My adoptive parents lied my whole life and I have a way out, what should I do?...
I’m 17F in the UK and honestly I feel like my whole life has been built on lies and I don’t know what to do anymore.
I was placed into foster care when I was 1 because of domestic violence, drug/alcohol issues and my dad signing me over while my biological mum was fighting for me. I was meant to be adopted by another family first but that fell through and then I was adopted around age 4/5 by my current adoptive family.
Growing up things seemed okay and I was very close to them, but once I became a teenager my mental health completely spiralled. I started self harming, became suicidal, developed severe abandonment trauma, dissociation issues and unhealthy attachment/dependency problems. For nearly 5 years I’ve been in and out of trauma and mental health struggles and I never fully understood why I felt so abandoned and unwanted.
Then in summer 2025 I finally got in contact with my biological mum following a very traumatic event of someonw I cared for cutting contact and my adoptive family completely not understand or helping, so I reached out online.
She told me there had been letterbox contact my entire life that I was NEVER shown and NEVER told about. My adoptive parents always told me she never bothered to contact me or care about me. But she showed me the letters herself and she had written consistently. Some of the replies from my adoptive parents were honestly eemotionallyfucked and insensitive and in the final letter they claimed they had “asked me” whether I wanted to continue contact and apparently I said no.
I was never asked. I didn’t even know the contact existed.
Finding this out genuinely broke something in me because the main source of my trauma has always been believing my mum abandoned me and never cared. If I’d known she was trying to reach out all these years, I honestly think I would’ve grown up far less traumatised.
There’s also a lot of other stuff they brush off, including trauma from sexual assault. My adoptive mum also had an affair and tried to gaslight me into believing it never happened even when there was proof. I genuinely feel like I can’t trust anything they say anymore and the house feels toxic constantly, my adoptive parents argue constantly.
Recently my best friend got engaged to someone in the army, they are planning to get married in August, hes in the army though which means they qualify for SFA housing, and she’s offered for me to move in with them. Technically I’d be “running away” but I’m 17 so they can’t exactly force me to stay. My biological mum thinks it would actually be healthier for me because my current environment is severely affecting my mental health. We'd be waiting until August until I could move, so I'm not rushing anything either.
I feel guilty because they did raise me and there were good times, but at the same time I feel completely betrayed and emotionally manipulated. I don’t know if moving out is the right decision or if I’m just acting emotionally after everything I found out. I genuinely feel nothing good for then anymore, I haven't for a long time and I'm stressed and doubting what I should do.
What would you do in my situation? What should I do?