Drowning

You may feel like you've spoken in specifics, but I read mostly general comments, which led me to feel I know very little about your situation. And thus pretty unqualified to comment on it. The one thing I can tell you, plenty of people who live with their bio-families have the same feeling: as soon as possible, they just want to get out, get going, and never look back. In fact, human beings are rather primed during the teen years, and especially the late teen years, to initiate "nest-leaving" on their own. Teenager-hood is about separating from parents. Taking steps towards being a fully independent adult. I would guess at least half of all teens by 16-18 are spending quite a bit of time thinking very fondly of the moment they'll be out from under their parents' control. All that is to say -- I believe much of what you're feeling is normal. I am unclear how much of it is related to adoption. I am bio to the parents who raised me. 3 of my cousins were not, they were adopted. I saw parents raise both adopted and bio children in my immediate family. The best parents, bar none, were adopters, the worst were bios. I had *strong* conflicts with my mother. I think it'd be accurate to say she never understood me, and I didn't understand her much either. I had a rough time in school, so that was 2 places I didn't fit in well: home and school. Gee... that about covers it, doesn't it? I can't express to you how thrilled I was when I had the chance to go away to university. I told my parents I just *had* to major in XYZ... because it wasn't taught at local college, I had to live 200 miles away. Clearly, though, the "major" I was seeking was "living away from here". It's no real accident that lots of grown people live far from their families. Seeing parents less frequently works for lots of people. Even when parents and children feel like it's "easy to get along" -- people often live far away. Probably partly because it's easier to be in control of your own life, when parents aren't nearby. FWIW, I did thrive once I got to university. There were so many more kids my age, I found it easy to make friends, people who interested me, and found me interesting. I've had several great careers, been creative, have 20-year-plus friendships, married... etc. I wonder if you might be romanticizing being raised by birth family, or finding same? One of my grade school friends says he was beaten "every day of my life" by his mother, until he was in high school, and she bashed him with a 2x4 and he laughed at her. Another friend was locked out of her home repeatedly, age 4, no food or water. When I was your age, I didn't have the *possibility* of considering there might be another family to turn to, that might like me better or "fit me better". I just had one family, where I wasn't well understood by my mom or brother. No one ever gave me word one of condolence for that, it was mine to bear silently. I can't say that had zero negative effect on me, it was miserable at the time, but it didn't wreck my life long term. It gave me a drive to "go exploring out there and make it on my own" -- which has been pretty cool, actually. Everything has a silver lining. Set your sails for a bright future, and build it for yourself. You'll not be the first, whether bio or adopted, to do that, and you won't be the last.

Set your sails for a bright future, and build it for yourself.

First, yes I know I was generalizing, because that's precisely what I wanted some feedback on. The general idea of not fitting in and feeling like you just need some escape. Caths is right, I haven't been a little girl or a teenager for my fair share of years. Hell, I even moved over 1600 miles away from my adoptive family to go to college thinking it would save some minutia of my sanity. My point is, I still don't feel a connection. I don't feel like I fit in. 30 years later, this family that calls me theirs, isn't mine. It's sort of like that ridiculously awkward kid in a movie, the harder he tries, the more miserable a failure he makes (and inherently the funnier the movie is). The only problem is, this isn't a movie. I just need to know that there's someone else out there who knows what it's like to long for one family because they don't fit in the one they've been taken into. In reality, I'm not romanticizing my biological family in the slightest. I'm actually rather terrified of them and a large part of me is almost glad I'm at a stalemate in my search. I have no delusions about things being hunky dory perfect. I'm old enough and experienced enough to know that life simply doesn't work that way. I just wanted to try and reach out, no more no less. I thought here was a safe place to do so. That's all.