How can you be certain that adoptees FEEL differently?

cruzgirlz3

I have never been a man, but I imagine it feels differently. I have never had cancer but I imagine a person looks at life differently. I have never been a minority but I understand that it must feel different. Trying to understand creates respect AND empathy. I don't get why you are so angry at those who are trying to "understand"

Part of life is asking questions. The most interesting people I know struggle and ask, and disagree, and learn. A person can choose to go through life as a robot not asking or questioning but they end up bland and shallow if you ask me. You are certainly entitled hold fast to your beliefs about adoption but I can't understand why, if you are so secure in these beliefs, you are so threatened by other views.

ETA-Linny, I wish I could give you a few more thumbs up for your answer!

Linny G

Awww, hit a nerve? "Angry searching adoptees?" Oh, Ollie. I wish I could hug you.
I think we had a breakthrough with you. You said it right here-"You angry searching adoptees who are trying to discover yourselves you will never know what it feels like to be a BIO CHILD so there is no way with certainty that you can say you are different."

We will NEVER know what it feels like to be a BIO CHILD. BINGO, OLLIE-O! There's the difference.

Now- go take a nap, and come back when you are ready for more therapy, hun. You have made some progress today. See- it wasn't so bad. Next, you will see that we search because we LOVE, NOT because we are angry.

Flying Monkey #073177

AHA! There you go. I will never know what it would feel like to be raised as a bio child in my natural family, therefore I KNOW I feel differently than those who do.

Robin W

I have both raised children and two children I was forced to surrender for adoption in the 60's. I am now reunited and I have listened carefully to my adult children as they have talked about how it felt to grow up adopted. YES, there is a difference. For instance, you won't find many natural children feeling obligated or grateful to their parents for being loved and cared for. You also don't hear many natural children talking about always feeling "out of place."

Most people who adopt don't want to hear this and that is a sad situation because these kids need more understanding as they grow up...not denial. Just accepting that they are different and that they feel grief and feelings of abandonment would go a long way towards helping the adopted person. Love doesn't conquer all.

kateiskate

Well....
While it is true that I will never know what it feels like to be a biological child and I do not know what it is like to have biological ties to someone, can you not understand the pain coming from not knowing when your real birthdate is? Because I don't know my real birthdate. I also have very little chance of ever reuniting with my first family because I have so little information. If I was my amom's biological child, I would know, my height, my weight, my DOB, and my real name. Since I am not, I don't know these things.

Being adopted makes me different from people who are not adopted. That's a fact. A FACT. Nothing will ever change that. There is no one else I know who knows exactly how it feels to be me, to be in the dark about my origin, to be so uncomfortable with my culture. No one else I know has ever feared abandonment so terribly, or had to wonder if their first mom loved them. My fiance, my friends, my family don't relate. My sister can a little, but she has a hard time understanding my anger and sadness because she was adopted domestically and has met her first mom. I barely talk about it with her because I am so jealous that she has a link to her origin, to her biology. I am jealous our a parents were there at her birth, jealous that she knows who she looks like, jealous that she is white and blends into our afamily unlike me, the literal black sheep sticking out like a sore thumb.

I don't really care if that makes me a bad person and I know this answer won't change your mind, Ollie, but hopefully there's someone like me who may be just as confused as me who can feel a little less like a freak from reading this. Maybe an a parent will read this and gain some understanding I wish my parents had.

Rowan

I don't think we feel differently. We have the same emotions as everyone else.I dont really understand what you are saying here Ollie.

To be honest, we do live a different experience, in that we are away from our bio families, unlike the majority of our friends. I was the only adopted child in my class at school as a child, other then my twin brother. And through middle school. It was only when i made it to high school that i met another girl who was adopted.

Our overall lives are no different, at least mine wasnt. I got up, went to school, lived my life. I didnt let my adoption rule my life. Yes, it was a part of my life, and i accept that it made me different.

