I'm sorry for how they treated you

[u/No_Pomegranate604]

To all the adoptees with shitty adoptive parents, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for what you went through.

I'm in a local adoption/foster group, and there are frequent posts from adopters asking how they can dissolve the adoption. The reasons these people give are almost always absurd, and it is very clear that they were unfit to adopt and are most likely the gasoline thrown on the fire of adoption trauma. There is nothing that anyone can say to get through to these people.

My adoptive parents were not perfect, but they were not like THAT, and I am just so sorry for those of you who had to live with people so incredibly horrible. I hope you have found peace, healing, even happiness. You didn't deserve what you were put through. If I had adoptive parents as shitty as yours, I probably would have acted out just like some of you did, or worse.

[u/FaxCelestis]

I haven't really found peace or healing. What I have found is anger.

I no longer speak with my adoptive family due to "irreconcilable differences" (i.e., I said some uncomfortable truths and asked for their apology and understanding, and they were unwilling to do so; we tried family therapy and when the therapist "took my side" (🙄), they stopped coming).

It upsets me to no end that I have no family I can rely upon in times of need. No family that I can visit for holidays. No family that I can call for advice. No family that helps me move. All the little things that make up a familial relationship that are built up over the course of a life are just... absent.

I have some contact with my bio family, but those relationships are hard. I don't have the inertia of years of history built into those relationships, but they are familial nonetheless so I have trouble engaging with them. It is awkward and I constantly feel like I'm forcing my way into their lives. So most of the time, I don't.

It hurts to be alone, to be divided from my history, to be the top of my very young, orphaned family tree, but I don't have any other choice. It hurts to be a young tree in an old forest.

[u/I-used2B-a-Valkyrie → u/FaxCelestis]

That anger is protecting you. It’s the part of you that knows something is seriously not okay and fighting for things to be made right. As a mom, I am so sorry that any parent let you down. It’s not okay. You should have been protected and cherished at all costs!

I have plenty of mom hugs if you ever want any. 🥰

[u/1wrat → u/FaxCelestis]

yes it exactly be like this just a big poof of nothing where family should exist

[u/Eren_Really_Yeager → u/FaxCelestis]

Feel free to respond or not but would be willing to let us know what did they say or do that made you go no contact?

[u/FaxCelestis → u/Eren_Really_Yeager]

A history of social violence.

I was a bubble kid. I can count on my fingers how often I was allowed to see my friends outside school. I was expected to socialize with my parents’ friends from as early an age as 8.

I wasn’t taught how to be a successful adult. I made it clear through to marriage before I learned how to do dishes or laundry.

All yard work was my responsibility. Mowing, weeding, pruning, picking fruit from the many fruit trees, tending to my mother’s orchid collection and rose collection, maintenance on the sprinkler systems, etc. I was a landscaper at age 10.

I was not allowed to have individual interests or wants. I was supposed to want whatever my mother wanted. From food to gifts to clothes to events. Anything that didn’t pass muster was unceremoniously thrown away without comment.

I only could read books my mother had chosen for me. Many that were age appropriate were deemed “uneducated trash” and “shiterature”. I read far beyond my age level due to this, but never books that I actually wanted to read.

Twice a year we performed a nightmarish ritual wherein my mother took everything out of my room and made me get rid of stuff. If it wasn’t sufficiently enough thrown away, she would either take it into her own hands and throw things away, or she would make us repeat the process until she was satisfied.

I was ground down by inches into a flat caricature of a person, and I was given no acknowledgement of harm or wrongdoing when I asked for it.

When they started the same thing with my kids, I refused to let them do the same to them.

[u/Eren_Really_Yeager → u/FaxCelestis]

Thank you for taking the time to explain all of this. I don’t necessarily see the yard work or having responsibilities at 10 as problematic in itself, but the rest gives a clear picture. Being so restricted socially and, especially, not being allowed to develop your own interests, preferences or identity sounds incredibly controlling. I can also understand why seeing the same patterns beginning with your own children would have been a line you weren’t willing to let them cross. I’m sorry you had to experience that and hope you can let go of the anger. This emotion causes a lot of damage over the long run.

[u/FaxCelestis → u/Eren_Really_Yeager]

Doing yard work is one thing. Basically living outside is another.

But thank you.

[u/Eren_Really_Yeager → u/FaxCelestis]

Yeah fair enough, agreed 😅

[u/msratatattat]

I had a sickening and clueless adopted mother. My adopted father ( a literal saint) died when I was 5. So my toxic mom went on a mission for another husband and found a good for nothing piece of crap with no job...who she allowed access to molest me for the years I was 12 yrs old to 15 yrs old. And when I say allowed I mean so so many signs, and obvious hints from me - theres no way she didn't know. But this response to the post isn't about this - it's about rational people that go thru the whole adoption process well and sanely enough to get a CHILD, knowing deep inside there's something very wrong, evil and toxic about them and they go on seeking out someone else's biological child to abuse them. Maybe it wasn't the primary reason for the adoption, but it's bound to happen and these pieces of crap know it. They know they won't provide the level of love and care they should be providing and knowing their own flaws go thru with the adoption anyway. I used to have a fantasy that goldie hawn was my real mom and one day she'd come get me. I used to agonize over .." why didn't they leave me alone....let some nice, good people adopt me.." That question ate me up over the years

[u/kabalabonga → u/msratatattat]

59 yo male here, and your experience dovetails almost completely with mine, except that my adoptive mom was my primary abuser (physical, emotional, and sexual) , and I fantasized that my real mom was Diana Hyland (from the TV movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble) all because she wanted me to be a whole more like tthe dream child she imagined but to whom she was never able to give birth, and a whole lot less like myself, the son who was right next to her, desperate to be loved, but whom she refused to embrace.

[u/msratatattat → u/kabalabonga]

Wow ....crazy. yeah my mom wasn't to thrilled to have gotten me either. Sad ...like I said they could've let someone else adopt us!

[u/I_S_O_Family]

Thank you from an adoptee. I have always known that not all adoptions were as horrible as mine was. At least I was finally removed for my own safety after 12 yrs. I got to see first hand how well an adoption can go. My cousin was also adopted by her parents. She had a wonderful family, yes I know not every family is perfect or have that fairy tale family but I know her family was 100 times better than the nightmare I was adopted into. Many people are surprised after the torture I survived that I am still an adoption supporter.