“Feeling loved is something that I have always wanted to feel in life. Growing up, I was told that I never smiled. I wasn’t happy. On the outside I seemed normal. I smiled when I felt like it, but on the inside I often fought back tears and struggled with the pain that I felt. I was different and I knew it. I didn’t have the same life story as all of my friends and family members, and I always wanted to be with my birth mom. I knew that I had two families. I knew them and I knew where they were and how to contact them. I felt abandoned and rejected by them. The people who should have loved me the most weren’t there.”
