Adoption:
n
1.
the action or fact of legally taking another’s child and bringing it up as one’s own, or the fact of being adopted.
Being adopted is something that I have actually really struggled with. I have a family that cares for me and I was able to get a good education and I have access to a lot of opportunities. Such as going to college getting a degree, I can get a job, I can travel the world if I wanted to. I have had a great life but with being adopted comes challenges.
Some of the challenges that comes with being adopted is that, everyone knows you’re adopted and sometimes it feels like that’s how everyone sees you. You are the odd one out because your the kid that doesn’t know anything about your genetics or where you come from.
I use to really struggle with not knowing anything about where I was from. The reason for that is because while I was in school they would ask questions about your family and in some class we were learning about genetics and they said to ask your parents about the genetics you got from them. I obviously couldn’t do that because I don’t know anything about my birth parents. Like who do I get my eyes from? Do I look more like my mother or father? Like I have had all these questions and I’ll never get the answer to them.
Abandonment and self worth are two things that I think I have really struggled with being adopted. I wasn’t wanted by my family they didn’t love me. I was nothing to them. Was I not enough for them? How could they just give me up? I have always wondered what my birth family was like and when I was 17 or 18 I did a lot of research about finding your birth family because I was really curious about my birth family and I had wanted to know why they gave me up and what I came up with was that it’s worse if you know, because it’s usually not the answer you wanted to hear.
I have struggled a lot with the fact that everyone is gonna leave me because that’s what happens. It happened when I was born and it can happen again. I always think that once I start getting close to someone that they will leave me. And I always think I can’t go through that pain anymore. I just want to have someone actually stick with me. I just want to feel wanted, for once in my life.
Self worth, is something I didn’t really realize I struggled with because I had lots of friends. My family cared for me I had it all. At the time I didn’t realize that those friends of mine, they didn’t really care for me they were just there.
My family cared for me but did they really love me? Yea, probably but it didn’t feel like it. It didn’t feel like it because I always kinda felt left out when I was younger because I’m the youngest of the first cousins and they would tease me and I couldn’t be involved in certain things because I wasn’t old enough or they always saw me as that 12 year old.
I don’t say “I love you” because how can I possibly love someone if I can’t accept love from others. I want that phrase to actually mean something and not just be something I say because it’s normal. I feel like it’s something that’s said without much meaning behind it.
I need it to have a meaning behind it, which is why I don’t say it often and if I do then I hope that you don’t take it for granted. Saying those words actually scares me because what if I say it and they leave me. Then what was the point?
Adoption is something that I truly hold very close to my heart. I have loved getting to tell others about my adoption but the one question I hate being asked is “ do you know why you were put up for adoption” it’s the one question that I have hid from. I don’t want to feel the pain that will come from finding out, because I know the answer I want to hear won’t actually be the reason as to why I was put up for adoption. It’s also a question that I think they shouldn’t ask because sometimes that question can trigger something inside of me. It can make me think about all the reasons of why I wasn’t wanted and the what if’s.
I have held some resentment against my birth family because I always wanted to know why and I have had some hatred towards them because I have always thought that I wasn’t good enough for them. I have started to forgive them for the choice they made and I know it will take a little while for me to fully forgive them because it isn’t something that will change overnight. It’s taken me 20 years to even start the process of forgiveness and although it may seem like a long time but it’s really not that long because I honestly thought I would die with this resentment towards them because of the choice they made.
Moving towards the step of forgiving them is something that I didn’t ever think I’d be able to do, because I have felt so much pain from being adopted but I have really started to see that they wanted to give me a better life than what they could’ve given me and I have been able to move towards forgiving them all because I was able to do a inner healing and it actually really helped.
I have seen that I have purpose and that I am loved by others and I saw all the lies I believed but I have also been able to see all the truths that the Lord says about me.
This next step of being able to get closure and forgiving them isn’t going to easy by any means but it will be really good for me because I have felt like their is a weight holding me down and now it’s starting to be lifted but it’s still holding me down to a certain degree. The closure will be hard and painful but it’s going to help me to move towards being able to possibly help others who may have a similar story or have felt the same way that I have.
Being adopted isn’t who I am, it’s only part of who I am. I use to think that adoption was who I was and that’s what people saw me as. It honestly was all I saw myself as because everyone around me saw me as that adopted kid. Growing up around kids who aren’t adopted was hard because they couldn’t understand what it was like to not know anything about their birth parents.
Adoption will always still be apart of me but I refuse to let that be what people see me as because that’s not all of me because I have so much more to myself than being adopted.
I am someone who loves music and will dance around the house even though my family doesn’t like it sometimes, I will spend countless hours watching greys anatomy, I have 3 tattoos, I am loved by my friends and family, but most importantly I am a daughter of the father and his love is what I cherish the most. His love is the first love that I have been able to fully accept.
