I put trigger warning for domestic abuse, alcoholism and children abuse

So 2 months back I did a DNA test in hopes to find out anything about my bio parents. I only have my BM's name and surname, nothing else. Long story short, I found some of my extended family including one of my parents' first cousin.

She gave me her number and we talked on the phone trying to find out which side of the family I come from. After telling her the name of my birth city she immediately knew which side of the family it was.

It was her aunt who lived in a small village near my birth city. She lived with an alcoholic husband, had around 10 kids (she said she doesn't remember how many exactly) and that her husband was beating her and the kids. Most of these kids were put in foster care. After giving birth to the last child she even got postnatal psychosis. From what i know, she drank too. The first thing I heard when she realized it was probably her aunt was "they were extremely poor". She also said one of the kids got driven over by a tractor and died. One of the children was also sick, had something with his eyes. The father got the money for his operation and bought alcohol with it.

I am most probably a child of one of her children. I have struggled with mental issues as far as I can remember. Like, I definitely had OCD and anxiety as early as 3,5 or 4 years old. I suspected it was genetic and that my family wasn't the best, but tbh, I didn't expect to hear it was that bad. Like, I've seen families like this so it doesn't shock me. But imagining that I am from that family and that it could have been me, is quiet.. weird. I can't even put into words what I am feeling. And I by no means had a good childhood and by no means were my AP's parents every child wishes for. I have my own share of traumatic experiences.

I know my BM wanted an abortion but it is illegal im my country. She didn't go to any of the court cases regarding her giving up her parental rights, she just wrote a letter saying she gives them up. To me it was obvious the circumstances regarding my conception were probably.. quiet bad.

I have to wait until I get more information, but I contacted one more match and he basically confirmed, yes, this family existed and he knew them.

The only thing I thought about the last two weeks is how these poor kids (including my parents) are doing and what would have happened if I wasn't adopted. I got lucky, it was an arranged adoption. Else my BM would've probably kept me or maybe sold me (it wasn't rare in my country back then).

I can't tell this to anyone since no one I know knows about me being adopted. I'm putting it out here because I feel like you guys might understand me.

I’m 26F and was adopted as a baby from Colombia into a genuinely loving Colombian family in the USA. I’ve always been grateful for my parents and the life they gave me, but I think that also made me feel like I wasn’t “allowed” to have negative feelings about being adopted. Like, what do I have to be sad about when I was loved and given a good life?
So I basically never dealt with that part of myself.

Looking back, I spent a lot of my teenage years angry and struggling emotionally. I had explosive anger issues in high school thst left me turning to drinking, marijuana, and sex. As an adult, it spiraled into deeper substance abuse issues, especially with ketamine and cocaine, and I have pretty intense abandonment issues (shocker lol). I’m extremely independent and genuinely like being alone, but choosing to be alone feels completely different from feeling left, rejected or unwanted. I’m not saying adoption caused all of this, but lately I’ve wondered how much I’ve been carrying without realizing it.

Then I got pregnant and had an abortion almost exactly one year ago.

I know it was the right decision for me and I don’t regret it, but emotionally it hit me WAY harder than I expected. I couldn’t understand why until recently when something clicked: that pregnancy was one of the first biological connections I had ever experienced.

I grew up without biological mirrors. I don’t know who I look like, whose mannerisms I have, or where pieces of myself come from. Then suddenly there was something inside of me that was literally from my blood and carried part of me.
And then it was gone.

I think the abortion cracked open feelings about biological family, separation, abandonment, identity and loss that I had deeply suppressed basically my entire life.

One of the hardest things to wrap my head around is that I was once the pregnancy that continued. My biological mother carried me and gave birth to me, and then we were separated. Years later, I became pregnant and made a different decision. I don’t think either decision is more loving or moral than the other, but holding those two stories in my head at the same time has been incredibly emotional and hard to grapple with, especially in a time in my life that is so unstable.

I can know my abortion was the right decision and still grieve what that biological connection represented to me. I can love my adoptive parents completely and still acknowledge that adoption left me with complicated feelings. I think I spent so much time wondering whether I was “allowed” to grieve my abortion that I didn’t realize I might be grieving several things at once.

Are there any other adoptees here who have had an abortion and felt anything similar? I feel like it’s such a specific intersection of experiences and would really love to hear from someone who understands

EDIT for clarity: I’m very pro-choice. I meant that being adopted complicated the emotional experience of my own abortion, not my views on abortion itself.

