Going through my trauma would not make yours easier

Lately I've been entertaining romantic relations with someone I'd already established a good friendship. As I mentioned in my last blog post, he has been through some pretty horrifying shit. He also was kicked out of his home as a teenager, and his mother told his sister that he moved to a different country (when in reality he still lived in the same city as them). He moved to the United States a few years ago to start over and earn a degree here. Naturally, we developed a close emotional bond. Different experiences for sure, but we respect each other for enduring these hardships. It's nearly impossible for me to explain to kept people what it is like to be adopted, especially in my case as I lost an entire country, language, and culture. I've managed to recount to him my entire life circumstances—how, when, and why I was given up, the search for my biological family, trying to reclaim my identity by renewing my Russian passport and learning the language. I've even more than hinted at…