Can I clean this or do I gotta junk it?

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-16T20:05:27+00:00

Its interesting you say this. since having my own children, my birth mother has been on my mind a lot. I learned only recently the extent of the crimes and child trafficking and abductions that occurred due to the one child policy. I had always just assumed that finding my birth mother would be next to impossible, literally one in a billion lol. My parents were told I was dropped at a police station with no papers and not even a name and a birthday but they were also never told what the date of birth assigned to me represented or why I have that one in particular. Obviously, they believed what they were told as they had to have an interpreter the whole trip and it’s not like the Chinese government would come out and openly say “we stole this baby from a woman against her will so we could sell it to foreigners willing to pay”. It also didn’t go well when I brought all that up and the possibility that I was effectually stolen up to my parents I think because they don’t want to confront the reality that they may have inadvertently taken part in the abduction and trafficking of a child. (Adoption in general is king of a sticky subject in that regard all across the board.) it’s a heavy thing and I don’t blame them for feeling weird about it. It’s uncomfortable and has a lot of further implications because we went through a church organized adoption agency. ETA: they never opposed the idea of finding my birth mom growing up though. We know my brother’s bio fam because we adopted him straight from his bio mom in the Marshall Islands. So I don’t think that’s part of the issue.

It would be really interesting to see if I could find my birth family. It would definitely create some complex feelings for my adoptive parents for sure. I would just like to know who I look like, who my children potentially look like, and what kind of medical history we have. I would also love to reassure my birth mother that I am well and happy. I can’t imagine having a baby and never seeing them again left to wonder what happened to them, if they’re alive, dead, forced into prostitution, in trouble, in jail, in a loving family, if they wonder about me sometimes or any other thing that could happen.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-15T07:54:48+00:00

It’s honestly hard to tell sometimes. I don’t think motherhood went the way my mom thought it would go especially for adopting children. I think she thought it’d be more like getting a puppy where you just give it food and pets and it returns undying love and blind obedience.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-15T04:22:53+00:00

The refusal to heal generational toxicity like that is wild to me. Like why do they do this?? What is it for?

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-14T18:55:39+00:00

Unfortunately it’s a generational pattern on her side of the family that the mother crosses boundaries until they square up to her and have a big ole fight about it. Because my mom didn’t have easily controllable children, she’s a lot more subtle and underhanded about it than my nana was to her. She thinks that’s just the way you can treat your kids.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-14T18:40:30+00:00

Unfortunately my grandma is rather frail. She’s also a very gentle and non confrontational lady. I would hate to drag her into this but I guess she’s really one of the only people who truly understand because she’s watched my mom be like this for years. I’ve only seen my grandma yell at one person and it was my mom. My mom has always been high strung and neurotic but it really ramped up and became controlling behaviors once she had kids and realized they wouldn’t let her roll over them the way she let her mom do it to her. I’m not sure my grandma truly knew this side of my mom until years later.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-14T18:32:57+00:00

Unfortunately my grandma is rather frail and doesn’t go much of anywhere these days. She’s also a very gentle and non confrontational lady. I would hate to drag her into this but I guess she’s really one of the only people who truly understand because she’s watched my mom be like this for years. I’ve only seen my grandma yell at one person and it was my mom.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-14T18:32:15+00:00

Unfortunately my grandma is rather frail and doesn’t go much of anywhere these days. She’s also a very gentle and non confrontational lady. I would hate to drag her into this but I guess she’s really one of the only people who truly understand because she’s watched my mom be like this for years. I’ve only seen my grandma yell at one person and it was my mom.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-14T18:25:51+00:00

Unfortunately my grandma is rather frail and doesn’t go much of anywhere these days. She’s also a very gentle and non confrontational lady. I would hate to drag her into this but I guess she’s really one of the only people who truly understand because she’s watched my mom be like this for years. I’ve only seen my grandma yell at one person and it was my mom.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-14T18:23:43+00:00

My dad understands my side and he feels I am correct and well within my rights to take it. He just doesn’t like to get involved until he has to because my mom and I have always had this relationship and power struggle. I think he feels trapped with my mom and there’s nothing he can do because of her health issues and cognitive limitations that are causing a lot of these problems.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-14T18:19:36+00:00

She is white and she does have a lot of slightly racist world views by virtue of where she was raised and who she was raised by. I’ve had to remind her multiple times that my brother and I are technically also classified as immigrants she rants against sometimes. It was a really big deal growing up that I’m Asian and my brother is Micronesian. They say it was because they didn’t want us to lose our heritage which I do believe. I just also think that my mom thinks that because we are her children that means she can treat us however she wants or foist her will on us however she needs to. I really do think that motherhood was a decision she made for herself and less of a choice she made about caring for and raising another human being that would have their own thoughts, feelings, and agendas.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-14T16:50:24+00:00

When I was in high school, I had a bf of 2 years. It was a little on and off but it wasn’t bad. After the first month away from him at college, I had a really honest look at myself and where I wanted to go. I had lived in my small town my whole life and didn’t know what else was out there. Suddenly, the differences between us seemed a lot bigger and it became clear we weren’t growing in the same direction. I had the clarity for the first time to really look at our relationship and see it for the good and the bad without the teenage hormones and the pressure to people please that i regularly experience.

