Did you change after meeting your natural parent/s?

Question

Adoptees, after you were reunited did your personality, attitudes, or understanding of adoption change? How? I've heard others mention how the experience affected them and would love to hear more views on this.

Answer 1

I could care less about my Natural parents. They aren't even my parents.  They are just another stranger. Seriously , dont do any of that bullxxxx and go looking for your natural parents. Its just stupid , and it makes your REAL parents feel really really bad.

Answer 2

No she was everything I was told she was. I never want or need to see her again. She is a horrible person. Thank God for my Adoptive Mom. She is my real mom. The other woman is just the woman that had me.

Answer 3

I met my biological mother and father at the age of fifteen. However, all of my life I had known I was adopted and knew from what my adoptive parents told me was that my biological parents were loving people and wanted me to have a better life as they could not care for my needs. I was suppose to be severely disabled and very young.

Well, when I met them a lot of birth history I had previously known was false cause first my file was lost and the social worker did my history from memory, then also my biological mother and father refused to give any medical information and so forth.

I have many medical problems and no one has understood the cause, although I had similar problems to foster children in our home with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Biological family members told me my biological mother did drink and do drugs and did not know she was pregnant for some time however, she to this day denies it all and blames myself and the ministry for my problems.

She was not so young being 25 at the time of my birth, my biological father was 18 so he was young. When I met my biological mother she wanted to be "my mother" and control my life, well no thank you, but I have a mother. Then she started lying about when I was born, at 30 weeks premature and she said that the doctors were lying, that I was born at 34 weeks, then later 35 weeks, then 32 weeks and on and on.

I was indeed born at 30 weeks, and she apparently went to the ER demanding an ultrasound as she claimed she had the chicken pox, but that is not linked to any of my medical problems and rarely does that affect the fetus. Then nowhere does it say she had the chicken pox on medical files even hers, it was unknown.

She has lied to me, over and over and says c**p about me to myself and about my family and most recently for the millionth time cut me out of her life, a loss to her not I.

She wanted me in her life, and this time around asked what worked best for myself. I said e-mail for communication was best, she did not like that. She phoned me and bitched about my mother to me, then said I want to know nothing about your family, yet sat there grilling me on the phone about them.

I e-mailed her saying I was upset with her commons and would prefer she did not make any negative comments about them. Then later that day I got an e-mail saying I could hate her and her family, that she wanted nothing to do with me and did care about me (bs). Anyway, my mother and many close adults in my life read all the e-mails I sent my biological mother and not once did I say I hate her, everyone was confused as to where she got that idea.

Anyway, I feel sorry for my biological siblings that life with her and our biological father. My biological father, well everyone in that family lets my biological mother control them. Sad, but one day it could come back to haunt her.

I wish at times never met her, I still am very angry with her as only year ago I found out about the drugs and drinking, only time with help heal. I wish I could have a relationship with my full siblings, but my biological mother makes that impossible. They think it's my fault for not seeing them as well.

I just am more grateful for being adopted.  

Answer 4

I don't think I changed.  Not exactly.  I had a better sense of who I am.  Maybe that gave me a bit more confidence and self-assuredness.  But I don't think I changed who I was, fundamentally.  

What did change, for me, was an unwillingness to continue to play roles that ill-fit me.  I had for many years been the peacemaker in my family.  While I probably still fall into that sometimes, I'm less likely to, now.  It's not a role I ever felt comfortable with, and I notice an unwillingness to let others put me into that role.  Maybe that goes a long with having a better sense of who I am.  I'm not sure.

So, deep down, no change.  But I think I'm better in touch with that "deep down" now.  And that's important to me.

Answer 5

I met my birth parents when I was a teenager, and it helped me so much. I felt so lost and had a lot of depression issues. Once I met them and knew their story and where I came from I felt so much better. Before I knew them, I felt like I had been rejected by my own flesh and blood. Afterward, I understood that they actually had SO much love for me, that they carried me full term (instead of abortion) so that they could not only give me the chance of having a life, but a life much better than what they could give. After meeting them, I think I turned into a much more positive person, and I didn't have to take anti-depressants anymore.

Answer 6

No, it didn't change my personality.  I mean, I am who I am.  That remains.  But, it helped me greatly to finally have the rest of the picture.  I understand more about my origins. I see people with whom I share personality and physical traits in a way that I didn't have before.  Perhaps that doesn't seem like much to people who've always had it, but it was something that I wanted.  It means a lot to me to have it.  It makes me more comfortable with who I am.

Getting to know my first family and what happened prior to my adoption has filled in some blank spaces.  It was hard for me to see how much pain my relinquishment caused my first family -- extended family included.  Seeing my father in tears and hearing about how he searched and suffered wasn't something I was expecting.  It was hard to watch.  Seven years later, we have a great relationship, and it's good to see him happy.

Answer 7

Finding my bparents did not change my personality at all.  It did fill in a few pieces of my own puzzle.  It also made me realize that I knew much more about them than I realized...just hints of intuition throughout my life that I never trusted but should have.

However the experience of having to petition the courts for my records to be opened...that was humiliating.  Having to pay a hefty sum of money to get information about myself that every non-adopted citizen can get for free...that made me realize the discrimination that I suffer as an adoptee.  The ridiculous irony that I know my bparents names and addresses, but I cannot get a copy of my original birth certificate to protect their anonymity...uuuh...is not what makes this country great.  So, the experience of  bureaucratic red-tape, suffering the effects of outdated rules about secrecy, and the very real and continuous discrimination definitely changed me.  

Answer 8

never met em, but i might like adoption more if i did cause they probably are messed up.

Answer 9

Yes. I found a part of me, i never had the trust to believe was really me. It validated a lot for me. I was in a semi fog, and it lifted....a lot.

Answer 10

I do not think I change, I pretty much knew who I was and was where I wanted to be in life before the reunion occured.  Like KTea my reunion was not the best with my birthmom.  She is a negative, overbearing person, but I did not let that affect my life.  We are to the point were we have limited contact, an email or call once a year.  It definately brought me closer to my parents and I realized how speical our relationship was.  

My understanding of my adoption became slightly clearer.  Back when I was adopted little was truly known about reason's why, who etc.  Most stories where they wanted a better life, etc. etc.  I heard a variety of stories from my BirthMom, but in the end my BirthFather told me the truth.  I do have a good friendship with him, so that relationship did enrich my life.  

Answer 11

I became more of myself.

It's like I finally had the manual that everyone else has at the beginning of their lives.  It took a couple years, but everything clicked.

There are environmental issues, though.  My nmother says I have 'downstairs' mentality.  As in upstairs/downstairs.  Say a person who comes to clean my house doesn't do a very good job, I blow it off.  Mother thinks this is very 'downstairs' of me, and that I should get what I pay for.  She believes that I identify with 'downstairs' too much.

But having been raised with my afamily (who had very downstairs mentality) I believe that no matter how much money I have, I will never quite get upstairs.

Answer 12

I felt sad that my bio father was never a part of my life growing up, But I can't say I love him because I don't know him. I think of him more as a friend. It was neat to see what physical traits we have in common, But that's about it.  

Answer 13

I have become more personally authentic after meeting my n-family.