Were you adopted in a closed adoption?

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by Ol' Jet

...................

How traumatic to not find out you are adopted till 17! Did they tell you, or did you find out on your own?

Was your father glad you found him?

My life seems like a movie too, several of them. I totally get that.

Maybe thats why we love film so much, we feel like our lives are not really real? Apparently that is a pretty usual side effect of adoption.

Thank you for sharing!

[NotAnAverageGuy]

Originally Posted by apocalipstic

Its weird for me too, when I fill out paperwork at the doc's office, half of it says adopted.

The doc's look at me funny sometimes as well but I shrug it off because I don't think the concept of closed adoptions have come into play with their line of work.

I am to the point that I know some form of cancer will kill me or I will keel over dead at old age.

[Jet]

....................

Originally Posted by apocalipstic

How traumatic to not find out you are adopted till 17! Did they tell you, or did you find out on your own?

My mother told me the whole story when I was 17.

Was your father glad you found him?
My father was shocked; I wrote him a letter and sent it registered. All I wanted was for him to know I existed. After that, it wasn't necessary to keep in touch.

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by NotAnAverageGuy

I found some interesting links to skim over and read if y'all want to.

http://www.exiledmothers.com/adoptio...ds_closed.html

http://edu.udym.com/closed-vs-open-adoption/

I checked them both out.

Link one makes more sense to me than link 2 and has a lot of good info I found in the books I have been reading.

Link 2 talks in part about myths of adoption and how it is a myth that adoptees have problems often. I do not agree with that at all.

If there must be an adoption, I side for Open Adoptions where there are zero secrets.

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by NotAnAverageGuy

The doc's look at me funny sometimes as well but I shrug it off because I don't think the concept of closed adoptions have come into play with their line of work.

I am to the point that I know some form of cancer will kill me or I will keel over dead at old age.

Logically we know we will die of old age, but every time I have a pain, I wonder if it is because of some disease I don't know about.

Originally Posted by Ol' Jet

....................

Did it change your life when she told you? Are you angry about any of it?

[Rockinonahigh]

I get ya on wanting to know the info on health,cause I know nothing about the other side of the familys health issues.Once I did contact someone about it,I told them all I wanted was health info...they hung up the phone.I gess like most of us will never know much if anything.I figure all I can do is stay healthy and fit as I can.
A fue questions,it may sound kinda weired but, hear it is.Do any of u feel like u are constantly looking for something,waiting for something to happen.In one of my therapy sessions I ask about this,the anser I got was..everybody dose that it dosent matter who.
The reason I ask is so many times I feel like no matter how hard I try,how much I work to do all I can to be the best I can be,its not enough.Also in social situations I can be such a dork,I often dont really beleave ppl are wanting to include me in what ever is going on as they are just being pc in public.There is one more but im not shure how to say it right,but hear goes..This has triped me up a lot..when I meet someone intresting that I would like to know better...I hear what they say about me,us maybe dateing some more. I hear them but somewhere in my mind I either dissassosheate it or am not shure if they mean it,so to keep from being hurt again...I step back
and out of whatever it could become.This has cost me big time,I hate it for doing this,so dont really know how to get past this.
Rockin

[Jet]

Originally Posted by Rockinonahigh

Also in social situations I can be such a dork,I often dont really beleave ppl are wanting to include me in what ever is going on as they are just being pc in public.There is one more but im not shure how to say it right,but hear goes..This has triped me up a lot..when I meet someone intresting that I would like to know better...I hear what they say about me,us maybe dateing some more. I hear them but somewhere in my mind I either dissassosheate it or am not shure if they mean it,so to keep from being hurt again...I step back
and out of whatever it could become.This has cost me big time,I hate it for doing this,so dont really know how to get past this.
Rockin

I don't get what this has to do with adoption. I must have missed something here.

[Rockinonahigh]

Jet..Sorry I didnt think of it as a derail,but as of some of the problems that can often ocure because of the negative inpacts that happen when we deal with family as well as adoption issues and how they impact us in life.Consider he question withdrawn.
Rockin

[Jet]

Originally Posted by Rockinonahigh

Jet..Sorry I didnt think of it as a derail,but as of some of the problems that can often ocure because of the negative inpacts that happen when we deal with family as well as adoption issues and how they impact us in life.Consider he question withdrawn.
Rockin

No, its fine, i just couldn't get the connection.

