[birdeez4]

Okay, I'm coming from a the bsis/raised child aspect, but how often do people tell adopted children that they need to form a relationship with their birthfamily members, if the adopted child doesn't want a relationship(even if it's only temporary, until the achild sorts things out)? I totally admit I'm biased; until recently, I would have loved to have had a relationship with my placed bsis, but she didn't want one with me. But I'm told that I have 'to understand HER feelings and not force the issue; to give her space and understanding'. So I have. I've never initiated contact, but have let her know that I'm open if she ever wants to talk. The only time she contacts me is if the two of them 'fall out' and placed sis wants to reconnect with my mom.

I've read alot of the adoptee threads and I see alot of posts encouraging the adoptees to do what is comfortable for them; don't rush things if they aren't ready, etc. So why is it any different for birthsibs? We had no more say in the adoption than the adoptee did.... Sorry for the rant...

[dpen6]

Originally Posted by birdeez4

Okay, I'm coming from a the bsis/raised child aspect, but how often do people tell adopted children that they need to form a relationship with their birthfamily members, if the adopted child doesn't want a relationship(even if it's only temporary, until the achild sorts things out)? I totally admit I'm biased; until recently, I would have loved to have had a relationship with my placed bsis, but she didn't want one with me. But I'm told that I have 'to understand HER feelings and not force the issue; to give her space and understanding'. So I have. I've never initiated contact, but have let her know that I'm open if she ever wants to talk. The only time she contacts me is if the two of them 'fall out' and placed sis wants to reconnect with my mom.

I've read alot of the adoptee threads and I see alot of posts encouraging the adoptees to do what is comfortable for them; don't rush things if they aren't ready, etc. So why is it any different for birthsibs? We had no more say in the adoption than the adoptee did.... Sorry for the rant...

Because all things are NOT equal in adoption. the adoptee was removed from their biofamily and went to totally differnt people. Thats the reality. The adoption happened TO THEM....no one else. Yes, the EFFECTS of adoption DO ripple to lots of other people but the physical removel of a baby from mother and family happens to the adoptee. There really doesnt need to be the competition that is being presented here , thats we lots of adoptees have to deal with with parents ect...now with sibs.

In all facets of adoption, whether it be bmoms/biochildren, bfathers, bsibs its therelationships that can't be forced if forced are setting things up for failure. In terms of contact the adoptee...IMO...has a right to the information gained from contact for the most pratical of reasons. Another group not ever talked about that suffer the ripples of adoption are the children of adoptees in terms of needed information. They are totally dismissed and that makes me angry. As my kids have grown and the potential for grandchildren for me loams closer I want all my information, as much as I can get. THEY don't really care about relationships AT ALL...but would like to know thier family history. To try to force any kind of relationship on them would be terribly wrong.

Knitty girl , I am understanding your fustration and I agree your mother is doing this all wrong, she does need to be more understanding of your feelings and I am sorry she is not. The fact that she is pushing you to contact her daughter is dead wrong, and the fact that she gave out your information is also very wrong. If someone gave my information to someone that it was nown that I was not ready for iwould be furious also.

I am willing to bet your bsis has no idea of the dram her bmother is creating.

[kakuehl]

Dear Knittygirl,
Somehow I just found this thread tonight. Have you continued counseling? If you have, or are considering finding help to deal with what is happening in your life, try to find someone who has experience with adoption issues. As you can tell from the responses to your thread, even those involved in adoption have trouble agreeing!

It seems to me that your story is another indication of the depth of destruction caused by keeping secrets. It is possible that your response would be entirely different if your mom had shared her story with you and could have talked to you about the emotions, memories, etc. before the adoptee appeared out of the blue. I hear a great deal of pain as you speak of the changes you have experienced in your relationship with your mom. I suspect your mom emotionally needs you to be excited about this new "sister". I don't know her, but as a bmom myself, I know the incredible amount of guilt many of us have had to deal with. If she's never dealt with the emotions surrounding adoption, but instead has stuffed them away, it would not be surprising that she can't consider your pain right now... it would create too much guilt for her. I'm so sorry that she seems unable to see your struggle and pain. I suspect that she thought that if her daughter contacted you, everything would be ok.

