Exploring adoption and wellbeing with Lara Leon

Lara Leon, adoptee wellbeing advocate and therapist

Lara Leon is a dedicated advocate for adoptee wellbeing, using her platform to support adoptees and those connected to adoption. Through her YouTube channel, she offers insights, personal stories, and guidance aimed at fostering understanding and healing within the adoption community. 

About Lara Leon

Lara’s journey is deeply personal. As an adoptee herself, she brings authenticity and empathy to her content. Her experiences have shaped her mission: to help future adoptees achieve greater levels of wellbeing and to support adoptees and others in their lives. Her website, Lara-Leon.com, serves as a hub for her work, offering resources and information for those seeking support and understanding in the realm of adoption. 

Top Videos to Watch

Lara’s YouTube channel is rich with content that delves into various aspects of adoption and wellbeing. Here are some standout videos:

• My Emotional Journey: Discovering My Father’s Identity

In this heartfelt video, Lara shares her personal story of uncovering her biological father’s identity, offering viewers a glimpse into the emotional complexities of such discoveries. 

• Secrets, Lies, and Adoptee Guilt

Lara discusses the impact of secrecy and guilt in adoption, shedding light on the emotional burdens that adoptees may carry. 

• 6 ‘Do’ and 6 ‘Don’t’ Behaviours in Relationships with Adoptees

Lara outlines behaviors that can either support or hinder relationships with adoptees, offering guidance for meaningful connections. 

• Adoptee Well-being

Focusing on the overall wellbeing of adoptees, this video explores strategies and insights to support emotional health. 

Explore more adoptee resources

Lara’s channel also features curated playlists that delve deeper into specific topics:

• Adoptee Playlist

A collection of videos focusing on the adoptee experience, offering personal stories and reflections.

• Adoption Parenting Playlist

Resources and advice for adoptive parents seeking to support their children effectively.

For more insights and resources, visit Lara-Leon.com and subscribe to her YouTube channel, Lara Leon, to stay updated on her latest content. 

⸻

Lara Leon’s work serves as a valuable resource for anyone touched by adoption, offering empathy, understanding, and practical guidance to navigate the complexities of adoptee experiences. 

Finding a peer support group for adopted people or an adoptee meet-up

If you’re looking for the opportunity to meet with other adopted people, there are a number of ways. Connecting with other adoptees can be life-changing so it’s well worth putting in some time and effort to find your tribe.

First you can see if there is an adoptee peer support group near you… no need to reinvent the wheel, as they say! Groups are springing up all over the UK, which is fabulous.

5 steps to finding an adoptee group:

1. Check if there’s already an adoptee group in your area - there are several well established groups including in London, Devon, Cornwall, Manchester and Bristol.

2. Ask How To Be Adopted to check - we can find out if there’s a fledging group in your area or an adoptee who’s shown an interest that you could join forces with.

3. Advertise locally, eg the library, local noticeboards, local Facebook pages - you’d be surprised who might see it and think YES!

4. Ask your local authority if they have a group for adult adoptees. Bear in mind that social workers may attend these groups. It’s not a deal breaker for most people but some prefer it to be adoptees only. If you’re not sure how to find details, I recommend Googling “adoption + name of your local borough” and this should redirect you to your regional adoption agency website.

5. Set one up yourself! Again, you can use local methods to advertise or ask How To Be Adopted to put something on the website and in the emails, which go to over 1,000 people.

Tips for starting a group for adoptees:

• Stick to a time and day of the month if you can, this may exclude some people but it helps to maintain continuity and reduces admin on the people organising the adoptee group. Most people find monthly is the right frequency.

• Commit for 12 months if you can, results only usually start to show after about 6 months.

• Consider paying for a (adoptee sensitive) facilitator if you can afford it as this takes the burden off one person to ‘run’ the meetings. If this is not possible, make sure the person or people who do the organising of the meeting venue, etc, are not also expected to run the meeting themselves as this can mean they feel pressure/responsibility and are not able to get the most out of the group. It needs to be a shared effort.

• Implement groundrules and boundaries - require people to read and agree to them before they attend. Be clear about what happens if they are not stuck to. An example of this happened in one group where someone was inappropriately contacting another group member on WhatsApp. This is one disadvantage of not having a facilitator - these issues have to tackled by the group members themselves.

  HTBA Example meeting agreement, you are welcome to use.

  Gilli Bruce helped form the meeting agreement/groundrules and uses them for her virtual online adoptee support group and the groups she runs with PAC-UK. Of course, groundrules can evolve so it’s worth checking in every 6 months or so to see if anyone has amends or additions to suggest.

• Consider having a chat with each person before they come along to see where they’re at and if this is the right time for them to attend a group. If not, signpost to other support organisations such as PAC-UK, Mind and Samaritans. Remember some people may be vulnerable and/or triggered by coming along. In an ideal world we would have safe groups that are ‘held’ by an adoptee-sensitive professional, ideally a therapist (not social worker) trained in facilitating groups. On the other hand, 80% of adoptees have never met another adopted person and in lieu of anything else being available, it can really help to connect with one another!

• Some people will come once but not come back. In my experience that’s all par for the course. If this happens, you could ask them to send you a short message letting you know they are ok.

• Don’t discount online groups - they can be useful for those in very rural locations, anyone who has a disability or health condition, solo parents, and people with little spare time due to work or caring responsibilities.

• Tailored groups exist for younger adoptees, lgbtq+ adoptees, adoptees of colour, international adoptees, etc. A good place to start is The Dunbar Project.

  There are even plans for a HTBA sub-group for children of adoptees! To register your interest, get in touch.

The North London group, we will be turning 4 in November!

Additional things to consider:

• Consider who the group will be open to. There are several grey areas that you may need to make a decision on in order to keep the group a safe and comfortable space for adopted people. Examples include: adoptees who have gone on to adopt, people who have been adopted by their step-father, people who have been adopted by their grandparents, people who have a parent who is adopted. While there is no doubt more support groups are needed for everyone affected by adoption, it can help to be slightly narrow as - remember - it is rare for adoptees to find a space they can truly speak and share freely.

• When finding a venue for your adoptee group, a quiet space is best. However, don’t discount pubs as although not first choice for many due to related issues with addiction, some have back rooms that are free during the day.

• Ask your local authority for support with finding a room, a facilitator, funding for the admin, marketing and logistics - remember that the government’s remit for adoption includes supporting adult adoptees so we are as entitled to their time and resources as adoptive parents (who they tend to prioritise in their services).

• Be cheeky and ask for local support. North London estate agent Tatlers generously paid for the North London adoptee group to have a lovely Christmas meal at The Clissold Arms in 2022 and 2024.

• Just like joining any new community, there will be some people you click with and some you don’t. Try to listen to your gut and avoid the people pleasing and - who knows - you may find the person (or people) that ‘gets you’. Connection really helps to feel less alone, reduce shame and boost wellbeing.

  If you belong to an adoptee group, feel free to post about it below in the comments and let other adopted people know about it.

The North London group again, we love a big table!

Adoption, ADHD, and EMDR - a personal journey on the path to self

By Carole Dwelly

“I understand now that I’m not a mess but a deeply  feeling person in a messy world. I explain that now, when  someone asks me why I cry so often, I say, ‘For the same  reason I laugh so often, because I’m paying attention’.”

Glennon Doyle Melton 

At a particularly low point in my life, I was introduced to two unknown acronyms - one I didn’t  think existed and the other I had never heard of before. Running concurrently, I had found myself  juggling life-changing events and significant losses. I felt static, depleted, and numb. 

It was as if the rest of the world continued spinning and mine had ground to a halt, with not  even a brief global respite to honour and acknowledge how wonderful the people and animals who were no longer with us were. There was nothing to soften the blow, only the persistent waves of emotional grief that would arrive any time it liked.

From a ripple to a tsunami, and sometimes occurring in a very public place. 

Even my partner began to show signs of gratuitous  impatience. Off-the-cuff remarks enquiring why I was still grieving the loss of my mother (6 months on) and, ‘There must be something wrong with you,’ 

became her default comment, summarizing the insufferable time she had endured with me in seven words! Naturally, it should have set off alarm bells, but the numbness I was feeling overshadowed any hint of rational coherence in her caustic tone of voice. I simply didn’t have the energy to deal with  further emotional turmoil and confrontation but  instead made a mental note of the glaring red flag. 

Denial heightened my myopic view of the bigger  picture. To accept and believe that the person I  chose to spend the rest of my days with, and fellow  adoptee, would not understand my plight seemed  grossly absurd. 

As I stumbled through the fog of grief, there was  another issue unfolding. The possibility that ‘there  wasn’t anything wrong with me,’ only undiagnosed ADHD and an obstacle of denial, on my part, to  break down.

They say truth can be stranger than fiction, and following the loss of my adopted mother, I thought  things couldn’t get much lower. My mother had been  the foundation stone that had held the rest of the  misfit family in place. She was compassionate and  kind and always brought us together, even as  reluctant as I was at times I did so out of respect  and the love I had for her. When she passed away, the whole dynamics of our dysfunctional family  went, for want of a better expression, arse about face. 

Utterly overwhelmed and under-supported for  months following the loss of my adopted mother and a year later my long-time canine companion; when  my relationship finally ended, I just remember feeling a slight flicker of relief. Even as I grappled  with this incongruent emotion, my world, as I had  known it, finally all came crashing down around me. 

When the dust finally settled, I was left with one objective.  

Healing and recovery.  

I had always held a certain scepticism about the  validity of ADHD (Attention, Deficit, Hyperactivity, Disorder), and I can’t fully explain the resistance. It ran deeper than struggling to recall the sequence of letters, let alone what they stood for! (It’s also,  quite possibly, the worst description of all time!) 

But that wasn’t the only reason. I also, as an  adoptee, had a deep-rooted aversion to being  different. Fitting in or blending in was all I yearned  for growing up in a world that felt to me like I was  anything but. My adoption had occurred last  century, in the 1960s, when closed adoptions were  the only legal option. Up until the Adoption Act in  1976, adoptees had no access to their birth certificates, and even adopted parents were often  advised against sharing information about the  adoption with the adopted child! 

It was a puzzling time growing up, not seeing any traits, looks, or other similarities mirroring my own  between myself and my family. At age 8, I was sat  down and told I was different, I was special, and I  had been chosen, as if that would make all of the  niggling questions be answered and everything okay.  Perhaps as a way of affirming their narrative, I’d  also get told how much I looked like my dad. It  didn’t, no matter how hard I tried, I just didn’t feel  grateful for being special or chosen. And I had a  bully for an elder brother (their biological son). It  all just felt wrong. (In today’s world it would be  called gaslighting.)

Unsurprisingly, I became the adoptee who acted out. I felt like I was always trying to put a square  peg in a round hole. 

In my formative years, I had struggled to understand my emotional limitations and fears of  rejection, which had affected most of my intimate  relationships, and subconsciously nurtured my  resilience to remain tough to the outside world, yet  remaining completely vulnerable within. All the  accumulative trauma I had deposited in a place so  deeply hidden, it would take the most expert  navigator to even reach the securely fastened door. Right or wrong, it enabled me to move forward with  my life and not be swamped by all the emotional  trauma I wasn’t yet ready to deal with. 

So here I was, many moons later and on the cusp of realizing my brain was wired differently, my long term relationship defunct, my best canine friend  deceased, and my mother gone, brought about something that could only be described as a  sh*tstorm. My mooring brutally broken, I found  myself adrift in a rapidly, uninviting, and  unpredictable ocean. The stored trauma inside seemed to be rising like a spring tide as I  instinctively tapped into the calmer waters of my brain as I had done in the past during my sailing 

adventures. I usually became calm and quick thinking in an emergency event on board, and I  would be able to think with clarity, abating rising panic that would usually affect other crew  members. I drew from those strengths and walked  towards what some may call the dark night of the soul to seek answers, solutions, and direction.  

The dark night increased to days, nights, and weeks, of soul-searching and processing. I spent  night after night in monologues with myself. As  insane as it sounds, it was a bizarre mix of self critique on one side and praise and encouragement  on the other. The encouragement monologue  gradually began to gain traction as I continued the  self-talk into the hot and sticky nights during the waning summer. The darkness and the clear Milky  Way hovering above, seemingly close enough to touch, setting my mind on an immeasurable journey  into the cosmic past while I tried to sort out my  present predicament. The first step seemed clear – obtain a diagnosis. 

As anyone with ADHD, or who knows anyone with the condition, getting a diagnosis can be an arduous  and possibly expensive task, or both. I felt my  problem-solving skills were really being challenged  to the hilt as this particular journey commenced. As 

I made a snail’s progress in one department, the  door was firmly slammed in another. I swiftly  realized getting a diagnosis wasn’t going to be as straightforward as I first imagined. After  exhausting all the contact numbers I had collated,  mainly therapists and psychiatrists, it appeared the  only way forward through the health system was  starting with a GP appointment.  

