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Default Sep 28, 2021 at 12:19 PM
  #1
That's where it all started for me I think. Of course, I didn't know until I was almost 19. That was a hard hit. But I can't shake the feeling that, even though I didn't know, it still messed me up. I feel like on some level I did know.
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Default Sep 28, 2021 at 03:44 PM
  #2
Separation from parents/mother can indeed affect/traumatise babies and very young children, even if they don’t remember the actual separation happening. I don’t think every adopted person is affected the same way, though. I’m sorry you didn’t find out until you were older. I can imagine it might have shaken your sense of self and belonging.
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Default Sep 28, 2021 at 04:45 PM
  #3
Yes, exactly, thank you. It would have been one thing if it had been handled properly, but it wasn't. My adopted family, god there's so much. It wasn't a good home to grow up in, emotionally neglectful. And then finding out my whole life had been a lie, and being expected to take it like it was no big deal. ugh

My 'mother" yelled it at me when she was drunk. That's how the truth came out.
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Default Sep 28, 2021 at 05:06 PM
  #4
I’m so sorry, it does seem like a fair amount of adopted people’s lives weren’t objectively better than they might have been. I am also adopted, in a lot of ways my life was better than it would have been, but in other ways not so much.
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Default Sep 28, 2021 at 06:11 PM
  #5
Right, and it makes you feel cheated, like something was stolen from you, at least for me.

Can I ask, do you get that feeling sometimes that you're not quite real? Like without a past and being rooted in the world, how can you even exist?
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Default Sep 29, 2021 at 10:37 AM
  #6
Ask away! I don’t feel quite like that, but the future never felt like it was a real thing, if that makes sense? Like, logically I know it exists but I never had any real sense of what mine was going to be like. It’s only been in the past year, during counselling, that it’s started to shift.
I’ve always known I was adopted, and while I love my family in my own way, many of them are dysfunctional and my parents never really could help me heal from being taken/given up. They didn’t seem to realise/accept that something in the past can still affect people years later.
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Default Sep 29, 2021 at 11:46 AM
  #7
Yeah, I guess I've been kind of feeling like, if I had known the truth, I'd be better today, but maybe not. Honestly, I don't know how much of my issues are nature and how much are nurture. I know what's hurt me in my past, and I guess it's easy to blame that rather than admit that, maybe I'm just naturally screwed up.

I'm just trying to figure myself out some, and there's been so much, over so long, I just don't even know where to start, so I started at the beginning.
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Default Sep 29, 2021 at 01:07 PM
  #8
Well, how are your family in general towards you? There might be some useful books I could suggest as well if you’d like.
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Default Sep 29, 2021 at 04:45 PM
  #9
Estranged, My mother's been dead for decades, and I hadn't spoken to her for 15 years when I got the news. My father cut me off cold over politics. Last I heard from my sister, a month or two ago, he had disowned her off too. First time I'd heard from her in about five years. She needed a shoulder to cry on and I was there for her, and that was that. We're strangers, live in two different states, didn't have much of a relationship as kids, lives went in two different directions. I mean, I love her, but all we have in common is a shared trauma, and I don't even know her anymore.

See, I wasn't hit as a kid. Took me years to even figure out how bad I had it, b/c emotional abuse wasn't even a thing until I was in my thirties. But, I never had a birthday party growing up. Never got tucked into bed. My high school graduation, only my mother was there, and god, did she try to weasel out of it. Same thing when I graduated basic training. Nobody came, nobody cared. Nothing I did was of any importance. I wasn't of any importance.

Really, I don't even think of them as my family anymore. I tried reaching out once in a while, but nothing ever got better. See, I want a family, but one that cares about me. They don't, and I'm better off. That's part of what makes the adoption such an issue for me. Why would they adopt me? They clearly didn't want me.
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Default Sep 29, 2021 at 06:28 PM
  #10
I can certainly see why it’s still such a big issue for you. It’s natural that you’d still want people to connect with on that deep, intimate and caring sort of level, and with your upbringing, not feel like you’re able to find it, because it wasn’t being given by your family. Some people just shouldn’t be parents, really.
Is seeing a therapist something you’d be open to, if you’re not already?
You might find the books The Body Keeps the Score, Running On Empty and What’s Love Got to Do With It? useful.
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Default Sep 30, 2021 at 06:30 AM
  #11
my mom abandoned me on a train and never looked back.

since that insodent she's basically thrown the book at me (physical abuse, emotional insults,) everything she can to hurt me- even banning me from my own grandmother's funeral using the words, well, why would she want you their?

