On being adopted....
By arkaf61
@arkaf61 (10881)
Canada
April 16, 2008 9:31pm CST
I don't know if there are many mylotters here that were adopted.
ANd I have to say that my own circumstances were certainly more positive than other people that were adopted, but one thing that has happened and is with me still now - actually stronger now, I think - is the fact that I was left with this huge need for being accepted/important/loved by my family.
Not a normal, positive - even healthy - need, but more like the mother of all needs.
One that leaves me quite vulnerable to feel hurt by things that might not even hurt other people.
It also makes me feel really down sometimes, and guilty for feeling so. After all I had the most wonderful adoptive parents, the most wonderful life for many years, and I do know that they loved me very much. Still I kept testing that love wanting to be sure I was loved. That they would want me even if I messed up. That they wouldn't send me back if I disappointed them.
Of course I know now, that giving us up - me and my sister - didn't really have anything to do with us . But it still feels sometimes that they did it because we were not important or needed. Maybe a bit loved, but certainly not that important or needed.
Throughout the years this need to feel important, loved and needed by my family seems to have grown, and made me always put myself last. It's not such a good feat to always think of others first, if you do it for fear that you won't matter to them if you don't.
IN any case , and although I am happy for being adopted by the most wonderful parents in the word, I can see that even in positive cases, there are scars left and sometimes they are hard to heal.
Anyone here that was adopted as well? DId you ever feel this need the same way I do? Or not at all?
2 people like this
1 response
@Liasonfan (1702)
• Canada
17 Apr 08
Yep---I hear ya. I too was adopted at 4months old into a wonderful family. But I still have this insatiable need for love and acceptance and taken seriously and being important. I have given my adopted mother a kidney in her time of need and I feel like this was my major purpose in life and although I know I am loved and wanted, I just don't always feel like I come first with her at times. Maybe I am being silly, but I still do this day feek a little threatened and jealous when my grown siblings (who were also adopted and now their families get more attention and support than me and my family. Thanks for starting this discussion, I am so glad there is someone else out there who experiences the same feelings that I do....
1 person likes this
@arkaf61 (10881)
• Canada
17 Apr 08
Thank you for your answer. Somehow I felt very isolated and even a bit ashamed for the way I feel.
Your answer helped me in reminding me that maybe this is something that more adopted people feel, not, only me.
I think my days of testing my parents are over, however it left me feeling the same way about everyone else in my close family. It's almost crucial that i feel that they accept me and need me, and want me.
I hate to come out so needy so I keep it inside most of the time.But it really is not completely healthy.
I guess it didn't help that I came here where the only family is my husband's family and that with the exception of his aunt and uncle, they made clear I am not part of the family. Or some of the other things that happened. But it all came form the same thing... the fact that almost 50 years ago someone decided to give us away.
