Adoption: How that can affect a persons mental health long term

I speak from my own experience. I was adopted (3 months) and it has been a life long part of my metal health. (I have had a difficult time with it) When I was told I was adopted around 5-6yrs old I did not understand the magnitude it would affect me down the road. Are there any others that have this sort of experience in their own life?

Haven't had the personal experience.....but in my mind, sometimes I wish I had been adopted & grown up with different parents who would have been more capable & less dysfunctional.

Sorry to hear you’ve been impacted by being adopted; it’s something wider society rarely acknowledges. It’s a necessary evil; unfortunately, the emotional needs of the fostered and adopted children aren’t usually prioritised as they should be. People assume we can just slot into new families and get on with it, no issues!

I was adopted into a toxic family system, where my dad was alcoholic and bipolar, also nobody acknowledged that I had lost my family and that it had created a trauma that just kept getting triggered through pretty much my whole life - an abandonment wound, specifically. My a-mum even threatened to send me to boarding school at one point, to make me behave, which scared and saddened me at the time. She also got me diagnosed with autism at 17 - it was a misdiagnosis, because what I had was C-PTSD.

I’m currently in reunion with my bio family - my mum died before we could meet, but from what I’ve heard about her, I feel that if she hadn’t been so ill, it would have been better for me to have stayed. My adoptive mum tried her best and loves me in her way, but not in the way I needed to recover and flourish, sadly.
I feel a lot better, but I have been super lucky - I found an excellent counsellor who understands the issues I have (even before I did!), my mum didn’t keep me a secret and my bio siblings have been welcoming.

@roxanne Toto. Thank you for sharing your experience around your adoption. It must have been difficult to have to go through that kind of childhood. My heart goes out to you and gives you a big It warms my heart you have found a counselor that understands . I believe that is a big part of healing around adoption and being able to understand all the complications that come with it.

I also have had abandonment issues most of me life. I always wondered why my relationships didn’t last more then 2-3yrs and after working through it, now am in one that is healthy!

I was fortunate to have a family that did not have the same struggles you had to endure. My experience was emotional abuse from my father. I have never felt I fit in.. I have a brother that was biological theirs so that also created the feelings of not being good enough because my natural parents gave me up.

I also believe both of my mom and dad raised me the best they could with the skills that they had. It took me a long time to understand and accept it. It feels great to have made amends with that.

I was diagnosed with ptsd among a few other symptoms of mental disorders. 3 yrs ago I found my natural family and it has been an opposite experience. My Pam and Tim (natural) married after they gave me up and I have 4 natural siblings.. At first, my siblings were excited then rejected me. I have a fairly good relationship with Pam.. Tim I believe is narcissistic by his actions towards his family and through my own interactions with me. Pam has dealt with depression. I can see why I have mental obstacles.

@Burning Sage - there are quite a few parallels here between our lives! My longest relationship was 10 months, long distance, but most of them were stressful and confusing for me, and lasted around 3 months on average. Like you, it made little sense to me until recently, but I decided to remain single after leaving my last boyfriend.
I also have a brother who is my adoptive parents bio son. We get on, but we’re not close.
I’m so sorry to hear your siblings rejected you later on; there are no guarantees with reunion and I still fear this happening to me, too.

I relate to this. I was not adopted. But I was strikingly different to my ''biological parents''...... they were extremely dysfunctional, mostly in regards to a clinically diagnosable destructive narcissistic pattern.... I am one of the least ''narcissistic'' people around. Although my Parental UNITS repeatedly blasted me as being terminally selfish. I was exiled permanently because of my ''Selfishnesss''. (and being so ''unendearing''..... I guess grizzly bear cubs are not necessarily particularly ''endearing'' to a different species. They on the other hand were only ever ''Altruistic''......

Yeah right. I guess they, despite their ''Superior'' intelligence were too lazy or arrogant to research the basic psychological principle of Projection...

My half siblings rejected me. I think, in fact I'm sure that one of the parental units (or all of them...)... there is also a step ''maternal unit''........ ''influenced'' their disregard and discard of me

Until I met my Papa bear (now my husband), most of my relationships only lasted around 3 months. The only relationships that lasted longer than that (except for two.. one of those had Horrible parents who ''hated'' me.. he was foolish enough to pass on his mother's cruel comments which meant he became a Toad (or ugly frog) were with people who turned into abusers (almost certainly with significant Narcissistic traits ).... one of them I was engaged to. I'm fortunate that I escaped from him, but it was not without significant harm from him, violence - physical, sexual, emotional, labelling... He was ''accurate'' with his labels about my parental units though He was VERY smart, intellectually. Very depressed, cynical, very ... other. He had told me his ''mental health has never been good''.... His mother had written to my PUS saying how happy they were he had found someone so ''tolerant'' ... ME..... which is ''more than they had hoped for''... His parents tried to be supportive of him, mine ''failed''.... but I was never the person they apparently thought I was.