That seemed easy enough, but soon enough I found  my patience tested when I had to watch the GP use  one finger to type up some forms to start the ball  rolling. After what seemed like an eternity, the  forms were for a series of blood tests. I can’t  recall if I used an expletive at this stage, but the GP seemed to take great pleasure in informing me  of the protocol involved and something about how long the whole process could take. But I didn’t want  to wait. Feeling a little dejected and devoid of  focus, halting the impulse to screw the pages up, I  asked a simple question that, unbeknown to me,  would lead me to fruition. 

“So, is there a private clinic that is able to carry out the diagnosis?” (Keeping the rising frustration  from my voice).

The answer made me undecided whether I should  include a second expletive here or shake his hand.  According to his knowledge, I could enquire at the 

private health clinic that was a 15 minute drive  from my house! Like me, I guess one does tend to  wonder why this information wasn’t proffered at  the beginning of the consultation, and like so many  other rhetorical moments, I thought it best to leave the health centre with haste while I was ahead. 

I know others who are still on a waiting list face  huge delays, sometimes years before they can get  diagnosed. I felt exceedingly grateful for  discovering the local, private clinic (I have no health  insurance), and the fact that I was able to afford  the consultancy fee to finally get a clinical diagnosis was a huge validating relief for me. (Where I live, in  Portugal, for now, it’s actually very affordable).  

It basically highlights that all the online sites advertising assessments at inflated costs (not  recommended) and the broken health care system  in the UK, which has been helpless in the face of  greedy politics, have allowed profit to surpass the  importance of mental health care. The 

neurodivergent population deserves better. It should be a basic human right to obtain the care 

and attention that they need to be able to have the validation of a diagnosis and, more importantly,  access to much-needed medication for those who  require it. 

It was the same psychiatrist who carried out my ADHD assessment suggested I may benefit from  EMDR therapy. Divulging a small percent of who I  am and my past seemed to be enough for the doc to suggest I had C-PTSD (I actually had to ask what  the C stood for). And on my way out of the clinic, I had already booked my first consultation with the  next doc to begin my EMDR treatment, even though  I didn’t know the first thing about it. And so my  first experience on my healing journey with the help  of the other acronym was about to begin. 

What also made the treatment so appealing was that it was a practice leaning more towards  interactive psychotherapy as opposed to the talking  therapy I had only previously had experience with. I  had already lived decades with undiagnosed ADHD,  the challenges I experienced I took for the long term effects of childhood/early adult abandonment  trauma, I know I hadn’t fully dealt with. It all  merged together in the murky, traumatic waters of  time. It was impossible to separate one adopted  emotion from an ADHD one. Presented as a work of art, the piece would have resembled a web spun by a  spider on caffeine. In a word, chaotic. (We’ve all  seen the images, right?!) 

Directly after my ADHD diagnosis, the psychiatrist  promptly wrote a prescription for medication that I  was reluctant to take. 

I needed an organic healing process to formulate, and the idea of taking a pill to supposedly improve  my ADHD struggles just seemed like a ludicrous cop-out and a win for big Pharma. After all, I had made it this far having lived my entire life with  ADHD, so I wasn’t about to start now. To appease  the psychiatrist, I took one tablet, reluctantly, and  endured a sleepless night. It was all I needed to  confirm what I instinctively knew all along, and I’m sure my told-you-so attitude was picked up by the  specialist.  

(While I can safely say my views, opinions, and  experiences are uniquely mine, I do not wish to undermine others who rely on and thrive off ADHD medication.) 

Famed for her abundant idioms, my adopted mother regularly recited, I drew comfort from her words:

Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and, no time like the present, I set to making the EMDR therapy my  lightsaber in confronting and conquering the final  ‘chapter’ to reclaim my psychological liberation and  healing.  

Years previously I had been gifted the book, The Primal Wound, written by the amazing Nancy  Verrier. Barely had I made any headway into the book when I found myself in floods of tears after  reading the following sentence, ‘Dear Mum, please  come and get me.’ This was in reply to the question  Nancy had asked a group of adoptees: if you could  write to your birth mother, what would you say? The sentence evoked something primal within me. A  visceral and almost indescribable pain that I only  wanted to flee from. Each time I picked up the  book, the repeated emotion would rise to the  surface, and each time I would place the book back  in the bookshelf, choosing the next bookshelf up, to  place it further from my reach, as if by doing so I  could distance myself from my own emotional  reaction.  

Eventually, and after countless attempts, I successfully read the book, bought the sequel Coming Home to Self, and devoured that in the  process. I was relieved that I had finally managed  to finish both publications, and my gratitude,  holding no bounds, reached out to the author,  praising her for her life-changing work.  

There is no doubt in my mind the mental and  physical impact being adopted has sometimes overshadowed and affected my life, but there was  one event that I wanted to address and pen to my  birth mother, not to be posted as I had no  forwarding address or knew if she was still alive. It was more about an instinctual urge, yearning to  transcribe all those suppressed emotions. 

Fresh from the encouragement and empowerment  I’d gained after reading the books, I set to to write  that long-awaited letter I had promised to myself.  

I will spare you the amount of false starts that I notched up. When I did manage to get the words  flowing, they got angrier and angrier and angrier, and the momentum and articulation were lost in the rage. It left me feeling defeated and stuck. 

_________________________

My first, introductory consultation for the EMDR  treatment instantly put my frenetic mind to rest, as  my psychotherapist was one of the most empathetic  professionals I had ever met. The instant rapport  was reflected in my effortless ability to talk  nonstop. It was as if I had been passed the key,  albeit rusty, to unlocking the door to all of my  traumatic memories I had kept hidden within my body and mind. 

After a handful of sessions, the power of the  EMDR therapy allowed me to visit that memory  from my early 20s, the second and most devastating  rejection from my birth mother, threatening me  with legal action if I stepped one foot closer into  her world.  

 With the flow of the lateral beam of light in front  of my view, my safe location at hand in my  imagination, the deep breathing and the light, the  soothing and sometimes exhausting light, and the constant support and care from my psychotherapist, Inês, (pronounced Inesh), I edged  closer to my goal. 

A horizontal metre-long tube with LED lights sits on  a tripod at eye level, allowing the lights to move laterally and also at different speeds when  required. Keeping your head static and only your eyes to follow the light, it stimulates areas of the  brain we typically use during REM sleep. (Also where  we process new memories). It also lights up the  frontal cortex, the rational thinking part of the  brain that can override the amygdala, the flight-or fight response to a given traumatic event or a  current situation. It also reconnects the left and  right sides of the brain, helping our memories to  become unstuck, allowing a peaceful resolution for the memories to slowly manifest. 

After most sessions, as challenging and painful as  they were, I slowly shed the layers of trauma, and after being advised to do nothing for the duration of the day, I drove myself straight home, knowing  that I would capitulate to the rapid wave of  exhaustion that would find me already relaxing on  the sofa. Never having experienced anything quite  like it, I was pleasantly surprised, upon awakening, how refreshed and calmer I felt. 

I wondered how I will know when I’m healed. How  will it present itself? Will it be a eureka moment, or  will I just wake up to a different me? The answer  for me was more subtle and gradual. Our brains are amazing and incredibly resilient, and for me, the  moment presented itself when I found I was able to  finally let go and forgive my birth mother and, more  importantly, forgive myself. It’s not just voicing the words, it’s a profound, all-tangible, physical, and  mental state of knowing. Sensing the shift, a  transformation. A response as opposed to a  reaction. 

Revisiting those old memories will occur time by  time but the huge difference is there’s no snowball  effect. That’s all but melted away. My nervous  system isn’t triggered as before. I can express the emotions in a more rational and liberating way, and knowing that they won’t send me into an emotional free fall is enough to bring a tear to the eye! It’s  also about acknowledging that there is also strength  in sensitivity, emotion and empathy, not weakness.  To know that I am enough is really more than  enough! 

The significant triumph was prevailing and penning ‘that letter’ (it became an epic, 7 A4 pages long). Something that I never before thought possible. With poise, articulation, and empathy, I was able to  pen my whole experience and explain how her  actions had impacted my life. It was cathartic and  allowed me to reach a sense of closure, even though  I had known for decades that I would never sit  face-to-face with my birth mother or know that her  eyes would never absorb my words. To quote a few  lines from the seven-page missive:

‘Perhaps there will always be things left unwritten or unsaid for the time that has passed is a lifetime, and we all must  have our say, directly or not; time to let go, time to have closure, even if it is not played out the way we would have  wished. Not craving for what-ifs and should-haves, but  embracing peace and love. To be understood by the ones  that matter is enough and to leave all the heartache from  the ones that were never able to feel empathy behind. Not  to forget, but to forgive.’  

It’s been a life-changing process for me to find  something resembling peace and more of a balance  within myself. I am grateful I took the necessary  steps and allowed the rest to unfold. From the  burnout and overwhelm prior to my ADHD diagnosis,  it’s been an evolutionary process in moving forward  in a more mindful way, allowing gratitude into my  world, nurturing self-care and love while the guilt,  shame, and blame diminished. I’m at ease with the  person who I always knew I was, the masks long  since discarded, not defined by my pre-verbal  trauma, adoption, ADHD, and someone who was  repeatedly told in the past, you’re too sensitive and too emotional or too angry, yadda, yadda. More  importantly, it’s about how we see ourselves and  accepting and embracing everything that makes us,  us. We are all beautiful souls, warts and battle  scars and all! 

In retrospect, I always believed that if I could  overcome my physical fears, everything else would  be okay. It would create a foundation of strength  and resilience. I thrived off a life of excitement  and living on the edge, feeding hungrily off the  adrenaline. Pushing myself to the absolute edge, especially during my time sailing and delivering  boats. I did overcome my physical fears while facing  the harsh and unpredictable elements of the sea,  oceans, and weather.  

The irony wasn’t lost on me as I was finally able to  acknowledge and deal with facing the far greater  challenge that my emotional fears and everything  else encompassed.  

There exists a real sense of accomplishment now, plus not only realizing one of my favourite mottos  but also being able to say with conviction I was the  woman who felt the emotional fear and did it  anyway! 

by Carole Dwelly

https://www.emdr.com/what-is-emdr/ 

While I can only account for my personal  experience with EMDR, in general, this form of  therapy has extremely positive results. However, the process I have heard can also be very testing  for some, evoking and reliving the traumatic events  during the treatment. I would welcome and be very  interested to hear of other people’s experiences with regard to this psychotherapeutic treatment. Please feel free to get in touch via the email below. 

After studying and researching everything I could  find on ADHD, the natural path led me to becoming  an ADHD coach, accredited through the Association  for Coaching, and I now spend my time helping fellow ADHD brains navigate through their own  challenges. You can contact me at: coachingwithadhd@gmail.com

Photo: Javardh on Unsplash

Adoptees have been gaslit on a grand scale - by Gilli Bruce

There’s a lot of talk these days around the topic of gaslighting and it occurs to me that adoptees have been gaslit on a grand scale – and that this can create a powerful sense of loneliness. Why? Because:

We have been told that we are lucky / special / chosen and should be happy and / or grateful to be adopted!

Society has no idea how it feels to be relinquished and only sees the ‘selflessand generous’ act of adopting parents who seek to adopt a child who needs a home.

Some people (friends / family / colleagues) think we are attention seeking over ‘nothing’ when we talk about the issues, difficulties and trauma of. adoption. Others seek to minimise our feelings and point out ‘Well….you’re alright aren’t you?’

Our culture thinks that as long as we were provided with food and shelter and were sent to school and not abused – then surely everything is all OK.

There is no comprehension of the loneliness, the withheld grief and loss, the insecurity, the identity confusion, the fear of rejection and feeling that we are not understood that all impact upon the daily life of adoptees.

The negative impacts of family estrangement are a new and emerging area that is yet to be widely understood. But the effects of being in a family where you feel you don’t belong, is becoming recognised as damaging for both adoptees and those within birth families where they don’t ‘fit’.

And all this conspires to make us feel gaslit – wrong in our feelings and wrong to have them. We know otherwise, and many of us give up on trying to make non-adopteds listen or understand because we’ve seen too many faces glaze over, or heard too many change the subject if we mention adoption difficulties. I don’t know about you – but this makes me feel isolated and lonely in my situation – friends and family think I’m either exaggerating or being ‘too sensitive’ about it. The only time I feel seen, heard and understood is amongst other adoptees.

We understand that in Secure Attachment – the causes of any infant’s distress are seen, understood and soothed and comforted so the infant feels safe and therefore secure. This is what’s known as attunement – parents read the infant’s every micro-expression and through their loving gaze – support the infant back to felt-safety if needed.

Our distress was never seen or acknowledged or allowed or seen or soothed. As Pam Cordano (an American adoptee who speaks on adoption) says – ‘Their gotcha day was our lost-ya day’ so as the adopting family are busy celebrating the arrival of their child – the child is in a frozen state of loss and grief and survival terror – how mis-attuned could that be?!

