Advertisements
Advertisements
Hello,
This may be a bit long but it's going somewhere. I hope someone out there can answer this question for me, because these are hard times in my life.
I'm an adult adoptee who met my birth mother about 7 years ago. I'm 32 now.
Over the past couple years, I've come to recognize and accept that I have significant problems stemming from my adoption. The usual - attachment problems, anxiety, paranoia, depression, feeling like I don't belong anywhere, etc.
The more I realized how deep these problems go and just how much I repressed my grief and pain throughout life, the more discouraged I became.
Lately I've been wondering - will I ever be normal? Will I ever really be able to love or trust? It still feels awkward to tell anyone I love them. Will I pass these problems on to my children (if I can ever manage to stay in a relationship or have any)?
I do believe that being in reunion with my bmother (who was always very welcoming) and her two other children, both younger, has been healing.
Initially the reunion with my birth mother went well, but there was distance. I was glad to meet her and know who she was, but we kept emotional distance.
We discussed my birth father but there was so little information she could give me, it seemed impossible to find him and I did not locate him until very recently.
My bmother and I had a cordial relationship but like I said, not too open. We never really got into the guts of my adoption story, or went beyond the basic narrative of "I was young and single and had no support."
During this time, I never met my maternal aunt and uncle - and I only met my maternal bio grandfather last year.
Starting around the time I met my bmom's father, I began to understand her better. I realized the dynamics of her family, and how she was kind of the outcast with low self-esteem all throughout life. Her mother was abusive, and her father doesn't seem to truly love anyone other than himself.
So as I got more "layers" to her story, both from hearing unknown stories from her past and from getting to know her father, I really began to understand her. This is over the last few months.
So over this time, we have opened up a lot and gotten closer. I found my bfather and she confirmed it was him. She opened up to me more than ever and we had some pretty intense conversations.
I could clearly see that she suffered a lot of guilt over giving me up, and had true regret. It made me feel loved and I don't doubt that she truly does love me.
So I think that has been a very good thing for me.
Now I have made contact with my bfather, which isn't going so well. I do have some signs that eventually he may come around though and open up to me.
Now to my question -
I've read so many comments, threads, blog posts, etc. about the suffering of adult adoptees and all the severe lifelong problems from it. I understand and relate.
Can reunion truly heal you? Obviously nothing is instant. But if you work at it honestly, can it make the darkness go away? Does life get better after reunion?
I do believe I'm "better" now that I've grown closer to my bmother and at least identified and contacted my bfather (the mystery is the worst part!).
But, I still do not feel completely whole, especially with my bfather not seeming to want anything to do with me. I have so much family on his side, I look like all of them, I look exactly like him, I act like him, I want to know him.
I'm hoping that will finally fill the void that I have had all my life, despite how much I was loved by my aparents. I have spent thousands on therapy, and we never even talked about my adoption. What a waste.
If anyone has been where I am and come out on the other side, I would love to hear your experiences.
A lot of what you wrote sounded familiar to what I have been thinking/wondering/feeling. I am 51. I met my bm when I was about your age. I was contacted by my bf's adult children 19 months ago and have been in therapy since January. The experience has been sometimes wonderful, sometimes painful but I have learned more about myself than I would have thought possible. I used to be able to pm on this site but it seems it has changed. I would like to send you my email address. Any ideas?
Advertisements
I think it is a life long process of ups and downs. I always thought I was fairly well adjusted and accepting of my adoption, the circumstances (teenage parents), my relationship with my adoptive family. UNTIL I finally found and made contact with my biological family. Seeing how similar I am to all of them and how much nature really played a role in who I am. All of a sudden these feelings and emotions I never even knew I had about being adopted came erupting to the surface. I was now angry..angry at my maternal grandparents for forcing my mother to give me up, angry at being torn away from my family, angry that it took so long for anyone on the biological side to meet me half way in the search process, jealous of my (4 FULL) sisters all growing up together and the bond they share that I can never truly be a part of. Even though both my adoptive and biological family have been supportive, welcoming and wonderful I now feel even more like an outsider in two different families.
BUT in the same respect I finally feel complete and like this huge weight has finally been lifted off my shoulders. I have answers to things I have been wanting to know for 43 years and when I talk to them I really feel that these people are MY family and they fill a big empty space that has been with me my entire life.
I guess my answer would be.....Yes we are all a mess in one way or another LOL! I think recognizing our issues, embracing and understanding them is the key to not letting them control or take up space in our lives.
Lunahestia
I guess my answer would be.....Yes we are all a mess in one way or another LOL! I think recognizing our issues, embracing and understanding them is the key to not letting them control or take up space in our lives.
Very well said. I also thought that adoption was not an issue for me. I always felt lucky in my adoptive family but seeing similarities in my bfamily gave me painful feelings for a while - like I was a misfit in my afamily. However my bfamily members, much as I like some of them, are unreliable to varying degrees. That has given me a stronger appreciation for the bonds created by the history I have with my afamily. If you spend any time on this forum it's clear that there are many ways these reunions pan out- a therapist was invaluable in helping me dig up my issues, recognize them and learn to handle them. I think all my relationships- family and friends- have improved as a result. I used to have a lot of difficulty with evolving relationships. Now that I know about and recognize my fear of abandonment, I can handle evolving relationships (and unreliable bsiblings) without panicking... and that feels very good. It feels as if I have put down an enormous backpack that I carried all my life without even knowing it.
You mentioned that you have been therapy before and never talked about adoption. I was in the same boat. In my 30's I was in therapy because of an 'unrelated to adoption' family crisis. The therapist tried to get me to talk about being an adoptee but I INSISTED that my issue had nothing to do with that. Looking back now I can see that of course that affected my reaction to the seemingly unrelated trauma. I would have handled everything differently if I had known then what I know now about myself. Better late than never!
Meeting one person can never heal anyone- whether that's birth "family" or the Dalai Lama.
Also, depression, anxiety, etc. can have many causes- biological included- not only from adoption.
I think too often people hope for some grand reconnection and reunion with birth "family" (very loosely using that word), when those birth "family" members are people one truly doesn't know at all. They chose to give up a baby, and generally are not people who want much- or are able to maintain much- contact after.
I wasted a lot of time when I was much younger wondering about my birth "parents", and regret that I ever wasted my time so much as wondering about them.
Advertisements