When I was younger and dating, I always had a fear I would date my brother. Then, when I read Oedipus Rex, I was even more disturbed. Here is a man that mistakenly kills his own father and marries his mother. Then, when he discovers it’s his mother, he goes into denial. Seriously?! This story shook me. Here is a story, written thousands of years ago, about inadvertently committing incest with a family member. I remember writing about this in my Composition class. The story had validated my own fears. Not only could it happen, but it was also the subject of one of the most famous pieces of literature. Freud developed the psychosexual theory of a child developing sexual feelings for its parent from this piece. What would happen if I accidentally became attracted to someone and found out they were my family?
Having a closed adoption, I didn’t know anything about my family. The fear of dating someone I was related to was justified. I was looking for someone to love and it was traumatic. Dating is awkward and scary under normal circumstances without the added stressor of unintentional inbreeding. This isn’t a normal fear people have when dating. This is an added stress on adoptees with secret histories.
Being kept a secret and not being allowed to know my family also made me more desperate for love. I didn’t handle rejection well. I would try to make relationships work when I shouldn’t have. I wanted to be loved so badly that I made poor relationship choices.
I dated a guy who was an only child. My intuition was instantly spiked. I liked this guy so I asked him if he was adopted. He said, “No.” We dated for 1 1/2 years. I never got over the feeling that he was adopted. After we broke up, we remained friends. He went on and got married and had children. I hadn’t seen him in years. I was working one day and looked up, there he was. He told me that I was right. He was adopted. He had found his family and wanted me to know. I was so happy that everything had worked out and it was good. Of course, I still had no answers to my own story.
Adoptees, like myself, feel the need to find their first family. It is primal. When I was a child, I looked at faces trying to find someone, anyone, that looked like me. I wanted nothing more than to see my face in someone else’s face. Children mirror their parents and siblings. When you have no one to mirror, you can lose your sense of identity. The drive to find someone with our DNA is powerful. This could be why when some adoptees meet their birth family, there may be a sexual attraction. Since they did not grow up with the family there is no Westermarck effect, which works on a subconscious level to prevent humans that were raised together from engaging in inbreeding.
So, I never dated a family member, that I know of. I am married now. If I ever went back into the dating pool, I still wouldn’t know. I would have the same fear. I could accidentally date my brother or cousin. It’s 2020 and I still don’t know about my biological father. I may have other siblings out there.
“One of the hardest things about being adopted is that the pain can sometimes last forever”
– I am Adopted.
The truth is that every adoptee deserves to know their story and the reasons behind their adoption. Adoption may be necessary in some cases but not being allowed to know your family should never be acceptable. As I reflect on my own healing and growth, I hope that my story will be the support someone needs along their journey to finding their identity and adding another piece to the adoption puzzle.
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