My Intro — Chapter 1
Dysfunctional — adjective; not operating normally or properly.
Growing up, I’d say that my family was a very dysfunctional environment to be in; that’s putting it nicely. I had a single parent family with one sibling — this is normal and many people grow up in this setting and they thrive. Looking back, I thrived, but that was of my own doing. I had to, otherwise I’d go insane, I would literally lose my mind. I had every reason to.
I’ve always found peace in reading and writing. I’ve written before but nothing has ever really stuck. If I saw a therapist, I’m sure they’d have a reason for that. I write, this time, in remembrance of my late mother; my biological mother — I’m adopted. I wouldn’t call this a blog, or a journal.. I don’t know what I would call this. I guess it’s just real life.
I was adopted at 4 years old and I was in foster care with my adopted mother from 11 days old. I was ‘lucky’ enough to not be in the system, being passed from home to home. For the purpose of stability, that was the good part of my adoption; and having my older sister. I’m grateful for being adopted for the most part.
I read about other people’s adoptive stories and wonder what it is like to have the ‘perfect’ adoption story — but I don’t think those actually exist. There is always something preventing that. I read about people being too late when it comes to meeting their biological families — BF. When it comes to my own BF — it was court ordered that I only have contact with my birth grandmother — BG, throughout my closed adoption. As I was adopted later on, I had already built a relationship with my BG and my adopted mother — AM, asked for this to be part of the ‘agreement’, which, thankfully, was accepted by the courts. However, I was seeing my birth mother — BM, after I was adopted as well. This was not ‘allowed’ but my AM thought that it would be best for both myself and my BM to continue having a relationship post adoption as I had been seeing her for many years prior to my adoption. In a way, I am also thankful for this as I was able to have an insight and understanding of why I was put up for adoption.
There are, however, a few things during my adoption that I have struggled with understanding:
- Why my AM adopted me and then proceeded to physically abuse me.
- Why my BM had me, realised that she could not manage dealing with me due to her own poor failing mental health issues, but decided to have two other children and put them up for adoption after me.
I’ve found peace and acceptance in other difficulties of my adoption, but these two are the ones that I can’t understand. My BM has now passed away, but she was never really ‘there’ when I found her. She had Bipolar and Multiple Sclerosis — so communicating with her the standard way was never possible. My AM is in denial — she knows what she’s done and has asked for forgiveness and blames her own upbringing as a cause for my own upbringing but it’s not the answer that I want — and that’s what I cannot accept.
I’m not sure if this is a way for me to deal with my own issues, whilst publicly announcing them to the world. I guess that’s just the journey I’m willing to go on.
I apologise in advance.
