Time passes….

Time passes and the pain of my bmom never meeting me dwindles, but its still there. As well as the hurt when she found this blog and decided that I too was not good enough, that I had crossed the line.. and I guess was now in the same category as the rest of her family.. no good!

I never told her secrets other than the secret of me.. I was no harm to my brothers either. She said if i was to search, she did not want any part of it, so I did not tell.It was her request. 

So months have gone by since she told me off, She does not respond to emails or cards that I have sent. So why bother at this point. As I told her in the beginning, you will always know where I am.. I will not change my email and will always be reachable.

Its amazing how secrets of the past haunt a person even when there is no threat. I was never to tell anything to anyone that I learned. There were things that I learned that just were not my place to tell to my brothers.. EVER.. But meeting my brothers was surely something I feel I had a right to do, they are my brothers and we are related by YOU. I know you will come here and read the blog, I figure you have been checking in the same way you searched out this blog in the beginning! 

I feel bad for your kept sons as you continually lie to them , especially by saying what ever it was to keep them away from me. Sounds like history repeating itself, the same way you lied to them to keep them from learning other secrets before your mother died.  Secrets and lies.. horrible nasty little things I wonder what you did to Jimmy.. how you use your power as a mother to force him into a dark place where a change had to occur. 

I actually forgive you for what you have done to me, reject me because i did not follow YOUR rules! But I never said I would stop searching, nor did I say I would not contact my brothers. I was actually giving you time to do it yourself and after 2 1/2 years you still could not be honest with them that I existed. You also could not put yourself in my shoes to know what it is like to know you have family  yet your birth mother won’t tell because she is too afraid of her own shit!

Sometimes, I actually go back and read our emails and IMS.. I saved them all, all your words.. Maybe someday you will change your mind. Until then.. 

 

Birth Father

I searched for my birthfather to fill in my side of the family tree. It looked funny with my maternal side all filled in, but nothing not even a name of my father. When I asked, My mother said, “aren’t I enough?”. That seems so funny now.. email communication enough? Then she took her first hiatus from communicating, she was really just pissed that I insisted on the name.
She gave me the name Decole. I could not find anyone by that name. This fall, I finally drove to Winchester and went thru the city directory. I found the family, D’Ercole.. I am not french! I am 1/2 italian for crying out loud! I went by the house that they lived in. They only lived in Winchester for 2 years 60 and 61. Now I am sure its the right family as my bmother told me the story of how he returned to RI and he would not allow her to cross the state line as she was a minor. THe William that I found, came from Providence.. ugh.. my worst fear.. actually having paternal ties to this damn state! lol
I actually had saved this man’s death listing on ancestry back in the beginning of my search. Just because the name popped up. So he really has passed. I sent for his death certificate, he died at the age of 50, so young. But he was a bad alcoholic from what he died of. Must have been a horrible death.
I finally got the family tree on the paternal side done. Funny, my paternal Grandmother was from Stoneham where my mother had lived at one point.
I didn’t really feel anything when I found he had passed, because it was never about finding my father. I just never gave him much thought at all. He was to me, just a sperm donor of sorts. Finding him was more about the tree. I am glad that I finally did find out who he was, if just for self satisfaction. The search is essentially over. I found my family. I lost my mother.

 

Even Faith Hill has a biological brother!

Surfing around, I saw this link Imagine, Faith Hill also found she has a birth brother.. amazing. And it says she needed him.
My mother has not written to me since I crossed the line , reaking havoc where ever I do, when she found out I searched for my brothers. I don’t know if she will ever email me again.
According to my birthmother, I do not have any right to contact my brothers. Its all about her and not about me. Right mom? To think that the world did not end when I met them.. but its all about her secrets and what she has tried to protect them from. Honestly, those secrets have NOTHING to do with me.
Those secrets do not belong to me and I do not want any part of them. I am not something to be a secret. I am a human and these men are my brothers.
There was over 2 years to which they could have been told about me, but no , I had to remain a secret. I was told, if you want to search then I do not want to know . So I didn’t say a word. I kept my own secret.

 

Finally!