So, we grow up in this lonely state of separateness, of being misunderstood at best and being maligned for our traumatised state at worst. I came across a piece byGeorge Orwell that seemed to chime with this and enclose it here. See if any of this resonates with you:

George Orwell on Loneliness

“The most terrible loneliness is not the kind that comes from being alone, but the kind that comes from being misunderstood.”

It’s the kind of loneliness that doesn’t come from silence, but from the overwhelming noise of a world that doesn’t truly hear you. You stand in a room full of people, laugh when it’s expected, speak when the moment demands it, and yet, in your heart, you feel invisible. You feel like the truest parts of yourself—the raw, unpolished, and beautifully complex pieces of who you are go unnoticed,misunderstood, or even ignored.

This is a different kind of ache, one that lives deep in the soul. It’s not about missingsomeone’s presence, but about missing connection, longing for the kind of bond that allows you to feel truly seen. It’s not the absence of love, but the absence of recognition—of being known for all that you are, without needing to filter or edit yourself to fit into someone else’s understanding.

To be misunderstood is to feel disconnected. It’s like speaking a language no one around you understands, shouting your truth into the void, hoping someone will hear and respond. Instead, you’re met with blank stares, polite nods, or worse, a misinterpretation of who you are. The world seems to focus only on the surface, skimming over your depths, while you yearn for someone to dive in and swim beside you.

In these moments, you may question yourself. You may wonder, “Is there something wrong with me?” or, “Should I change to make others understand?” You might be tempted to reshape yourself to fit their expectations, to dull your edges or brighten your colours. But even then, the loneliness doesn’t fade. Because in trying to conform, you lose pieces of yourself, slowly becoming a shadow of who you once were - a ghost of your former self.

The truest ache of loneliness isn’t about being alone; it’s about feeling unseen.

To feel truly understood by someone is to experience a connection that goes beyond words. It’s when someone looks into your eyes and sees the parts of you that you’ve kept hidden—the scars, the dreams, the doubts—and chooses to stay. It’s when someone not only hears your words but also feels the emotions behind them. It’s the moment when you realize you don’t have to explain yourself; they already understand.

And yet, in this deep loneliness, there is strength. The resilience of holding onto your authenticity, even when it feels invisible to others. The quiet courage of refusing to fade into the expectations of the crowd. You may feel unseen, but the essence of who you are—the light, the fire, the complexity—is still alive. It waits, patiently, for the right people, the ones who will see you clearly and cherish all that you are.

The beauty of being misunderstood is that it allows you to understand yourself. In the absence of connection, you learn to be your own anchor. You discover the importance of nurturing your own soul, celebrating your uniqueness, and staying true to your essence. And as you grow, as you embrace your full self, the world begins to shift.

The right connections—the ones that see you for who you truly are—arrive when you least expect them. They see beyond the surface and into your heart. They listen, not just with their ears but with their soul. These are the connections that remind you that you were never meant to fade; you were meant to shine.

So, even in the depths of this terrible loneliness, hold on to your essence. Refuse to disappear. Let your light burn brightly, even if no one seems to notice right now. The people who are meant to see it—your people—will find you. And when they do, you’ll realise that the wait, the ache, and the loneliness were all part of a journey to something extraordinary.

To be known, truly known, is to be celebrated in your wholeness. It is the antidote to loneliness.

Hold on. Shine on. You are seen, even if not by the world yet.

I hope that this piece has some kind of resonance.

In adoption fellowship, Gilli Bruce.

Photo by insung yoon on Unsplash

2024 adoptee round up

Happy new year! Time to round up some of last year’s highlights.

25th January 2025 afternoon retreat: book now

Places are going fast for the HTBA annual January adoptee community retreat with Claire and Gilli. You can see a rough agenda here and book your place. Suggested donation is £15 but you can put anything from £1 in order to check out. It’s running online from 2-5pm and we’ll cover the effect of trauma on the body and some tips on finding/starting an adoptee group near you.

Book now

2024 highlights

BBC Radio 4 Women’s Hour

Women’s Hour has been a dream for me for a long time. It was amazing to finally get the call, but bittersweet as well because I was talking about some very heartbreaking family circumstances rather than just bigging up How To Be Adopted and other great adoptee organisations.

Listen back to Claire from How To Be Adopted on Women’s Hour talking about a new report that recommends changes to contact arrangements (aka maintaining relationships) after adoption. It starts around 20 mins in.Also interviewed is Prof Beth Neil. You can learn more about the proposed changes to modern adoption practice here.

Expansion of adoptee peer groups throughout the UK

Groups are going strong, with contingents in London, Bristol, Devon, Cornwall and more. The fabulous Ryan in Edinburgh ran an amazing run of adoptee meet ups including breakfast, lunch and dinner!

‘We Are Family’ webinar on adoptees becoming parents

I’m regularly asked to present to adoptive parents and I always say no, until this year! Professor Beth Neil asked me to speak about my lived experience of being an adopted person and becoming a parent. This was part of a webinar for We Are Family and within the huor we managed to cover Beth’s extensive research into what happens when adopted people become parents, as well as two adoptees’ experiences - mine and Daniel Bishop who you may remember from this brillaint guest blog on being a late-discovery adoptee.

Currently only members of WAF can watch the talk back.

Anniversary of changing the Ofsted law re adoptees accessing counselling

18th December marked a year since the law change! I’d love to know your stories on how the law change has impacted you whether you’re a therapist or adopted person.

HTBA North London group Christmas meal

Sponsored by Tatlers estate agency, we had a wonderful Christmas lunch.

Before you go

Please make sure you’re signed up to the emails as that’s where we share goings on in adopteeland like books, plays, podcasts, etc.

An adoptee's experience with somatic therapy

My name is Amy and I was adopted as a baby at 6 months old in 1984, after being fostered for the first 6 months of my life. As an adoptee, I have always struggled with my flight/fight/freeze/fawn responses and really struggled with being triggered back to a there and then response (from the past) rather than a here and now response (what is actually happening now).

My nervous system was dysregulated, and I constantly woke up with adrenaline running through my body with an anxious thought which would set my internal alarm system off, resulting in a fight/flight response. I have dealt with this for nearly 40 years, which looking back I’m not sure how I have coped with it for this long, but I suppose I had no other way of being or any other option than to survive.

After my daughter was born 7 years ago, my adoption and how I felt was always at the forefront of my mind and it was starting to affect my life a lot more noticeably. I was a nightmare to live with for my husband and would have a very short fuse and spent all my time being there for my daughter while keeping everyone very much at arms length.

I knew something had to change, so I put myself down for talking therapies with the NHS, which started with CBT and made me realise that I felt safe with my husband, so I started appreciating him more and trying to repair our relationship. I had counselling next, where I explained about my adoption and all my other traumas that have happened since and soon realised it was starting to become a lot to deal with and I could no longer box it up in my mind and not think about it anymore.

I was also searching for more support from people that would understand the complexities I was feeling around my adoption. I found a lot of really great blogs and support from Claire at How to be Adopted, Adult Adoptee Movement, The Dunbar Project and Adoption Matters online support group. I was finally within a space/community where I felt understood and started to share my story with people.

During the online adoption support session I heard a lot of new terms that I had not heard before and was taking notes and doing my own research after the calls. Some of the terms I heard were ‘dysregulated nervous system’ and ‘somatic therapy’, so I found a Mind-Body Therapist (Somatic Therapy) who was local to me. I went to a Somatic Solutions Workshop that was running not too far from me with no idea what to expect.

The morning session was meditation with primal touch (slow and gentle stroking, compression, rocking) which calms down the nervous system using longer breaths out and the afternoon session was a somatic movement class which was very slow gentle movements which can help the body relax and let got of tension.

After the first class I was so calm, settled, relaxed and practically floated out of the class. Then reality kicked in and something really minor happened and my system was flooded with adrenaline and I was back feeling anxious and easily irritated.

I knew I wanted more of the calmness and peaceful feelings I had after the classes. I started doing the meditation sessions on my own at home and booked in for another class and I just could not believe the difference I felt. I would sit in my car after the sessions and have a little cry at how I was feeling it was like a relief that I could feel different more settled and calmer. I started to feel like myself, which for me was a very odd concept, I started to accept myself and look after myself more.

I knew I wanted more so I booked in for a trauma discharge massage which was primal touch with a therapist and again my body felt relaxed, calmer and at ease. I started to book in regularly with my therapist and I’m about 12 sessions in and I feel amazing, I don’t have the adrenaline controlling my system or the anxious thoughts, I’m not constantly in a state of flight/freeze I don’t lash out at people and I’m a much nicer to be around (says my husband). I meditate regularly and do a movement session every so often to keep myself in a good place.

I still have my bad days and things still get overwhelming for me but I now have the tools to calm my nervous system and put me back in the good place. I feel that somatic therapy has given me the chance to thrive and not just survive my situation and I’m so glad I took a chance on something different. Somatic therapy has been life-changing for me and I now have the tools to keep myself in a good place and grow my sense of self to feel more comfortable with who I am.

More information on somatic therapy:

Somatic Therapy | Psychology Today United Kingdom

Further tips and recommended reading from Paul Sunderland

Read more about complex post-tramatic stress disorder

Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash

"It's harder to think about a bigger trauma than relinquishment" - Paul Sunderland on adoption

Paul Sunderland joined the adoptee community to talk about the effects of relinquishment on adopted people and why they are over-represented in addiciton, mental health, the prison system and suicide.

He also talked about a deliberate and systematic cover up by society and adoption agencies to deny that adoption is a trauma.

Organised by the Adult Adoptee Movement, Paul Sunderland spoke for 40 minutes followed by 20 minutes of Q&A.

Paul is an addiction psychotherapist with 35 years experience. Much of his talk centered around the effects of relinquishment on the autonomic nervous system. Paul talked about codependency as a manifestation of cptsd and said he has never met an adoptee that didn’t also have complex post-traumatic stress disorder (although he acknowledged that people self-refer to his clinic so he was cautious not to pathologise). He said that CPTSD should be called developmental trauma disorder. It happens over a period of time and nearly always during childhood development. It’s when our nervous system thinks the trauma is still happening.

““You were preparing to meet someone who wasn’t there.””

— Paul Sunderland

Paul talked about clinical implications of what it feels like to have possibly the biggest trauma there is which is to be separated from mother. “You were preparing to meet someone who wasn’t there and that was life threatening.” He said that those people who lost faith in other humans to help them regulate tend to become compulsively self reliant.

When our systems are disregulated and we feel threatened, we go into one or more of the four Fs: flight flight freeze faun. These responses are adaptive responses to stress and understandable in small doses in relevant situations, but they get locked in the ON position if you have CPTSD. We get locked in a state of protection rather than connection. We become hypervigilant. We cannot connect or be present while in this state.

He quoted Anna Freud: “The horrors of war pale beside the loss of a mother”.

Attachment theory says we need:

• To be seen

• To feel soothed

• To feel safe

• To feel secure

All traumas have two things in common: 

1. Captivity

2. Powerlessness 

Relinquishment and subsequent adoption has both these things. What it also has is a deliberate and systematic cover up by society and adoption agencies to deny that it is a trauma in order to satisfy the needs of the adults, including adoptive parents. “Yours is one of the few trauma that you’re supposed to be grateful for.” The lack of acknowledgment from society makes it hard to be seen. We need to call something by its proper name or we can’t get better.

When we have a so-called ‘disguised trauma’ where we are not seen and ours reality is questioned, all we can do is learn to self soothe. Addiction, for example, is a sensible adaptive self-soothing response that becomes maladaptive.

““Yours is one of the few trauma that you’re supposed to be grateful for.””

— Paul Sunderland

Relinquishment is an enormous trauma that cannot be recalled but is remembered. Clinicians say that ‘the issues are in the tissues’ which means the trauma lives in our bodies. Often relinquished babies have dermotological / gastrointestinal issues etc - the body expressing itself as babies cannot communicate any other way. This can lead to somatic issues.

Symptoms of CPTSD

1. Hypervigilance - we cannot be present, we are always on alert

2. Catastrophic thinking - there has been a catastrophe already so we expect another one

3. Binary thinking - trauma is about life and death. “Either I get it right or I get it wrong.”

4. “Unreliable witness” - Unless the other person is smiling and nodding they must hate me / their actions must have negative intentions. Unless I get my way, they win: no sense of co-creation.

5. Impaired self-care - The only part of self-care that may be attended to well is the sense of presentation or how we look to others.

6. Interpersonal problems

7. Retraumatisation - we put ourselves in harms way. Addition is one of these. We don’t know why people retraumatise.

8. Anxiety 

9. Depression 

10. Exhaustion and immune issues 

11. Shame - there’s something wrong with me (it’s a defence against there’s something wrong with them! Who will look after me!) better to think self as there’s hope you can change and get better

12. Flashbacks / triggers - a neuroception that throws us into protect before we can even notice 

There is a big overlap between ADD and CPTSD.

