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I’m sorry you are so upset- I am a bit confused about what the problem is though - could you explain more then maybe we could help

Dear Murdoc, sorry you're having a tough time. It could be that your son doesn't want his family following his activity on social media. Lots of teenagers feel this way - wanting to start to build an identity that's separate from the rest of their family. It could be that he's not using TikTok responsibly. The first step is to try to engage with him about it. Maybe he would be willing to show you some of the posts he likes? That might be a way to start a conversation about it. Wishing you good luck - social media can be tricky.

Crying all the time might be your reaction to something that has triggered a deep trauma or a buried sadness.

Lots of media about adoption is very distorted. The tiktok adoption community can funnel a lot of emotion and expose you, your 5-year old, and your 17-year old sons to significant triggers and stresses.

Your first step now is to ease and understand your own feelings, to help yourself first, so that you can also help your sons. On airplanes they tell you to fix your own oxygen mask BEFORE helping children with their masks.

Adoption can be an isolating experience. The media is distorted and this means regular family and friends often have a distorted viewpoint too. It can be hard to find someone to help understand your feelings. So I think you have taken the right step to seek support from a more trusted and knowledgeable organisation, like Adoption UK. But I am not sure if you are the birth parent of your older son? If so, there is more specialised support for birth parents here: https://www.pac-uk.org/our-services/birth-parents/

I hope the crying is helping a bit in bringing your feelings to the surface, but your own wellbeing and mental health is really important and crying can be a symptom that you need some understanding support.

First of all I’m making some assumptions in my reply - that you relinquished your older son for adoption and your younger son knows this and has reached out to him and this is what has brought up all these feelings? Forgive me if I’ve misunderstood. If this is the case I agree with Lettice. It seems to have triggered some trauma from the past - particularly the question “have I done something wrong.” It would be really helpful to seek some specialist counselling (it has to be from someone trained to work with adoption so a specialist agency as suggested is best.) Secondly - how much does your younger son know? If he’s asking whether he’s done something wrong in trying to contact the eldest it implies he knows the whole situation. Perhaps reassuring him he hasn’t done anything wrong - he was possibly being curious and possibly wanting connection with a potential older brother. Maybe suggesting you talk about decisions such as reaching out together in the future. But also to be aware that if your older son was relinquished for adoption your younger son may have some deep fears that that could happen to him. Maybe a few sessions of family counselling from the same agency - perhaps after you’ve had individual counselling for yourself might be helpful.

Again - if I’ve totally misunderstood perhaps it would be helpful to clarify so the advice fits your situation - best wishes

I was saying my 17 years old is adopted and I have my 5 year old at home with me and my other 2 boys