Possible trigger:


I have not spoken to my family for years, in fact: I don't even know where they are. last I heard they all fled to africa to start a new life

I've thought about adoption several times, but I'm a young adult woman with a lot of emotional stuff going on

I think it's a little too late for a mother's love..
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Default Sep 30, 2021 at 07:48 AM
  #12
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Originally Posted by RoxanneToto View Post
I can certainly see why it’s still such a big issue for you. It’s natural that you’d still want people to connect with on that deep, intimate and caring sort of level, and with your upbringing, not feel like you’re able to find it, because it wasn’t being given by your family. Some people just shouldn’t be parents, really.
Is seeing a therapist something you’d be open to, if you’re not already?
You might find the books The Body Keeps the Score, Running On Empty and What’s Love Got to Do With It? useful.
I would love to be back in therapy. I think I desperately need it. However, small town, limited options, no insurance, no health coverage, and as an added bonus, mild agoraphobia. I was actually looking for some kind of online resources when I found this forum and thought I'd give it a try.

I'm also starting to get a bit nervous. Stuff starts coming out, and I realize that my life reads like a Dicken's novel. Bad start in childhood lead to bad relationships and it all just kept spiraling out of control. At that point, I start to worry that people will think I'm making it all up for attention. I mean, it's what I would think.

And, OMG, minor breakthrough. That's what I heard as a kid if I ever had an emotion-Quit looking for attention.

Yeah, I'd love to have a trained professional help me through this process, if I can find any way to actually make t happen.
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Default Sep 30, 2021 at 07:58 AM
  #13
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Originally Posted by raging vortex View Post
my mom abandoned me on a train and never looked back.

since that insodent she's basically thrown the book at me (physical abuse, emotional insults,) everything she can to hurt me- even banning me from my own grandmother's funeral using the words, well, why would she want you their?

Possible trigger:


I have not spoken to my family for years, in fact: I don't even know where they are. last I heard they all fled to africa to start a new life

I've thought about adoption several times, but I'm a young adult woman with a lot of emotional stuff going on

I think it's a little too late for a mother's love..
Welcome to the thread.

It's hard isn't it, when that familial love isn't there? That's supposed to be the one safe place we can instinctively run to when we need to. Everything that lives needs one safe place to go, and when there just isn't one, it's like, there's no place to rest, to recharge, to break down if you need. That gets exhausting.
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Default Oct 01, 2021 at 05:00 AM
  #14
out the window, do you mind if I ask where you got your username from?

ever since I saw it, I keep thinking of the nursery ryme on the dr demento show- a very underrated one, at that

have I finally found someone who knows who dr demento is?. hmm
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Default Oct 01, 2021 at 11:40 AM
  #15
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Originally Posted by out the window View Post
I would love to be back in therapy. I think I desperately need it. However, small town, limited options, no insurance, no health coverage, and as an added bonus, mild agoraphobia. I was actually looking for some kind of online resources when I found this forum and thought I'd give it a try.

I'm also starting to get a bit nervous. Stuff starts coming out, and I realize that my life reads like a Dicken's novel. Bad start in childhood lead to bad relationships and it all just kept spiraling out of control. At that point, I start to worry that people will think I'm making it all up for attention. I mean, it's what I would think.

And, OMG, minor breakthrough. That's what I heard as a kid if I ever had an emotion-Quit looking for attention.

