Desperately seeking adoption advice
I’m gonna put this here & be open to what comes out of it:
I gave birth when I was 18.
I later gave my son up for adoption after trying to raise him for 4.5yrs feeling like I was failing him. He deserves more. I knew someone else could give him a better life (especially considering I live with a neurotic panic disorder, and a good splash of depression + anger issues).
The new family was supposed to allow me to watch him grow up, but as soon as everything was official they cut me completely out as though I was the enemy. I had profusely explained that I would never ever choose to disrupt his stability & I will never ever try to take him back bc I was/am fully aware that I’m not stable enough to have a positive impact on his personal growth/developement. .. but they continued to shut down any attempt I made, even if I just asked for a picture. I just wanted to know what he looked like & to see a smile on his face to validate that I had given him a happy life.
He was 5 the last time I saw him. He’ll be 22 this year. I’m embarrassed that I don’t have much success or anything else to show for my life (daily life for me is mostly just surviving my mental health issues) & I’m terrified of disturbing his life.
I feel like it would be incredibly selfish of me to reach or step into his life uninvited. But of course there are people close to me that say it’s selfish to not reach out to him.
I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know if he thinks I didn’t love him. I loved him more than anything. I loved him so much that I knew my own feelings were much less important than his & his future. I knew he deserved better opportunities than I would be able to provide him with. He absolutely deserved stability.
I don’t know if he feels abandoned. I don’t know if he hates me. I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid of letting more time go by & then it’s been too long .. has it been too long already?
Should I continue to just be open to his communication if/when he chooses it? The people in my life that say I should reach out, say that he might have been told that I didn’t want him or that he may have been strongly discouraged from doing it seeing as how they cut me out so coldly. There’s no telling what might have been said to him. I’ve mentioned my own feelings a few times here, 🤷♀️ bc I’m human.. but they don’t matter at all in comparison to his. I just hope with every fiber of my being that he’s happy with a full life. I don’t know if I’m supposed to reach out to him or leave him be. I’ve considered a private investigator possibly but in all reality, I’ll never be able to afford that. … just don’t know what to do. I don’t know if he knows his biological dad had another son, his half brother. Also, don’t know if he knows his biological dad passed away many years ago. Every Internet search I’ve done has come up empty. I believe they keep him very private online. He may be on the spectrum & that could change a lot of things. I could damage his routine & his happiness if I were to reach out & him not be able to receive me. I’m at a loss 🤷♀️