Adoption is a curse

[splodge]

I have always been depressed.  I think of myself as a normal person but then I get a sickening jolt and realise that I am not.  I blame this on being adopted.  I was adopted as a baby in 1971 in London.  Times were harsh I think for young women in that period.  The sexual liberation of the 60s had come in but contraception was newfangled and abortion still illegal.  It was also unacceptable for women to have children outside of wedlock.  The result was a boom in illegitimate babies.  Nowadays the norm is for open adoptions.   This means that although the adoptive parents are the legal parents of the baby, that baby has full rights to know about it's biological parents.    When I was adopted things were a lot more restricted and biological mothers and babies were estranged from each other.   This seems completely twisted today but that was the reality.  Not only that but the adoptive parents were never educated in any way to provide the support that an adopted child should have.    The result for me was that I have had a really unhappy life.  That is despite having prosperous, well educated and conscientious adoptive parents.  Despite that seemingly advantageous beginning my life has always been wrong somehow.  I have always been emotionally disturbed from a young age.  I was obsessed as a child with "dreaming" .  This dominated my young life and involved galloping up and down the room and living in a fantasy world.  I also used to make little "spots"  with cushions - places I tried to feel calm and safe.  I was angry and destructive as a child and would throw away my birthday and Christmas presents.  I loathed my birthdays.  I tore up and threw away any photos with me in them.  

Adolescence was absolute hell.  I had functioned well socially until then but then I realised something was wrong.  I was unable to form relationships.  My friends developed normally.  They progressed into adulthood to sex, girlfriends, wives, careers and so on.  I have never progressed past this point.  I forced myself in my mid 20s to form relationships but it didn't work out well.  I backed off in my late 20s to my lasting regret.  I have now lived without any sex, love or intimacy for over 15 years.  I have a postgraduate degree but unlike all my friends who have professional middle class jobs I have always lived on the margins.   Now in middle age I realise that I am a really sick person.

[ThatAdoptedGirl]

I too find it incredibly astonishing how hostile and condescending people have been to me. I am an adoptee. They find it horrible I use this word. I am an adoptee of 46yrs of age whom has struggled with it my WHOLE life. My daughter is 22 and she struggles with it too ~ she mentions to me often ~ I feel adopted as well mum. We have had our heritage taken away from us. We have each other thank god xx yet we have struggled. Keeping our last name and wanted to change it , yet what would we change it too!? We struggle when our adoptive family won't listen. We struggle with identity. We struggle with not belonging. More so myself ~ my daughter is very secure and I've made it my life's mission to ensure we are vulnerable and authentic with one another and speak our feelings and thoughts always.

I am fortunate to see my daughter so braves and wonderful. Me ... on the other hand have struggled with abandonment issues , my birthday each year ( I dread that) it's a reminder that I was put in a hospital ward all alone for 6weeks and no comfort until my new parents ...total strangers came to pick me up. I have never lived up to their expectations sadly. They consistently remind me I'm difficult! They never allow me to voice my feelings on finding my biological families. I am meant to shut up and "be grateful " ... iF I hear ... "Be grateful" one more bloody time... I will scream at the next person!! I am not an ungrateful person at all, I simply deserve to know what happened,why, when and I WANT MY OBC which I'm currently sorting!! I have found every sibling and parents cousins etc on both sides and would be now hesitant to suggest that to anyone. Grief. Grief. Trying to fit in. Trying to please people. I am still struggling .... I have raised my daughter on my own for 21yrs. One relationship. Happy and working etc... providing for my daughter... yet something is very different about me ... I am a loner. I am new to this ... writing my feelings for others to read... yet I would like to be involved. Thank you . I feel for many on these comments I have read... xx one book I enjoyed and explained (well, assured me..) was "Primal wound" by Nancy verrier. I certainly would recommend to all adoptees.xx. From one adoptee to another ~ I am sending cyber love can I say ❤️ ... it's truly a confusing situation. It takes someone with great strength to get through. ... I would like to be a part of all the communication ~ it could help and give strength to us all. XX

[quirkywords]

That adopted girl,

Thanks for your moving post.

I am truly sorry for what you have experienced , but am glad you have made a secure environment for your daughter.

As I said in a previous post , I am not adopted but my partner and my brother are.

THanks for recommending that book I will buy it for my partner.

As this is an older thread, I may suggest if you want to , to cut and paste this post and start your own thread. That way more people can read it.

you are welcome to keep posting here of course.

Thanks for taking the time to explain how you feel about being adopted.

