My adoptive parents HID heirlooms from my biological family… they refuse to tell me why! | Reddit Stories - ok storytime

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dearest John, it's a bit of a fortnight since I
felt your warm embrace, Dear Sam, such it has since
we started the Okay Storytell podcast. Yes, and I have
a message for you, a delicious story that I think
you'll love. Sincerely Sam. But before that, thine divine two
minute outbreak must happen. I bid thee farewell, see you
in two minutes.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
My adopted parents hid heirlooms from my biological family. They
refuse to tell me why.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
It's because they're cursed.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Trigger warning mentions A bit of backstory. First, I twenty five,
have a younger brother, twenty three, and we were both
adopted from birth from separate birth parents. My parents tried
to have children of their own, but after three attempts,
were unsuccessful and went the route of adoption instead. By
the way, this comes from mildly worried and if you
want to submit your own stories, go to the r

(00:47):
slash Okay Storytime. Separate it. So we found out when
we were young that we were adopted, but we weren't
concerned with learning about our birth families at the time,
so we didn't push for information. As we've grown older,
I've become more interested in my own story and heritage,
but haven't questioned my adopted parents about it because I
was concerned it would hurt their feelings. I have never
gotten along super well with my adopted parents, and since

(01:10):
I've come out as a member of the LGBT community,
our relationship has become a lot more strained. My relationship
with my brother isn't much better, as he physically and
emotionally mistreated me throughout our childhood, which my parents didn't
stop or punished. Within the last few years, I twenty
five discovered that I have a half sister, and I've
since opened communication with her and my bio mom fifty.

(01:33):
What started as casually talking turned into a discussion about
my adoption process, and I've learned some worrying things. According
to my bio mom, my adoptive mom swore that I
would be adopted into their family as an only child
because of their losses and a desire to have just
one child to raise. My biomom wanted to make sure

(01:53):
I would be given to parents who were going to
take care of me and used this as a factor.
Two years later, my brother was adopted in the family.
It's also been said that I was sent off with
a variety of items to show from my family, including
several heirlooms, a handmade ring to match my biomom's, letters
from everyone in the family, and a scrap book with
pictures of everyone in the family. She also informed me

(02:14):
of some of my family medical history, including that we
have a history of depression, ADHD, bipolar disorder, and several
other mental illnesses running in the family, all of which
I have been diagnosed with at a late stage in
my life.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
That's like, I hope it should be criminal to withhold this.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Kind of information for somebody. I absolutely agree that, like
the fact that you can hide medical information from like
an adoptee is or like a child who's gifted, ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Should be fully like going to jail over that I.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Have not seen or heard of any of this stuff
existing and feel that I really could have benefited from
knowing my medical history, yeah early on, so I could
get treated right away.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Absolutely, Hey, dude, that have been my best friend. Not
to out anybody, but yeah, you found out from his
mom that he's like predisposed for her diabetes and he's
like thirty something. He's like, why didn't I know this earlier?
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
I just never told you. I'm really bothered by the
fact that, after twenty five years, I had to hear
that this was held from me by my birth mom.
If I hadn't reconnected with her, I don't think i'd
ever have found out. I want to know what happened
to these belongings and why this was hidden from me,
but I don't know how to begin asking about it.
My brother was told early on that his bio parents
wanted nothing to do with him, and although we never

(03:31):
got along, I'm not going to spit in his face
by straight up asking in front of him. I have
a feeling that he has at least a small part
in why it was hidden. I'm not saying that it
was his fault, of course, but that he was just
a factor, since he would have wondered why he never
got anything from his biofamily but I did. My brother
and I have honestly gotten a lot closer since we've
left our parents' house, and I try not to hold

(03:52):
anything against him for his past mistakes, so I don't
want to accidentally hurt him while asking about this. I'm
really confused, and this is eating away me. Please, if
anyone has any suggestions for me. I'm open to hearing them.
I have an appointment with my therapist and plan to
talk to her, but that's not for several weeks, and
I could really use advice from a third party. Thanks,

(04:12):
And there is an edit and an update. But do
you have any thoughts?

Speaker 1 (04:16):
I mean, it's my conspiracy would just be that it's
like that, Oh well, it was just like it was
just a little too complicated to tell you.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah. I think probably the feelings of oh, we didn't
know how to tell you, or the feelings of well,
you're our child now, who cares about riots?

Speaker 1 (04:33):
You don't need your real parents? That's us, Yeah, that's us.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
We did. We didn't want to confuse you. Yeah, no, no, no, edit.
I know there's a good chance that my adoptive parents
are likely lying to my brother as well. That's also
a good point. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
Actually I'm just say that.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, because they could be like, oh, yeah, they hate you,
and the kid'll be like, all right, I believe that
because I'm a child.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, I mean, like, why would you ever tell your
child that you're you know, I don't know. I feel
could be like there was you know they were going
through really hard time and they just couldn't handle being
parent Like, I feel like, you don't have to be
like your parents hated you.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
There's some fishing going on because they also told Ope's
bio family that it was like, oh, it's going to
be the only child, and I want to raise an
only child. Yeah, it's And then like immediately it's like,
why would you to not stick to that.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
I just don't want to say anything to him that
might hurt him unintentionally or close him off to the
idea of bringing it up with our adopted parents. And
there is a small update. I asked my brother if
he would be interested in doing a DNA test like
twenty three and meets with me to open up a
conversation about things, and he agreed. So it's just a
matter of figuring out when I'll post a better update
once I have a talk with him. And there is

(05:48):
an update. I think that Ope's gone around about this
the right way, like getting the information and stuff, and
then you know, approaching this up the topic with her parents, Yeah,
or with their parents. I don't think we I would agree.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
You got to gather you get gather your information, get
some ducks lined up. Yeah, so you can quack at
your adoptive parents about why they've hidden all this your
medical like literally forget everything else and be like I
needed to know about my medical history or my medical background.
Why would you keep this from me?

