Broken at both ends

There is nothing I want more than to have peace, at both ends.  You ask, what is both ends?  No, its not what your thinking.  For an adoptee in reunion, its the balancing of both families.  You try to keep everyone happy, to avoid conflict or hurt feelings.  That is how I have felt about my adoption over the years.   I have failed miserably, and I realize I cannot and will not have peace with both families in this lifetime.  

Birth woman never spent  Holidays with my adoptive family.  No relationship was built between my mom and my birth woman. Birth dad wouldnt even acknowledge I am his child.  My full brother is mentally ill and a non functioning person.    Adoptees (me) have no idea how to handle both ends.  Do I insist birth woman comes for hoidays with  my adoptive family and suffer the consequences?  Do I continue to send birth family members a Christmas card even though I have got little to nothing in return ?  Do I try to have some sort of relationship with my birth mom who is a complete stranger to my family?  What are the boundaries for an adoptee in reunion, do you know?   

Then there is the issue that I have not been included in the birth families.   There is so much guilt that the birth families cannot  have a meaningful relationship with me.    Who is the better family?  Who has the least amount of issues and dysfunction? This has been the debate for over 30 years.   There is also a lot of comparison going on, behind the scenes.  Years of discussion about this parent having problems and is not any better than the birth parent.   Constant defending the family one has grown up with.  As though I can have deep feelings and attachment to the mother I did not grow up with.  Trust me, I cant, and I have tried.  This is not exactly my fault, its also a birth mom who keeps me at an arms length distance.  Feels uncomfortable hugging me or holding me in a way a mother does.  I honestly do not ever remember her ever telling me, "I Love you" - because I don't think she has.  How does a person cope with this, and survive it?   

This is the brokenness I speak of,  broken relationships that cannot ever be fixed.  I am not the daughter to her, I am the baby she lost.  She kept my brother, and even though he is mentally ill, not functioning and she has made a career out of enabling him, she still sees him as her only child.  She can lie to me, and the entire world, but I know and feel the truth.  She does not have two children, she has one.

Its difficult when you get to the point where you realize there is no hope.   I am nearing the end of this journey and I can clearly see there is no way to make things right.