Hang in there. Deal with your own feelings. You have to move at the pace that works for you. I would suggest that you respond to the sibs email, requesting she not contact you, because you are not ready for contact, rather than going through your mother. (Just my opinion.. I don't like putting people in the middle.)

[rainmon]

when you show someone how much you love them...
they may in turn do the same....using and witholding your love and attention to get what you crave from your Mom may not help you get what you need...but may drive you both further apart.
If you love your Mom you will be there for her .....
unconditionally.

[jrainbow]

Thank you, Knittygirl, for sharing your thoughts and emotions. I am a reunited adoptee with 2 much younger bsisters (although grown and living on their own) and it has really helped to read about your struggles and how you are trying to deal with everything. The girls have only known about me for 6 months and we have never spoken. It is very much my reunion with bdad only. And that is ok - it hasn't stopped us from getting to know each other better.

I certainly understand about being the oldest - and having that as part of my identity. And, it appears, that the oldest in the raised family many times has more issues when an adoptee appears. I am sure that if I was in your place, I would feel the same way that you do.

That being said, and I hope this is understandable - just can't come up with another description, I feel like I'm dating a married man and that my bdad is forced into acting like he is having an affair. Don't take that as weird. But we converse at times when no one is around, I would never call his home phone or send anything to his home, I know he doesn't share what we are finding out about each other because no one wants to hear. We have met a few times and, he doesn't hide where he is, but no one wants to hear so he hides the results. (Bmom has no other children so that isn't an issue) My kids also didn't really want to hear - but I told them the truth - this is now a part of my life whether you like it or not - and after meeting both bparents, they are moving in the direction of incorporating this "new" family - just as they will accept their father's new wife and his 2 new stepdaughters. Will they be family like us - no. But they will be a family, just different.

Knittygirl, you are forcing your mom into keeping her life separate again. This is your right and you need the time right now to deal with everything. I just to share the "other side of the story". Please keep sharing, it does help all of us to see other sides and try to understand where others are in these unexplored relationships.

I wish you and your family peace.

[shadow riderer]

NG, thank you for being so willing to share your side of all this. You have really helped me to understand a little better where my Bsis may be coming from. She is the only child of my Bdad, and I think he, like your mom, has played a big role in the difficulty between my Bsis and I. I wonder now if he, like your mom, gave me her email and encouraged me to contact her when she wasn't ready, not to mention a host of other things. He is very good at telling people what he thinks they want to hear instead of the truth and leaving out important details that could play a major role in a situation. They had not spoken for 16 years before I came into the picture, so there had to be a lot of issues there for her to deal with. I have no idea what he told her about me, but I know what he told me about her along with the high emotions of reunion, played a major role in my feelings towards her in the beginning. I could speculate all day but the end result is the same. I think though his intentions may have been good, whatever he said or did, he did she and I an injustice. I think your mom is doing the same to you and your Bsis.

Whatever relationship she and I might have built should have been between the two of us with little to no interference, good or bad, from him. Having said that, hind sight is 20/20. The same goes for you and your Bsis. Whatever happens is between the two of you, but that is just my opinion. I agree with another poster that you should reply to her email. At least give her your explination for not wanting contact right now. She, too, is at your mom's mercy in this particular situation.

Please don't take what I'm about to say as critisism of you. It is just an outside viewpoint. By going through your mom and not responding yourself to her email, it sort of makes you look childish, especially so considering your mom's emotional state and way of handling things at the moment. You are an adult and can speak for yourself. Again, it's just my opinion, but I think in the end you will feel better about yourself by doing so. I hope that makes sense.
I hope my Bsis reads this thread and it somehow helps her. I ended the email I sent her by telling her my door is always open. That email was my last attempt at reaching out to her. It's time to let go and hopefully someday she will reach out to me. Again, thank you NG for sharing.