Speaker 2 (06:20):
You know what? It was a lot of like mental health,
medical backgrounds. So maybe they're the type of people that
are like, oh, that doesn't that's not real.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
They're like, oh, they if they don't know that they
can have it, then they won't get and they won't.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Have it, which is silly in shorts, I twenty five
have recently been in contact with my biological mother fifties
and half sister twenty one. I was adopted at birth
because my bio money didn't have the money to take
care of me at the time. As we've gotten to
know each other, she told me about various items such
as photos, letters, gifts, and family heirlooms that she had

(06:52):
gifted me before I was adopted. Needless to say, I
never received these items, which really hurt. I ended up
asked my adoptive mom fifty eight about it when I
went to visit her and my adoptive dad sixty five
for Christmas. It went about as well as expected. She
started off by claiming she had no idea what I
was talking about and that she didn't remember anything being

(07:13):
sent with me. Luckily, my bio mom had a picture
of the gift basket she had sent, as well as
details of other items she sent over the years, and
I had taken a picture of it. When I showed
her the picture, she proceeded to say that she had
no idea where it would be and that it was
probably misplaced or lost when we moved homes when I
was younger. That's wild. Yeah, that is wild.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
I intentionally lost it. I mean I accidentally lost it.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
He accidentally, I accidentally lost your family heirlooms.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yes, I accidentally cast it into the fireplace.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Everything was probably gone by now. I told her that
I had located or recognized a few of the items
in the basket, such as a couple of stuffed animals
and a bible for kids, which she had passed off
as coming from other relatives when I was little. Example,
a teddy bear that was in the basket came from
my maternal grandmother, not my bio mom. The piece that
I really wanted was a beautiful scrap book that my

(08:07):
bio mom had made for me, which I begged her
to find. She claimed she had no idea where it
would be, but I'm convinced that is a lie. The
reason I believe this is because I have recently come
out as non binary and have since changed my name,
which my adoptive parents have only recently accepted. She found
the book in a box with a bunch of other
baby stuff that was labeled with my chosen name, meaning
that she's known where it was and didn't plan on

(08:30):
sharing it with me. She finally ended up saying that
the reason she didn't give me the stuff and say
who it was from was because of my brother. He
was adopted from a different family and his mother made
it clear that she wanted nothing to do with him,
which our adoptive parents told us both about early on. Why.
I mean, like, I'm very very for like people, you know,

(08:50):
parents communicating that their children were adopted from early age.
Do we need to tell them, like specifically when their
kids that their parents did I didn't want. Probably not.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
It feels like it's very like, uh, it feels like
they're just trying to be like, yeah, we're the best.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Of the worst. Yeah, it does feel like it feels
like the mother Gothl kind of approach of like, if
you got there, people are gonna hate you, they gotta.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
Tech you, and you you have to stay home.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
And it feels like, don't reach out to them because
they hate you, they don't want you.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, it's like you're gonna, I guess, trust those people. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
So apparently he'd constantly scope at the house looking for
things from his biofamily, which I don't really believe, which
is why they hid my stuff. She also claimed that
because I never asked about my biofamily, she assumed I
didn't care about it and wouldn't have wanted to know. However,
I would have loved to know more about my biofamily,
but I felt that asking would be a slap to
the face for them, so I never did. Considering my

(09:48):
mom's reactions to me questioning her lies, I'd say that
was a fair assumption. She kept insisting that she'd never
intentionally lie to me or hide things from me, even
though that's exactly what she did for years.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, what, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
She wouldn't intentionally lie to you. She literally lied to you,
like so many times in the course of one conversation
when you asked about the heirlooms.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
She came out and admitted that she lied to you intentionally.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
She told you why she lied to you, But she
did lie to you.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah, which, yeah, what that doesn't make any sense?

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Do you have any thoughts?

Speaker 1 (10:21):
Don't lie to your kids. They're smarter than you think,
except about, you know, the accepted things.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yes, there is still a lot of new information. I'm
learning more and more things that they've been lying to
me about, But that's another story. I am frustrated and
beginning to accept that my parents hid the items from
me to make it seem as though my own adoptive
mother didn't want me. Yeah, they did that for both
your brother and you. They did that. After all, my
brother's parents didn't want him, so I couldn't have been

(10:48):
wanted either. I think they're lying in order to keep
me from asking questions about my biofamily. They had to
pretend that they didn't exist in the first place. I
don't know where to go from here. There are still
things from my past that are missing, such as a
jewelry set that my bio mom had gifted me to
match her own set, as well as other pieces of
information that I know they kept secret for me. I'm
just so tired. Any advice would be extremely helpful. I

(11:14):
think I think they need to continue with the DNA test,
you know, get that, go with your brother, get that
all sorted, and then you could probably reach out to
your bio parent, you know, and then go confront your
parents and say like, hey, I know that you've kept

(11:34):
some information from me. I would like that information back please,
or I would like those those heirlooms back, like I've already.
And also what you could do is talk to your
brother separately, because I feel like they've kind of been
lying to him and pitting you guys against each other. Yeah,
So I feel like if you go to your brother
and kind of tell him what the situation is, and

(11:56):
then go to your parents and say, yeah, he's fine
with this. Can I please have my heirlooms?

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, like especially this stuff like the scrap book, that's
not something you should be keeping from now anybody. No,
absolutely not adopt your adoptive parents and then hide their
parents information from them. Have them eternal sunshine so they
forget all of their necessary medical information and then hide
it from them and see how they like it.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
See how they like it. Ye, folks, that's the end
of that story, so we're gonna get into the next one.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Indeed, my cousin stole expensive toys from me, so I
stole them back jail for the both of you, thieves.
This entire thing is so infuriating and ridiculous, and five
of my extended family members are literally angry texting me
right now. I just don't see how I'm wrong for this,

(12:48):
though I'm not. My cousin, Victoria twenty eight female fake
name and I twenty nine female grew up playing with
these miniature collectible animal figurines from a toy line called
My Littlest Pets Stop Stop.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
LPs. I had fair a fair amount of those.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
So you're gonna have a real informed tape. Oh yeah,
oh on on this situation. The toys are still made today,
so I'm sure a lot of you have heard of
them before. By the way, this comes from users squish
Muffins on the Charlotte Dobray YouTube subreddit, and if you
want to submit.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Your own stories, come on our slash Okay story.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Time and submit them.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
May uh.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Back when we were kids, the toys had a significantly
different design to them. Between the two of us at
that point in time, Victoria and I had to have
collected at least one hundred and fifty of these things.
She had more than me, but not by much. We
had so many of them that we often traded them,
giving each other the ugly ones that we got as
Christmas gifts.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
So we all know the ugly ones. It's that cat
with the little hair sprouting out of it.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
There we go, we've got the inside source on my
Littlest Pet Shop. This was all twenty years ago, and
it had taken her and I several years at that
time to grow that collection into what it was, and
it undoubtedly cost our extended families an absurd amount of money.
I never considered trashing any of those toys because I
knew one day I wanted kids, and I wanted to

(14:15):
pass all my best stuff along to them.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
I think most of my toys I gave to like family,
friends and stuff. Yeah they're gone. Yeah, because you hate
your own children. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
This included all my old bradstalls, my video games, and
the LPs. Of course, I have an almost three year
old daughter currently who just recently inherited the majority of
my old toys. Because we've finally reached the point where
she doesn't stick everything in her mouth. And I was
so excited to see her playing with them that I
shared a photo of it on Facebook last week. My
cousin Victoria commented on the photo at some point that

(14:48):
evening and said, lol, misplaying those things with you? When
can I come see you in the baby? My dumb
butt was thrilled by that. Of course you are. Why
would you be dumb about that?

