Adopted by Disordered Parents: An Interview with Two Survivors

Imagine my surprise when I discovered not one, but two people in my group were adopted by Cluster B Personality Disordered parents. (Trauma Glossary 1) I had assumed that these days (post-Joan Crawford era) such gross oversights in adoption no longer happen. How wrong I was! I asked them, with the promise of protecting their identities, if they would be interested in being my first interview. I was so honored when they both said yes.

They have chosen to name themselves. My questions were geared towards directing the conversations, but I stepped back as often as possible. I wanted to give them space to tell their stories in their own way, as well as give them the opportunity to compare their experiences with each other.

Jaena: What’s your age range and what type of adopted parents did you have?

Adoptee Healing: I’m in my 30’s. My mom had borderline personality disorder. I barely knew my dad even though he lived in the same house. She treated him like he was irrelevant.

Nobody’s Child: I’m in my early 60’s. Both parents were extremely disordered. They both raged, had extreme mood swings, and blamed me for their misery. They never took responsibility for their actions or behavior. Everything was my fault, even when I was young.

Jaena: How old were you when you learned you were adopted, and how did they make you feel about it?

Nobody’s Child: I believe I was first told about the adoption when I was a toddler. I remember not taking it well. My adopted mother told me that I had an older sister. She said that my biological mother loved and wanted my sister, but she didn’t love or want me. So right out of the gate, my adopted mom belittled me by saying I was discarded. That became an ugly memory because I was reminded of it any time the subject came up.

Adoptee Healing: I think I always knew. What I mean is, I don’t remember not knowing that I was adopted. My adopted mom told me my birth mom didn’t want me too. She also said a lot of contradictory things. She told me that a lot of people came to look at me and she (adopted mom) was the only one who wanted me. So, my birth mom chose her and acted like she didn’t care at the court date. Except there was no court date with my birth mom, and I was never on display like a puppy for sale. None of what my adopted mom told me ever happened.

How They Were Adopted by Disordered Parents

Jaena: Did you ever find out how they managed to “slip through the loophole” to adopt, despite being mentally unstable?

Adoptee Healing: While I was still searching for my biological mom I had found the lawyer that drew up the paperwork. Well, this was 35 years later, and the lawyer remembered mine specifically. He said there was a group of doctors that received a “finder’s fee” for adoption agencies. Basically, they would convince the birth mother to give her child up for adoption. And when she did the adoption agency would pay the docs a cut of what the adopters paid. He said he never did an adoption like that ever again.

Jaena: Wow…was this legal at the time? Did the lawyer say?

Adoptee Healing: I guess it was. I don’t know if it is now, but I’m sure there’s ways around it. Trafficking is still a big problem, you know.

Nobody’s Child: Mine was a private adoption through attorneys. Lots of money changed hands. My birth mother found my adopted parents through that agency. My birth mother travelled pregnant from (State 1) to (State 2). She had a family member living in the (State 2) area. I don’t know the specifics of how she found the group of lawyers, but she went to them to adopt me out. I had not been born yet.

Jaena: Did they ever say why they adopted you?

Nobody’s Child: Adoption was my father’s idea because he wanted a son. My adopted mom didn’t want any kids. As a matter of fact, she told me adopting me was a mistake, because she hated kids. But just like my adopted dad roped her into marrying him, he likely wouldn’t take no for an answer until he got his way. The adoption was legal and binding. My adopted parents couldn’t back out of it. He hated me from the moment he heard my gender. He got the daughter he didn’t ask for and she got saddled with the responsibility of raising the child she never wanted. I guess this gave them the excuse to punish me any chance they got.

Adoptee Healing: I think my adoptive mother up and decided one day she wanted a husband and a kid. That’s it. She gets what she wants regardless of anyone else. She married her husband at 37 and adopted me a year later.

“No witnesses” (The Only Child)

Jaena: I also need to address the other thing you two have in common. You were both the only child as well. I was the only child my first eleven years, so I do have solid memories of what that was like.

