Hard Times
High school was especially hard for me, as no one else in my family had ever been through all that I’d been through. For example: Unlike my siblings, my body was constantly being grabbed and groped in crowded hallways on my way between classes. Rumors began, even by those who were supposed to be close friends. Boys got the wrong impression because of my naivety and ignorance. Add in a dash of feeling lost and not knowing whereI belonged I soon became defensive.
This only made me feel the great divide grow even bigger. I was different. I was adopted. No one else understood. No one else around me was adopted. No one else understood the missing puzzle pieces that began to form as I felt more and more lost.
Needless to say my mind often wandered to my birth parents, their flaws, the flaws I must’ve inherited, how not to be like them in any way shape or form, and how to live up to the high expectations of my parents.
Comparing. Daren went to school to be a veterinarian. Morgan got her doctorate in Psychology a few short years ago. Carol got a degree and worked as a Physical Therapist at the Denver Children’s Hospital. Jarod… well, he got lost in alcohol, sex, drugs and lies when he decided to take a different path (I don’t know if it was his junior year or senior year, but it was in high school) than what our parents wanted for him. Had things been different, I imagine he’d be in the NBA.
That leaves Chad and me. Though he can’t remember anything, the emotional damage was done before we were taken from our birth parents. Chad rarely ever spoke about being adopted. He merely accepted it and didn’t even try to fit in.
I didn’t know until our senior year, but he often reflected on the fact that they wanted him. They had even tried to kidnap him once in broad daylight back when we were still living in Ohio (I didn’t even ask how old we were, but I think he was about five or six, because I think we were already sealed to our family).
This broke my heart. He wanted to find them. Did he not understand that his anger issues stemmed from their physical, emotional, and verbal abuse? He’d seen every type of professional and they all came to the same conclusion. So why did he want to have anything to do with them?
Why? Because he too felt so different, to the point that he was alienated from our real family. Did they know this? No. Why? Because they simply couldn’t understand. It was easier for him to clam up and go on his own path than to try and live up to another’s view of what his life should be like.
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