimate…’ that happened one year before. As I read it I’m wondering why did it take her one-year to confront an obviously hostile episode in the first place and in the second place why wasn’t she ‘history’ right after such an event in the first place. Why didn’t she leave right from the beginning? What is the purpose here? To any real thinking person, it only shows Joan’s lack of character assessing and her willingness to be involved with hostile people. Joan is a nut-case herself and she likes to be abused!

No, to Joan, the real purpose behind this chapter is to show the great and wonderful wizardry of social work that she has and where we get a up close and personal look at her great skills as a therapist. Bull Shit! On pg 439, to the reader she portrays her social worker side. ‘He was in anguish by events in his past. I was once where he is now, needing to face the cause of distress and learning how to cope with it.’ Did she learn from where she once was? Of course not!!

As you see, she has diagnosis his problem…‘he is in anguish by his past’. She has found the treatment …‘needs to face the cause of distress’…and…‘learn how to cope with it’. Except…she’s right in the midst of one bizarre violent man and she doesn’t have the sense to ‘get the hell out’! She continues to convince this guy that he needs a ‘grief counselor’, he tells her, in no uncertain words, ‘don’t go there’, and so they go to bed and ‘cuddle’ why she wonders ‘what to do when you love someone who is in such torment?’ How about ran like hell! This woman has no brains! She obviously hasn’t learned a thing.

And in the morning, instead of hitting her, he hit the dog several times yelling obscenities as Joan ‘curled up in the opposite direction toward the wall and cowered in the corner’. She ‘was shaking with fear, he never acted like this before.’ She says she couldn’t call for help because she canceled her cell phone and she couldn’t use his phone for he would see her, she left 20 minutes later. To any reasonable person this would have been the ‘wakeup call’ to get as far away as possible for this man, but not to Joan, the savior.

Beginning on pg 440 Joan begins the work on the guy, by going to their ‘friends’ and telling them that ‘I was a social worker and he needed an intervention’. Isn’t that great! Isn’t it wonderful to have a social worker at your fingertips anytime one of your friends might need to be ‘jumped on’!

There is so much crap in the remaining 14 pages that I’m going to resort to just mentioning a few of the more ‘enlightening’ statements, if you really need to know every thing you will need about $45 to $50 to buy the book.

(no, the book is no longer in print, I wrote this essay long before we siblings got the publisher to review the book and pull the libelous, hate book off the market) So in condensed form, here is the great social worker as she continues with her assessment, her techniques and her own behaviors along with my own observations.

‘…when loved ones intervene, it doesn’t mean that trust is broken, it doesn’t mean a person is crazy, its means that a person’s out of control behavior needs to be confronted, worked through and overcome to resolve the past and heal the pain’

No one else but Joan was capable of fixing him, but ‘…on the night of May 12, 2007, he acted like he didn’t want to be near me…’ Gosh can’t imagine why! Then… ‘I (Joan) got drunk, really drunk…graduated to whiskey…really wanted morphine…was distressed…taken 91 year old mother to hospital…how can we have a Mother’s Day when Mom was in the hospital…I was told I needed surgery…also worried about son and daughter for different reasons…drove drunk…was ashamed and irresponsible…he was mad…remembered that his wife was a drunk driver just before she was killed.’ Nice behavior here from the great and wonderful social worker Joan!

Maybe he wasn’t happy with Joan’s intervention and behavior for the next week ‘…he displayed unbelievable ignorance during the most vicious, public, verbal and physically threatening attack ever directed at me.’ He ‘…got in my face and screamed…entire room of people became silent…friends ignored him…I sat still…hung my head and cried…she talks to herself in her head…people turned away…could he be mad at me for my drinking…I asked him what’s gotten into you…he answers you should know…I tried to calm him down and move his sadistic tirades to someplace private…instead he insisted on making several public scenes in one night over the course of three hours…’ THESE ARE JOAN’S WORDS!

And Joan stays with this behavior and allows it to continue on because of love and she is a social worker! Doesn’t she know enough to have left the guy at the first outburst? No, she doesn’t. And this behavior will help people with adoption reform HOW? This only shows Joan’s stupidity!

She felt like pointing out that he is ‘…acting like a buffoon…instead I …sighed and stared at my glass.’ Then she ‘asked him to go outside where we could talk a bit more privately’. What the hell is wrong with this picture? Any woman that is reading this could tell you that Joan is a damnrug, for she allows herself to be abused by this man, but it wasn’t the first and I’d bet it won’t be the last because Joan ‘needs’ to feel traumatized because she is adopted. And so he too has had enough of the adoption bullshit and mouths off to her over and over and over again and all she does is continue to argue back and forth.