Last Monday, being the searcher that I am , I had the idea of searching for my brother’s wife, I entered her name and up popped a facebook page for my brother and she. OMG, my heart just stopped. I recognized him immediately and thought now is my chance. WIth anticipation, anxiety and hope, I sent off a message. Then sit and wait…..I received the reply that he would call me on Tuesday. Now to wait for 7 the next day. Anxiety galore, he seemed to be happy that i contacted, but what would be the outcome?
We talked for an hour. It was fantastic to hear his voice and his acceptance besides being in shock, I guess looking like your mom is sometimes a good thing.
Thursday I was home with a left over migraine from Wednesday, so I went thru old emails and sent him alot of the family history information that i have gathered over the years. Then i got a text, want to meet? I couldnt have raced out that door any quicker.
Sitting and talking to him and his wife was amazing, it lasted for 3 hours. We were to meet again on Sunday for a cook out at his home. He was not sure that the youngest brother would show up after he told him about me. He assured me that my youngest was happy, but had not received a reply that he was coming. So we expected it to be just us.
When i arrived, he was there. He came over to me first. I think he was more speechless than anything else.
Using the word surreal does not come close to anything i felt. We shared pictures, talked, stories…. with my little brothers! Over 2 years of waiting for contact… talk about anxiety! But I left with a peaceful feeling… then the anxiety started again.
WHat do you expect afterwards? Why is he not texting me? Is something wrong? Fear of loss is a horrible thing and I dont deal with it well at all.
In my life I am used to so much not lasting or working out, that its only natural that I would start to feel this.
Then i started to think back about my oldest telling me he felt betrayed, and How i tried to ease his mind about when the betrayal started. Now after meeting and having one of the best days of my life, I was feeling alittle betrayed and angry. Something I thought I would never do.
All these feelings popping up which are so normal for us adoptees, now plaguing me..couple that with my pessimism.. well its not a pretty picture.
My youngest left, and he never asked for my phone number or any contact information. That has really upset me a little more than i expected. Why wouldnt he have asked for something? Maybe I should have asked for it.. maybe hes feeling the same thing now?
So many confusing thoughts and worries. Anxiety to down right panic attacks that they will not contact me or just dont know how to process all the information. Wondering how they are processing the information. WOndering if i will lose what i waited so long for. And finally, even though we are keeping this a secret, will my mother be so angry that I never hear from her again or worse, that she takes her anger out on my brothers?
I can not express the joy I felt meeting my brothers. And alot of that is connected to the oldest of the two. We seem to have more in common and are like minded, share interests. Or the feeling of comfort as i visited instead of being me and asking can we go yet! lol.. for once I was content, with inner peace.. but it left when i came home. Now the self doubt settles in.
Who ever said that reunion is easy? Its work… but in the end I hope that everything works out and we can succeed in being the family that we should have been.

 