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Why would you of any reason for concern? Right now?

Speaker 1 (15:02):
I thought she wanted to connect with my daughter and me,
so I made plans with her to come visit Friday.
Victoria and I hung out that entire night, talking about
our childhood together and playing with.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
My daughter together.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
She socialized with my fiance. She even had dinner with us.
I left that encounter feeling happy and closer with her
than i'd felt in years, as we had naturally drifted
apart when I left for college a decade ago. I
thought this night would help bring her and me back
to that level of closeness. I thought she had felt
that way too. I tried reaching out to her the
next day on Saturday, asking when I could see her again,

(15:33):
and she said, my work schedule's full this week. I'll
let you know when i'm free. So I let it be,
anticipating she would do just that. Two days ago, I
saw a group on Facebook being suggested for me for
buying and selling LPs, and I saw Victoria was a member,
so I decided to join it. Based on that, I
assumed she wanted to buy some for herself, maybe since

(15:53):
playing with them again brought back those memories, that was
my first thought. I quickly realized how much money people
were asking for these things used in the group, and
I knew Victoria was struggling heavily with student debt. She
is a nurse, so I was curious if she was
there hoping to find a deal or what. It was
because of this group that I realized how seriously people
still take collecting these toys.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Dang it, you're telling me that I could have made
money on those.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Literally, I'm on eBay right now. Hold on, hold on,
I'm just checking. I need to know. I need to
know how much money Persian Cat discontinued sixty five dollars day.
I'm trying to find first gen Kitty Cat SHC first
edition Stick's tongue out two hundred and forty five dollars

(16:42):
with thirteen watchers stop a group of four for one
hundred and fifty did I Holy crap.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
I have messed up. I mean I messed up ten
years ago, but I messed up. Oo, dude, who do these?

Speaker 1 (16:56):
We're gonna be like the next Pokemon card.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Jeez. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Educated myself a lot that morning. Original generation toys are
the most sought after, and any animals with purple eyes
are considered very rare. Almost every toy in my collection
was an original generation, and it felt kind of cool
having something that many people would pay tons of money
to have. It didn't tempt me to sell them. I
kept them all these years so my kid could have them.
I wasn't going to sell them, but it was still
interesting going through the high price list and seeing how

(17:22):
many I actually had. As I'm scrolling through this group
and beginning to pull out the toys from the box
I keep them in, I see the post Victoria's post
two hundred and fifty bucks for a cat, My cat, she.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Stole your Littlest Pet Shop. I understand that this was
it was very obvious that that was where I was going,
But this is ridiculous. She tricked you into having her over,
and then she stole your child's toy.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
If you're so hard up for cash that you're willing
to steal from your family, just have the freaking like
self respect to just say, Hey, I'm like struggling right now.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
Can I have help?

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (18:05):
I need help.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
I would like help if you could give me any
kind of help financially.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Literally healing candy from a baby.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
My cat has a distinctive mark on the eye where
the manufacturer messed up the paint, so I knew it
was the exact same cat from my collection. Even if
the photo was grainy, it was clearly mine. Between us,
there was only one of this particular cat. This bee
literally stole it from my house, tucked it away in
her purse, and was trying to sell it behind my
back without mentioning anything about it. When Victoria and I
were just starting our collections, that cat was one of

(18:33):
her first ones, and she hated it. It doesn't have
a bobblehead and its tongue sticks out as a feature.
She gave me that cat when we were kids, and
she never once asked for it back, and I kept
it that entire time. Because, like I said, she hated it,
so it became mine. Her post said found my old
cat and know someone wants him. No low balls please.
I honestly thought seeing red was a figure of speech.

(18:53):
I felt so used, so betrayed, and I knew then
that she didn't actually give a crap about our relationship
at all, and just saw an opportunity to earn money.
When she saw that picture I had shared, I wanted
to call her and scream, but instead I just left
the Facebook group and called my fiance. I was actually crying.
I know, that's silly crying over a toy, but she was, Yeah,
you're crying over like there's so much more than that. Yeah,

(19:16):
it's your being. You're being emotionally deceived. You know, that's
a thing that you wanted to give to your kid.
It's something that you have childhood memories with.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
With her too. Yeah, it's like this toy, she's twisting
the knife.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
I know that's silly crying over a toy, but she
was so shady about absolutely all of it. I would
have talked to her and literally given it to her
if she had been fourth right, if she had said
I was wondering if I could have that cat back
because I'm really struggling financially and could really use the money.
I would have told her yes without hesitation, but she
didn't do that. She pulled one over on me, and

(19:52):
I absolutely was not going to effing let it go.
I was going to get her back in some way.
I just wasn't sure how I knew she was not
a that I knew of her actions yet, and I
knew in my heart she was going to keep this
secret the rest of her life if she had never
been caught. Victoria was a pathological liar when we were kids,
and it's clear to me that she never outgrew it.
My fiance suggested to me over the phone about driving

(20:13):
over to her house and simply asking for it back,
but knowing her, she would say something like, oh, it's
already gone, when in reality, it's just hidden somewhere away
from me until she makes the sale. Remember when I
said my cousin is a nurse, Well, she's a night
shift nurse and she works every weeknight. I know this
is her schedule because she told me as much when
she came to visit. So I decided to just wait,
wait until I knew for certain she was at work,

(20:33):
which was last night. I went to her parents' house.
She lives with them, and I told them honestly that
Victoria had something of mine and I needed to grab
it real quick. My aunt and uncle had no problem
letting me go to Victoria's room, which told me they
didn't know about the situation with the toy. I go
to her room and sitting in a pile on her desk,
beside shipping packages are several LPs toys she had taken

(20:54):
from my home. Ah.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
I thought I was gonna be like, oh, she's she's
got a whole business.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
She was like, well, if I take one, I gotta
take you more.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
They're gonna be lonely.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
I gotta make it worth though, Oh my god, not
just the one cat. She took six of them. These
specific toys may have initially belonged to her, but they
were mine now. She had given them to me, and
I was the one who decided not to trash them
over the years. I grabbed every single one of them
and stuck them in my purse, hugged my aunt and
uncle goodbye, then went to the car. I took a

(21:25):
picture with them in my hand, sent it to her.
Then added, you're not my family if you think stealing
from me is okay, you're not welcome at my house again.
Pretty pretty great mic drop mode.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, I thought you had broken into the thousand for
a second. You didn't. You're on an uncle let you in? Yes,
and then she took back what she stole from you. Okay.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Storytime categorically does not endris be and ease. No, we
do endorris be and bees, though, yes, get you some,
get you some grub at a nice cour and we
also d and d, which we should do on this show.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
We should should.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
I cried for a minute, then collected myself before driving home.
I called my fiance on the way, and he told
me he was so proud of me for standing up
for myself. I didn't hear from Victoria the entire night,
and the anticipation made me such an anxious mess that
I couldn't even sleep. Really, I knew Victoria was going
to be off the clock at five am, and only
then would she see my text. The phone buzzing is

(22:21):
what woke our whole family this morning. The buzzing wouldn't stop,
so I turned my phone off and everyone went back
to sleep. I honestly wish I had gotten up this
morning to address things, because now her brothers and parents
are texting me. They're calling me a thief and saying,
how could you manipulate us like that yesterday?

