r/Adopted

Did anyone else opt out of being a parent?

My reasons:

1. Being a child was such a miserable, lonely, and painful experience. I thought that all childhoods were that way and wanted to spare another child the same.

2. I grew up in an abusive, alcoholic home. No self control taught, no self soothing, compassion, teamwork, sense of family, etc. I didn’t feel I had the tools to properly raise a child.

3. I didn’t want to subject another generation to my parents.

4. I didn’t know where I came from or my genetics. Closed adoption in ‘69. No real info until I was in my late 30’s.

5. I had a younger sibling that was an absolute monster. Sociopath. Violent. Attachment disorder, oppositional defiance disorder, fetal alcohol syndrome (also adopted.) Parents had no clue how to deal with her so they drank and beat us both. Home was absolute chaos. It made me terrified of what I could end up with as a parent.

Anyone else? Please chime in with your experience.

Hey everyone, I am a male in my 30s and recently reached out to my biological father to begin what may be/what I would like to be a lasting relationship.

My dad (the man I grew up with as my father) adopted me at 4 years old. My bio father has been known the entire time but was not very present when I was little - I have a few memories of this period and some pics with him when I was a baby/toddler but according to my mom’s side he just wasn’t around much. he has said that he loves me very much and letting me go was very difficult.

He was kept aware of my activities and development over the years as part of the court agreement in my adoption but we had no direct contact until I was 18. Since then we have had sporadic communication but he has been very available the times I have reached out.

We have had each other’s info for some time and have communicated off and on over the years. I stopped talking to him completely 6 years ago sort of by accident and laziness but he didn’t reach back out so I essentially said fuck him and didn’t pursue anything. I feel the onerous was on him to reach out more, but that’s not the point of this post.

So here we are, lots of therapy later, and I’m trying to start fresh. He’s a cool dude, has 3 daughters, and well…we have a lot in common even with the separation for 30ish years. Go figure. I already have a dad (he’s fucking awesome, I love my dad) so I’m not looking for a father figure, but I have had a hole in my heart all my life because of this, and I want to have a relationship with him and get a better idea of the other half of my background.

So my question(s?) is this: those who have similar experiences, where does this man belong in my life? How might this relationship look? We live close to each again other now (unintentional) so we have met up recently but…I don’t know how this relationship is supposed to work. Any thoughts and perspectives are appreciated.

Tl;dr: I have known my bio dad my entire life, but haven’t had a relationship with him. I have a real Dad who adopted me, so I don’t need a father figure, but would like to know where he (bio dad) should/could fit in my life.

Thank you so much for reading!

My parents are the main source of my misery. I wasn’t allowed to express my emotions because they didn’t care and didn’t want to be bothered. When I cried, my mom told me to stop. My parents didn’t want to talk to me about my feelings and depression, so they handed me a check to give to a therapist instead. They were always free to cry, to yell, to punch walls and slam doors. If I did the same, I would get yelled at and punished. My older siblings ( also adopted) didn’t care about me either. I literally had no one and zero support. Still don’t decades later. One of my siblings, the favorite child, died a few years ago, and my dad is getting more cruel to me every day. My whole family takes their anger out on me and it’s destroying my soul and my will to live. Sorry for the long post. I needed to get this out.

Now maybe there are exceptions, I don't know. But it seems like after being adopted. most of us grow up trying to please the family automatically and I don't think any of us notice this till later in life it wasn't a good healthy thing...and the "family" sure as hell didn't notice it was an unhealthy thing for the kid they adopted...

As an example, I look back at my childhood and I recall almost every time there was "family" together, a bunch of people sitting in the living room, all talking, I was always just there...quiet...never much participating. Because even as a child I felt like what was being talked about was stupid pointless junk, and I wanted to challenge their bs....(As an INTP I need mental stimulation not brain rot) yet I knew if I ever spoke up and called out the junk they said, then I would get dismissed or everyone would gang up on me and use the number game of we all think this way, you're the odd one out, so you're wrong! So I would just keep my mouth shut, I would be screaming in my head, "this is all insane!" Or "I can't wait to leave." So I would just bite my tongue to avoid causing them problems...while causing myself damage...