[Rockinonahigh]

Jet
Sometimes I even confuse myself..adhd moment.
Rockin

[christie]

I was adopted at one day… well; actually 33 days if you count the first 32 were spent in the hospital considering I weighed in at a hefty 3.02 oz… quite a feat for 1970 in that I survived.

My parents told me I was adopted at about age 5. I remember running across the street to my aunt’s house, bursting through the front door and interrupting my cousins’ board game of Probe, “Did ya’ll know I am A D O P T E D?!?!?!?” My aunt’s jaw hit the floor; apparently my mother had neglected to tell her they were going to explain it to me. I went on to explain, “I am special. I was picked out. They chose me. They had to take Lonnie (my youngest brother) whether they wanted him or not.”

I was the answer to my mother’s lifelong dream of a “little girl.” My brothers, their natural children, were 16 and 15 when I arrived on the scene. You can tell from pictures that it was more that they “put up with me” as opposed to sharing in my parents’ exuberance.

My mother often tells the stories of literally hiding me when strange cars would pull into our drive that first year – because she just knew that my birth mother had changed her mind and decided to take me back.

Two years later, my youngest brother arrived… my mother had thought she was in menopause rather than that she was pregnant. My oldest brother married that same year, and in effect, we had “two families.”

Over the years, my mother (an undiagnosed bipolar) reminded me umpteen times how much expense and effort they endured to have me. It created an unspoken internal pressure in me to excel… in sports, in academics… you name it – I had to be the best.

It also made me feel defective. If only I had been _________ (fill in the blank), my birth mother (unwed teen) would have kept me. Couple this with the early realization I was gay…well, I have spent most of my life trying to be, prove something.

It was also apparent that I was a rotten brat. In as much as I felt at the time there were double standards between what was acceptable for me vs. what was acceptable for my brother, I can look back today and realized that I was just incorrigible in so many ways. If I didn’t get my way, I would merely start to pout and when the crocodile tears started rolling down my cheeks, I would say something about, “If I wasn’t ADOPTED…” O.M.G. I woulda buried me in the backyard.

I found my biological family when I was 23. I was pregnant with my son at the time. I had been on the “list” (in TN, there was (maybe still is) an Adoption Search Dept within the Dept of Human Services) since I was 21 (the legal age to search).

My story is slightly different than most in that my biological parents went on to marry and have two other children. We are all exactly 18 months apart in age. My sister (3 yrs younger) and I are as close as we can be… sometimes more so than others. My brother and I don’t speak at all. Our Uncle had told my sister when she was about 18 that I existed, so she wasn’t surprised when I surfaced. My brother, who up until that moment had been the oldest, would have the first grandchild, etc… well, he was less than pleased. Our noncommunication is a mutual decision. I have met him – even attended his wedding… but the bottom line is that we have no commonalities except we were born of the same two parents.

My birth parents and I… well, its almost like a penpal relationship. We communicate really well through my sister! LOL I think they and I both keep some distance out of respect for my parents.

My sister… oh my sister… She is the living breathing younger (straight) version of me… we look alike… and when we are with my bio mother, its like looking at the same woman at three different ages in her life. We speak alike, using the same patterns and expressions… even though she was raised in Florida and I in TN. My handwriting is nearly identical to my bio mother and even she has trouble telling my sister and I apart on the phone.

I never went looking for another set of parents… or even siblings. I looked for someplace I belonged – somewhere I fit. My parents and brothers… I never “fit” – my brothers all looked like my father… all had olive skin, brown eyes and hair… and then there was me… redheaded, freckles, buck-toothed as a beaver and so very tall…I liked Blues music and have an aptitude musically… They all like old Country or Southern Rock and can’t play any instruments… They all are very gifted artists… can draw most anything and my stick figures look like that of a child’s. They love wet, dripping saucy ribs and I want dry ribs…

Then I meet the bio family. I was born in Memphis. My grandmother still lived in the family home. When I drove down to meet them all for the first time, my Nanny Hazel looked at me, hugged me tight and said that she had waited for that day for 23 years. She then looked at my son’s father and said, “I don’t know who the hell you are but you look like a son of a bitch to me.” HA!!

I FIT!!! She led me to the dining room where my bio father was playing a blues tune on the upright piano and low and behold, there was a platter just overflowing with DRY RIBS from Bozo’s BBQ!!!

I FIT!! I really fit!!

