An Unusual Story (Maybe Not?) - Grandparents/Mom and Dad, Sister/Mother

Maybe my story is not so unusual. Maybe finding out it isn't will be consoling, but I don't wish it on anyone. I found out when I was 18 that my "Mom & Dad" were actually my grandparents - my "sister" was my mother and my father was out there somewhere in the world wanting to meet me. In 1974, my mother was 17, Irish Catholic and pregnant. She hid the truth from my grandparents until she was 5 months at which point the Truth was undeniable and they asked her point blank. She was ushered off to a Catholic home for pregnant girls. Things were chaotic then. There was, from what I understand, some custody disputes between the grandparents. My father wanted to marry my mother. My grandparents wanted nothing to do with him. I was born and put into foster care until custody and visitation were worked out. Technically, I was never formally adopted by my grandparents. When I was about 2, my grandfather was offered a job in another state and the family moved with no forwarding address, but leaving a short note saying, "Don't follow" for my father. We ultimately moved back to Pennsylvania. My mother stayed behind. My grandparents raised me as their own. I don't think my mother ever attached to me as hers. She was raised as my sister with my 6 other siblings/aunts & uncles. My mother told me tearfully when I was 18 and it was clear that this was deeply emotional for her. There was some relief to finding out for me because I always had the sense that something was "wrong" - parents too old, eye color, purely instinctive feelings. I am 36 now. I have struggled very hard, sometimes just with growing up and behaving as if I was too busy to give much value to my truth, and mostly alone with the family saying only and simply, "We just loved you and thought we were doing what was best." Their simplicity is infuriating to me and I see their actions as primarily selfish. They look at me uncomprehending as I struggle in relationships with men, experience anger, spend years in therapy, as if I should be having an easier time. Within the past year, I have begun to connect with my father and his family and the acceptance and openness and joy is so profound, that it's even confusing for me. I can accept it, I think, but am sad for the lost years. The acceptance of his family highlights also the terrible denial of my mother's side of the family. My grandfather died in 2003 and my grandmother is 85 now. I have a hard time continue to drag her through the questions as she ages. My mother hurts me still by being available and then unavailable, expecting between us, a relationship of equals. My aunts and uncles still "love" me as before - I can see that - but my needs have changed. No one asks me about this struggle. I have to speak up or it is just assumed that everything is fine. They look like nice people. If you meet them, you would say, they're "nice." I am angry about so many things - angry that this is so strange, angry that I had to figure out that the closest approximation to my feelings is to that of adoption, angry that no work was done by my family to consider how they could help me with the ramifications of this in my life - read books, consult professionals -, angry that neither side saved money for my care or education while they had other families and took care of them, angry even that I didn't have any kind of real adoption - that I was just secreted away, stolen essentially, and :hissy: angry about the ramifications themselves, where I feel so controlled by my certainty that most relationships are rooted in lies. This story cannot be used as a rationalization for closed or secret adoption. The sense of "otherness" goes beyond simply believing what we are told. I have read Journey of the Adopted Self and it was helpful. I believe in Truth. I just quit my job. I'm on a road trip across the US looking for something - creative outlets (I have an art background) and community. I have lots of friends, but there is within me, the sense that I can only depend on myself. I know I am strong, but I get tired. Thank you for reading this tirade. Any support and insight you offer is truly appreciated. I have one adopted neice. She is ethnically different from my family so there is no denying her truth. My uncle and aunt have a beautiful birth story for her, and I feel that in many ways, their openness is rooted in the experience of my life. Maureen