He tells her that ‘your book’s importance is insignificant’ and all she can do is think ‘…he really does see me as inferior…’ Italics are hers. He tells her ‘…you’re telling people how to think’. She says ‘…no I’m not, telling my story and giving my professional assessment is not telling people how to think.’ If it were that simple, Joan, for indeed she is telling people how to think, she has NO professional assessment in this book, it is ONLY her opinions and she does expect people to believe her, which is a form of telling them how to think and heaven forbid if you don’t agree with her!

It continues on; he ‘shouted, at her, you are wrong…she stood her ground…’ and continues to argue a point and finally tells him that she ‘…is connected with other experts in my field…’ he says ‘I’m not interested in your opinion’…to which she is ‘stunned’. She gets stunned a lot because she can’t fathom why others don’t see her views as truth. Not only that, but she also has a very high opinion of herself and her importance for her assessment is that ‘…my (her) life frightened him…he couldn’t figure out the subject matter…he didn’t even know the whole story…he had no empathy for me…why was I held to a different standard?’ Do you really want to know Joan?

It’s all a build up for her to ‘agenda speak’ and to retell, again, her inner traumas. ‘Just as others have done before him, he felt compelled to inflict his irrational and uniformed opinion on me. He believed his own illogical rhetoric as if it were fact…like others…felt the need to correct me, as if ‘little Joanie’ didn’t know what she was talking about…once again I felt my life negated and violated by someone I loved…was a crushing blow…as countless times before…I had to deal with reaction to my life…’ Could someone please tell me and the rest of us what the hell does all this internal anguish have to do with adoption reform and HOW is it a help to anyone? Jesus Christ, when will this woman get a life?

Then the guy gets to the issue of the ‘intervention’ by saying ‘…you wanted (friends) to take me for a ride to a counseling center so I could talk to a shrink, how dare you do that, what next, put me in a straight jacket in a paddy wagon.’ Joan says, ‘…no, you’re agitated, out of love and concern I asked friends, it would be helpful if you talked to a professional…talk to a grief therapist…’ His answer was ‘…how dare you go behind my back…you violated me…’ She couldn’t understand, for in her mind it’s ‘…human nature to confide in one another.’ So now, instead of getting the hell away from the guy she muses ‘…he wanted to dominate over me, to isolate me, had that tyrannical boss disposition, terrifying me into submission…shaking with fear…reduced to tears…I must be at fault for he was shouting at me…I must deserve this tongue-lashing…shaming and punishing me in public because he doesn’t approve of the topic of my book…’ The guy finally walked away. What a pathetic scene! And this display of Joan’s is helping adoptee and adoption reform HOW? And it is showing tips on adoption activism HOW? All it shows is Joan’s mental illness!

She wished she had a cell phone…was too afraid to leave! What the hell! Call the cops, have him arrested and leave the asshole! But no, not Joan, instead she blames all the friends for not stopping the guy! Yep, it’s not Joan’s fault that the guy wasn’t stopped; it’s the friend’s fault. Joan takes NO responsibilities. And as usual, Joan was in ‘…tremendous anxiety, sadness and embarrassment for two years…retreated into severe despair and fear, unable to move out of bed or house…’ And this behavior is sane and professional HOW? And this is helping the adoption reform movement HOW?

And instead of telling the readers HOW to do adoption reform Joan launches into 3 pages of the same old self-pity routine! She had a surgery and could only live with her ‘memories’. When she tried to go back to the bar where the ‘scene’ took place she found herself barred being told she caused the trouble for the patrons. When she regained her strength she went to the police to press charges against the guy but was told she had waited too long there was nothing there to go after and she couldn’t sue the guy because the book wasn’t published yet. Always looking after the proceeds of the book she is! Then she ‘…sought legal help…’ She mentions a total of four (4) lawyers she spoke with! Where does she get that kind of money? She doesn’t work. I’ve worked for 38 years and can’t afford one lawyer let alone four! Does she have a system within the system where she goes after free legal advice? I wonder what her racket is!

And her assessment of the situation, ‘…if he had sought counseling none of this would have happened…why was I (her) paying the price for his violence…’ and then she launches into another rant instead of any reasonable social work account. When she finally has given way to her rage she tells us why he is in the book. ‘Yes, he earned a place in this book right along with the other examples of prejudice against adoptees – against – me – to be remembered for all the wrong reasons.’ So there you have it! This is the purpose of this book…to show everyone who hurt her that she will give them a place in this book…the book is just a place for her to vent her rage! And this helps adoption reform HOW?

Joan says on pg 453, ‘Many people can’t stop blaming me for their inner turmoil.’ Excuse me!!! Is this the great wisdom of a wise and experienced social worker? What kind of idiots does Joan Wheeler think people are? Other people’s inner turmoil have NOTHING to do with Joan. It is Joan’s inner turmoil that Joan OUGHT TO BLAME. And this book is to help adoption reform HOW?

She ends this chapter with a strange statement that leaves one asking…WHAT? She says; ‘When you don’t know the origins of your DNA, it seems that those who know where their DNA comes from, don’t want those who don’t know, to know.’ Again…WHAT?