Stroke

It was Dec 23, I got a call from my Dad saying my mom was in the hospital and he thought she had a TIA. Talking to him, I knew she had a stroke. I just about flew out of work, packed my bags, grabbed the dog and off we went. I called my Dad and told him I was on my way. He was at home and had left my mother, unable to speak in the care of the Emergency Dept.. I think I drove almost 90 at one point as I couldn’t believe he left her there alone. I made him call the ER to get an update prior to my getting there . As I drove I called my brother several times. I finally had to call the people he lives with and explain why I was calling and to put out an APB as we had a family emergency.
I arrived at my parents house and we left for the ER. When we asked for my mother, the woman went and looked and came back saying she had gone to X-Ray. So, I suggested a cup of coffee to my dad. As soon as we walked in the door, i looked for the x-ray sign while he looked for the coffee. I walked one way he walked the other, he yelled back at me.. so I went and told him I was going to X-ray. When I arrived, they said she had been there a few hours earlier. Then I went to admissions, they had not admitted her yet.. so we grabbed the coffee and went back to the ER. She was there this time.
The woman laying there was not my mom. This woman couldn’t talk. The nurse came in and said , we have been waiting for family as MRI has questions for you. So they had not done the MRI because my father was not there. Then I had to do one of the hardest things, remove my mother’s diamond rings, gold bracelets and her necklace. OMG she loves her bling. First, she couldn’t go into MRI with them on, second, She would die if some one stole her bling! For some reason that just broke me, taking her precious belongings off.
Waiting for the MRI, she tried to speak and there just were no understandable words coming out of her mouth. There was no active bleed, she was eventually put on the floor. Speaking to some one virtually impossible and no one contacts family. After being in health care and now living a crisis moment, I couldn’t believe how no one asked any questions. No one asked about her mental and physical status prior.
When the discharge planning started, we were able to finally tell the worker where we wanted her sent. We had been driving to the hospital, 45 minutes away, 3 times a day. And if you want to talk about exhausting.. that sure is because we would get there, she would feel frustrated and send us home.
My mom was extremely lucky as she was released in 4 days to the rehab 10 minutes from their home. She recovered rather quickly and was in very good spirits. Then we were to discover her short term memory was shot. The VNA came and provided speech, physical and occupational therapy. They were not stern enough with the therapies though, they let her set the pace which was nothing like rehab. She had been in 3-5 hours of therapy at the rehab a day. Now, she tired easily and they gave into her complaints. My mom lost her fight and didn’t even realize it. They say you have 6 months to gain back your loss after a stroke. Little did we know that she had no short term memory to remember the skills she was being taught.
I only discovered this during the months ahead reading discharge summaries and hearing what she was being told to do by the VNA. She would deny it all, say she was never taught this or that. The VNA discontinued the speech first, then PT then OT. Over a month went by with no speech therapy. They had referred her to PT for her hand complaints. The NP didn’t understand that the rehab did out patient therapy, so their request for ST was denied. It was not until later that the PT realized her speech issues and referred her. She has since discontinued the PT but continues ST. Her stroke was in Dec and its June now.
My first reaction of her stroke was disbelief, this woman who was a GO GO GO woman. Just never stopping or allowing anyone to help her.. morning to night. Then it set in, my mom wasn’t talking anything i could understand. OMG, this to me was devastating. We had finally found peace with my rocky adolescence and were finding an even ground.. ( I am only 49!). Yes, it took all those years of her to accept me the way I was and my life for as complicated as it was but more so that I just wasn’t a mini Betty. I felt like now my chances with her were slim to none.
I continued to go down on weekends, do shopping for my parents and do chores when i was there. However, as my mother has it, my cleaning skills and laundry skills do not meet HER standards.. no big surprise. She eventually started to monitor my laundry skills.. and then as soon as she could, she started to do it herself. I am still allowed to do the fucking ironing though! I was finally trusted to cook meals for them. She absolutely hates to give up her controls! My brother is still battling the meal prep when he goes down, but that’s his battle! lol. A woman was hired to come and clean for a couple of hours, which is fine, I have my own house work to do anyways!
Its still a little hard talking to her because she cant find the words and her affect is on the flat side. But She’s my mom and we love each other. She cant remember to water her own plants, even when they are drooping and then she will tell my dad to do it. The stroke has caused her to retire into the recliner after a chore is done which has completely exhausted her.
I watch her walk and its not my mom’s gait, its a stiff and dragging walk, no energy at all. She constantly complains about being tired and the grief my father gives her. She doesn’t realize how she has given up on so many things. My dad misses the wife he had. My dad has slowed down now because she has slowed him down.
I never thought of my parents as OLD, they were in such good health, golfing, playing cards, maintaining the house, just no stopping them. Of course I did not like them driving to Florida every year. So i am rather glad that was not planned this year!
The stroke just woke me up inside because it was a shocker! I never thought it would be my Mom. And I just never really thought about them getting old and ill.

 

