The point I am trying to make about bad genes vs good genes is for example...
I have Bipolar. I was finally diagnosed at 21. Was that bad gene with me from birth?
Yes. Did me or my family know this? No. If we had all known my medical history regaurding this would it have mattered? Perhaps in getting a quicker diagnosis.
So, I take medication and have been hospital free and stabilized for over 10 years now!
If I had not been adopted would I still have bipolar? Yes. Would that have made any significant difference in the quality of my life? I don't think so.
I have some other medical issues I am dealing with. Are they genetic or lifestyle? I can choose to eat better nutritionally which would lower my risk factors to certain predispositions. Etc...So is it lifestyle that plays with some factors or solely genetics? I believe a bit of both. But some things are my responsibility such as taking my medications to prevent symptoms. Not because I am adopted.
As far as the article shared
I appreciate you sharing it but don't agree one bit about adoptees having more:
conflict with authority (for example truancy);
preoccupation with excessive fantasy;
pathological lying;
stealing;
running away (from home, school, group homes, situations);
learning difficulties, under-achievement, over-achievement;
lack of impulse control (acting out, promiscuity, sex crimes);
fascination with fire, fire-setting
"In twenty-five years of practice I have seen hundreds of adoptees, most adopted in infancy. In case after case, I have observed what I have come to call the Adopted Child Syndrome, which may include pathological lying, stealing, truancy, manipulation, shallowness of attachment, provocation of parents and other authorities, threatened or actual running away, promiscuity, learning problems, fire-setting, and increasingly serious antisocial behavior, often leading to court custody. It may include an extremely negative or grandiose self-image, low frustration tolerance, and an absence of normal guilt or anxiety."
It sounds like his practice was filled with sociopaths by the traits he is describing.
Do adoptees have a higher incidence of becoming a sociopath then non adoptees in mainstream society? Yes. But is it nature over nurture? I believe we can change our destiny. Some factors are a choice. Let's look at alcoholism. Is it genetic? Yes. So if an alcoholic passes the bad genes of alcoholism to a child will that child whether biological or adopted have a higher predisposition to becoming an alcoholic? Yes. But there are still choices and help available to adoptees as well as biological children. And if this person learns something very beneficial from having the bad gene of alcoholism that perhaps changes others lives is that gene truly a bad one?
I will just end my rambling with two quotes I live by:
For all of the pain, abuse, anger experienced by some including myself who are adopted
"To forgive is to set a prisoner free, and discover that the prisoner was you". -Lewis B Smedes, "Forgiveness - The Power to Change the Past"
If I did not learn to forgive my biological parents, my adoptive parents I would be and remain the prisoner not them.
"I've learned that our background and circumstances
May have influenced who we are,
But we are responsible for who we become."
James Rhinehart
"My life is my message"...... Your life is your message.
Mahatma Gandhi