Another example I can think of is "family traditions" adoptive parents don't see themselves as adoptive parents, but as your parent, even if they aren't. Thanksgiving in particular, there was a tradition of before we all start eating, we have 3 peas on our plate, and we go around the table saying 3 things we are grateful for....I always thought this was lame and not genuine cause you're forcing it to be done. Whenever I tried to say I don't want to do this, I would get in trouble... They would say this is a family tradition. YEAH, YOUR FAMILY. I got brought in from the outside, have we all forgot that? (Granted nobody in the family ever wanted to tell me I was adopted, they all knew, even the members younger then me...) Point is, they are your traditions and are being forced on me and I couldn't stand my ground cause I was a child or teenager. Yet this is abuse, most might not see it as abuse, but it was. So I would have to fake my way trough participation. Saying generic garbage they all wanted to hear. "I'm grateful for family, and good health, and ......) I forget what the third thing I said was. They all ate it up, (pun not intended) None seemed to have any self awareness that I was just saying crap to get the thing to move on o it could end already.

Anyway, just another venting from me I guess lol.

At this point in my life, I feel it is definitely racially motivated because I'm the only non-white in my 'family' thus I am the only one treated this way. I'm never taken seriously, and/or anything I say is outright ignored. And when a relevant issue comes up later, they all turn to me like it's my fault that I didn't tell them anything even though I had. Or all my life growing up and still now, I am used to do things for everyone like a slave. Oh you aren't doing anything? Go pick up sticks or wipe wood. Yea I'm not joking about wiping wood. Sounds abhorrently stupid because it is since my AP long ran out of real things for me to do for them so they are pulling anything out of their ass at this point

Meanwhile the most recent achievement is my cousin who graduated at the same time as me and is taking time off between his life of school before transitioning to working until we die, to travel and do things he wants to do. 'Oh wow good for him!', 'Such a hard working kid!', 'He deserves it!', etc etc. Turns to me, 'since you're not even trying to apply to jobs you can go drop off more of my dry cleaning and pick up the last load' and the next order after the next and so on. Obviously all I’ve been doing is applying for jobs since I graduated despite this rundown market. Cousin gets job out of nepotism and family connections

This has to be some type of bias and favouritism because biological relative nonsense blah blah. I'm looked down on and treated like a slave my whole life. 'Oh don't worry about that, [Whole-Regret2346] will help pick it up for you/clean this up'

I recently experienced the loss of a very close pet and it is activating adoption abandonment trauma for me. I am struggling with feeling that others cannot attune to me, that I will lose all of the love I gain and be left by loved ones, and have an overwhelming need to self-isolate.

Has anyone been through this before?

My whole life I’ve had a huge aversion to anything baby-scented; the wipes, baby powder, baby shampoo, as well as that sticky barfy apple juice cheerios diaper-y smell they tend to have.

I thought it was just a random preference and a dislike for babies but I recently bought baby oil because someone suggested it for dry skin and I had to throw it in the trash; smelling the scent on myself was giving me crazy bad anxiety. The other day I went to someone’s house and had to leave early because it smelled like a full-blown nursery, but they didn’t have kids.

Babies are fine. They’re cute, I like meeting them, I’ll hold them, whatever. I just can’t stand the smell.

Just wondering if it’s an adoptee thing; I was adopted at birth and I’m wondering if those god awful smells are connected with the primal wound.

I have always had a suspicion that my parents were hiding something from me. Both of my parents are African American. My father's family has roots in Georgia, Texas, and Oklahoma. Both of my parents have dark hair, dark eyes, and brown skin. My brother is even darker than they are.

In contrast, I have much lighter features. I have blonde hair and hazel eyes, although I was born with red hair and blue eyes that changed when I was around two years old. As far as I know, I am the only person on either side of my family with these traits.

My mother took a DNA test that estimated her ancestry as 79.6% African and 18.8% European, with most of her European ancestry coming from Northwestern Europe, including Scandinavian and British populations. The test also showed 0.4% South Indian and Sri Lankan, 0.2% Filipino and Austronesian, and trace amounts (0.1%) of Native American, North African, and West Asian ancestry. In addition, the results identified Jamaican ancestry.

Because of my appearance, people have often wondered why I look so different from my parents and where my physical traits came from. Their questions, combined with the noticeable differences in our appearances, have contributed to my suspicion that there may be something about my family history that I do not yet know. Throughout my life, I have frequently been mistaken for being of mixed Black and White heritage or for having ancestry from South America or the Caribbean. People have guessed that I am Brazilian, Dominican, Venezuelan, Puerto Rican, or even Black, White, and Asian.

I’m also the only one with a history of heart problems and my mom hides my important documents like my ssn and my birth certificate but doesn’t do the same for my brother. Also I have never seen a photo of my mom pregnant with me.