Codependency

When you are codependent, you are dependent on the anticipated or perceived reactions or responses of the other = it’s an addiction. It comes from two parts of the autonomic nervous system:

1. The fawn response - I manage my anxiety by putting you at ease
   

2. The fight response - I manage my anxiety by putting the other at unease and/or by making them wrong and moving the goal posts.

How can we help ourselves 

Paul gave a few tips:

• Train your nervous system as if you were training for a 10k!

• The most effective thing you can do is elongate the out breath (most of us shallow breath because we are in fight/flight) 

• Chanting 

• Singing

• Somatic therapy such as cranial sacral therapy and equine psychotherapy

• Only work with practitioners who acknowledge that being relinquished is ‘a thing’

• Do the thing that never felt safe: put your trust in someone. Self-regulation doesn’t work without co-regulation. “We get better in relationship.”

• Start to speak our truth in order to treat ourselves as valuable. That’s when things change.

• Have choice and a voice = the opposite of captivity and powerlessness

• Community peer support

Thank you Paul for pledging your support to our community. Thank you AAM for this brilliant webinar.

Watch the Paul Sunderland adoption webinar here

Further reading and resources:

Adult Adoptee Movement

Paul Sunderland letcure on adoption and addiction

Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery (who came up with cptsd as a term)

Alice Miller - The Enlightened Witness 

Adoption Impacts - Rejection and People Pleasing - by Gilli Bruce

The 1982 study by Kaplan and Silverstein highlighted 7 Lifelong Impacts of Adoption – one of the impacts identified was a fear of rejection that endures beyond the family into adult life. This is the subject of this piece where we will look at this impact of adoption and how we might come to recognise it operating as an adult.

As our recovery deepens, we start to notice more of the subtle triggers within the body – the body bracing, tensing and alerting the nervous system to a perceived threat on any number of the 7 impacts identified.  The messages that become embedded in the body can feel so normal that it can be hard to sift them out from other feelings.

Internal reactions such as ‘Stay Safe’ / ‘I’m not Enough’ messages that we formulated in childhood can run the show into adulthood, so our challenge is to catch them in the act and learn to respond from an adult position – rather than a vulnerable child’s position.  We may have interpreted our adoption story in distorted ways, typically our younger self made meaning of what we were told - and we have interpreted our relinquishment as meaning one, two or all of these:

• We are not safe and secure - and our needs may not be met, so we operate from a position of fear and anxiety.

• We are not enough, we are faulty in some way – or there must have been something wrong with us, so we operate from a position of shame and anxiety.

• We were powerless, we have no say in things, we weren’t considered and had no control or autonomy, so we operate from a position of resistance or anger.

Rejection

We may become vigilant for a hint of rejection and feel sensitive, angry or hurt around perceived rejection cues such as these examples:

• Not receiving contact at the usual level

• Not getting eye contact or other body language cues we can interpret negatively

• Not feeling included enough

• Friends or close others making new choices such as moving away or making plans that don’t include us or result in distance

• Being excluded or cancelled on for unknown reasons

• Mood fluctuations of others that may have nothing to do with us

• Not being selected for things being perceived as ‘not good enough’

• Not being enquired about – or other interpretations that others are not interested in us

• Or many other behaviours that our sensitive systems interpret as rejection

Rejection can be a core issue for adoptees, and our systems all adopt different leading strategies for managing this triggering fear:

• Some may get angry and operate from the ‘Fight’ response that leaps into action to perceived threat of rejection.

• Some may use the ‘Flight’ response and just leave the scene, rejecting others before they reject them.

• Some ‘Freeze’ and find themselves unable to respond in any meaningful way when perceived rejection is registered.

• Others – go into ‘Freeze– then fawn’ as the nervous system registers the freeze response, then drops automatically into the less know ‘Fawn’ response, also known as ‘Please and Appease’.

Most of us will experience some of these operating on their own or in a combination. These automatic reactions are created by the body – we don’t decide to do them - and we may feel powerless over them – awareness is the key in starting to manage these reactions.   

The Freeze – Fawn Response / Please & Appease / People Pleasing / The Please Others Driver

Whichever label we use The Freeze – Fawn response / Please & appease responses can be known to us - as the need to please others, to nurture or rescue others as an almost compulsive reaction rather than simply a kind gesture from the heart.  

The difference lies in the motivation behind our actions. Pleasing others may have been the response our body chose as its preferred way to manage the fear of rejection. Naturally, we can all act from a kind heart too, but the Fawn / Please others drive comes from a different motivation.

The ‘Please Others’ driver can be linked to adverse childhood experiences or traumatic events. People pleasing can form to protect us from negative things that happened OR around the positive conditions for secure attachment that didn’t happen – which we now know to be equally as damaging.

• Maybe we were relinquished as a baby and the maternal bond was lost.

• Maybe our parents weren’t attuned to our emotional needs and connection felt weak of non-existent, this is common in adoptees as adopting parents had no idea that we needed to talk about our adoption and be seen heard, understood and soothed.

• Maybe there was a lack of loving affection, touch and hugs that every child needs to feel securely attached and bonded.

• Maybe we never got listened to or never felt heard so we tried harder to earn the right to a voice.

• Maybe there was a deficit in attention, and we were left alone a lot, even if parents are just busy – the child felt the lack.

• Maybe there was neglect - so we didn’t feel cared for or cared about.

• Maybe we never got to feel that we belonged in our family - we felt different and we looked different, we had different talents and we had different voices.

• Or other needs that weren’t met that we felt the lack of – and thought we could maybe earn if we were pleasing enough.

And of course, negative experiences that happened could create a need to attempt to stay safe and secure by earning this too.

A ‘Please Others’ driver

This doesn’t usually operate alone – we can imagine it as the head of a team that all serve to please others and avoid displeasing, such as:

• Don’t argue / create conflict/ don’t be any trouble – it’s too risky.

• Hurry Up – don’t annoy anyone by keeping them waiting – anxiety if going to be late.

• Minimise difficult feelings – stuff them down and carry on - don’t express them.

• Try hard - become indispensable - be there whenever they need you.

• Do everything you can to earn approval, loyalty, admiration or to be valued – being a helper e.g. the one helping to clear up at parties, offering lifts or favours.

• Be perfect so that there’s no reason to be rejected.

• Open / porous boundaries, weak boundaries or no boundaries with others – holding boundaries = risky.

• Say ‘Yes’ when we’d rather say ‘NO’.

• Not stating clearly or asking for what we want, need or desire.

• Many other ways in which we may strive to please and avoid displeasing.

These are Normal Responses to Abnormal Situations. These behaviours happen due to unmet needs in childhood. We may have experienced unmet needs around felt safety, so please to feel safe and secure and to avoid rejection. We may have had unmet needs around our value or worth and carry a sense of shame, so we please others to earn the right to feel we belong, to feel loved and valued. We may have unmet needs around autonomy and control and carry underlying anger, so we may please others to earn the right to self-agency, control or to do things the way we want to.

As adoptees we may or may not use a strategy of pleasing others but if we do – we are likely to people please or attend to others to soothe our anxiety around not really belonging, or not really being loved for ourselves, there may be other subconscious reasons too.

A feature of a Please Others driver is that we may not notice red flags – whether with partners, colleagues or friends we may disregard negative behaviours, or we do notice them – but take red flag behaviours as an indication that we need to try harder or do better.  We may even up our game to be what others want / need as a result of red-flag behaviours, and become more determined to win over the person we want to impress or wish to keep on board.  

If we had adverse childhood experiences or trauma this can be our subconscious attempt to correct the past and to earn the loving care we needed, this time. Subconsciously we are trying to correct the former hurts or deficits of childhood. If care givers were ambivalent or even avoidant in their attachment style – we will seek out people like this - so that the past can be ‘fixed’ - the trouble is, what we are seeking is dysfunctional love, that whilst it feels familiar, isn’t what we actually want!

Often people pleasing starts in childhood when we didn’t get the loving attunement, attention or loving cues we needed. If a child feels unseen or unheard and their needs are not fully met, we may try to nurture, rescue or please to get it back. We are likely to either avoid displeasing in equal measures.

People pleasing is exhausting – we may be trying our hardest to be good and caring when we feel an inner loneliness or emptiness that needs to be filled up.

How to make some shifts

Reflect on the past using a journal, record in two ways:

1. What were the bad things that happened? Events, memories, feelings around things that felt hurtful, unloving, difficult, abusive or traumatic (if there are traumatic memories record these without detail for now until you can work with a trained professional).  What was hard for you?

2. What good things should have happened but didn’t? In what ways did you feel a sense of lack or absence? Which deficits in your childhood did you experience?  Maybe you became aware that friends had parenting that seemed different, richer or more loving than your own? What was missing for you?

Be aware we won’t have memories of things that didn’t happen – because nothing happened!

Build self-awareness – start to develop awareness of what happens just before the pleasing thoughts and behaviours.

• You might notice a slight tension in the tummy, tension in the jaw, shoulders or somewhere else. You might notice a slight anxiety which is so familiar you barely spot it.

• You might notice a need to move or shift, a restlessness or a fidgety feeling that could be the start of a mini-Flight response.

• You might notice emotions such as shame, anger, anxiety or panic – these may be so familiar that they seem ‘normal’.

• You might notice thoughts that you could write down in a sentence to return to later and reflect upon – were they the thoughts of an adult with a solid sense of self – or do they feel ‘young’? E.g. ‘I’d better go along tonight, he’ll be annoyed if I don’t’ – is that even true?

• Notice habitual behaviours and patterns that you feel obliged to follow even if you don’t really want to. This includes things you do because internal ‘rules’ that say you ‘Should’, ‘Ought to’, or ‘Must’.

Identify the part of you that feels the need to please / not displease – how old is that part of you?

• Having identified the younger part of you that drives people pleasing - bring compassion to that part. Ensure that you avoid criticising or berating this younger part and treat this younger part with the loving care and compassion that a loving parent would.

• Remind that part that you are now aged xyz and can now make different strategies.

• Remind the younger part that only babies, infants or young children can be abandoned (which could potentially be life-threatening) – at this adult age now, you can only be left, and it won’t be life threatening if you are left.

Practice – new behaviours may feel uncomfortable but are doable! We all have the right to; say ‘No’, assert our needs, wants, opinions and desires and we can learn the skills to do this effectively.  

You could look into exploring, for example:

• A programme of Co-dependency recovery such as CODA UK’s 12 step fellowship programme.

• Assertiveness training, setting and holding boundaries. Developing effective communication skills can be empowering at any age – it is never too late to change and grow.

Disclaimer: The inforamation contained within How To Be Adopted is not a replacement for medical or psychological advice. Always seek personalised guidance from a professional.

Photo by whoislimos on Unsplash

Bad Robots, Wolves and Monsters

 Trigger warning: abuse

Hello world

Being a gay, disabled, bastard, abomination who always believed in aliens and used cannabis for a medicine for decades before getting it legally with a private prescription in 2022, I think it's safe to claim that I've had a bit of a rocky ride and bump start of a very different kind.

Although very challenging and intensely painful, it's also been a colourful, interesting and most enlightening experience and occasionally finding beauty in the darkest of places and I genuinely believe that it was the unacknowledged pain and trauma from my adoption that fortunately provided the strength and resilience that was necessary to survive the incredible misfortunes that I inevitably would and did go on to endure.

Bad baby, bad blood 

Born in the 1960s, relinquished at 12 days old and didn't stop crying until about 1972 (not joking), a garden variety standard closed adoption as my birth parents were under age and still at school when I was conceived and only just 16 yrs when I was born. My adoptive parents had two boys of their own and wanted a girl after learning that they could not have any more children naturally. 

My parents, as did everyone in those days, believed in the proverbial myth or fairytale ending that finding a family and home for the baby would solve the problems all round. Great intentions and an act of love that unfortunately turned into a dystopian nightmare that truly was stranger than fiction and had only just begun!

Not only did I not stop crying, I had difficulties being fed as a baby and often tipped my dinner over my head as an infant along with never being able to sleep and kept the whole family and neighbours up at night for years, so really, really not a ‘good baby’ because the trauma was not recognised so everyone suffered without any help, support or relevant knowledge.

Brave new world

My parents told me that I was adopted as soon as I was old enough to understand. I was 5 years old and all I remember is that they explained that they were not my real parents because the people that made me couldn’t look after me because they were too young and still at school. They also said that I was special and lucky because I had been chosen and then sent me to my room to think about what they had said. I sat on the edge of my bed and just looked out of my window. I think my heart, brain and mind went supernova at that moment, like a quantum shock that I felt as it resonated through my mind, body and spirit. That memory is still incredibly vivid because the intensity of loneliness that I felt was so profound. One of my two older brothers came in my room, sat beside me on my bed, reached his arm out and softly said “its ok, you will always be my sister”, unfortunately, because his skin complexion was fairer than mine, his blue veins stuck out and looked like wires under his skin, so of course, I thought he was a robot and let out a sudden and blood curdling scream that was probably heard in Watford. I think my brother may have run out of the room at that point and probably screamed himself! I don’t remember anything more, to this day.