Nature? Nurture? *shrugs*

I know this has been lengthy, but in as much as we have baggage from being adopted… and not all reunions are like Oprah… I think that the mediocre stories need to be told too.

Christie

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by Rockinonahigh

I get ya on wanting to know the info on health,cause I know nothing about the other side of the familys health issues.Once I did contact someone about it,I told them all I wanted was health info...they hung up the phone.I gess like most of us will never know much if anything.I figure all I can do is stay healthy and fit as I can.
A fue questions,it may sound kinda weired but, hear it is.Do any of u feel like u are constantly looking for something,waiting for something to happen.In one of my therapy sessions I ask about this,the anser I got was..everybody dose that it dosent matter who.
The reason I ask is so many times I feel like no matter how hard I try,how much I work to do all I can to be the best I can be,its not enough.Also in social situations I can be such a dork,I often dont really beleave ppl are wanting to include me in what ever is going on as they are just being pc in public.There is one more but im not shure how to say it right,but hear goes..This has triped me up a lot..when I meet someone interesting that I would like to know better...I hear what they say about me,us maybe dateing some more. I hear them but somewhere in my mind I either dissassosheate it or am not shure if they mean it,so to keep from being hurt again...I step back
and out of whatever it could become.This has cost me big time,I hate it for doing this,so dont really know how to get past this.
Rockin

Actually many people who are adopted feel unconnected and angry. It's common in fact. I am surprised your therapist did not pick up on it.

I am not saying every adopted person, of course there are success stories, but a huge amount of adoptees continue to search all their lives and do not have any idea for what.

Adopted people are known to have abandonment issues too. Like even though people you try to date are telling you they want you, you still have that early trauma in the back of your head even if you don't know it's there, making you pull away. Like "I will leave first so you can't hurt me" kind of thing.

You suffered a very deep early trauma. That teeny helpless baby (you) was abandoned through no fault of your own and no matter how good your adoptive parents are, sometimes that trauma causes us to feel the ways we do. The social interaction difficulties, the problems connecting, in fact everything you mentioned can arise form adoption and the lies and secrets surrounding it. Not having a real past. and then when you reached out, you were turned away from again. No wonder you have these issues.

The books I am reading are: (Christie Avocado mentioned one)

Adoption Healing...a Path to Recovery by Joe Soll

Primal Wound by Nancy Veverier

Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness by Betty Jean Lifton

Maybe you could start by reading some and talking here. Maybe we can all help each other work through some of this stuff?

[Rockinonahigh]

christie
So happy for u that u found such a happy place to fit,we often forget that not all adoptions are as good as we would like.As for the brother,its his loss,you family sounds like fun...ribs huh, wtg.
Rockin

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by Ol' Jet

I don't get what this has to do with adoption. I must have missed something here.

I think the things Rockin brings up are very usual of adopted people. I did not have any idea myself until my therapist told me and suggested some really great books, I just posted. Might be an interesting read?

Thanks so much for participating!

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by christie0918

I was adopted at one day… well; actually 33 days if you count the first 32 were spent in the hospital considering I weighed in at a hefty 3.02 oz… quite a feat for 1970 in that I survived.

My parents told me I was adopted at about age 5. I remember running across the street to my aunt’s house, bursting through the front door and interrupting my cousins’ board game of Probe, “Did ya’ll know I am A D O P T E D?!?!?!?” My aunt’s jaw hit the floor; apparently my mother had neglected to tell her they were going to explain it to me. I went on to explain, “I am special. I was picked out. They chose me. They had to take Lonnie (my youngest brother) whether they wanted him or not.”

I was the answer to my mother’s lifelong dream of a “little girl.” My brothers, their natural children, were 16 and 15 when I arrived on the scene. You can tell from pictures that it was more that they “put up with me” as opposed to sharing in my parents’ exuberance.

My mother often tells the stories of literally hiding me when strange cars would pull into our drive that first year – because she just knew that my birth mother had changed her mind and decided to take me back.

Two years later, my youngest brother arrived… my mother had thought she was in menopause rather than that she was pregnant. My oldest brother married that same year, and in effect, we had “two families.”

Over the years, my mother (an undiagnosed bipolar) reminded me umpteen times how much expense and effort they endured to have me. It created an unspoken internal pressure in me to excel… in sports, in academics… you name it – I had to be the best.

It also made me feel defective. If only I had been _________ (fill in the blank), my birth mother (unwed teen) would have kept me. Couple this with the early realization I was gay…well, I have spent most of my life trying to be, prove something.

