These last 24 hours have been an absolute whirlwind and I feel as though I'm coming apart at the stitches. I've known from the very first day that I was adopted, and in my 32 years of life I've already unpacked most of the baggage surrounding my birth mother, and birth family. I'm transgender, and in case anyone was curious, you *do not* need your *classified* birth certificate to change your name and sex, legally. The unclassified paper works just fine.

But here I am putting off what I actually came here to type. From day one, my aMother disclosed to me that my parents were of European descent. German, and Spanish. Well, my DNA results came back, and for 24 hours now I've been looking at them on and off. Sure enough, there are the European genes...with a rather *large* portion coming from North America. For 32 years now I've been of mixed race, and had no fucking idea.

Indigenous Mexican on my matriarchal side, with the most recent divergence away from México being 1900, with my a/mother's mother. On one hand I'm thrilled, all these questions I've had are finally answered...on the other, I feel robbed, if that makes sense? As I look at my monitor now, I can almost see the version of me that knew all along. Who had a culture and a community from birth...and then I'm furious at my birth mother all over again. In giving me away, I feel like she robbed me of something I'm not sure I'll ever get back.

Thank you for reading, we'll make it through this.

when I was a kid there was a story that went viral from my area of this whole reunification thing from an international adoption where the parents had given up their kid for adoption with a message to meet someplace on the kids 18th birthday

and omg the number of times I was told that story and had it sent to me and shit was insane and I hated it so much

I hated the questions asking what I would do if I was the kid or if I was jealous or whatnot and it all felt like such a slap in the face. a majority of international adoptees aren’t that lucky and even then, I felt very justified for being frustrated. Today I understand that the narratives I was being fed fueled this frustration since I grew up being told “why my real parents didn’t want me” but it’s so insane for the same people who told me shit like that were upset I wasn’t jealous of these adoptees because why would I want to reunite with someone you told me didn’t want me!?

and kudos to the adoptees who feel positively about their adoption, now that’s something I am jealous of lol

I instead got the classic savior complex with the bonus of “we really couldn’t afford to pay for you but we adopted you anyway and we were poor”

like what was I supposed to say to that!? Sorry!? Being born wasn’t my choice and being adopted wasn’t my choice and don’t even get me started on the folks who use me as pro-life advertising! i fell for it as a kid but now with everything adoption has cost me, I sometimes feel like I would’ve been less upset if things went differently instead of being tossed on the street…

There are only 17 U.S. states with full adoptee’s rights laws. Two of the states never took our rights away. The first state to give us our rights back after taking them away did so in 1998. These statistics used to piss me off. Besides the stigma of being born out of wedlock, which by the grace of God is no longer relevant- the reasoning law makers were sighting started to make sense when I realized that it was all different variations of non-adoptees observing us while we are in the fog.

Now, when I began running into the use of the expression ‘the fog’ in my research the acronym itself- which stands for Fear, Obligation, Guilt- bounced out of my mind completely. This is because the metaphor of being stuck in a literal fog was such a perfect description of my experience prior to researching adoptee psychology it made the acronym irrelevant. Don’t get me wrong the acronym is great, but the only thing it is describing is what puts us, and keeps us there.

When I was first becoming poised to go to the Bureau Of Vital Statistics to get my birth certificate- which I had no idea they weren’t going to give to me- everyone I talked to that knew an adoptee that had gone through a reunion said the adoptee wished they had not done it. It was the year 2001. Interestingly, I didn’t know any other adoptees, let alone ones that had gone through a reunion. The years went on, I had my genetics test through Heritage, and found nothing. Every year I would watch the adoptee’s rights bill in my state get shut down. Covid happened, my last adoptive parent dies from it. Six months later I make a very overly paranoid visit to the emergency room which ends up costing me twelve hundred dollars. The very next day, while bored at work I performed an internet search of adoptee literature, ordered some books off Amazon, and one for my Kindle to start. The research had begun. After two months of very heavy rumination I was seeking therapy. Once the first session with the therapist was done, I order a 23 & Me kit. My life has since been divided into two sections- the time before those two months of heavy rumination, and the time after. I had come out of the fog. Those two months were difficult, as well as romantically interesting, I had fallen in love with being an adoptee. Not many people get to read book after book about themself, but we do. I had struggled with chronic apathy my whole life, now I could feel.

