mrspants - have you thought about registering with NORCAP that you are interested in hearing from your father if he were also looking for you. It doesn't mean you have to have contact straight away even if he is, but it means that if he were also to register, or already be registered, he would know you wanted to hear from you too.
My norcap internediatory is helping me understand and come to terms with my feelings but also to realise my parents and birth mother probably also have fears and anxiety of their own.
It's also nice to be able to vocalise things that I may not want to tell my BM just yet and I'm sure she does the same. We are taking things quite slowely as that is what we both want. I am very wary though, and I am sure she is too.
With my brother I feel like he and I had no choice in our separation. Much like you and your dad I guess. So from that point of view I have never felt it bad or wrong to search for him in the same way as I felt when searching for my mother. I still haven't ever mentioned it to my parents though...
For me, I think part of the reason I have had to hide the fact I'm searching is because I feel my mother would think I was being disloyal to her and would take it quite badly. She told me once my birth mother never loved me the way they love me. I think that is quite a common feeling though, to be worried about how the adopted parents feel and not want to rock the boat for fear of upsetting them or making them feel second best.
That is why it was easier to be searching for my brother rather than my mother. I always knew that in finding him there was a strong chance it would lead to her. I never suspected it would be the other way round.
I was told she had gone abroad and I didn't know her new husband's surname, which made it really hard to look for her. I now know know that she didn't go abroad at all and she lives in the place she would write to my parents from when they first had me. So they had her address and details all along it seems.
This makes me feel even more that my parents didn't, and don't, want me to find her.
Maryz - You sound like you are coping really well with everything he is throwing at you. It must be really hard from you and your ds will come to realise that one day like I have.
I don't feel guilty for the way I behaved though. It was a normal reaction as I now understand. My parents just didn't know how to deal with it.
Even the child psychologist school suggested to them I was taken too (because they could see something was terribly wrong even when my parents could not) was clueless. My parents mentioned my adoption which led me to floods of tears in the first meeting. It wasn't mentioned again as my parents felt it was irrelevant. That was the first and only time they ever told me any reali info or details about it.
Of course I had had years of hiding my true feelings, pain and hurt by then so I wasn't about to give them any more ammo with which to wound me.
I had learnt by then that if I revealed any of my inner feelings or thoughts it would be thrown back at me and used to hurt me at some point later.
My mother yelled at me soon after that the psychologist was right and that I was just a selfish child who was only happy when they gave me things. Oh the irony when I would go out of my way to act pleased and happy with the things they gave me (which my sister had usually told them is what I wanted for birthday etc when in fact it was what she wanted). Things I would never have asked for and had to them share/give to my sisters to have.
Gosh I sound so bitter but really I'm not. I still hurt and I still can't talk to my parents and feel uncomfortable around them. But I have dealt with quite a lot of it now and the fact I can talk about it at all says a lot t o me on how far I've come. The biggest issue was that I never felt safe with them and couldn't talk to them ever. So Maryz just keep talking, and listening, to your ds1 and he will come to realise in time that you were there for him.
To this day my parents have no clue that I felt suicidal most of my childhood and that I cried myself to sleep every night. I was too scared to attempt suicide in case I failed though as my mother made it clear her opinion on people who tried these things for attention and "if they were serious they'd do it properly". I had no clue how to do it properly and couldn't bear to face her wrath if I failed...
Things only started to get better for me when I finally escaped from them and was able to finally start being my real self without fear of the consequences.
I too went out of my way to be really awful at times. But I did it because I wanted a reaction from them; for them to hold me close and tell me they loved me no matter what. When I didn't get that I just pushed harder and harder and behaved worse and worse. I understand now I was testing them to see if I was safe and secure or whether they'd give me away too as I was obviously unlovable and worthless.
I don't think i'm looking to replace my mother with my birth mother. In some ways I am angry with her for giving me up. Abandoning me. Leaving me with people who weren't suitable and wouldn't have been given a child for adoption if she had gone through the usual channels. But I also know my life could have been much worse.
In others ways I guess I want to hear that she had no choice and regrets it and has always thought of me.
Whatever the reality I know it will be emotional but I don't see her as a quick fix or that I will be rushing into her arms.
I have some of the answers to my questions already, relaid through my intermediatory. But I am not convinced entirely by what i'm told. I know I have glossed over parts of my life that I don't want her to know about. I have been worried for a long time that she will be upset to hear that my childhood was not happy as it seems a lot of birth mothers get some solice from the fact their child had a happy childhood with their adoptive parents.
I guess it will take a long time before I could trust her. Or anybody for that matter...
Please don't feel sad for me about my sisters. The situation has actually been a big relief to me and I have felt happier than I have in years. For as long as I can remember I have felt an outsider and it has validated my feelings about that in a way.
It has also lifted this burden from me where I was going out of my way for my family (parents and sisters) because that is what you do, and yet getting little help or support in return. I have learnt that I shouldn't be a doormat to them any more and actually I do have worth as person and I can say no. I don't have to keep pleasing them, or put up with shitty behaviour from them, in the hope they will love me.
I also now realise my parents weren't great parents and that is not my fault either. And from advice on here I realise too that it is not my job to make my birth mother feel she did the right thing giving me up. That I can say that I was unhappy and that is not my fault and that she will need to deal with that fact and I shouldn't worry about that.
I know I too will make mistakes as a parent. But the most important thing to me is that my ds does and will always know that I love him, and love him unconditionally. That I will always be here for him and that he can talk to me about anything and everything. That he has a voice and can say whatever he is thinking or feeling and, even if I don't like what I hear, I will listen to him.
