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

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

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.

After the Guardian article, where else can you find How To Be Adopted?

If you’re new to the blog and need a How To Be Adopted fix, we’ve got you covered:

1. AdopteesOn interview with the amazing Haley Radkee, where Claire does something really scary in the first few minutes of the interview. See if you can spot it! Host, Haley, also wrote a guest piece for How To Be Adopted. We love you Haley! Claire is also in the AdopteesOn off-script having another chat with Haley - this one is just for Haley’s Patreon subscribers.

2. Grazia piece on post-natal depression linked to adoption grief which was the first time Claire used her full name in public! Eek! Cue being disowned by her family - it didn’t happen but the fear was there despite no evidence. Thanks adoption ;)

3. PAC-UK National Adoption Week conference ‘voices of change’ where Gilli and Claire spoke about coming out of the fog and Claire showed a piece she wrote for the British Association for Adoption and Fostering back in 2007! Hang on to the Q&A in the afternoon if you want to hear Claire getting p*ssed off with adopted people not having enough of the floor!

4. Adoption and Fostering podcast talking about contact after adoption, aka maintaining lifelong relationships (as it should be called)

5. Lara Leon Adoptee or Adoptee webinar for How To Be Adopted. This was our first webinar and we were so happy to see so many of you, thank you one and all. The wonderful Lara also has a great YouTube channel

6. One Adoption conference on contact after adoption, aka maintaining lifelong relationships (as it should be called): presenting to 200 social workers, policy makers and family judges - get in touch to find out more and book Claire as a keynote speaker

7. PAC-UK blog, part of Family Action - Claire wrote about searching for her birth mother back in the late 90s before the internet and DNA testing!

8. Gilli’s talk on her research into the life-long impacts of adoption which was another awesome webinar we did this year.

9. And of course the Guardian piece from July 2022.

A letter to 13-year old me from adoptee Kate

I was recently asked by my therapist to write to a younger me. I am sharing because I wish I’d heard this letter back then, but maybe they might help an Adoptee struggling now.

My therapist asked me to choose an age on the spot & 13 jumped out, before I had time to second guess myself or choose an ‘easy’ option.

I soon recognised this felt like an impossible task.

This was my opportunity to connect with my younger self, to actually engage with her & validate her reality. A reality which I have steadfastly kept myself disconnected from for decades. 13 is such a tough age for anyone, but especially my 13 yr old self, unknowingly carrying the traumatic experience of infant separation & adoption.

(I feel I need to add a clarifier here: I experienced no abuse in my childhood, I was raised in a loving, open & honest family, I was given all info available at age appropriate moments (my 13th birthday being the one where I learned the most), and yet I still seriously struggled).

I spent the week procrastinating, avoiding & stressing about this letter, until one hour before the session… 

Then I reached out to #adopteetwitter. Support flowed (as always 💛) & so did my thoughts.


I am a domestic infant adoptee (DIA), born in 1980 in Ireland.

I was adopted at 11 days old. 

I always knew I was adopted. 

I always knew I was loved.

I always struggled.

This is a letter I wish I had read when I was 13 years old & struggling the most.



Dear 13 year old me 

Hi! You don’t know me but I know you. I’m who you grow into. I wanted to share some thoughts with you. Things I’ve thought about that might help you over the coming years 💛

I have found writing this letter has been so difficult as I don’t want to let you down & I know you could do with some love & support, & most importantly understanding & validation.

I am sitting here looking at darkened fields & feeling the wind on my skin remembering one of my first scout camps at 13 years old. Sitting in a field watching the full Spring moon rise. Sitting with my thoughts and feelings for hours (it felt like). Feeling so disconnected from the people around me. The scout troop’s religious ceremony, clearly bonding them all in a ritual I didn’t understand or feel connected to, reminding me I was going home to people who I didn’t feel understood me, or fully connected to, (although I felt very much loved by them). 

I still remember feeling so alone, adrift, anchor-less.

That feeling you have of never belonging? Never fitting in?
Disconnected?
Never being good enough? 
Always being misunderstood in your emotional responses? 
Ugly? 
Socially & emotionally clumsy? 
Always 2 steps behind? 
They’re normal feelings, and they’re ok. I’ve learned that Adopted people often feel this way because we have to make sense of a serious traumatic start in life, we learn to internalise the loss of our mother. How else can we make sense of it all? 💛

It’s strange to speak of adoption having any negative effects. It really changed my life when I started to recognise that it’s ok to criticise adoption. That adoption is inherently traumatic and continues to cause a lot of harm, mentally & emotionally, throughout our lives.