I’ve been trying to understand why relationships have always been so difficult for me, and I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar.
I was adopted at birth., my biological mom struggled with meth addiction. I was a secret pregnancy, yes, I was born addicted , she’d had three abortions before me, and she also tried to end the pregnancy but it was too late. I was eventually placed for adoption.
I was adopted into a financially stable family, but emotionally, things were complicated. My adoptive mom went through nine brain surgeries throughout my childhood, so she was often sick or recovering. Because of that, I was raised by a series of caregivers and babysitters. They became the people I felt safest with, but they would eventually leave. In a few cases, my adoptive mom even fired them after I accidentally called them “Mom” because they were the ones taking care of me every day.
I don’t remember a time when I didn’t feel alone. Even as a little kid, I always felt like the people I loved would eventually disappear. Every time I got attached to someone, they were gone. Looking back, I think that taught me that love isn’t permanent and that people always leave.
Now as an adult, I notice that I love too hard. I overgive in relationships because I just want to feel loved and chosen. At the same time, I’m constantly afraid the other person is going to leave me. It’s like I’m always waiting for the people I care about to walk away, and because of that, I’ve stayed in unhealthy relationships and accepted less than I deserved because I didn’t want to be alone. As a 23-year-old female, trying to figure herself out I need advice from other adoptees I’m in therapy now and trying to understand how much of this comes from adoption and my childhood experiences.
Has anyone else who was adopted, had unstable caregivers, or experienced a lot of separation as a child struggled with this? Did it affect your adult relationships? What helped you heal or build healthier attachments?

I was internationally adopted from Colombia as a baby through a closed adoption.
When I was 8 years old, my adoptive parents decided to contact my biological mother. I had no idea they were doing this. At first, my biological mother replied that she wanted no contact with “the girl” (me). My adoptive mother then sent her an angry message along with a photo of me, saying that I was her daughter. After that, my biological mother agreed to meet me.

So at 8 years old, I flew to Colombia and met my biological mother. Looking back, I don’t think I was emotionally old enough to understand or process what was happening. I just went along with what all the adults had decided.

I also met my two younger half-siblings for the first time. The difficult part is that they didn’t know I was their sister. My biological mother introduced me as just a coworker friend. My half-brother, who was about 6 years old at the time, actually said that he felt like there was something more going on. My biological mother immediately told him that wasn’t true.

Another painful part is that my adoption records state that I was conceived through rape, but I don’t even know if that’s the full truth. My biological mother has never wanted to talk about it or answer my questions, so I still don’t know what really happened.

Years later, when I was 21, I met more members of my biological family. They had only found out about my existence later in life because I had been kept a secret. They wanted to meet me, and I said yes.
However, they didn’t want my biological mother to know they were seeing me because she gets very angry whenever I’m mentioned. While we were together, they suddenly decided to video call her without asking me first. My aunt literally pushed me behind a building so my biological mother wouldn’t see me on the camera.

That moment really hurt. I felt completely alone.
When I look back at my life, I feel like I never had any control over the biggest parts of my own story. I didn’t choose the adoption. I didn’t choose when contact started. I didn’t choose how I met my biological mother. I had to pretend not to be my siblings’ sister. Even as an adult, people were still making decisions

Its this overwhelming feeling that everyone else has been writing my life story while I just had to live it.

Im just writing this to vent and because other people might relate to some of it

I just have to vent for a minute because it’s been kind of bothering me lately. When I was just between five and 10 years old, I can remember my adopted mother telling me that I should learn how to cook and clean and look after myself because nobody else would wanna marry me. At the time I was rather innocent and I thought oh OK, now at 64 years I have three beautiful children, four beautiful grandchildren. What a bitch.

I know I sound all moody, all doom and gloom and edge lord like.

I just find the more I look into the world of being an adopted and the more I learn and understand and see the things I couldn't understand before, as things click more into place, and the image becomes clearer...

It just feels like we were Fates chosen characters in a story, we were the characters to suffer so the reader of the story can feel something, and cry over our lives and trauma. (In this case the universe itself is the reader)

Maybe I'm just venting, but I do at least find sharing these thoughts and talking with you guys to be a breath of fresh air.

Today is not only Independence Day for the United States, but also my Gotcha Day! 16 years ago today I met my parents and became a US citizen.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

I spend a lot of time sitting in our backyard, which is really just controlled chaos. There’s always something leaning against something else. A project that never got finished. A pile that’s supposed to get cleaned up next weekend.

