“You are adopted.”

At a young age, hearing those three words didn’t really resonate.

My family was my family, you know?

My mom was my mom, my dad was my dad, and my sister was my sister.

I was content knowing that these people were my family; I was comfortable and loved.

I didn’t fit the pieces together in my mind.

When I was 12, I realized what it truly meant to be adopted, and I started to fantasize about what my biological parents looked like and acted like– I put them on a high pedestal.

I had always been enthusiastic about telling people that I was adopted, I guess I was drawn to the fact that it made me unique and different from everyone I knew.

But that was soon turned around when my dad told me their names when I was 16. I Googled my biological father’s name, thrilled about the big reveal . . . and a mugshot came up.

That can’t be him. No, no, it’s not him.

Then I realized there was more than one mugshot, and one of them was taken only three days before I was born; my friend came up behind me, saw the picture, and said “Hey! You have that guy’s nose! Oh, and his eyes! Wait, and his lips . . . Oh.”

It felt like a knife was twisting in my heart.

I went home and asked my parents if this man was actually my father, as uncontrollable tears collected in my eyes, I already knew the answer.

They then told me about the drug addiction and alcoholism – and my whole world, my perfect world, completely shattered. Their flawless masks I placed upon my biological parents fell away and unrecognizable strangers replaced them.

A few weeks after that, I remember being at a friend’s house and we were watching Lilo and Stitch, and I heard Lilo say, “Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”

And I just started to cry.

My ‘family’ had left me behind.

I was their child, and they gave me up.

So many questions ran through my mind, “Was I a mistake?” “Was I not enough?” or “Did they just not want me in their lives?”

I felt alone. I was alone within a family that was actually connected to one another by blood.

I secluded myself – I couldn’t cope with being internally torn. I was their child, but I wasn’t at all at the same time.

My head was in a constant state of war with itself.

When I was 18, I was allowed to see pictures of my birth parents and know what happened, as well as be told about all of my other siblings.

I am one of seven children: Three half sisters, two sisters, and a brother.

It goes sister, sister, sister, brother, me, half sister, and half sister.

What really tears me apart, still, is the fact that they put up my older sister for adoption, the sister before my brother. They kept my brother, and gave me up for adoption.

I have never felt more confused, hurt, and rejected in my entire life.

I can’t trust anyone, I can’t stand the thought of being left, and I can never be on my own: I always have to constantly feel loved.

I’m always scared to lose anyone, because I have been left before; I was left by the two people who should have wanted me the most.

No one can fully understand how hard it is, feeling alone but surrounded by people who love you.

I’m an alien in my own home: fully aware of the biological difference between my whole family and myself.

I am one of seven siblings but in a family of four.

I am two-people in one– two separate lives are within me.

My name is Michaela Eloise Heldman, I am adopted, and tortured every day by that fact.