I did have an infant inkling that something was wrong as I started to run away quite literally as soon as I could walk. A runaway and as a toddler, just round the block and found at the shops more often than not, I ran away from primary school and rather proud to of gotten over such a high gate at such a young age, even the teachers were impressed with that one and then at age 10, I managed to get all the way to London and all I got for that was a severe telling off by my parents and the police, can’t say that it helped even though a social worker visited afterwards but I was not allowed alone in the room with her at home and I was full of too much toxic shame to contact them afterwards and unfortunately, the amazing Dame Esther Rantzen’s ‘childline’ came too late for me as I was a teenager by then and I really didn't think anyone would or could believe me.

Doodle bugs and apple crumble

Despite a rather turbulent and toxic relationship with my adoptive mother, we did love each other in our own way and did have our moments, in between rows and general merry hell, I was one of the few people who could make her laugh, which indeed was an accomplishment in itself and provided moments of much needed connection, for us both. Although we were diametrically opposed on all levels and being a formidable character I was terrified of her but she did have a very decent side with impossibly high standards, which I now appreciate, she kept impeccable homes and immaculate gardens, she was well educated and had a good job and was very well spoken and presented. She also had a harsh and intensely strict upbringing that would have made ‘Nora Batty’ shake in her boots and she survived the blitz and the harrowing post war times that are unimaginable to me and with no support, so I can see why she couldn't cope with me being afraid of the hoover when I was little after dodging doodlebugs at the same age and found me so very difficult from the off.

I remember that she told me about the strange whistling sound that the doodlebug bombs made when they were raining down from the London sky and knowing when and roughly where they were going to hit due to them falling silent just before impact. I still cannot imagine how terrifying that must have been for the adults let alone the children and then not knowing if your home or school etc had been hit until you re-emerge from the underground after the bombing raid and find out!

She was traditional in every way and her apple crumble was superb and always served with proper custard of course, none of that instant fandangled stuff, whatever next and not on the dinner table, alongside elbows! My father always said “all joints on the table will be calved”. He was also quite reassuringly terrified of her at times himself and yes, he survived the blitz but as the running family joke goes, because he had an Anderson Shelter in his back garden, he was the posh one and didn't get much sympathy even though it really was just a hole dug out of the lawn with a piece of corrugated metal over the top and also completely useless in the winter or rain, so under the dinning table against a wall or under the stairs indoors for most of it anyway!

Pole position for Pa

Being a tomboy and unable to relate to anything feminine and because of his calm and fair nature, I got on with my adoptive father better than anybody else and it did cause a few problems for everyone but the family dynamics were rather complex as ever and for most families in general as well of course, so no surprises there. He was not popular when sticking up for me on occasions and also got into a lot of trouble himself with his impulsive humour and antics which to be honest were probably fuelled further due to an environment of constant criticism and toxic atmospheres, he was indeed a constant mediator within a symphony of emotional chaos, which was indeed mainly anger. Consistently blaming the dog for his flatulence really didn't help matters either but was indeed utterly hilarious on every occasion.

The jelly incident of 83 is a classic example when an impromptu physics experiment alchemised into pudding hellfire, basically my father couldn't resist as the jelly was fascinatingly loose because it had not set properly (not that anyone dared to complain), so using just pure suction rather than putting the spoon in his mouth, the jelly flew in a tiny lime green and rather impressive vortex, straight off the spoon and into his mouth without spilling a drop. My mother went from ballistic to nuclear in slightly less than the speed of light or maybe a nano second, there was no time to calculate. This lead to the banishment of jelly until two decades later with a large bowl of strawberry jelly (perhaps raspberry, I didn't have the courage to go near it) for the ruby wedding anniversary and nothing since up until and including their diamond wedding anniversary another two decades later, thankfully, that one was at a restaurant and no jelly on the menu, phew!

My lifelong love and insane enthusiasm for motor sport, motorbikes and racing came from my father. I am super crazy bonkers about electric powered vehicles and new classes of racing as they evolve also and with such passion. It feels like it's in the blood but perhaps as far as I know maybe it's in the nurture and I am not complaining as I feel like I am a bit of a cocktail, well shaken but sometimes stirred and always my own unique bitter-sweet blend.

Never the twain shall weep

As for my two brothers I was the most unlikely sister imaginable and a frightfully noisy one to say the least. Misunderstood and so very different we struggled to relate to each other and I was obviously a nightmare at times and this was a barrier because they managed to ‘toe the line’ and were sensible with me being the wild child in comparison but not by today's standards I may add, nothing bad or nasty I was just perceived as naughty, cheeky and yes, a bit much compared to the norm in many ways.

They had a lot to deal with and the world was not as friendly towards gay sisters compared to married or hetrosexual ones, plus I walked a very different path with the invisible disability of chronic pain even though I had surgery on my lower spine twice in my lifetime as well as my otherness. I went off to pubs and clubs, liked weird music, motorbikes and moved home about 19 different times over my lifetime, to date, not normal and not stable but I never ended up in trouble or the wrong side of the law either as I am quite respectable in the most important ways and never forgot the standards that I was raised with (well, most of the them). Ok yes, maybe a few parking fines, a bit of speeding and the wacky baccy but hardly the crime of the century at any given moment.

My brothers did not escape from the restrictive conditioning of the times and mother of course, unhappy  experiences and effects from the generational trauma no doubt as well as their own fears and insecurities to say the least. But they fared better and have great careers and yes impeccable homes and gardens where relevant and well educated, well presented etc, sound familiar! It's quite remarkable considering all the stigma and despite our differences and challenges, including resentments and limitations within our relationships that we are all still in contact and polite to each other.

Born free and a bit wild

It's no wonder that my favourite film as a child was ‘Born Free’ the true story of Elsa the lion who was orphaned and rescued by a couple in Kenya and then sadly were forced to be released back into the wild against the owners will, but she survived despite being domesticated and continued to visit on many occasions over the years, even with her cubs. I guess it resonated so very much with me because I felt a bit wild myself, being brought up by strangers and having no contact or knowledge of my birth family, so the upside of not truly belonging anywhere for me was the sense of freedom, wild and free just like Elsa the lion but also to have such a strong attachment and rare bond between humans and a lion is incredible and therefore so very special and I guess feeling so alienated and lonely it made any connections that I had even more important and special for me. Not forgetting of course the wonderful theme tune, I still find it so moving and beautiful to this day.

I can now understand at a much deeper level why this film touched me so very much as it's all about freedom, wilderness, wildness and bonding, these days I listen to the theme tune in my car at full volume, windows down and without shame, like a true old fart, it’s a wonderful rush and still evokes such a happy, wild feeling of aspiring freedom, right up until I get stuck in a traffic jam and my wonder-bubble is truly burst and reality smacks me in the chops again.

Schools out and ouch

Secondary school was less than productive and I left with 3 rubbish CSE’s but a whole load of painful but useful human experience, ultra alienation, extra inferiority, more toxic shame, how to skive off and learn about alcohol, drugs and great music, to name a few basics. At 11 years, the first year as it was back then, I was sent for the cane, which the girls received on the hands, for smoking, it hurt but I didn't cry and yes it stung like, well being whacked with a stick, but I didn't cave in, I am used to punishment and don't like to be beaten when I am beaten. When I got the cane again in the second year for smoking, I asked if they would not inform my parents this time as I received a bigger punishment for it at home, they were good and didn't send the letter. In the third year I got the cane again, yup, smoking, again, no tears or letter, this time. Finally in the 4th year, when sent for the cane again, yup, smoking, I remember the deputy headmistress asked if I was going to stop smoking and I replied “No Miss” she then stated that there was no point in caning me again as it simply hadn't worked. I thereby quite unintentionally declared and proved beyond all doubt that corporal punishment was absolutely ineffective and completely pointless, thankfully it was banned a few years later and many years too late as the boys received it across their backsides and could and did on many occasions cause damage to the reproductive organs as well as the emotional damage for all.

I was teased now and then because of my adoption and excluded from a childcare lesson on adoption and fostering also, as well as being bullied but standing up to and befriending the worst bully, as she was being bullied at home also, it works both ways, another non curriculum lesson that I appreciated. Whenever I did speak out or had an inquiry or emotional need concerning my adoption or birth family it was always squashed with that old favourite ‘You’ve got a chip on your shoulder’ followed by the obligatory, 'you're so lucky and where would you be if you weren't adopted? Also of course ‘you can't miss what you never had’ and ‘you were too young to remember’? I disagree, considering I did, and I actually think that not getting what you needed makes you miss and want it even more!

I would now say that it's not just a chip on the shoulder but a whopping and stomping giant potato with an almighty gravitational pull on my heart that's a stronger energy than the gravitational pull that's keeping my feet upon this Earth at times and yes I wouldn't have these problems to feel so lucky about if I had not been relinquished and adopted in the first place, in fact I couldn't agree more!

I ended up getting expelled from school, in the final year a few months before I was due to leave anyway because I continued to wear trousers and my Parker after an ultimatum with the deputy headmaster. I was a mod in those days and always having been a tomboy, the modette lifestyle didn't suit me at all and I couldn't bear to wear skirts and dresses at the best of times. I felt like a man in drag and found it unbearable. I didn't tell my parents and pretended to go to school every morning as I was well practised after all.

Bad robots, wolves and monsters

I continued through life with my own educational system which was to learn how to survive and navigate around bad robots, wolves and monsters of the human variety and then eventually discovered further education as an adult and to be honest it was the best time for me to learn anyway and a whole lot easier to manage than school.

I felt like a robot that is programmed and conditioned to never complain or hurt others, stand up for myself or make any demands and due to the adoption issues I as many have fallen prey to victimhood at times and had to negotiate and navigate amongst bad robots, wolves and monsters and never feeling good enough to be worthy of nice people. Bad robots mean well but they don't have the lived experience to see through the bullshit and hurt you without knowing and without intention, wolves will see your kindness as weakness and hurt you while walking away laughing at you every time and well, we all know what a monster is and abuse happens in many forms and in many extremes, not always hidden and often by the nearest and dearest themselves.

The Abyss 

Philosophy rocked my boat and in a good way, as Nietzsche said, ‘if you stare into the abyss…the abyss stares back’. This really resonated for me and it seems like a wonderful analogy for the journey and mystery of life for an adoptee, feeling dazed, lost, confused, constantly searching for answers with all encompassing self-reflection and analysis, whilst navigating through our overly complex lives and trying to find a reality that I could understand and that made sense. The darkness of depression can be all consuming at times, devouring all the positivity but still trying to avoid the primal wound that's lurking in the depths and always swallowed me up in the end. With deep rooted and overwhelming feelings of loss, intense loneliness, inferiority, obliterated self worth, guilt, shame and much confusion around identity and purpose. At my worst I literally feel light years away from love and that I truly do not belong because I was never supposed to have been here, a profound logical truth that I could never deny, and as for the fear, I felt it to some degree, everywhere and in every cell in my body, it felt inescapable and a natural biological state because I am just a big baby and can't cope like normal people and it was just another secret, why not, at least this secret gave me some control.  

My Primal Wound 

There are not enough words in any language to describe the unbearable pain of the primal wound. Once triggered it is a vast and bottomless hell pit of all the most negative aspects and emotions that the human mind can produce, it sucks you down and buries you under the weight of every single wound that you have ever suffered, like a human fruit machine, lighting up and hitting every jackpot of trauma, paying out an ever increasing weight of, loss, heartbreak and despair, loneliness, rage and fear. It destroys all the positivity, meaning and self worth and then when there is nothing left inside to feel at all, its presence still leaves a heavy, ugly worthless and guilt riddled shadow just to keep you pulverised, let alone broken. 

The only thing that pulls me out, every time, is simply every kind word anyone has ever said to me and quite a few, wonderful, deep, astute and profound quotations from an awry of inspirational people, past and present. It is only the power of the mind and the power of good that people can do along the way that can help because there are no mental ledges, lifeboats, ropes, floats, steps or anything in a void like that which can pull you out or even stop you falling further, just words, but words have power, much much power and for me the ones that pulled me out more times than any were the ones spoken to me at 17 yrs by a wonderful senior psychologist, Sue Kerfoot, and she said, and I quote, there is no such thing as a ‘bad baby’! That one saved me many times and all the kind things that have ever been said to me I am truly thankful for and the strength and courage that it took to cope I could never truly express just how crucial they have been, again there really are not enough words in any language for that one apart from the love reached no bounds and I am only here because of them all, however small, however casual, and sometimes, yes, however drunk or high, kind words always have a huge and lasting impact.