Adoptee Healing: Yes, no witnesses.

Jaena: And no one in the house can share your pain. Did you idealize the, shall we say, less abusive parent at all?

Nobody’s Child: I wouldn’t call it idealizing. I was afraid of my father. But I thought he was the lesser of two evils. It wasn’t until I was in my early 50s that I learned he was truly a monster. He had me completely fooled.

Adoptee Healing: Nope, I didn’t idealize my dad. I was more…not exactly enmeshed with my mom, but life was “better” if I lived to please her. I was her entire life. Her thoughts had to be my thoughts. If I was in agreeance with her she was happy, euphoric, bought me meaningless things. Never what I needed, but toys, books, cars as I got older. But it was a total flip if I said anything out of line. Then I was there for her to purge and project her wrongdoings onto. What she did wrong, I did wrong. What she did right, I did right. It was all in her head, of course. I never did any of those things right or wrong. But according to her, I WAS her.

Nobody’s Child: I had little in common with my adopted parents, other than being human. I was expected to share every like or dislike, but it never worked out that way. It’s lonely when you can’t share your true self with anyone.

Adopted Means There’s No DNA Mirroring

Jaena: This leads us into the topic of DNA mirroring. Genetic traits we inherit from our bloodline. That’s why I find it laughable that the most merger hungry personality disorders would not only choose to adopt, but think they can mold that child into their very own mini-me.

Adoptee Healing: People who aren’t adopted don’t understand the disconnect you have when you’re adopted by Cluster B parents. It’s like living as a doll they bought at the store. That’s it. They’re nothing but baby buyers. It’s…This stranger bought me and abused me, and I don’t understand why.

Nobody’s Child: You may never get a satisfactory answer as to why. I know I didn’t. In the end, my adopted parents died without an apology or explanation why they pursued getting a child. I just know that mine both resented me and the older I got the deeper it went. Doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Adoptee Healing: She realized she was bored after a while (like she is with everything else). Puppy got old; the toy wasn’t fun anymore.

“My adopters held it over my head that I owed them for the money they spent to adopt me.”

Nobody’s Child: I feel the same way. My adopters held it over my head that I owed them for the money they spent to adopt me. I feel like I am going to owe someone for the rest of my life something. Once I was of an age where I could talk back, I begged them to send me off to a boarding school, so I’d be out of their hair. Their answer was no because they already spent too much money on me. So much for trying to find a way out.

Adoptee Healing: I begged for boarding school too. Anything to get away from them. I think she enjoyed having someone to torment with no consequences. The smirk on her face while she cornered me for hours telling me how I’ll never amount to anything. These people still think they are good parents who got a bad product.

Nobody’s Child: Yeah, that’s true. What they don’t realize is that the disappointment can run both ways. My adopted parents made it clear that I disappointed them all the time. What they never considered was that they disappointed me as well. They expected me to be filled with gratitude, but they sure didn’t model it for me. So, there’s that.

Jaena: Of course not, because that requires personal accountability. Only inside a Cluster B’s head would that make sense.

“The only consistency was the inconsistency.”

Nobody’s Child: Everything about my adopted parents was contradictory. The only consistency was the inconsistency. If that makes sense.

Jaena: Makes perfect sense! Because that’s how I describe my home life too.

Nobody’s Child: Crazy making at its finest. I sure don’t wish that mess on anyone.

Jaena: Same! That’s why I champion so hard. They shouldn’t be parents, it’s as simple as that.

Nobody’s Child: This just came up in my feed. It describes every tactic that my adopted parents employed. They made me look bad to anyone who’d listen. Most who heard their stories thought I was a horrible monster from my earliest memories. Crazy stuff!

She shows me a meme on toxic people, and what they do. It concludes with a message on protecting our empathy so that we do not waste it on abusers. I would like to add that this is opposite of what the internet gaslighters are promoting.