It was also apparent that I was a rotten brat. In as much as I felt at the time there were double standards between what was acceptable for me vs. what was acceptable for my brother, I can look back today and realized that I was just incorrigible in so many ways. If I didn’t get my way, I would merely start to pout and when the crocodile tears started rolling down my cheeks, I would say something about, “If I wasn’t ADOPTED…” O.M.G. I woulda buried me in the backyard.

I found my biological family when I was 23. I was pregnant with my son at the time. I had been on the “list” (in TN, there was (maybe still is) an Adoption Search Dept within the Dept of Human Services) since I was 21 (the legal age to search).

My story is slightly different than most in that my biological parents went on to marry and have two other children. We are all exactly 18 months apart in age. My sister (3 yrs younger) and I are as close as we can be… sometimes more so than others. My brother and I don’t speak at all. Our Uncle had told my sister when she was about 18 that I existed, so she wasn’t surprised when I surfaced. My brother, who up until that moment had been the oldest, would have the first grandchild, etc… well, he was less than pleased. Our noncommunication is a mutual decision. I have met him – even attended his wedding… but the bottom line is that we have no commonalities except we were born of the same two parents.

My birth parents and I… well, its almost like a penpal relationship. We communicate really well through my sister! LOL I think they and I both keep some distance out of respect for my parents.

My sister… oh my sister… She is the living breathing younger (straight) version of me… we look alike… and when we are with my bio mother, its like looking at the same woman at three different ages in her life. We speak alike, using the same patterns and expressions… even though she was raised in Florida and I in TN. My handwriting is nearly identical to my bio mother and even she has trouble telling my sister and I apart on the phone.

I never went looking for another set of parents… or even siblings. I looked for someplace I belonged – somewhere I fit. My parents and brothers… I never “fit” – my brothers all looked like my father… all had olive skin, brown eyes and hair… and then there was me… redheaded, freckles, buck-toothed as a beaver and so very tall…I liked Blues music and have an aptitude musically… They all like old Country or Southern Rock and can’t play any instruments… They all are very gifted artists… can draw most anything and my stick figures look like that of a child’s. They love wet, dripping saucy ribs and I want dry ribs…

Then I meet the bio family. I was born in Memphis. My grandmother still lived in the family home. When I drove down to meet them all for the first time, my Nanny Hazel looked at me, hugged me tight and said that she had waited for that day for 23 years. She then looked at my son’s father and said, “I don’t know who the hell you are but you look like a son of a bitch to me.” HA!!

I FIT!!! She led me to the dining room where my bio father was playing a blues tune on the upright piano and low and behold, there was a platter just overflowing with DRY RIBS from Bozo’s BBQ!!!

I FIT!! I really fit!!

Nature? Nurture? *shrugs*

I know this has been lengthy, but in as much as we have baggage from being adopted… and not all reunions are like Oprah… I think that the mediocre stories need to be told too.

Christie

Thats a great story Christie (Avocado) I am so happy you found a place you fit!

It all comes down to BBQ in the South doesn't it?

My biological grandparents were the ones who made my bio-mother put me up for adoption, so I never met them. Two of my bio brothers (half) would not even look at me when I met them so I get it about your brother.

My biological father says he did not know she was pregnant, but bio mom says he did. He was sent early on to Vietnam, so was there when I was born.

I also have felt the pressure to prove something, to overachieve. I completely get that.

My sister and I are both adopted. She also from Oklahoma. She has not been contacted by her birth parents.

[Jet]

I'm 53 and way past the point of wanting anything further to do with adoption stuff. Like I said, I found my bio dad at 28. I called him on his shit and then I had peace. My father was a con in and out of prisons all through the 50s and early 60s.

My dad who adopted me when I was 5 is my dad and always will be.

[Rockinonahigh]

apocalipstic
Thanks for the headsup on the books,I will check at bam next time I go.My therapist says or said cause I dont go anymore,is that we can change life by just doing it..to some point she is right..others im not shure about.One thing for shure I had to really work on not being angry about it all,not shure I will eve compleatly get over any of the probs but I shure can make them less of an effect on my life.The triggers that set things off I stay away from as much as possable,and if im faced with it anyway I try to look at it in a diffrent light if possable.This isnt easy at times.Thanks for understanding cause sometimes I dont,just knowing im not the only one with this issue helpes a lot.
Rockin

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by Ol' Jet

I'm 53 and way past the point of wanting anything further to do with adoption stuff. Like I said, I found my bio dad at 28. I called him on his shit and then I had peace. My father was a con in and out of prisons all through the 50s and early 60s.