OKAY! Hey, I’ve done good! I’ve reduced 25 pages of crap down to 4!

Turning now to Chapter 36, which is only 3 pages long, thank god! It is called ‘pivotal moments of growth spoiled by arrogant relatives’. It is only another opportunity for Joan to ‘agenda speak’ and ‘point blame’ on to others. It tells of the events surrounding and then spoiling Joan’s interview on the radio about adoption reform by several of the adoptive family. But, it’s title tellings us just how Joan views her adoptive relatives. Joan wants the world to know how she feels about her relatives. Big Deal!! Boring! But, hey, that only took me a couple of sentences of reviewing.

****

Ruth here -

Residents of Erie County, in the state of New York, you should be on your kness and thank the deity of your choice that Joan Wheeler IS an unemployed “social worker.” – Because if she worked as one, the social work services in Erie County would be sooo f’ed up,

clue right here – the night where she got drunk and drove – BUT she wanted morphine! – MORPHINE!

WHO in their right mind goes out to a bar with friends and wants morphine? She’s a dam substance abuser- and she wants to help other people? When she can’t help herself?

This incident happened in 2007 and she’s STILL whacked – but gets online and says her birth sisters need to work on THEIR issues? Go get your own f’ed up warped brain fixed before you go around telling other people to get theirs fixed.

sick broad – and um Nichole Urdang – you think this book is a good one? Like I said in that letter I sent you rebutting your review of this trash book – you, a clinical psychologist, didn’t see the signs of a woman losing her fricking mind? Her not being able to write until she saw it a scene in her dream? – (and that proves what we’ve been saying – that the book Forbidden Family by Joan Wheeler is NOT the truth, but a made up fantasy of lies, bullshit IMAGININGS of a crazy demented person) and this so-called professional Urdang missed all the clues that we see jumping right off the pages at us: that Joan is a severly mentally unbalanced person who needs to be committed before she starts physically harming someone – she documented in the book how she struck her amother, she struck her children – who’s next? – well it ain’t gonna be me – and I already told Urdang that if Joan does hurt someone, I’ll hold her professionally responsible for encouraging that dingbat Joan.

Gert here…

that’s right Ruth…these so-called therapists are keeping people like Joan sick, they are NOT helping them. Recently, on the public forum Joan said that ‘her therapist’ told her that she should not be around people who ‘abuse’ her. I’m sure that Joan has been living with that advise…NOT.

A person does have to wonder…what happened to Russell…who was Joan’s best romantic boyfriend…she was with him for about 6 months August 2010 till about February 2011, right after he debased, on Joan’s behalf, our father’s memorial book! And then..in March of 2011, right after Joan’s adopted mother died, Joan has a NEW love, an old/new boyfriend, Richard. She even put his picture on her lying book site, that STILL NEEDS to come down because it is LYING. Anyway, Richard lasted less than a year. She quietly removed his name/picture and all about him only a couple of months ago, in 2011.

And these are men we KNOW about in recent years!! And this stupid sick broad has the gull to condemn her birth sisters! And lie about them, in print!

Oh yes, adoption reform people…you have a great and wonderful person helping you with your cause…Joan Wheeler! With that you don’t need any other enemy…you have the best!

Ruth

Gert says that Joan recently repeated what her therapist told her – that she (Joan) should remove herself from people who abuse her – like she needs to pay money to someone to be told that!
See – it’s a racket -these therapists keep people in therapy so they can have a guaranteed income! Joan herself admits that she’s been in therapy for more than 30 years! WTF!? – Would any social service agency want a social worker working for them who is f’ed up herself? NO!

And let this be a warning to you readers – check out the credentials of any social worker you may dealing with – is that person ethical? Are they in therapy themselves? How the hell can Joan help anyone, when she can’t even help herself?

I don’t know if Urdang is Joan’s therapist – but if she is, she stepped over the line of professionalism by writing a review of Joan’s book for amazon.com. but even if Urdang isn’t Joan’s therapist, and I hate to repeat myself – she seems like a piss-poor one – to read that book, this chapter in particular, and NOT recogonize this book is nothing but the sick ramblings of a twisted demented person and say that this book is going to help other adoptees – I think Urdang herself needs therapy.

It boggles my mind that a professional could read sentances like Joan saying she’s writing from her own dreamscape, and that he (the guy in this chapter) earned a place in her book along with others who enraged her – and think that this book is nothing but a twisted fantasy and a hatefest.

We have in Joan’s own words, by her own admission here, that this book is written for REVENGE – and for a professional therapist to NOT see that – well, Urdang needs to hang up her license because it ain’t worth the paper it’s printed on!

