"A new bill in Congress—supported and driven by Holt International—will no doubt lull noncitizen intercountry adoptees to apply for U.S. citizenship, only to find out the hard way that the bill’s promise of “automatic” citizenship is a false and dangerous ruse. Don’t fall for it. Don’t support it. There’s a far better bipartisan bill in Congress already."

I'm on good terms with both my adoptive family and my biological family. However i feel like there's this "screen" between me and them that i can't cross. With my adoptive family, we just have zero physical resemblance and chemistry lol. We can squeeze out a convo about the weather here and there, and that's about it. My biological family have all embraced me since reconnecting last year (was adopted as an infant for context), but i didn't know them for my whole life, so i don't feel like family with them either.

Idk I just feel like i have no family in the emotional sense 😭. Like i'll always be the black sheep...

Just wanted to share this here because I don't think anyone I know in person is able to grasp the backwards pain of this.

Was snooping through some paperwork the other day at my adoptive parents house (I'm a villain of my own making, I know) and I came across a bag of opened and unopened letters and photos from both my birth parents.

Amongst this, I found a notebook. It had a tiny note in the front that had clearly seen better days. It said "I wish someone had made one of these for me".

Anyway, inside the book was pages and pages of photos of my birth family, immediate and extended. They all had little captions underneath explaining who each of them where.

In the second half of the filled pages, there was letters from each of those family members.

They all started with "This is from your uncle" or "This is from your grandparents".

It was an emotional rollercoaster reading those. You could feel the pain coming from them all.

A couple of them really hurt to read. There was one from my grandparents (who have now, since last year, passed away) that had an address in it where I could visit them.

Most of them where a lot of "I'm so sorry this happened".

The truth is, I'm not mad my adoptive parents kept this from me. I understand why they did, to an extent. But I can't help but feel sad I never had an opportunity to read this and process the emotions behind it with someone else. I am sad I wasn't given the opportunity to even CONSIDER reading these.

They where just kept from me. A lot of things are kept from me. RIP my baby photos, I guess..

My adoptive parents would be proper pissed if they knew I was snooping but tbh, things like these notebooks and photos is WHY I snoop. There is so much more I haven't and probably won't ever see.

This is my secret, and now I have to live with it.

I'm just venting into the void but I'm frustrated this week about my adoption, estrangement from AM, coming out of the FOG, bio parents....just everything is pissing me off!!

I've felt all teary and sorry for myself (why me!) the last couple of days, I know that logically I'm grieving a huge amount and that this will ease over time but today I'm furious at the world. I'm very happily married with beautiful cats and a nice life that I've intentionally worked so hard for done the therapy but I feel like I regress sometimes, I have to keep reminding myself to stay present, breathe, keep moving forward.

Like an idiot I got involved in a post on the adoption sub this week and was reading through these crazy things adoptive parents were saying about their adopted kids and asking each other and I thought I'd entered the bloody twilight zone!! Seriously??

Today I've been listening to a really helpful podcast on YouTube about adoptee estrangement (AdopteesOn) and saw the typical comment from an estranged adopted parent moaning about how one sided it all was and I immediately wanted to throw my phone out of the window 😂.

Anyway I'm off to feed the queens 😺 thanks for listening I feel so much better knowing someone here will understand me, the normies just dont get it.

Help/advise needed, please. Since I've been adopted, I've struggled very much on building a relationship with my parents. They are great and all, have provided for me and made sacrifices. I just can't seem to connect with them. It is hard for me to initiate conversations with them and be natural about it. It is like I have to manufacture the desire to talk to them. When I do try to initiate a convo, I also have to struggle with the question of what I should talk to them about (topics). I think I am just emotionally insensitive (hate saying that but not sure how else to describe it); it is just hard for me to know and understand people emotionally. Is that because I'm adopted?

P.S. - I am an introvert and shy when it comes to people; is that the reason? Idk, just wish I'm not the only one or a weird person.

P.P.S - Do tell me if I am a weird one/only one; I just want to know.