My dad who adopted me when I was 5 is my dad and always will be.

I get that completely and thank you for sharing what you have with us.

I am 46 and going through therapy as a trauma survivor and had never thought that the adoption stuff made any difference in my life. As I look into it, it explains so much about my anger inside. For me, my anger is not beating a dead horse.

For me, it is a good thing to process. I thought all my anger was from more recent trauma, but the trauma started before I was born.

I hope it will help with my anger and with my family phobia. Maybe my nightmares will stop, maybe I will feel whole.

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by Rockinonahigh

apocalipstic
Thanks for the headsup on the books,I will check at bam next time I go.My therapist says or said cause I dont go anymore,is that we can change life by just doing it..to some point she is right..others im not shure about.One thing for shure I had to really work on not being angry about it all,not shure I will eve compleatly get over any of the probs but I shure can make them less of an effect on my life.The triggers that set things off I stay away from as much as possable,and if im faced with it anyway I try to look at it in a diffrent light if possable.This isnt easy at times.Thanks for understanding cause sometimes I dont,just knowing im not the only one with this issue helpes a lot.
Rockin

Thank you for discussing with me, it really helps me to know I am not alone in my anger too.

Yes, we can change our life by changing our behavior, but for me it helps to think about the whys. Different therapists work in all sorts of different ways, I wish you had had one who let yo know it is OK to feel like you do and why you feel like you do.

For me, knowing why helps me work past things. I have "aha moments" and can work through.

[christie]

Originally Posted by apocalipstic

Thats a great story Christie (Avocado) I am so happy you found a place you fit!

It all comes down to BBQ in the South doesn't it?

My biological grandparents were the ones who made my bio-mother put me up for adoption, so I never met them. Two of my bio brothers (half) would not even look at me when I met them so I get it about your brother.

My biological father says he did not know she was pregnant, but bio mom says he did. He was sent early on to Vietnam, so was there when I was born.

I also have felt the pressure to prove something, to overachieve. I completely get that.

My sister and I are both adopted. She also from Oklahoma. She has not been contacted by her birth parents.

It really IS all about the BBQ...

I don't want to give the impression that I had the Waltons kinda childhood... quite the opposite. One of those deadon examples of how things aren't always as they appear.

Momma was undiagnosed/unmedicated till I was about 16. She once was on her way down the hallway in between our (my younger brother and I's) room and hers with my father's favorite .38 in hand, going to "go ahead and kill them so they don't have to grow up in this world." It was fortunate that my father intercepted her.

She was chronically suicidal when my father was away for military crap. My oldest brother, his wife and children lived in the basement apartment of our home and Daddy felt safe leaving us. I remember no less than 5 times before my 12th birthday that Momma had swallowed a handful of pills and had to be forced to vomit by my brother.

Mental health issues weren't talked about... they were whispered about and heaven forbid if you sought treatment.

I know that she did the best she could given the "tools" she had. I know that her issues are chemical in nature (for the most part) and for the last 24 years or so, she had led a relatively "normal" life.

I can't tell you how robbed of a childhood I have felt. I can't describe the anger, hurt and abandonment issues I felt towards my father. My sister, when we are speaking (in those closer than other times) often laugh that a judge, two attorneys, the TN Baptist Children's Home and a couple social workers thought that I would be "better off" raised by my parents.

Then I look at the pictures of my folks when I was a baby. They were SO happy... so proud... and honestly, couldn't love me more than if I had been naturally theirs.

I tried therapy to deal with some of my issues regarding being adopted in my early 20's. I quickly came to the conclusion that I could spend years and thousands of dollars and still not be "whole."

I admire those willing to delve that deep with a professional to resolve the issues. I think that for me, I have chosen to acknowledge that they are there... and find "workarounds." Several years ago, I had a time of soulsearching, analyzing and "me work". I know that a lot of folks haven't yet had that... and maybe never will.

Maybe its like putting a band-aid on a spurting artery. Maybe its that "primal wound" that will never be healed.

For me, even "less than whole", I think that I'm pretty well functional. If my adoption issues continued to cause me distress in my daily life, I would be hunting them down and killing them.

I think in a lot of ways, I'm lucky that I've evolved into the person I am today.