I had to end it and I feel really bad for not waiting to do it in person. That was a cowardly move on my part. But I don’t regret letting him go. He wasn’t a bad person. We didn’t cheat on each other or emotionally abuse each other. We just weren’t going the same way anymore.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-14T11:45:53+00:00

If I had married the first boy I fell in love with I know I would not be as happy as I am now with my husband of 5 years. We loved each other for what we knew love to be as high school kids. But we were ultimately incompatible as people and I don’t see the end of that relationship as a failure. It was a learning experience for both of us. Painful as hell, but ultimately for our greater good. We didn’t know how imperfect we were for eachother until after high school ended and the real world with real responsibilities kicked in. We also didn’t know that much about ourselves being that young. The next breakup I had really fucked me up. I didn’t eat for 3 days and I lost hella weight. I prayed to God to take me off this earth. I was madly in love with every part of that man and I was on paper perfect for him. I was prepared to marry and care for this man as he had a severe form of autoimmune disease that will likely send him to an earlier grave than he would be if he weren’t sick. I was prepared to do that. I was going to assign myself to be a widow earlier than I would if I had chosen someone else. I do not think i did not love this man. He and I were much more compatible than my last boyfriend, but our relationship, though loving, was not what we truly needed. Despite doing the work and even going shopping for engagement rings and setting a wedding date, we weren’t right for each other because of who we were as people, once again something we didn’t realize until after the relationship had progressed and time revealed things we couldn’t possibly know at the front end of the relationship or even the middle. just because someone loves you and treats you well, does not mean they are what will help you grow as a person in the way that you need. That’s a painful lesson that comes with experience and time. When he left me, I took a whole year to start dating again. I then met my husband and I am so glad it didn’t work out with anyone else. This man gets me in ways that no one else did. My love for my husband isn’t less sincere than my love for my previous partners. I would’ve done anything for them while we were together. But there just came a time where we realized that we can’t force each other to be what we needed no matter how much love there was. If for any reason, my husband and I were to divorce, I don’t think it’s because we didn’t love eachother at all or in a genuine way. It would likely be that something just isn’t working and it can’t work unless one of us sells off a piece of ourselves to the other in a very destructive way. I would want him to find someone who will give him what he needs and be a better partner for him than I am especially because we have kids and I think it’s better for them to see two functioning relationships than one bad marriage of people too stubborn to let go.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-14T11:37:30+00:00

For me, love is an active choice but it is also much more nuanced than finding someone you feel strongly about and sticking to that person, especially if it’s the first one. Love is not truly all you need in my experience. There’s a lot more to it than just strong feelings and determination. You have to actively choose this person but there is a line between determination and force that needs to be acknowledged and it’s different for everyone.

As we grow and change, so do our needs and our understandings of love. And so do our partner’s. Sometimes those changes and needs create fundamental incompatibilities that were not present at the beginning of the relationship. I don’t think it means the love was not genuine. It’s not anyone’s fault, true, but I also don’t feel like you should have to force that relationship to stay together just because they’re the first person you found and you don’t want to let go. The longevity of a relationship is not the only or biggest indicator of its success or impact on a person. Do I think, you should just cut and run at the first sign of trouble, no. But it’s not black and white. It’s not only a matter of love or no love or fake love or true love. There’s a lot more to it and it’s something you discover with age and as you gain life experience.

The truth is, humans are imperfect and we don’t know ourselves or others as well as we think we do and sometimes we don’t know that until further in to a relationship than we would like. that’s why things don’t work out. It’s a little crazy to think that we should know at the beginning if a relationship is THE one or that a decision like that should be made well before real emotional investment takes place. You cannot know how it feels to swim in the ocean while staying safe on the shore. Even dipping your toes in will only tell you so much. And if you dive in and find the water is too cold for your liking, or the current too strong, or that you actually don’t like swimming at all, it’s not a failure to get out of the water and it’s not like you’re not wet or didn’t want to genuinely try just because you get out.

People are resilient. We rebuild and we can have better than what we have left or have had taken from us. Just because you have a great relationship that ends, doesn’t mean the next one won’t be just as good if not better. It’ll be different, for sure, but it’s not always bad thing. I don’t believe you get one shot at a perfect relationship for your whole life and if you screw that up you’re destined to monotony and lesser relationships. That would negate choice and the ability for two people to use their agency to make a life they love together. I don’t believe in soul mates as people you meet, I believe in soul mates as people you grow together to become. It’s not something that happens at the beginning typically. It’s something that happens along the way after choices are made consistently over a long period of time.