Speaker 2 (22:36):
That's so funny, that's so funny. Wow, maybe you should
ask your daughter that.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
Yeah, you're getting manipulated by your own daughter right now,
because she's making it sound like she didn't steal those
from op. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
I think that you need to, like post all of
the messages that you got from your cousin, like the
ones where she saw your post, like the posts that
you guys that you share. Her message is about wanting
to meet up her, then taking your stuff, then posting
them on.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
eBay, and again emphasizing that if she just would have
asked me, I would have given them to her immediately,
but she stole them from me.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, from your child.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
I didn't manipulate anyone. I told them she had something
of mine, because she did. She's telling me she's taking
me to small claims court over this because apparently someone
already bought it and now she has to refund them.
Y'all advice, please, I don't have any more energy to
deal with this today. I just want to shut down mentally.
Does she have an actual case against me in small

(23:36):
claims if there are pictures of her as a kid
playing with these update This crap is bonanosas, let's get
into it. It took me a while to come back
and write this because it took me a while to
respond to my family member's bombardment. I don't like confrontation,
but the mama bear in me overrides that, and as

(23:58):
many of you in the comments pointed out, just steal
from me. She stole from my baby. You're a baby thief.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Baby thief.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
A well, that sounds like you stole the baby, baby thief.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
And, like many of you.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
Also commented and suggested, I sent a link for the
original thread to my aunt and uncle and their sons
and simply told them she was manipulating all of them
and it was their choice whether or not to believe me,
and my cousins knowing their sister, jumped to my side
without hesitation. Nice, nice noise. Put it all in that
nice because that's noise noice. My aunt's texts after reading

(24:35):
the post, whereas follows Katie, I'm horrified and sick beyond
belief over this I'm so sorry. Believe me, she's going
to be sorry too.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Another one. I should check to see if a degree
is even real. No level is too low. Apparently when
it comes to lying to family.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
A Wow, she really switched up.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Oh she neither was the proof.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah, she's like, I'm so sorry, Katie. My daughter is Liah.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Well, so'll be sorry. Did she not remember sending you
all of those things?

Speaker 2 (25:05):
Did she not think?

Speaker 1 (25:07):
Did anything come to light? No? I effing loved my
aunt and had a feeling she'd listen. Honestly, the rift
between my aunt and Victoria began when I started telling
said aunt everything Victoria was lying about while we were
still kids. It made her parents crack down, and looking
at it now, it's why she resents me and never
cared to fix things. She never considered growing or getting

(25:28):
better as a human being. She just became a better liar.
And it's gross. Victoria.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
You're gross. You're gross, Victoria.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
You you Her first text to me after seeing my
photo was as fellows, I already sold it, and you
know I've been struggling financially. Like I literally sat there
and told you how hard my life has been. All
night and you could have offered to give them back
to me. I sat there hoping you would. But you'll
be effing stingy and keep a million of these little
things that your daughter is just gonna lose. Like, be

(25:57):
so real right now, you're going to make a case
out of six when you have like fifty.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
So like.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
Just like brain dead, she's almost there is the thing
that's getting me. Yeah, she's like I wanted them and
I sat there just hoping that you would give them
to me. Hey, you know what's better than just sitting
there just hoping ask? Yeah, you have to use your
mouth and ask.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
Excuse your big girl words? Yeah, how is O B
supposed to know that they were worth money?

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Her second text was as follows, you know their mine
and you're being a bee?

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Her third text, you never offered to give them back
over the years, and I thought maybe you had finally
effing matured after all this time. Having a kid Now
didn't change anything.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Did it?

Speaker 1 (26:42):
Her fourth text, you would have said no if I'd
asked too, because that's just the kind of person you are.
That was just so unnecessarily hateful and untrue and stung
probably the most of all of her texts. The final
text was court can settle this if you really want
to say, we aren't family anymore. I understand that she's
embarrassed that she's been caught, and that's why she's hostile.

(27:02):
Maybe a small part is her devastation about the ruined relationship,
but who knows. My aunt texted this morning and invited
me and my daughter over for Monday afternoon and promised
Victoria won't be there. She wants to discuss all of
this in person. I don't know what's gonna happen to Victoria,
but I should know by then. Would you guys like
a final update on this?

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yes? Hello?

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yes, yes please, yes, yes yes, And there is an edit.
I forgot to add her last text after her family
flipped on her, she sent only one. All you've ever
done is ruined my life. She's so dramatic. I will
respond to her eventually. I'll include it if you guys
actually want an update, and there's a second one.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
They literally do. I want it more than anything. I
want it.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
I want it more than the two hundred and fifty
dollars Littlest Pet Shop cat that sticks its tongue out.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
I literally know exactly what cat she's talking about too.
I think that was the thing.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
I think that was the one I found on eBay.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yeah, I have seen I've played with that cat. I
don't think I had it myself, but my friend had it.
She had like a toll of little pus shops.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
Shout out to all the LPs super fans out there.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Update number two.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
The LPs two okay, storytime pipeline needs to be studied.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
This final update is being shared with my uncle's blessing
because a lot of wild details have been revealed to
me about Kleptoria, and now I'm even more furious on
my aunt and uncle's behalf. Oh no, she's been a thief.
She's been a faith for a long time.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
That's so funny. I was like Kleptoria, and it was
like Cleptoria.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
It's gonna be a new D and D character, Captia, Kleptoria,
don't steal from the bar maidens.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
Drop it. I can't help it, can help it.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
I'm Kleptoria. We know my daughter and I followed up
with my aunt like she requested and went to their house.
My family is toy knit. This wasn't unusual for them
to ask me over like some of you were worrying
about in the comments. I visit extended family a lot.
My uncle hugged my daughter and me when we arrived
and told us we were always welcome over and he

