I decided to start this website more for myself and not specifically for other people to read. If you happen to come across this website, this post is to try and give you some idea why I am doing this.
Please note that because I am mainly writing this for myself, I am not overly concerned about grammar, spelling, or even putting my thoughts down coherently.
I have dealt with mental health problems for my entire life, and in the past year, I have finally committed to therapy and dealing with my problems rather than working around them.
I started journalling to try and help with my memory and learn more about some of the emotional issues I had.
I decided to start posting things publicly with the realisation that someone might read it and it might help them. Or, alternatively, it would be nice to hear from other people that have experienced these issues. It is somewhat comforting to know that I am not alone with these issues.
I have been diagnosed with ADHD, I likely have ASD, I struggle with identifying/feeling emotions and also remembering quite a lot of my past.
As you may have figured from the domain name, I am adopted. I was adopted at birth, and my adoptive parents were good and loving people that did everything they could to make sure I had a good life. I was told about my adoption at birth, and from what I can remember, I never felt the need to reconnect with my birth family.
My birth mother eventually contacted me, and we tried to have a relationship, but I experienced serious problems with her, and my own personal problems exacerbated the situation. I have since gone no/low contact with her.
These issues I experienced with the reunion caused a mental breakdown on my part which is what led me to therapy.
When I started therapy, I was adamant that my adoption was not a factor in my lifelong mental health issues.
As my mental health started to improve, I started to try to look back at my past issues and understand them better. I think I because obsessed with trying to find the root cause of my problems with the idea that it will put me in a better position to handle challenging relationships in the future, and improve my current relationships, and it would be nice to be happier as well.
Recently, I decided to look at my problems from the adoption angle to see if other adoptees had mental health issues, or if other adoptees had similarly disastrous reunion stories as myself.
It turns out that mental health problems among adoptees are extremely common. ADHD and autism seem to be extremely overrepresented among adoptees.
I ended up learning about relinquishment trauma and how that can lead to developmental trauma and CPTSD in adults. I could grasp the idea that a child who is adopted a bit older may suffer from this kind of trauma, but even babies given up at birth and who have good adoptive parents will suffer from this. It also doesn’t seem to matter that much that people like me were not interested in the idea of connecting with our birth mother.
At first, it seemed like some pseudo-psychology, but the prevalence of mental health issues adoptees suffer from, and the fact that my issues correlate with these so much made me think that this could actually be the root problem all along.
Therefore, this site is a platform for me to learn more about my own problems and the link with adoption and perhaps I will write something that will be useful for another adoptee struggling with their mental health.