Ruth

Gert says: “Joan has a history of being in abusive relationships, she herself is abusive and from April 2006 to May 2007 she was in yet another abusive relationship, which she details for everyone on the planet to know every little detail of it! This helps adoption reform HOW?”

lol – not only does this not help adoption reform – it doesn’t even help other women in abusive relationships. The only reason Joan got out of the relationship was because of two factors – Jimmy had enough of her – and she herself had some surgery done.

Nowhere in this stupid chapter does Joan say “I was a victim of abuse but I garnered my strength and GOT OUT of it. And If I could get out of it, so can you.”

She did write that in 1993 after she left her husband she moved in with an old boyfriend who turned abusive on her. She did get out of that relationship. So 13 years later – she hooks up with another man, who turns abusive on her – WHY didn’t she get out? She details in the book her fear of him – his abuse of his dog – but doesn’t DO anything about it. If the very least she should have called the SPCA on this bastard. But Joan is only concerned with herself – she leaves that poor dog to be abused. That’s as bad as knowing there is child abuse going on and turning a blind eye to it. But … but.. didn’t Joan herself – THE GREAT CRUSADER AND SAVIOR OF ADOPTEES AND ABUSED CHILDREN call child abuse on her own sister Gert for “suspected child abuse in 1982?” If Joan is such a dam crusader WHY DIDN’T SHE DO SOMETHING FOR THIS POOR ABUSED ANIMAL?

Gert here….

Joan logic/reason is faulty! She thinks, if you can call it that, that by telling everyone how DAMAGED she is that will show that ADOPTION IS THE CAUSE. First clue is that adoption has NOTHING to do with the reasons that Joan is mentally ill. Adoption is what Joan blames for her miserable life.

Sure, she was adopted and by people who obviously were flawed and perhaps abusive TO Joan, OR, perhaps there was someone else in Joan’s childhood that abused her…but…the fact remains that Joan Wheeler was flawed LONG BEFORE THE BIRTH FAMILY KNEW HER.

We did not have anything to do with her upbringing or what happened to her in that Wheeler family. We are the birth family and we will NEVER accept the damage and abuse that Joan Wheeler has done to us!

Joan Wheeler did not, as in this chapter of her life, or in any other period and situation, WANT to help any abused animal or person. Joan Wheeler’s only purpose in life was to WRITE and expose and exploit two families for the CRIME OF ADOPTION and if anyone got in the way…well…read this book chapter entry AGAIN and see for yourself.

How does Joan Wheeler grieve her losses? Over and over and over again!

gertmcqueen — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:58:11 +0000

On the public forum for Adult Adoptees Advocating for change…we find Joan, as 1adoptee, confirming that she will never allow herself to get well, be well and stay well. There is grieving and then there’s grieving! And then there is stupidity and worthless self-pity and then there is just plain mental illness! There does come a point in, anyone’s, life when you just have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get moving with the business of living!

This constant ringing of the hands, weeping and gnashing of teeth, the sack cloth and ashes, gets old pretty fast! I thought that Joan Wheeler had a mental health counselor that is HELPING her! Apparently not! The following rant, of Joan’s, clearly shows, NOT that she is grieving, BUT that she HAS mental illness and that she NEEDS to be on medications!

Not only does Joan continue with her lying ‘story’ and her fantasies about ‘how it most have been’…and of which contribute to her illness…but, she intentionally PUTS herself into these needless fantasies that are causing her the grief that she is fucking grieving!

One of the first things a person that has anxiety disorder needs to do is to STOP doing/thinking about the stuff that gets them anxious! If you are afraid of the world and the news…STOP reading the newspaper and watching the news programs! Go somewhere else…read a nice pleasant book, see a happy movie, PRAY! But STOP reliving, via fact or fanasty, all the thoughts that are causing you anxiety! Not Joan…she loves her pain.

Re: How do we grieve our losses

« Reply #3 on: December 20, 2011, 03:52:26 PM »

Grieving our losses, like DP said, is not a one time thing and really must be done over and over.

My mother died a few months after my birth, so I know how it feels to imagine her pregnant and giving birth, and then dying. I do have a few pictures of her, but it’s not enough. Every year on her birthday, I wish her a happy birthday. And every year on the anniversary of her death, I silently retreat into a private space, even if I’m in a crowd. Sometimes, my feelings are numb and I can’t feel. Other times, my feelings overwhelm me and I shake with intense saddness and sob. Songs will spark an emotion and I’m longing for the family I lost at the time our mother died. I can’t imagine what our father must have gone through. He told me of his feelings over the years of our reunion and he cried, feeling guilty that he couldn’t have taken better care of his pregnant wife, that my brother was sick with a cough, and his other children stayed at home with our grandparents while our father and a neighbor took my mother and brother to two separate hosptials. I think of the strain our father was in, and I think of how frightened my mother must have been to be that sick and pregnant at the same time. After my birth, she was told she was dying. How terribly awful that must have been for her.