That doesn’t stop it feeling awful, & devastating & lonely right now, but it has helped me a lot to know that no one lives with being adopted without these kind of feelings.

Firstly, & perhaps most importantly: 
YOU ARE NOT BROKEN.
You are not defective.
You are not unworthy.

I know the people around you seem like they have it all together, that they instinctively fit in. A lot of that is smoke & mirrors. No one really knows who they are as a teenager, but you do know what you’re not:

You are not unwanted
you are not unloved
You are not unlikeable
You are not dishonest
You are not unkind
You are not un-generous (with attention, time or materials)
You are not mean
You are not cruel
You are not patronising 
You are not ugly.

All of these hard times are helping you to grow into a kind & thoughtful person, who reaches out to look after other people.

But you don’t need to look after other people to have value or worth, you don’t need to be useful to be accepted.

You have more to bring than your usefulness.

People around you may not now see value in these traits, but you will find your way to people who will value and cherish these things about you.

There’s a whole world out there & you will find your way, but right now it all feels really rubbish. 

It doesn’t stop feeling rubbish for quite a while, but focus on what’s right for you, do things you love to do, learn things you want to learn, & know that in a few short years you will be in control of your own destiny.

All the sadness, the grief, the emotional knife edge of expecting the worst from people, not being able to express yourself safely & knowing you can’t be understood by those around you, (despite their best efforts)… these feelings are valid and they matter, you are not as alone as you feel.

Getting angry is a healthy response to all of the micro aggressions & lack of validation. Although those around you don’t understand or recognise it, your anger is necessary, you need a relief valve.

The shame that comes after an outburst is tied to others not understanding you. The shame is theirs that they cannot connect or engage with your grief. You do not need to carry their expectations (of how to cope with your loss, & adoption IS loss) or their limitations (due to lack of understanding or lack of ability to understand). That’s on them. 

Be kind to yourself.

We spend our entire lives with only one person, ourselves. We have to learn to love ourselves. We owe it to ourselves to be kind to ourselves. Everyone else will come and go, but we are the constant. Always try to do what’s right for you (without intentionally hurting anyone obviously), this is YOUR life 💛 You are worthy 💛

When it all gets too much, and the sadness is unbearable, please think of your future self sending you loving empowering hugs 💛

I carry you with me everywhere I go, you are a part of me, & someday you’ll connect with others who understand exactly what you’re feeling. 

You’re not alone 💛 

Lots of love,

Me xxx



Sending Hugs to all my fellow Adoptees & their 13 year old selves 💛

Image credit: https://unsplash.com/@anniespratt

6 recommendations for the JCHR re the inquiry into Treatment of unmarried mothers and their babies aka adoptees: Pam Hodgkins MBE oral evidence to The Joint Committee on Human Rights

Today, 16th March 2022, UK Parliament hears the evidence of birth mothers, first families and adopted people as part of the Inquiry into the Historic Treatment of Unmarried Mothers

Thank you to everyone who filled in the inquiry with their evidence. You can watch the proceedings here (live only on 16 March 2022)

Pam Hodgkins MBE has agreed to share the evidence she would have been submitting today in Parliament - before she was abruptly removed from the proceedings - with no explanation.

I hope the members of the JCHR will read the following carefully:

Can you tell us a little about your childhood?

I had a wonderful childhood having been adopted by a couple who were open armed, open hearted and utterly honest. They considered themselves very lucky to have me as their daughter, ensuring I knew I was special to them and that were so grateful to my birth mother Mary for allowing them to adopt me.

When were you told that you were adopted? What were you told about your birth mother and the reasons for your adoption?

I have no recollection of being told I was adopted; I have always known, so presumably the word adopted was commonly spoken in a positive manner before I was verbal. I was told my mother, Mary, was not able to bring me up as she did not have a daddy like ours to help her. Simplistic but positive. Each night I was taught to conclude my bedtime prayers with ‘God Bless, Mummy, Daddy, Mary and Me.’

What can you tell us about your birth mother’s experience of being an unmarried mother and your subsequent adoption?