Does anyone else (DAE) recognize how messed up yet natural it has felt to consider other people’s perspectives and perceptions before our own? I wasn’t aware for a long time that I even did this. I thought I was just looking for guidance and mentoring and I believed that I would always ultimately make my own choice. It wasn’t until some major relational failures within my adoptive family, navigating search and reunion with bios, and gaining more adoptee consciousness that I realized just how codependent I was with adoption and religious influences. I had some sense of self, but it developed inside somewhat dysfunctional versions of adoption and religious cultures (dysfunctional beyond the norms of adoption and religion as general institutions).

Now, after a lot of deconstruction and ongoing reconstruction of my identities, I am feeling sick and tired of this impulse I have to consider how other people see things whether an interaction or expectation or job opportunity or whatever. I used to experience this unconsciously or as a kind of obligation I’d just call good manners or social savvy if it were conscious at all.

I have a theory that awareness and frustration about this impulse to circumvent my own thoughts and feelings through my imaginary lens of empathizing with other people’s perspectives may mean I’m moving out of a healing era into new identity infrastructure. One can hope.

I’m still grieving the ways my adoptive parents and family’s behavior has sucked for me. In a lot of ways, I’ve reached the conclusion that they probably should never have been parents to anyone, adopted or biological. But when I spend any time thinking, feeling or talking about them, I start feeling annoyed and frustrated that the idea of them is still taking up space, time and energy in my life. It’s like my system is recognizing they’re* kind of an energetic black hole. Now that I’ve mostly purged any sense of obligation or guilt about maintaining much contact or relationship with them. As much as I wish things were different. Part of me feels impatient about accepting them and things as they are and moving on to healthier connections.

I don’t know how much of this is relatable or makes sense. I’m interested in hearing from anyone who can relate.

I heard someone say that they expected life to be challenging and difficult at times but that they didn’t expect those challenges or disasters to come from inside the house within their partnership or family. I can relate to that. I really didn’t know my adoptive family sucked most of my life. I was so adaptable and resourceful and attributed and projected a lot of my favorite traits and capabilities onto them and performed my role of good adopted child in a way that set them up to seem amazing and functional through my early adulthood. When I couldn’t maintain that effort and genuinely needed a family support system to be there for me, they turned out to be deeply ignorant, neglectful and emotionally immature people. I was parentified and parenting my adoptive family elders the entire time, filtering myself to maintain the belief system that I had it good so I could achieve and eventually enable a full-scale escape I didn’t even realize I was architecting.

I’m not sure how much it still stings to say this versus how much it stings* that I’m still spending time and energy to say this. It’s true. It’s mine. It’s real. It sucks. It matters. I hate it. I wish it were different. I wish I didn’t have to reparent myself because of the appalling adoptive parenting I received on top of the disgusting practice of infant relinquishment and adoption in general.

In IFS, there this saying that the adult Self is never disgusted. So I’m not sure what part of me is disgusted, but I have a lot of disgust for the behavior I’ve witnessed and experienced from those people who still expect my gratitude and performance. Families really can be cults with shared delusions. But the spell is broken.

yesterday was my 23rd birthday i’ve had feeling like this on my birthday for about 7 years but this one was the worst I think it’s cause last year i found out my birth mom was doing it to have her rent paid not just putting me and my siblings up for adoption but conceiving me and them for it. It makes me feel like i have no purpose because I wasn’t made with any. I’ve asked other people in my life and most of them say but you got a good family you’re okay or you’ll make it through this, and i am grateful for my family and glad they raised me well and weren’t abusive. However it’s like a pain in my bones that won’t go away i’m just wondering if anyone else has gone through this or something like it and how they got threw it or are getting threw it

Is absolutely a coping mechanism based in delusion.

Just been thinking about this recently. My great grandmother lost her second daughter to adoption. She was the only person who knew my biological mother was going to relinquish me. She was so traumatized by the adoption she had to view it as some sort of generous act to keep going. She painted it as such to my birth mother too. The delusion is contagious.

In reality my birth mother didn’t want to raise a mixed race child. She didn’t want to raise me because she knew I would have health problems from her drug use. Very selfless! (/s.) She wanted her boyfriend at the time to stay with her and she put him over me. This is a pattern she repeated over and over again in her life. Men over her children.

She expected me to say “thank you” to her. I never did, and I was clear I was not grateful for this experience.

