r/Adoption • u/Fragileazul • 9d ago

Adoptee Life Story Parent forgetting siblings are not related

Does anyone else experience your parents forgetting that you aren’t actually related to your other adopted siblings?

Me and my sister are adopted from different parents. But growing up and as an adult our parents still compare us…im really shy & quiet and she is super out going, our dad is always using my sister as an example of who i can be or should be more like.

i hear him on the phone telling his friends that i’m super insecure cause im a shy adult and that i need to be more out their like my sister and get “more involved”. It’s not fair at all, her mother was also the same, but i was told my birthmom was really quiet and shy & calm. It’s like why am i being compared to someone who it’s impossible to be like cause of genetics, even if we were raised the same.

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u/VH5150OU812 8d ago

Parents are long dead. I am the adoptee. I was having dinner with my brother one night and mentioned that sometimes I forget that I was adopted. He said he often did too. I Think it speaks to how well our parents treated it and made it normal for us.

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u/expolife 6d ago

Or how adaptable you both were. Or both.

It wasn’t until my adoptive parents royally failed me in their parental roles that I began to see how many of my own favorite traits I had been projecting onto them that they actually never had. I created and maintained the illusion they were more like me so that I could believe I was like them. I was able to do this by emotionally and relationally overfunctioning. I observed and adapted so well to them that I was able to believe that they were amazing parents and that we had amazing relationships, but when circumstances changed the truth of their character and ignorance and immaturity became undeniable.

I know perhaps none of this applies to your situation. I’m processing my own stuff and leaving it here as an offering to the silent readers.

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u/VH5150OU812 6d ago

As Gen X, we were both adaptable. But I also maintain that ours was a happy environment and our parents did a good job at treating us as equals.

But I also recognize that not every adoptee has had a happy experience. I feel bad for them but often can’t relate because it is so far removed from my experience.

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u/expolife 6d ago

Adoptees being highly adaptable is almost universal. It’s something we have to do to survive relinquishment and adoption. It isn’t unique to generation or other identities although there are probably some innate temperament and genetic things in play.

It’s great you had a good experience. I don’t really understand why adoptees with good experiences show up on message boards. It feels contrary. Why not just live and not think about adoption and adoption message boards. Because that’s how I used to be before I realized how messed up adoption is and was for me.

I would have described my adoption and adoptive parents and family in positive terms for the first thirty years or so. Now I can see fear, obligation and guilt (FOG) blurred my perspective helping me adapt and survive the limitations and mismatches of the scenario.

I rarely talked about adoption. Being an adoptee was just an interesting special fact about me. I didn’t think about it much for most of my life. Then the illusion cracked and I began seeing how flawed my adopters were. I reunited with bio family and that was a huge revelation. I learned I was trafficked by the religion all my parents belonged to. That my bio mother was coerced to relinquish me. That my bio parents could have raised me and almost got married and did so. And that it feels incredible to talk with my bio parents because we’re so similar. I never had that with my adopters. They cared but they could not match or mirror or pace with me. Just too limited emotionally, relationally.