Yikes. Sorry about the long rant. I did not intend to write all this.

Hi Burning Sage, I haven't been adopted.. but I was told something at a slightly older age, and at that point I did not fully understand the magnitude with which it would affect me. It isn't something I usually share. I once shared it with someone in a private message, on another site. Yes really! (it was another site, not here) and she immediately ghosted me. She did have extreme ''social anxiety'' though, and almost certainly something else.....so perhaps she ghosted many, especially those who did not share her exact issues.

eta she had PMd me asking if I had been adopted, and she sent a very long detailed message. But she did not respond (ever) to my reply. It was hurtful.

I was not implying anything negative about anyone with social anxiety, I was just thinking of possible reasons why she did this. I think the other thing she had was a more likely reason tbh.....

Hugs and respect to you

I was not adopted, but I can relate to being unwanted. My mom first told me at 10 that she had not wanted kids and has been consistent in that stance.

I can also relate to being compared to others. Mom was constantly comparing me to my cousins, because they liked to exercise and kept their rooms clean.

It was only recently that I realized my mother is very unhappy and nothing that I do or say can change that. I moved to another state and maintain my distance to preserve my mental health.

When I was younger, I did wish that my mom had given me up for adoption to people who wanted to be parents.

I was never adopted or even in the care system, I was rejected by my dad though cause he just didnt give a flying crap really about me or my older brother, he went through wives and girlfriends like a fish swims through water and as a result we dont know how many kids he actually fathered, i do know that he was abusive towards my mum and the few times he saw me and older brother, he treated us like dirt and hammered home to me the fact that just cause i'm female it means i'm not worth crap, he believes females are only good for one thing and as soon as new baby is born it has nothing to do with the dad any more, he wouldnt even provide anything for his own kids, it was very rare to get presents from him

the only present i can ever remember getting from him in the 32 years i've been around, was the video of Pinnocchio, i would of maybe been about 6 or 7 then, it was one christmas i remember that

i think the only reason i can remember is cause my birthday is in June and i remember we had fairly deep snow that year and me and my brother took the sledge outside to play, after christmas presents was all open.

Just saying: we wants you, down

Another thing i can remember is him bringing his new baby one time to see me and older brother, baby boy, it was almost as if he was saying "look i got a new child now, this kid will be better than you both"

i think thats why i'm so messed up cause i'm a piece of crap thats not wanted and we all know what gets done to a crap - it gets flushed away down the toilet

I can definitely relate to being unwanted

Interestingly, I watched a video on YouTube by Patrick Teahan today (he posts childhood trauma healing videos as a free resource to help others; just putting it out there in case anyone else might find it helpful), and in this particular video he’s asking viewers with toxic parents to write about who their parents said they (the child) were, i.e. the role we were cast in, which doesn’t match who we actually were/are - the parent has too many of their own issues and/or is just too toxic to “see” and accept the child for who they are.
I’ve definitely experienced this, and it is pretty horrible. One other thing he said is that a toxic person has no right to define who you are.

she might of been fishing for information, for reasons we can only guess at?

@ Willowtigger

My heart goes out to you for that experience you had.

Thanks. It is horrible. Parents who try to define their child and cast them in a role that was never them....A complete mismatch... They, the toxic person has NO right to define who we are, I completely agree.

fishing for ''feed'' I think. Yeah.

This might be very heavy to handle. But I believe one should never let any negative thoughts dominate our head. It is important to focus on what we have and not think about what we don’t. Being grateful is a very powerful feeling.

No one should give anyone the right to control their emotions or define them. We are humans, and we should not get affected by how others treat us. No one can make anyone happy or sad, it is his reactive mind that makes him happy or sad.
So, it is all up in our mind.

It is interesting how when we adopt our pets & they become our fur babies that they just blend in as part of the family without mental issues unless they were badly abused. Then it just takes time & a lot of love to get them through their PTSD & feel safe. Animals thrive on family love & where they came from doesn't matter to them unless they are getting over abuse.

I am certain my angel girl Ebony had ptsd.

Just saying

Yeah, they can have PTSD from prior abuse. But a loving home helps them. Also animals aren't as attached to their biological children as humans tend to be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by downandlonely Yeah, they can have PTSD from prior abuse. But a loving home helps them. Also animals aren't as attached to their biological children as humans tend to be.

I often wonder if that attachment is because we think we should be or because we really are? Babies adopted at birth never know their biological parents to gain that attachment. I could see the attachment at an older age though.

@kiran ~ its not heavy. I totally agree with your comment. Easier said then done after years and years of my own life experiences. Being grateful and finding the joy in life IS very powerful!