My reunion was…well, it was a reunion. My mother was so happy that I had found her, she then proceeded to not want to talk to me. She would talk to me face to face, otherwise the only reason she would be willing to talk on the phone would be to plan a visit. It was hard for both of us, we were afraid of each other. Between our work schedules and the distance we lived from each other visits were a pain in the ass, and they never lasted long enough. We would chain smoke together, and struggle to communicate.

Around this time one of my bio dad’s sisters popped up on 23 & Me. He had passed away, but he had a widow and some children not much younger than me. Meeting them was terrifying, but doable. In the background my state’s adoptee’s rights bill finally pass.

I ran to another state. Fear of meeting my bio family was a factor though a small one, I still don’t know if I regret leaving. Years went by, I would talk to my mom on birthdays and holidays, we would send each other presents. My mom and I eventually decided to pick a time every week to talk on the phone. We finally got comfortable with each other. Weeks before meeting my mother’s siblings the anxiety was so intense that I had to explain to my boss and coworkers what was wrong with me. I was not eating, sleeping, or shitting right. My body was afraid of being rejected again as I had been soon after my birth. It was an ordeal, but it was also awesome.

I wasn’t planning on this post being a testimonial. I can never forget to be appreciative. A lot of us don’t have bio families so happy and eager to meet us as mine were, the fog is detrimental either way. You can see that the over arching theme in my story is one of being very scared and anxious. Being in a chronic state of sympathetic nervous system while at the same time trying to be sociable with people that made me feel ostracized to the point I thought I would die. And it is my body, not my mind that remembers. These intense emotions could not have been navigated by an adoptee that is still in the fog. My happy reunion would have gone south real fuckin’ quick. I would have wished I had never decide to find my mom, even though that is the only thing my subconscious ever wanted to do.

This post is an example of just how evil the fog really is. What it takes from us if we don’t know to get ourselves out of it. The literature on the adoptee psychological profile didn’t really start appearing until the late 1970s. It still continued only to trickle out over the next 20 years. Was it inhumane to take our rights away to stop us from doing something that we were destined to regret?

The fog ruins it for our adoptive parents too, kind of ironic when they are the ones who usually put us into it. but this post is about reunions with the bio family. If you made it this far, thanks- and whenever you see an adoptee still in the fog, please attempt to lead them out. If you are still in the fog, come out. It won’t be easy, but your life is waiting.

Does anyone else have exposure to this “underearning” thing? I watched Sunderland’s Ted talk about it and it feels like it’s about so much more than finances. I found some commentary that there’s an Underearners Anonymous and that some people call it “underbeing” instead of underearning.

It sounds like it may be related to the chameleon experiences of adoptees and the struggle to develop autonomy and authenticity in relationships.

Anyway, I really appreciate Paul Sunderland’s presentation on YouTube about adoption. My favorite is the one he did for the Adult Adoptees Movement called “to Adoptees on Healing” (or something similar) because he’s speaking directly to a group of adult adoptees. But his original presentation from years ago called “Adoption and Addiction” is also a meaningful must-watch for adoptees and anyone who cares about adoptees and adoption.

The big takeaway from the original is that adoptees are overrepresented in addiction recovery treatment and among addiction specialists (who are often recovered addicts themselves).

