You don't hear people talk much about adoption and codependency but adoption can't survive without codependency. The role of the adopted person is to make everyone in society feel A-OK about this unnatural arrangement. Adopted children "do their job" when they practice codependency. Only when we free ourselves and shrug off this excess responsibility do we start to live authentically. Letting go of responsibility for managing other people's feelings, especially those of our parents, may bring consequences, but we should do it anyway. We have a choice: we can wake up and be ourselves or we can live our lives in animatronic sleep.