It will impact your life in a number of different ways. Some allow it to impact their life way too much and that is all their life is about.

It does impact you as a child how you see yourself and how others see you.
You know that you are different than other children. You have people that have a biological tie to you in this world, and you do not know a thing about them. You wonder what could make a mother not want or love her child. As a child I remember thinking what caused or what had I done for my birth mother not to love me. In my young mind, if she loved me she would want me and not have given me away. Then add on top of my feelings the views and attitude from the general public. The idea that something must be wrong (the reason you were adopted) from others just references that you are feeling. As a child I became comfortable in my own skin so to speak. I also learned to act like what people thought and said about me did not matter. But we all know that is not the truth, it is how we cope with the rejection you feel by your birth family and society.

Being accepted in my adoptive extended family is something that I still struggle with today as an adult. Being an adopted child to most of them meant my sister and I were less than a member of the family. When as a child you are not included in the holidays when the extended family exchanged gifts, reunions when everyone is taking pictures and you’re not being included, and just family gatherings when you are isolated from the other children.


Continued.........