For as long as I can remember, I lived with one unshakable truth: I was adopted, and I should be “grateful” for it. Those were the words my adoptive mother repeated throughout my childhood, shaping how I saw myself and where I believed I came from. But at 25, a single visit to the orphanage where I thought my life began shattered everything. When the clerk told me there had never been a child by my name registered there, I felt the ground slip from beneath me. It was the moment I realized the story I’d been told my entire life wasn’t just incomplete—it was a lie hiding something much deeper.
Growing up, my adoptive home never felt like a warm place. Margaret, the woman who raised me, treated motherhood like an obligation rather than love. Her words were cold reminders of how “lucky” I should feel, while the kids at school echoed every painful thing she said behind closed doors. The only warmth I ever knew came from George, my adoptive father, whose laughter and small acts of kindness made me believe I mattered—until he passed away when I was ten. After that, the house turned silent and icy, and I learned to shrink myself just to survive.