Yeah, I'd love to have a trained professional help me through this process, if I can find any way to actually make t happen.
I get what you’re saying; it sounds like you’re carrying some toxic shame (thinking people would think you’re looking for attention by talking about your childhood); it’s not your fault, what happened, but it is very common for people to absorb the feelings other people should have been responsible for. Therapy might not be a viable option for you right now, but I will say a good T wouldn’t think you were making this up for attention.
I think (some) people who use the attention seeker label might be uncomfortable/helpless when confronted with other people’s issues, in the moment at least, and they want those feelings to go away so end up dismissing you, instead of maybe taking a step back and admitting they don’t know how to help.
All that to say your feelings are valid and deserve to have your problems listened to.
Sorry for the essay
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Default Oct 01, 2021 at 04:19 PM
  #16
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Originally Posted by RoxanneToto View Post
I get what you’re saying; it sounds like you’re carrying some toxic shame (thinking people would think you’re looking for attention by talking about your childhood); it’s not your fault, what happened, but it is very common for people to absorb the feelings other people should have been responsible for. Therapy might not be a viable option for you right now, but I will say a good T wouldn’t think you were making this up for attention.
I think (some) people who use the attention seeker label might be uncomfortable/helpless when confronted with other people’s issues, in the moment at least, and they want those feelings to go away so end up dismissing you, instead of maybe taking a step back and admitting they don’t know how to help.
All that to say your feelings are valid and deserve to have your problems listened to.
Sorry for the essay
That's part of it. The other part is, nobody has a run of bad luck like this. It's just so much. Some of it was bad choices on my part, and some, one thing leads to another. But some of it was just "stuff happens" kind of things. And I totally get that any reasonable person would suspect that it's attention seeking. Like I said, I would think it was attention seeking if I heard it.

I do think my mom, and maybe my dad, couldn't deal with emotion. Honestly, I'm not great at it either. That's one of the things that caused me no end of trouble with my middle daughter. She's very high strung, goes to tears over anything and everything, and I never knew how to handle it properly. Happily, we began reconnecting about a year and a half ago, and that issue is one of the things we've been able to talk honestly about.

Now me, yeah, I can't cry anymore. I literally can not force myself to do it. I might tear up a little, if things are really extreme, but I am just so tired of crying that I think I may have put up a mental block or something.
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Default Oct 01, 2021 at 04:26 PM
  #17
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out the window, do you mind if I ask where you got your username from?

ever since I saw it, I keep thinking of the nursery ryme on the dr demento show- a very underrated one, at that

have I finally found someone who knows who dr demento is?. hmm
Nothing much to tell. When I signed up, all the obvious things like "so tired" and "trying hard" were taken. I knew I was going to have to come up with something less likely to be the first thing everyone would think of. I was thinking about, staring out the window, and that song from Dear Even Hanson popped into my head. The rest is, as they say, history.

Backstory out of the way, of course I know who Dr Demento is. My 2nd husband gave me a set of his four disk greatest hits collection for our first anniversary.

"After 'the incident' with the girl guides..."
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Default Oct 02, 2021 at 03:47 AM
  #18
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Nothing much to tell. When I signed up, all the obvious things like "so tired" and "trying hard" were taken. I knew I was going to have to come up with something less likely to be the first thing everyone would think of. I was thinking about, staring out the window, and that song from Dear Even Hanson popped into my head. The rest is, as they say, history.

Backstory out of the way, of course I know who Dr Demento is. My 2nd husband gave me a set of his four disk greatest hits collection for our first anniversary.

"After 'the incident' with the girl guides..."


I'm so glad you know who he is. he's so fun
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Default Oct 02, 2021 at 10:40 AM
  #19
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I'm so glad you know who he is. he's so fun
Parody music is one of my favorite things. Has been ever since I heard Weird Al's Eat It, at a roller rink, at 14, back when it was still at the top of the charts.

I know, I just dated myself.
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Default Oct 03, 2021 at 05:14 AM
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Parody music is one of my favorite things. Has been ever since I heard Weird Al's Eat It, at a roller rink, at 14, back when it was still at the top of the charts.

I know, I just dated myself.


favorite weird al song is trapped in the drive-threw

probably because it's so realistic. we've all been their... lol
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