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I will try to get through this without crying too much and also try not to make this post too long. Last year we began to have problems with our adopted son. Disobedience, lying, deceit were at an all time high due to a girl he became involved with but things turned around after he ended his relationship with her. Unfortunately his ex-girlfriend had a lot to do with his behavior at that time and also began to fill his head with so much nonsense about me not being his "real" mother that it really had a negative impact on our relationship but we moved past it and I continued to love him as I always have. He turned 18 on March 1, 2014. He is a senior in High School and has two months until graduation. He was in serious jeopardy of graduating because he began skipping school and classes but because I have been in constant contact with his Senior Advisor and Teachers all school year, three weeks ago we all sat down together and made up a plan to help him. They made many concessions to make sure he would walk the stage on May 31 and receive his diploma. Things were going good and we all looked forward to graduation day. Well, all that changed on March 8, 2014, one week after he turned 18. My son left to spend the night at a friends house on Saturday night, said he would return on Sunday and never came back. I called his school on Monday and since he wasn't there we filed a missing persons report. On Wednesday we called the National Guard Recruiter that he had been in contact with over the past couple of months to see if she had talked to him. She informed us that our son had called her to let her know that he moved out and now lives one and a half hour away from us. He still has not contacted us and I am devastated. We do know that he is now living with a 23 year old woman that we think he met online. My heart is broken, I am hurt, angry, sad and in a state of shock all at once. We have loved him from the moment we laid eyes on him and cannot believe that he would do something like this to me and my husband. There has always has been something"missing" in our relationship which may or may not be related to him being adopted but never in my life would I have expected him to just walk out of our lives without a single word. Not even a good bye. There were no arguments or disagreements leading up to his sudden departure and that is why we are extremely shocked by this. All I ever wanted was to give him the best life possible and to at least watch him walk across the stage to receive his High School Diploma. I knew that wouldn't be the end of my job as his parent but I would at least feel as if I had completed a major part of preparing him for the world. Now I feel nothing but pain and feel like an absolute failure. I can't stop crying. I don't expect him to contact us anytime soon. Maybe never again. How can a person leave like this and not care about the hurt and pain that this will cause to the only parents he has ever known? I am heartbroken.
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My mom ran away her senior year of high school. She had intermittant contact over the years and finally truly reconciled with them, but it took a long time. She wanted to do things she knew they wouldn't approve of. I agree with Drywall - and give it time - not just weeks. I'm so sorry you're hurting and I hope things will get better in time.
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I'm sure the both of you are correct. My son left his gmail account up on my computer and from what I can see he joined A LOT of dating websites and many of them are of sexual nature. The name of one of the sites is so obscene that I will not mention it here but it is definitely one in which "cougar women" are soliciting sex to younger men. That is against everything I believe in morally, not only because I am a Christian but because to me that is just plain nasty. He wasn't raised like that but I'm sure that home and his family is the last thing on his mind right now. The 23 year old woman that he moved to live with is on one of those sites and that is how I know that he met her online. I see some of their conversation before it went to texting. There isn't an address listed. Only the city which is where he told the National Guard Recruiter he moved to. This is THE most difficult thing I have ever been through. Not even taking care of my terminally ill mother hurt this bad because I knew what to expect with that situation.This on the other hand happened out of the blue. I am a compassionate person who really feels from the heart so to say that my son has broken mine is an understatement. I keep thinking that he probably doesn't think its a big deal because we are not his birth parents so he really doesn't feel any true ties to us. I don't know why I feel like that but I just do. I can do nothing but let time pass by. I know until I release the hurt, things will only get worse. I pray that I can let it go in the very near future but for now it is too fresh on my mind and in my heart. I don't know how long it will take me to stop the tears. I just feel so abandoned and betrayed because we gave him a life full of love, security and joy. A really good life. This is his senior year in High School and in less than two months his graduating class will take the stage without him. I've waited for this day since his first day of kindergarten and imagined the pride I would feel as we watched him receive his diploma. That isn't going to happen and I feel as if I have failed to do what I was supposed to do as his parent. One of my favorite scriptures is "Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning".... I cannot wait until my joy comes because I am already tired of crying and no matter how hard I try I just can't stop. One day I will.
