I'm adopted AMA

[MycatsaPirate]

I was adopted aged 6.

Please feel free to ask anything at all from either a parent or child's POV.

I don't mind personal questions.

My partner was basically adopted by someone in the family but his birth mum and dad stayed on the scene. He is very affectionate to our child but struggles with me which I find upsetting. What in your opinion is the best way for me to handle it/be with him? I try and give him his own space but I do struggle having to ask for cuddles. I want to do what's best for him.

Gosh, I really hope that current adoption practices are better for the child than they were back in the day. I guess all we can do as adoptive parents is what we hope is the right thing - I think back then they were told it was better for the child to try to forget their birth parents (which seems crazy in retrospect, especially for children who were adopted when they were older). Nowadays we are told to talk about their circumstances in age appropriate ways and to facilitate contact with their birth family (usually letter box)

Mycats - I agree with you on the control issue. I always have a hollow laugh on the fussy eater threads where pp say things like "my child would never be allowed to choose what to eat" or "they would have to sit there until they finished everything" - my DD would literally sit there all day rather than eat something that she had decided that she didn't like, and getting to choose whether to eat carrots today or not is one of the few things that's in her control (she's 8) so we try to go with the flow and not make a big deal about it...

hellololly I think a lot of it is fear of rejection, feeling second best, insecure. All I need from my partner is love and knowing he is there for me. I know he finds it hard when I don't want to sit cuddled up to him in the evening but it's just a thing I don't do very often. Just give him a quick hug on occasion. I feel for you. He (and I) must be difficult to live with at times.

Olennas It's so difficult. And the issue is you don't want to have to keep bringing up the adoption issue. It's like it's used an excuse to accept bad behaviour when it's actually not. Its allowing her to cope with her life in the way she can. I am very stubborn and can be quite controlling too. Not of people but I like things done a certain way and like to know that everything is organised. I feel very out of sorts and can get quite angry if things don't go as planned. And I channel the anger inwards which is even worse.

I think air of my issues are because my older brother wasn't adopted, he was also the perfect child/teenager, not so much adult though he's very duccesgul/eethy and I'm not.
My family rarely talk to me but they do him and it hurts (extended family, our patents are dead)
Also my Dad left my brother more than me in his will.
I have no idea what I did to deserve it so in my head it's because I'm adopted.

Scuse typos, that should read successful/wealthy

Thank you for replying, I suppose I just have to trust that he doesn't need to show me lots of affection to love me. I have no intention of going anywhere but knowing it's not me is reassuring. Thanks for doing the thread :)

MycatsaPirate glad you posted. I'm adopted too but I was adopted as a 6 month old baby.

Are you close to your adoptive family now?

Mycats, sorry if this is too personal but how can your mother be blamed for what happened when she was murdered?

Have you been able to get some answers about your life story now you are older? What do you wish your adoptive parents had done differently?

Brillohair I am in the same situation where my sister spends a lot of time with our parents but I am not invited. I have actually removed her from facebook because seeing lots of 'family photos' was destroying me.

margo Not really. Not in the way I see other families. It's very polite and I see them a few times a year (they live 3 miles away!!) but I don't have the kind of relationship where I just ring for a random chat like my teenage DD does with me.

Overcooked I'll answer your last question first. I wish they had let me talk about my first family, I wish they had taken me to the counselling sessions that social services had organised. I wish that they had tried to give me some physical affection. I never sat cuddled into a parent on the sofa as a child. I feel I missed out on a a lot.

As for the rest, it's all intertwined. Huge back story with my birth mum going a bit off the rails and pregnant at 16 to a black man in the 1960's. He was put up for adoption. She then met and married a Spanish man and got pregnant with my older sister. While she was pregnant with her, she met my dad and had an affair. Her husband found out, threw her out and she got together with my dad. He refused to bring up another man's child and so she was put up for adoption too. They then had me and subsequently my younger sister 5 years later. She would leave us either with grandparents or at home and go out drinking with other men during the day while my dad was at work. She was sleeping with other men and things at home were difficult. Eventually she wanted to leave him and he killed her. Then he took his own life. Her body was in the house with me and my sister and he went off in the car. I got up in the morning and found a note from my dad telling me to go to my aunts house and that's what I did. The police. had to break into the house to get my sister out.

The findings afterwards were that my dad had PTSD and depression. He had taken a huge overdose and then gassed himself in the car. My mum was strangled. There is no grave, they were cremated and we have nowhere to go to 'see them'.

I think we were let down by everyone. I am sure that they thought it was 'for the best' but expecting a 6 year old to just forget her family, her sister and move on without even mentioning anything was a dreadful way to handle things.

Don't get me wrong. I was warm, fed, clean and treated ok. I just feel that they weren't looking to adopt and I felt very much the outsider the whole time I was growing up and still do.

MycatisaPirate that's a lot for a little girl to deal with. Have you had counselling as an adult?

I also felt like the cuckoo in the nest, as my siblings were born to my parents - it is a long story as to how I came to be there. I am a dutiful daughter. My dad died a while back but I continue to visit my mother regularly but I don't love her, which feels like an awful thing to say, but I just don't. I don't think she loves me either, not like she does her own children. I was also, fed, clothed and warm - but that's just not quite enough is it?

My birth mother is dead, although I did find her and exchange some letters in my early 20s. Somehow I couldn't take it further as she wanted me to tell her how happy I'd been & I couldn't. My birth father is a bigwig - important, influential and all that kind of stuff. He doesn't want to know at all. Terrified I'm going to expose his wrong doing and create a public scandal - which is hurtful, as that's not the kind of person I am.

I really hope adoption works for some people, as I have struggled with it.

@MycatsaPirate I've done the entirely sensible thing of blocking it out completely. I've done a bit of research into my bio family but I haven't gone into the realms of contacting them or allowing myself to think about that scenario in any great detail as it would make it too real IYSWIM.

At the time when I found out, I was 8 months NC with my adoptive parents and my DP and I were going through a truly terrible time in our lives (thanks to them). This has since been resolved but I have deliberately left my life "on hold" ever since then to try and stop myself from thinking about it. I know this way isn't healthy. I haven't even told anyone (apart from DP) in real life and my adoptive parents refuse to talk to me about it.

I'm so sorry to hear about everything you've gone through. That must have been so hard.

I’m adopted too (am now 37 and adopted age 2) and agree with some of what the OP says about what adopted children need/want but the problem is that children (including adopted children) are not a one size fits all and what one adopted child wants/wishes for, may not be the same as another.

OP and other adoptees here have you ever used any of the specialist groups or counselling services for adoptees and if so, how did you get on.

Yes - with the Post Adoption Centre (it helped that my adopted mother had links with it) and as a family, we’re very much part of the PPIAS and therefore mixed with a fair few other adopted children. I loved my involvement with the PPIAS but I did feel that the Post Adoption Centre expected me to have certain problems/issues and didn’t quite know how to respond when I didn’t share them.

@Rolyrocks thanks - while not too useful for you did you get the impression that PAC sessions were proving valuable for adopted adults?

The reason that I asked originally is because I have considered attending some of the day seminars that they hold for adult adoptees but haven't as yet been able to meet the schedule. I absolutely agree with you that the accepted narrative of how we are supposed to feel isn't always correct.