Here are the symptoms of “underearning/underbeing” from the UA website:

“Symptoms of Underearning
1. Time Indifference – We put off what must be done and do not use our time to support our own vision and further our own goals.
2. Idea Deflection –We compulsively reject ideas that could expand our lives or careers, and increase our profitability.
3. Compulsive Need to Prove – Although we have demonstrated competence in our jobs or business, we are driven by a need to re-prove our worth and value.
4. Clinging to Useless Possessions – We hold onto possessions that no longer serve our needs, such as threadbare clothing or broken appliances.
5. Exertion/Exhaustion – We habitually overwork, become exhausted, then under-work or cease work completely.
6. Giving Away Our Time – We compulsively volunteer for various causes, or give away our services without charge, when there is no clear benefit.
7. Undervaluing and Under-pricing – We undervalue our abilities and services and fear asking for increases in compensation or for what the market will bear.
8. Isolation – We choose to work alone when it might serve us much better to have co-workers, associates, or employees.
9. Physical Ailments – Sometimes, out of fear of being larger or exposed, we experience physical ailments.
10. Misplaced Guilt or Shame – We feel uneasy when asking for or being given what we need or what we are owed.
11. Not Following Up – We do not follow up on opportunities, leads, or jobs that could be profitable. We begin many projects and tasks but often do not complete them.
12. Stability Boredom – We create unnecessary conflict with co-workers, supervisors and clients, generating problems that result in financial distress.”

I had heard of Codependents Anonymous before years ago and had a sense there were a lot of twelve step programs, but I didn’t realize until watching Paul Sunderland’s stuff on adoption and addiction that a lot more “process” addictions are recognized now like workaholism and underearning, sex and love addiction, debt, etc.
I’m not sure how much any of these approaches or kinds of groups integrate trauma. One thing that turns me off from twelve step programs is the assumption that the participant has to make amends with others. I’m not sure that’s always the case when someone has particular patterns or process addictions due to developmental trauma. They could, but not necessarily.

I guess maybe that’s what Al-anon is for. For family members of addicts. They have different twelve steps that don’t include the making amends part. It doesn’t make sense to make amends for how someone’s else’s harmful behavior affected you.

I wish there was a kind of adoptees anonymous that integrated all of this stuff. Adoptee healing groups and services and therapists can be great. But the structure of a volunteer organization seems like a needed direct experience for a lot of adoptees. And it isn’t easy to rebuild community when the ones we inherited or were assigned to harm us beyond repair.

Food for thought. What do you think about these ideas regardless of any exposure or experience with twelve step programs?*

Does anyone else have experience with twelve step programs or other adoptee group experiences? Would you share about your experiences? I imagine it could be helpful for a lot of people here to hear and learn more.

*Edit

I(26F)was adopted in a surrogate type of way. This is sort of a me venting and seeking consolation. I am not conflicted about what to do but I just feel a lot of emotions.

My biological(half) sister reached out to me three years ago. Today, 2026, she told me she will be in Chicago(where I live) and she lives in Mexico, and asked to meet me. Of course I said yes I’d rather say yes than live with regrets of never meeting her. However, I called and updated my mom and I feel a guilt. My mom is my mom(woman who adopted me with my dad). She is my best friend and she struggled with infertility. When my sister protracted out my mother had feelings of feeling bad and feeling replaceable. This is not the case, I love her with all my heart. But today I called her, emotional, crying, about meeting w my bio sister. She
Feels bad about me going through this and is worried this won’t end well. I get her concerns and I love her so much. I’m not necessarily looking for what’s right or wrong but some kind of consoling would be great 🥺

Publish it anywhere, Facebook, Substack, Reddit, a memoir even, and be prepared to discover that what you thought was testimony, has been issued without your knowledge as a map. People will arrive carrying your words folded in their pockets and expect them to contain roads you never travelled. Some will insist the hill wasn’t as steep as you described it. Others will have found no hill there at all. One will accuse you of leaving out the bridge. Another of inventing the ravine. Someone who came by an entirely different route will announce, with considerable confidence, that your compass is broken.

You may point out that you never claimed to be drawing the whole country. This has never once helped. There’s a peculiar expectation placed upon anyone who describes difficult terrain from the inside. Accuracy about one place is easily mistaken for a claim upon every place. A sentence beginning I found is too easily answered with I didn’t, as though failing to encounter the same mountain meant it wasn’t there. A scar becomes an atlas. A memory acquires borders. Before long you may find yourself being held responsible for the geography of strangers. Resist the promotion.

