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My adoption story is a little strange. For context, I know and was raised by and with my bMom and my aDad (ex-step-dad) from ages 2-14, but my Bdad wasn't around during my mom's pregnancy or until I was 2, but he died when I was 4 and my bMom severed 99% of contact with my bDad's family. To this day she does not acknowledge them. My bMom and aDad got divorced when I was 14 and I stayed living with my aDad as my legal guardian. I asked him to adopt me and my bFamilies and aFamily all say that I am adopted too, but my aDad insisted that social and experiential adoption was more meaningful than legal adoption and that money and signatures wouldn't change anything.
So long-story short, my aDad is now married to my step-mom and they have a son (my brother) who was born on my 25th birthday. On my 25th birthday (the day my brother was born), I got a call from an unknown number while I was driving home from the hospital. I checked the message and it was my birth dad's mother (my grandmother) who never made any attempt to contact me for 20 years after my dad died (suicide). She did send me 1 letter when I was in the first grade but that's it. My birth dad's dad (my grandfather) and my birth dad's brother (my uncle) both contacted me by letter or phone call either on my birthday and Christmas every year or other year and I did have one weekend I spent with them when I was 7 or 8. I also have had reunions and estrangements with my birth dad's sisters when I was a young teenager.
So it's my birthday, I'm a sibling for the first time, my baby brother is a newborn in the hospital, and my grandma who I haven't heard from in 19 years calls me out of the blue to wish me happy birthday. It took me a few days but I ended up calling her back and we agreed to have an ongoing phone relationship until not too long later I went up to her house to meet her. While it seemed intimate at first, looking back, it was very intense. My bMom was not supportive and cut me off, and my aDad was consumed with being a new dad. Shortly after, I also entered into an abusive relationship and wound up in the psych ward and eventually homeless. All this time, bGrandmother is showing me support while the families who raised me are MIA. After a little while, I started to think that maybe our rapid relationship development was unhealthy and I pulled back but lovingly and I eventually let her back. Unfortunately, our close contact also aligned with a second mental breakdown that also resulted in a hospitalization. After that, I pulled back very hard while I focused on my health recovery. During that time, she would call or text sporadically and I would try to message back with care, but there were also two instances in which she blew up my phone for about 2 weeks instead of giving me a chance on my own time to reply. Both times I had to set boundaries to protect my mental health. For the past year, whenever she contact me, I get shaky, anxious, and irritated.
I am now at a point where I have to decide whether or not I want to end the relationship or if I want to ask her if she can attempt to redefine the relationship. Part of me feels guilty since she is in her 70's, but our relationship is unhealthy and my boundaries are often crossed. She wants a grandmother-grandaughter relationship but it's just not working for me to have that power dynamic with a woman I barely know.
If anybody reads this, thank you, and if anybody can offer an anecdote, personal experience, touch of wisdom, or reflective question, I would greatly appreciate alternate perspectives.
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