The adoption fog

 I like the term coming out of the fog as for me it serves as a great visual and tangible analogy that helped me to break free from the enforced and naive narrative that adoption apparently fixes all and the unrealistic expectations that were impossible to live up to for all involved. This put me in the position of being seen as privileged and having to feel grateful, because I was chosen, lucky and special, so the obligation and responsibility of having to appear happy otherwise the adoption wouldn’t be successful and it would be all my fault, was a huge burden that weighed heavily and with a massive guilt trip just for good measure. I also lived with such an insurmountable fear of rejection that I always and often ended up getting rejected anyway, and still do sometimes.

Birth mother and beautiful enigma 

My birth mother was only 15 when she fell pregnant and of course with no contraceptives available back in those days it was a classic love baby scenario where the kids had a kid and she was only just 16 years by a few days at the time of my birth. The world was a different place of course in the 1960’s it was openly misogynistic, racist, homophobic and where children were supposed to be seen and not heard and expected only to talk when spoken too, practically dickensian by today's standards, and my birth parents had broken the law by having sex under the legal age of consent, it's no wonder they ended up in so much trouble and strife. I was not named at birth as it was thought that it would be nice for my adoptive parents to choose a name rather than have it changed. Although well intended, I always had secret mixed feelings about this and couldn't help but wonder what name I would have been given.

My birth mother was too far gone in the pregnancy when abortion was legalised that very year so it was decided that if I was a boy I would be kept and raised by my maternal grandmother but I popped out female so adoption was the only other option. My adoption was however contested by my birth fathers family at the time as they wanted me to be raised by my paternal grandmother but they were deemed unfit for reasons that they would not have been today and lost.

Secret Sherlock and a little magic

It took two attempts by two different social services in neighbouring counties to get my birth records, even though I already knew some information after galavanting to the London records offices as soon as I was 18 years, like a private detective going undercover and thankfully not needing to be a genius either with no DNA in those days and no help (although it's still far from easy these days and for many reasons). I did beforehand, ask my adoptive family if they wanted to be involved  as I felt it was disrespectful to search for my birth parents in secret but they didn't agree and thought I was being selfish and could hurt a lot of people unnecessarily, and although it was unsupportive, they genuinely thought it was the wrong thing to do but of course the not knowing was unbearable and my whole identity was affected and fragmented, I felt lost and void of the most essential aspects of self, to say the very least. I never spoke to my adoptive family about it again and they never asked.

I used the social services mediation services and although my birth mother was not able to have any contact (for understandable reasons) I did write to my maternal grandmother for many years, just over two wonderful decades, a distant connection that was never meant to be, so special and as she said, writing harms no one and we have a right to a relationship as I was her grandchild. It was in secret as that's just the way things were and it was safer for everyone emotionally for a multitude of reasons. We even met on a few occasions after many years, with my secret great uncle 006 (not 007 but a secret agent of love), whom I had an annual and lengthy new year chats with on the phone for many years and in many different phone boxes until I finally got a landline, a most wonderful way to start any year. I also met one of my aunts and I even got to meet my birth mother on one occasion after asking to meet me, which was the only way and where the impossible became possible, even if for just one beautiful day. Quite incredible and yes all in secret for the main part but because of love, protection, fear and so many complex circumstances but worth every moment.

Reunion city blues

Yes this is a tribute to the wonderful adoptee, Debra Harry (Blondie)

I was also lucky to have a reunion with my birth further getting in contact when I was 40 years old. I wrote 2 identical letters to two different house numbers in the same street as I couldn't make out the number clearly on the birth records. I wrote the letters and posted them on my birthday as it was the only day of the year that I didn't feel guilty or ashamed about thinking of my birth family and I knew if I left it until the next day I probably would not have posted them.  

My Birth father had emigrated abroad about a year after my birth but I did get to meet everyone in the family over the course of a couple of years and all though we didn't remain in contact, I think that we are all better off for having met and the pain of living with not knowing for all who knew, was at last, finally over and again in secret for the most part with me but nothing short of a miracle in reality.

My most significant and fondest memory of my birth father was sitting on Southsea beach and asking him as to why massive and very heavy metal ships don't sink?  I just never understood it! Being a yachtsman, he explained the buoyancy principle perfectly, basically if the air underneath is always bigger than whatever is on the top, anything should float! Not only a wonderful father daughter moment and gift of knowledge but that experience lifted me up and left a soft fluffy cloud of love and happiness in my heart forever.

So I guess I didn't do too bad at all for a closed adoption, it was so important for so many and I am happy and better off for having the contact, lasting or otherwise and just in the nick of time for my paternal grandmother as she had cancer and thankfully, didn’t die never knowing what happened to her first grandchild as it was the only thing that she couldn't find closure or peace with. I went to her funeral and they even put my photo in her coffin with all the other family members, a magical and special goodbye, because it was never meant to have been possible to have ever met in the first place, we were exceptionally lucky. 

Finding peace with Nemo

And finally after a lifetime of searching for sense, reason and purpose to all the pain and injustices that my adoption and relinquishment created for everyone involved at some degree or point, unwittingly or otherwise, is that, every living thing on planet Earth is here for a reason and that reason is that they are supposed to be here, otherwise they wouldn’t exist in the first place. I have to learn to incorporate and wholly accept this simple but solid logical truth, we all deserve to belong and find home in any place and anything and with anyone that's suitable and to feel truly safe, it's just human nature.

Even my ego knows, logic dictates that we can’t change the laws of the universe and everything within it! So I just want to feel part of it moving forward and embrace the rest of my life as the best of my life while continuing to shed as many narcissistic shackles, remnants of utter emotional hell and free myself from the mental cages, prisons and a few mighty dungeons, gaining as much inner peace as possible, as this is freedom, real freedom, so bon voyage and may you all find a mighty beautiful and super sturdy mental ship to sail on through the choppy turbulent waters and vast, powerful oceans of life and I hope you find a few desert islands and a slice of paradise or two along the way because we all, truly deserve it and life is the greatest adventure that the cosmos ever created, even for the aliens.

Much love xx

Read Helen’s previous blog Flying Above The Adoption Fog

Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash

Adoptee retreat spring 2024

In May 2024 a group of 21 adult adoptees gathered in North Wales for a weekend of input on adoption topics and group sharing. 

We were welcomed by the wonderful people at Noddfa (meaning spiritual retreat in Welsh) in North Wales, who host events, retreats, or just plain old B&B in a lovely old mansion house. There was nice home-cooked food in a cosy and homely environment. 

The building

Participants came from far and wide – Scotland, The Isle of Wight, North and South – one participant came from Oregon USA!  Even though some had long journeys people felt it was worth the trip – the simple fact of being in a room filled with adoptees was all a bit magic in itself.

The event was organised and run by Adoptees in Alliance: Lara Leon and Gilli Bruce – both adoptees and qualified counsellors, assisted by Roz Munroe – adoptee and knowledgeable coach. 

The team hold a wealth of experience and understanding of all things adoption and covered a range of adoption topics including:

• Inner Child work

• Relationships with the adopted family

• Reunion

• Relationships with other adults as an adoptee

• Boundaries

• Calming the Nervous System

With sessions for group sharing on their own adoption experience and how, with reference to the subjects covered - how being adopted had impacted upon people’s lives.

The weekend was rich and rewarding and the group enjoyed some free time to explore locally – some ventured into Conwy, some relaxed in the lovely garden and some brave souls went swimming in the sea!

For some this was their first adoptee weekend, whilst others were returners from the ’23 retreat in The Lake District. We really see the benefits of gathering together as adopted people, so whether that is in-person or on-line it feels very beneficial to connect with other adoptees.

There is a significant demand for adoptee gatherings so we will endeavour to offer what we can, watch this space! 

Go gently out there fellow adoptees and look after yourselves.

Gilli Bruce x

Read about the first retreat for adoptees run by Gilli and Leon.

The garden

Read more at Lara Leon’s website

Share below if you know of any other events or retreats for adopted people!

Crawling away from ‘The Adoption Fog’ and learning to fly above it By H.J Weston aka The Happy Alien

I like the term coming out of the fog as for me it serves as a great visual and tangible analogy that helped me to break free from the insidious and naive fairytale narrative that adoption apparently fixes all and the unrealistic and inhuman expectations that were impossible to live up to for all and in reality, just transformed into a dystopian nightmare.

The then, blank slate policy where no DNA or family history is necessary, in fact it was seen as a hindrance and could disrupt the bonding process. I was told that my life started at 12 days old and anything before that simply didn't exist because it was not relevant or valued in any way at all. It felt like captivity amongst tyrants rather than escaping or being rescued from relinquishment and with such control over how I am supposed to feel, develop, grow and live in general. A secret and hidden oppression with lots of repression to keep me in a mental and emotional dungeon, let alone psychological prisons and cages.

This put me in the disturbing and damaging position of being presented to the world and treated as privileged and having to feel grateful, because I was chosen, lucky and special, so the obligation and responsibility of having to appear happy otherwise the adoption wouldn’t be successful and it would be all my fault, was a huge burden that weighed heavily and with a massive and continuous guilt trip, just for good measure.

This privilege led to the assumption that I must be a bit spoiled also because I grew up in a nice house with a middle class family in a jolly nice village and yes I was always painfully aware of how good my life must have looked for others. All that did was heighten, intensify and bury my pain further with an extra helping of rage, excruciating loneliness and even deeper sense of loss, pushing it all further down and rubbing salt into my already raw and invisible primal wound, ouch! 

As for all the other misconceptions, assumptions, myths, judgements and indeed the utterly ironic stigma with all that ‘bad blood’ leading straight into the ‘saviour mentality’, I simply didn't stand a chance. Anytime that I did ever speak out or try too it was seen as rebellion, disrespectful or the proverbial ‘chip on the shoulder’ and accompanied by patronising insults because invisible pain makes people perceive me to be a fake and an attention seeker and there are quite often reassuringly nasty consequences, ouch again, over and over until trust becomes impossible most of the time and misguided, misjudged and misplaced in general. 

When the waters of life are so muddy, you can’t see the sharks and boy have I been bitten, including many good people that have hurt me unintentionally and are generally unaware and would truly be mortified if they knew but that's an additional underlying mist that is part of the fog, what can’t be seen cannot be accepted healed and the constant invalidation and belief system that babies are too young to remember and that you can't miss what you never had. I think that never having what you need makes you miss and need them more!

This reality helped me to develop an inferior and fractured identity with my self consciousness and ego mainly built and pumped up with delusional perceptions of me as a disappointing failure and not capable of anything normal from my nearest and dearest and this reverberated quite naturally towards most others. Absolutely no self worth, no self respect, no self love and to such an extent that I developed some kind of hero complex, believing that any pain of mine would just be a problem for others, so it's best to never have any problems because my problems were obviously, just another problem! It made me feel like a hologram, I looked the same but was not solid, worthy or legit like all the other people. I didn't feel like I had any value and as such I allowed others to treat me without value and therefore demonstrating no real worth anyway. It never ends well especially when I am challenged as I usually just get emotionally pulverised and retreat taking on all the blame, shame and responsibility for words and actions that are not my fault, no wonder people think I’m mad. Always the stranger that was brought up by strangers and most of all a stranger to myself and my worth, let alone my needs.

I finally broke when I hit my 50’s after what felt like a kind of life crash but have subsequently learned was burn out. A lifetime of people pleasing, hyper-independence, undiagnosed complex ptsd, toxic shame, fear, anxiety and depression to name the basic’s and all hidden behind a silly smile, constant humour, general hopefulness and wonder with a wild childlike optimism. I can understand how nobody noticed of course, being the hero and  incapable of asking for help and the few times when I did the pain was invalidated, denied, invisible or misunderstood at best, so it just caused me more problems, stress and heartbreak. People can’t help you if you're broken and don’t look like it or simply disagree and think that it shouldn't be a problem anyway, so you have to break politely in secret as a good adoptee because there is no narrative apart from a bit of a psycho if you're an unhappy or angry adoptee. After all that's how we were always portrayed on the telly back in my day! Hazy crazy days indeed.

Pretty ironic and cruel really that people can see how losing such an important bond can apparently make a person a psychopath but at the same time not give any recognition or validation for relinquishment and abandonment trauma. There is also another quite blindsided viewpoint which I never understood, that if you are orphaned the loss is accepted but the loss gets totally bypassed if your parents are still alive. For me it serves as a constant reminder of the rejection knowing that they are out there in the world and just don't want you, for good reason and with good intent and as difficult as this is to comprehend I still always understood and respected that these actions had to be taken and with my best interests at heart, but it does really hurt and tops up the secret pain that could never be expressed. Just yet another misty and deceptive patchy bit of fog.