I learned that my birth mother had realized she was pregnant over Christmas 1950. She did not return to my birth father and their shared theatrical digs in London but remained at her family home in North Lincolnshire. Her mother, very middle class, was determined no-one, including Mary’s father, should learn of this disgrace so she arranged for Mary to go away before her pregnancy was obvious to stay with a clergyman and his family in Essex, who had previously been their curate and next door neighbour. My maternal grandmother began making plans for my adoption via The Church of England Children’s Society but because of a family history of TB the society did not consider I would be ‘fit for adoption’ so the clergyman and GP attending my mother decided a private placement would be quicker and easier. The GP proposed my adoptive parents, a working class couple turned down by the Children’s Society and other adoption societies who cited the lack of indoor bathroom. When the clergyman told my grandmother he had only been able to find a working class couple she is reported to have retorted ‘So what, the father was working class – that is why we are in this mess!’ The plan included Mary returning to stay with the clergyman and his family after my birth until I could be placed for adoption at six weeks but because it was summer, during the time my mother was in hospital following my birth her brother, a doctor in Kingston and his wife who had 2 small daughters and a six-month-old baby son announced he and his family would be arriving at the family home on Sunday 28 July for their summer holiday. My grandmother realized that it would be inexplicable for Mary not to be there to play with her nieces and coo over her new nephew, so she hastily arranged for me to be taken to the identified prospective adopters at 10 am that Sunday morning direct from the hospital while she hired a car to drive her and Mary directly home in a race to get there before her son and his family arrived.

Having parted with her baby that morning Mary was expected to play the part of doting aunt by teatime the same day. This all clearly indicates that Mary had absolutely no control over events, and that her views were probably not even asked for, let alone acted upon. When my mother lay dying some 44 years later, her best friend from drama school and I sat either side of her bedside, her friend Margaret recalled the time I was born; Mary had confided in her behind her mother’s back and they had sent each other coded messages. Three days after arriving home Mary had gone out to a public phone box and called Margaret secretly, begging her to think of a viable excuse to call Mary to her home to get her away from the doting aunt role was tearing her apart. Margaret called the family home, the ‘emergency’ she had dreamed up was accepted as a reason for Mary to depart; Margaret recalled the nights she spent holding Mary as she wept for her baby. The actions of my Grandmother were replicated by many others, people who placed their ‘good name’ and respectable status way above their own daughter’s well-being and happiness.

The impact on Mary was lifelong. Her mother’s plan worked, her father and brother did not know what had happened to her. No one in their community found out and when a local Alderman’s son ‘courted’ her and wanted to marry her, she confided to him her disgraceful past; he told her she was pretty enough for him to overlook that and he would still marry her. For the rest of her life she remained grateful to him for this willingness to marry her. Their marriage would appear to an onlooker today to be one of coercive control. He accepted the subservience of Mary as his right, and of course this attitude impacted on their daughters, she was there to serve. Many years later actual physical abuse of Mary by her youngest daughter which resulted in a broken nose was blamed on Mary for ‘upsetting H’. She loved them all and never complained. I complain on her behalf.

My mother breast fed the two daughters of her marriage. She asked the GP for ‘something to dry up her milk’ after my birth, so her recent delivery would not be visible to her brother and his wife – a nurse. She was given medication, and a repeat dose after a couple of days as she was still leaking milk. When in her 60s she developed breast cancer, her consultant was surprised; her notes described her long term breast feeding of two babies, considered a very protective factor against Breast Cancer. There were no notes of her first pregnancy and the treatment to stop lactation. She later told me of this and added ‘Old sins cast long shadows’. My birth and adoption cast a lifelong shadow over her life, the bright young girl who dreamed of being an actress and could recite the entire works of Shakespeare became a nervous shadow of her once vivacious self, loved especially by Margaret and my birth father and me. I hope her immediate family loved her, I know the elder of my two sisters did and I expect they all did but in a way that played on her self-sacrifice of herself

In what ways do you feel the experiences you have described affected your right to family life under Article 8 of the ECHR, as we know it today?

In my childhood I enjoyed a family life that would be the envy of many, I expect that to the outside world, Mary, her husband and their two little girls also appeared to be the ideal image of family life. What we were both deprived of was the chance to be mother and daughter together. Was it the state that took away our right to family life together? The obvious culprit is my maternal grandmother and her obsession with respectability, but one could ask why did she feel that she had to sacrifice the happiness of her daughter to ensure she was still ‘marriageable’ – she was 200 years beyond being Jane Austen’s Mrs Bennet, but one fears Mary was perceived as at least as deviant as the feckless Lydia Bennet.

Have you traced family members? What was that experience like?