My boyfriend works nonstop, his ninety-year-old mother has dementia, his daughter is in and out of the house from college, and life just sort of spills out into the yard. And I’m just sort of here as a newish girlfriend, a homeless person living in somebody else’s world. Perhaps adopted once again.

Next door is the complete opposite. The lawn looks like a golf course. The bushes are perfectly trimmed. Every few days somebody is spraying weeds or fussing over another corner of the yard. They even built a fence between our properties. Honestly, I don’t blame them. If I had a yard that looked like that, I’d probably want to block out ours too.

They have this little dog that barks constantly. The wife dotes on the dog the way my adoptive mother doted on every dog she ever had. I couldn’t even tell you all of our dogs names because I’ve never really been a dog person. But hearing her fuss over it instantly takes me back to my own childhood.

Sometimes I’ll look over and see the husband standing there with a distant look on his face while his wife is talking about running to the store or whatever project is next. Their adopted Korean daughter, who is an adult now, comes and goes, and I’ll hear things like, “Honey, can you bring me the pool cleaner “ or, “Sweetie, let’s go get Starbucks.”

They’re probably just having an ordinary family conversation, and I have no idea what their life is actually like. I’ve never even spoken to their daughter. Maybe they’re genuinely happy. Maybe they’ve made it work because there were never biological children mixed into their family. I honestly don’t know.

What I do know is that watching them in what I perceive as “performing family”opens a wound in me that never really healed. And maybe that’s not fair, maybe they’re just BEING family. But like their way, which is different than our way of being family, the one I’ve created with my boyfriend and his mother. ButI’m so fucked up in the head at this point I have no idea what’s real and what’s not.

I grew up in a very Christian adoptive home. We were expected to say I love you all the time and hug each other and it always felt weird to me. One of the words we learned was “agape, or “unconditional love, and I was taught that our little perfect family in the country in middle of nowhere in a place called Graceland Farms was blessed by the Lord Jesus himself. We were this special family brought together by God. I believed it.

Then my adoptive dad died when I was in my 40s and I had spent most of my adult life low contact with them but trying to still maintain appearances and having these surface level conversations and still performing for them because that’s what they liked. I had just moved back home after being out of state for many years.

Not long after, my adoptive mom invited me, her biological daughter, and her two grandchildren on a vacation together. The whole trip felt wrong. My sister and I had never gotten along, and I spent most of that vacation feeling like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. There was a fight between me and my sister, she threw a full container of bug spray at my head, the kids started crying and I was blamed for everything.

When we got home, I thought I was going to move back in with my adoptive mom while I got back on my feet, which had been the plan before vacation. My life had completely unraveled. I had bounced between jobs, moved all over the country, and I honestly believed that if there was ever a time your family would catch you, this was it.

Instead, because of the fight over vacation and probably because pent up resentment over the years from my covert narcissist adopted mother, who is a serial dogooder volunteer with every organization known to man, I was told I wasn’t welcome anymore because she needed space.

Not long after that, her biological daughter and the kids moved into the house.

That was the end of us.

I hate them all.

I didn’t reach out after that, and I’m sure they tell themselves a story that I just didn’t love them. Maybe that’s true in a way. I honestly don’t know how you’re supposed to manufacture the same kind of love for strangers that people seem to have naturally for their own families. That’s the part nobody wants to talk about.

I’ve wondered if my sister wanted a real sister and resented me from the beginning. I know I never found it in my heart to love her the way people say sisters are supposed to love each other. We were just two completely different people forced into the same story.

When I look back, I realize I never really felt at home with any of them. We were on completely different wavelengths. They seemed interested in gossip, home and nesting, appearances, and what everybody else was doing. I wanted to travel, make films, ask bigger questions, and create a life that felt extraordinary. It always felt like we were speaking different languages. Looking back, I don’t think any of us really understood each other.

People love to tell adoptees that love makes a family. Yeah sure if you are delusional and distorted by religion, which my family was.

I think adoption is the ultimate mindfuck because you’re expected to build your entire identity on a foundation that disappeared before you were old enough to understand it. I lost my first family, my grandparents, my cousins, my medical history, my ancestry, my last name, and every story that came before me. Everyone else seems to grow up inside a family narrative that stretches back generations.

Mine started with paperwork.

I met my biological mother once. It didn’t magically answer anything. It didn’t erase the loss. It just reminded me that I feel disconnected from both worlds.

Now I live with my boyfriend and his mother. Even with dementia, she tells him she loves him. She encourages him. She still sees him as her son in the deepest sense of the word.