Each time I look in the mirror, I see parts of my mother and my father. Yes, it helps to know what features come from which parent, but it doesn’t relieve the pain of separation. I don’t like beinig alone at night. I can’t get to sleep unless I read for a bit to try to block my racing thoughts. Or, I do deep breathing. I try to see a different movie in my mind, something else, something calming. And when I wake up, I wake up in anxiety over the losses. It is a moment by moment acceptance of what has happened. It is constant work. Happiness, for me, is fleeting. A freind of mine said for me to practice gratitude, but that just puts me in the place of being grateful for being adopted, which doesn’t help, as we know. Still, I am grateful that I have my children and that I know my story. Sometimes, you just have to sob and shake until the tears stop. It is an uncomfortable way to live. Identifying with Batman, or the Hulk, or any other charachter out there also helps because at least you see that perhaps someone else is feeling those losses, too.

Gert’s comments:

My gods, it’s worst than I thought!

What the fuck!!! Identifying with Batman, the Hulk!! Okay some one else, on the thread, had mentioned these characters but why, why, even give such nonsense a voice! these characters are from comic books…is there NO real human being that these idiots can IDENTIFY with? and learn how to deal with pain and grief?

And this is a grown woman who says she is a SOCIAL WORKER and wants to help REFORM ADOPTION, who goes out in the cyber-world and beats people up because they are pro-adoption! No wonder Joan and all those that she ‘grieves’ with are messed up!

Joan obviously has some serious mental issues that have nothing to do with grieving.

GOOD GRIEF!!

Ruth

roflmao!
identifying with a comic book character! Gert- you should be ashamed of yourself. – Comic book characters are good people to emulate. I’m just wondering why Joan didn’t connect with Kal-el (Superman) – because he not only lost his family and home planet – he was (gasp) ADOPTED by the Kents. His identity torn away and given a new name – Clark Kent. lol.

You know, I also suffered from THE LOSS OF MY MOTHER – at age 3 and a half. I also have my moments of sadness. But geez –

as to MY comic book heroines – I looked up to Saturn Girl, Supergirl/Kara, Wonder Woman/Diana Price, and Lois Lane. Vampirella and Brenda Starr. Women with careers – strong women. Women who took no shit. Women who also suffered losses but overcame them to have a life.

Joan – GET A F’ING LIFE! Because this nonsense about connecting to Batman and The Hulk is ridiculous. Batman witnessed his parents murdered in from of him as a child – you did not..(and little Bruce Wayne knew his parents – you didn’t. Bruce was never adopted – he was raised by relatives, – you were not).
The Hulk is The Hulk due to an overdose of gamma rays – you were not exposed to gamma rays. Bruce Banner, as far as we know, had a normal childhood with his birthparents. so again, this doesn’t apply to you.

Don’t try to talk to me about comic books – I’ve been a comic collector my whole life – I know all about them. For Joan to say she identifies with Batman and the Hulk just shows us she is spouting more garbage and lies.

Gert – I haven’t seen this thread – let me guess – some other idiot adoptee mentioned Batman and The Hulk and Joan, with no original thoughts of her own, just jumped on the bandwagon – I guarantee it. She’s a fool. And I can see right through her idiocy.

COMMENT by Gert

Gert here: Hey, I’m NOT against comic books or their heros, male or female. I’ll admit that I don’t know ALL there is to know about the art…hey, it took me decades to UNDERSTAND Star Wars!! and now I love it! The only ‘fantasy’ I read and know is LORD OF THE RINGS and all related stories…and they are based on factual historical mythology, legends and language….so give me a little slack!

I picked up on the fact, as Ruth did, that Joan did not have the ORIGINAL thought, about Batman and the Hulk…which BTW I have NEVER SEEN, again begging your pardon. As you can see, by Joan’s own words, she is REPEATING what someone else said. My point is…is…there any other charactor that can be used to identify with…someone that the rest of the world knows?

Besides that and my own ignorance of the world of comics and their charactors, I am glad that Ruth has enlightened us AGAIN as to the finer points that Joan and the other adoptees have missed by NOT including Superman! Hey, he’s a fine example of an ADOPTEE who overcame his circumstances and who doesn’t show his anger at the rest of the world. Superman actually DOES something worthwhile by helping people. Angry adoptees, Joan, why are you NOT like Superman?

Ruth

ty Debbie.
by the way – Spiderman (Peter Parker) was bullied in high school. His first girlfriend, Gwen Stacey, was murdered. Peter never succumbed to the “Woe is me” mentality.

Peter was an orphan – he was raised by his elderly Aunt May and Uncle Benjamin. His Uncle Ben taught him; “With great power comes great responsiblity.”