“They make the rules, but then get upset when others use the same tactics.”

Nobody’s Child: No matter how ugly things were, no one bothered to ask me about my home life because I was “just a bratty kid.” What they give is what they get.

Adoptee Healing: Exactly!

Nobody’s Child: Pity Cluster B’s don’t seem to understand how that works. They make the rules, but then get upset when others use the same tactics. Then they move the stinking goal posts. Every. Single. Time.

Adoptee Healing: There is no reciprocating. It’s just “I want” all the time.

Nobody’s Child: Precisely! And that’s where things go south. The target is punished for daring to question the rules.

Speaking of Moving the Goalposts…(Psychological Scars)

Jaena: Have either of you been guilty of moving the goalposts on yourselves after years of them doing that to you? I know I’ve had a major struggle with this, myself.

Adoptee Healing: Perfectionism bleeds into every part of my life. I think I take it on more as a personality trait though. But it is all or nothing. It must be perfect, or it goes in the trash. I’m so tired all the time I think the perfectionism is the only motivation I have.

Nobody’s Child: Perfectionism and procrastination are the bane of my existence. I’ve been stuck in that loop for my entire life. Didn’t help that my adopted parents used to brag about how perfect they were and how crappy I was (always falling far short of their insane expectations). I do photography, and my images have to meet my standards. I will edit them until I’m fully satisfied with them. It takes me forever to edit, though and that causes some issues with my husband. With other things, I’m not so fussy though. It’s photography that I must get it just so.

Jaena: Blogging has been great practice for me because I have a weekly deadline and I only have the weekend to perfect it for publication. Then again I was always the one with long term projects which kept me stuck. The practice of meeting deadlines though has been therapeutic.

Nobody’s Child: That makes sense. I drive myself crazy with deadlines though. Not sure how to get past that hurtle.

Shame Spirals: Soul Death’s Brain Child

Jaena: Eek! Do you meet the deadlines? What happens when you don’t?

Nobody’s Child: Oh, I get mad at myself when I miss deadlines. I know that’s bad. It’s funny, I don’t have a problem forgiving anyone else. But when it comes to me, I’m super hard on myself. Guessing it comes from all the toxic people I’ve had in my life. I was always held to impossible standards. If I didn’t meet them, the abuse was worse.

Jaena: Shame spirals, I know them well.

Nobody’s Child: Yep!

Adoptee Healing: And those standards changed daily or even minute by minute.

Nobody’s Child: I can see that. Setting lofty goals that are unobtainable. It’s like deliberately setting oneself up to fail.

Adoptee Healing: And they love to see us fail.

Jaena: Yes, exactly! They programmed us into doing this to ourselves. The challenge is finding a means of reverse engineering this straight up brainwashing.

Nobody’s Child: Yes! I have undone some of it, but there’s more work I need to do.

(Note to self: find more tools that can help with this.)

Finding Their Birth Mothers

Nobody’s Child discovers more toxicity

Nobody’s Child: Oddly enough, my adopted mom contacted my birth mother when I was 25-ish. I was in my late 20’s, when I first met her. I spent some time with her in that visit and then a few years later, a second one. My birth mother chose my adopted parents out of several couples she interviewed. She told me she felt they’d be the least successful at raising me to adulthood.

Jaena: I’m trying to understand this. Your birth mother chose your adopted parents because she felt they would be least successful at raising you? Or did she feel the others she did NOT choose would be less successful?

Nobody’s Child: My biological mom said she chose them because she didn’t think they’d successfully raise me to adulthood. I know, it’s messed up. She didn’t want me to survive. She didn’t want anyone to know about her dirty little secret (me). So how better since abortion wasn’t legal and to make sure my blood wasn’t on her hands?

“Something happened to me when I was still a baby.”

