...that is the question
I'm not sure if I'm in the right part of the forum as I keep getting lost and ending up in the wrong place completely. If this should be moved feel free to ship it to wherever it should be.
First of all, an apology, this is likely to be a long post, but hopefully not too heavy. I'll leave you to decide whether to read on or not.
A brief (yeah right) biography: I'm in the UK, adopted with an adopted (non birth related) sister, both from birth. 27 yr male, tall dark and handsome (sorry, that must have slipped in from the dating site post I was doing
...). Perfectly happy with my parents, good childhood and no serious mental flaws that I know of (except trying to be funny when confronting serious topics
). We always knew we were adopted, could never pin point a first time of being told, but always told 'you're special because we chose you..'. I always did and always will believe it - I love my parents (read adoptive, but I've never used the word and won't start now) and always will.
For a long time I've thought about tracing my birth parents, if only to fill the missing gap. I did once (when drunk) blurt this out to my parents and they were great, saying they'd give me any info I needed and support me all the way. Great, until I sobered up.
I don't want to do it because I don't want to hurt my parents. I'm sure everyone says this, but I do have a reason that not everyone has. My sister traced her birth mother, has met her, stays in contact and even has a picture of her birth half sister (is that the correct term?) in her lounge. We don't talk about it much - in fact now I think about it I've never even talked to my sister about it (first problem maybe). Fact is that I can see how much it hurts my parents just to know that my sister has traced her birth mother. It's not said but seen, if you know what I mean. My sister is married with a little girl - I can't remember the exact phrase but something in a disciplinary way came about, along the words of 'you can't choose your Mum' came about, and our Mum took it the wrong way, leaving the room in tears. My sister's not the most sensitive and got in a bad mood about it, but I like to think I got all the sensitivity genes (this is where genes and adoption is a difficult/impossible area)- it hurt me just to witness the event.
Anyway, to the point. I would like to fill out some questions that I've always carried around. I want/need to know the circumstances of my adoption. If I have a birth mother I may want to meet her (don't hold me to anything here).
BUT
Even if I say so myself, I'm quite selfless, and would rather live a life of mystery (close to misery that word, when you look at it
) than hurt my parents feelings in even the slightest way. The subject pops up in my mind with tiresome regularity, but I can always find something else to distract me.
How can you seek out your birth parents when you have seen how much heartache it has caused when your adopted/ive sister has done the same? I still don't have my birth certificate or adoption papers, and don't want to ask for them because I know how much such a small act would hurt, even if some excuse was used.
If you've got this far I congratulate you. Sorry to go on but it always feels good on the rare occasions I get all this off my chest. I assume I'm not the only one with these kinds of feelings, and am looking at NORCAP to see if they can help, but would welcome any words you good people may have.