Loss of my grandson, Christian

I have thought about coming back and blogging.. but I keep getting interrupted! So much has happened in the last year.
My youngest daughter became pregnant again. NOt a particularly happy event, but I changed my stance on allowing her to live with me, with her son and baby to be. I had always said I help you once, next time you are on your own. She knew this well and acknowledged it on the day she gave me a congratulations card on my new grandchild. SHe was then faced with a break up , domestic assault and loosing her job. It wasn’t until the birth of the baby that things went very sour. First, she returned from the hospital and the baby’s dad entered my home with his parents, who in retaliation filed vandalism charges on her , which they later dropped as the witness surely didn’t want to commit perjury. I couldn’t believe the balls of these people entering my home to inspect the baby’s room etc. Thankfully, I had cleaned the baby’s room while my daughter was in the hospital. The next thing I know, the father is sleeping in her bed. Seems now she needs all this help and he is staying here and sleeping. I called her into my room and told her this was not allowed. He was welcome till 9 at night, but he was here to care for his daughter and NOT sleep in her bed.. This happened again. Now I was being limited in seeing my grandson who lives with me. I was not allowed to take him to the store or to a show at the Cape with his cousins and grandmother. I didn’t say anything the second time the father slept here as I wanted to take him. The third time, I went into the room and laid it all out, he was not to sleep and he was to get up! He laid there. My daughter in her defense, fought with me verbally saying horrible things that I thought would never spew from her mouth. And that was the last straw, I said as of Dec 31 you are out. I gave her over a months notice. I was not going to be subject to her abuse. To top it all off.. when there was no one for her, I was there. I bought things for the baby with my limited income as she was unable to pay rent.
Then it happened, one night while she was putting my grandson to bed, she told him I was kicking them out and he wouldn’t see me anymore. He was crying about leaving his home and not seeing me. I went in and said why don’t you tell him WHY he wont see me! We had many words about her telling him the truth, she said to him I was sending them to a horrible house that they had looked at.. blaming ME for everything. Then she proceeded to tell me to get out of the room. I refused, she got up off the couch and tried to punch me in the head.. that was IT.. I pushed her back and told her remember who hit who first.. then i let my anger go.
On Dec 22 my Mom had a stroke. I felt mostly responsible as I probably raised her blood pressure with the story of the fight 2 days earlier and my mother lets things get to her. I left as soon as I found out, and that morning was the last day I saw my grandson.
I hurt for both of us, I miss my grandson that I helped to raise.. I was there for him when she was too busy or too lazy .. I was his rock.. and he knew it. He had asked me to get him pictures of the dog and myself. So, I made him a photo album. I found it during her packing, she took every picture of me out. Eventually I found it left behind in her mess. He has nothing but memories which will probably fade away as he was almost 6 , at the time. Although, I am sure that he will remember feeling abandoned by me. Which is NOT the case.
I did attempt to contact her, text messages, in which I was still accused of kicking him out of his home.. no responsiblity from her for her actions or total disregard for a parents rules.
I sent her a picture when my other daughter had her next child. She ended up calling me and saying who is this.. I said your mother, she said I don’t have one and hung up.
I continued on, rearranged my house to make it mine, repair damage and just have my space, something I had never had.. My own place. But life is far from normal. I am depressed, I miss my family, I miss my grandson.
My spring activities of going to the beach and just doing things out doors is radically changed as the grandson who i did it all with is not here any longer.. nothing seems right with out him.
I wonder about my purpose often.. why on earth was I put here!!! There are no anti-depressives that can make this pain any more acceptable or livable.

 

some where between here and there

Some where between here and there, I decided it was over with my online reunion. The emails got shorter, the subjects got blander. The distance got greater. I held up my end as a daughter, but as a mother.. she failed.. i looked in my envelop that i received when i first found her, and the first handwritten letter, telling me to make sure i told my parents that i found her, and how she would never intentionally hurt me.. and i think.. wow.. she has no idea of the hurt that i feel. While i dont see it as rejection.. because i understand that she things as her hurts and wounds.. but after finding and connecting with my aunt and uncle have found out the other side of the story. Maybe she herself doesn’t understand the other side either. She blamed her mother for letting her secret out of the bag, and she felt threatened that her family was going to find out, when in fact, she was rubbing something in my uncle’s face.. and as he stated.. she was having a holier than thou moment. However, i was to find out , that my uncle, remembered my mother “going away”, i would certainly think that a 10 year old would remember a time when his sister disappeared for a period of time and put pieces together. So when he brought it up.. to fire back at her.. she got angry at her mother, and told them all she never wanted to hear from them again. She took it as a threat. So i represent that threat in her mind. She said that her sons would feel betrayed.. if she were to tell them about me, i never understood this.. now i can .. because they lost an aunt and an uncle as well as a grandmother in their dying days.. and yes they might feel betrayed by their mother looking back, because she denied them the right to family. The same way she denies me the right to my family, herself and my brothers.
I am not angry.. although i do have some feelings of anger at time , for the most part , I feel sorry for her. I thought i was a secret as the sign of the times, now i know differently.. And by her actions of slowly walking away from me after letting me in, I am ready to let go of her.
A dream that I had for so many years seemed to be so fruitful, then ended so slowly as she just let it all go before her own eyes. I offered myself to her, with love and open arms, unconditionally, and on her terms. I cant think of a better way to have it. Still it was all about her. I will miss C, the dreams, the hope.. it was the last of a series of hopes and dreams i had in my life. Being the realist that I am , this left me again with an empty feeling inside, but atleast i found out where i came from, and i take from it a new direction with the searching for others, the opening of the registry, and the venture of the support group in RI.