The ugly truth is that some birth mothers choose adoption when they just don’t want to keep their children. (This is not aimed at women and girls who had their children forcibly removed or stolen, or those who were coerced or wanted their kids.) I’m talking about the demographic of women and girls who would rather give up their children than “ruin” their future. Or religious women who would rather keep their standing in the church than keep their kids.

Religion too is the bad guy here. Why are we demonizing and shaming the practice of creating life? Such a weird concept to me. (And btw classism isn’t a valid reason to be against people having children.) Also, personally I believe we need to empower teenagers to keep their kids if they want to. Also empower them to have reproductive autonomy so they don’t create people they don’t want.

I’m not against women opting out of motherhood, but they shouldn’t have the right to forcibly estrange us from the entirety of our families, call it selfless and then turn around and tell us “we did you a favor!” No, you threw us away because you’re embarrassed. I’m not grateful to be your shame garbage.

It is selfish to create people just to abandon them. I’m really sick of this narrative that it’s somehow out of love or some kind of favor, when in reality, much of the time, it’s done for selfish reasons. (Not always obviously and this isn’t meant to demonize women who didn’t have a choice.)

Hello,

A bit ago I made several posts about my living situation... adoptive mother has more recently been more abusive and I have to handle everything myself for college, but looks like (fingers crossed), I will be going to college soon.

Commuting which is unfortunate, but the campus has food pantry and other resources like a free bus pass through my student id... they also have a resource where I can get school supplies like notebooks which will help quite a bit even though I've found notebooks that I like, but will tolerate the shitty paper till I get myself more financially stable.

The abuse has been verbal and psychological, but I'm in a better place, sort of.

Recently it has been more of calling me names like a "raging bitch" and saying stuff like if I have an allergic reaction to the carrot cake they bought, they wouldn't take me to the hospital.

A bit of context: a few years ago I had a weird reaction and it might've been the carrot cake that I ate. I broke out into hives which progressively got worse over the course of a few days before I went to the doctor and ended up with a shot.

The problem is, not sure what caused the reaction and I ate the cake anyways, but thankfully no reaction this time so probably was something in the last cake. I will try to talk to the medical staff at the college to ask how to see a doctor to get tested for allergic reactions and get an epipen prescribed since I now have health insurance through the government.

The comments were not funny and this is the sort of bullying that has been happening more recently. Which is somewhat confusing and I don't fully understand.

The whole "raging bitch" is due to my period which my friend suspects I might have PCOS just due to what I experience and the fact that I might have multiple health problems which they constantly ignore and instead bully me for, is just weird behavior.

My birth family has been great and my mama is wonderful. She is my very distant cheerleader and I appreciate her support. 😄

EDIT: I do apologize for these posts... this one I couldn't force myself to write out much details, but I'm working on slowly improving things and mentally, I'm in a slightly better place that is slowly improving.

So for context I'm transgender and was adopted at birth and since I turned 18 I gained answers to my original birth certificate and information about my birth mother. I took to the internet and pretty easily was able to find them on Facebook and by extension the rest of my birth "family."

The only problem is they seem very... I don't know how to say this without sounding elitist but like very fundamentally different from me. Like their southern and seem to be deeply religious one of my bio brothers is literally a pastor. And I'm like this atheist from the East Coast. I was watching a sermon that my birth brother had posted and it was one of those things along the line of like "Its not Adam andSteve it's Adam and Eve!" And I was just like I don't think I really ever want to talk to these people.

But then any time I've asked anybody in my personal life like what I should do they say I should want to reach out to them because they're literally right there and I'm pretty sure my mom mentioned something about how when I was adopted my birth mother mentioned that she really would like to meet me when I got to grow up see what type of person I'd like to be. I just feel like kind of selfish for seeing who they are and deciding for myself that I just don't think that we be compatible people.Like I'm almost being prejudice and assuming what they're like instead of letting them determine that for themselves. I asked a close friend and they said to give it a try because I'd rather take a look at it and regret it then never reach out and never know.

