adopted men

I can relate... I found my birth family at age 23 and I'm now 35. I think during childhood that men suppress a lot of the negative emotions relating to being adopted. When I say suppress, I mean most of the time I managed to lock those feelings away someplace in the back of my mind. I did have a profound feeling of being different and not fitting in with my adoptive family, feared rejection and felt empty, like something big was missing even though I wasn't able to identify what it was at the time. I never thought of meeting my birth family until my early 20's when my adoptive mother one day casually mentioned that I may want to look for them- since if I waited too long they might be dead by the time I figured out I wanted to know them. She gave me the phone number for Catholic Social Services, who had handled the adoption, and three months later I started meeting my birth family... that was an event where I had massively underestimated the impact that it would have on me. I was soon overcome with feelings of joy and pain that I had never known before. That was the real awakening when I realized what had happened to me. I recognized my birth mother instantly and she looked beautiful and familiar to me as if I had always known that face. I was amazed by how much of who I am is genetic- especially the personality traits. My birth mothers whole family and I played a game like trivial pursuit- except that you make up definitions to words and people have to guess which is the real one. My birth mother and I had each thought up "fake" definitions that were almost verbatim on like 5 or 6 different turns and the whole family was looking at each other and bio half-sister said "that's scary". Soon I fell into a deep depression as the entire sense of loss that I had been suppressing my entire life hit me at once. I felt connected to my birth mother and felt as though I had been robbed of something huge that had left a big open hole inside of me. Everyone blamed my grandparents for "making" her give me away since she was only 16, so for a short time I was angry with them and avoided them and viewed biomom as my fellow victim. Later I began to re-examine her role in the situation when parts of different stories came together, like her going out and partying it up at state fair only one or two days after she handed me over to social services. I ended up moving 60 miles from my hometown to the city where she was to be closer to them- she very strongly encouraged it and even offered me free rent which at the time was a big deal to me. I was not as close to my half sisters- I know the oldest one (2 years my junior) felt threatened by not being the oldest anymore. Aunts and Uncles I never got very close with either. It took me quite some time to figure out that even though they had welcomed me with open arms, that it's impossible to walk into a family of people you've never met before, at age 23, and have things be the same as if you'd always been there. I always did and still do feel like an outsider in that family. Birth mom and I had our ups and downs over the next 8-10 years and it's taken me this long to realize that I'll never really be a part of that family... All the invitations to everything came through birthmom, and when she was mad at me for something then the invitations stopped coming. Then we'd make up and she'd want me there again. The way things have unfolded I have just in the past year realized that that is not my family. They all have a sense of loyalty and concern for each other that doesn't extend to me the same way that they feel close to one another- except for birth mom, who intermittently flipped between thinking I was the number one light of her life to totally despising me. Birth mom didn't get off scott free though- after the adoption it doesn't seem that she ever formed strong bonds with her other two children, she stayed emotionally at age 16 for her whole life and is apparently indifferent to her 3 grandchildren. The ups and downs eventually got to be too much and I haven't spoken to her in a year and the year or two before that things were pretty terse. I am now back to pretty much where I started (although it is nice to have the extra knowledge) and don't communicate with them anymore. I understand what you mean about not being married and not being attached to anyone. I spend my entire life up until age 34 pretty much womanizing. I dated a lot of great women and the same thing happened again and again. We would be getting along great and then as if on autopilot, I would become emotionally detached and drift away from them. I broke up with almost all of them within 2-5 months because I felt there was no passion and I didn't feel a connection. As it turns out the problem was me... I got married last summer and my wife tells me I have intimacy issues (she is correct) but she tolerates them and blames it on the adoption issue. We have a baby girl on the way in 5 months. This will probably be a shocker as well since I will have a child that is my own flesh and blood, since I feel as though I never was a child who was someone else's flesh and blood. I was off on my own. Now that I am separated from the biofamily I am starting to feel 'normal' again. I often felt like a freak having to explain to friends or associates that I had 2 sets of parents and seeing the look on their faces- now I have only one again, my adoptive family who has always been there for me. You might say you don't have to explain it to people, but people remember things said in casual conversation such as telling them one day that your parents have been married for 40 years (adoptive family) and then the next time you're talking about parents you tell them that your parents were never married (bioparents). Bio-mom didn't walk away from the ordeal unblemished though... After the adoption she had 2 more children who she never seems to have properly bonded with, she stayed emotionally at age 16 for her entire life, and now has 3 grandchildren who she seems to be indifferent towards. She experienced her own sense of loss that she was never able to fully recover from. This is actually my first visit to the site. Every time I hear Hootie and the Blowfish it gets me looking up adoptee stuff. Biomom had just bought the album when I met her and I heard it a million times at their house. Most of the songs on that album sound like he's singing the song of the adoptee- I'm Goin Home Not Even The Trees Time I could go on forever, but eventually I'll run out of room. If you want to chat about it feel free to email me through the site with your email address, or IM. Jason