Nobody’s Child: When I was going through a divorce from my first husband is when things went downhill. I was in my late 30’s by then. My adopted parents got jealous and abusive because they couldn’t stand that I had a relationship with her. A lot of ugly stuff was said on both sides and I was unfortunately caught in the middle. It was a rather lonely place to be. My adopted parents made me choose her or them. My adopted parents were super jealous and didn’t like the idea of me being chummy with anyone. They were extremely controlling and manipulative. I stupidly chose my adopted parents. Not that my birth mother is such a great individual. I get the feeling that she’s disordered too.

Jaena: You didn’t “stupidly” choose your adopted parents. You chose the people you’ve known longest. Besides, your birth mother didn’t even want you to live.

Nobody’s Child: Something happened to me when I was still a baby. And I didn’t find any of this out through my adopted parents. In my mid-40’s, I had a doctor drop a bombshell on me that I had had a partial hysterectomy. That only one half of my uterus is there plus only one ovary and there’s evidence of a surgical scar inside, but he could find no matching exterior scar. He said it looked like a botched reconstruction effort. Yet there were no others performed to correct any oddities.

Adoptee Healing: That’s weird. Something happened to me too at a year old or so. I was hospitalized for about a week. She only said I was very sick, but she never said with what.

(Hairs on the back of my neck have raised at this point.)

Jaena: I almost died of pneumonia when I was two.

“The discard started the day after her death.”

Nobody’s Child: My adopted mom passed when I was in my late 40’s. My adopted dad passed nine years later, after years of discarding me. The discard started the day after her death. He had already alienated all his relatives by then and he left (State 1) without ever telling me for a town in (State 2). He was “friends” with a woman there; so, he moved to (State 2) to be closer to her.

This “friend’s” granddaughter contacted me as a flying monkey towards the end of my adopted dad’s life. She wanted me to have his address and kept saying, “But he’s your father.”  Flying monkeys just can’t pass up an opportunity to guilt the target. It’s repulsive. I told her I would not be guilted through abuse by proxy. The odd thing was on her profile she had anti-child abuse posts. Yet she just couldn’t resist jabs at me because I wasn’t playing the way I was expected.  

Jaena: Funny how she so openly virtue signaled against child abuse while failing to recognize the adult survivor of it. She sounds like a hypocrite to me.

Nobody’s Child: I’ve concluded that she was hoping I would send her a good picture for his obituary. In the end, they used a blurry shot of him in his hospital bed.

Adoptee Healing found her happy ending

She went conspicuously quiet as Nobody’s Child shared her story. So, I spoke to her privately.

Adoptee Healing: Yeah I feel sorry for her. I got my dream happy ending and I wish she had that too. I don’t want her to feel bad or like I’m rubbing it in her face. It’s a fine line.

Jaena: She’s going to read it when the interview is published. I do think it’s sweet you’re this considerate of her feelings though. Consider it this way. You know how sometimes we share our story with people who came from good homes, and they validate us anyway? How they usually say how sorry they are for us, and they can’t imagine going through that? You know how that’s comforting? You can deliver this in the same way.

Adoptee Healing: Yeah. I worry about adding salt to her wounds. She’s been through a lot too.

Unfortunately, Adoptee Healing felt more comfortable sharing her story privately with me. Hence, the lack of interaction between her and Nobody’s Child in what follows.

“Couldn’t be happier to be reunited.”

Adoptee Healing: I stalked my birth-mom and she had to be backed into a corner to talk to me. LOL! I was always looking for her. Or dreaming she would come find me and rescue me and wondering if she even knew how bad the abuse was. I remember being eight years old and searching for paperwork in closets. I never found anything, of course. My friend and I called every Waffle House in the country because someone had her name in Florida. It wasn’t her. 

But the internet came to be, and a search angel located her in a couple days. She contacted her and my biological mom hung up. So, I wrote her a handwritten letter and sent her a picture. She never responded. Although I learned later she keeps the picture in her nightstand. I contacted her again a few years later through Facebook. She told me to go away. Apparently she forgot who she gave birth to. 