I contacted my birth mother Mary in early 1982. I thought I needed medical background as I had suffered a very serious illness linked to TB! I obtained my original birth certificate by simply calling the District Registrar in the town where I was born and asking for it. I had ‘always’ known my birth name and my mother’s name so I had no need to use the recently introduced ‘Access to Birth Records’ provision. My mother and I had a relationship from that time, until her death in 1995, that was of great importance to us both but fraught with tension as her husband resented the very fact I existed. Initially there were no plans for my half-sisters to learn of my existence, Mary’s husband vetoed the suggestion it may be best to be open, but the elder of them discovered a letter I had written to my mother at the school where she taught, an arrangement we had, and the secret was out. At the insistence of Mary’s husband my connection to the family was still kept secret from everyone else in their circle until Mary was dying. I made contact with her brother; I was so concerned for her well-being. I enjoyed a warm, open and enduring relationship with my aunt and uncle for the remainder of their lives and their adult children are some of my closest friends and relatives today. My actual relationship to my mother in so far as her community were aware only became public on the day of her funeral – a sides-person insisted on making a list of names, and relationship, of everyone entering the church for funeral. I was holding the hand of my 7 year old daughter, the first funeral she has attended, if I had not been asked I would not have told, but I was not going to lie in those circumstances, my reply was ‘eldest daughter, son in law, grandson and granddaughter’. My mother’s widower and I have not spoken since, and neither do I have any communication with Mary’s youngest daughter. I do have a relationship with my other sister and one nephew who is somewhat estranged from his mother – the youngest daughter.

Mary told me who my father was and who he married, an actress who had achieved much more success than either Roy or Mary, but through her agent I was able to make contact with Roy, my birth father. Roy was a ‘character’, think Victor Meldrew in ‘One Foot in the Grave’ and you will have an approximation of Roy. The relationship with him lasted from 1982 until his death in 2017. I sat by his bedside on 14 June, the sunny day following the Grenfell Fire and realized I would never forget this day his life slipped away after 89 years, a date marked by public history but also the day on which my adoptive father would have celebrated his 100th birthday had he enjoyed a much longer life than that cut short when he was only 56. Without doubt Roy embraced me, and my family, as his daughter, son in law and grandchildren. My children enjoyed the most amazing times with a grandfather who was truly unique, reckless and great fun. Were we deprived of our right to family life? Yes, and what a good thing we were. As a 23 years old bi-sexual, temperamental, out of work actor in 1951, tied to a woman who adored him, but who was to him just a very pretty face, Roy would have been an unreliable parent, not a patch on my loving and beloved Dad. BUT as someone to find in adulthood and share a very special father and daughter relationship he was wonderful, and I loved him dearly. At his son’s, my brother’s wedding we were family, at Roy’s funeral we shared duty as his children. The openness we shared so much better than the secrecy demanded by Mary’s husband.

In what way do you think your experiences reflect those of other people who were adopted in the 1950s, 60s and 70s?

I think the reasons for my adoption were prevalent throughout the 50’s, 60’s and well into the 70’s. The adoption of the baby of an unmarried mother by a married couple who were involuntarily childless was simply what happened. However, there the commonality probably ends. Adoption agencies had developed a notion of secrecy facilitated by the option of serial numbers to conceal the identity of adopters from birth mothers within the 1948 Act. My adopters, rejected by adoption societies, simply did what felt right, without preparation or instruction they ‘knew’ openness and honesty was best, that adoption was something no one should be ashamed about. In a curious way it was their behaviour that I was advocating to prospective adopters, as a social worker, 30 odd years later. I think the shame and disgrace showered on birth mothers transferred to their infants and unfortunately many adoptees grew up in its shadow. I am sure it devalued their sense of self. I do not deny I had some ‘issues’ as a teenager, but were they teenage angst or adoption issues? I cannot say. It probably disappoints adoption enthusiasts that no I will not endorse adoption as wonderful, but at the other extreme, neither will I claim it ruined my life, because it did not. We only get one life, I hope I have, and am, making the most of mine.

How can you, and other adopted people and their parents be better supported today?

I am pleased to assure you that I am not in need of any particular support at this stage of my lifetime as an adopted person. However I am extremely mindful of the unmet needs of many adopted people and birth parents, particularly ageing birth mothers, who are in desperate need of services that can be delivered locally, promptly, without unaffordable charges. Services that the 2002 Adoption Act suggested would be available to everyone who needed them but which a decade plus of austerity has reduced to few and very far between.

I hope the committee members will consider my personal experience relevant and useful but the primary reason I wanted to give oral evidence to you was to show you what small amendments and proposals the committee might recommend to the government which for minimal cost could make an enormous positive difference for this elderly cohort who have suffered so much and who now fear time may be running out.

I understand that a supplementary paper I provided at the written evidence stage of this enquiry has been published. This contains full details of these proposals; I, and colleagues with whom I have been working – all of us dedicated volunteers giving our time freely to this cause – will be please to meet with all or any of the committee to expand on our proposals, likewise we extend our offer to work with the appropriate departmental ministers and officials to work up these proposals into practical steps to radically improve service provision.