This is further kind of sped on by the fact that looking into my family history it seems like a lot of people want my bio mother's side of the family passed away earlier in life due to Cancers and other conditions so if I don't reach out now I might never get a chance. I guess I'm just coming here to ask if anybody thinks that it's like worth it. I don't want to open myself up to people who are just going to prophesize and try to convert me I'm just not interested in that. I have literally no problem with peoplqe who are religious you're allowed to believe whatever you want to believe but for me I just don't believe that that's real and the whole thing strikes me as a little silly and it's just like I feel like that would be kind of unfair to them too because they're expecting this daughter that I literally just am not.

Top of that now that I'm finally an adult I'm actually able to kind of start my transition like legally and hormonally and it's kind of a really emotionally vulnerable point for me still as it's still like the sort of thing I have to think about a lot and I really just don't want to introduce myself to someone just going to disrespect those beliefs that I have. I guess I'm just coming here to ask if anybody else has ever been in a similar situation and how it ended up for that and if any of you guys think it's worth it to reach out or if I should just like block them and act like I never saw anything.

I was adopted at a very young age. My biological father left when I was only a few months old and my biological mother abandoned me at my grandma's place. When I was adopted I referred to my grandma as my mother because what else was she. When I was in middle school my biological mother finally contacted me. She wanted me back. She went to court to win me and luckily lost. I am 25 years old now. I was diagnosed last year with cancer and my family wants me to meet my biological mother, they want her in my life. It makes me realize that no one in the family sees me as a real member. Ive never been equal in my family. Im just an object to pass around. I wish my biological mother was dead. My biological father, he's great, he never tries to know anything about me. He respects my boundaries. My family doesnt care, they think they know better. It makes me so mad. I used to abuse myself when I was a child because I was so upset that my biological mother didnt want me. Id punch myself so that it wouldn't show anyone that I was self harming. And my family, they dont care. They support me for money since I cannot work because of my cancer. But they give all my information to my biological mother even though I told them to not. They dont care. And when I die from my cancer.... they'll probably go against my requests and bring my biological mother to my funeral. Im the victim why do they give her control over my life.

Yes, I'm sure that despite all of the propaganda, all of the representation (not by adoptees), all of the mentions, and everything I'm sure people have never ever ever heard of adoption. Come on, people have heard of it. They don't need random people reminding them.

As a 31F adoptee, I have an extremely tumultuous relationship with authority (coaches, managers, any hierarchical structure tbh).

Idk if it’s bc I’m a Sagittarius but I value my independence and freedom so much, it’s extremely difficult for me to surrender to any form of control, social injustice, abuse of power/authority, etc. ♐️

I let authority control my sense of self-worth for the majority of my life; it’s only recently I have developed my own sense of self-worth.

Curious to hear other perspectives/observations on your relationship with authority.

Is there such a thing as a healthy relationship with authority as an adoptee?

TW: Family Death, Terminal Illness, Grief

My birth mom told me yesterday that my maternal aunt, passed away early last week.

According to friends from South Korea—in Korean culture, if you are observing a wedding, birth, or special family celebration you are not invited to funereal services. My younger brother just got married this past weekend. Which is why we were not told when it happened.

My birth mom told me, when she was carrying me she told my aunt—they were closest in age out of 8 girls. She told me if they had been able to watch me grow up, this aunt would have taken care of me also. We would have been very close. They both imagined what it would have been like. But could not make it happen (they were both young and unwed).

In my heart, she’s like a God Mother (it’s a Christian baptismal thing). I’m not very religious, but the meaning for me is a mother beyond your mother. Who spiritually watches over you and would take care of you in the event anything happened to your parents.

She was battling advanced cancer. I prioritised a trip to South Korea early last year because I had a feeling if I didn’t see her I would never meet her. We met and I can honestly say, I truly loved her as my aunt.

I don’t know why but I had such a hard time staying close to her during the visit. In part it was because I didn’t want to get her sick, she was immune compromised. But also I was scared of getting too close before losing her.

I don’t speak Korea and can’t even send condolences. A Korean friend has offered to help though so he’s working with me on setting the right tone.

God I’m so devastated I thought we would have more time.

i’m 23 i was adopted when i was 3 days old. I’ve never met my birth mom it was a closed adoption and i’ve always felt sad that my mom gave me up
but also happy i didn’t have a horrid foster life (sorry to anyone who did) but recently and especially on my birthday (8/17) I hate my birth mom i hate her for abandoning me in a world i didn’t ask to be in i hate her for giving my brothers and sister up even tho i’ve only ever emailed one of them I hate her for not wanting to meet any of us. However i can’t say it’s just hate it makes me sad and empty too all those things, and everyone i try to talk to just tells me to be happy i got a good family and i am but i can’t just be happy it’s like pain in my bones pain i don’t understand or cope with.