(29:04):
was sorry. They have grandkids from their eldest son, so
my daughter was able to play with toys and watch
Bluie over there while we talked. First, we discussed the
lies she initially told them all. Her claim was I
had stolen these toys behind her back when we were kids,
and I had denied it for years, only for her
to see them again. With the rest of my other
toys and the photos I shared on Facebook. She told

(29:25):
them I refused to return the toys and it was
her right to take back stolen property. My uncle then
said that statement was pretty ironic, considering how pissed she
is that I've reclaimed my stolen property. I asked them
how they knew I was the one being honest, and
they told me when she was confronted about the Reddit post,
she went ballistic. Victoria is notorious for becoming hostile when

(29:47):
she's caught being dishonest, and they said her reaction was
all the proof they needed. Dude, imagine being read like
a book.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
They like, Ah, you know Kleptoria. She always gets mad. Yeah,
been cut.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Oh we're on chapter one. You got caught stealing again?
A book five of Kleptoria. The tales of the Chronicles
of Kleptoria always start the same way. She got caught again. Uh.
I asked how Victoria was doing. Both of them hesitated
at that, like they were deciding who was going to

(30:21):
tell the story. My aunt ended up leaving the room
and went to make food. He told me she was
getting removed from the home, but it wasn't because of this.
This was just the final straw for them, and they
were letting the rest of the family know what kind
of faif she really was. It turned out Victoria stole
a few thousand from my aunt and uncle first in
her final years at college. As my uncle explained it,

(30:42):
Victoria wanted people to think she was from a rich
family that could afford her tuition as well as vacation
over the summer, which at that point she had one
year left. I remember the photos on Facebook from this trip.
She went with three girls that I don't even think
talk to her anymore, and her ex boyfriend. A lot
of money that was meant for college books, boarding, food,
et cetera. Was being spent on this boy and other

(31:03):
ridiculousness so she could continued this rich person lie. And
she was going to keep this lie to herself if
they hadn't begun asking questions about the discrepancies. They told
her she could live with them to save her money
so that she could pay them back faster. They made
it clear they were going to hold her to it.
They weren't going to let her party like she was
a free woman until she paid them back, and if
she wanted to fix the relationship.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Between them, this was her only option.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
She stole from me because she was trying to get
back to the party lifestyle faster.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
So she's not even in need.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
She's just like in debt for stealing from stealing from
her parents. So now she's like, I'll pay that debt
by stealing from my cousin. It's like when you get
a loan and then you get another loan to pay off.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
The first loan. Bad idea.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
You get the third loan, pay off all three loans
with the fourth. You keep doing that and you get
that fifth loan and now you've swimming in it. My
aunt came back into the room and asked, she hasn't
texted you, has she? You have every right to press
charges against her for this. I told her, if she
had half a brain, she would stop digging herself deeper

(32:13):
and to leave you alone. Honestly, that made me cry again.
I told them I was sorry about all the stress
and that I haven't been sleeping well all week because
of this, and that I never meant for them to
get dragged into it or for it to turn into
something like this.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
It was a therapeutic visit and I'm glad we cleared
the air.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
But hearing that she's being, you know, removed from the house,
does it make me feel good after all of this.
I just hope she can finally learn and grow after
all of it. A life full of burnt Bridges sounds
pretty lonely to me. Thank you so much everyone for
taking time out of all of your lives for me
on here. I'm just a frazzled stay at home mom
that loves the legend of Zelda. My life is never

(32:50):
this interesting. Don't steal from your don't steal from your friends,
don't steal from your family.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
I don't steal folks from the people in your life.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
Edits, there's some new information. I had no desire to
press charges and potentially get her fired. I just wanted
this situation to go away. But a lot of people
pointed out that she could be stealing from patience. How
because she's a night nurse.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
But how like, oh like, there's stuff by.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
The sleepy sleepy babies. I asked her brothers to look
through the selling groups on Facebook she had joined since
I'm now blocked, and they found a watch and a
necklace she sold that both very likely did not belong
to her, but there's no definitive evidence. The last thing
I need is vengeful Victoria with nothing left to lose,

(33:40):
coming through my back door to fight me, because I
could see her doing that, especially if she's unemployed. She's
gonna have all that time on her hands. Yeah, this
is causing me excessive anxiety, but I don't want her
praying on hospital patients.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
I'll make a report with police this afternoon, and that is.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
The end of that story.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Dang man, Oh my, your cousin's Gray. Gray.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
I mean, yeah, I think you're You're definitely in the
right to do that, because to be amage of people
in the most vulnerable states.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
Absolutely like she has a responsibility as a nurse, as
a healthcare professional, and she is absolutely violating that trust.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
If she's willing to steal from her family, she's willing
to steal from anybody. True, and guess what, you go
to jail for being a thief.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
Sam.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Here, we're gonna get back to the stories, but here's
three of it's bad from our sponsors.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
I found a hidden folder on my girlfriend's hard drive
full of her stepsister.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
I'm hacking the stepsister mainframe.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Been with my girlfriend for eighteen months now. It's been
really smooth sailing so far. We have similar hobbies but
different enough jobs that I always love coming over slash
me going to hers and talking about our days. I
could honestly sit and listen to this girl for hours.
She's incredibly funny, insanely smart, so gorgeous, and I'm constantly

(34:56):
gobsmacked that she wants to be with me. That's why
this this is so hard. It's come out of left
field and I have no idea what to do. By
the way this comes from, please help me, and if
you want to spit your own stories, go to the
r slash Okay, storytime separate it, so we don't live
together right now, but we are only about fifteen minutes apart,
and the majority of our nights we are with each other.

(35:16):
The other night, girlfriend left her hard drive at mine.
She keeps lots of TV shows movies on it, and
she brought it over to watch something with me. She
obviously forgot in the morning when she left. I had
a day free and wanted to watch something. She's really
into sci fi stuff and has tried to get me
to watch some shows, but it just isn't my thing.
But I thought i'd surprise her and try to get
into one of her favorites so we could watch it together.

(35:36):
I was looking at a bunch of shows Firefly, Doctor Who,
Star Trek, etcetera. To try to find one that looked manageable.
I didn't want to commit to something with a million
seasons like Doctor Who apparently has. I decided on Firefly
for those who don't know, it's just a season long.
But in all the video files there was a folder
that was one just titled ugh, which obviously is such

(35:58):
a weird folder name, I assume, and it was corner
or something. But when I went into it, there were
just masses and masses of photos, videos, screenshots of texts
from my girlfriend's stepsister. What the F I honestly thought
I was dreaming going through all this junk. I have
no idea what's going on. It looks so dodgy right
that she has obviously hidden this folder and moved all

(36:21):
of the photos of stepsister into here instead of on
iPhoto or something. At first, I had such dread, like
she must be cheating on me with her stepsister, Like
we're living in some effing porner. What's your first thought, buddy,
that was your first thought? How much corner you watching it?
But speaks more to you. But the photos are all
pretty innocent from what I've seen, just day to day stuff.

