I am an adoptee. My adoptive parents weren't a "better life" story. Searched for my bios, and that didnt go well. There was this distance, that I felt. They didn't seem to make much effort to show a connection, just more like an obligation to know me. When I was 19, I gave up my 2 year old son, after being indirectly threatened that he could end up with my abusive APs if something happened to me. I was young, alone, with no one to tell me that was beong manipulated, all I knew was fear for my son that they would get their hands on him and the desperate need to protect him from them.

I got the waiver to release information to him today. I will be filling it out, that is 100% settled. If he contacts me, I am SCARED TO DEATH of him feeling like he is obligated, or that I am connecting out of obligation like I felt, and so many feelings that come from this step.

I know I loved him the moment he was born, it was literally a situation of he was all I had ever had, the only love I had ever known was real, his fir me and mine for him. His birth was the first time my whole life, I felt a connection to anyone that was SOLID and real, it was me and him against the world and he was instantly my world. For me, he is my baby boy, and I did the best I could to pick HIM, not me. I was alone, with nothing, and no one, his only family, struggling, broke, about to be homeless, nowhere to turn, and facing ME beong on the street alone or US being on the street alone, with a risk that of something happened to me, it might get worse for him, being put with my APs, his adoptive grandparents. I felt that signing off gave him the best chance, a stable hole, with a mom and a dad, and a whole family, not struggling with mom, and hidden and safe from the people I knew, protected.

I am so scared to tell him that part, so scared to hurt him, to fail him. To me I sacrificed everything for the highest chance to not fail him.

If he reaches out, what do I tell him?

"Hey sweet boy, you dont remember or know me, but I never fortlgot you, love you now the same as the day you were born, and for me its still us against the world, anything for you".

Its the truth, AND its heavy. For him I'm a stranger he doesnt know, has no reason to trust, or worse, the one who gave up on him. For me, he's my son, the person in the world I live for. After I signed off and he was taken to his new life, I fell apart. The only will to live in me had just rode away. I spent 6 years drifting, disconnected from society, life, everyone and everything. Struggled badly with horrible depression, I remember one day sitting against some piece of cenent on a sidewalk in a bad neighborhood, -15 degrees and snowing, 2 a.m. outside a homeless shelter, cold and knowing, you can freeze to death, and feeling, OK, nothing to stay for anymore anyways, my last live is gone. It crossed my mind, so, you let go, die here, the pain ends, and here in 20 years, what if he needs you? What if something happens and his "me and you against the world" isnt there like you promised because you left him, you walked to protect him, and then you LEFT him in this world and now he needs you but you are dead, there is no answer for him, you cant come, you cant help, you cant be there, becaise you're not there.

He is 19. Its been 17 years. For me, every day, I lived, because one day he might need me, and I lived for that day, it was the only REASON I had to.

I know this is heavy. As adoptees, I THINK you can understand, why, coming from where you all lived, if you had a child, you HAVE to be what you didnt have for them, you would do ANYTHING to protect them, you HAVE to be there for them.

But I dont know if I can tell him. I dont know if I ever SHOULD.

I have to give him the release of my info, I have to make sure, if he needs me, Im here and he can find me. I have to be that mom, I stayed alive and am alive to make sure I can be. But I DONT KNOW if I should ever tell him that.

Im scared to not tell him, and he NEEDED to know that and have that, inside.

Im scared to tell him, and him feel obligated, or like he should owe me something for it, or like he owes me to do the reconnect thing becaise of it.

You guys know, if someone in the world, for them, that is who you are to them, their life, there anything they need, some part of you needs to know that.But you know how heavy that would feel to be that in some strangers eyes.

I have to protect that "door", that if he needs me I'm here. But I don't know what to do. It is so different being both an adoptee, with all the baggage all of us adoptees have, AND a bio, AND come from bios who made the shit formal attempt, AND know that that might be how he feels, that thats what I am too, this label of mom from a life he doesnt know, and that that might be his truth, and that this is mine, and to understand, stay silent to give him space, or tell him.

If you were him, what would you want, what would you need?

Most of all, I am scared he will HATE ME for letting him go, no matter what reason I had. Im scared he would think, you KNEW what it feels like to be an adoptee, and you stepped aside and gave me to that to protect me from some risk that YOU THINK might have been worse? There is SO MUCH SHIT going through my head. What if his APs weren't good? I have no idea how to cope with that.

I was sexually assaulted, blamed, then thrown away by my APs who never asked if I was alive or dead after they threw me out. I couldn't risk him being given to that if something happened to me, that thats what he would be put with. I did the only thing I knew how to do to force them away from his life and hide him from them. But I dont know if I did the right thing and Im scared I didnt.