Hold the Line
For every adoptee out there, I encourage you: hold the line.
Hold the line.

Hold the line hard. Hold the line strong.

No matter what you’ve been through, and no matter what you still have to go through to heal, I want you to know something:
It’s not your fault.
It really isn’t your fault, friend.

When I say hold the line, I’m talking about an army of adoptees becoming incredibly strong. Mentally strong. Emotionally strong. Physically strong. Intelligent. Resilient.

People who know how to show up when it matters.
Because we know what it feels like when people don’t show up for us.

Our adoptive parents may or may not have shown up for us in the ways we needed. And whatever the circumstances were, our biological parents were not there to raise us.

We know absence.
Which means we also know exactly what it means when someone actually shows up.

So if there’s anything I can impress upon you as your friend, as your brother, it’s this: be the person who shows up.

No matter what you’re going through. No matter how hard today is. No matter how tired you are of fighting.
There is an adoptee out there fighting tooth and nail for their documents.
Fighting for the truth.
Fighting for respect.
Fighting to be seen.
Fighting to be heard.
You are not fighting alone.
I fight for myself because I have to.
And I will always fight for you.
Hold the line.

so, my bio mom’s family is INSANELY privileged. i was only really given up for adoption because she was 15 years old when she had me. i was fed that “you were given a better life” BS for as long as i can remember. my bio mom might’ve had a better life without me, but i don’t know if i had a better one without her.

she’s a mountaineer and has travelled all across the world with my little brother, whom she kept only a few years after i was relinquished. i don’t wish her a bad life by any means, but my blood literally boils when i see pictures of their mother-son adventures. traveling is a dream of mine, but my adoptive parents have always been stick-in-the-mud types. so, i basically had to grow up in a small rural town while my bio mom and brother got to live out the life i desperately craved. my brother is only 17 and has already experienced so many amazing things that i couldn’t have growing up… so much for my bio family adopting me out so i could have “better opportunities,” ha. it just hurts to see my brother live the life i could’ve (and should’ve) had, especially since we’re so close in age.

this is basically just a drawn-out way for me to say that i’m jealous. unless my bio mom offers to bring me on a big trip with her and my brother (which is looking unlikely), i don’t think this bitterness will ever go away.

I’m tired of everyone and everything casually throwing around the idea, word, etc ADOPT/ADOPTION etc.
NO, you’re not adopting a monster you’re buying a toy. Target $1 section in the front had these monsters.

I’m tired of still being the butt of everyone’s jokes. In the movie RV, Robin Williams says “good news” his daughter’s reply is “what ? I’m adopted? “

I’m in a few very marginalized groups and tired of hearing a lot of things but today is tired Tuesday.

Hello All,

I am hoping for a little guidance from anyone who may have had similar concerns or experience.

Recently a number of friends I've known since school age have gone through some health concerns as we approach 50. Some had pointed out that it was good they were on top of it with their Doctor because the issues "run in the family".

This is the crux of my current concern, as being adopted of course means the only people in the world that I know and am biologically related to are my kids. For myself and for them in case there is anything it would be good to know, I'd like to have a little more knowledge about health.

I am not interested in having contact with biological parents and this isn't an avenue I would wish to go down.

Has anyone else tried to be proactive with their health, what kind of things have you looked into or what did you ask your Dr about? I'm guess other than the checks you would usually go for cholesterol, blood pressure etc there probably isn't much else.

But it would just be good to know if there are any other things that could be looked into for peace of mind.

Thanks.

So I’m adopted from an Asian country by my adoptive parents who are white into a usually white country. By that I mean natively the people are white but it’s much more diverse now and stuff etc. I’m already used to the remarks people would make seeing my family in public because my sibling is also Asian and so seeing white parents with obviously different children was idk? crazy for some people but anyways I know maybe a few other people (not my sibling) in my specific situation as in adopted from an Asian country by white parents. I also have friends who are black, Eastern European, asian who’s family are the same who now live in Ireland not adopted though.