 

Almost a year

Well, its almost a year since I started this journey to find my mother.
I can not say that i am any more healed by it all since finding. Its actually more depressing, since now after all the conversation and exchanges, she cannot come to grips with what was done to her. I really believed she could heal and we could together right a wrong done by her mother.
I can not for the life of me understand how she can ignore emails or read them with out responding in return. I understand pain, but honestly.. get real.
So many times i did feel like the adult and she was the scared 17 year old.. and that in itself was not fair. We all have our wounds and she has to realize at some point that i am the adult child that may have some scars from it all too.
Sometimes i wish that i could just go back to my prefind bliss.. with just the attitude of i was adopted, and my adoptees are all i have as family bullshit. I sometimes wish i had not realized my primal wound and how it has effected my life and shaped my personality.But all the wishing in the world is not going to change a damn thing in my life now.
I have been helping another adoptee recently and man does it bring up everything i have felt over the course of a year.
Last night i shipped an ecard to her for valentines day. It has not been picked up as of yet. And i scheduled one for her birthday on Tuesday. Signing them love always, your daughter. And wondering how long it will take her to open them up. I cant have the normal freedom to send her a card in the mail, so thats the best i can do.
On March 13 it will be a year since i got my OBC and wrote to her for the first time.. doing that anxious wait for a reply and never being far from my mailbox, email or cell phone. Any tidbit of information i found regarding my natural family was printed out and saved to my files.. my files about a life that was taken from me.. the woman who i had dreamed of finding always.
I ask my repeatedly , how do i get over the end of the dream. finally finding her and being faced with some one who can not deal with me exsisting and finding her. Her fear about being exposed as a mother .. to her family. Its so unfair to have to protect her and yet want to be connected to both her and my brothers. THIS IS MY FAMILY!!!
I so remember .. “if this works out , i will find a way to tell” and now with the way it has worked out.. i feel conflicted .. some days i understand her feelings so well.. and other days i really feel like i was being tested.. to see if i would move forward with search and contact her family.. my family.. and if that isnt why i get a tidbit from her here and there.
Crap what a sucky way to feel inside.

 

special and chosen

Yup, that was me. Special and chosen for a good part of my life when i conformed, and i was a parent pleaser.. but when i started to develop into my own person i was BAD. I was me, i was not a part of my parents. Was i testing them.. probably so and it failed miserably as i was the perfect child.. yet complicated. My brother being 9 years older than i , had tested and acted out so now i was faced with more restrictions and stricter punishments to prevent me from making the same mistakes. Now i did not feel special, probably as i didnt feel special when i said i was going to run away when i was about 5 and my mother told me she would pack me pbj sandwiches. God i was devasted, ran to my room crying hysterically and hurt beyond belief. Of course at that age, i could not possibly understand that i insulted and hurt my mother.. but i felt rejected and not worthy of their understanding or love at why i wanted to run away. Things were never explained as to why.. it just was a straight no answer and that was that.
Yup at 47 i remain a broken special chosen child .. lol… its kind of laughable but at the same time very sad that the same issues i had a child still follow me deep down. Recognizing them this year after i found my mother .. well thats the kicker. I never acknowledged that it came from this wonderful thing called adoption.. and i never would have imagined that there were so many others who felt like myself.
I see others who have the same pains as myself, and i no longer feel like such an outcast or alone. So all along i was not so odd after all.. there was a damage done by the separation of my mother and myself. I was not a part of my parents biological traits. I had a good reason to feel the way i did.
Its amazing how parents can say talk to me and we will listen, yet they cant understand what a child feels or is unable to verbalize.
I am not an angry adoptee but yet i am not a happy one either. I more or less just exist and live each day taking what comes my way. I wonder sometimes if i had been with my biological mother if things would have been different with out the feelings of not fitting in. God what an important thing in life.. to fit in, to feel that you are OK.
As i hit my teens.. i had horrible break outs on my face, i was told that it was the devil in me coming out.. now based on my teenage behavior i actually believed that this might be so.. and related it to me just being bad.. While i was loved at the same time.. i felt that i really didnt fit in, that my behavior was totally unacceptable.. and i will never forget some of the damaging statements that we said by my parents that i was never supposed to hear. I was CORE evaluated and sent to a psychiatrist.. the problems came out to be problems at home but no one ever took the time to factor in adoption or possibly recognize that there were some underlying conditions from that. I wonder if professionals were more trained back then , that I actually might have been helped and our family a bit more accepting and understanding as to the why and how of behavior.. and the origins of it as well. Years of therapy both in my teens and then again in my late 30′s. I worked on issues with my mother as i felt she was hyper critical of me.. And would be devasted by her judgements of me. I worked so hard to over come it.. and it never entered my mind to say i was adopted.. I just thought this was how families were.. after many years of leaving therapy.. thinking i had learned to cope and adapt to my mother, i told the therapist i was adopted.. the look on her face unreal. I just thought it was a mother daughter thing and never attributed it to adoption at all.
So here i am many years later .. recognizing the inner me that was wounded by adoption.. and living with it day in and day.
I am just me.. special and chosen.. by something that altered my life beyond belief. I am so thankful for finally understanding why i am the way i am.. and finding that there are so many others like me in so many ways.