(36:41):
There's some weirder ones, like photos of stepsister napping on
the couch or swimming in the pool, sunbathing, like they
make me think she didn't know they were being taken.
But at the same time, she's taken similar photos of
me and our friends but shown them to me slash
them later, just messing around on her phone. And there's
photos of the sister just around the house and her
undies and a T shirt. Again, if I saw that
on my girlfriend's phone. I wouldn't pay much attention, but

(37:02):
now I don't know. Is that a weird photo to
have of a sibling. Those techs aren't sexy or anything.
Mostly they're from stepsister saying stuff like I don't know
what I do without you. No one makes me laugh
like this. This girl at work makes me think of you.
I already love her, et cetera. Like if I saw
them on my girlfriend's phone in the convo, I wouldn't
think anything of it. It's the fact that she screenshot

(37:24):
of them and save them to this weird folder that
freaks me out. The backstory is my girlfriend and her stepsister.
I've been living together since my girlfriend was like nine
or ten and the sister was thirteen or fourteen. I
know my girlfriend worships her sister, and look, it's for
a good reason. The sister is super charming, beautiful, and
really successful in her field of work. She is for

(37:46):
sure the whole package, and I definitely get a bit
giggly when she's around. She's just that sort of girl.
I never thought my girlfriend's feelings for her went any
further than being platonic until now. Though I don't think
they're having an affair. The sister is engaged and really
in love with a guy she has said she identifies
as straight. My girlfriend has always been pretty judgmental and
negative of the future brother in law, but I chalked

(38:07):
that up to just being protective. Now I don't know
is she jealous?

Speaker 1 (38:11):
What do I do?

Speaker 2 (38:12):
I have no idea how to bring this out with
my girlfriend again. I feel like the only evidence I
have that something shifty is going on is that she
took the time to move every photo and video regarding
the sister into a folder that has clearly been hidden.
There is nothing in the folder that is weird apart
from the sheer amount of stuff in there. It's over
seven thousand files. Girlfriend is not a photographer, aside from

(38:32):
the casual social media stuff. I'm sorry, this is all
over the place. I need smelp. Please tell me what
your take is. Thanks, And there is an update.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
This guy is this guy saying that these are obviously
hidden just because they're on a hard drive. Hard drive, Yeah,
in a folder, saying I'm I found immediately that was
not hidden.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
Like unless he well, okay, two scenarios here. One he's
saying it's obviously hidden because it was on a hard
drive with all of her other movies or two. He
spent time searching through things, which is kind of weird
on his end that he was like digging through files. Yeah,
I don't know, dude. You asked like, what do you want?
What should I do?

Speaker 1 (39:10):
It's like do nothing, Like you've now come across some
weird piece of information that it's like something could be strange,
maybe between her and her stepsister. If you bring anything up,
you look like an absolute free and so I don't know.
I think maybe just like observe closely.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
Hi, guys, a few people hit me up for an update.
From all the comments, I got the sense that I
was hugely overreacting. Yes, good, I'm glad you got that.
I'm an anxious person who can jump to the worst
case scenario a lot of the times. It's something I'm
really trying to work on because I don't like that
side of myself. That's really why I came here to
get another opinion before talking to my girlfriend, and you
all slapped some sense into me. So thank you for that.

(39:51):
So my girlfriend came over that night and I decided
to follow people's advice and just talk to her about it.
Honestly and be completely upfront. I said, I wanted to
surprised you by getting into Firefly, so I went onto
your hard drive to get it and read it. My
heart just broke. She was excited and wanted to put
it right on so we could watch it together. I
knew then that what I thought had happened didn't. She

(40:12):
obviously didn't make the connection with the folder being hidden
in her Firefly folders and was just mean to watch
the show with me. That little reaction just made me
feel so relieved. It's hard to explain, but I knew
then that there was no way she was hiding this
big secret, and she obviously didn't have any shame or
embarrassment around the hidden folder because she didn't even remember
that the folder was in there. So I just said

(40:33):
that I had accidentally found the folder of her stepsister, Lizzie,
the one called Uugh. I asked why she had made it.
Her face just fell and she was quiet for a bit,
and then she told me the whole story. So I
had noticed my girlfriend had been quiet and a bit
sad recently, but she's been working a lot, and I
just assumed she was super tired, But no like a
few of you guests. She had a big fight with Lizzie.

(40:53):
A few weeks ago, a high school friend, Gina of
my girlfriend, got in contact with her on Facebook. Gina
is fairly religious and goes to church a lot. Gina
said she didn't want to make waves in my girlfriend's family,
but wanted to let her know the guy Lizzie is marrying,
John is well known in the Christian community in our
area for being involved in those Attracted the Same genders
conversion workshops and seminars. Gina wanted to make sure my

(41:16):
girlfriend was okay and seemed to think maybe she had
accepted John's work out of some internalized homeow negativity. My
girlfriend and I did not know that John did stuff
like that. I only knew that he was a therapist
and that he went to church, and my girlfriend said
he had only ever been introduced like that to her.
She said she was pretty sure her parents didn't know either,
as they have always been loving and accepting of her

(41:37):
and would be outraged over John's line of work. She
was worried that John has been lying to Lizzie as well,
and contacted Lizzie to tell her what she had heard
from Gena obviously it didn't go well. Lizzie was very
defensive and basically just kept telling my girlfriend that John's
beliefs were his beliefs and Lizzie had no right to
make any assumptions over it. It was clear Lizzie knew
what John was doing and was completely fine with it,

(41:59):
and was hiding it threw a mission from her family.
My girlfriend cried and cried through telling me this. As
I said in my last post, Lizzie was such a
hero to my girlfriend and she loves her so much,
so this acceptance is such a betrayal. I think that's
why she didn't tell me when it first happened and
when she hid those files. She just didn't want to
have to deal with it, because Lizzie hurt her so
much by not caring what John does for therapy, these

(42:22):
workshops focus on telling queer kids and adults of how
wrong and perverted they are and basically force them back
into the closet. They focus on scaring parents into cutting
support off from their queer children and use all these horrible,
horrible tactics to basically force these people to hide their identities.
So she said she just couldn't stand having all those
reminders of Lizzie scattered throughout her computer, so she ended

