#biologicals

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isn't it so bizarre how most of adoption just falls on you, as the adoptee, to try and figure out what it has done to you, how to deal with it. neither adoptive nor birth families seem to really understand it and expect you, as the adoptee, to be the one to magically put things together like a jigsaw, it find all the pieces and force yourself into one space or the other and magically expect you to fit. and it's all entirely 100% up to you, like that family here won't help you and family there won't either. they won't understand it. it's all entirely up to yourself.

this thing has happened to you and it's your problem trying to fit it together, it's your job to make it make sense. it's your fault that this happened to you and you have to meld it in together. this happened to you and you have to live with it. what the hell lol

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any other adoptee who is undergoing reunion/met their birth family get really unsettled after being in contact with them?

i love speaking to my birth family. i hate not understanding them. and even whilst talking to them i felt myself becoming unsettled and overwhelmed, and here I am dealing with the fallout

what's this called? This desire to be closer yet fearing it and also wanting it so much but yet the unsettling feelings are too much. I feel dysregulated for days after being in contact. For me, it usually comes up with regards to phone contact/video calling. I'm okay with messages, it's actually seeing them and speaking to them that causes the emotional (and sometimes physical) dysregulation.

It's very jarring actually lol

The many joys of being an adoptee

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Em thường xuyên mơ về gia đình ruột thịt của em - thực tế và theo đúng diễn biến mà tôi nghĩ là có khả năng xảy ra nhất. Nhưng em không biết sự thật về mọi thứ thực sự như thế nào. Em sẽ không biết, vì không ai nói cho em biết điều gì cả.

mọi thứ đều ổn, đừng lo lắng.

dw about it

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starting a trace for the biologicals is so difficult because people say "please be sensitive and think about the impact it might have on the biologicals if you suddenly appear" "what about their right to privacy" "you're digging up the past by trying to search for them" HELLO? what about US as the adoptees? don't we have the right to search? don't we have the right to know our background? who considered US when we were placed into sets of arms after arms as babies? that is, even if we were babies when it happened. starting a trace for the biologicals is FRAUGHT with uncertainty, i'd love a bit of understanding but that's asking for too much, being adopted is always asking for too much because people just expect you to be content with where you are and be content with being made up with jigsaw puzzle pieces where the pieces are the same colour but not from the same set - i want to know the original set too to see where I come from. why do we have to consider the biological's feelings when they're the ones that started all of this somehow, why do we coddle them and have to consider their feelings and their right to privacy, WHAT ABOUT OURS?? WE came into this world suddenly, my future, my presence is NOT just someone's past.

people think that you have a poor relationship with your adoptive family if you want to go and search, and maybe that might be the case for some and many others, but it's not the case for me and many others too. I just want to know if there's anyone out there, but it feels like I'm shouting into a megaphone into the void ARE YOU THERE ARE YOU THERE BỐ ARE YOU THERE MẸ CAN YOU HEAR ME CAN YOU HEAR ME? but no one is responding to me and no one is responding to my parents and my team of official people either, everyone screaming and chanting please respond to us please listen and respond to us soon, we're all yelling and making so much noise to try and be heard by no one and all our letters are returning unsent and unsealed and unread envelopes.

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today's my birthday

Today is also definitely my birthday, I had that verified lol

Mẹ messaged me, it's my first birthday after finding them again. I google translated the message from my mother.

"It's been XX years since I truly wished you a happy birthday"

"I miss you, my child, please be happy over there"

You're always expected to be happy on your birthday.

Of course I'm happy, of course I'm grateful, of course of course of course, but can't I be sad too? Can't I think about the alternative, how it could've been, what i missed, what was there, what didn't happen, how it didn't happen, everything that could've plausibly been but wasn't? What do you do in Vietnam for your birthday? What do you eat? I want to know, I want to know everything but i can't know. I want to talk to you but I can't understand you.

Whatever. I'll celebrate the Irish way with lots of beer, with all my friends and my family, I'm allowed to be grateful and melancholy at the same time.

Happy birthday to me

Chúc mừng sinh nhật

[red-envelopes]

I got some bad news about home, and it makes me realise just how different that we are, and no matter how much I try, I'm never going to be like them, and I'm never going to truly understand.

Bố ơi, bố hãy khỏe mạnh cho đến khi con về nhà. Bố hãy ở lại cho đến khi con có thể đến gặp bố lần nữa.

Bố ơi, hãy giữ gìn sức khỏe để con có thể đến thăm bố lần nữa trước khi quá muộn.

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I miss my mom and dad and my brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and all my relatives so very much, but I can't relate to you, I don't know you, I can't talk to you, I don't know how to relate to you, we're so different but we look the same, we have the same blood and DNA but I don't know you at all and you don't know me and I can't slot into your life and you can't slot into mine. I look at you through a screen through an app that will sell my data and I still can't understand you so we talk via text to speech robotic computer inhuman false voices, only the surface, never deeper. It's still like floating untethered in the sea and I don't know where I can land even though I found places to stay.

And yet I have my parents and sibling and relatives here and I am happy, I am happy and grateful because I want to be and nobody can tell me I'm not, but I still don't know if I fit in here, how can i relate to you, I will miss you so much if I leave, I miss you so much when im at work 40 mins away, we do not have the same DNA but I know you, you know me, I slot into this life, so why do I want more and more and more and why can't I be happy with what I have??

Isnt this everything I wanted?? To know both sides? So why can't I be happy with what I have? I'm so lucky, I had so much information, so more than what other people get, such an idealised reunion, my adoption was not coerced or forced, there is love and care and respect in every single facet of this existence from each part of the world I come from, so why can't I be happy with this??? Why can't i be happy with a double life or be happy with so much I have when so many others dont have it, and why didn't anyone tell me that reunion was going to be so painful along with the high of the joy of it 🥺

I want to know so much more about this and that and everything but this knowledge is going to hurt and I don't know if any of this is worth it if it's going to be too heavy to deal with