The key provisions we wish to see implemented are:-

1. Requiring every local authority and adoption agency to advise the Registrar General of all vetoes presently registered by the agency and to subsequently advise the Registrar General of any new vetoes placed

2. The Registrar General to maintain a comprehensive register of vetoes for England and Wales, updated by any new information provided by a LA or adoption agency. The Registrar General to link this data to his existing registers that link birth and adoption entries. The Registrar General to advise any intermediary agency of the existence of a veto and the agency where that veto is recorded, or to confirm no veto is recorded, in every case before the intermediary agency moves on to intermediary work.

3. NHS Digital Back Office Function to restore the enquiry service offered prior to the pandemic which enabled an intermediary agency to enquire if the adopted person or birth relative sought was known to have already died in England or Wales. The service also confirmed if the person sought was currently registered with a GP, this positive information is very reassuring to a relative, especially when it is the only positive information they have.

4. Change the regulations so in cases involving the adoption of an infant under one year of age who had been ‘relinquished’ for adoption prior to May 1984, and where the RG has confirmed no veto, the intermediary agency may assume the Appropriate Adoption Agency view to be neutral unless anything arising in the intermediary process suggests otherwise.

5. The requirements for persons deemed to be ‘qualified workers’ in the context of intermediary work to be changed to people with suitable skills, knowledge and training who are working under the close supervision of a social worker or diploma qualified counsellor with at least two years post qualifying experience.

6. The availability of supportive and therapeutic work with adults over the age of 25, (those who are completely outside the scope of services that may be provided via the adoption support fund) should no longer be restricted to those counsellors and therapists working as, on behalf of, or in an adoption agency or adoption support agency. Counsellors and therapist work to high professional standards regulated by their professional bodies, in all other areas their capacity to work with any presenting client will be a matter for their professional judgment; they will recognize the need to refer on to specialist services if presenting issues, or those that later arise are found to be outside their own area of competence. It is important to trust the judgment of these professionals and provide adopted adults and birth relatives with the right to choose a counsellor or therapist with whom they have the confidence to address their support and therapeutic needs without prejudging that suitability dependent upon the work setting. It must also be acknowledged that whilst adoption is a significant factor in the life of everyone affected, it is not the only factor. The choice of service providers for those whose lives have been touched by adoption must not be restricted by statutory regulation linked solely to the adoption.

What will making these changes achieve?

Proposal 1-4 will all streamline the time consuming, and expensive processes that are currently required in order for any agency to offer intermediary service. In some cases potential service users have died whilst waiting for an agency to undertake all the requirements, gaining a response from the designated Appropriate Adoption Agency, or locating the relative sought. Many more of the cohort the JCHR committee is focused upon will also die before they receive the service they need if the regulations are not changed.

As well as the delays to providing the service each step adds to the cost for the agency, costs that are usually passed on to the service user. Anything that reduces the cost will increase the opportunity to access service for those least able to afford current costs. There are few, if any, agencies offering complete intermediary service for less that £500, the average cost within the non-commercial sector is frequently approaching £1,000, in the private sector fees that are double or triple that amount are the norm. Even a relatively well off occupational pensioner may struggle to find such a large cost, for the poorer pensioner living on just state pension and pension credit the cost is prohibitive, and most of the people the JCHR is considering are now pensioners.

Proposal 5 will open up a ‘reserve army’ of exceptional volunteers to once again become service providers. These will include retired professionals who undertook intermediary and related tasks in their roles as adoption social workers, who became frustrated by the competing demands for increasing adoption numbers, supporting children and families in placement and still trying to juggle the needs of adults from the ‘historic adoption era’ the JCHR is reviewing. These people will give their time and skills willingly if they are given the freedom to work flexibly, to control their own caseloads and provide the level of support and time they consider appropriate to achieve the best possible outcomes, which in turn leads to intense job satisfaction, the only reward the volunteers are seeking. Likewise there is a large pool of highly experienced and trained volunteers who previously volunteered for AAA-NORCAP and After Adoption who were lost to this area of service when the organizations for whom they volunteered went into liquidation due to the impact of austerity in the past 10 years. They are ready and waiting, and refresher training delivered via Zoom could bring them back into useful and timely service.

Proposal 6 remedies at a stroke the critical shortage of therapist and counsellors available to those who have been impacted by adoption alongside all the other issues and trauma they may encounter during a lifetime. It also ends the frustrating and enduring experience of almost all adopted people – we are treated as adopted children for ever. Unless it has been changed, as I suggested, your programme will tell you that you are to hear from two Birth Mothers followed by two Adopted Children! Despite our adoption we grow up, we become adults, adopted adults, but people who can and should be allowed to make our own decisions.