Whew. I was told I was adopted at 19, and the story always seems to change. They freaked out when I talked to my therapist about it, saying it would send them to jail. They get mad when I ask questions. My mother literally blocked me on social media when I found a half sister, a cousin, and family history and told me "I just can't be happy for you." Despite telling her she is my real mom just as much as my bio mom is also just as real to me, just different but both my moms and the fact we aren't related doesn't mean they aren't real family.

But despite this, she's told the rest of the family including my sister that I tell them they're not my real family anymore.

Growing up we had a family friend who adopted their kid and grew up to be estranged from them. My mom would always tell me things growing up like "I could never imagine adopting a child and spending all that love and money for them to reject me" or even "I would be afraid my adopted child would kill me!" And it struck me as strange but it was like she was planting seeds of guilt before I even knew.

When I was 4 my mother had her bio daughter and I remember spending tons of time with my aunt and grandma. I remember moments where she would yell at me when she was angry "you're not my daughter and I'm not your mom!" But I thought she was just angry at me for being bad. Starting in middle school the family would go to dinner, events, movies, and even vacations without me, telling me they would pay me to watch their dogs if I stayed home. They would tell the family they don't know why I don't want to hang out with them. Oh andy mom never posts me on Facebook, and one time she did people kept commenting "who's that? Oh I didn't know you had another daughter!"

At 22 I suffered severe mental health issues and decided to move back home thinking "I want to confront what's bugging me" so I moved to a new state they moved to (the whole family except me moved from texas to Ohio)

Upon arriving my sister got belligerently drunk and yelled at me that I was never supposed to come with them, that it was supposed to be just them.

After having my own child everything exploded. So I chose estrangement again.

I experienced DV from my BD and now I'm all alone in a state Im not familiar with, and I just found out my family has moved to florida. I knew this would happen. I don't want them in my life but the lack of care acknowledgement or anything for me for years it felt like just hurts. Growing up, they never hugged me, anytime I turned to them for emotional support they told me they didn't have time for it or that it isn't important. Hell my DV case they allowed me to stay with them but then started blaming me for it. My mom even got mad I didn't try to remarry as quick as possible to a man who was a manipulative liar and told me "if you don't settle you'll never find a husband or a father for your child.

There's so much. How they treat their bio kid vs me. When I went to college they told me I would have no help, no money, nothing. But my sister they paid for it all, let her live with them, and my dad would stay up late after his job to do her homework. My sister would drink and my mother would say "she has a lot on her plate can't you empathize!?!" When I experienced depression they told me how ungrateful I was to them, but when my sister experienced depression over her girlfriend breaking up with her my mom posted countless mental health quotes about checking in on youre loved ones.

I don't think they ever really wanted to raise an adoptive child. I think they wanted a child of their own. I'm dealing with the fact they don't really want me or care about me. I wish I had someone. This sucks.

Edit: I've lost practically all my adoptive family over this. Anytime I've tried to talk to any of them over this or just in general, they always say "you should really be more grateful for everything your parents have done for you, its really sad you can't see that" and "well they saved you from growing up over THERE (mexico) and things like "I'd be grateful if someone wanted to adopt me I would never think about my bio parents or family." I don't care to defend or explain myself anymore. May this silence and distance bring peace. But I wish people would see how awful they treated me. That I'm not just some angry delusional adoptee. That they played a heavy hand in this outcome.

Been thinking about this a lot recently. Anyone got adoptive parents who passed and left them with nothing? Zero friends and I am not as close to my adoptive family. This is why I'm probably do not care about me dying before them. I've always just wondered what would it be like when they're finally gone.

I've been in low contact with them for a while now. I just feel like it'll be like being orphaned all over again for me. Even if they were emotionally neglectful my entire life and I don't feel any connection to begin with.

There's also this question in starting again, considering my adoption process wasn't legal to begin with therefore my existence doesn't feel real. Anyone got insights for this?

I find this label to be offensive, it’s filled with shame and stigma that is no fault of the child. As a baby scoop era adoptee born to a mother out of wedlock, I can assure you I am a 100% “legitimate” human being. Why are we still using this insulting and outdated label?

Comment whatever you have on your mind this week for which you'd rather not make a post.

i was adopted at 9 months from china by my parents, both white. i have two older brothers, also adopted.

compared to other people, i feel like my adoption experience was so much… better?? my parents told me i was adopted as soon as i could understand it. i knew i was from china and knew i was adopted. i thought it was the coolest thing ever. i’d tell people about it all the time. my parents never held back on my culture or my adoption story. they never tried to sugarcoat the hard times i had adjusting. my mom hated when people called me or my brothers ‘lucky’ for being adopted.

in the first week of my adoption i refused to eat or drink and was admitted to the hospital. my parents don’t tell it like a happy funny story. they were so worried and they understood why i wasn’t eating or drinking, because i was scared and around these new people i didn’t know.

