[bakerjw]

My birthday is coming up soon as well and I can say, and many people with birthdays near Christmas will attest, it sucks. Plain and simple it sucks because it is so hard to make any day special when close to Christmas. You always get the "One big gift for both days rather than two small gifts." A Christmas/birthday present. Sure it shouldn't be about the stuff, but when you're a kid quantity usually trumps quality. I see that behavior as a cop out. It is just plain laziness to do that to someone.

With that off my chest, IMHO you need to make your birthday special and all about you. With my wife and our boys, before they moved out on their own, we would always go out for dinner or fix whatever the birthday person wants. For my family it is not always that big of a deal, but for me it is something that I do look forward to doing.

If you haven't had your birthday yet, then do something special.
Best wishes.

[didi20]

Thank you all so much!!! I have stayed away because my birthday makes it tough for me to be here because i feel extra vulnerable and heartbroken and i feel like being here is too much...i fought with everyone once again on my birthday because i get angry that i have to explain that my birthday makes me sad to my best friends...and i am a very private and bottled up person as i'm sure some of you are as well especially about adoption...i'm not so good at opening up and letting my feelings out...and i just end up fighting and getting angry over silly things like being forced to go out on my birthday when all i wanna do is sit home and cry and miss my mom until i have no more tears and then go to bed...i didn't get a chance to do that and its been creeping up on me...if i don't cry once in a while it just makes me extra cranky and sensitive...

My ED is also really becoming a bigger problem than I know what to do with and my family and most of my friends don't know and don't understand...it is also completely connected to how i handle my feelings about my adoption...ED is eating disorder...i have been suffering from bulimia for about ten years but in the past two it has become a serious problem...previously it was just unhealthy relationships with food and exercise...now it is out of control and i don't know what to do about it...i've been told i must learn to accept my adoption in order to work towards recovery...i can't seem to find any adoptees that have an ED and i am really in need of some help on how to work on the two together since it seems that i have no other choice...i don't know if any of that makes sense...all i know is that i miss her and love her every minute of every day and feel like i am incapable of loving anyone even myeslf...and the way i handle my feelings of inferiority and being rejected is through my bulimic behaviors...any advice would be appreciated...i don't know what to do anymore...

[kakuehl]

Sweetheart, I'm not sure I have great advice for you. I will say that you are loved, by your "amazing" family, by the God who created you as the unique, gifted person you are, most probably by your bmom. (If you read the stories of many of us, there are very few who say, I placed my child for adoption because I didn't love him/her.) The reasons for placement were often the bparents were coerced or forced to place, or because they saw no other choice, or because they truly they were doing the best thing for their child.

As has been said in other posts, many of us were told never to try to find our children -- they were no longer ours, despite what our emotions told us. We were to let them live their new lives with their new families and not disrupt them. For some bmoms it's too painful to even think about.

Are you working with a couselor on the bulimia? Please try to take care of yourself. You are worth loving. Send Bromanchik a pm. She is a great resource for us as a counselor who knows adoption issues very well and she has helped many people find the help they need.

You are loved and loveable... that is clear from what you post. I pray that you will learn to stop blaming yourself and learn to believe that you are worthy of love.

[gorilla61701]

I can empathize with you. My birthday is in two more days, Dec.30th. I'm an adoptee and have felt hatred, anger, resentment, abandonment, depression for YEARS and about every emotion there is out there! I can tell you this, I STILL want to know who they are. I have this feeling about parenting, as I AM a parent and grandparent. As a parent, we are REQUIRED to watch our children and be responsible for them. If the children are abused, or molested, it falls back to the parents, "why did you allow this child to be with THAT person?!" "what were YOU THINKING?!" For PARENTS to adopt a child out and seal the records and never look back is unconscienable to me. I guess I still have the anger toward them. I could NEVER do that! This means EVEN if I WERE 15 years old! I'd find a way and I WOULD keep my baby! I still and always will believe they should have gotten an abortion. I've never believed I should have been here. I guess it's a prenatal thing of awareness I must've felt. I was told at 7 I was adopted and my parents were killed in a car accident. I STILL have VIVID memories of that day and wish I could forget it! It reoccured when my younger brother was told the same thing and I became enraged like nobody's business! I was LIVID! I calmed him down and told him to go out to play and it was a lie as I'd been told the same story! I hate my birthday too. Only because it's close to Christmas and every school year I couldn't bring treats ON MMMMYYYYY day as we were out of school. I always had to celebrate it on another day and I resented that. People give me gifts for my BD early and expect me to open them then! Then when my BD IS here it's empty and nothing to open as if it were just another day! Nobody wants to celebrate on your birthday because "I want to out the NNNNEEEEXXXXTTT
night!!!!" I mean REALLY, WHO CAN COMPETE WITH PARTYING ON NEW YEAR'S EVE?!?!?!?!?! I'm NOT about to celebrate then as everyone is celebrating THE NEW YEAR!!!! What a COLD time of the year!!!! I HATE MINE TOO! I hope my birthparents are HAUNTED by my memory!
How birthparents "THINK" they're doing the right thing....THEY BETTER BE 100% SURE first! How do they know these babies aren't sexually molested by their adopted families?! I don't want to be a dirty little paper trail! I STILL say and ALWAYS WILL SAY they should have gotten an abortion! These sealed adoptions are nothing more than LEGAL, MENTAL ABUSE! AND THE STATE IS MAKING MONEY FROM IT! Tell me WHY I CANNOT know MY BIRTH PARENTS?! But it's OKAY TO KNOW WHO MY PRESIDENT SLEEPS WITH?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I asked my Governor that right to his face! He DID try to help me. For that I will be eternally grateful to Governor Blagojevich!

