Why do I hate my family?

Sara my dear,

Many adopted people go through a stage of resenting the fact of their adoption. Usually, it is just that, a stage. For some reason, for you it has become a long term habit of thought and emotion. Possibly, when you were about 10 years old and had these feelings of resentment and rejection and "not fair," they horrified you. You may have thought, "They love me, and have always been nice and good to me, so I mustn't feel like this!" Or there could have been some other reason, but this is typical: whatever we try to send away gets stronger.

As an example, imagine you have an itch on your back. You know from experience that after maybe half a minute, it'll fade away, so you don't bother to scratch it, just get on with whatever you were doing. The itch will go away. But if you focus on it, and decide not to scratch it but fight the feeling, that itch will become irresistible, and you'll find yourself scratching it, never mind how hard you try not to. So, you had an itch of resentment and tried to send it away, and the more you tried, the worse it got until it became overpowering. Probably, it now feels like it is just the way things are, and that's that.

Even if the initial way the habit got established was different, the end result is the same. You have certain thoughts and emotions that distress you, and also distress your family. You would change them if you could -- but the more you try, the worse they get. The solution is to stop trying to make them go away, but make a tiny little change. Instead of "I can't help it, I hate my loving family," have "I can't help it, I feel as if I hated my loving family."

Those emotions, no matter how strong they are, are only real if you believe them. They are just inside noises until you do. So, like simply accepting an itch knowing it will normally just fade away, simply accept the negative feelings knowing that normally they just fade away.

Change is the rule. All things are change. If this situation has lasted for 8 years, it's because some force is keeping it going. I think that may be this struggle. "I should not be feeling like this" ensures that you continue to feel like that. You can work at establishing a new habit: withdrawing the struggle. "OK, I feel as if... I am allowed to."

A second point is that you are not what you think and feel, but what you DO. Try this experiment. Start a record book, or a file in your computer. Every day, find some way of acting toward your mom, dad, and sister in a way that will make them feel good: some action as if you loved them. This can be as simple as a smile, a friendly touch, doing some little thing to relieve your mom of a chore, whatever. Use your creativity and imagination. Write down each of these acts in your records. At the end of three weeks of doing such things at least once a day, read over your records, and see how you feel. I'd be interested, so let me know.

The third thing is, why don't you do some research about your culture? Chinese people have many different cultures, even many languages. See how much you can find out about your own origins. Where do you come from? What is the language this area uses besides Mandarin? What are their customs? This could become an interesting hobby that will take your mind off what has been dominating your thinking for years.

What you have been doing so far hasn't worked, so it's time to try something different. Give my suggestions a go.

Your new grandfather,

Bob