[shadow riderer]

I think I should add, in case i mmay have implied it, my Bdad isn't totally to blame. If I could go back, I would have handled several things differently. I let my emotions and feelings control my responses to things at times. I can see, now, how those responses may also have played a role in all of this. It is very hard as an adoptee, who has always wondered about your birthfamily, to not get caught up in the fantacy of reunion. When the reality of it hits, it hurts like nothing else. I can't really explain it any better than that.

I can only imagine what it must be like for the BSibs who get slapped with the "shock" of finding out about the relinquished child. Talk about turning someone's world upside down...has to be a complete mind blower. As adoptees, we know there is a possiblity of siblings, and can look forward to or at least prepare for it ahead of time, but to just get a big surprise out of the blue? It's just hard to comprehend what that must feel like.

I have two other Bsibs on Bmoms side. My Bsis, on Bmom's side, and I are very close, but it took years for that to grow, and Bmom had absolutely no role in it at all. We built our relationship because it is what we "both" wanted.

[knittygirl]

I feel compelled to respond to all that is going on here, which is A LOT!!

Regarding Birdeez's post, I too have thought of why we bsibs are supposed to just jump right in regardless of our readiness but others in the so-called triad are not. In fact, my own mother was offered the option to NOT have contact with her relinquished child when she initiated contact, but I am somehow not allowed to consider the same options. (Please note that I am not saying that I never want contact, just not right now.)

I have thought a lot about the role that my mom's guilt is playing in this drama and how it impacts her ability to relate to me. I know intellectually that her guilt is HUGE and that she would do anything to avoid showing any kind of rejection to her. So, she says she "always wanted a sister" and my mom is desperately trying to deliver....if she wanted a pony she'd probably try to get one of those too. However, like Heidi said yesterday, I just can't be a prop in their reunion. What I can't understand is why she doesn't see that I very much need her to demonstrate that she still feels like MY mom too, and all the pressure and threats and screaming matches don't demonstrate that. In fact, the message that she is sending to me again and again is that her other daughter's feelings are of the utmost importance, but mine are completely unimportant b/c they just get in the way. As long as this keeps happening, she is driving a wedge between me and her as well as between me and her daughter....she is presented to me as a rival, not an ally.

I don't think the analogy of an infidelity is weird....I have thought many times that it feels like my mom is cheating on me with another daughter. It feels like she has found a "newer model" and is happier forging a relationship with her than in mantaining one with me. I feel abandonded by her and she is focusing completely on someone else....only I'm supposed to be happy about it. I'm not even allowed to be hurt or angry about her behavior or else I'm labeled as selfish. I don't know how many times she has said that I'm trying to make it all about me, but it doesn't feel like it's about me at all. It feels like she has moved on to someone else without a second thought (I doubt that it has been that easy, but it seems that way sometimes). And then when I ask her to leave me out of their reunion for now, actually make it not about me AT ALL, she gets angry about that too. Somehow I have become a central part of their reunion when I'm not ready to participate...they talk about me a lot, I'm told. IMO, they should focus on their own reunion before bringing in others, but my mom has this fantasy (motivated by her guilt, I'm sure) that we'll all just be one happy family if only I'll give in.

All I want is to feel secure in my place as her daughter and to have the love, compassion, and validation that I am watching her give to someone else. She is trying so hard with her other daughter that she doesn't have anything left for her other 2 raised daughters.....why shouldn't we feel angry? We have been (at least temporarily) suplanted in her heart at a time when we most need her reasurrence and unconditional love.

My mom is so frantic that she doesn't hear what I actually say to her....everything is twisted and she believes that I am judging her, punishing her, think she is a slut for getting pregnant, shutting out my "sister", etc. I have stated repeatedly that I am NOT trying to do any of those things, but she just believes what she wants. It is clear to me that she is not and has not dealt with her own emotions both from long ago and the present (she is not in counseling but goes to a support group of mostly adult adoptees). I am still in counselling with a good therapist, and it has helped tremendously, as has this forum.