 

Primal Wound Book Tour

I volunteered to be part of the Nancy Verrier Primal Wound Book tour. I must say i first stumbled onto the Primal Wound many many years ago on line.. and I sent the link to my gf and said.. OMG this is so me. I had finally found something that hit just about every nerve in my body.. something that was talking about me.
I always told people i was adopted, it was known. However, to me my family was my family.. at the same time I had the daydreams of my original mother.. she was going to save me.
I was too chosen and special.. but i was never able to figure out how that fit in my life as i felt neither of them. I was always a disappointment. I turned into a people pleaser and ended up being with abusive people, abusive relationships and abusive job situations.
I entered into therapy when i began to have issues with my teenage daughter, then i tackled issues with my mother.. NEVER was it mentioned that i was adopted. Then i went to The Caron Foundation in PA for a week long in house Co-dependency program. And I will state this is not for addictions.. this is people pleasing . Again, never was it mentioned i was adopted. I really didnt think it played a role… I actually shoved my adoption issues so deep, i just thought it was because i was a failure and a disappointment to my parents.
It was not until I found my original mother that my wounds would come to the surface and begin to bleed. If my emotions were to be my physical self, I would have bled out long ago and be buried 6 feet deep. I will add that my parents love me with all their hearts and have been good parents by myside. I was taught that I was not abandoned, and that this was the result of teenage pregnancy . Only was I to learn about their views when i became a teenager who was sexually active. Then i would learn about why adoption existed, what a bastard child is and what illegimate means. Before my teenage years, I was a child of a woman who did the hardest thing.

Bare with me as i am still raw and i really cant get into things beyond a surface level for me as its still painful. I have alot of healing yet to do as i live thru the second rejection.

• The author states that only you can be the judge of whether the primal wound in fact exists. How does the primal wound manifest in you? If you are in reunion with members of your birth family, did making that contact help with your healing? What, if anything, has helped you to heal?

I never felt abandoned so to speak, I was taught my mother did the hardest thing. And to this day I still believe that after statements she made. She was forced to give me up for adoption, she had no voice. I felt as though i was missing something. I have had a hard time trusting people and letting people close to me, so when i came to find the Primal Wound.. i could identify the damage that had occurred from adoption/separation from my mother. First I was separated from my mother and placed into foster care, then six months later I was placed with my parents.
I found My mother, C in April of this year.. it has not been easy and i have not healed anymore. As a matter of fact, I am raw, and i dont know exactly how to get this healing to begin. It wasnt until i made contact with C, that even with my exposure to the Priimal WOund, did i actually accept it. I was drinking the typical koolaide and just thought i had emotional issues because I was ME. However, in my reunion, did i truly learn where they came from.
I never felt connected to anyone. There were no similarities between my adoptive family and myself. The few that I had, where smashed like an ant crossing the kitchen floor as my parents were a few generations away from me and I was to be a nurse or a school teacher, vs my architecture intrests in school. I had opportunities to do things to which the role of a female did not do in their eyes.
My parents and i never connected during the teenage years when my struggle really began. I think they might have understood alittle more than i actually acknowledge but i was stuck in my adoptive act out and see what happens state. They thought it was just a bad teenager, i was testing for some reason.. and in the end.. they eventually disowned me in my 20′s when i became pregnant with my oldest daughter. I was to listen to the “give that baby a name”, “put her up for adoption”, etc etc… I can say i was never compared to my mother! That probably would have killed me.
I battled to find security in life, my self esteem was poor, I got better with age, but still those old scars are there, and situations bring them to the surface. The reunion was not easy because of my status of “being a secret” and later to not have communication with out explaination after i was told we would always be connected.

