LDA's, How did you feel when you found out?

I found out when i was just 15 and it didn't bother me.

My foster mother's cousin adopted me days after i was born. i was the tenth child, now you know why.

when i was growing up, we often visited them in the province but they never told me that i belong to them. I found it odd that every time i go there they were all good to me and they were hugging me like there was no tomorrow.

when my mother told me i was happy about it, because seriously, i didn't like the condition of my real family. they have a huge population and were living in tiny spaces while I've been enjoying myself in the city with all the luxuries possible.

im happy and lucky they've adopted me because i like the story of my life. I was never just a person, born to this world and lived a happy life like everyone else, i was adopted, and now i have two fathers, two mothers, 11 siblings, about 20 uncles and aunts and a LOT of cousins!

and i receive tons of gifts every Christmas! both families love me!

I don't know if you consider 9 to be an LDA. However it was the ost shocking earth shaking moment of my life to this day.

In the second that I realized what the words I was reading meant, everything I thought was real was proven to be a lie. I felt dirty. I felt like I was a bad person.

I remember after putting everything away (I had been plundering thru my mother's things); I went and took a bath and scrubbed until my skin was red.

I would have much rather known from the beginning. My amom explained it by saying she wanted me to have a normal childhood and didn't want me to get hurt. By lying to me she achieved the exact opposite.

I can't answer that firsthand (I was informed since birth about my adoption) but I can tell you how I would feel and offer somewhat of an example:

My aparents have been telling me since before I could understand that I am adopted. I have grown up with it being a part of me and I knew all my life that it is nothing to be ashamed of.

Switching gears slightly now: My aunt didn't tell my cousin he was adopted until he was 12 years old. He's a pretty laid back person and "seemed" to take it pretty well (no one but him probably knows how he really felt/feels). ETA: My entire family knew that my cousin was adopted, except him...sad right?

If my parents had waited that long to tell me, I feel like I would have had SERIOUS trust issues with them as well as devestating identity issues.

Though I do not know my biological parents, I still know who I am and where I fit in my adoptive family because I've been able to integrate being adopted in my personality to where I don't feel betrayed or lost because of it.

PS: I love the questions you are asking today...they are actually good questions =)

I found out at age 31. Even then my adoptive father refused to acknowledge it. My adoptive mom had passed away several years earlier and I think he may have promised that he would never tell me. It turns out that my younger brother knew (I'm the only adopted child) because our grandfather told him - and then threatened him with the Wrath of God if I found out. He was 10 years old at the time.

How did I feel? Like I had to completely rewrite my "story" from the viewpoint of an adopted child - where everyone knows the child is adopted but the adoptee herself. Thinking about my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins...YOU...ALL...KNEW!!! I'm sure my aparents didn't tell me to protect me, although from what I don't know. Fine. But to continue to deny it for the next 20+ years after I knew? That doesn't make any sense.

I would have liked to have been told the story of how I came to be theirs. I don't think they had much information on my first parents - and I later found that what they were apparently told (as told to me by my amom's sister) was not the entire truth so it wouldn't have helped me find my first mom anyway. I was able to find her using non-ID. But if no one ever told me - I never would have searched for her.

I really feel sorry for adoptees who find out at their aparents' funerals - and then the rest of the family treats them like they no longer exist because they're not "blood" kin.

What is LDA?