Adopted Young Adult

Belonging

Sometimes I wonder if many other people have gone through what I have gone through, have felt the same emotions and feelings I have felt, shed the tears that I have shed and experienced the joys and happiness that I have experienced, asked the many questions I have asked, had the arguments that I have had, thought about the future like I have thought, and had to endure the daunting thought that your life could have turned out to be something completely different, with different people, different faces, different holidays, different home. That is the adventure of being adopted.

From the moment that I was born, “a little bundle of joy”, I was destined to lead a life different from others. My birth mother was young, un-married, had no career prospects or a supportive family; circumstance’s really, she could never have been able to offer me a life as I have now

Adoption, it’s not like you see in the movies, nothing like it at all, in fact, being adopted is something really special and in my case was not confusing or hectic, I don’t have this whole past life story full of traumatic events, and so far I have led a completely “normal” life. However being adopted has most definitely had an impact on my life in more ways than one. Despairing times and amazing times. I feel blessed that I was adopted. There is no knowing where I could have ended up, Paris living on the Champs Elysees, daughter of an artist, or even living a superstar lifestyle in California who knows I could have ended up with celebrity parents such as Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, older sister to their adopted bi-racial son, Connor. I feel fortunate I wasn’t as they are now divorced and I would have been a child of a broken marriage!

Holiday Confusion

However there was a time in my life, when on what should have been an amazing holiday in Australia, sailing around the Great Barrier Reef on a beautiful yacht with friends, at the age of ten, the questions started to rush around my brain, all the, Why’s, the When’s and the How’s. I was bombarded with them. I felt heart heavy, heartbroken, heartsick to think that, this wasn’t my “real” family. These emotions of rage, sadness and confusion led to me taking it out on my mum. The black beast of hate in my breast filled me with a resentment and loathing for my adopted mother. I felt like Jekyll and Hyde, two different people, two split emotions fighting within me. I know I loved my mum but still there was a nagging feeling of guilt that my love should only lie with my birth mum. Grief, pain and melancholy over came me, was my life a living lie?

Assaulted by the Why’s, the When’s and the How’s, I had to have answers. I could not bring myself to ask my mum, she had told me why I was adopted, but I needed a thorough and deeper understanding and although she had provided me with all the essentials I needed, she could not provide me with this and I didn’t want her to.

Mum Knows Best

Fortunately for me, my Mum saw how troubled and lost I was feeling at this time, she looked for help and found it by getting in touch with the Scottish Adoption Services, that’s when I met Kathryn. I felt that I could say things to Kathryn that I couldn’t express to my Mum without the fear of hurting her feelings, through talking and asking questions with Kathryn slowly over time I began to feel happier and gained a greater understanding about my adoption that allowed me to feel at peace. On the up side of this process I met four other girls that had been adopted. I had never met another adopted person before apart from my brother! This experience showed me that there were others out there who had been in my shoes; I found that these girls I befriended each had a completely different adoption story.

I am now glowing inside to know that I have such a caring and loving family. I have resolved my questions and fears and look to the future with an optimistic heart and being adopted is not going to stop me or change anything. From a young girl who felt displaced and confused, I look now at all the amazing people I have met and the wonderful friendships I hold so deeply in my heart. My cousin  always tells me “how weird it would be without [me]”.

I am adopted. I belong. I am a part of my family.