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HERE IT GOES
I am 25 Year old female, I have 2 young daughters of my own. I am settling into my life and beginning to find myself and come to terms with childhood issues. Or so I thought ....
My "Mom/Dad" Have 6 kids , I would be considered the youngest. I have a "brother" whom I am very close with, he is my best friend, and happens to be 11 months older than I. Then there is my "sister" as well as my 3 older "Brothers" whom I have never had any type of close relationship with.
My "Dad" Is Adopted. Was a war child in Germany, his mother had 2 children him being the youngest therefore the first choice of letting go. He was later Adopted into America and became a Naturalized Citizen.
I decided 3 days ago to go on an online search for more info about my heritage, to find out anything and everything I could about his family in Germany. I am very proud of where I came from and his story. Take a ton of pride in it all. What I found rocked my world.
I learned That my oldest "Brother" who I have never liked, he is a complete drug addict and creep and has been in and out of prison my entire life so far is my REAL DAD ! He was 19 and on his way to prison for the first time. I was his first of many many children and the first grand baby. My Birth-mom was 15, and more than likely on drugs which explains a list of other things. She was in my life for 3 years I guess and then they had my complete blood brother. (Whom she kept) and that was that.
Therefore my parents are my grandparents, my Brothers and sister are my Aunts and Uncles, my neices and nephews are either cousins or brothers and sisters. WTH!
My entire life was a lie. Everything I knew or thought I knew is gone. Any truth i have ever known is a complete lie. And to top it off.. EVERYONE KNEW except the brother i am closest with and myself.
After talking with my Mom/Grandma , I learned it was a closed adoption (even though she gave my birth mom the opportunity to remain close from a distance) I am legally my grandparents daughter. And supposedly it was court ordered to never be released to my knowledge . .
My Birth-mom came back when I was 21 right after I had my first daughter. Spoke with my mom/grandma and told her she was going to get in touch with me and tell me everything. My Mama asked her not to stating it would devastate me. Showed her a photo album of me and my daughter and sent her on her way. She came back 3 weeks later stating she would not tell me or try and get into contact with me. That she had spoken with her therapist and she was going to do what was best for ME.. And that she was going to let my grandma/mom tell me when she felt it was right.
What she did was lie to my mom/grandma who is blind and cannot find this info out readily. She had already posted my real birth information on THIS VERY SITE, for the whole dam world to see !!!! To the point that if I had ever searched for anything to do with anyone in my family I would have came upon it.
I am at this point disgusted, confused, lost , hurt, betrayed and do not honestly know who I am. I am angry for not being told by anyone who knew. I am disgusted my dad would pretend to be my brother. I am so very disgusted my birth mom would put out that information selfishly with not thinking of how it would affect my life. I feel my life is ruined and i have no Identity.
I have looked for counseling and will be starting soon I hope, do not really have the funds for it. I need help, I feel like a fool or worse my life is the Truman Show or an episode of Jerry Springer. and I cannot bounce back.
Please anything will help !
Thank You
Manipulated Destiney
I have zero advice to offer on this. No experience, i can't even begin to guess how you feel. It does suck to find out nothing is as it seems.
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I'm really sorry you had to find out about your adoption this way. This is absolutely the wrong way to go about things and I can only imagine the anger & betrayal you feel. Everyone deserves the truth about their lives in general, and adoptees deserve it even more.
I'm sorry you were lied to. There are a couple of adoptees on this site who were adopted similarily and not told. They aren't frequent visitors to the site so it may take awhile for them to respond.
Kind regards,
Dickons
Wow. That does suck. If it helps any, you are still exactly the same person you were. Knowing this doesn't invalidate ANY of your experiences. I am sure it will take a good deal of time to wrap your head around this. It does sound like everyone had your best interest at heart, even if they went about it wrong. (I only say that to offer you some comfort, not to excuse anything)
txrnr
Wow. That does suck. If it helps any, you are still exactly the same person you were. Knowing this doesn't invalidate ANY of your experiences. I am sure it will take a good deal of time to wrap your head around this. It does sound like everyone had your best interest at heart, even if they went about it wrong. (I only say that to offer you some comfort, not to excuse anything)
This.
