Any Other Adoptees Here? (Posts from non-adoptees also welcome)

[Uli]

Originally Posted by Apocalipstic

I am an adoptee. I was adopted at 11 days. I met my birth parents in my 20s. It was weird honestly. I wanted them to be sorry and they were not at all.

My sister got me an Ancestry.com last Christmas and I did it. Mixed feelings. It was interesting to find my genetic ethnicity/ies.

Not sure if I will go farther with it.

Weird is a word I often use to describe the experience as well. Like could anything be weirder than meeting a stranger whose body you lived in for 9 months?

My birth mom did apologize right off the bat, not for giving me up, but she said "This all must be really hard for you and for that I am sorry." I don't think she regrets the adoption and I don't think it would be helpful to me if she did regret it. I certainly don't regret the life I've had.

I experienced a surprising amount of grief when it all clicked in my brain that no one was particularly happy about my existence or trying to bond with me for possibly the whole first three months of my life. She had requested that I go directly to my permanent family from the hospital, and the adoption agency let her believe that would happen, when really I went to foster care from the hospital.

My therapist and other sources talk about how difficult it can be to process pre-verbal trauma - like, we didnt have words when it happened so trying to process it with words is largely ineffective. It's maybe analogous to trying to paint a picture when what you have is a lump of clay?