I don't know what to do from here....I've tried to be as supportive as I can be, just from afar, while I still feel abandoned emotionally. I just hope at this point that things will settle out eventually and she will be more receptive to being my mom.

I do think that things would have been different had she told me and my sister about the adoption prior to her daughter initiating contact. That's why I have divided my own process into phase 1 and phase 2....phase 1 is what I would have done if I had only known about the adoption before now, and phase 2 is dealing with her reappearance. I MUST do phase 1 stuff first, just as I would have done if I had been told before. I know that we can't go back and change things, and I'm doing the best I can to cope with what has actually happened. I just hate feeling like I'm always the bad guy b/c I just want to take things slowly. My mom is rushing through this process frantically and that is not helping matters with me, my sister, the aparents, etc. There are a lot of hurt feelings in BOTH families.

Knittygirl

[Jo Ellen]

Knitty Girl
I am an adoptee reunited 2 1/2 years with my natural parents who have been married 40 years now. My nparents have other children from previous marriages but I am the only child they had together. My nmoms other daughter has known about me since HS but still struggles with this mostly because she sees me as their only child. I have been told by family members she is jealous of me because of this but this is something that I cant change or do anything about. She told our mom how happy she is to know she has an older sister yet communication with her is minimal. I know from talking with our mom they use to have a close relationship but dont now. I have felt a lot of guilt at times feeling I am to blame for coming between them but at the same time realize we are all adults and how one person reacts isnt another persons fault. I know this is difficult emotionally and realize it takes everyone different amounts of time and work for healing. I am sorry for what you are going through and hope with more time and understanding from your mom you can get through this. All the emotions that come from reunion it much more than I ever expected. There are days I am fine with everything and other days I feel I must take things an hour at a time to get through the day. I can see you were blindsided and in my opinion it was wrong of your mother not to ever tell you of your sister. My ndads kids didnt know about me until a year ago and we had been reunited 1 1/2 years by then. I heard one of my sisters from him say in a very phasishash (sp?) way..... Well I am glad Dad thought to tell us about this. I had no idea he hadnt told them until just before I was going to be meet them. He and my nmom had talked about them like they knew. I just think at times how this all happens stinks and everyones feelings need to be heard and understood. I wish you the best as your healing continues and hope you and your mom and sister can have an open and loving relationship. I know that are my hopes now for my mom and my sister and me.

[JustPeachy]

I'm chiming in late here, but have been following this thread. Knitty, considering that the knowledge of your sister has literally come out of the blue and totally blindsided you, I think you are handling things as best as you can! You need time to process all the emotions that have come up, and to rush into a relationship at the breakneck speed that your mother wants (and is doing), will only cause problems in the long run. You are just not ready. There is nothing wrong with that and nothing to feel bad or guilty about. I, too, would be furious if my mother gave out my personal information. It was not her place to do so. As far as your bmom's guilt (and I'm a bmom myself), it is her issue to deal with. I'm sure there are a lot of emotions she has not come to terms with, and reunion brings out a heck of a lot more. You can try to understand, try to be supportive, etc., but you cannot do the work for her or make it all better just by giving in to her requests (which actually seem more like demands) to have an instant relationship with your bio sib. Honestly, I think your mom is in the "honeymoon" stage of reunion and is rushing way too fast (just MHO, but I believe reunions should go much slower than many of them do). I believe all members of the triad and those outside of the triad who are affected need to be given respect and the consideration to process their own emotions however they see fit. I don't agree with the poster who said if you love your mother, you'll be there for her unconditionally. So you should succumb to what your mom wants RIGHT NOW, even though it would be disastrous for you emotionally, to prove you love her? That just doesn't seem right to me. I also don't see that you are forcing your mom to keep this separate by your need for space right now. I don't think it is your responsibility to be involved to that level where you can somehow make it all better by having a relationship of your own with your sis tha you are simply not ready to have. It would be no different if someone presented you with a person you never met and said "Here. Now be friends. And tomorrow be family and treat her like a sister." You may never feel that way and you shouldn't feel like you have to out of guilt or out of a sense of making your mother's pain go away (you can't) or any other reason other than you genuinely want to get to know your sister when and if you are emotionally ready and/or interested to do so.