(42:44):
up just putting them all into one folder and hiding it.
I guess uugh means ugh, I don't want to deal
with this right now. We're sort of at a loss
of what to do now. I'm obviously just trying to
give my girlfriend as much support as I can, because
everything is her decision now. Lizzie doesn't seem willing to
see that what her fiance has dedicated his life to
is so painful for her sister. My girlfriend doesn't know

(43:05):
whether to tell her parents. On one hand, it's going
to be horrible, painful, awkward as balls to have family
dinner with his future brother in law who thinks that
her and me are defective, and my girlfriend is pretty
sure both her parents, including her stepdad, would do what
they can to protect her from John. On the other hand,
she loves Lizzie so much and doesn't want to force
her away from her family. It's not Lizzie's profession, and

(43:26):
John has never been out right nasty to my girlfriend.
It's still in motion, but I want to let you
guys know what happens since my last post. I'm obviously
relieved my girlfriend doesn't have feelings for Lizzie, but this
is still heartbreaking in a different way. It's horrible to
see my girlfriend so upset, and I'm just trying to
give her as much love and care as humanly possible.
I'm excited for tonight because I borrowed a projector from

(43:46):
my friend and I'm going to set it up so
we can watch Firefly on the wall of my living room. Yay,
that's the positive. I'm going to make us a big
blanket for it and order pizza so we can snuggle
and watch TV all night. Thank you all again. It
means the world old to me that you all took
time out of your lives to offer advice to me
and edit. Thank you everyone for such an outpouring of support.

(44:06):
My girlfriend and I had a big talk last night
and she's going to tell her parents. It's likely they
will find out at some point anyway, and it isn't
fair that my girlfriend should feel uncomfortable with her own family.
And to the people who are saying that John must
be queer, please think about what you're saying and how
offensive it is. Yes, there have been instances were intensely
closet officery. People are hiding same sex attraction, but they

(44:28):
are in the minority. If I came to you saying
my girlfriend was black and her sister was marrying a
plan member, no one would be saying, oh, he just
wants to be black. Some people are just table. That
was my example. I really want to say. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
I was like, yeah, if someone was yes that contact God,
would you then tell your family that your husband's in
the clan?

Speaker 2 (44:47):
No? Yeah, you would probably avoid that guy in the
first place. Yep, yep, yp yep. Hey y'all, it's John
Ogi host here.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
We're gonna get back to the stories, but here's a
quick three minute break from as for more sponsors. I
refuse to adopt my daughter half sister because I just can't.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
She's just not cool enough. Doesn't even like the color purple.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
My husband and I adopted my daughter, Sofia live female,
three years ago. What Sophia is biologically my half sister.
My father and his wife passed away very suddenly, leaving
behind Sophia and his wife's other daughter, Hannah, aged nine.
By the way, this comes from user ear Clear thirty
seven twenty three, and if you want to submit your
own stories, go to the r slash Okay Storytime stub

(45:28):
bred It. Hannah is currently in the care system. She
lives in a group home that is equipped for her knees.
Try to get the girls together every couple of weeks
for supervised visits. Sofia has always been aware that she
has adopted, which normally happened with their maternal grandmother, who
I'll call Laurie. Laurie has been combative with us since
we met her because she thought it was wrong for
us not to adopt Hannah as well as Sofia, even

(45:49):
though she is well aware of why it wasn't the
right choice for our family. All this to say, when
I say I think I know where Hannah has been
getting certain ideas, I am pretty certain. Hannah has always
made little comments about living with us. One day, she
used to say one day when Sophia lived together, or
a reference the girls sharing a room, or talk about
pets she wants when she can move home. You've always
tried to play this off so as not to upset her,

(46:11):
and I really figured she would grow out of it.
Her social workers said she definitely would grow out of it,
but it never happened. Nowadays, she makes comments about being
good so she can come with us, and makes an
over the top effort show off her achievements when where
they're on visit. She even started being disparaging about anything
Sophia does and constantly one ups her. It's really sad
to see and no one listens when I say that
someone needs to stop feeding into all this.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
You're also leading in to you. You can be the
change you want to see in the world.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
I know they all want her to behave, but Laurie
is constantly validating her saying this stuff, and I hate it.
The social worker just says it's good that Hannah's making
strides with her behavior. This just seems cruel and manipulative,
like they're letting this carrot dangle in front of this
kid so that they can benefit without thinking what this
will do to her. So a month ago we were
out and Hannah once again said brought up that she
wants a horse if she comes to live with us.

(46:58):
Lorie smiled and said that would be really nice, but
she'll have to be a good girl to get a horse,
and I just looked at her, like what the f
I told Hannah that she wouldn't be able to live
with us because she was very loved at the home
where she is and they take really good care of her,
and that we couldn't do enough of a good job
at that. Hannah didn't really seem to understand what I
was saying, but she didn't hug us goodbye like normal
when we dropped her back. When we picked her up

(47:20):
the last two times to go out, she was really
quiet and sullen and didn't want to do anything. She
wouldn't play or take part in anything we did, and
according to Lorie, Hannah has been acting up at home
and school as well. She's blaming me. I take the
blame for this chain, I get it, but I still
feel like ultimately someone needed to have that conversation with Hannah,
because how long was she meant to believe she could
earn being adopted and how bad was it going to

(47:41):
be to come to the realization in however many years
that everyone had lied to her. But I'm also worried
that I've damaged things, because if Hannah stops wanting to
see Sophia, I'll have ruined their relationship. And I'm not
a trained profession I maybe didn't say it in the
right way. Her social worker didn't think it was a problem,
so maybe I should have left it. I feel crappy
about it, even though I don't think I was wrong
in intentions?

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Am I the A hole?

Speaker 1 (48:01):
Edit? Why didn't we adopt Hannah? Hannah has medical and
psychological complexities as a result of her early life that
are not insignificant. We are not equipped financially, materially, or
emotionally to provide the care she needs and deserves. Why
doesn't Laurie have custody of Hannah? Laurie has health issues
and lives in a senior community. She cannot take care
of Hannah full time. I am I the a whole?

(48:23):
Has no consensus, but OPE is voted not the A whole.
Relvin comments, Ohpi's clarifying her relationship with her father and
his wife before their passings, and if Sophia understands she's
adopted OPI says, Firstly, I never met Hannah's mother. My
father was absent in my life for many years where
they got together because he was a regular user and
a bad person. I saw him very rarely, and even

(48:44):
then it was mostly because he was begging me for something.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
He was not in my life.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
I only met Sophia after he passed away. Yes, Sophia
knows she's adopted. She doesn't know that my dad was
her dad, but she knows we are related, but not
her biological parent. And yes, if Sophia wasn't my half sister,
I wouldn't have adopted her because we never planned to adopt.
We planned to have a biological child, but Sofia came
into our lives and the plan change. That's not a gotcha.