Thank you for taking the time to read my evidence. I am sorry not to be allowed to present this to you in person on Wednesday 16 March, but I hope I may have the opportunity to discuss these issues and proposals with all or some of you shortly.

Thank you

Pam Hodgkins MBE

Adopted person

Founder of AAA-NORCAP BA (Hons) CQSW, AASW

Photo by Aditya Romansa on Unsplash

The Alien Chameleon asks, “What do you want me to be?” - guest post by Roz Munro

One fundamental problem with being adopted is no one understands how much it feels like you are an alien. The writer and fellow adoptee, Anne Heffron puts it very simply, “You want to hear my generalized story of the adoptee in six words? ‘Something is wrong. No one understands’.”

Possibly if adopted as a young child rather than as an infant, then people would see that you had a history with your parents or foster parents, or in an institution of some kind, but I was placed for adoption in the UK immediately, with the gap of only seven weeks between birth and relinquishment and no one in those days (1967) thought that was enough time to have a history. I don’t know when it was felt that having a history started; my brother was three months old when he was placed for adoption and no one thought he had a history either, even though he had been with his first mother all that time and cried for a full day when first he came home with our adoptive mum and dad. He cried until he was exhausted and then was fractious, but no one thought about the trauma to him of losing his mother, suddenly and completely.

Another point made by Anne Heffron is this; imagine being suddenly removed from one life completely then confusingly placed somewhere unknown randomly and told to get on with it with people you do not know, where you can have no contact with your previous family or life, where if you are upset by this they simply don’t or can’t understand why. Now imagine this happening to an adult. It is called kidnapping and is a criminal offence! But that is how closed adoption works, where files are sealed, and no contact or correspondence is allowed. I know it’s different now in many modern cases, but this is how it was for my adoption.

By the time I reached mum and dad at seven and a half weeks I was on my third mother as I had been in foster care for four weeks, so the alien syndrome was already present. It is now known that new-born and young babies are responding to their mother, and she mirrors them, she smells right, and she has the other half of the bond they share, fixed before birth in the womb, the biological bond that is our animal heritage birth-right. Of course, an adoptive mother, even if she is the most loving and devoted parent can have none of these advantages, she is on the back foot before she begins.

Our biology also involves the limbic regulation that a mother provides to her baby, to soothe and to give a feeling of security - the attachment bond. This begins as part of a neurochemical hormonal bond in the womb and without it the child feels overwhelmed. It is this devastating loss at the start of life that causes a large part of the traumatised response induced by maternal separation. I imagine my little mind was full of confusion and terror, the limbic overload of trying to mirror and connect but not getting the right signals, maybe not any signals given my adoptive mum was not a cuddler or an empathetic mother and suffered with clinical depression all her life.

My baby-self needed to connect to stay alive, literally, the baby is helpless and all they have is this connection; it is a matter of survival. The baby’s responses are elements of the adaptive behaviours that adoptees use as attempts to get their needs met, they are survival responses to the relinquishment trauma suffered on loss of our mother. Nancy Verrier writes in “Coming Home to Self” about the two modes of coping that adopted children implement to manage the alien situation: acting out and acting in, i.e., defiance or emotional shut downness. She also distinguishes between these behaviours, which can define a child early on, and their true personalities that are hidden under levels of management of self: to fit in or to radically object.

Either way it is not the true self that is known to the family, or to the individual. I became a compliant baby - a “good” baby, mum said. When the Adoption Society conducted a welfare visit I was reported to be on three meals a day and sleeping through each night. I was 15 weeks old. The reptilian brain works very basically: Do as they want, and this will not endanger me. This translates in my adoptee brain as “do what is asked of you and be safe, anything else and they too might abandon you.”

This layering of behaviours and coping strategies add further silt to the difficulty of knowing, or being, oneself after the trauma and resultant brain changes of being relinquished as a baby and adopted into a biological strangers’ family. I conformed and turned into a very proficient chameleon. I continued to be a compliant and quiet child. The chameleon who asked unconsciously in every interaction or relationship “What do you want me to be?” In essence, I wanted to know what you needed me to be, so I best ensure that you stay happy, and I remain “good enough to keep”. My mum said I was easy as a younger child and young teenager; it was when I left home that I “became difficult”! I feel I was attempting to exert my independence, be myself, but that was not welcomed.