The adoptees have power – with their forum. Despite it’s name “Advocating for Change” – they wallow in their self-pity and other than their wanting open birth records, I see very little “change” – all I see is hate, belittlement of adoptive parents and birth mothers who have given up thier children. they cut birth mothers who relinquish NO slack – no sort of understanding that the birth mothers are flawed human beings. All the adoptees can do is whine “what about MEeeeee.” Well what about the pain the mother went through? What about the pain infertile women go thru? – no, another human being’s pain means NOTHING to them. Joan included. It’s always JOAN’S pain. She never understood that her birth sisters had pain as well. – Pain which had NOTHING TO DO WITH HER ADOPTION.

With great power comes great responsibility. Think about it. And Adoptees – think about what you did last year to Steffi. An adopted person,transgender, very confused,came to your forum. In looking at Steffi’s posts – I could see his/her pain. Yes, Steffi kinda took over the General Discussion threads. Instead of an administrator sending Steffi a private message and telling her to tone it down- the adoptees held Steffi up to ridicule – yes – THEY BULLIED STEFFI – AN ADOPTEE WHO HAD COME TO THEM FOR HELP!

And they claim that their forum is HELP adoptees? What help did they give Steffi? NONE! Because she didn’t think like they did. She was a transgender – she was beyond thier scope – but instead of helping her – they BULLIED her off the boards! disgusting.

Do adoptees ever feel whole? A burning question and some insights into the empty vastness of Joan Wheeler’s mind.

gertmcqueen — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:09:48 +0000

Why don’t these inquiring minds, of angry adoptees, seek help from their spiritual side? Why do they always want to repeat their pain and suffering over and over again? Why can’t they accept their place in life and learn how to cope, like the rest of the human race? This bit of an exchange gives valuable clues into why Joan Wheeler will always remain a sick person.

Do Adtopees ever feel whole?

« on: December 06, 2011, 10:04:13 AM »

There’s been several shows on lately about people who open their homes to kids by adopting them in large numbers. These kids all know they are adopted….most of them don’t resemble each other etc….but they all know. And these kids are part of the family….but I wonder if they really can ever be? The bio kids and parents all act toward the adopted ones as if they are taking care of them/had taken them in. The adopted kids are almost like toys! Or invited long-term guests! Will these kids ever feel whole just because they grew up in a family environment of being cared about? I don’t think so….what do you all think?

Re: Do Adtopees ever feel whole?

« Reply #7 on: December 8 at 10:56:31 PM »

I don’t think that I will ever feel whole again. It isn’t just adoption either. I believe that my marriage was very detrimental to my whole being. Add that to my adoption. I feel that I am one screwed up individual. It is a daily battle for me not to get down on me. To not beat myself up. How does one get past all of that? I am not a gift or a blessing for anyone. I have had too many courts tell me what a worthless piece of crap that I am. From the original court of my adoption, telling me that I was property to be traded and sold to the divorce court telling me that I am worthless as a parent because a judge feels that women should not be single parents and that they are property to be abused at a man’s discretion.

And 1adoptee answers the above saying:

(((Amy))) You are not alone. It’s a daily battle for me, too, not to get down on myself. I don’t know how to get past all of that, either. I don’t think I will ever feel whole. Damaged. Frightened. Inside myself. A friend of mine told me to find peace from within, yet, when I try to still my mind, anxiety builds. Feeling whole, no, not likely.

Gert here: Why don’t these people do something constructive with their experiences and time instead of having a pity party? How about volunteering for abused woman centers or joining agencies that help woman overcome abuse? No they just want to tell each other how bad things are with them.

But just looking at Joan we find…

That it is a daily battle for her NOT to get down on herself. Where’s the positive affirmations of and about life? If this has been going on ALL of Joan’s life, which it has, why doesn’t she TRY a different approach? If what you are doing is NOT working then why not GET RID OF IT? Joan CAN’T do that because all she knows and wants to know is her pain. She is a afraid to CHANGE HER LIFE.

we also find…

That Joan doesn’t know how to get past all of that, either. Like I’ve said, she needs HELP and obviously the help she has been getting is not helping her, OR, she doesn’t want to be helped, which is probably more the case, for if Joan doesn’t have anything to feel sorry about in her life, she DOESN’T have a life.

She is a afraid to CHANGE HER LIFE.

we also find…

That Joan doesn’t think she will ever feel whole, that she is damaged and frightened, inside herself. Why doesn’t she just give it all up and be done with it already!! She is a afraid to CHANGE HER LIFE.

But wait!!! is there a voice of reason?? Someone, with unusual insights for the forum saying basically what we have been telling Joan to do for decades…

Re: Do Adtopees ever feel whole?