In several places in the book I saw other adoptees stating that they had always felt different or like they didn’t fit in. Is this something that you can describe more? I myself don’t really recall feeling like my difference was related to being adopted yet I know that many of the personality traits were very much like me.

I always felt that i did not fit into my family, although i accepted it as the norm.. i had a few adopted cousins as well, so it was the norm for my family. We were just our parents children. ALthough, i would search for my blue eyes where ever i went. Most of my family has hazel or brown. I did not share the same interests, but i felt every one was different. I thought i clashed with my parents because we just had the 2 generations between us. It was easier to just accept things like that.
It was not till this summer that I really felt like i did not fit in anywhere. I hung around with friends who are close to thier family, their similarities hit me with a ton of bricks. I was awestruck at exactly how families that have a biological connection do think alike, and have the same interests. It was amazing .. but as i sat there and observed, i never felt more alone, or like an outsider. Although, during this same period, i was emailing and iming with my original mother, and had made a connection with her.. and it was good, I had so much envy for these friends.. and they didnt realize what it was that they have.

Has being adopted/abandoned affected your past or present relationships (marriage, family, etc) If so, how?

I chose to say adopted as i do not feel abandoned , although separation from my mother would appropriate as well.
My relationship with my parents was strained to say the least, i struggled as a teenager. We all missed the boat as to why, but i would say it was adoption and trying to find my identity as i clearly did not have anything in common with my parents and they did not understand me.
I knew something was missing, I just didn’t know what. As a child i was taught that God answers prayers, I had one prayer, and that would be that i would find my mother.I lost faith in a God who never answered that for me. It was probably in the way that i was taught he answers prayers.. but none the less, i lost faith in a higher power. So my relationship with God was effected first.
I have trust issues and so many grief issues, so many things become triggers for me. I was a people pleaser so i could fit in with others. I smoked.. then i belonged to the smoking club.. lol.. then as i got older, I started to do drugs, so i was in with the cool crowd and at the same time hiding my pain. I began to work, so i wouldnt have to go home, so i was a caretaker, working in nursing homes. Then i started to date, now i was in a relationship that was filled with jealousy, insecurity and rage.. yup i was dating some one like me.. only he was not adopted. He hit me and our relationship ended. My next relationship was with the father of my children. After the birth of my daughter, he began to abuse me, only now i had no money, a child and no family support ( out of wedlock). So i remained for 12 years, trying my best to miss the blow, make things “right”, and survive. I re established myself as a single mother of 2 working fulltime and making ends meet. Then i dated and lived with a few .. usually a lie would trigger me, as i could not forgive or get over it, then the trust went down the tubes.. So i would have to say after getting over being abused, it was hard to let some one close and when i did, i usually found out a lie which ended the relationship as i have a hyper trust issue, and lies are the worst of them all. I have felt insecure and felt like i was nothing in comparison with my partners at times. Mostly in my own head, but still it was the life i was living that presented it to me to feel this way.
Adoption shaped me into who i am today, there are times i have a big empty core. Times when i can not contain the pain, and i would rather hide my head in the sand from having to face one more challenge of it all.
Now i would have to say I am challenged with the ability to trust people, to allow myself to be intimate with anyone more than a surface level relationship, friends or partners. I find loyality a big issue. And i wonder alot about if it is possible that my soul will ever heal.. its harder now that i found my original mother and i realized there was some one like me out there.. and that we did connect.. but she rejected me or is taking a very long break.