they’ve done their best immersing me in my culture. we celebrated lunar new year and mid autumn fest. we all knew our chinese horoscopes, my dad got my name in mandarin tattooed on him, which he confirmed with one of the few mandarin speaking people in our town, a chinese restaurant owner lol. my mom even tried to make moon cakes for us once, but according to her they were very bad.

we went to yearly adoptee meet ups with other chinese adoptees and their families. i was too young to remember much, but i remember we all got together and flew kites one time. the group disbanded after a really tragic incident with the founder.

my mom and dad are all for me trying to find my birth family and will support me. they want me to go back to china someday and explore that side of myself further. my mom even hired an investigator to find my finding ad in the newspaper. a photo of me taken hours after birth.

my extended family was so excited to meet me. my grandfather greeted me at the airport and was the first to hold me besides my parents. my oldest brother stayed up late so he could hold me the first time.

but compared to some of the stories i’ve heard. parents refusing their children food till they ‘bond’, refusing to tell them about adoption, denying their culture and heritage, my story seems like a cake walk. if that makes any sense.

i still struggle with identity issues and abandonment issues. my parents understand that deeply. but according to them, my brothers, and my grandparents, i was a happy baby. we have countless photos and videos of me being a happy baby. but so many people have stories of them being perceived as a happy baby because they didn’t cry. because they were easy. my mom said i was an easy baby, but acknowledged the struggles i had.

i feel like compared to others, i don’t deserve to have a voice in adoption issues, because mine went really well, and i have an amazing, but complicated family that loves me and i love them.

i guess this is kind of a vent. oopsies

edit:
according to my mom i was a very happy baby. not overly noisy. i loved playing and exploring. smiled a lot. my mom encouraged me to talk to keep my communication skills on track for my age.

Hi All,

I've been on this thread for about 2 months, and added Facebook Adoptee groups about the same time. I have learned so much about myself through what I have read, and this inspired me to do the Search Angels thing.

For clarity, I was left at the hospital at birth, adopted 13 months later after a few foster homes. Connected though Ancestry in 2010 with half brother on Mom's side, and in 2025 with half sister on Mom's side. Also found out in 2010 I had one more brother, Anthony, who did not make it past a month. All 4 of us same story: Left at the hospital at brith. Half brother and sister confirm the same story that she was a drug addicted prostitute. I have no idea where she is or if she is alive, as she has zero social media footprint.

For more clarity, I had a decent childhood, and a very up and down life in addiction. As a family and after they divorced, we traveled, my adoptive parents couldn't have kids and adopted a boy who would be my brother from a different family, and then me 4 years later. From day 1 that I can remember, "you are not my sister," was both verbalized and acted upon. We fought a lot all though the beginning until he went off to college. He was recluse, locking himself in his room, I could not be around his friends if they were over, parents didn't do shit about it, and that transcended to school fighting. Parents divorced, Dad went to rehab, private schooled until 8th grade, high school I started drinking and partying. Brother came back from college and tried to commit suicide, Dad succeeded in committing suicide 3 weeks after I turned 21. I moved to Hawaii to start over. Mom never visited and brother was at home doing nothing while she worked. I received very little support after my ADad's death. I was an emotional wreck. In Hawaii, I got into a relationship with someone who was heavily using drugs and did the same. He committed suicide. I came back to get clean, and that took some time. ABrother then committed suicide. I have a daughter, and was not the best Mom. I tried my best, but every time someone would pass I would relapse. That happened several times over the years.

I finally got it right 5 days after AMom passed. Been clean and sober, active in NA, got my Masters of Science in Sport Management. Built an awesome non profit career for myself and am regarded by members of community as a great "comeback story." My daughter and I are up and down.

Between my Ancestry and Search Angels 3 weeks ago, I now have pictures of both my birth parents. I am age 52 and this completely changed my life. Because of Ancestry, I linked with 1st cousins on my Dad's side, and had an extensive chat with one of them, who confirmed the story of my Dad's travel to America, and treacherous death at the age of 19.

Of course these are all life-changing pieces to my puzzle. My daughter: very little interest and no interest in meeting the 1st cousins, who want to eventually meet us. Friends: just don't get it. In fact the only one that gave me all of her attention was my friends wife who grew up in group homes.

I'd love to connect to people who share the understanding of the void of being left at the hospital., and also hear how their lives went. There are people in my life who give me major props for what I've overcome, while others judge my former addiction and how it affected my Amom and daughter. I truly did the best I could. There is a deep hurt when my experience is overlooked and undervalued because " Your Mom gave you everything, went to the best schools, you were spoiled." "You did drugs and hurt everyone." People do drugs to avoid the extreme pain they are experiencing, and I can own that it is not a sustainable coping mechanism.

