Is being relinquished........ and being adopted.... 2 separate issues for adoptees.?

Question

Is being relinquished........ and being adopted.... 2 separate issues for adoptees.?

Answer 1

For me it is.  

The relinquishment is the part that really causes the most pain...the abandonment issues...the inability to trust, etc.  This is the root of all the psychological damage (for lack of a better word, I don't feel "damaged" but I don't know how else to put it).

Being adopted brings separate issues, in my case my adoptive family was a wonderful one, but still there are things with just trying to "fit in" with people who don't share any of the same traits as you do.  It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it comes with it's own set of issues.  Yes of course I loved my family but it's that old "square peg" analogy, never quite fitting in, always wondering who I look like in my bio family, who they are, where I came from, etc.  These things are quite separate from the initial relinquishment.

Great question, thanks for asking!

Answer 2

yes, they were both hard for me in different ways, losing my mom, obviously, any sense of who I was, any chance for affirmation for who I was.

Then having to pretend I was someone else was really hard, it still is.

I feel like every time I say my name it is a lie.

Answer 3

They are two separate issues but there is a blur.  Relinquishment can be felt as abandonment.  Adoption depends on who you ended up with.  If you have a good relationship with your adoptive parents - then it was a good thing.  If your adoptive parents abused you (emotionally, physically, sexually) or were the best parents you could have had - or something in between - your opinion of adoption will vary tremendously.

A corollary could be divorce and remarriage - but there you usually have a choice.  Not so in relinquishment and adoption.

Good question.

Answer 4

To me it is. Meaning that I'm okay with my adoption and love my adoptive parents very much. However I have an issue with my relinquishment, because I have a hard time understanding why my mother choose her lifestyle over me.

Answer 5

I think I can see how they would be for some.  If enough time passes between relinquishment and adoption, they would be separate events, and could easily carry separate reactions.

For me, not so much.  Since adoption is predicated on relinquishment, and since mine both happened fairly close together, for me, there is but one issue.  Certainly, if adoption had not been an option (or not been forced upon her), my first mom never would have relinquished me.  (This I know, since having spoken with her.)  So while I can see how it might be separate for some, it is not for me.

ETA:  Some of the other answers are making me think I was too hasty answering this.  There may be two separate issues, even for me, but perhaps they are hopelessly blurred in my mind.

ETA2: How can someone answer for someone else?  

Anyway, the divorce-remarriage issue makes me think...  As someone whose parents went through a divorce, it's certainly the case that their divorce was one trauma, and their respective remarriages were further traumas.

Answer 6

Wow, what a great question.  In some respects yes and in others they start to blur.  One thing I know for certain.  If I'd been relinquished but never adopted I'D BE ABLE TO GET MY d**n BIRTH CERTIFICATE!!

Just had to throw that in there.  Generally speaking, the relinquishment was the first loss and it has its own set of issues.  Many adoptees feel abandonment in ways that are different from non-adoptee abandonment issues.  If you're not adopted, please don't try to surmise on this one.  Thank you.

Adoption then has an entire set of issues that goes with it.  Of course, it's different for every adopted person what issues do or don't come up and to what degree.  But, an adopted person is, in fact, brought up by someone other than his or her natural relatives (usually.)  My natural father puts it like this.  He says that you can't always say whether it's better or worse, but it really is just different from being raised by blood relatives.  I know people want to believe there is no difference, because let's face it -- it would be simpler.  But, it is different.  

I'm sure there will be many, many great answers to this question, so I'll leave it up to others to expound.  I really wanted to get it out there that relinquishment means NO SEALED RECORDS, but adoption means there are sealed records.  Only adopted persons are denied their own factual records of birth.  Relinquished persons are not denied them.

Answer 7

I cannot answer in general - and obviously not for myself (not being an adoptee) but I CAN answer for my two brothers.  

Though they had the same mother, the older one was "removed" and the younger "relinquished".  However, for both of them, the "why" of that was always a seperate question from the questions they had about the "how" of the adoption.  

The younger one (relinquished) had particular problems with the "why didn't she want me?" thing.  Even once he came to grips with the fact that his mom was seriously MESSED UP with drugs and stuff - he still hurt that his dad hadn't stepped up to the plate.  After all, part of the Non-ID info included the fact that his father had been in the military at some point in time.  In my brother's childish fantasy's, all soldier's were heros and something akin to gods, so it just didn't make sense to him that his dad would have just let him get taken away.  

However, they also both struggled with "being adopted"....  though in all honesty, most of the real struggles with this ended in the first few years.  The older one came to us after a very horrible baby/toddlerhood.  At age three he did not know how to hug or kiss....  It took a while for him to really BELIEVE that he was staying somewhere for good, and to start trusting our family.  

The younger one was very loving from the start.  However, his seperation from his foster family was much more traumatic, since unlike his older brother, he'd only had one foster family in his whole life and had been with them since birth.  It took a few years to convince him that we really WERE his new family...  and once he did grasp it, he held to use fiercely.  You would never believe he was adopted the way he cares about learning everything about ever distant relative and extended family member he can, and the pride he takes in such things.  Still...  I think even this is sort of a symptom of the fact that he knows he is adopted...  it's his way of cementing himself into the family so he can't get ripped away.  

I'm not sure if my brothers have this sort of "seperation of issues" because there was a significant time lapse between the termination of their biological parents' rights and their adoptions, or if it's like this for all adoptees.  I will be interested to see the other answers.

Answer 8

Being relinquished is an abandonment issue.  You feel you've been abandoned and depending on your age, you may or may not understand why.  You can feel like you weren't good enough to be loved and wanted and kept.  I was always happy to have an accident that made me go to the hospital, because my mother was there and it meant I'd get to see her some.

Being adopted is a totally different issue, but the issue is different from one adoptee to another.  For some it's a matter of finally being accepted.  For me it was being raised by one person who wanted me and another who didn't.  Not all my foster parents were loving, so I learned to depend only on myself.  This continued because my adoptive parents wanted full control of me, and I couldn't feel I could depend on them, and felt I still had to depend only on myself.  So this led to conflict.

Answer 9

For me it is two different chapters in the same book.

Answer 10

yes, it is.

Answer 11

Yes, two of many.

Being relinquished, being adopted, dealing with adopters with whom you have nothing in common with, having to search to find out who you are, trying to establish relationships with your already-established bio family, it goes on and on.

The relinquishment was painful, but for me the worst part was the playacting.  I was TRULY cast in the wrong role, against type, in the wrong play.  Have nothing, NOTHING in common with adopters, but had to live with them wearing their name, acting 'as if' I had no other life, pretending I was like other girls my age.

Honestly, if I had to do it over again, it would be curtains for me.  I believe we were put on the planet to be our best selves, and I don't believe that's possible living a life of secrets and lies.