Angels7, I wish there was more to offer.It is easy to see why your feelings are so strong.The feelings your son has are understandable. I have had those feelings.As devastating as this is, it is about adoption and a search for freedom to try to over come what has been handed down.Adoption, regardless of when it occurs is a lifelong event. Even those of us that were adopted at a very young age have adoption difficulties.We want to be an equal with our peers and friends. I was able to accomplish this only because we moved out of a small town, and in the new home, no one asked about adoption.Your son is young and has not learned that what he is searching for doesn't exist.In his head is the hope that with this new freedom and help from the GF that he can be transformed, and totally removed from the adoption. He is willing to put his a-family on hold to try to reach that goal.He has not yet found that what he is looking for, does not exist. He will always have been adopted.In chatting with multiple b-moms who had given up their children, i asked if their re-union with their children had completely washed away the adoption.All said no. Even tho the adoption had occurred when they were young girls, and even with re-union of those children, they still felt regrets. They also indicated that not only was the adoption not washed away, the time that the children had been gone couldn't be made up and that part they also regretted. All of this is difficult to understand, but given time, your son will accept that life long he will always have been adopted. He can become an equal among people he meets. but that will come slowly and he has much to learn in terms of how to meet those goals. Try to understand, this is about adoption and the feelings of freedom to explore the possibilities of washing away the adoption and moving on.I wish you the best.
Angels7, I wish there was more to offer. It is easy to see why your feelings are so strong. The feelings your son has are understandable. I have had those feelings. As devastating as this is, it is about adoption and a search for freedom to try to over come what has been handed down. Adoption, regardless of when it occurs is a lifelong event. Even those of us that were adopted at a very young age have adoption difficulties. We want to be an equal with our peers and friends. I was able to accomplish this only because we moved out of a small town, and in the new home, no one asked about adoption. Your son is young and has not learned that what he is searching for doesn't exist. In his head is the hope that with this new freedom and help from the GF that he can be transformed, and totally removed from the adoption. He is willing to put his a-family on hold to try to reach that goal. He has not yet found that what he is looking for, does not exist. He will always have been adopted. In chatting with multiple b-moms who had given up their children, i asked if their re-union with their children had completely washed away the adoption. All said no. Even tho the adoption had occurred when they were young girls, and even with re-union of those children, they still felt regrets. They also indicated that not only was the adoption not washed away, the time that the children had been gone couldn't be made up and that part they also regretted. All of this is difficult to understand, but given time, your son will accept that life long he will always have been adopted. He can become an equal among people he meets. but that will come slowly and he has much to learn in terms of how to meet those goals. Try to understand, this is about adoption and the feelings of freedom to explore the possibilities of washing away the adoption and moving on. I wish you the best.
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Drywall
Angels7, I wish there was more to offer. It is easy to see why your feelings are so strong. The feelings your son has are understandable. I have had those feelings. As devastating as this is, it is about adoption and a search for freedom to try to over come what has been handed down. Adoption, regardless of when it occurs is a lifelong event. Even those of us that were adopted at a very young age have adoption difficulties. We want to be an equal with our peers and friends. I was able to accomplish this only because we moved out of a small town, and in the new home, no one asked about adoption. Your son is young and has not learned that what he is searching for doesn't exist. In his head is the hope that with this new freedom and help from the GF that he can be transformed, and totally removed from the adoption. He is willing to put his a-family on hold to try to reach that goal. He has not yet found that what he is looking for, does not exist. He will always have been adopted. In chatting with multiple b-moms who had given up their children, i asked if their re-union with their children had completely washed away the adoption. All said no. Even tho the adoption had occurred when they were young girls, and even with re-union of those children, they still felt regrets. They also indicated that not only was the adoption not washed away, the time that the children had been gone couldn't be made up and that part they also regretted. All of this is difficult to understand, but given time, your son will accept that life long he will always have been adopted. He can become an equal among people he meets. but that will come slowly and he has much to learn in terms of how to meet those goals. Try to understand, . I wish you the best.
Angels7 - I don't necessarily think Drywall is wrong but I don't think that whats going on with your son is 100% about your son's adoption either. Drywall is an intellectual and I do truly respect his opinion, but sometimes kids are just being kids. Even adopted ones. I moved out of my parents (my biological home) house the minute; I mean the minute I turned 18 and I hadn't finished high school either (I did though and college). Some kids just need to that independence. Plus you have the normal teenage hormones and if you raised him to be a very strict Christian he may have felt as if he was unable to come to you with his thoughts right or wrong he may feel this way. He may have feelings about sex because of his upbringing. He may feel ashamed or bad or or or.... the crazy things kids think just goes on and on. Plus you add in that with the adoption related issues and you've got a mess. I can only imagine now as a mother myself how much my leaving home while my mom was at work must have hurt her. It's awful and I'd be just devastated if my kids did it to me. I never once at 18 thought of how it may impact my Mom. Teenagers even 18 year old are just the most self centered bunch of people. They just don't gain that awareness until later in life. Just try to keep that in perspective and I'm sending tons of hugs.