Quirky

[Adopted1980]

Hi Splodge

I’ll keep it short as possible. I was given up for adoption as well, my adoptive family are awesome and I couldn’t ask for a better family. I totally understand your dilemma of depression, unable to form relationships and struggle to finish education but work full time.

I am not sure, it could be my own self thoughts, but, it’s hard for myself to commit to a relationship when your own biological parents couldn’t commit to me. This has had detrimental effects to my own mental health which has affected my relationships.

Although I work full time I can not make commitments to complete things such as university degrees etc, but it is extremely hard to get up and go to work everyday.

I do believe that being adopted does have causes of depression, social anxiety and causes issues with having relationships.

I hope you are well.

[Nick_E]

Adoption is indeed a curse. Splodge, we (forced) adoptee's and their families grow up in such an intricate web of lies, half baked stories and the desperate need as infants and kids to do the right things so we don't lose the only people who we know. The need to be grateful to our adopting parents is so ingrained from such an early time we end up being part of the deception ourselves. By the time we are adolescents for many of us it is critical we do not upset the apple cart because we were not wanted by our first parents (or so we were told in the era of forced adoptions (up to 1975? and the continuing saga of the Stolen Generations). Eventually, many of us rebel. And, eventually, we start to see the family lies and be brave enough to examine them. However, for most of us, we live with the lie well into adulthood knowing we are not really wanted, knowing we will never meet the expectations of our adopting family. Not wanting to derail our lives by thinking about any of it!

Some children certainly really need forever families. These families need a lot of understanding, courage, and patience to grow a resilient child in the face of a terrible terrible primal wound. For some Stolen Gen I know it was a relief to have enough food and be in a child-safe space back in the 1960s. But, I've yet to meet a person who grew up ok and able to do well in life overall. Plenty of us are high achievers, but without a supportive family (or even just a real family) things are not right. After a time we might be exposed to enough healthy families to give us the courage to examine what our family situation really is about.

So please, nobody ever again say I must be grateful to be raised as not good enough, unwanted like a pet puppy 9 months after Christmas and broken. Material wealth is assumed to be part of adoption. My understanding is many forced adoptees were removed from loving, stable and financially secure homes. It was the fact of pregnancy out of wedlock which drove this policy of forced child and mother separation. And, of course, a policy of assimilation of First Nations' people in Australia.

Anyways, I just wanted to say you may not really know what it's like for your brother. I never told my brother ANYTHING, I kept up the lies for the sake of the grandkids. I still do not say things like what I have written here - why when everyone I ever mention adoption to asks me about how lucky I must feel.

[Late_Discovery_Adoptee]

Adoption is a curse and I agree with all responses I have read, I resonate with all the traumas here. I agree that there should be an Adoption Section but I don't think Beyond Blue as an organization takes us Adoptees as serious, which is a shame. I see on another post that a moderator in response to a pregnant teenage girl, scared and in need of advice asks "have you considered Adoption?" What a naive traumatizing response.

[PhoebeWings]

“Adoption is a curse and I agree with all responses I have read, I resonate with all the traumas here”

I just read this thread and this latest post.

I’m a woman over 60 yrs old who was once the frightened and unsupported pregnant 15 yr old.

My dear God, those days were barbaric with the saccharine coated ‘adoption’ spiel.

My baby boy and I were separated, my 15 year old arms had to let him be carried away... ‘and you will forget in time dear, and he will have a lovely mummy AND daddy.’

But I didn’t forget. I’m his Mother.

Teenage pregnancy was like a high speed train crash involving Mother and Baby - all the first responders rushed in and ran off with the babies to take them to a ‘better place’ and the Mothers sent home,with brick sized sanitary pads.

I’ve been reunited and reconciled with my son since 1998.

We wanted to be in each other’s lives - and we got it. But the layers of pain, the resurfacing feelings for both of us was a journey indeed through the early years. I hate, I curse that my baby experienced abandonment. That I wasn’t there after his first few weeks of life.

Gone.

And I, teenage child-Mother me,was left abandoned too, to carry this burden in a culture of secrecy.

What were the adults thinking????

I’m forever grateful he was able to see my face and know - know he has a Mother to whom he doesn’t have to tip toe around, be grateful to, or be anything else than who he beautifully is.

It was a pro- adoption culture of lies.

And seriously? A moderator suggested adoption to a pregnant teen?????

Has that person any idea how utterly sickeningly traumatising and wickedly guilt tripping that is?

Hope that moderator is around to pick up the pieces later..... through the years, through the generations.