It's great that you are in counseling. What does your counselor suggest? Would your mom maybe join you in counseling to try to see your point of view????? Just an idea.

Good luck with all this. It is certainly not easy.

[dpen6]

Originally Posted by knittygirl

I feel compelled to respond to all that is going on here, which is A LOT!!

Regarding Birdeez's post, I too have thought of why we bsibs are supposed to just jump right in regardless of our readiness but others in the so-called triad are not. In fact, my own mother was offered the option to NOT have contact with her relinquished child when she initiated contact, but I am somehow not allowed to consider the same options. (Please note that I am not saying that I never want contact, just not right now.)



Knittygirl

Thats just it KG, NOBODY is saying you have to jump right in to anything, except your mother. It is already been established that your mother is not dealing with this in a healthy manner at all and as a result is not helping anybody.
Most of us understand your need to hold back, as a matter of fact as an adoptee I totally understand. I have a biobrother that wants no contact with me. Its ok, as I don't want to ruffle anyone's feathers. We did not grow up together so I really don't have any sibling feelings anyway. Whatever is reasons are are just that his reasons. I don't take it personaly. I personally did nothing TO him. So if in fact he has a resnetment towards me thats his to deal with, because I did nothing wrong. Thoe only thing I can come up with is the fact that maybe he is upset that I crawled out from under the proverbial rock and rocked the boat, or he has had diffuculty with his mothers betrayel of not being open and honest...I don't know but the fact reamins I exist and would have contacted my biomom anyway for my own reasons. It was just between us and what we needed, intially. My bmom did tell me that this brother had a problem with me contacting, I went on to say I was sorry as that is excatley what i did not want. Her comment to me was that is was not my fault and it was hers for not telling him. She got it right. It was never mentioned again. she also did not attempt to force a realtionship on anyone. She did attempt to respect everyone elses feelings and for that I am very grateful. She is now dead and am very glad I was able to contact her when I did.

Again, I don't see anyone on this thread saying you need to just jump right in, ther are many that probaly have the hallmark view of it becoming "one big happy family", but as you know that is totally unrealistic. I am sensing lots of resenment towards "the triad".....as you dismissivley put it. In these forums thats what we are made up of, I am sorry that you are having trouble understanding the whole thing, most of us as adoptees and birthmothers are trying to understand and validate your feelings. But we are real people with feelings also. have lived with being in the "so called" triad our whole lives..its not something to be easily dismissed and negetated.

You say you don't want contact now, I am willing to bet that most if not all totally understand that as we have lived it in one way or another for many years. You may never want contact and thats ok too. But in the many years I have been reading these and other forums the genral conscenses is that the "right" thing to do is if someone contact you ther is nothing wrong with you contacting back and syaing "I am not ready, please don't contact me again". Then realse any resntment that is harboring towards your birthsister, she has done nothing wrong but crawl out from under the rock. The problem is between you and your mother and for you two to deal with it.

[Jackiejdajda]

Knittygirl

I have thought a lot about the role that my mom's guilt is playing in this drama and how it impacts her ability to relate to me. I know intellectually that her guilt is HUGE and that she would do anything to avoid showing any kind of rejection to her. So, she says she "always wanted a sister" and my mom is desperately trying to deliver....if she wanted a pony she'd probably try to get one of those too.

So maybe this is really about your moms past and her not going through the necessary grief work.. sorting work.. therapy work.. from when she gave her birthdaughter up for adoption.. What happened then in other words..

And she is just ‘running as fast as she can’.. and you see it and will not get on that train..
Will not play..
Maybe you need to have words with your mom.. tell her what you are really thinking.. What you are learning.