Angels7
How do I move past the anger and hurt? I just can't understand how someone could just leave like this. We are the only family he knows. Are we that easily replaced by strangers?:confused:
Angels7
There has always has been something"missing" in our relationship which may or may not be related to him being adopted \
So, I never ran away from home and I never left without saying goodbye. But, I did move out of my a-parent's when was 17 to go to out of state college. The primary reason I went to out of state college, the primary reason I worked so hard in HS to get scholarships so I could, was so I could get out on my own. My a-parents are good people. But I left at 17 and I never went back. After college I moved in with a man that I was not married to, which my very conservative a-parents were FURIOUS about. Very hurt, very angry, very confrontational, etc. We didn't see one another for nearly a year after that one. Ok, so I know this is a series of degrees away from what is going on with your son, but to get to the point-- the whole reason I tried to get away and put so much distance and do things that I knew would upset my parents was b/c I wanted them to fight for me. If I created distance and they reached out to bridge the gap, even though I *admittedly* made it difficult for them to, then they truly loved me unconditionally. I wasn't conscious of my motivations at the time. I was a person possessed. But looking back on it now it is clear to me that I always wanted adults to fight for me. Bc I was an older child adoptee, I felt the loss of b-family very conciously. I was shocked and hurt that when my adoption was finalized there wasn't some kind of a "scene" at the courthouse. I was being ripped from one family and surgically implanted on another and no one came to the courthouse to say "No! you can't have my little girl!" Could it have been so easy to lose me? Clearly, it was. All of which is to say, that maybe he is, subconsciously, hoping you will root him out. That you will say, either physically or verbally, "no matter what you do, we are not going anywhere. We love you no matter what, even if we don't always see eye to eye. We love you and we're here when you're ready to come back home." I could not agree more with L4R's comment about how you "always felt something missing" in your relationship with your son: As an adult, you felt that. He felt it, too. It's an incredibly isolating feeling. Also, at the end of day, none of us are our best selves when we are teenagers. I was a complete jerk when I was 17-18. I don't think I came out of until I was 27. But I was always a late bloomer. good luck, Angels7.
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For some reason I cannot reply to individual posts so I am going to have to respond to all of them at the back end of things so to speak LR4. My son was not bounced from foster home to foster home. My aunt fostered him from the age of 1 to 5 and then we adopted him. He never knew his biological mother or family and he has kept in contact with my aunt who is like a grandmother to him allbeit she has overstepped our parental boundaries in the past and caused some problems which is another story for another day. The first thing people say to me is all about the loss that my son has suffered as an adoptee so I've heard that many times and acknowledge that but I really don't think he is focused on that right now. I think he is basically wanting to do what he wants when he wants so I guess he is "free" and his motto for the moment is "screw you". I misspoke about the "missing" piece.The something missing is how my son relates to everyone not just me. He doesn't really attach himself to anyone but out of everyone I was the one he was closest too so this is why I am affected by it more than my husband. I know he is a teenager and I am the adult but that doesn't really help the hurt and pain I feel because when it comes down to it, I still have a heart that breaks too. I am working through it, it will take me a little more time to see it from a "manchild's perspective". I have days when I don't think much about it and then one day it will hit me again and I begin to cry. That's just the way it is right now but I do appreciate your thoughtful words.
Thanks wrking21, Devastated is an understatement for me. I worked so hard at being the best mom I could possibly be (for him, not me) and now I feel such a sense of failure at times that it's hard to bear. I just never imagined in a million years I would be here at this time seeking support for something such as this. I get it that at 18 it's usually all about ME, ME, ME but I just wished that he would have at least finished High School so he could have a diploma and I would have some sense of knowing I did my job as a parent. He dropped out with only two months left to go and to me that is the most boneheaded thing he could have done. I think that bothers just as much as the way he left.
I honestly want to thank everyone for all your thoughts on my current situation. I hope I have not offended anyone if my responses have been short or somewhat snippy. I just realize that I really am going through a "grief process" so to speak and when my emotions finally calm down I will be able to see and think things though much more clearly. I will say this. There has been some dishonest interference in this situation by an adult who has been very deceitful and far from what the definition of "family" is supposed to be so that extra twist has made a complicated situation even more difficult to handle. Again, I do appreciate everyone for helping me through this difficult time and look forward to the day that this is long behind me and everyone has healed and moved on. Blessings
wrking21
Angels7 - I don't necessarily think Drywall is wrong but I don't think that whats going on with your son is 100% about your son's adoption either. Drywall is an intellectual and I do truly respect his opinion, but sometimes kids are just being kids. Even adopted ones. .
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Well, our son came back the other day to get his clothes, stormed out of here in a fit and decided to call the police on my husband because he wouldn't let him take the XBOX that belongs to the household. And he really thinks he is mature enough to handle this big bad world on his own? Oh dear. All I can do now is continue to ask God to cover and protect him until his mind catches up to his body. He is our son and we love him with every fiber in our being. Of course we still don't know his true whereabouts but if that is how he wants it to be then so be it. We are stepping back and allowing him to do what he needs to do with the understanding that we will always be here.