I contacted a family friend that I had also found. I’m so grateful to her. She told me all about my birth family, contacted my brothers and they called me. They saw all my pictures online and I was undeniably hers. My brother called her while she was at work and really had no choice at that point but to confess she had given me up for adoption at birth. 

She finally allowed me into her life. We started talking on the phone, texting, and getting to know each other. We shared the same habits, a sense of humor and smile the same way. She came to visit in October and stayed with me for a week. There’s a lot of grief and regret to get through but both of us couldn’t be happier to be reunited.

“She never talked about it until I showed up last year.”

Jaena: Did your birth mother say what led her to give you up for adoption?

Adoptee Healing: Yes! It lines up with what the lawyer said about the doctors getting a finder’s fee. My birth mom hemorrhaged giving birth. She was in the hospital for four days. The doctor kept asking her what drugs she was on and she didn’t do drugs. She wasn’t on anything except what they gave her. She had pressure from the doctors to give me up for adoption and signed under duress and pain medication. I stayed with her for three days. Then I was given to my adopted parents.

She had no plans to give me up for adoption. It was decided during those three days. They kept telling her that I went to a good home, though nothing could be further from the truth. She never talked about it until I showed up last year. Now she doesn’t shut up about me. LOL!

Two biological siblings, each

Nobody’s Child: I had an older sister, and several years after I was born, she had a son (my half-brother). She kept both of them, and never told either of them about me until my sister was in her late 20’s, and my younger half-brother was around 20.

What I’ve come to realize is there’s another element of toxicity in my birth mother’s family. My older sister (who just passed away earlier this month) was angry because I existed. I think she had some crazy ideas that my childhood was way better than hers. Unfortunately, I never got to tell her about mine, because she was more interested in me fixing issues with our biological mom. I told her I wasn’t comfortable getting in the middle of their business. So, there’s something “off” within the family. I don’t think things would have been all hunky dory for me if she’d have kept me too.

Questioning my relationship with my younger brother due to more of the same. That could be the intergenerational curse at play. I haven’t pushed for a relationship with him either. It’s such a mess. It seems I can’t escape from toxic family members.

Adoptee Healing: I have two brothers. There’s a lot of grief and sadness because I missed so many years that was taken from all of us. But my brothers are good men, treat their wives well and I feel safe with them. I really have been blessed with a happy ending after so much suffering.

Epilogue

Closing Remarks from Nobody’s Child

In my case, what’s done is done. I cannot change anything. There are times I think back and wish I had chosen a different path, but the truth is nothing I desire can change what I went through. I don’t force myself on anyone. If someone wants a relationship with me, that’s fine. If not, I will not beg people to spend time with me.

The saddest part is knowing a lot of people stand by and cheer on our abusers. My adopted dad’s obituary was written by a friend, and in it, she wrote just how nice and kind he was. The sad truth is people like her have no interest in the truth. They don’t care about the pain and torment we’ve endured. In fact, they enjoy adding to the misery.

I didn’t find out about his death until about six months later. It hurt reading the public part of his obit. I wouldn’t pay a penny to read the rest, I knew it was based upon a multitude of lies. In a way, I feel sorry for people like my adopted parents. They are so miserable and so angry that they spend their lives making messes of anyone else’s they have access to.

Closing Remarks from Adoptee Healing

I was thinking about how differently I’m treated in a non-disordered family versus a disordered one. In my adopted family I was the scapegoat. Everything was my fault, all the responsibility was on me. I was a child treated as an adult. Her caretaker, the one she could blame, the one who was responsible for her emotions, her actions, her failures, her finances. Everything.

In my biological family, I’m not blamed for anything. I’m treated appropriately. Even though I’m an adult now, I’m treated as my mother’s daughter, not her caretaker. Responsibilities that aren’t mine aren’t forced on me. I’m accepted and told positive things about myself. They want to be a part of my life and get to know me instead of telling me who I am.