[wishfulthinker]

Wow - Blagovich actually did something smart. I am in shock.

[didi20]

Thank you so much for sharing everyone!! I am so glad to know that I am not alone and all the crazy emotions I feel around this time are not awful things!! I am so sorry that you feel like you were never meant to be here...I understand all the emotions and anger and hurt that you feel towards your bparents and I empathize with those as I feel the same ones often and i hate having to lie about it and say that i know it was the best decision for me and them...while i do know that in my head i FEEL like how can it ever be the right decision when you're not with the people who made you and brought you into this world...i don't care about all the rules and what my bparents are told by others i want them to not be able to live without me because i feel like i can't live or love without them i feel empty and hurt....i know its completely irrational but that is just how my rejected lost korean baby mind feels. i do have an amazing afamily and would never trade them but as amazing as they are no matter how hard they try i feel like no one can ever fill the emptyness i feel from my bparents...

I think it is absolutely awful that your afamily told you that awful awful lie they should have never done that and i have no idea why they thought it was a good idea...sometimes i wish my afamily had forced me to talk about my adoption and how it made me feelso maybe i would be able to do it now...

please don't feel like you were never meant to be here...you have touched me by sharing your thoughts about your birthday and that has meant more than you can know...

i hope that you have a good day tomorrow and i agree that it is your day and everyone should do what ever you like no matter what comes the next day...its your day and you should not have to share it...my "best" friend has the exact same birthday as me and it just makes me feel like i'm yet again an inconvenience and no one should ever feel like that!! so happy birthday and thank your for your thoughts...

I have been trying to seek help for my bulimia but I am a full time medical student and do not work...my aparents stopped supporting my therapy because my insurance ran out and they do not know about my bulimia...i don't know what else to do about it it just hurts so much and i am feeling worse and worse. this feeling of rejection is just becoming too painful...my best friend is getting married and he didn't put me in the wedding party...i know that he's a guy and i'm a girl so its up to his bride to pick her girlfriends but it is just another form of rejection that i can't handle...i feel even more vulnerable right now because school is out and i am left alone with nothing but my thoughts and my ED.

[gorilla61701]

I understand your thoughts about the wedding party too. I felt like that when a family friend got married and asked a girl I knew to be her Jr. Bridesmaid. I would have LOVED to have been in the bridal party and to have been her Jr. Bridesmaid and share her day in the wedding party. But I didn't get asked. I went to the wedding. I REALLY got hurt when my cousins were married and I wasn't asked in any of them either. Their mom was my aunt/Godmother. We get really wonderful hiding our feelings, don't we?! You NEED to tell your family about your bulimia, ORRRR find a free clinic and admit to them your condition. We have one where I live! Call your health professionals about eating disorders and see if they have meetings/treatment ctrs. Thank you for sharing your condition and feeling like you trusted someone other than yourself with that information. Please let me know what you find out. I truly care. Thank you for understanding my feelings. I know I'm not alone on this issue. It means a LOT to me!
If anyone is interested in reading an interesting story, go to thepantagraph.com. Archive, Dec. 27, or 28th, 2001. The front cover should be titled "Brotherly Love".
You can also access these names and read about this PHENOMINAL story! Glary Klahr, Steve Barbin. AMAZING STORY!