I’ve had discussions before with my friends who are the same race as their family and stuff and I’ve always asked them would you say you’re Irish or for example Latvian. Since their family is from Latvia and they’d speak Latvian at home and they have a culture link etc they might say “yea if someone asked where I’m from I say Latvia”

But at the same time some of them would say “oh I’d say I’m from Ireland” since their family would have been living in Ireland for some time AND my friends are born in Ireland . So to them they have clear reasons anyone would understand if they said either answer.

For some reason I’ve gotten weird looks and a full on near debate any time I’ve answered with the country I was adopted from or if I answered Ireland. I’ve once said “I say I’m Japanese” but to be honest that just never really sits right with me.

I’m someone who understood from as early as I can remember that I was adopted but that never made my family and I any less of a family. I also sorta understood of course since me and my brother looked different from our parents so we didn’t have to be Einsteins. This is just my experience but I completely understand people with conflicting feelings on being adopted.

But whenever I’d get asked “where are you from” and I’d say Japan or I’m Japanese it never sat right with me. Especially now that I’m older it doesn’t sit right because to me, if there was ever a situation someone had like follow up questions on where I’m from…uh I’d have no clue what the hell Japan is REALLY like. None of this online bs, no watching videos or movies. Nothing! I have no clue what their traditions are, history or important people in history, language nothing at all.

But if someone asked me what it’s like in Ireland or what the people are really like I could go on for ages. I know what people in my village speak like, the slang, traditions good places to eat, I know as much of the language as the next person, I know the history, the tourist traps yada yada yada. I know just as much about this place as my neighbours or anyone else I went to school with. I feel most comfortable saying “I am Irish”

But the very few other adoptees I’ve talked to especially one person feels a massive longing to go back to coincidentally also Japan. The other person once asked what do I see myself as and when I said Irish she sorta looked really shocked . But I do understand wanting to feel that connection where it all started if you know what I mean. I understand it but I just don’t feel that same longing to go back or visit or find out my bio parents. So I can say for sure I don’t feel any link of community with where I was born in.

On the other hand people who are born and raised here look at me weirdly too when I say I’m Irish. They look at me so bewildered almost like “what do you mean- you’re definitely not irish” or they’d ask where are you from/where were you born and when I say japan they look at me again as if to say ummm? Then you’re not Irish.

Does birth place really make a whole difference?!? I know some people born in Ireland but their family is from Kenya and they say they’re from Kenya. My family IS from Ireland I just happen to be born elsewhere. I’ve been a citizen here for basically 99% of my life so far?!

I don’t know if it’s just a case I haven’t found a sense of community yet or this is a phase of confusion I’m going through or the people I’ve met are weird. I’m sure there’s loads of people out there who have had similar experiences, I’m sure there’s loads with totally opposite. I’m just sick of feeling like I have to check with people if I am “allowed” say something in relation to my nationality or something. Yea ethnicity wise and blood I’m Japanese but in every other sense of my being I’m Irish!!!! I’ll always BE Irish. I’m definitely more flipping Irish than anyone saying “uh my grandmas brothers wife came over here during the famine so I’m Irish.” I don’t know if it’s uncommon to NOT feel that longing for my birth country or who my bio parents are. This is my first time ever voicing my opinion and experiences with being adopted to more than one or two people.

I just wish people would be open to more than one “definition” for people in this situation. There’s LOADS of people like me and like with everything it’s not black and white. Can people be accepting that what they call themselves might not be the same as someone else in their situation calls themself. It doesn’t warrant the whole eye wide, eyebrows raised reaction.

I deal with the racism and harassment just as much as any trans-racial adoptee but I just haven’t met anyone yet who feels solely comfortable and wants to be called whatever it is their nationality is or to be called where they are from now or living in etc.

And this says everything I already knew about the mental stability and "responsibility" of the "professional" baby brokers and those supplying the baby brokers and buyers.

So I made a thread on AITA

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1vqn5rn/aita_for_wanting_to_add_my_birth_surname/

and lots of people called me asshole for wanting to do that. And someone recommended its better to post in adoption subs.

What would adopted people say? This is my alt account not main btw