Skye's Story
I was adopted at 6 months. According to my adoption record, I was the size of a 4 month old and had cradle cap. My adopted parents were older and childless. They adopted a boy and then a girl, me. My adoptive father was an aircraft designer, intelligent, and a narcissist. My adoptive mother was a loving woman who had led a very sheltered life and was completely under his finger. The boy they adopted was three years my senior and resented my arrival. He made his displeasure known to me in a variety of mostly physical ways. Parental response was to tell him to stop while telling me to be quiet. The lesson was well learned and set me up for an abusive first marriage to a narcissist.
In the 1990s, an adoptee had to register to be matched with their birth file, and if the birth parent approved of it, contact would follow. The matching process took 8 years. I had moved around during this time, so had left my adoptive parents' address with the Ontario adoption registry. When the match was made, a letter was sent to me at my adoptive parents' address. My father opened my letter from my birth mother to me, copied it, and showed it to others. He then telephoned me to tell me what was in the letter. I had him courier it to me in BC. The letter did not contain any identifying information for my birth mother.
When he discovered I was in contact with her and arranging a meeting, he demanded I give her name and number to him. I refused. In a nutshell, this got me disowned. My adoptive mother was experiencing dementia and really had no ability to resist him anyhow. He made her sign me out of the will and forbid her to even telephone me again. He became ill not very long after this and passed away within a couple of years. My adoptive brother was not even going to tell me of his passing, but my dementia-plagued mother managed to find my number and phoned me. My adoptive brother was over the moon about his sole heir status and would not even give me a teacup from the estate, nor photo albums nor any memorabilia from my childhood.
My birth mother was a wonderful woman who went on to have two sons. My half brothers and I are a great deal like our mother in looks and character. Through her, I was able to trace my birth father, an interesting character with a fascinating heritage. The family was noble and fled Czech to escape the Russians, leaving the family castle behind. That castle was repatriated to the family, and I was fortunate to visit it in 2022. Through him, I have a half sister who wants nothing to do with me and an adoptive sister who has been kind.
I have been blessed to have been able to develop a relationship with both of my biological parents and some of the extended family members. There is always a distance when you meet as adults, I suspect, but I do know that both of my natural parents loved me and I them, and my adoptive mother was a simple woman who loved with her whole heart. It has taken me into my sixties to understand that the self-destructive and relationship-destructive behaviors are not my fault. The healing continues.