I can't remember a time when I didn't know I was adopted.  I always felt special and loved by my parents.   When I was about 8 years old, I was playing in the neighborhood street with kids and one older girl shouted out at me "You're Adopted!"   It wasn't what she said as it was the tone and how she said it.  That's when I felt cheap and dirty.   There was no amount of soap and water to get this kind of dirty off.  I ran home crying where my grandmother tried to soothe me, but I couldn't be soothed.   I was tainted with those words forever.

I then started to notice relatives introducing me as "the adopted daughter" where other cousins were just "daughters" or "sons".    My parents and grandparents never did this.   Only aunts, uncles, etc.   

I had the best parents in the world.

There wasn't a day go by that I didn't look at women walking on the street where I didn't wonder if I looked like them.   Was "she" possibly my mother?   Why did "she" give me away?   How could She" carry me in her womb for nine months and then say "I don't want you".

When I was in 6th grade, I manufactured a story I could live with.   My mother was a secretary and married to an airman who tragically died in service to his country and she could not afford to support me.   That story worked for a while until I didn't believe it either.