(49:09):
I didn't grow up my whole life planning to adopt.
How would this situation have come about if she wasn't
related to me. So we didn't choose not to adopt
Hannah because of some misplaced hatred for a woman we
never met. We chose not to adopt her because we
were not financially or emotionally equipped to give her the
care she needs. And that goes for every other child
on earth that we haven't adopted in life. It's your
job to know what you can take on. Ope explains

(49:31):
her conversations with the social worker about Sofia and Hannah
having chances of being adopted together. Op said, the social
worker told me repeatedly that they had almost no chance
of being placed together. Sofia had a very good chance
of adoption and Hannah didn't. They were going to place
them separately after a period of time so that Sofia
could get adopted. If it wasn't us, it was probably
going to be someone else, someone else after a period

(49:52):
of trauma for her. If they said they were definitely
going to keep them together, maybe we'd have chosen differently.
But I still think we give our daughter a great
life and our good parents to her. We have her
checking with a child psychologist, and we're doing our best.
Where is Hannah's biological father? Why isn't he stepping up?
Ope says, I don't know where her father is. I
never met her mother or inquired about her biological father.

(50:14):
OHP clarifies details on how Hannah was placed at the
group home instead of a foster home. Op says, I
didn't choose to send her to the care home. They
have a shortage of appropriate foster homes for her, and
that's where they placed her. I had no say in
that or what level of support she had. Sure Sophia
could have been living with Hannah, most likely in the
same group home if as an adult she thinks that

(50:35):
would have been better for her. I'll take the blame
for that. I don't agree, but that will be up
to her. Taking in Hannah is not an.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
Option for us.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
You don't have the resources materially or emotionally or within
our lifestyle to provide care for her. Taking on more
than you can handle it does no good for anyone,
least of all for our daughter, whose quality of life
would take a Nosedie commenter says, honestly, just get a
child psychologist for your daughter and work this out professionally. Clearly,
the social worker and Laurie are more interested in being
Hannah's behavior right, even with lies. Being told to be

(51:03):
good to get a place in your home is so cruel.
It also may not be good for Hannah to see
her sister get the happily ever after that she won't get.
Sometimes we need to let kids act out so they
can process their emotion I think you need to pull
back and focus on your daughter and what's good for her,
not the a hole op says. Sophia has regular check
ins with the child psychologists. We're not doing them weekly
anymore because that's not what she's advised. But if she

(51:25):
spots any issues, we can definitely increase, and there's an
update Hie. Not sure if anyone wanted this update, but
I hate reading posts that don't have an update, so
I'm updating for anyone who might feel the same. First
of all, thank you to everyone who gave helpful advice
and who was genuine in their responses. After reading everything,
I still think I was probably a little bit of
an a hole to spring that comment on Hannah like that.

(51:45):
My frustration got the better of me and I can't
put the genie back in the bottle, but I'll always
regret it. That being said, I still also think it's
best that she knows. I spoke to the child psychologists
that Sophia sees, and she said that there was no
reason to cut contact between the girls and that it's
all always recommended unless in cases of actual abuse. So
we've continued to visit. However, as some people suggested, we've

(52:06):
now stopped doing them with Lori or me involved. The
girls now see each other at Hannah's group home and
a care worker is able to supervise the visits. I'm
not sure if in the long run this is how
we will do things, because I'm not entirely comfortable with it.
But I think it's better that the girls have as
an independent a relationship as possible.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
Really unfortunate for Hannah to be in this place where
your sibling has been adopted, but you are projected to
kind of never be adopted because of her age and
because of the extra care that she requires. But I
think in any situation where adoption, foster care, like any
sort of that stuff is involved, I think honesty with
kids is like super important. Obviously you want to give

(52:46):
that honesty in age appropriate way, But I think that
lying to them or giving them false hope does not
help at all.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
I'm pretty sure you actually can't do this with twins,
or maybe that's at birth. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
It's hard.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
I feel like they're information we probably still don't have.
Being a social worker has got to be so rough, dude.
Imagine like you have to play by the playbook of lie.
Do the worst, most painful lie to say to this
child that thinks they're going to eventually get adopted from
good behavior. That's insane. Yeah, just because you want them
to behave a certain well no, I think it's the
thought is like, well, eventually they'll just get over it

(53:19):
and then well, nobody. We never even have to have
that other shoe drop. Yes, she'll move on, but I
think also her.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
Point is, oh, well, this kid will never have a
tantrum if she thinks that, like it's like Santa, Like
they're using you know, adoption like Santa.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
Well, let's finish this story. As for Lorie, we're cutting
down on contact with her. I know she's Sofia's grandmother
and I don't doubt that she loves her, but she
hasn't been a constructive influence so far, especially when we
told her about the visiting plan going forward, so we're
keeping her at arm's length. They'll see Sophia if she wants,
but at our convenience and with the understanding that she
will be more respectful. I'm not sure what else to include,

(53:56):
as it's not been a very explosive conclusion to the issue,
but I think things have worked out for the best.
Thank you again to everyone who provided feedback. We have
some relevant comments. Number one seems like you found a
good solution. You should, of course ask Sofia after the
visit how it went and all that. Ohpi says she's
been twice and she had a good time overall, There's
a couple of things that she wasn't used to, but
nothing that a kid wouldn't experience in kindergarten. It's just

(54:17):
a different environment. We're going to keep checking in with her.
Comment two says, does Sofia want to visit Hannah? Does
she enjoy these visits? And does Hannah want Sophia to visit?
OHP says, Sofia likes visiting Hannah. I wouldn't say it's
something she talks or thinks about in between visits, but
she knows it's part of her routine. She's happy to go.
I guess it's like seeing a cousin. You don't necessarily
miss them or beg to see them, but you have
fun when you're together. Hannah seemed to be happy to

(54:38):
see Sofia. From what I've observed, Hannah experiences certain delays.
Does she and Sophia are not too far apart in
interest or development? I know that may not always be
the case as Hannah gets older and the age gap
may become more pronounced, but for now it seems to work.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
The plan.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
If Hannah gets older and starts to resent Sofia out
of jealousy, OHP says, Unfortunately, that's not in our control.
If contact between the girl starts to become a negative experience,
and we will revisit that with guidance from our child psychologists.
Will Opi and her husband be able to adopt Hannah
at some point in the future, Opie says, time will
not change the fact that we're not able to provide
her with the home and care that she needs, and

(55:13):
that is the end of that story.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}My adoptive parents HID heirlooms from my biological family… they refuse to tell me why! | Reddit Stories