I Was Adopted
I have just joined this website, when searching for support groups for people adopted. I was adopted from birth and always knew that I was adopted. I don't remember the time when my adoptive mum actually sat me down to tell me. My older sister is also adopted as my mum couldn't have children.
I absolutely love my mum and I think she did the best job she could in raising me and my sister. I also loved my adoptive dad, and in the early years was a complete daddy's girl! Unfortunately my dad suffered with early signs of mental illness and spent most of my life being an alcoholic. He could be pretty violent when drunk, but when sober I could see the dad I loved. His family wasn't enough to save him and he passed away when I was 13.
I have never felt like I wanted to meet my birth mother as I was completely satisfied with the family I had. However, contact was forced upon me when I was 18. My birth mother was American and fell pregnant with me at 23. Her mother wanted her to have an abortion so she fled to England where her sister was studying for a year. When I was born, she gave me up and went back to the States. Someone in the adoption agency ILLEGALLY gave my adopted name and address to my birth mother before she left.
When 18, she contacted me and I felt all these emotions I had never felt before. Anger, confusion, hurt. I was just recovering from being sexually attacked while working home one night. I found it hard to deal with and my uni work suffered. She went on about how much she didn't want to give me up and wanted us to have a relationship. I wanted to take things slowly, so we just emailed each other every month. I ended up taking a gap year from uni and went to work on a summer camp in the States. We then decided to meet up while out there. So I flew over to Arizona for 4 days to stay with her. BIG MISTAKE! Shouldn't have stayed with her as I had nowhere to go and clear my head and deal with all my emotions. She had two younger children and organised these big 'family' parties to introduce everyone to me.
One thing that did annoy me was she was very relectant to talk to me about my adoption or my birth father. This seemed strange considering she was the one to contact me and must have realised I would ask questions. Anyway, I got offered an internship at the summer camp and moved to the States to live for 18 months. During this time I sent her an email every month with my news - she sent me ONE email during this time. I finally sent her an email before I returned to the UK saying that I wasn't going to contact her again as I couldn't deal with being rejected again. She replied saying sorry she had been very busy and would be better at replying. Well that was 6 months ago, and surprise surprise, haven't heard from her since!
This has made me ask myself whats wrong with me, why doesn't she want to know me etc. It's hard to deal at times. I have many 'issues' with intimacy, relationships and abandonment, but this is from a combination of things that have happened in my life. I'm only 22 and feel I am a strong person who can overcome most things and carry on with life. I have ups and downs, but I have never regretted anything that has happened in my life because I have met so many amazing people and its made me the person I am now. I am trying to learn to be grateful to my birth mother for giving me the life I have now.
