Adoption

Tweet

Anyone have anything to say about adoption? Are they a good thing, neutral or sometimes a bad idea? I was adopted and was raised in a family where my adoptive parents adopted 11 children altogether. Interesting life for sure all children from various backgrounds. My biological brother and I were adopted from Haiti, one brother from Brazil, 3 siblings from native american heritage, and finally the rest from the local area. Yes you can imagine the family dynamic here it wasn't all smiles and roses. Exact opposite for that matter. One thing that I have figured out in the recent years is that my adoptive mother has narcissistic personality disorder. All these years I've tried to figure out what exactly was wrong with our family. It wasn't until I came across a youtube video on narcissistic personality disorder that the light came on and I could 100% relate. My ah ha moment, everything made sense and I realized the danger of this environment. One of my sister in laws once mentioned in passing that my mom has npd but I shrugged it off. My idea of npd was someone that was very conceited and full of themselves. What I learned from the videos is that it involves a lot more than that especially in the family context. Favoritism, golden child, black sheep, triangulation,were rampant along with sexual abuse, extreme emotional abuse and manipulation. I wonder that all of this compounds the drama because we aren't even the biological children of my parents. Adoption is supposed to give children a chance to have a better life than the would have had. I have made the decision to go no contact with my adoptive mom and I don't regret it. The siblings that I still do have contact with struggle with depression, low self esteem and anxiety. Some of us got together about a year ago and openly discussed everything. We were shocked at all the lies and control my mom tried to maintain separate us. Now she has no power because the cat got let out of the bag. Coming back to the whole adoption thing, I even had thoughts of if I would have been better off with my biological family. Its still hard for me to determine how I feel about it. Imagine every time I connect with someone new I never know what to say about my family. I usually say I was adopted from Haiti and most people assume that I must have wonderful loving parents and a great life. Sometimes I just say nothing more because its easier to let them think positive than to explain the whole long story. I am now mostly healed and recovered from the effects of my past. It was a long and difficult journey. When I look back I often think how I went through that hell and didn't end up doing drugs, alcohol, or the suicidal thoughts. For some of my siblings they weren't so lucky, some of them struggle with these very things. For the most part adoption is a great chance for children to be raised in a family. How do you avoid harmful family dynamics? After all my parents must have seemed fine enough adopt all 11 of us. What qualifies people to adopt, does money talk? Just some of the questions I've always thought about. This is a very short version of my story, I know people have gone through similar and probably worse scenarios. I want to give a shout out of encouragement because I get what resilience you need to not give up. I get and understand no family is perfect and everyone has its secrets. What is some of your worst family secrets?