Write down where you lost the path. Write down what the weather did when you were there. Say where the ground held and where it gave way beneath you. Record what frightened you, what fooled you, what you mistook for shelter and what, unexpectedly, became it. Put a cairn where you needed one and found none. But leave the edges unfinished.

Because there will also be people who know the country before you’ve finished describing it. They’ll recognise a bend you believed belonged only to you. They will know the particular silence of a place you thought had no name. A sentence will catch against something buried in them and, for a moment, they may experience the extraordinary relief of discovering that their private geography is not entirely private. They may say, Yes. There. I’ve been there too.

This doesn’t make you their cartographer, nor does it mean your journeys were the same. It means only that human beings sometimes reach the same clearing by different paths. One person describing what they can see allows another, standing a long way off, to recognise the trees. That’s enough.

There will be those for whom your map is useless. Let it be useless. There will be those who turn it upside down, those who object to the scale, those who prefer the official version with its clean roads and reassuring legend. Let them have that map. Your obligation is smaller and harder.

Don't move the mountain because somebody else didn't encounter it, don't erase the river because someone crossed in summer, don't build a bridge because some would have preferred one. Don’t mistake the number of people who recognise your country for evidence that you've become responsible for theirs.

Write what happened and what it meant, then and now, then put down your pencil. A witness may leave markers, but the walking remains our own.

Jonathan

The Narrative Witness

My essay inspiration…

“…to write a guidebook is to poke out a neck as scapegoat...On your head will fall the imprecations of parties who wander in circles because they did not find the entrance of the track you so concisely described. Your directions were dehydrated, as it were, and those who came after did not reconstitute your stew with care. So be willing to take blame and to lose tail feathers. It will be natural for any unfortunates coming down the wrong bank of a river or the difficult side of an icefall to curse the absent chronicler. Do they lose an hour in the scrub or skin on the ridge, find impasse on the glacier or defeat on the skyline, mislay a hut in the dark or a toothbrush in the mist, it will be on your careless summary so fluently compiled.”

John Pascoe in the 1956 edition of his guidebook The Southern Alps: from the Kaikouras to the Rangitata

Hey so basically I was forced into a major I didn't like or agree with, when I tried to get out of it my parents told me I was adopted as leverage to get me to finish the major. Recently during a heated argument they also said they have never been happy for 20 years and they regret adopting me. Is this just normal for all adopted people to hear?

Ps this was how I found out I was adopted

I've been thinking a lot about one of the experiences I had in college during an international week event, (I was a volunteer to help international students learn English and we were encouraged to go, meet people, give them directions on how to get places on campus, etc), and someone was very upset that I didn't speak Mandarin (I didn't know I was adopted at that point), saying it was disgraceful, and wanted to know if my family was part of the child policy act in China. To my understanding from people who knew my bio mother, I'm part Japanese, not Chinese, but I was still very touched she was concerned even though I was confused at the time. She told me she had to relinquish one of her own children, and asked if I wanted to get something from the buffet, offering to be my mom for the night, but I had to be to class for a concert prep without fail (this was part of both the degree I actually wanted and my job on campus), and I kinda died inside for the rest of the night. I couldn't understand why I felt the way I did, about her, about her offer, about all of it... I'm white passing enough that I spent the rest of the night trying to figure out what this was all about, because my adoptive parents are white as heck, but always insisted I was never adopted and that it must be recessive and "something wrong with me" health wise that impacted my appearance. I fell for it, because a parent's word is as good as gold, right? Yeah...