I believe that when we are not prepared for the emotions that come at us when reunited with the sons and daughters we have relinquished and then kept as secrets.. we will just react with no thought of others.
Including the bson or bdaughter..

I do not know of any books on how to sort this.. but I agree that enabling will not help any one.. and you understanding what is really going down may help you.. Your mom may be temporarily off the rails and all you can do is love her from afar.. and hope she sees the light soon..

However, like Heidi said yesterday, I just can't be a prop in their reunion. What I can't understand is why she doesn't see that I very much need her to demonstrate that she still feels like MY mom too, and all the pressure and threats and screaming matches don't demonstrate that. In fact, the message that she is sending to me again and again is that her other daughter's feelings are of the utmost importance, but mine are completely unimportant b/c they just get in the way.

They get in the way of her ‘running as fast as she can’…trying to make it right..
Its what she learned when she was a girl maybe.. its what she learned when she relinquished..
And it is something she may end up having to un-learn now.. because IMO reunion is hard enough without someone catering to the other..
Taking care of the other at the cost of herself..

As long as this keeps happening, she is driving a wedge between me and her as well as between me and her daughter....she is presented to me as a rival, not an ally.

The secret keeping and the no feeling rule in effect when some of us relinquished causes a person to not really sort anything..
Not learn how to deal with life and all the hard things that come at a person..

All I want is to feel secure in my place as her daughter and to have the love, compassion, and validation that I am watching her give to someone else. She is trying so hard with her other daughter that she doesn't have anything left for her other 2 raised daughters.....why shouldn't we feel angry? We have been (at least temporarily) suplanted in her heart at a time when we most need her reasurrence and unconditional love.

She may be acting and re-acting to things she has absolutely no firm ground in..
Its part of this secret adoption thing that happened in this society when the powers that be sorted how easy it would be to hand the baby over to someone else and change the babies name and bury their certificates and tell the woman to go and sin no more..

Its what happened to your mom when she relinquished and what is happening now because she could not speak of what happened.. or grieve or weep or wail or get angry or any of those emotions.. (maybe)

My mom is so frantic that she doesn't hear what I actually say to her....everything is twisted and she believes that I am judging her, punishing her, think she is a slut for getting pregnant, shutting out my "sister", etc.

Yes.. Its stuff she has not looked at before.. and she needs to look at..
You are right and she is wrong.. MO.. She needs to sort.. and you can not do it for her.. all you can do is wait.. and hope she comes out of it without hitting a wall and getting into a bad place.. (maybe)

I don't know what to do from here....I've tried to be as supportive as I can be, just from afar, while I still feel abandoned emotionally. I just hope at this point that things will settle out eventually and she will be more receptive to being my mom.

Your mom is sorting or not sorting what happened to her when she relinquished.. she IMO is trying to work something that is unworkable..
I think she needs to give up.. and let the cards fall where they may..
But we can not force others to see what we see.. know..

And please know I may be totally wrong..

Jackie

[birdeez4]

Knittygirl, the one thing I did forget to add to the earlier post is that I would encourage you to reply to the e-mail yourself, rather than go through your mom. Even if it just to say "I really can't do this right now. I need some time to work through my feelings". In the long run, it would be best for her to hear it from you, rather than from any spin that might come along from your mom (even if your mom has her (and your) best interests at heart).

On a side note: I do firmly believe that part of the reason that things have not worked well between my placed sister and I is because my mother tried way too hard at the beginning to force the relationship. I could be wrong, but the the timeline, etc just makes it appear that way... Maybe someday I'll sit down and write a book about my sibling journey. It would be interesting to hear some other takes on it.....

[shadow riderer]

In ref to replying to the email, Birdeez4 explained much better what I was trying to say. I am sorry for being so blunt. Tact isn't always something I am good at. NG, your feelings and thoughts are very valid and understandable. I wish your mother could see what you are saying. In time, when the reunion calms, and it will, I hope she can look past herself and see you in all this to. For now, I think that will be very hard for her. I'll keep you in my prayers, and I admire you for standing up for yourself and your feelings.