« Reply #12 on: December 9 at 09:17:33 AM »

quote: I can blame people and circumstances for causing this and I do not change – it is only when I uncover and confront these beliefs that I get better. I am 70 years old and does it really matter who did something or didn’t do something 70 years ago. I don’t think so – I think what matters is what I did and am doing with those beliefs I formed. What beliefs am I talking about: I am a mistake, I don’t deserve to be loved, I cannot depend on anyone else, I don’t belong, I am not lovable, and on and on. Not one of these beliefs were conscious – I would have scoffed at anyone who might have provided me insight. But they were none the less real and drove my life and still do to some extent. I have to counter them by consciously denying their validity and asserting a positive change. Uncovering these beliefs and confronting them has not been easy. It is slow, hard and painful work with many tears. Not confronting them would be tragic.

but ALL 1adoptee can say is:

This is very good advise we can all learn from. Thanks.

Gert here:

No, Joan doesn’t hear the voice of reason…she only did a bit of ‘brown-nosing’ showing this newcomer, to the forum, that he’s being ‘heard’. It will be interesting to see if this older, more wiser, newbie on the forum, either lasts or has any influence.

If you have noticed, Joan NEVER really answered the question about adoptees ever being whole. She never answers directly any question, for all she wants is an opportunity to speak about her pain and anguish. But, here someone on the forum actually said something worthwhile and all Joan can say is that it is good advise! Will she use that advise and do something more positive in her life? Doubt it!

Remember that this exchanged happened December of 2011, let’s keep an eye on Joan. Will she or will she not use the advise that she states ‘we can all learn from’? that advise being…

I have to counter them by consciously denying their validity and asserting a positive change.

Joan said that someone:

told me to find peace from within, yet, when I try to still my mind, anxiety builds.

One of the skills and advantages of ‘quieting ones mind’, is so that a person may learn how to relax by stilling the mind. But, if one is frighten of ones own mind…the stilling can not occur! Joan can not stand the silence of her mind! Granted many people can’t stand the silence of the mind….that’s why there is ALWAYS some kind of back ground sound in this culture. But quieting and stilling the mind is the first thing someone in Joan’s position needs to do to get healthy, that and trying to be grateful.

But, she is a afraid to CHANGE HER LIFE.

there are five things that you cannot recover in life:

1) the stone after it’s thrown

2) the word, after it’s said

3) the occasion, after it’s missed

4) the time, after it’s gone

5) a person, after they die

Time to change your life, Joan

motherhood through adoption; find out what Joan Wheeler has to say

gertmcqueen — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:52:01 +0000

I’m updating this post on Feb 2, 2011, because I have found additional information on this topic. It appears that after a poem, by an adopted mother, was posted on Amazon it was posted on the forum and then those adult adoptees, that are advocating for change, had a good time blasting the woman.

First here is the poem as placed on Amazon and then on the public forum of Adult Adoptees Advocating for Change…

MARKING HIM
Does my little son miss the smell of his first mother? I wonder as the mew of his mouth opens toward a plastic bottle which is not her breast.Sudden new mother, I bury my nose deep into his skull cap of ringlets, his starry cheesiness.In her good-bye letter to him sealed in his album with a birth certificate which now lists my name as Mother

his first mother writes she nursed him briefly after he emerged into the second room of his world.

I think of milk volcanic and insistent, answering the newborn’s gigantic thirst,
a primal agreement between generosity and greed.

Sometimes I press my nose to the glass of that place where a mother and my child belong to each other; I cannot imagine coming between them.

But then I want to lick him all over with a cow’s thick tongue,
to taste him and mark him as mine so if the other mother returns,
she will refuse her handled calf smeared with my smell.
© Margaret Hasse, Milk and Tides, Nodin Press, 2008

And now…here are some of the comments from the Adult Adoptees about it.

An AMom poem Today at 09:06:29 AM
Why are AP’s SOO fixated and obsessed with breasts and breast milk? It’s kinda perverted and disgusting.
This woman needs to be locked up and kept away from society. REEEETTTTCCHHHHHHH

As tragic as this is, what’s more tragic is that it’s the first honest expression of what’s really going on that I’ve ever seen an a-mom admit to.
They all feel it, this one’s just honest enough to say it out loud.

1adoptee: Reply #24 on: September 15, 2010, 01:26:16 PM »

Jealousy of a woman who became a mother in an unnatural act of taking another woman’s infant as her own. You can’t have him, he’s MINE! Insecure, crazy, possessive nutcase. :piknose: :naus:

And now back to my original post…before I found the above.

On an Amazon.com customer discussion thread, called Motherhood through adoption, I found another outrageous statement by Joan Wheeler. The response was to a poem which isn’t really needed here. The point I want to show is Joan’s total hatred of adoption.

Posted on Sep 15, 2010 11:27:34 AM PDT

Joan M. Wheeler says:

Jealousy, insecurity, envy of the infant’s true mother. That is what adoption is: taking another woman’s infant as your own. That act perverts the natural order of life itself. I am an adoptee. This poem is disgusting.