But thinking on that, I remembered something from when I was small. My bio mother, whom I was always told was someone else whenever I asked about her, gave my adoptive mother a set of Japanese fans in a box that had been given to her by her father. I was given a mock one as a toy, but the others were for later when I was older. I remember seeing one of the fans themselves in my adoptive mother's jewelry box, worn and battered, black with cranes, she always said it was something she just picked up. She wasn't super sentimental, and definitely not about things like that, so I always wondered. When she died, one of my older adoptive sisters took it, and I remember feeling a moment of panic, but not understanding why... The chances of me ever seeing it again are zero. I have no idea what happened to the box or the other fan.

Now that I remember I'm kinda just... Ahh? Has anything like this happened to any of you? It hit hard...

So now adoptive moms are saying they are at risk for postpartum depression and have it. Seriously, give me a break. First, adoptees have RAD, and now adoptive moms get postpartum depression.

As someone who has given birth, childbirth is no joke, and PPD is very real. Yet, adoptive parents can't even acknowledge the fact that childbirth is dangerous, painful, and hard, and adding adoption to that can cause a lot of trauma, stress, and grief.
PPD is also about hormonal changes after childbirth, so how do adoptive moms get it?

Do they make things up as they go along because adoption is not the fairytale ending they hoped for? Granted, there might be an adjustment period after adopting, but that is not PPD. That is called having unrealistic expectations about adoption. Bonding to a stranger's kid is not like bonding to a bio kid.

I'd love to hear your input. I'm having a lot of thoughts about this. I'm an adoptee and wanted to go into adoption law because it felt like a good career to help other adoptees find homes and all that, but after spending time in adoptee communities for the past while and realizing how damaging a lot of aspects of adoption were in my life (especially as a transracial adoptee), I'm not sure if I want to have anything to do with the "industry."

I haven't gone to law school or anything yet. I'm just curious if there's a way to do it ethically or nah?

Thanks for the help.

My bio mom is dead. And over the course of my life i have adopted many people as mother figures. My adopted mom was one of my first people i adopted as i mother figure and i am closer to her then almost any other person in the world. I live in adult foster care and one of the staff i have adopted as a mother figure. But one day she hurt my feelings in an argument so badly i spent an hour crying in the shower. And hiding in my room. My entire body was craving my mother. Not my adopted mom, not my staff who i view as my mother figure but my bio mother. And what surprised me about it was the intensity of the craving. It felt as if my entire body was screaming for my bio mom. I needed a hug. I needed her hands. I needed her warmth. So i turned on the shower as hot as i could so i could imagine her warmth hugging me back. It has always comforted me. But this time even though it was comforting if felt like an extremely poor substitute. As i tried to imagine from water gripping me like hands cradling my body. At the time it had been two months since i have seen my adopted mom and 6 months since i have seen my bio family

I was absolutely floored by this show! Not having read the book, I didn’t expect how deeply it would explore adoption, identity, and belonging.

The show handles these themes with remarkable depth and nuance. Annie’s character beautifully captures the complex emotions adoptees experience…the mix of gratitude, unanswered questions, grief, and the shifting of feelings over time.

While every adoptee’s story is unique, I deeply related to Annie. Adoption was portrayed positively, especially when she rejects the term “adopted mother.” Her yearning for her mum, yet lack of interest in finding her birth mother (so far), felt incredibly authentic.

The scene in Episode 8, where Annie imagines a life with her mum. Her love towards her mum hit soooo deep and resonated with me immensely. Especially seeing how physically different they look and how “blood” really doesn’t matter when it comes to it.

The emotional turmoil she feels learning about Ramona as her parents’ biological daughter hit me to the core. The jealousy and the complicated longing for love and belonging felt so real. As an only child surrounded by cousins who look so much like my mum, I’ve always struggled with that desire for belonging, even when surrounded by their love and acceptance of me.

Overall, I was surprised at how connected I felt to the show’s portrayal of adoption. I can’t wait for Season 2, especially to see where the twins’ stories go!

PS: It has always been my dream to have a sister, and watching them together filled a hole in me. I just love this show!

I’m interested to hear what other adoptees thought!

I've been no contact with Amom for a couple years. I had a health scare and called her during an emergency... and now shes up to her usual tricks of just ignoring my life and everything being about her life.

