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Hi everyone. I'm new to the forum. My name is Chris and I was adopted at birth. I am 47 years old and found out when I was in my 30's that I was adopted. I guess they never found the right time to tell me about my past, now I'm dealing with alot of feelings of anger and distrust. I never bonded wth my adopted mom and always felt there was something different aout me. Even as a child at large family gatherings, I always felt like an outsider even though I was never treated any different than any of my cousins.(I was raised an only child) It makes me very angry that my parents never told me about the adption. I feel like they tried to play God with my life. I was wonderin about something else, was anyone else put on mdications when thy were born? I was on phenobarbital from birth till I was 4 years old and no one can tell me why. There is no medical problems that would have warrented this medication.
I did find my birth family and I finally feel like I found my place to fit in. Only one little problem, my birth mom died six months before I found them. How unfair was that!
To all adoptive parents: please don't put these children through what I felt all these years. Raise them knowing about the adoption and trust them to love you for telling them the truth.
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ChrisH, I am sorry your parents chose to keep your adoption a secret; I really can't address WHY they might have done such a thing, because I have no idea. But I can tell you that I agree with you. Keeping such a secret is just plain wrong. As for the Phenobarbitol, apparently this was not uncommon in the fifties and sixties. From what I have read, it was often prescribed to infants, in liquid form, back in those days. It was prescribed more for the mother than for the infant... when stressed-out mothers took their babies to the doctor and complained that the babies never stopped crying, that they (the mothers) were not able to get any sleep, the doctors simply prescribed tranquilizers... for the infant, not the mother. This practice caused some children to become dependent on drugs at a very young age, and to become drug addicts later in life. For more information on this practice of prescribing tranquilizers to babies, and its effect on them later in life, I recommend a book called, "And I don't want to live this life." The autobiography of Debra Spungeon. She is the mother of Nancy Spungeon, famous punk-rock girlfriend of Sid Vicious. This book is sensitive, informative, and well-written. It avoids the sensational aspects of the case and focuses on what it was like to raise a mentally ill and emotionally troubled child in the fifties and sixties. Nancy Spungeon was also apparently prescribed Phenobarbitol as an infant, as were thousands of others. Her mother feels this led to her later heroin addiction and countless other problems. Back then, Mothers didn't know any better. It was the fault of the medical establishment, who KNEW the drugs were dangerous and addictive and still prescribed them to infants anyway. Anyway, I'm very sorry that your adoptive parents hid the truth about your birth from you. I'm glad you know now, and I wish you a lot of luck! Sincerely, ~Sharon
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