Adoptees who felt pain from relinquishment, did meeting your Mother and hearing that she DID an DOES love you?

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It's very very rare that I try to speak for an adopted person, so you all will have to forgive me this one time. If I was relinquished for adoption and despite everything around me being a pretty good life wise, it wouldn't change the fact that I was abandoned by my family. Even knowing all the reasons why I was relinquished, or hearing the words from my family of origin, the fact that I was abandoned would not be something easily reconciled. There are so many confusing ideas given about the families that relinquish, living a lifetime hearing all of those and trying to understand while growing bigger thoughts would be so overwhelming. There is the whole "she loved you enough to give you away" and "if she loved you enough, then she wouldn't have let anything come in her way to keeping you" and "she was in a really rough spot in her life" mixed with seeing what became of her and it still not making any sense.

None of relinquishment makes any sense. Not to me as someone who did relinquish, why on Earth would I expect my child to understand what happened? Or for that matter, how am I supposed to explain what happened accurately for understanding?

So no, I do not for one moment expect for my son to have any sort of healing or comfort by the statement that I loved him and that I still love him. It's words that have been completely alienated by actions....Show more

Darn. I hate being late to a good question, sorry freckle face.

Sure. It did for me. She could just as easily have said, "No, I didn't feel love for you at that time". I could tell from the moment I met her she was a good-hearted person, so I had no reason not to believe her.

However like reflex the first thing that came to mind when reading your question was, for many adoptees, including myself, the question of "Do/Did they love me?" is just as much asked of the adoptive parents as the biological. Adopted children, assuming they know their past and that they're adopted, often try to please their adoptive parents. The classic fear of rejection is not solely based on the emotions the bio mother may have had towards her child.
Being the only adopted child in my family, my need to have known completely that my a-parents loved and appreciated me was often times, far greater than any doubts I had concerning the circumstances of my birth or current relationship with my bio mother.
For myself and many others, knowing that your birth mother gave you up because she was young, poor, ashamed, or what have you, is a black-and-white issue and easy to understand, it is what it is. It's the problems that branch out from the rooted facts that cause pain and frustration.
You know why she gave you up, you know why your parents adopted you. But what about everything else? Did my a-parents have regrets about me by the time I reached toddlerhood? Did they find that they were truly okay with the fact that my character is different from the family? That I was never going to be their own flesh and blood?

Some will never be answered, but it's these questions I find important, and are worth discussing with my wonderful, adoptive family. I'm starting to learn that nobody is perfect, and adoption, has the ability to make you the strongest person you know.

Hope I didn't stray too far from the subject, and that you got some other perspective....Show more

Yes...and no.

My mother and I have had our share of problems in forming our post-reunion relationship, and we both have our own amount of blame in those problems.

So while finding out that I was a loved and wanted baby was comforting and healing, the fact that she wasn't able to face me for many years after our initial reunion felt like a HUGE second rejection. I have always known in my mind that it is because of her own guilt and grief issues, but it is still very painful.

Now that we are working things out again, every time she tells me she loves me, I have a hard time believing her. I constantly fear that she will do this to me again...that this email will be the last email...that everything I sent to her will be unreplied to. I constantly feel like she is going to run away again. I just don't trust her.

And that is sad, because I really want to, but having been given up on twice by her, I just don't know how I can believe she won't ever do it again no matter how much she really does love me....Show more

It did help a tiny bit to know that my mother loved me. But in some ways it made it worse. Because it was almost more confusing. If she loved me, why was I taken away, and why would someone who loved me adopt me out?

A lot of the trauma with adoption happens when the baby or child is split apart from the person they bonded with in the womb and was supposed to feel safe and secure with. Even so early in life a baby has a strong connection with their mother and when they are taken away from them, their instincts kick in and they think they are in grave danger and the person who smells, sounds and feels so familiar and warm is no longer there to protect them and provide for them. This is when a lot of the trauma happens that will last a lifetime. The loss of what felt safe and connected. Someone took that away from them. Some babies and children cope better than others however, so that is why you get the variation of experiences for adults.

As an adult, to some extent information can heal things and reduce the feeling of isolation and confusion. However, the pain from that one moment will always be there no matter what.

I eventually met most of my biological family on my mother's side, but not my mother herself. To some extent it did heal a few things. I would have rages quite regularly and they stopped as soon as I met a couple of my biological family members. When I realised that they loved me also, it was comforting to think that I had two families.

However, after a while I still felt a lot of anger and was very upset at times and I couldn't quite figure it out, why if I had met most of my family and know my history etc that I feel so upset and resentful. After several hours and weeks of procrastinating I suddenly realised that they were being so nice to me, showering me with gifts and letters and so on, yet why didn't they stick by me when I was a baby. Why didn't they fight for me, keep me in the family? My mother couldnt cope, but I had 3 aunts and grandparents and granduncles who could have cared for me but didn't. And NOW they are fighting to meet me.

Suddenly this deep, violent anger that had been resting in me for my whole life erupted and I felt so angry and upset I cant describe it. I suddenly realised that even though I love them to death, I bloody hated them, i absolutely hated them for hurting me, for causing all this pain in my life. The initial adoption and my adoptive parents played a part and the "system" did too. But most of all the confusion was caused by THEM, my biological family who should have been there but weren't when I needed them the most....Show more

Most adoptees always internalize being adopted, and take it personally, no matter what the circumstances were surrounding their relinquishment.

They often have feelings of "what was wrong with me", "why didn't she love me?", etc. It DOES NOT MATTER how loved you were by your adoptive parents, either.

Even when we search and find out the reasons, it still hurts, even though we are mature enough to understand the reasons. So, I guess, in a way, it helps to hear it from our n moms themselves, even though our a parents may have told us that all our lives.

I am strongly opposed to is telling a child, "Your mom loved you so much, she gave you up for adoption." It DESTROYS a child's concept of love. We then, in our little brains as children , associate love with loss & feelings of sadness.

I was told this garbage by my a parents, because Catholic Charities TOLD them to say that, and it REALLY screwed me up.

When I was almost 6, my a parents had a biological child. When my a Mom and my sister came home from the hospital, I remember holding my new baby sister and crying. When my a parents asked me why I was crying, I replied, "I dont understand why you don't love my baby sister." They asked why I would say that, and I said, "Well, parents who love their babies give them away."

eta: Mei-Ling, that was the first time I realized & actually verbalized that adoption was messed up, and that it caused so many conflicting emotions.

I dont remember word for word what they said, but they did attempt to explain. I hate even remembering that. Makes me so sad. I think because Im newly in reunion with my n brothers, Im coming to grips with a lot of emotions that I thought were "ok". They were just buried.

eta: YES!!! Always tell them she loved them. Just dont preface it with "she gave you up because...." It just messes with our brains.
It's awesome you are so open & talk about their other mom. It sure does make it easier, Im sure! I think that's the healthiest & the most loving thing to do....Show more