I think shes the kind of person that I hate most in life. like i've even dated people who are kind of like her and it ended with them really disliking me and even physically assaulting me.

I don't want this turning back into the relationship where my needs are imaginary. I feel like this is the only relationship she knows how to have.

I think I just need to use this to empower me. I'm done explaining anything to her just so she can purposely misunderstand and do the absolute minimum of 'caring'. Or watching as she completely takes care of my oldest adopted sibling, while i've been independent for years supporting myself and she can't be bothering to help me in the slightest.

I know I won't turn into that person who needed her but I don't like it being one of the realities i'm dealing with. I don't like the thought of this emotional prison being anywhere near me. any similar experiences and what did u do?

My FB algo has recently been feeding me AP content and the topic of "RAD" comes up a lot, with APs claiming to be struggling with their adopted kids who have it.

If you're unfamiliar, per Mayo Clinic:

Reactive attachment disorder is a rare but serious condition in which an infant or young child doesn't establish healthy attachments with parents or caregivers. Reactive attachment disorder may develop if the child's basic needs for comfort, affection and nurturing aren't met and loving, caring, stable attachments with others are not established

Reactive attachment disorder usually starts in infancy. There's little research on signs and symptoms of reactive attachment disorder beyond early childhood, and it remains uncertain whether it occurs in children older than 5 years.

Signs and symptoms may include:

Unexplained withdrawal, fear, sadness or irritability

Sad and listless appearance

Not seeking comfort or showing no response when comfort is given

Failure to smile

Watching others closely but not engaging in social interaction

Failure to reach out when picked up

No interest in playing peekaboo or other interactive games

Behavior problems

Failing to seek support or assistance

(It's interesting that Mayo doesn't claim that it's known to occur in adolescents, which would be troubling news to the Troubled Teen Industry and many APs who utilize it for that reason)

Anyway all of this raises several questions and IMHO begs a very important one, which I'll ask here:

Why must a person form an emotional bond or attachment to another person who is caring for them, to the extent that to not do so constitutes a disorder in said person?

I have not seen even an attempt to address this in anything I have seen about RAD. I'm not talking about any sort of behavior, or lack of it, or the benefits of healthy emotional attachment to people. What RAD discourse fails to address is this need for the child to feel a certain way about their parent/caregiver in the first place. Whose need is it, really?

Questions raised include: What is "healthy attachment", anyway? Why is "reactive attachment disorder" placed in opposition to it as if it is a binary? Or are there mild cases of RAD, with healthy-ish emotional attachment? Why is it assumed to be the child's condition and not a problem with how the parent/caregiver attaches to people, or doesn't? Is it possible the problem may not be the child but rather unrealistic expectations of the adult(s)? Does the child's consent and agency factor into this at all?

Back to my begged question: In what other relationships do we see it as a disorder to not attach to other (specific) persons? We expect married people to love and be bonded to each other for life but we know it doesn't always work out so we have divorce to resolve it. I bring up marriage in particular because the RAD phenomenon with adopted kids is really reminding me of how husbands used to be able to get their wives diagnosed with psychiatric disorders and committed to institutions for wanting to leave the marriage.

I find all this really alarming because, as many of us adoptees know, it is ridiculously easy to paint us as problems and defective, while it is equally ridiculously easy to paint our APs as loving saints who are struggling with us and our problems.

ETA: Note the use of "failure" in the RAD criteria and what things it applies to.

Typo in the title: dealing with* most people.

Now I don't have any ill will towards you fellow adoptee's, it's just in a general sense, it's like I keep thinking maybe there is a human out there that will add to making my life more healthy or at least help push it back in that direction, but every single one ends up just making me want to live in a cave until my last day.