The last part of this question is needlessly cruel. You should be ashamed of yourself. As an adoptee, how could you fling such a nasty sentence at someone?

maybe

I guess you weren't created by biology, must have come from the cabbage patch.

Isabel A

"You angry searching adoptees who are trying to discover yourselves you will never know what it feels like to be a BIO CHILD so there is no way with certainty that you can say you are different."

I think you just answered your own question.

Adoptees WILL never know what it feels like to be kept and THAT is what makes their perceptions different from bio children who were kept.

It can color everything.

27 weeks with #1 Its a Boy

I am adopted and I feel no need to discover myself. I know who I am and what i want in my life. I feel that I am no different than anyone else.

I was brought up in a home with love, support, and all the great things that parents do with the children that the want and love.

I would like to know my bio mother, but I don't feel the need to find her or take the time to wonder "what If"

I am happy with the way my life turned out.

Are you upset about something?

â™¥â™¥Ritaâ™¥â™¥

"you people....." that is sure to stir up the masses. Sure sounds like you are getting testy because the masses are not agreeing.....

The very fact that adoptees say they have certain feelings, emotions, utterances and so on.....makes me believe they in fact feel differently. Knowing how humans develop their identities, knowing how society places such a huge price on "who we are".....many adoptees feel differently. Whether or not you have these feelings is moot.....when you question someone elses emotions....you are stepping on their own intelligence!!

How can you question that with any kind of strength?? Unbelievable.

kidmindi

cuz Im adopted and I always felt different....My whole world is different

I'm 36 and just last night I got the pleasure of talking to my brother for the first time EVER. My siblings and I have never all 4 been in a room together... Non adopted ppl never even consider the gift of their siblings. Non adopted ppl think nothing of all being together...it is something that as an adopted person, I have been denied

opedial

I think the difference is they do not know what it is like to LIVE and be RAISED by their bio parents, so it is inherently different. Not always bad, not always good but you have to agree it is different.

Carol c

My son that I reunited with when he was 21 years old, spent alot of time telling me how he felt differently growing up. He was athletic - they were not. He is big and tall - his adopters are small - his sense of humor they found weird - it fit right in with my family's sense of humor. He told me that my smell was comforting and familiar to him even when we first met.
He told me that he had never seen anyone who looked like him until he met me and that he had never been able to imagine what someone like him could grow up to be until he met me.

This is what he told me and I am CERTAIN he was telling me the truth because I am his mother.

Since then, I have been in and facilitated numerous adoption search/support groups, attended adoption conferences and read lots of books written by adoptees and mental health professionals.

You may not feel differently and that's your choice. But why keep attacking people who share their own experience and feelings here? That's just plain rude where I come from.

Mei-Ling

I am the biological child of my biological parents. You might want to tweak your wording a little next time.

However, I will never be the biologically-RAISED child of my biological parents - and many of my friends, peers, and neighbourhood acquaintances WERE raised by their biologically-related parents.

That's how I know I am different because I do not know what that connection feels like. It could be the same as being adopted. But I would not know and I will never really know because I WASN'T raised by my biologically-related parents.

That is the differerence.

squirrel

I have a friend who was adopted that was told by her adoptive gmother that she could not play with things cuz she wasnt blood. so there can be a difference. And Robin - I wasnt adopted but I DO feel grateful and obligated to my mother. She could have given me up. Her life would have been much easier...

monkeykitty83

Since no one can both be an adoptee AND be raised by their biological family, no single person can say definitively how the experiences compare. But we should try to have understanding and empathy for people who don't share our own situation in all aspects of life. It's better to listen to others, than to tie yourself in knots trying to figure out how different it is, since we can never know.

Each person has a different personality and individual experiences anyway.

Nexra

I've never felt that I was different.

My mom and I bonded right when she got me. It's not any different compared to biological families. She is my mom and I'm her daughter.

lizzey

well if your not adopted then how do you know what its like to be adopted

lizzey

this question is so stupid catn we go to a topic that makes sense

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