I am 57 this year (2024) and although I was never fully immersed in the fog because I felt so different and misunderstood right from the off and indeed treated as the acceptable family accessory and scapegoat and still am of course. I sought help from The Post Adoption Centre (PAC-UK) in my early twenties and they really highlighted the fog and helped more than anyone and I have seen a few therapists over the years, some good and others not but none with adequate knowledge or training and understandably so, about adoptee issues because nobody knew the half of it anyway. Also it's one thing to have some or even a good degree of knowledge but without the wisdom to go with it, when applied it can cause counteractive effects which result in more unintended mistreatment that just amplifies the problems.

But thankfully in very recent years, relinquishment trauma and adoption issues can be scientifically proven and by world renowned experts and the knowledge is spreading but its slow and frustrating but also a tremendous relief. Finally confirming that it really is not my fault or responsibility, just human nature and circumstances, unfair, unmanageable and otherwise but quintessentially never, ever mine or any other adoptee's fault. A super-massive phew to that one and game changer as far as making some kind of peace with the situation and inner peace also. I am putting down boundaries, saying no without complex and pointless conversions that result in a mental challenge and game of emotional dodgems, I am no longer somebody's circus neither a fairground that's never fair to me and I have to buy the ticket, I am no longer exhausted and have uncovered all the truths that I need and most of them, lies in the first place. 

I am now in a place of post-traumatic recovery and post fog, phew and its only taken 7 years and with a lot of help from other adoptees, adoptee organisations and intense, painful research. Part my healing, wherever possible, is to help change the outdated and damaging narrative of old and promote the positive aspects and special qualities that all relinquished people quite naturally acquire and develop and with an almighty bump start, for many in the crucial and formative early years, but are as yet, still unrecognised by most and with little help from the health services as they too cannot provide many trained professionals with the necessary expertise. 

Wisdom is the only type of knowledge that cannot be taught but only gained through experience and this is what adoptees have a wealth of and I think it's about time our voices were recognised, validated and taken seriously and I think in this day and age it's deplorable that we are still disregarded. At the same time it is relevant to mention and scientifically proven that the mind and brain learn and develop to a much higher degree when humans have to face and overcome so much adversity. Adoptee’s have to grow and be brave on so many other levels that normal life simply does not present to others and all the time this is invisible so we are re-wired to cope and at a huge emotional cost to say the least. I can't help but think if differences could be celebrated and seen as something of interest rather than problematic, this could highlight our strengths and prevent us from having to be unintentional secret super heroes in the first place. I think if put into practice it would also have a far reaching effect and positive impact towards better childcare and adult mental health in general.

After a lifetime of ‘mostly’ understandable but by no way ‘justified’, abuse, neglect, systemic failings, total disregard in many respects and with no ability to get or find the help that I needed, I am at the very least glad to have crawled out of the thick, dense, poisonous and contagious heavy fog that is rife and beyond stifling and at best creates a harmful and toxic atmosphere, in fact I am quite surprised that I managed to have lived this long! 

I am now proud of my difference and have relinquished normal because normal crushed my heart and obliterated my value and in such a cruel and emotionally horrific way. I have crawled out of this fog, no longer in a choke hold of self defacing, self demeaning enforced and perverse sense of gratitude and I refuse to be diminished further. I have always appreciated that adoption was designed to help and the love and support, however toxic that was there for me and salvage as many positives from my life and experiences that I can. Most of all to disregard and disown such a massive responsibility for other peoples abuse, control, neglect, ignorance and arrogance

I will keep pushing for change, however uncomfortable and distasteful it appears while the whole wide world is engulfed by the fog and it will probably take decades to creep into the general awareness or indeed just the awareness within the system and services. Perhaps one day the aliens will intervene and mind blast away the human ego with a special kind of medical laser and save the world or perhaps the governments will acknowledge the unintended failings and start to provide some help and educate where necessary. Perhaps there's more chance of the badger in my garden cooking me dinner tonight and mowing the lawn on Sunday. Either way, I can continue to free myself and crawl out from under the fog and learn to fly above it wherever possible, continuing to heal myself so that the rest of my life can be the best of my life and help others when and wherever I can along the way.

It's not been  easy but the rewards are slowly coming to fruition, my journey has endured suffering beyond comprehension and completely on my own with nowhere to turn but also fascinating, enlightening and empowering. It has provided more than just insights into myself and adoption but into human nature and society with more clarity. The personal validation and recognition compounding a new sense of self and with worth and this is just the start of my  healing journey. I know that there is no absolute cure and no escaping the past but I can reduce that amount of suffering that the pain causes and I am beginning to feel more complete and no longer condemned by or riddled with such vile and debilitating internal toxicity. Slowly the bitterness, resentments, self loathing and host of other nasties are dissipating on a daily basis and finding their way back into the pit of my primal wound and are triggered less often. It's an ongoing task with constant mindfulness but much healthier self talk and self perception.

Nowadays I am successfully moving towards a place of no blame, no shame and more acceptance, I just want to find as much inner peace as I can. I don't expect empathy for something that people cannot comprehend or want pity or sympathy for things that cannot be fixed or changed but all I do want, very much, is to just be believed so that my feelings and experience can be accepted and validated otherwise there is no truth and it's all just living a lie and a life of convenience for others which serves nobody rather than living an authentic and real existence. Isn't that what all humans need anyway!

By H.J Weston aka The Happy Alien

Photo by 邓 子彦 on Unsplash

So many unanswered questions - transracial late-discovery adoptee Ryan

I was 18 when my parents told me I was adopted so I’m what’s known as a LDA - late discovery adoptee. This news really messed me up. After learning of my adoption, I kept it a secret from everyone else in my life for another 12 years. I traveled a lot, lived in Ibiza, had a busy life - managing to ignore it. When the COVID lockdowns hit, I couldn’t avoid it any longer. From that point, adoption has ruled my life. That’s why I decided that I had to trace my roots and am now on a reunion journey.

A theory I was told was I was found in a street in Morocco and taken to a hospital. I was adopted by my Moroccan father and English mother and brought to live in Scotland. While they were going through the complicated process of adopting me, I spent some time with a foster family in Morocco. This is about as much as I know. I always wondered why my skin was darker than my siblings and could never work out why. There were so many unanswered questions.

I took a DNA test and the results only identified a 4th cousin - which is not a good match. I’ve applied to be on the TV show Long Lost Family twice, but have not been successful so far. In June, I took a trip to Morocco to try and find more information about my adoption. Every single piece of information is valuable to me. I believe that everyone deserves to know where they came from.

It’s hard work trying to find information in another country and in another language. I don’t speak Arabic so I need to have someone with me to interpret or via phone which has its cha;llenges. I met my foster family and they were positive about the likelihood of me tracing my birth family. I visited the hospital I spent time in, and saw my name in a court register. However, getting more information is difficult. I was sent to five different offices and then back to where I started. Each place I went, I was either told I had to go somewhere else to get the information I wanted, the person I needed to see was on holiday, the files were in an old archive, or the information didn’t exist. At the hospital, they requested money from me to get the information I needed. You have to be careful not to get scammed since there are a lot of people trying to make money out of you.

I appeared on some national television programs in the hope that someone watching would know something about me, but nothing came of it. In Morocco during the 1990s, there was shame around women having children outside of marriage. They could get in trouble from the authorities and lots of babies are abandoned for that reason or because of poverty. One thing I noticed while in Morocco is despite the poverty, the people looked happy.

I’d like to meet my Moroccan family and thank them, but I don’t know if I will ever get the chance to do that. I know there are many barriers to finding out who my birth parents are. I’ve tried going through the embassies, but ended up waiting months and months for a response. They don’t seem to be able to help much. You need to be persistent, but it’s very draining. For now, I’ve hit a dead end and feel in limbo. I need to go back to Morocco but it’s expensive, so I’ll have to save up more money.

Although I was taken away from my roots, I love Scotland. I am close to my adoptive mum and she’s been a huge support to me through this process.

I struggle to know where I fit in – my adoptive family, Morocco, Scotland, and even with other adopted people. There are moments where I think that everyone else is happier and more solid than me. But I know I am hard on myself. I try to be spontaneous to keep my head above water but find myself crashing. I may push people away and self-sabotage. However, I have ambitions to be successful and to have a family. I’m not sure how to achieve this yet but I have hope.

In July 2021, I decided to share my experiences publicly. I posted a YouTube video, talked to the press, and published my story on my website. I find it healing to talk about my situation and keen to share my story.

Even small pieces of information that I can find about my biological family means a lot to me. There is always the chance that someone listening, watching, or even reading this, will know something which will really matter to me.

About the author

Ryan Anderson is a foundling and a transnational, transracial, and late discovery adoptee (LDA). Found on the street in El Jadida, Morocco he was adopted age 3 months then brought to Scotland age 6 months, in between this time he was fostered with a Moroccan family. He first found out he was adopted at age 18. Since 2020 he focused on personal development, to then become became open to share his story at age 31.

More info from Ryan

‘Incredible community vibe and feelings of belonging’

Feedback from our 2nd virtual retreat for adoptees.

"Gilli and Claire were AMAZING presenters. I related to almost everything discussed and it felt so validating. "

“As a first-time attendee to a HTBA event, it was so good to be amongst so many kindred spirits! There is strength in numbers and being an adoptee can be a lonely road. I found the format overall worked well for me. The grounding session was a great way to centre my focus on the afternoon's event."

"It was so useful and interesting to connect with other adoptees at an event run my adoptees. The community feeling was incredible. I have never felt like I belonged anywhere as much as I did during the time here. I think this could be my new “family” after many years spent lost. I look forward to seeing and being part of growing this community. "

"First time of attending anything like this. It was amazing to be part of this fantastic retreat. Thank you."

“It’s impossible to choose my favourite session! Grounding session, research/3 impacts with Gilli and 3 impacts with Claire were all wonderful."

"The meditation was great to end on, the research was so interesting. I loved the breakout rooms, never spoken to another adopted person before knowingly. "

And some tips for us to take on board for next time:

“I think sometimes until people have experienced it, they don't realise how significant and poignant the break out rooms and shared experience is. People seem to get SO much from these. I'd like them to be longer, it always feels short and people sometimes need time to settle into the groups before they start feeling confident enough to speak or share. "

“It's always so nice to spend time with other adopted adults, but after doing a few get-togethers there's a certain amount of repetition to introduce/remind of issues not everyone might be familiar with (which can't be helped, and is ofc necessary for those newer to the topics/into their journeys) ."

"Make the break out rooms sessions a fair bit longer. People seem to really enjoy the chance to hear other's experiences, connect and share. Some people have never done this before and find it quite profound. Always there seems to be a depth of shared experience and it's so validating and helpful. For example, hearing and knowing you're not the only one that has always felt like a total alien in the world. I've heard and seen this a few times now and it helps me so deeply every time. "

"Personally, I was quite overwhelmed as I have only just started to look at the impacts of adoption and found the experience surreal specifically the similarities of how we all respond to and handle our adoptions.. I think I've a few surprises to come to terms with.."

How likely would you be to attend a future event?

9.2 out of 10

Did you feel an impact on your sense of well-being?

8.6 out of 10

Photo: https://unsplash.com/@voneciacarswell

Claire’s 2023 round-up for adoptees

This year was a more mellow one for Claire and the team. Claire experienced burnout after trying to make How To Be Adopted into a registered company / charity in 2022 and had a bit of a crash after the high of the Guardian article.

However, there were lots of great things going on in adopteeland, which are listed here in no particular order!

• We changed UK law forever!

The law requiring therapists to be registered with Ofsted has been scrapped. This means any therapist can see you, but it’s still worth checking their training and experience. Well done to everyone who got this to public consulation!

For more campaigning, follow the Adult Adoptee Movement.

• Claire spoke on identity

Thanks to Beth Neil and Julie Young for asking me to speak about identity and how adoptees are being failed. The feedback was brilliant. My bit starts from 12:47 mins.

• Amazing film Return to Seoul

If you haven’t seen Return to Seoul yet, I highly recommend it. So different from films like Juno and Lion. I saw it with a very good adoptee friend of mine and we were so happy that it was *painfully* realistic.

Half a mile done for Live Unlimited, do check out this Barnet-based charity!

• Claire swam the Serpentine

Half a mile boshed for Live Unlimited, a charity who help care experienced people with driving lessons, interview skills, etc. Thanks to everyone who sponsored me.

COMING UP IN 2024

• Gilli and Lara’s next retreat

In June, Gilli and Lara hosted their first adoptee retreat. Absolute legends! And there’s another retreat happening in 2024…

• Zara Phillips’ new film

Zara’s one-woman show Somebody’s Daughter has been adapted for film and is out very soon! Follow Zara to find out more

• 20th Jan half-day HTBA event

Gilli and I are excited to share some of what’s worked for us, specifically around co-dependency and regulation. It’s also a chance to connect with other adoptees in the break-out rooms. Book now

Claire got a puppy! Don’t worry, we talk about Nancy’s first mum, Coco, all the time ;)

NO HO HO MERRY CHRISTMAS!! - guest blog from adoptee Angela

Does the thought of Christmas send your emotions into your stomach where it lurches and churns?