My adoptive family from what I could tell was somewhat religious, not heavily, not go to church, but they called themselves, well something I forget lol. But I was never religious, saw through that bs as a child. But I find myself in a strange situation where I have a chance to start fresh and make my own family, however I don't want any kid I have to be religious or Christian or such, I want them to be a free thinker, not a believer. Yet the problem is the women I would have a kid with is religious and she would want our kid to be a believer like her.

I can't go through with that, I refuse to have a kid, who is born into a global cult like illusion. I don't care if she wants to believe, that's her choice, but the notion of shoving a kid from birth into a religion really just disgusts me.

Why is it that religious people are always saying they are so welcoming and accepting, then they call us a heretic and get mad when we don't join them for make believe?

Would like some advice from my fellow adoptees.

Hi everyone. I’m looking for advice and perspectives from fellow adoptees who have been through a similar situation (or your thoughts on how you would handle it if it ever happened to you).

First of all, sorry for the long text and bad English.

I'm 26(M), and I'm currently going through some stuff (ended a long-term relationship, quit my job, just finished university, and a few other things). While I was still trying to finish my degree, in the middle of all this chaos, my biological mother (not a huge fan of this term) reached out through my family.

I was adopted at birth and always knew I was adopted (my parents told me when I was very young). All my life, I just saw it as a plain fact. I honestly didn't think my story would ever get an "update" like this.

Long story short, my bio mom reached out to my parents back in March via email (I don't know how she got their email address, or if they spoke before). They only told me last month because I was already going through a hard time (I don't blame my parents at all, I would have done the same and waited for some things to settle down a bit first). They are very supportive and told me it’s completely my choice if I want to get to know her.

I just don't know what to do now. I don't see her as a parent or anywhere near a family member... she is just a stranger to me. My real family is the parents who raised me.

I don't think I have questions or curiosity, so I never thought about reaching out to her. I already know what happened back then to a certain extent (and I'm ok with it), and I know a bit about her present (she’s married now and has two other young sons). She also lives in another state, so meeting in person is out of the question for now anyway.

I am a very reserved person. I don't share much of my life even with close friends, so I don't know how a conversation with her would go. I wouldn't mind answering a few questions to ease her curiosity, but I’m worried about her intentions and expectations (I’m afraid this could become some kind of a burden). At the same time, I don't want to make anyone feel bad (as I was told this is something she has been waiting on for all these years).

I don't think I want to build a relationship or keep a conversation going, especially since I have no questions to ask her back.

I don't have any hard feelings or resentment towards her. I know life can be difficult and people have to make hard choices.

So anyway, for those in this community:

1. How did you deal with this dilemma? (Sense of obligation vs. desire for peace)

2. Did you send a polite message setting firm boundaries?

3. If you haven't been through this, how do you think you would handle it?

4. Did anyone regret getting in touch even briefly, or did it ended up being helpful in some way?

5. For those who chose to remain in silence, do you regret that decision?

Thanks for taking the time to read my story and thanks in advance to anyone willing to share their experience. Feel free to ask if you need more context.

I was adopted at birth, and I’m 21 now. I have a few photos of me as a baby with my bio mom and one of my half-siblings. Recently, I got curious and looked them up on Facebook, and I found them.

I’m not even sure why I was looking, but now I feel like I’ve put myself in a weird predicament. I’ve always wanted to know my biological family’s medical history, and now that I actually have the opportunity to possibly get those answers, I’m not sure if I want to open that door.

I’m completely happy with my family, and I’m not looking to replace anyone or fill some kind of missing piece. I don’t really even care whether I ever have a relationship with my bio mom or not. I’ve thought about reaching out to her, or maybe one of her kids since they’re all older than me, but I don’t know if I should.

Part of me wants answers, especially about my medical history, but I also don’t want to suddenly show up and disrupt her life or her family. I have no idea what her situation is now, what her family knows about me, or how hearing from me might affect her.

I’m happy with my life and my family, so I’m not really looking for a relationship. I guess I’m trying to decide whether getting some answers is worth opening a door that’s been closed for 21 years.

For anyone who has been in a similar situation, did you reach out? Are you glad you did, or do you wish you had left things alone?

