Learning to steer my own kayak through the adoption fog - guest post from Chloe Morrison

Mar 8

Mar 8 Learning to steer my own kayak through the adoption fog - guest post from Chloe Morrison

‘When you negotiate a kayak through sea caves, or negotiate your way along a hiking trail —in other words, when you successfully travel in the direction you need to go—what are you doing? You’re steering. In my work, I teach that negotiation is any conversation in which you are steering a relationship.’

— Alexandra Carter, Ask For More, pg. 5

I guess you could say that growing up I was the cliched “grateful adoptee”. People pleasing, academically achieving, and totally unbelieving of the possibility that there might be anything more to having been adopted than the fact that I didn’t look like my parents or my also adopted brother.

I was chronically shy though. My heart would race at the thought of speaking to someone else who wasn’t tightly woven into my inner circle. I’d send my brother to ask for the ketchup at restaurants, I’d almost rather wet myself than have to face the embarrassment of interrupting a conversation to go to the bathroom. At school I’d follow along with the lesson, the cogs of my brain working overtime to know the right answer, just in case I was asked, but each year the comments from my teachers would be the same: she’s such a bright child, we just wish she’d put her hand up.

My life was controlled by fears and anxieties, and yet I very seriously believed that being an adoptee was just a little quirk about myself that I would happily share if prompted, but rarely spoke about of my own accord. People’s responses would surprise me when I told them: words of ‘wow, that’s so sad’ as they spluttered through their unsolicited tears. Or, they would concoct intricate plans for when we’d go and find my bio family together, and how they’d support me through the whole process, and oh wow, isn’t this all just so exciting!! Like a fairytale!!

And then I’d laugh at them for being too sensitive, too unaware of the fact that everything is fine, and I’m so lucky, and can you imagine? My birth mum was probably horrible anyway, and my parents are the best in the world, and what are you even talking about? I don’t want to find my bio family, that would hurt my ‘real’ family, and I would never hurt them because I’m a doting daughter who loves her parents with every ounce of her being, and anyway stop talking about it because I’m absolutely fine. No, seriously, I’m just fine thanks.

And then I got pregnant.

I was 23, living in London, studying for a PhD at a well known public health School. A historian scrambling amongst medics, scientists, and public health practitioners. They say imposter syndrome is so inevitable it’s practically part of the initiation into academia. And there I was, even further from belonging in this world of rigid categories and formulaic seeking of objective truths, while I frantically tried to create a home built from nuance and complexity, wading through the murky depths of the “grey area”. An imposter unbelonging even to the rest of the imposters. Funny that, so eerily familiar.

So, when I found out I was pregnant I felt compelled, for the first time, to find out about my bio family. For the sake of my baby. And in strictly medical terms, of course— at least, that’s what I told myself, and everybody else. And I guess you could say that this was when it all began to unravel. Slowly, quietly. Invisibly, at first. I was initially pre-occupied with the anatomical realities of growing a baby inside me. Then, the practical realities of becoming a parent. Where should we get the pram from? What colour should we paint the nursery? When should we have the baby shower?

It wasn’t until early 2020, when my son was 6 weeks old, that I plucked up the courage to call PAC-UK requesting my adoption file. Then I was put on a waiting list. Then I waited. Between February and June I didn’t think about it much more, because then the pandemic happened and I, myself, unravelled into a mental state that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. Then they called me to let me know that I had been assigned a counsellor and they would be in touch soon. Then it all fell apart.

Over the course of just more than a year, from October 2020 to January 2022, I journeyed through “the fog” and found my way out of it. I’ve heard the phrase “coming out of the fog” thrown around as part of the adoptee vernacular, and I’ve also heard it contested as a term too simplistic and perhaps even subtly damaging to the overall community. And, based on my own experiences, I’d like to add something to the conversation.

But first, some context. My partner is Australian, and we met in Brisbane. He moved to the UK to be with me for the birth of our son in November 2019. By November 2020, we had moved to Australia to find a more stable life together as a small family, where my partner could find work and I could breathe a little easier away from the scariness of covid. I came off maternity leave in January 2021, and by September I had withdrawn from my studies.

I’d started seeing a therapist the month before, and it only took me a few weeks with the right support to realise that I’d already made the decision to quit, long, long ago. I just hadn’t validated my own instincts and needs, instead desperately clinging onto the status and pride that might come with being Dr. Morrison. Not because it set my soul alight (though I absolutely loved being a historian and all the amazing discussions I was privileged to have), but because it would buy me infinite approval from the whole entire world. Or so I thought.