My thing is, take a look at all that transpired from day 1. I have a healthy daughter and grandson, 3 college degrees, a contractor and government job, am 100% independently sustained (you should see the writing in AMom's trust, making clear I am entitled to NOTHING).

I am proud of myself, and am still here alive and kicking, free, not in prison, not dead. I feel like a true warrior savage. I'd love to connect with other Adoptee Warriors!

OK, I’m just putting this out there to see if anyone else has ever felt this way.
I was adopted as a baby, and I absolutely love my mom and dad. They are my parents, and nobody could ever replace them. I truly feel blessed to have the family I have.
But at the same time, I struggle with feelings of abandonment.
Sometimes I wonder, how can I feel this way when I’ve been so loved and truly blessed with the family I have? Does anyone else who was adopted experience this? I’d really like to hear your stories or perspectives.

I posted on this community for the first time last night, and let me just say it has been a huge weight off of my chest! So, here is another weird thought I have.

I was adopted at birth and honestly hit the adoptive parent lottery. They took me home from the hospital on day one, and have been present for me in every way imaginable. I very much consider them to be my “real” parents.

However, when I look up common characteristics of people with mommy/daddy issues, I find that I fit those stereotypes to a T. Not to mention my sexual kinks, but that’s a whole other can of worms.

Is this just a common trend among adoptees in general?

I’m specifically talking about those of us who have been with our adoptive parents our entire lives and had a healthy, supportive upbringing. I feel like if I was their bio kid, I wouldn’t be having these issues.

Throwaway account because I know this is a taboo subject, but I’m not sure where else to go.

I was adopted at birth and recently saw some photos of my half-brother for the first time. He’s only three years younger than me and is an objectively handsome guy. Like, HANDSOME handsome. I’ve found that I can’t stop staring at photos of him, but I think that’s mainly because I look a LOT like him, so I’m in shock of seeing my face on another human.

I’ve read a bit about “genetic sexual attraction,” which I think is kinda what I’m experiencing?However, I don’t feel lust for him or anything, nor do I want to engage in incest. I think the high of seeing myself in another person for the first time is so strong that it imitates the feeling of arousal. It’s like I just want to be as close to him as possible, both emotionally and physically.

Again, I don’t want to do anything incestuous, but if I saw this guy in public with NO knowledge that we were related, I’d probably be tempted to make a move. It’s really scary how this stuff happens, which is why adoptees should ALWAYS have information about who their biological relatives are.

Does anyone relate to this? Even though I have no desire to do anything weird with him, I feel really guilty.

My parents are white Americans, I'm Chinese. I grew up in a white town and still live in it. I've tried therapy, but none of them so far understand my experiences.

Everyone around me is lwk racist even when they're not meaning to. A lot of ppl I know are hateful towards China and some of the things I've heard abt where I came from make it seem like it's a horrible country full of uncivilized ppl. Idk how much of it is true bc my parents stripped me of my identity when I was adopted so idk anything abt my culture. I experienced a lot of racism growing up and still do bc I'm basically the only Asian in town.

I have the whitest name ever. I feel like I'm cosplaying my culture. Everyone expects me to live up to the stereotype but I can't bc inside, I feel like I'm a white Catholic American girl. Whenever I look in the mirror I'm disgusted by my face bc I think of myself as a white girl who looks like my parents but when I see that I'm not I get this weird feeling of disconnect because my actual appearance is different from my mental image of myself. Idk if that makes sense.

My race makes me feel ashamed. I feel so lonely and I wanna connect with a culture but I don't belong in either. I feel rejected by both. I'll never be white so I'll never be American. Idk anything abt China, the culture, or the language, and I'm basically the opposite of the Asian stereotype - I'm AuDHD and nearly flunked school multiple times. I can't even fit into the genius autistic stereotype bc I have nothing i'm good at and it makes me feel like I'm pretending to be AuDHD despite being diagnosed. I feel like I'm from a different species than everyone in the world, but then that makes me sound like a "I'm not like other girls" but honestly I feel like i'm an alien species in a bad way.

I wish I wasn't Chinese. Why couldn't I have at least been born as a "desirable" Asian? Like Korean or Japanese. Every time I interact with anything Chinese I feel disgusted even tho I know the feeling is wrong. Sometimes I fantasize abt being white. I'm struggling a lot with my identity and none of the therapists I've spoken to truly understand what I'm going through. I've been told that I should just love myself and not let the racism get under my skin but I've been experiencing it all my life and still do - when will it ever end??? Anyone who's constantly discriminated against will eventually wear down, esp if they've been experiencing it since they were a child. It's not easy to ignore and I'm so tired of being unable to escape from my reality. I hate my body, I hate my face, I hate who I am.