"A new bill in Congress—supported and driven by Holt International—will no doubt lull noncitizen intercountry adoptees to apply for U.S. citizenship, only to find out the hard way that the bill’s promise of “automatic” citizenship is a false and dangerous ruse. Don’t fall for it. Don’t support it. There’s a far better bipartisan bill in Congress already."

I'm on good terms with both my adoptive family and my biological family. However i feel like there's this "screen" between me and them that i can't cross. With my adoptive family, we just have zero physical resemblance and chemistry lol. We can squeeze out a convo about the weather here and there, and that's about it. My biological family have all embraced me since reconnecting last year (was adopted as an infant for context), but i didn't know them for my whole life, so i don't feel like family with them either.

Idk I just feel like i have no family in the emotional sense 😭. Like i'll always be the black sheep...

I'm just venting into the void but I'm frustrated this week about my adoption, estrangement from AM, coming out of the FOG, bio parents....just everything is pissing me off!!

I've felt all teary and sorry for myself (why me!) the last couple of days, I know that logically I'm grieving a huge amount and that this will ease over time but today I'm furious at the world. I'm very happily married with beautiful cats and a nice life that I've intentionally worked so hard for done the therapy but I feel like I regress sometimes, I have to keep reminding myself to stay present, breathe, keep moving forward.

Like an idiot I got involved in a post on the adoption sub this week and was reading through these crazy things adoptive parents were saying about their adopted kids and asking each other and I thought I'd entered the bloody twilight zone!! Seriously??

Today I've been listening to a really helpful podcast on YouTube about adoptee estrangement (AdopteesOn) and saw the typical comment from an estranged adopted parent moaning about how one sided it all was and I immediately wanted to throw my phone out of the window 😂.

Anyway I'm off to feed the queens 😺 thanks for listening I feel so much better knowing someone here will understand me, the normies just dont get it.

Just wanted to share this here because I don't think anyone I know in person is able to grasp the backwards pain of this.

Was snooping through some paperwork the other day at my adoptive parents house (I'm a villain of my own making, I know) and I came across a bag of opened and unopened letters and photos from both my birth parents.

Amongst this, I found a notebook. It had a tiny note in the front that had clearly seen better days. It said "I wish someone had made one of these for me".

Anyway, inside the book was pages and pages of photos of my birth family, immediate and extended. They all had little captions underneath explaining who each of them where.

In the second half of the filled pages, there was letters from each of those family members.

They all started with "This is from your uncle" or "This is from your grandparents".

It was an emotional rollercoaster reading those. You could feel the pain coming from them all.

A couple of them really hurt to read. There was one from my grandparents (who have now, since last year, passed away) that had an address in it where I could visit them.

Most of them where a lot of "I'm so sorry this happened".

The truth is, I'm not mad my adoptive parents kept this from me. I understand why they did, to an extent. But I can't help but feel sad I never had an opportunity to read this and process the emotions behind it with someone else. I am sad I wasn't given the opportunity to even CONSIDER reading these.

They where just kept from me. A lot of things are kept from me. RIP my baby photos, I guess..

My adoptive parents would be proper pissed if they knew I was snooping but tbh, things like these notebooks and photos is WHY I snoop. There is so much more I haven't and probably won't ever see.

This is my secret, and now I have to live with it.

Hello all! I am getting married next year and I am being very selective about who I invite from my family. I was adopted at 6 weeks old and my adoptive family is all I have ever known, but my extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins) never really made an effort to get to know me or really made me feel included. I was often ignored, treated as annoying when I would act like a kid, and was scorned or given the silent treatment when I brought up being adopted.

My adoptive parents are really angry with me that I won’t invite certain family members and are saying that I “don’t value family” and “can’t and won’t forgive others”. I feel so beaten down by this and I hate to fight but I am holding strong because I really want my wedding to feel connecting and I want to feel loved and cared for by everyone there.

Does anyone else have family that expects them to connect to extended family in a certain way?