An Inconvenient Child

A Self Introduction

Hello, My name is Barry Smith and I'm adopted! Not really how I choose to introduce myself to people. There are many reasons I attribute to this. Some like I refuse to allow my adoption to hold a control on my life, or that I try to not look too deeply into the dark murky waters of it and all the emotional upheaval it brings with it. But mainly because it's just plain weird! Yes I'm adopted. I Don't know when I was told about it, or how much I ever understood. All I can remember is that I was told at a young age and that it seemed was that. Growing up as a child is never easy, growing up as a child without any sense of connection to the world around you even more so. This was my reality. It was a reality I took for granted as I never thought for one moment it could be wrong or different to anyone else. Yet when ever I would go to someone's house growing up I'd see a bond, a connection that I couldn't understand or had experienced myself. This as I was to find out later, was an experience that I would come up against time and time again later in my life. Throughout my life I was aware from an early age that I lacked connection to the world around me. I didn't connect, or know how to connect to the world I saw around me. Subsequently I have learned that this is common for adoptees to feel this way. But again, something I would not find out till later. In fact there is a lot of issues and quirks of my personality that I have only just found out that can be attributed to my adoption. Attributes that would come to later affect the shaping of my life.

I don't mean this to sound like i was raised by wolves, or some horrid ogres, or sold into slavery. I was raised by good people, my adopted father was a carpenter and adopted mother a school teacher. I almost never went without and there was never any drink or other substance abuse or any kind of violence of any kind. Sometimes ​I wished something would be wrong if only to add (what I saw at the time) some colour to my life. Affection was never a commodity that we ever had in stock. There was never any physical signs or even verbal approval or confirmation of affection given or received. My father would never attend parent evenings, cub scout events or anything like that. I often felt less valued than our family pet. Looking back we rarely spoke, and if we did it was him announcing a new item of displeasure or disappointment in me, something I had done or the company I was keeping. I was desperate for approval, from him or others. This would lead to me being a pushover for most people, being dyslexic would also not make things any easier. I would soon learn to keep myself to my self as much as possible and developed a paranoia about people turning on me, using me and ultimately learned that everyone will always leave me regardless of what I do. Which in turn would only push me on to try try and try again to please people all the more. I soon learned to keep such feelings to myself and never let them show to the outside world. 

From time to time growing up my mind would wander to the subject of my adoption. I would fantasise on the family I could have had and what could have been. But mostly I would think "why me?" What did i do wrong? Was I not what they wanted? Not good enough? Did they know about my dyslexia and choose not to have me? Was I that much of a disappointment to them? I would churn this over in my mind growing up fully believing that I just worthless and deserved all of this, damaging my sense of self value and selfestieme.

Children can be cruel, everyone knows this and I have no doubt you yourself reading this will have experienced or participated in some less than charming endeavours when you too were growing up. I already felt different and disconnected from everything and growing up with other kids who did not understand or have any experience of this did little to help. At the age of 7 I already knew I was different than the others. I looked around and saw how easily they could make friends or join in with others. This was something that would always elude me, even to this day I just don't get how the mechanics of making friends and connecting to people works. The whole thing just completely escapes me. Such a strange and wonderful thing forever destined to be out of reach. School work was also something I struggled with. Maths and spelling just didn't happen for me and the other children being children, never let an opportunity pass to remind me how different and own I was from them. This would from this point on become a constant ritual and I soon resigned myself to its rollercoaster ride. I often found myself eating alone and being my myself as often as possible if only to stave the attacks for a short while. But the children being the darlings they were would perform new and interesting rituals each day. One such common favourite was to wait till I approached and then mutter a pleasantry on mass and then walk away. Or chants and volleys of abuse were also fun. And as I have already mentioned at school events, scout events my own father would refuse to go where all my other friends fathers would attend. This in my own opinion even back then, a not so subtle hint or glimpse into my adopted father's true feelings towards me. It was at this time in my life that I was convinced that I was broken. That something was truly wrong with me. At 14 they told me I was dyslexic. Bit late for that as even my teachers had no time for the odd and slow child. I was also called lazy by some teachers. I truly believed that I was given up for adoption because of this. That my parents didn't want a "broken" child and sought to replace me with a better one. By the ages of 13 - 15 I really just wanted to die. I saw nothing in my life to even allude that there was anything to live for.

Life at home was repetitive. Life in general tends to be patterns of routines of one form or another. I was so different to everyone around me in my "Family" I was good with and obsessed with computers, loved music. I even played musical instruments like drums and Guitars. I found these were a good outlet for my frustrations and allowed me to express myself in ways i previously could not. My routine at home was to be ignored by my father and torn down at every opportunity. My adopted brother was the favourite one. Made friends easily and did sports and would even go on to be a carpenter like our adopted father. My mother was a teacher and would live in a bubble where people did what they were told and I was just lazy. To this day I have only ever had a hug from my father once but never acknowledgement of being proud or that he even feels anything for me.

From here I left school and went into the building industry, partially to please my father. This desire to please people would be something of a repeating pattern that would feature heavily in my life. Something deep inside me would yearn to please people around me in some kind of attempt to gain recognition or approval. Ultimately it would lead to my constant undoing on numerous occasions in my life to come. Besides this issue comes the low self-esteem and zero sense of self worth. I constantly feel that I'm just not good enough for anything and that when something goes wrong it was probably my fault anyway. This has killed so many relationships and opportunities that I have lost count decades ago.

As I have stated, I have always known I was adopted and the thought of brothers and sisters has crossed my mind many times, but whether for self esteem issues or an overriding fear of being rejected I never pushed the matter each time it cropped up. My adopted parents have never commented or said anything to me about my past or my birth family. At some point in my teenage years my anguish