Today is December 01st, and despite the fact that my bestest friends know I do not ‘like’ Christmas they still insist ‘oh you must come to us – maybe just Boxing Day’. The thought is so incredibly kind but unintentionally it makes me feel downright miserable and a touch guilty that I don’t just buckle up and fake it till I make it.

I thought at the grand age of 56 and three quarters that I would try to explain how I feel and why.

As an adoptee this incredibly invasive time of year with ‘happy families’ being pushed at you left, right and centre is difficult. I even asked the lady at the petrol station to turn off her Christmas music – yes I know – bah humbug!

Friends and family do try and be supportive and understanding, but they are not quite sure of what or why. There  is always an invitation there hanging in the air in the event that you make a ‘miraculous’ recovery from the morose and melancholy which December is guaranteed to bring.

In essence, I said, Christmas Day is the acknowledgment of a loss for me, a deep seated and familiar grief that I am not right. I am not right because I have always been with the wrong people. Loving people but wrong people. My body knows it as the melancholy seeps in and I feel a deep desire to wallow and enter that place where my loss is felt the most. I tend to it and acknowledge it and – finally – I know that it is okay to visit this place where all the sorrow lives to honour my loss fully and completely.

By New Year the damage which Christmas has done starts to dissipate somewhat– like a breath being let go. New Year means new possibilities. Some room for optimism again and looking forward rather watching myself drag around the sorrow of the past. The optimism is a different part of me which has been dormant during the festive season, but it is a breath of fresh air to help re-charge and balance the up and down nature of the deep seated and primal emotions I lug around.

After this explanation my friends were so very kind and understanding. I don’t know, but I think they feel like they can help me feel better but not ‘missing out’. But missing it is the point.

So in our house December 25th will consist of a nice long doggie walk, and then lots of marmite toast and tea in front of a plethora of 007 films – with not a Christmas advert in site – hoorah!!

Enjoy your season of wallowing.

Angela R.

Image: Tim Gouw via Unsplah @punttim 

Are you coming to the online retreat 20th Jan 2024?

HTBA Retreat January 2024

The Impacts of Being Adopted – acknowledging and alleviating the effects

Have you ever wondered how being adopted affects you physically, emotionally and relationally? Do you want to hear what's worked for the How To Be Adopted team in terms of understanding and working to alleviate some of the less-than-helpful effects?

This event will include short yoga, breathwork and meditation sessions, talks from both Gilli Bruce (counsellor) and Claire M (founder of How To Be Adopted), and break-out sessions where you can connect with other adopted people.

Please join us for what promises to be a lovely afternoon.

Book now on Eventbrite

More info from Gilli....

Many adoptees have an ever-shifting and evolving understanding of how being relinquished and subsequently adopted affected them. I thought myself to be completely untouched by adoption in my teens and twenties – I never talked about it, never thought about it much (apart from birthdays and crisis points) and never knew myself to be impacted upon very much.

Through my twenties and thirties, I was busy doing life and in my early forties – much of the same, so it wasn’t until age 46 when I saw a documentary about birth mother’s pain and anguish, that I started to let ‘adoption stuff’ in. In my late forties, I went through the whole reunion thing and thought that would resolve everything – and when it didn’t - I hid from all the big emotions. It wasn’t until the age of 53 that I decided to enter into therapy and ‘deal with my adoption’ and uncovered all the impacts that I’d shied away from looking at before. I uncovered a lot. I learned about impacts on my behaviour, on my relationships and on my relationship with myself.

During this retreat, I’d like to share some models that I learned about on my counselling training, on workshops and through my own shadow work that might help adoptees to bring some impacts into awareness – so that they can be acknowledged and moved through - Gilli Bruce

Book now on Eventbrite

Photo by: https://unsplash.com/@hannahbusing

Adopted……………And then what? by Gilli Bruce

Through most of my adopted life I thought that all my difficulties were rooted in the single issue of being an adoptee. Therapy helped me to uncover the aspects of adoption that created the insecurity, the anxiety and the people-pleasing strategies I’d used in a subconscious bid to stay safe. All done I thought! ‘I get it – adoption is childhood attachment trauma, I understand – we’re all done here……onwards and upwards!’

Except……..it wasn’t all done at all. I know now that the adoption itself does indeed create a set of painful wounds that adoptees share and may come to recognise as a common ground.

We come to understand:

• The loss and grief that being separated from a birth mother generates.

• The fractured identity.

• The sense of not really belonging to our family because we can’t see ourselves in any of the faces around us.

• Genetic differences.

• The messages we received and the messages we didn’t receive - and what our younger self made of those messages in the form of beliefs about our self and our relinquishment.

• The damage to self-perception and our sense of secure attachment.

• The impact on relationships of all kinds.

And many more nuanced impacts that we could add to this list.

However – I know several adoptees who seem to be largely OK with being adopted, who seem to have been less disrupted by the adaption that can come with adoption.

On further enquiry, these less disrupted adoptees report:

• Very loving parents who were consistently affectionate and warm.

• An openness to conversations around their adoption so adoption didn’t become a taboo subject.

• Parental attunement to emotions and a willingness to understand feelings about adoption.

• The delivery of enough reassuring messages and behaviours to develop a sense secure attachment.

• Good enough parental management of teenage turbulence to sustain a loving, family connection.

These were just a few aspects of growing up adopted that had allowed the ‘OK adoptees’ to feel less disrupted by adoption than some of us have, and maybe still do.

The adoptees I work with and talk with, generally don’t have that experience – there wasn’t ENOUGH attuned, loving or consistent parenting to outweigh the wounds. There weren’t ENOUGH loving behaviours or demonstrations of safety and security to quell anxieties and make us feel that we belonged. There weren’t ENOUGH open conversations about adoption, feelings or questions so identity was fractured and ephemeral.

Maybe we:

• Were transracially adopted – so obviously ‘didn’t belong’.

• Were adopted from another country or culture so felt a bigger sense of not belonging.

• Were a lonely, only child adoptee.

• Were adopted into a mix of adopted and biological children and felt a difference.

• Experienced ambivalent attachment with distant, withdrawn or stern parents.

• Had parents who were not loving or affectionate and did not discuss feelings.

• Experienced a Father Wound or Mother Wound on top of adoption.

• Experienced parental conflicts, divorce, death, addictions, abuse, violence, indifference, unpredictable behaviours, narcissism or other further adverse experiences.

• Were just different and felt like we didn’t belong.

• Any number of other additional difficulties that were heightened by being adopted and have a big impact beyond the original adoption wound.

Naturally – children who grew up with their biological families can experience some of the above, but my personal feeling is that being adopted makes these further, additional issues heavier, more impactful and more difficult.

My feeling is that if we want to heal so that we can grow into our best selves, we need to tease out the painful feelings so we can distinguish which bits are about being adopted and which bits are about something else. Once we’ve identified which difficult feelings come from which source, we can access the right repair tools and start our journey of positive growth. I share this because for many years I laid all the blame for my problems on being adopted until I explored ‘The Father Wound’ and understood more accurately why my relationships were so extra tricky.

And still, despite it all – my true self – as she has come to be revealed is generally rather happy, delighted by the simple things and content ….or maybe that’s just getting old!

Photo by Erik Dungan on Unsplash

You can meet Gilli at the How To Be Adopted online mini-retreat on Jan 20th 2024.

Unspoken The Silent Truth Behind My Lifelong Trauma as a Forced Adoptee Liz Harvie with Eve Hatton

“I was two when the woman I called Mummy told me, ‘You came out of another mummy’s tummy.’ I grew up thinking that my birth mother didn’t want me. I assumed there must’ve been something inherently wrong with me – why else would a mother give up her baby?”

In 1974, Liz Harvie – born Claire Elaine Watts – was given up for adoption by her birth mother Yvonne. Claire was just eight weeks old when her adoptive parents took her in – and renamed her Elizabeth.

Although brought up in a ‘perfect’ household, the emotional – and physical – trauma of being taken from her biological mother would never leave Liz. She constantly wondered: what does my real mum look like? Will she come back for me? Why did she abandon me?

But whenever Liz voiced such questions, she invariably received the same response: “Your birth parents were not married. They couldn’t look after you.”

Years later, aged twenty-eight, Liz reconnected with her birth mother and finally learned the shocking truth surrounding her adoption. She had not been abandoned. A social worker had snatched the ten day-old baby from Yvonne’s arms: “I didn’t even get a final cuddle. She just took her away from me.”

Liz became one of at least 185,000 victims of forced adoption between 1949 and 1976 in England and Wales.

As a young unmarried mum, Yvonne was deemed unfit as a parent by her father, and, like so many other unsupported women, by the government, by the church, by both state and church Moral Welfare Officers, by adoption agencies, and therefore made to give up her child against her will.

Although reunited, Liz and Yvonne are still struggling to cope with the agony resulting from their devastating separation. As Liz says, “We can’t just skip hand in hand into the sunset. The trauma of being a forced adoptee is lifelong.”

Second book in the Stolen Lives series, following Taken by Michelle Pearson with Eve Hatton; Unspoken is a true story of the pain and scandal of forced adoption. Liz Harvie has appeared in several press articles, radio and television pieces and has featured in a BBC Documentary, If You Love Your Baby, on historical forced adoption. In 2022, Liz gave written and oral evidence when she spoke in parliament for the Joint Committee on Human Rights Inquiry into Forced Adoption - the right to family life: adoption of children of unmarried women 1949-1976.

In May 2022, Liz and six other women formed The Adult Adoptee Movement, which aims to challenge attitudes to and change the narrative on adoption, campaigning to raise awareness of the lifelong trauma adoptees face and ensure appropriate support is available for all those involved.

Liz lives in Camberley, Surrey with her husband, two daughters and two dogs. She is an end of life and pastoral care companion volunteer at her local hospital and hospice.

Eve Hatton is the co-author, with Shy Keenan, of the bestselling Broken (Mardle Books, 2022).

Buy or pre-order from Amazon

Book also available in Waterstones and Asda.

When you find your tribe - an ode to adoptee friends and meet-ups

I’m not sure I will ever be able to thank Claire and HTBA for introducing me to THE most incredible adoptees who have become a part of my chosen family.

Bob, Niki, Lisa, Katherine, Sarah & I were introduced over the monthly HTBA patreon calls at the end of 2022. 

I’ve never really known anyone who is adopted (apart from my adoptee brother who never wants to talk about it). Wow, it’s amazing to have a shorthand with people who just get how your head works.  There’s no need to explain some of the disordered thinking, they feel it and think the same.    

Whilst we still meet monthly on our calls, we’ve also now got a super active WhatsApp chat, where we chat about everything from Snoopy through to supporting each other with our reunion journeys.   We also all met up in person in the summer, which was one of the loveliest days of my life.  These women are my tribe and my family, and I know that my journey through being adopted is made better for knowing them!

Em

Return to Seoul - adoptee film screening at London's ICA + Q&A with Laure Badufle

I was recently blown away by Return to Seoul, which I saw with a good adoptee friend of mine. If you can get to see it, I highly recommend it.

Very excitingly, there’s a screening and a Q&A with Laure Badufle at the ICA in London on 8th July 2023 - French/Korean adoptee Laure inspired the character of Freddie. If you can make the date, I would urge you to go along as there will be lots of other adoptees there.

The Q&A with Laure will be hosted by Debbie Iromlou from the Adult Adoptee Movement, a UK-based group of inclusive adult adoptees. Formed by using lived experience to challenge attitudes on historic adoption and to change the narrative of adoption. Debbie is also a transracial adoptee who has written a guest blog for How To Be Adopted and runs a group in London called TAAN - transracial adult adoptee network. To find out more, you can email adoptionsupportduty@islington.gov.uk

But, back to this amazing film which really blew me away. So often we see chocolate-box endings to films about adoptees and adoption reunion - I’m thinking about the film Lion, for example. With Return to Seoul, I do feel there are many realistic moments that adoptees can relate to. Of course, I’m not a transracial adoptee so there are many additional layers there too. If you can’t make this special screening and Q&A, look out for the film when it comes to TV/streaming services.

More info about the film:

Official trailer for Return to Seoul

*** Opportunity for adoptees to watch the film for free from 7 July 2023 (credit card details needed but then you cancel your free trial after you have watched the film) ***

Davy Chou’s RETURN TO SEOUL, which premiered in Cannes 2022’s Un Certain Regard, is an unpredictable and refreshingly authentic story of a young woman’s search for identity. Park Ji-Min delivers a revelatory performance as Freddie, an adoptee who was born in South Korea and raised in France. Freddie is magnetic, spirited and hard to pin down; never in one place, or with one person, for long enough to get attached. At 25 years old, she visits Seoul for the first time since her adoption, in an attempt to reconnect with her biological parents and the culture she had to leave behind.