I’m freaking furious.

I’m so so sorry to all adopted folk who wrestle with the mess that’s adoption.

I know it’s not all ugliness, that there can be real love and family in adoption.

But please, let’s keep real families supported first - lets not promote devastation of the most scared bond - Mother and Child ❤️

[PhoebeWings]

“the most scared bond - Mother and Child ❤️“

Apologies for typing error.

Clearly ‘Sacred Bond’.

[FTW2]

I have pushed back using being adopted as a reason for my deep, deep depression ever since I can remember. I mean, I grew up in such a loving family that I couldn’t possibly be depressed, right?! Yet all I’ve ever felt is alone. Truely alone! As a little girl I used to hide behind a wall on the side of my house and cry and cry. I had no reason to cry. I just had this void in my heart that couldn’t be filled. I’d think that I was the only alien on this planet and everyone else was human. I felt different. I have a raging anger in me too. Why me? Life is far from fair! I have had abandonment problems my whole life. I get anxious if people don’t return my calls or messages. I fear people don’t want to be with me because I am somehow different. People seem to treat me differently when they find out I’m adopted. One girl in school was jealous of the fact, claiming that I was being favoured by the teacher and sought to harm me physically.

My adoptive family had four biological sons, then adopted me eight years later. My parents always treated me differently to the boys. When my husband left I was on the phone to my adoptive parents for counsel only to be told that at this stage in their lives they were not willing to deal with any mishaps in my life. They should have thought about their ages before they adopted me. I felt I was abandoned again!

As a mother myself I couldn’t bare to think of my baby being taken from me. I would defend my children with my life. When my husband walked out on us, I didn’t mind because all I wanted was the children in my care. As far as I am concerned I am the best mother for them in the world! Yet My ex husband used my anxiety and fear as a weakness, promising that he would do all he could to take them away from me. He gave false reasons for the Family Court to allow him greater custody than me, even though there was no evidence that the children were under any risk of harm. I love them with every ounce of my being, so the threat of losing my children sent me into a major anxiety spin and the depression deepened, giving way to irrational thoughts and despair.

To be adopted is multi dimensional. Yes, there’s that feeling of being grateful for your ‘better life’ then there’s the ‘what-if’s’ and the ‘how come’s’? What never goes away is that heartache.

[Pharexsys]

Dear splodge
I couldn't have said it better myself. An adoptee from '73. Socially wrong and struggled all my life with identity. Getting all the therapy I need. Yet one still wonders why one exists? Born, given away to a silver spoon family. didn't fit in. abandoned. met the bio-mother, highly christen, didn't fit in. abandoned(2nd time). 2 marriage's. 1st tried to do "the right way of things", the house 2 cars, kids and the white picket fence. nope got that wrong. 2nd found love, gave all I had left into it as the first one taught me better, but no that was just abusive so got that wrong too.
The Medical Diagnoses' well isn't that a ball of fun. Bipolar, Ptsd, borderline personality and of course depression. not to mention meds GLORE!!. Everyone is a quick to label it, no one just see's the problem. Adoption has traumatized me for 47 years. We didn't feel the love and care we should have at the most critical times of our biological lives. People fear it for some reason, instead of saying "oh ok lets look into that further"
I have had no impact on humanity other than my children. Am I just and insignificant pawn for others pursuit's?1). this child doesn't work for me 2) this child doesn't work for me either. Did anyone think this child was worth something?

Now 47, just getting my own identity finally and its one of being alone. I was born with no warmth for 8 days and it was expected of me to become who they all wish. well no, I wish to be alone. I do not wish to die, I have waaaaaay to much to live for. Yet I cant have friendships nor loving relationships. I do not wish to share my bed. Nor the next 50 years with anyone. I wish to have a little rental home out bush and simply make a cuppa of tea and go sit with my horse and not have anyone other than my children expect anything from me.
Being adopted is a curse. I wake up and I put on my masks, im not hiding, just thats what I have to do because the real me? people cant handle. I get up, I get dressed and get on with my day everyday, because i am breathing. As for Me? we have to wait a little longer to just, Be.

[quirkywords]

Pharexysys

Welcome to the forum. I am sorry you have struggled with your identity.

As I mentioned earlier my partner and my brother are adopted.
My partner has issues with abandonment but found two brothers and that help with his identity.

Everyone has a different experience with adoption.

As you may have noticed this is an older thread. You may wish to start a new thread so more people can see it.

Have you ever shown anyone the real you or is it always behind a mask.

Thanks for sharing your story.