Gert’s comments:

So let’s get this right! According to Joan, who was adopted because of the death of her mother and the inability of her father from being able to care for her…adoption is a perverted act against the order of life! According to Joan…someone who adopts is taking another woman’s child…what the hell is she talking about? Joan’s mother died! The woman who adopted Joan didn’t take another woman’s child; the child was placed via legal means. That adopted parent was NOT jealous, insecure of envious of a DEAD woman! That adopted parent wanted nothing more than to have a child, and it was probably that woman’s bad luck to have been stuck with Joan!

Of course adoption creates motherhood and fatherhood and a family. How does the act of adoption pervert the natural order of life itself? If anything it helps perserve family.

Joan is disgusting!

Ruth

I’m surprised that Joan didn’t stand up to the adoptee who blasted breastfeeding – because Joan herself was obsessed with breastfeeding her own son until he was past FOUR YEARS OLD! And she drank much beer at the time because she was told that beer increases milk production.

Joan, – the Earth Mother? no, because when she was pregnant with her first child, her son, was bitching and moaning that she now had to learn about “vitamins and nutrition.” – she was pissed she was pregnant because it would take time away from her all important life as a wronged adoptee!

ps, Joan, who also suffered from low self-image problems because of her flat chest LOVED breast feeding – because she was engorged and bigger at the time. – I know these things, because yes, we were once close where we shared things. – Joan, you gonna publish crap in your book about MY miscarriage – mocking me – actually saying “at one time she (me) CLAIMED to want children…” – ok, you deserve this dig. MY SON DIED AND YOU PUT IN YOUR BOOK THAT I MERELY CLAIMED I WANTED HIM – payback is a bitch.

personally, I think the poem is beautiful – ok, the cow’s thick tongue – but when you witness even a cat giving birth – and I have – and how the mama cat cleans the baby with her tongue – then you get the idea. It is all natural – it is all in the wonderful world of nature. We humans don’t lick our babies clean. We have developed other means for that. – but at one time we must have.

one time a friend of mine said she wouldn’t breast feed her son because “it wasn’t natural.” roflmao! – it’s the most natural thing in the whole world! This is another person who is afraid of silence – as Gert points out Joan is in another post –

Silence is wonderful. Nature is wonderful. A child is wonderful. For an infertile woman to have the chance to cuddle and love a child is wonderful. She didn’t steal him. She was given a gift. She was robbed of the chance to have her own. Another woman, for whatever reason, gave her child up. The infertile woman/adoptive mother didn’t STEAL another woman’s child – she isn’t jealous because some other woman is pregant.

yes we hear of the horror stories of SOME infertile women who abduct infants from homes and hospitals – even go so far as murdering the new mother or pregnant woman. BUT to paint ALL infertile women as jealous nutballs – no, that is not right.

I know of what I speak – I am an infertile woman. I tried for years to get pregnant. And then I did, and I lost my son. – I have never forgotten him. I have never been jealous of other pregnant women. I rejoiced when the following year Joan had her daughter – oh – did she forget to write in her book that it wasn’t her husband who drove her and their new baby home? Oh – who was it? – oh – it was that nasty birth sister Ruth! who despite having lost her own son the year before, still loved Joan’s kids. And cuddled and kissed them frequently. And buried her aunty nose in their little curls and wished their cousin Saied could grow up with them. Alas – it was not to be.

Gert here:

thank you very very much, Ruth, for telling us about the inside stories…yes, the birth sister that Joan condemns, certainly knows what went on behind the scenes that Joan does not tell.

What gets Joan Wheeler’s goat, you know, what pushes her buttons and gets her pissed?

gertmcqueen — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:26:01 +0000

It is said that if you are aware of what pisses you off, then what you ought to do is DON’T let it get to you and learn HOW to change things so you don’t get pissed off.

Of course that is not always easy to do, but….after being hit in the head, for years, don’t you think you would learn to stop doing the same thing over and over again and/or stop paying attention to the negative triggers?

Be that as it is, Joan Wheeler, AKA 1adoptee…answers the question, on the public forum of Adult Adoptees Advocating for change…

Re: what triggers you the most?

« Reply #13 on: December 08, 2011, 09:20:13 PM »

Rejection and adandonment are biggies along with being lied to and feeling manipulated.

These for me are my biggest triggers.

Gert here:

If that forum is ‘advocating for change’ why is it that I NEVER SEE any changes? All these people do is wallow in their self-pity and recount all their fears and torments…some change!

Anyway, Joan’s ‘triggers’ are not unique…ALL humans have those kinds of triggers. The key to a healthy life is to understand that life is not easy, there are no guarantees, shit happens and you will get hurt. From there you GET ON WITH LIVING YOUR LIFE.

Beyond that…Joan is a hypocrite! She herself gets wants she has sowed all her life. Joan is a master liar and manipulator. She is very very clever at it. She also knows all about HOW to get someone to trust her and then she knows how to, not only, reject them but then totally abandon them, just when they believed her. Don’t believe me? Doesn’t matter! I know for I have been Joan Wheeler’s victim!