Making the decision to drop out was the most freeing and liberating decision I have ever made. Instantly, I felt a weight lift off my entire being and for the first time in years I could actually relax. And now, being far away from the wounds of my past in this present life I was living on the other side of the world, I realised that it was all on me now.

What did I want to do next? Who am I now that I’m not a PhD student anymore? I soon realised that for the first time in my life I’d ditched the script and had freed myself to write whatever I wanted to next. And this terrified me. I soon then realised that I have no idea who I am. At all. Oh no, I thought, as I trembled in horror, have I just lost everything I’ve worked so hard for? All the while, I was also learning about another past that had been left far behind on the other side of the world: my adoption.

To get through this spiritual awakening-cum-dark night of the soul, or whatever you want to call that feeling which epitomises “coming out the fog,” I read a lot of soul-searching books. And, more recently, I started Ask For More by Columbian law professor Alexandra Carter. Within only a few pages I was struck by the power of her message. Trained first as a mediator, she shares her tips on how to negotiate exactly what you want: in life, in business, in relationships, in and for whatever your heart desires. Literally.

I opened this essay with a quote from one of the first pages of the book. She argues that ‘negotiation is any conversation in which you are steering a relationship’. Then she asks:

What happens to the kayak if we stop steering? We keep moving, but maybe not in the direction we want. Outside forces like the wind and water will carry us away. And the kayak metaphor tells us one more thing about negotiation: You need the right information to steer with accuracy. You can’t close your eyes and ears and expect to arrive at your destination. You need to watch the waves and feel the direction of the wind. Everything you see, hear, and feel helps you steer with accuracy toward your goal.’ Pg. 5

It stopped me in my tracks. Have I ever steered my own kayak before? Was dropping out the first time I’ve taken the paddles and took control for myself?

Wait a second, does adoption necessarily preclude you from the ability to steer your own kayak at all?

Listen to what she says: ‘You need the right information to steer with accuracy. You can’t close your eyes and ears and expect to arrive at your destination.’ As adoptees we have never had the right information. Sure, we might be lucky enough to have our original birth certificates, some information about our parents names, personalities, traits. Maybe we even knew our families before we got adopted as older children. Each individual story is so unique I would never try to paint us all with the same brush. But, I would be so bold as to suggest that the very fact of having been adopted, at whatever age, in whatever country, does forcibly close our eyes and cover our ears to the knowledge that would optimally set us up to determine our own destinations in life.

I know that for me, I was too busy avoiding the wounds of the adoption, the underlying grief and trauma that had weighed me down for as long as I could remember but was never fully able to acknowledge, let alone articulate. So busy, that I wasn’t even bothered about steering my own kayak. I was too busy trying not to drown. Too busy trying not to just give up and jump right out of the boat once and for all.

Then, I made choices, bit by bit, to take back the reins of my life. Moving to the other side of the world opened up space in my mind for a complication of the narrative, which ultimately opened my eyes to the traumas and losses of adoption. Becoming a mother myself forced me to imagine, and really feel, the forced separation I’d had from my own mother as a baby. Dropping out of my PhD pushed me to paddle as hard as I could for shore as I determined, on the fly, what destination I actually wanted to arrive at.

This experience, this book, made me consider adoption in a new light:

Are we, as adoptees, metaphorically smuggled onto a boat late at night, blindfolded and tied up at the edges, forced to watch someone else steer the kayak designated for us, while we silently struggle and squirm in our binds?

Once we become cognisant beings do we get handed the paddles, only to unknowingly inch closer into the eye of the storm?

Does the fog of misty clouds that surrounds our tiny boat prevent us from ever reaching our own destination of blissful wellbeing and contentedness?

Have we been institutionally and societally denied the possibility of negotiating our own lives this whole time?

I’ve realised that to negotiate what I want from life then I must first take control of the paddles. Then, glisten and glean whatever information I can about myself to set me on an authentic course: through reflection, journaling, therapy, somatic grounding, connecting with my bio family and heritage by whatever means I can healthily. And even before we can attempt to do all of that, as adoptees we’re forced to navigate the extra layer of fog that comes with the disenfranchising processes and institutions of adoption. Perhaps, then, it takes getting to our most raw and peeled back forms to clear the fog, take a breath and, finally, steer for ourselves.