dear china group,

 From time to time, I have a nightmare about my China group, the group of girls who were adopted at the same time I was.

We met, again and again, multiple times a year, group vacations, holidays, and birthdays - you name it. We were pretty much left to our own devices from a young age, developing a "Lord of the Flies" situation, complete with trauma bonding and attachment issues. So, as you can tell - it was splendid.

Most people think that support groups are good. This was not a support group. To even think it, reveals naiveté born of the privilege to have never been in one.

I dream of the times we were together, of the society we built, with social norms and punishments--of the meanness. When you are young and want very much to have a place to belong, and want very much to be a part of something, and want to be included and loved, even being hurt can feel like acceptance.

I think of them, now and again. The memories are tinged in light colors, because I must have been laughing a lot out of hysteria, but I can't remember having fun. I remember silence, oppressive silent anger that filled the room. A strong resentment that clung like a stale perfume in the basement or the "children's section" of the house we were in. Don't talk. Don't talk because it's stupid -- you're stupid. Don't talk because no one wants to be here. Oh, look, a parent is here: talk, talk, talk, talk and laugh, and smile.

When you're an orphan, and you believe it, and you're left alone too long with others who are orphans, you feel like you're on a deserted island and togetherness becomes a life raft. So abuse becomes normal, because being the scapegoat is the only way to belong.

When I was older, I realized that the feelings I had were hurt, because I was being hurt. To me, being bullied was something that happened at school by mean kids. How could people who claimed to love you, who were as close to blood relatives as you could get, be bullies? But it hurt and they hurt me and I realized that this wasn't okay.

I decided it was better to stop pretending, even when the first rule of our society was to pretend that everything was good.

But I missed them and cried, because I had to give up the concept of blood family with them. I didn't cry for them. I cried for the symbolism. I didn't miss being hurt. I missed being able to have memories that weren't overwritten with clarity.

But still, I dream. I dream of us together. Of adventure and their quirky personalities I must have dreamed up. I think of how we'd survive together in a zombie apocalypse, or some other equally as unlikely scenario. I liked being together, because the parents liked us together, because as a set there was some meaning there, because something like fate or destiny had to be true, had to exist, had to make everything right.

But just because our origins began in the same couple of orphanages, doesn't mean the hand of God touched us. If anything, being roped into the international adoption program is a sign of God's disdain and hatred. It means nothing. It means we were randomly victimized. It means that we were there and now we're here and we're no better than any other American kids.

So the idea that we'd be together forever, in a collector's set of fine antiques, dancing at each other's weddings, is nothing but a fantasy made for adoptive parents, not for us. We're not water fairies. We're people who were traumatized at birth and then hurt each other deeply, because no one understood that adoption leaves scars.

But still, deep down, I think of them. I forget the times they hurt me and made me cry and made me feel unloved and alone and used. I forget their faces as adults, hardened and unfamiliar, that I've seen as recently as a couple years ago, because to me, they are still those kids who hunted Easter eggs with me, who ate ramen noodles, and whispered at night in sleeping bags.

Sometimes it's hard to give up something that wound around your heart and strangled you, because when you were little and thought you were nothing but abandoned at birth, being together was a way to preserve that feeling of "we survived and we're together and now we're safe."

It never should have happened. But it did. And I miss the ghost of what I tricked myself into thinking it was. But I never missed what really happened. I could call, or text, or respond to that facebook message I left lying there...but what's the point? I don't need acceptance or forgiveness or anything really from people who have only brought me pain. I don't need them to remember me. I don't need to remember them. But I remember how it felt to feel like I belonged, even if I was never accepted, and it's hard to believe that this society and the version of myself that was, can simply go away. Down the faucet, as if it were never there in the first place.

No one understands what I mean when I speak of my China group. Theirs were quaint, dainty things. Annual get togethers. Sometimes once a couple years. An afternoon snack. A few missed phone calls to play catch up. No one understands the rules we built, because they don't make sense, not really.

I cry when I wake up, because "never again" is a very long time. But then I remember the cruelty and my helplessness, and my feeling of nothingness. So I miss and I don't miss. I go on facebook to remind myself they are alive, and I carry on.

I miss you all and I hope I never have to see you ever again.