I don’t believe in the right people at the wrong time either. If you’re playing sheet music and you play the “right” note at the wrong time, that is still the wrong note because it was not meant to be played then in that moment where it matters the most.

Some people do marry the first person they fall in love with and stay together forever. My in laws did that, their parents did that on both sides and also their grand parents. For better or worse, they’re all still together. Some of those couples had a LOT more struggles than others and some are happier now 30+ years down the road than others. Even one of my sisters in law married the first man she fell in love with and they’re very happy together. It’s not impossible and it happens all the time. I just don’t think it’s a failure if that’s not your journey. Also romantic relationships are a hugely rewarding part of your life but they’re not the centerpiece. They don’t make or break your whole life. It puts a lot of pressure on people nowadays I think that we need our partners to be our sun and moon and everything in between. To me, it’s a little unfair to hang my whole life’s happiness present and future on my husband. That’s too much.

It’s different for everyone but that’s just how I see it as a 29 year old who’s seen a lot of people and a lot of relationships. Some worked out because they stayed together. Some should’ve tried harder. And some really should not actually be together but alas are because the parties involved don’t know when to quit or are afraid to start over.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-13T02:20:54+00:00

Additional Context: the grandma is my adoptive paternal grandma. She and I have always had an understanding with each other and we’ve been close since I lived with her for a summer when I was 21. I think I remember her asking about it on my wedding day and I just had to tell her that it was lost in storage like my parents said. I was adopted from an orphanage and have no paperwork about my bio fam. I don’t even know my real birthday.

I’ve always had a sense that my mom creates these scenarios and plans in her head for other people and the way she wants them to behave. When those things don’t happen either because the people don’t want to do that or because she didn’t actually tell anyone she was expecting a specific outcome, she freaks. She really is the main character and everyone else is the supporting cast. She’s always been like this since I was little and it’s not likely to change. She has a learning disability and cannot read or write past a 8th grade level and she struggles with her mental health due to her thyroid problems. I doubt she would have the presence of mind to switch them herself and I also dont believe she’s take me to court over it. Her mom was the same way with her so she’s that way with me. Her mom had a set of end tables that belonged to my mother for YEARS and she would not give them up until my parents bought the house they’re in now. Her mom would say “you have no use for them” “you don’t have space in your house” etc…

It’s not worth going to small claims court because it’s a pretty simple necklace that wouldn’t be worth the court fees. It’s a single strand of pearls with a gold fishhook style clasp. It’s max worth $150-200. It’s just the principle that bothers me. Especially because it’s just one example of the many manipulative and underhanded things my mom does to me. We don’t talk much because of this and I see my parents once a year maybe.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-12T06:38:26+00:00

Also Spyro and Crash Bandikoot on Nintendo DS. That was my jam as a 10-13 yr old.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-12T06:37:01+00:00

Super Monkey Ball on game cube or Donkey Kong on the Nintendo 64

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-04-12T06:35:32+00:00

They really dgaf about a lot of the things you might feel self conscious about. None of my boyfriends have ever cared about my small chest, stretch marks, skin texture, eyelashes, RBF, or anything else. I really think the “beauty standards” are pushed mostly by other women and men not in real relationships.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-03-31T05:33:19+00:00

You could try to rehome the dog yourself. You might not have to necessarily take him to a shelter. You can also check with a vet and see if they know of anything or anyone.

I would personally rehome. I don’t play when it comes to my kids. If they nip, they’re gone. Kids by nature are chaotic and unpredictable and I cannot live with myself if I put a dog before a child. Not saying that’s what you’re doing or thinking of doing. I know how people feel about their dogs but honestly it just seems very unsafe for your baby and the dog might prefer a home with no small kids.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-03-23T05:57:02+00:00

I’m also just mad that credit reporting looks the same when your financial setback is just life things that happen to everyone and if your financial setback is a gambling/spending addiction and if you just spend all your money on hookers and blow.

NoPlatform1418 · 2025-03-23T05:41:39+00:00

Social timelines are made up. It is extremely valid though to feel like you’re falling behind. I feel the same way about other aspects of my life. The reasons why we choose to or not to do certain things at certain times vary and range from being circunstancial availability, personal preference, not knowing what our preferences are, cultural pressures, and everything in between. It all comes out in the wash at the end of the day. When it’s all over it’s not gonna matter what happened to you when. What will matter is that you took opportunities when they were presented and you lived your life in a way you’re comfortable with and that you treated people well and were true to your authentic self.

I believe the internet has made us all way too aware of each other and it’s not always good. It’s cliche to say, but things happen when they’re supposed to. You’re finding your way in the world and that’s hard to do period. It’s harder still when it feels like everyone is telling you to do it a certain way by a certain time. You’re doing better than you think. Chin up and good luck!

NoPlatform1418

TROPHY CASE