I was into my forties before I began to unravel this chameleon feeling as I worked on myself in therapy. It is a strange experience when something that feels as natural as breathing becomes obvious to you, a behaviour you previously didn’t see becomes visible - or more than that, becomes visible and feels odd. The sensation felt like I was acting outside myself; I was watching myself during interactions and I did not have control over my reaction. I literally didn’t know myself.

Much of my learning about emotional self-care has come through personal therapy. I know now I was brought up with physical care (being clothed, washed, fed) and educational needs provided, but emotionally was neglected. I am now on an ongoing path of discovery about my needs for nurturing and am trying to reparent myself and accept all the disparate psychological parts of me that formed during the early years to help me to survive the traumas and dramas of my life.

I find the early development trauma research and theories are pertinent and resonate strongly, helping me to understand my history and my reactions. For example, I discover I have lived my life in a constant state of nervous system dysregulation. (Stephen Porges and his Polyvagal Theory) This is a result of the primal wound, (Nancy Verrier) which is formed because of the separation from my first mother. Now it is more accepted that relinquishment is a trauma (Gabor Mate, or Paul Sunderland) and losing the first mother catastrophic to a baby. I have been hypervigilant and overanxious and felt the need to control my environment extremely tightly. This hyperarousal is a symptom of an overactive sympathetic nervous system and it being constantly in fight or flight. Then there is the Hypoarousal of freeze, or in the case of the chameleon the fawn response is prevalent too. These are biological responses that are triggered by early trauma (Pete Walker, 4Fs in his book Complex PTSD) and, unless mitigated with attunement to the child by the care giver, or later in therapy, remain out of conscious awareness and can ruin lives. In the dysregulated system a sense of ease or feeling safe is fleeting, and moments of connection with others are brief and feel tenuous. This is an exhausting and debilitating way to live.

As this was the water I swam in for all my life it has taken until just very recently, and with the help of a trauma informed therapist to help me, to remove my silt layers, and I am starting to break free and change these ancient habits and reactions. I am questioning my need to be quiet and pleasing, I can now choose discernment and embrace the freedom of preference; I can release the quietness that went along with the need to supress my true feelings and I am learning how to speak my truth; I am discovering more about my biological and limbic systems, and how I can learn to self-soothe and to self-regulate my emotions so I don’t remain hypervigilant and “on” for ever.

Now, I strive to keep a level of awareness that enables me to question myself and my motives for acting. I still fail spectacularly sometimes. I will find out halfway through an activity or event when I notice that I am feeling resentful. I know it’s a red flag that a part of me doesn’t want to be there.

Sometimes I will notice - a plan will be made, and I feel scared or anxious about it, then I know I am triggered by the thought of the plan somehow, and I look to spend some time reviewing what is my wish, how do I work with my anxiety and, what do I want to do? This is a work in progress.

Only now, into my fifties, can I begin to see what I need to do to honour my own wishes and move beyond my alien chameleon part. Now I can start to ask myself, “What do I want me to be?”

Image credit: the artist Becca Smith

The history of adoption in England and Wales by Pam Hodgkins MBE

A guide to adoption in England and Wales by adoptee and adoptee rights advocate Pam Hodgkins MBE

Pam kindly agreed for us to publish the following after a conversation about the government inquiry: The right to family life: adoption of children of unmarried women 1949-1976 Read on for a bio of Pam, who founded NORCAP.

The 1926 Adoption Act

There was no legal adoption as we know it now before the 1926 Adoption Act was implemented.  When this Bill was going through Parliament many suggested it was unwise and would lead to ‘fecklessness’ as unmarried mothers would be able to pass over all liability for their “bastard infants”.  Others claimed that severing the legal link between birth parents and their children would ‘protect the investment of the adopting parents and prevent the birth parents reclaiming the child once s/he was of ‘an age to earn a wage’. Before legal adoption some charities, concerned that people raising a child may indeed lose their investment, had earlier introduced an ‘indenture of adoption’.  This was a legally binding contract, very similar to an apprenticeship indenture.  It cost one guinea (£1.05) and each party had to pay half the cost – this resulted in one elderly woman sending me a copy of her adoption indenture with a covering letter which said “You will see from the enclosed my parents bought me for 10/6 from the Waifs and Strays.”  10/6 (ten and six) is 52.5p and the Waifs and Strays was a national charity later known as the Church of England Children’s Society, and now simply The Children’s Society.