That's messed up and hurtful and you should've been told long ago. But, it sounds like your parents cared enough to raise you as their own... instead of leaving you to an addict brother. As much deceit as there is, at least there's some caring there, it sounds.
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avalynnvivianna - My heart goes out to you. Secrets and lies are never good, even when done with the best intentions!
I'm sorry that your Grandma didn't tell you that your mom was searching for you. That would've left the decision to contact in your hands. I can understand your first mom's desperation and thus her posting on reunion sites in the hopes you would find it. She is reaching out the best way she knows how. You don't know the history she has with your Grandma so please don't be too quick to condemn her. She has probably thought a lot about how this could effect you and I'm sure she has no intention of ruining your life.
Take your time in sorting out all your emotions. I find it really helpful to journal with lots of feeling statments like "I feel angry that I was lied to by X, I feel sad that ...."
Again, I'm so sorry this happened to you. It wasn't right but you can get healing. It takes time and work. xoxoxo
avalynn, I am sorry for what happened.
We can't fix the past, all we can do is to move forward and thats not easy.
You have a great deal of grief, loss, and sometimes despair that lurks in your background.
No matter how grave those circumstances may be they don't change who you are. There are still hopes, dreams, goals, and ideas that also float around in your head. It is those ideas that you can save for your children and in many cases provide for them what you never had.
You have a great deal of loss. Through writing your story the demons can come out, and you can get to know them.
This will give you an opportunity to share all your feelings, beginning to end. Once that has happened, you can bundle them altogether. They can be put in an envelope or left in a note book, etc. You have identified all the hurt, grief, loss and despair and are now beginning to accept healing. Your story is personal. It is not to be critiqued or shared.
All of us have the ability to heal. Some of us will only heal %40, others may heal as high as %80. We wont know what the extent of our healing is because we cant measure it, but we know it has happened.
It will take time for healing to occur. It will happen.
I wish you the best.
avalynnvivianna - while I don't have quite the story you do, I also have a web of secrets and lies that have surrounded my family all my life. I am 51 and just found out about my adoption. ([URL="http://forums.adoption.com/how-i-found-out-stories-discovery/406843-revelation-day-8-26-2012-age-51-a.html"]Post in the "story" section[/URL].) I feel your pain!!!
Can't offer too much more than to say that you are not alone in your feelings, and WE must work through them to make ourselves whole.
My prayers are with you. It's a tough road we face, but it's a necessary one as well.
avalynnvivianna
Your story hits close to home with me. The woman I believed to be my sister is my biological mother. I found out when I was 10 years old and even now at 39 I still have so much anger and hurt that sometimes I just want to tell people that I don't have family. I used to think that I had gotten over it all and I even started talking to my sister/bio-mom but recently my mother/grandmother has gotten into some serious problems and I've been caught int he middle of all the family lies. All I can tell you is that you need to focus on yourself and your children. I have 3 boys and right now they are that ONLY family that matters to me. I've considered looking for my real father's family but I don't know if I should. The man they all say is my real father died when I was a little girl so I never met him.
Best of luck with the counseling. I need to find one too I guess. It's better than just being angry with everyone.
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It must be so confusing. It would be difficult to imagine the people who you are closest to; surrounding you with all these fabrications to "protect" you from the truth.
Hopefully, one day people will realize that the truth is less damaging.
The breach of trust makes people wonder what they can believe. To be raised in a shroud of secrecy takes a great deal of planning and a conspiracy of silence.
Wasted energy because in the end; the truth comes out and devastates everyone.
Sorry you had to go through all that but now that you know at least you can start dealing with it.
im very sorry this situation is very very similar if not the same as mine im 36 and barely found out from outside source that i was adopted by my aunt and uncle and who i thought were my aunt and uncle are actually my parents now i have 4 siblings and the bothe parents bio and adopt were never planning on tellin me . this has left me angry frustrated confused sad and hateful my bio parents gave me up and stuck around me pretending to be something else and they had a kid before me then 3 after from seperate marriages i dont know how to process other than feel i cant trust anyone and feel alll alone