Three Identical Strangers

Inherent in adoption are a multitude of issues (see my blog on the Three Things Adoptees Think About).  Self-identity, self-worth, rejection and loss of relationship head the list.  Adoptees spend a lot of energy considering how they fit in with their adoptive families, how they stack up in society, and when and if they will launch a search into their adoption (see my post listing adoptee blog sites).  

If you have a twin or triplet by your side as you address adoption’s complexities, you have a good chance of hitting adulthood with only a handful of scars. However, if you add to the intricacy of being adopted by introducing another variable— being separated from your identical sibling— you have created a toxic cocktail.  A fundamental, multiple-birth coping mechanism has essentially been removed and eliminated. One would ask why would you handicap the already handicapped?

My twin sister has always been my go-to friend, fellow problem-solver, troublemaker, and confidante.  Her presence settled me when was I stressed, supported me when I struggled, cheered me when I succeeded.  I am not me without her and vice versa. Depriving multiple birth siblings of daily contact with their alter egos is effectively throwing them off balance for life.  It is messing with nature. The fact that this documentary is a true story, a crime perpetuated by a psychologist and an adoption agency, is deeply troubling. Their complicit egos are criminal.

Three Identical Strangers jostled the adoption anger I struggle to keep at bay. Every adoptee has a need for personal story (see my blog post on “Personal Story”). I spent eight long years fighting my closed adoption to attain medical and family background. Like the triplets in the film, I was adopted during the Baby Scoop Era, that time period between WWII and the 1970s ( see my Resource tab for terminology definitions)when there was a flood of white babies placed for adoption. The men whose story we follow in the film still struggle to gather all the details of their own ‘personal story’.  I can only imagine the internal anger they continually address.

As both an adoptee and an identical twin, this film brought forward emotions and thoughts that lingered long after I left the screening.  First, I felt fortunate that adoption had not separated me from my twin. I pulsed with the injustice of these young men being denied the solace of their sibling bonds throughout infancy and adolescence. I identified with the insurmountable joy of finding an unknown sibling.  In my 50’s, I found a brother and sister that I didn’t know existed. I resent deeply the gatekeepers that prevented my contact with this family. I regret that the triplets were victims of society’s mores and egos. The fact that I can identify with their situation, that I have felt their pains in some small way, is regrettable for all of us.

Kudos to the investigative journalist who pursued this tale, the film crew who brought it to the screen, and the justice for these men that followed, albeit late in the game. I admire the courage of the two brothers who allowed their story to be told and presented. Three Identical Strangers was difficult for me to sit through not just because I am an adoptee and a twin, but because there is no way to right the wrong for these men. Separating siblings through adoption for the sake of scientific/psychological study is morally, ethically wrong.  This film is a must for all socially conscious adults.