Am I Adopted? The Questions of My Origins

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What if you looked like no one in your family? or just partially like a few?

I ran this by a few friends, some online ones so they could be objective showing pictures of relatives. All said, I did not look like my family members.

I come from the land of skinny legs and even skinnier people. I am not talking average weight people either who may have a little belly or anything like that but ultra-thin folks who match model thinness.  There are a few overweight people but they never reached my extreme weight or health problems. They are healthy for larger people and can work. No one has anything resembling lymphedema. There were no thinner people with bigger legs and hips.  No one ever reached my extreme size.  One thing I figured out doing this blog is that there was serious genetic origins of weight and especially for the super-duper sized. In other words, every ultra obese person I encountered had some severe family history regarding obesity.

What if no one had your same personality or same intellectual interests? What if you were born into a family where your desire for the arts, book reading, and intellectual pursuits were decried? What if you were tested as having a higher IQ as a child and realized most of those around you were not just average but far below it? What if you were a sensitive Aspie among mostly Neanderthals? [some cousins, and their families exempted]

What if you realized you were shut out in endless subtle ways? My maternal grandmother left my photo off her family wall of pictures, leaving me off. One day I gave her a painted frame and wedding photo, it was still left off.  Every cousin, grandchild, and child was on this wall. What if you were uninvited from family events?--this in the days before you left the family church?

What if you felt rejected and like you were not a "fit" whatsoever, you were co complete and utterly different from all your relatives [even the few nice ones]? What if you noticed gifts being given by other relatives to siblings but not to you? What if you noticed some relatives not coming to your wedding or not inviting you to theirs, as if you really are not related to them? What if you felt that something simply didn't add up? One thing, people called me crazy for 17 years for knowing something was more wrong with me then just being fat and the already few discovered hormonal disorders. Same here, inside I know and feel like something is wrong even if I can't put my finger on it.

What if you got diagnosed [and it's a sure diagnosis] with a rare disorder [lipedema] which is genetic and autosomal dominant like Huntingtons? What if you join boards for support for this disorder, and they discuss how they know which side of the family it came from and how at least a few relatives were shaped like them and all of them know which and what relatives had it or what side of the family it came from?

What if you felt something was wrong from childhood? Where you remember crying that you were adopted and getting in trouble for it? Yes I know this can be a fantasy of abused children, but this lasted for me for years and years. My brother remembers me musing aloud constantly if I was adopted or if they had lied about where I had come from. He also remembers the time I came home from living with the Aunt that Loved me for some months, and not wanting to come home though I said I missed him. I didn't look like her and her children though they were all very kind.

I know it's odd to be this old wondering about my origins. These were things I was too scared to give voice or thought too before I went NC. The lipedema stuff really triggered this. I asked even a medical professional if Lipedema is genetic and they said YES. The severe obesity to the extreme made me wonder for YEARS, no one else was infertile either, but this one made me really wonder.

The fact of the matter is I felt completely alone in my family system to the point I always felt like I never belonged. Everything was about the narcs. I even find myself wondering if I was so medically neglected because they did fear some genetic disorder being found. What information was I denied? I paid a huge huge price for not having early medical intervention even from the PCOS alone! With lipedema, puberty brought it on, I gained 100lbs right when I hit puberty, and went from near normal to midsized which is where I sat until the giant weight gain hit.

One thing discussed on lipedema boards is how trauma will trigger a worsening of the condition and the year my second weight gain began, that was available in spades. One thing I considered is if I had gotten help, I never would have ended up at stage IV, and may have been a more manageable stage 1 or II, but with the narcissists no one was paying attention and no one cared. Much of the reason I had to go NC, was the medical neglect alone and protecting myself.

I almost made a fatal NC mistake,  the desire to know the truth about my origins, almost had me very stupidly take narc mother bait. I don't know what I was thinking to think that woman may admit anymore or admit the truth and it led me to almost make a huge mistake.  I've had to cut things off at the pass.

The constant hoovering I am facing is shocking me. I never expected it. I was so ostracized I thought my narc mother and sister would be glad I was gone, and would wash their hands of me for good, but it didn't happen.  Remember in my case, they were ignorers not engulfers. There seems to be an extreme desire to regain control, and "keeping track" of me that is extreme. I have to draw the boundaries tighter. They both despise me and avoided me as much as possible for years so why is keeping contact with me so utterly important?

I could be wrong and know there is the possibility I am biologically related too. Plenty of people had narcissistic egg and sperm donors who treated them like trash, but there are a lot of things not adding up in my mind too.

Late Discovery Adoptees