[gorilla61701]

Governor Blagojevich has done many good things while in office. Among them increasing medical benefits for our Illinois Veterans! I think this arrest and these charges are ridiculous when his Atty. hasn't seen any evidence! Jesse Jackson's looks like, and ACTS like a 9 year old! "I was undercover for the prosecution!" Sounds like a NARC to me! Sounds like he'll be in everyone's business like his dad! Kind of like the United States! We get into all these wars and we don't have any business being there!

[kakuehl]

Didi, Does the medical school have counseling services? I know that the college I attended did. (I "got" to go when I was pregnant with D and choosng adoption.) The seminary where I did my master's also had counseling available.

Sometimes it just feels like everything you face just adds to the misery doesn't it. Have you asked your friend about his choices? (Saying something like I was really hoping to be part of your wedding party because I really want to support you on your weddeng day...) I had a friend once who wanted me to play flute for his wedding, but his bride nixed it. He did let me know what he had wanted which made me feel good, even though it didn't happen.)

You are obviously a talented young woman. (Med schools don't take dummies!) I pray that you will be able to find that self-worth, so that you don't need to punish yourself.

[Janeytwo]

Hi Didi!!

Thought I'd just drop in for a second. I saw Kathy in here posting to ya. She's smarter than the average bear - always has good stuff to say. I wanted to echo what she's saying.

Also wanted to tell you that I was told that my son and daughter would have no need to search for me as they were raised together and would be happy and well-adjusted and that they would have no emotional need to ever meet me. Just thought that might help you to understand a little bit. The Closed Era was a mess!!

Uhmmm...there was mention in here that birthparents from my Era sealed the records ourselves. Strange notion. The courts did that. Just in case you thought that your birthparents may have been behind having them closed. It's the way the laws were then. No one had an option. (At least in the 70's up here in Detroit that's how it was. Can't speak of course for other States).

Other than wanting to post that short note, I just wanted to send hugs your way. I know someone who has an eating disorder and she struggles terribly with it. I hope that you are able to find someone to aid you in overcoming it so that you can feel well again.

Wishing you much peace in the New Year!

[llb59]

Birthdays for us can be both painful and yet a day of joy. I am almost 50 and do understand your pain, especially if you have not had a good relationship with your adoptive family. One thing I do know is that God knew you before He created you in your birth mothers womb. You had no control over her wishes to give you up, but God has a special place and plan for your life. You are a gift, a special treasure; it is just that sometimes we cannot see that in ourselves...it is like we do not give oureselves permission to see that we are a gift. Even though I do not know you I give you permission to celebrate your life and I celebrate your life with you! Blessings to you on your birthday....

[wishfulthinker]

What a lovely reply, llb.

I get a very melancholy (sp?) feeling every year on my birthday. I have always imagined that somewhere out there my bmom is thinking about me on that day. My aparents always made it special for me every year though, which did help. After they both passed away, my birthday became even more depressing - not to mention the fact that I'm not getting any younger.

Just know that you are definitely not alone in your feelings of not liking your birthday. I do believe that God created us out of love and we are each very special. We adoptees have every right to be here just as everyone else on this earth. Our life is a gift that should be treasured, even among all of the questions we may have about our birthday.

[Waco88]

My 21st birthday is a week from today, and I still haven't found my birth mother. Sometimes I think dhe doesn't want to be found - but I always wonder about it.

For me though, May 11th is the day I always spend thinking about her. May 11th was the day I was adopted (I speant about 4 months in Foster care before I was adopted). So for me, May 11th is my family's Aniverssary - we celebrate it every year. It's my adoption day.

And even if I don't ever get to meet my mother, or my father (neither were married at the time) and possible siblings, I'll still be happy because I was given the chance to live a great life.

With that being said, Happy Birthday to all.

[hrisme]

I also have a very difficult time on my birthday. The last two years hasn't been bad, but prior to that I really struggled. I finally reached the point where I told family members I didn't want to celebrate that day, instead I asked them to celebrate on my "gotcha day" (the day I was adopted). For me, it's only a few days later, but that split means I can spend the day of my birth recognizing my feelings towards my birth & adoption, and then I can share a special day with my (adoptive) family without the pain of loss hanging over my shoulder.

[cwatkins123]

I understand where you are coming from. My b-day is Christmas and I too don't understand how you could give me up so quickly. My a-mother left the hospital with me and my b-dad didn't even know that she was coming home with me. He said that when he came home from work there I was. One thing that has helped me get through some of the pain and hurt is that I love myself and no matter what the circumstance surrounding my adoption I have a big/good heart and give everyone my all. My b-mom missed out on that. I was angry for a long time and took it out on others but when I learned to love myself it seemed as if others learned to love me back! And the way that I needed and wanted to be loved.