Watching that is beautiful.

It’s also heartbreaking to me because I honestly don’t know what unconditional love feels like. Agape my ass, it was all an illusion, a delusion brought on by adopted mother fantasy and religion.

As strange as it sounds, I feel more at home in this imperfect, messy house than I ever did in the picture-perfect family I grew up in. The chaos here feels real. Nobody is pretending everything is fine. Nobody is performing the role of the perfect family. There’s something honest about that, and after a lifetime of feeling like I was acting in someone else’s story, honesty has become more comforting than perfection.

That’s the sadness I carry around every day. It isn’t loud. It’s just always there. It’s the sadness of realizing that if my entire life fell apart tomorrow, I don’t have a family home to go back to. I don’t have parents to call. I don’t have grandparents, cousins, aunts, or uncles whose history is also my history. I don’t even know who those people are.

People tell adoptees to be grateful. I wish more people understood that gratitude and grief can exist at the same time. I wish more people understood that losing your history before you’re old enough to remember it doesn’t simply disappear because someone tells you that love is enough.

I’m forty-seven years old, and sometimes all it takes is hearing a neighbor call someone “Honey” across the yard, hearing a little dog bark, or watching someone fuss over a perfectly trimmed lawn to remind me that I’ve spent my entire life performing family — even deeply believing it- agape! for people that weren’t even there for me when I really, really needed them.

The love wasn’t real.

That’s why adoption is the ultimate mindfuck.

Howdy everyone,

I was adopted as an infant in Laredo, Texas in 1998. My adoption paperwork lists ABC Adoption Inc / ABC Adoption Agency as the agency involved in my adoption.

I had petitioned the courts to unseal my adoption records. I received all my documents with the help of a texas lawyer as an intermediary. I also called and have been in communication with the adoption agency, there is only one person running the agency now but they have only been there since 2007. Finally with the help of a Facebook search group, I was connected with a family that matched many of the details I had been given. I have now verified through both Ancestry and MyHeritage DNA testing that I am biologically related to this family.

I have spoken on the phone with the woman who is my biological mother, with a friend of mine translating between us. I have also had a video call with my biological parents and a biological cousin who helped translate.

My biological mother told me that my birthdate and some of the details listed in my adoption documents are wrong, and that what I have believed about my birth and adoption may not be accurate. She also said she never went through an adoption agency and never intended to place me for adoption.

According to her, a woman named “Sylvia Garcia” brought her to the U.S. with the promise of work. She says that on the day I was born, she was not allowed to see me, was told to leave or face deportation, and never knew what happened to me afterward.

The DNA tests confirm that I am biologically connected to the woman and man claiming to be my biological parents. I am trying to stay grounded and focus on verifiable facts, but I am still trying to understand and verify the specific details of what happened, including the adoption process, the accuracy of my records, and whether my adoption was truly voluntary.

I’m especially looking for information, advice, or experiences involving:

ABC Adoption Inc / ABC Adoption Agency

Laredo, Texas adoptions around 1998 or that general time period

Adoptions involving mothers from Mexico or border-area situations

Incorrect birthdates or incorrect birth details in adoption paperwork

Birth mothers later saying they never consented or did not understand what was happening

I’m not trying to accuse anyone without proof. I’m just trying to figure out what questions to ask, what records to request, and whether anyone else has experienced something similar.

For safety/context: I have not given anyone personal information that could be used for identity theft, and I have not given anyone money. They have not asked me for money or anything like that. So far, they have only asked to talk and communicate. They also really want to meet in person, but I’m unsure if I am ready for that yet.

Has anyone here had experience with ABC Adoption Inc / ABC Adoption Agency in Laredo or San Antonio, especially in the late 1990s? Has anyone discovered later that their adoption documents were inaccurate, or that their birth family’s version of events was very different from the official paperwork?

I would appreciate any advice on how to verify something like this decades later, what records I should request, or what steps I should take next to try and figure this out.

P.S. edit - deleted other post and wanted to correct/update some facts/wording.

Edit 2: added more context/background

I find myself tearing up as I think about the possibility that I lost a possible one and only thing from the day of my birth and being given up...something from my bio parents to me...even if nobody thought much about it at the time.

Anyone else ever think about something like that? Maybe the adoptive parents wouldn't want the kid to have something from the bio parents, but even so, the thought of maybe our bio parents giving their child some small something, maybe like a teddy bear....gets me to feel immense sadness.