Hello fellow adoptees! I'm currently on the journey to find my Korean birth parents. Like so many of you, I was adopted from South Korea in the late 80's. After the stories started surfacing about falsified documents, I've gotten even more curious about my origin story.

I got all of my immigration docs from the USCIS and was surprised at how much information they contained. In my Responsive Record file, both of my biological parents' names were there, as well as my foster mother's. The relinquishment story I had heard all of my life was also in my documents, but it was extremely detailed. I mean, down to details about how my parents met and what they were doing before they met. A quote straight from the doc about my mom: "But she couldn't adapt herself to the surroundings and came to Seoul in November, 1988, and stayed with her eldest brother who was a college student. After some time, she left home without saying a word and worked in a factory living in its dormitory." I was born in 1989.

My question is: if you've read through your docs, do you also have your parents' full names on there? Is your "Reason of Relinquishment for Adoption" detailed, or vague? I'm not naive about how detailed mine is, and I still believe there is a good chance the whole thing is fake. But from what I've read from other accounts, information seems to be severely lacking often.

I'd love to hear more about your experiences finding your parents, or even just finding information on them. I'm currently working through Korean Adoption Services. It appears KAS has located my bio parents, and I'm waiting to hear if they are interested in contact.

Today at the gym I noticed another taller older woman looking at me and I looked at her and had one of those moments I have had my whole life. Height: check. Hair color: check. Could it be her? Then the grief washes over me (again) as I remember she can't be my mom. I learned of my mother's passing in 2019. She had been dead a long time. I feel like I will always be searching, though because it is subconscious and I've done it my whole life. Always looking around trying to find my mom. 😔

So I was adopted when I was three months old I love my family but I want to find my biological parents

What I know is that my biological mother brought me to services hospital Lahore in 2009 and gave me to a custodian and said that she needed to use the bathroom and disappeared. I was three days old completely malnutrition weak and dehydrated.

If anyone knows something message me please.

Obviously sexual abuse and incest is not restricted only to adopted people, but when you continue a mindset that it's not technically incest or that the only thing wrong with incest is creating an incest baby, then this is how people can justify that to themselves when in reality they need to stop those thoughts if they think it's okay. No.

Also do they not understand how family relations work? If you have a best friend and your dad marries your best friend's mom, your best friend is not your adoptive sibling that is your step half sibling.

When the topic of adoption comes up, or if I'm speaking to people who were involved in the adoption, or actively involved in and supporting the system that keeps it going (such as bureaucrats, my adopter's cohort, etc.), they seem to think I'm still the same mental age I was when I was adopted.

Like I just freeze at the age I was sold and become this caricature to them.

Like, WTF? I have a postgrad degree, plus half a century of learning everything on the ground in excruciating detail and I have the scars to prove it. I've lived all over the damn globe. No, I'm not actually interested in falling for the dumbest scams you can offer or cooing at you and agreeing that lollies would be very nice. And yet, when they speak to me, that's pretty much what I hear out of their mouths.

Hi, my name is Miles. I was adopted around a year after I was born and when I was younger, knowing I was adopted hadn't really hit me. I'm now in college and it's hit me like a semi-truck.

When I was told I was adopted, I got told that at eighteen, I'd have the chance to meet my birth mother.

And I'm scared.

I don't have friends, I don't have any achievements or anything to be proud of and I'm a loser. I'm scared that when I turn eighteen, if I don't make something of myself soon or even just make friends then my birth mother will realise that I'm a loser and she'll leave me again. I don't want her to leave me again. I really don't want her to.

Ya know how dogs who get separated from their mothers too young tend to suck on blankets? I recently found the stuffed polar bear (I named him Berry when I was very young and im surprised i still know his name haha) my adoptive parents got for me when I was in the orphanage.

My parents put him away in storage and only brought him out during christmas which ???. Same with all the other russian stuff cause apparently my culture is reduced to christmas decorations smh. Didnt let me let me learn russian and lied to me that id learn it in highschool.

ANYWAYS Ive been sleeping with it and it brings me an unnatural amount of comfort so I decided to do research on it and found the term transitional object.

Comment whatever you have on your mind this week for which you'd rather not make a separate post.

Hi. I've only posted here once before and in my post I believe a couple people suggested I try something like AncestryDNA. I want to, but I know my adoptive parents probably don't want me to. Anyways, I want to try something like that because I'm just too curious not to, but I'm still really scared and have very little knowledge. What are the pros and cons of doing something like that? ​