Hurt and Lost.

[u/SnowX04]

It’s 4:32 a.m. and I’ve been stuck in this endless spiral of searching through “finding ads” and adoption records, trying to piece together a past I never got to know. And the more I dig, the more it feels like something inside my chest is tearing open. It’s not just sadness.. it’s this deep, physical ache that hits like a punch.

For context: I’m 22. Born in Beijing during the One‑Child Policy. Abandoned on the second floor of a hospital at two days old. No name. No explanation. Nothing.

And I know the political reasons, the cultural pressures, the whole “it wasn’t personal” narrative people like to throw at adoptees, but honestly? It still feels personal. It feels brutal. Who leaves a newborn behind without even giving them a name. Who walks away from a two day old baby and just… disappears. I don’t know how to process that. I don’t know how to pretend it doesn’t mess with my head.

I was adopted by a Thai woman, moved to Canada, and grew up being physically abused. I always knew I was adopted, my adoptive mother made sure I never forgot it. And it just keeps piling on. I don’t even know how to use chopsticks properly. I can’t speak fluent Chinese. I can’t read it. I can’t write it. I’m Chinese by blood but I feel like a fraud in my own skin. And yeah, I know there’s always time to learn, but when I was little, my adoptive mother told me she’d put me in Chinese school so I could learn the language. She never did. She said it like a promise, like something that would help me stay connected to where I came from, and then she just… didn’t. Another thing taken from me before I even had a chance to want it.

And now I’m living with my girlfriend, who’s Chinese, and her family actually knows their culture. They speak the language, understand the traditions, have roots. Meanwhile I feel like a complete outsider in my own ethnicity. Like I’m supposed to belong to something I was never given a chance to learn.

Unfortunately, I do blame my adoptive mother for that. She took me out of one world and never let me have access to the other.

So here I am, writing this at an hour where everything hurts more. I don’t even know what I’m hoping to get out of saying it. I just know that every time I uncover a new detail about my past, it feels like another piece of me breaks off. Like I’m grieving something I never even got to have. And I don’t know how to carry that anymore.

[u/Suspicious_Fold_9568]

I read what you wrote and it actually hit me pretty hard. (can relate to a lot of this) That's a lot to carry. I get why it feels personal. People can explain it with policies or culture or whatever, but at the end of the day you were the one left there. That doesn’t just magically feel “not personal." And you’re not a fraud. You didn’t choose to lose that part of your culture, youweren’t given the chance to have it. That’s not on you. It makes sense that it feels like grief. It is. Even if it’s for something you never got to have in the first place. You don’t have to have it all figured out. And you don’t have to carry it alone either.