The HARDEST YEARS

[Nina]

Nina would dearly love to know.  For me, the teen years. 

[Marsha]

teen years, without a doubt. I still have the scars on my hands and arms where I burned and cut myself because of the pain inside. i just didn't know where the pain was coming from back then!

[SoloZolo]

Actually, all the years.  But I guess (when I voted) I was thinking of when it really all hit me and I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed - so much that I think I killed my Siamese cat with all my toxic tears, crying into her fur.  The coming out of denial and seeing my life pass before me, the life that was no life, the childhood that was a gagged hell, the teen years that were spent being tortured by my aparents preemptively for fear of my becoming my "****" bmom, my wandering years trying to find a career that would finally FINALLY make my aparents proud of me (impossible) and then my marriage to a piece of cardboard because I subconsciously knew if he left I wouldn't feel abandoned...

OMG what a loaded question!  Who started this?? 

[Possum]

I voted teen - but I also think now is really hard also.
It's now when I'm searching and exploring - and it's HURTING really bad.
The teenage years were filled with confusion & the intense feelings of feeling like a freak in my own skin.
 

[joy]

Def. my early twenties but you know I had the backdrop of reunion in those years and no comprehension of how to deal

[Gershom]

teen years were hard on my life in general, and now i look back on it and realize alot came from adoption related issues. So i voted teen. But i did'nt get it till 21, when i entered reunion.

[Elizabethparis]

Without hesistation I voted 19-26. Because 19 was when I was abandoned yet again. I was so lost back then, just felt like life was not worth living.

Life got betler when I finally graduated from college, and then later went to Paris. I finally had something to call my own.

[Sarah]

I voted 19 to 26 because that's when I had my daughter and it really hit me. My teen years were very tough, not just in general, but with adoption and identity. But when I was pregnant and had Sam, holy Christ.

[Stewie]

I voted youngish adult (thanks for making 27+ a youngish adult  )
 
Because that's when I decided to search, and open up. I was so closed, so "I'm fine with being adopted, it just means my birthmom couldn't have me and I'm where Im meant to be" and so IN FEAR of thinking anything else.

FEAR of looking inside, fear of everything. The whole thing. I had to have my life in order (house, husband, kids, dog, career) before I really allowed myself to jump in.

So the following years were the worst for me. There was alot of realization of things I never thought about before. A lot of staying up late at night, crying to the sky "where ARE you?!" Lots of **** up at work, having some major medication-requiring panic attacks, IBS, generalized anxiety disorder, depression....it was a LOW point in my life to say the least.

I definitely feel like the lowest point is over, but I am so much more in touch with reality and with my feelings and am so glad I allowed myself to do this, so much hurts but the hurt gives way to so much that I need to feel.

[Addie Pray]

I voted 19-26 because I think I was probably certifiable for a while in those years.

But, all years have been challenging, just in different ways.  It might actually be harder now at 41 than ever, I just have better ways of dealing.

[Theresa]

I honestly can't vote because I really don't know.

I know as a child I 'missed my mommy' but I also loved my adoptive mom too. I used to fantasize tragic epic lovers torn apart stories about her and daydream about how she'd come find me.

In my teens I was a horror show, hands down. The fact I'm still alive after some of the crap I pulled AMAZES me.

In my twenties, same thing, only I had a job and my own money and the independence to destroy myself free of parental constraints.

Thirties, I was busy. Busy mommying, being in a women's drumming group, active in women's spirituality. I pushed a lot of it down

Now in my fourties I find I actively hurt a lot more than all of the prior decades. I have a lot more depression

I honesty wish I could answer, but I really don't know.

[SoloZolo]

I voted 19-26 because I think I was probably certifiable for a while in those years.

But, all years have been challenging, just in different ways.  It might actually be harder now at 41 than ever, I just have better ways of dealing.

Addie, I do believe I too was certifiable for a while from 19-26.

[Orchidsnowfairy]

teen years, without a doubt. I still have the scars on my hands and arms where I burned and cut myself because of the pain inside. i just didn't know where the pain was coming from back then!

whoa that sounds exactly like me!!! (hi Marsha, I'm Jessie btw)

My teen years were the hardest years of MY life, but I didn't know why they were so difficult, I had noo idea that it was due to adoption.  Looking back on it now I understand it better.  

Right now, Adoption wise, these years, well this year, the one I have spent in reunion is the hardest.  But my teen years were definetly the worst mentally for me.

[Nina]

There was alot of realization of things I never thought about before. A lot of staying up late at night, crying to the sky "where ARE you?!" Lots of **** up at work, having some major medication-requiring panic attacks, IBS, generalized anxiety disorder, depression....it was a LOW point in my life to say the least. 

 

Wow.  Yep.  Went through that in my early thirties.  This was when my a-mom developed Alzheimers and was managing her care while caring for my two little girls.  I thought it was the stress of watching her decline with dementia.  Now, I realize I was trying to be the Dutiful Latina Daughter when I was actually filled with rage that she'd never allowed me to ask questions about my adoption and made me pretend I was their bio child.  Became a RAGING hypochondriac.  Actually had to sit on my hands to keep from doing breast checks for lumps that I was SURE were there.  Once, an ant crawled up my bum at a picnic and I was sure the itching was due to rectal cancer.  Went to docs a lot. 

But looking back on it...the teen years were absolutely AGONIZING.  Like other a-moms mentioned in other posts, it's like my a-mom went crazy.  I can see now she was terrified that I'd become a **** (which she called my first mom) and every move toward independence was seen as a personal betrayal and rejection of her.  These are the years of, "And after all I've done for you" and "You are so selfish and ungrateful." 

I can also see now that I did choose slutty friends...probably because I was trying to connect with my first mom and that's all I was told about her...and that I desperately clung to my boyfriend and got sooooo emeshed in him.  He was a nice guy but I totally lost myself.  I had absolutely NO sense of myself during this time that I felt like a ghost. 

But as all of you have said, while there may be worst years, it's just sort of a continuum of pain/difficulty. 

[SoloZolo]

it's just sort of a continuum of pain/difficulty

Yeah, it is, and I keep thinking it will end but it doesn't.  Here I am at 54, and here IT still is.