Reunion- any experiences?

[AFingerofFudge]

I am an adoptee experiencing reunion at the moment and I have so many feelings!
I just wondered if there are any others out there willing to share a little of their experience and feelings around it.
Obviously I'll go into a bit more detail if people respond!

Hi. I am an adoptive parent. My girls reunited with some half siblings several years ago aged 18 and 19. They were all neglected and abused, no contact with birth parents. Anyway, I organised therapy to help them process their feelings. In the end it was all too much for my younger daughter, who has broken off contact with them completely. The half siblings acted like they were entitled to boss her about. She disapproved hugely of their lifestyles (quite different to ours, involving drugs, gangs, carrying knives). They thought my girls were "posh" and unfriendly. I hope you have a better experience.

@AFingerofFudge

Having all sorts of emotions is perfectly normal, it's a big deal.
At the moment my young adult son isn't interested but we have lots of friends who have done so, with varying degrees of 'success'
I think ' success' depends a lot on your expectations - are you satisfying curiosity, do you want an on going relationship, something in-between or maybe you don't know yet.

Do you have anyone to talk to about it in real life? Are your adoptive family supportive?
Hope it all goes well for you

Hello. I am an adoptee and reunion is undoubtedly traumatic. You are so right to ask for help. There is an excellent (closed) FB group called Adult Adoptees UK and a wonderful organisation called How To Be Adopted. I'm actually just about to meet with this group for an online 'winter support meeting'. I would also recommend the book The Primal Wound and the YouTube videos of Paul Sunderland. Here is a link to a recent talk he gave on just how misunderstood adoption and is ramifications are
Look after yourself. Don't underestimate the enormity of being given up at birth and the complexities that involves. Sending many supportive wishes to you.

Hi @AFingerofFudge
I am also an adult adoptee who has been through reunion with one of my birth parents (father.) I am mid-50s so my experience of adoption is very different from children today. Can I ask what generation you are?

My birth father recently passed away - we were not still in contact. I found reunion one of the most difficult experiences of my life. I guess I am glad I experienced it but it was not a relationship I could have continued with on an ongoing basis. I had his name but we connected over Ancestry after a DNA test. My birth parents met at university. He says he did not know I existed. He was also adopted, widowed two weeks into our reunion in tragic circs (he and his wife did not raise a family of their own) and emotionally hugely chaotic. We reconnected during COVID and similar chaos ensued.

I'm happy to discuss but some details I might prefer to share over PM.

Let me know if I can help.

For your responses, I am very grateful for you sharing what is obviously a difficult situation under any circumstances.
Am in my mid 50s, adopted when I was six months old. I have always had a small amount of paperwork associated with my adoption and through this I had grown up believing what was on this paperwork. Unfortunately, my birth mother (who was only a teenager at the time) had not been very honest with the adoption agency and so it was only this past year through doing a DNA test did I discover my real ethnicity which was not as expected!
I have made contact with some of my father's side of the family who live in the US. This has been a pretty incredible experience that has brought lots of joy, but it also makes me feel like I have lost something. I feel that I have in someway missed out on so much, and culturally missed out on things too.
I guess my question is- why is it so upsetting even though it's been a positive experience??

What a difficult time for you. Everything to do with adoption is upsetting/distressing in my opinion. And I'm not being glib. Remember you have lost something, your feelings are completely natural and understandable. Paul Sunderland talks of pre-verbal trauma due to relinquishment. Also, there's the scary realisation that not all is as it appears. The term gaslighting is overused but for adoptees it's very often the case, in the true sense of the term. Our feelings are denied, ignored or dismissed. We're told we're "lucky", "chosen" and that we should feel gratitude. We are also, as in your case it seems, rarely given the full story by anyone involved. There is so much dissembling and obfuscation by those involved, from social workers, adoptive families and birth families. As with the kind and spot-on answer from the poster above, I too would be happy to share over DM.
Sent with very best wishes.

My birth father's own birth mother refused to connect with him. So, I had the very weird experience of being both an adoptee seeking family and the birth family being 'found.' Lots of miss-matched expectations and different adoption experiences. (My birth father had been in an orphanage for the first 9 months of his life, I went to my family from the hospital after I was born.)

Thank you for all your replies, very much appreciated, and especially thanks to @OVienna and @AllyinBerlin for offering the chance to DM - I may take you up on this.

It’s been a while since I sent those messages and really I have found it so exhausting just thinking about it all, never mind posting about it too. I am still caught up in thinking about it most of the time. I said to DH the other day that I don’t know what I used to think about before all of this came along.

I have started to look at the talks by Paul Sunderland and so much of it makes sense. I am realising that adoption is one of those traumas that is really under-played and under - recognised for the life long impact it can have.

I'll come back to this in the morning. I've been there with the all consuming thoughts.

Hiya, just wondering how you are feeling now? From my experience, it's a loooong old process! x

I know this is an old thread, but in case you see this message, if you are open to it, I would highly recommend watching Dara O'Briain on his 2 most recent stand up shows, so where are we and Re: Creation, where he talks about finding and reuniting with his birthday family, he speaks with such warmth and genuine emotion about his experience but also good natured humour, they are both such heartwarming shows and genuinely enjoyable while still talking about his experience head on

Couldn't get tickets locally to this show. Was disappointed!