trying to remember

tw because i just don't know.



So the other day during my session t asked me a question that I didn't think too much about at the time but it has me really wondering now. She asked me if I ever felt like I was adopted when I was a kid. I don't think I ever thought it in so many words, and I told her "I don't know." I do know that I never felt like I really belonged. The rest of my family is loud and boisterous, I have always been shy and reserved. My siblings all ran home from school to try to be first to show Mom their work from school but I would go straight to my room and prefer to be alone until dinner. Stuff like that. I've been thinking about it a lot and I want to know what made her ask me that. I'm going to ask her about it next week when we talk again. I'm pretty much 100% sure I'm not adopted since I look so much like my mom and my grandma, that's not the issue anyway at my age, but what is the issue is what thinking about my childhood is making me feel. Like there's something hiding that is skirting around my consciousness that I can't remember. Weird because while we were talking the other day I kept feeling that way too even before she asked the question - like we were very very close to something - I don't know what. This has been on my mind for 2 days now and I don't know what to think. Just wanted to try to start sorting this out and I know my husband won't want to hear this since I really don't know anything. He'd just say "I don't know" and go back to the tv. This all started with my working with my guilt and trying to figure out where this huge guilt complex that I have began. I feel so weird right now. I want to know but I don't want to know. I want to talk to t.... I don't so much know what my point is typing this except to get it out of my head for awhile maybe.

I knew I wasn't adopted, but I always felt that way as a child because I didn't "fit". Maybe she was just trying to get at that feeling of being an outsider and different from everyone else?

My therapist asked me a question like that too, I felt it was sort of par for the course for the profession when dealing with significant issues stemming from childhood. She was not talking about actual adoption, but a feeling of not fitting, not belonging.

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Maybe that's it, I dunno. It just seemed weird that in 3 years she'd never asked me that question before. Maybe there was something in one of my recent dreams that made her ask that. I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

YEs I have felt this. I certainly was told frequently enough that I wasn't the same and didn't fit in. (I wasn't adopted)

I wonder if your therapist phrased it that way, perhaps, because she now thinks you are ready to hear it? How would you have responded if she had said it much earlier?

I always think if something sticks with me from a session, then it is something worth bringing up again. My therapist happens to agree with me! lol

Interesting thoughts... thank you... I wonder, if she had said it earlier, I think I likely would have gotten mad and ignored her! Dang she's a smart cookie. I think you're right that if I'm still thinking about it the following night, it's worth bringing up again. I will ask her next week.

I guess she was only asking because feeling like you were adopted or wanting to be adopted is something extremely common for children. It might be interested to bring it up, but I wouldn't be too bothered by it.

My main T has mentioned that a lot of psychological problems first start as a temperament mismatch between mother and child. He has met with my family and my mom early on , in my late teens so he believes this is the case with me, which can lead one to thinking they are adopted.

My T has even gone as far to say that I was an unwanted pregnancy, and my mom was still ambivalent about me but eventually grew to love me. By then, damage was done.

Artemis-what you said sounds so familiar. I have never felt I fit or belonged in my family. And I do not think I am adopted since there were a bunch of us & we were poor.

I just remembered something else.... Several months ago I think it was maybe longer we were talking about my mom and she said she suspected I wasn't breast-fed. I said I didn't know and refuse to ask my mom. NO FREAKING WAY could I ask that question. Weird how I just remembered that.

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Artemis-within, I had similar thoughts at times. One of my therapists had also asked a similar question (or rather hinted at it)...damn I can't remember what they said...

In any case, I was also shy and quiet and at times both wondered and even had this fantasy of being adopted, almost this view of like perfect parents as soul mates, and finding them one day. But I don't think I was, though like most things, I can't be 100% sure of it.

I'm kind of embarrassed about this, but when I was a kid I spent many a night crying about how I wasn't adopted. I just didn't feel like I belonged in my family at all. I wanted to be adopted so badly because my parents were so awful that I just want to have a different set of parents who could be my "real parents." Maybe I just watched the movie Annie too much . So basically for many years I had this fantasy that I was adopted that was like my coping skill as a kid. I also remember getting really upset any time anyone ever told me I look like my parents, and I got told that a lot. I still do to this day, and it still upsets me every time it happens. When I got a bit older I also used to question my mom a lot about her past relationships hoping that I would find out I wasn't my dad's kid. I was really desperate for another family I guess. My T recently said something in session that kind of bothered me. She said, "you know if you had told anyone about this and they reported it you would have probably been taken out of your home and placed somewhere else." This really upset me because now I think I'll always have this mourning of a possible better life even though it most likely wouldn't have been better. Sorry this kind of got off topic a bit, but I guess all of this is just my rambling-venting-way of saying I relate a lot to this feeling of not belonging.

thanks for sharing lilac, i also used to really hate when people told me i looked like my mom. but i was such a "good girl" (a persona I constructed, i now know) I turned all that hate onto myself. blamed myself for looking like her, for being her kid. always wanted to scream at my parents "why did you have me if you hate me so much!" ugh. what messes we cause ourselves. i'll be talking with my t about this in about an hour.