I feel rootless and theres nowhere on here to discuss being an adopted person

[ihatethecold]

I'm in my 40's and have had an awful year dealing with my adult ds's mental health/suicidal problems.
My DH has been amazingly supportive but i have no family to help me with this.

I was adopted as a baby along with another older boy (whom i love dearly) to a couple that are alcoholics, My "dad" is a narcissist and my "mum" is an enabler so we are NC and have been for 10 years.
My life is easier without them in it but i miss having parents.

I know my birth mother. not well and Ive met her a few times in my 20's.
I'm mid 40's now.
we have nothing in common but i wanted her to know that i don't hold any bad feeling towards her. We exchanged cards at xmas etc but i have no desire to spend time with her.
Ive recently had to block her on Fb because she kept commenting on my photos and saying things i thought were over stepping the boundaries.

I don't want a relationship with my adoptive parents because of how they are but i feel like i have no roots, no history.

I came from a mixed race relationship but have been brought up as white, even though I'm brown skinned I know nothing of my heritage.
i found out my birth father was killed before i could meet him and my mother didn't know anything about his family.

im just rambling really, My heads a mess at the moment due to my sons stuff....

I am not adopted, so I cannot really understand. I have parented foster children who are deeply attached to their roots, and the idea of their roots, even when the reality proves itself a bit different. I also know what it is like to dearly love children with mental health difficulties.
I am happy to listen and support you if you would like that.

where do the roots come from though?

I have no idea who my father is/was and my birth mum is dead and died before l had the chance to meet her. I did meet a half DB but that's another story .
I can totally understand when you say you know nothing of roots and history and as a child l felt that l didn't really belong anywhere although l did have a great set of Dparents and a DSis. I was just so different to them as much as l loved them. The history l did learn from my DB was garbled and although some of it interesting, l still didn't feel that it was "my" history.
I decided that my families roots start with me and DH-we make our own memories and l no longer dwell on the past- l am what l am --what l have made of myself. Of course l still have the odd thought to my birth father and who he was but as that will never be solved l have to let it go.
Please pm me is you want to talk

Depends what you are talking about.

My sons are so like their dad, with only glimmers of me. That is nature with my nurture fighting to have an influence. I can 'train' them and give them experiences and strategies, but the basic material is very much from their dad. That is just our situation, just how the genetic dice rolled in our case.

I know my parents and their life very well. My grandparents less well, great grand parents less again. My DM never talks about her home life- I think it was pretty troubled. I've recently learned that my GGD had an antique/junk shop, it surprised me that it had never been mentioned.

Even when we grow up in our birth family, we don't know that much about the family history. Lots of things are hidden, other things so mundane they are never mentioned.
My DM talks about nothing- I have no idea what anyone else's menopause was like, for example.

What kinds of things do you want to know/understand?

In the case of my FCs, their roots were made of scraps of information and fantasy that they cobbled together to call family. They longed for it, were proud of it, looked forward to reclaiming it at every opportunity. It tended to disappoint them in reality. The people involved were not able to live up to the expectation.

I didn't say, and should have, I'm sorry you got such an inadequate set of adopters, too.

I am adopted and also had a really shitty adoption. I knew my birth family as I wasn't adopted until I was 6, and spent time in care.
My birth family were terrible too.

I have had YEARS of counselling dealing with issues around abandonment etc and found it really helpful. It was free through an adoption agency.

However, I am not mixed race and I've never felt the need to find out my roots, I'm very cynical about it all.

Would it help to perhaps look into your birth mum's family ancestry if your birth fathers side is unknown? Or to seek some counselling to help make peace with the questions you have and the answers you if hr never have?

Thanks everyone.
It's only been the end of this year I've felt this way.
I suppose because I've had so much stress and worry.
I miss being able to turn to family for support.

My DH's family are so lovely and talk about memories of long gone relatives.

My dad and his sister are very old and frail, and I'm aware that a whole host of history is dying with them. I got both sets of GPs a book to fill out about their lives- like a baby book but for grown ups. To be honest, they haven't done it, and my sons are not that interested anyway.

It's lovely that your dps have those stories, but really the stories are about you, your DP, his family, your DCs now. They are what matters.

Do you have enough information to do some research, if you wanted to?

I have a bit of info but I really don't want to open the can of worms that is my birth family.
I don't know what I want to be honest.
Maybe I don't want answers. Just someone to listen to me prattle on.

Well, happy to listen. Maybe what you really want is to have had a straight forward background, and the wondering about roots is a sort of vague recognition of that.
This might be a bonkers idea, but what about creating an imaginary ideal family for yourself? Just for fun. A sort of comfort blanket. That would work for me, I think, especially as there is no risk of getting confused with real people. I'd make a back story which explained some of the tricky stuff in a way which comforted me. You don't have to actually believe it, but the creation of it comforts the subconscious child, I reckon.