Secrecy around adoption and birth parents’ names

There was no secrecy around adoption for the first 20 years of legal adoption in England and Wales.  The court papers, signed by each, gave the full name and address of both the adopters and the birth parent(s) named on the birth certificate.  Until the war years, courts were unwilling to make an adoption order unless the birth mother, at least, appeared at the adoption hearing, and many hearings were postponed in Birmingham to get the mother to attend.  Both the birth parents and would-be adopters….and the baby…would be in the courtroom together for the hearing.  When adoption law was reviewed post-war some of the adoption agencies suggested it would protect the adopters if they could make their application using a serial number to ensure the birth mother did not learn their names and address.  I have not found any evidence being presented as to why this was thought necessary.

Although introduced as a clause that could be used ‘when necessary’, within a very short time all agency adoption applications were being made under a serial number and the illusion of secrecy being important became firmly entrenched.  It is hard to say if the use of serial numbers became commonplace in non-agency ‘third party placements’  but I have been told by birth mothers that the person who arranged their baby’s adoption would place a piece of paper or a book over most of the document obscuring the adopters’ details, and simply instruct them to ‘sign there’.

Informally arranged adoptions

Many people do not realise that it was perfectly lawful for anyone to arrange an adoption right up until the adoption agency regulations 1983 were implemented in May 1984.  Many of those individuals making such arrangements were professionals such as doctors, clergy and lawyers but in reality anyone could do it, and there have been accounts of door-to-door tradespeople such as bakers or milk roundsmen learning of a baby whose parent – or more likely grandparent – wanted it to be adopted and also a couple on the round who wanted to adopt and therefore introduced the two parties.  The local council had to be notified by the prospective adopters and to conduct a welfare assessment, but this was only after the placement had been made.

Why the father’s name is not listed in many cases

When they first see their original birth certificate many adopted people assume that the dash across the space where the father’s details could be entered means their mother did not know who their father was.  This is untrue.  When a couple are married either of them can register the birth and give details of their spouse to the Registrar.  This is called presumed paternity.  However an unmarried woman could not name a man as the father of her child unless she had gained an affiliation order against him – i.e. a court decided that he is the father of her child. The alternative was that the father accompanied the mother to register the birth and they each gave their individual details to the Registrar and signed as informants.  This was not practicable in the 50s, 60s and into the 70s when women generally remained in hospital for 10 days after the birth and the Registrar attended the maternity unit to enable babies to be registered.  At that time visiting on maternity wards was limited to just the husband of the mother; boyfriends or fathers of babies not married to the mother were not admitted.  This made it very challenging for an unmarried father to be named on the birth certificate even if both he and the mother would have wished it.  It was not in the interests of the adoption agency to actively assist the father to be included, as if he was named on the birth certificate they would later need to gain his consent to the adoption. If he was not named only the mother had to be persuaded to consent.

Adoptive parents not sharing details of their child’s original name

It is also accepted as fact that adopted people could not have details of their original name until 1976.  This is false.  As clear from the details above all adoptive parents knew the details of the birth of the child they wished to adopt.  They had to submit a copy of the child’s birth certificate to the court as one of the documents needed when applying for an adoption order.  Some adopters thought to actually keep a copy or to copy out the details and probably few ever forgot the details on that certificate.  The key issue was would the adopters later share that information with their son or daughter?  Some may actually have believed they were not allowed to, perhaps the agency suggested that to them, but it was never true.  For adopted people whose adopters did not share their birth details with them there was no right of access to that information, but they could apply to the court for an order to be made to instruct the Registrar General to disclose their birth information to them.  It does not appear to be recorded how many made such applications and how many were successful.

Parliament debate in 1975

The debate in Parliament on 26 November 1975 was to determine if every adopted person who wished to know his/her birth details should be able to access this information without recourse to the court.  Observers recount that it was a close run thing, with passionate personal contributions from a number of Members of the House.  The provision passed once a ‘safeguard’ had been agreed that anyone adopted before the clause was passed would need to meet with a ‘counsellor’ prior to receiving the information.  There were many different interpretations of the purpose and powers linked to this requirement.  Many adopted people believed the information could be withheld if the applicant did not appear reasonable and responsible (it could not).  On just one occasion the Registrar General was concerned about an application received that he applied to the court for an order empowering him to refuse to provide the information.  The information the adopted person became entitled to receive one year after the clause passed was ‘information which would enable him/her to apply for a copy of his/her birth entry’. There was no right given to adopted people to read or receive information from the adoption file.  Luckily when Birth Records Counselling was introduced in November 1976 most social workers and agencies undertaking the statutory counselling recognised the benefit of placing information in context and did provide file information too.  The importance of this has since been emphasised by Practice Guidance issued by the government 30 years later.

Current government debate

The current debate around ‘Forced Adoptions’ is interesting and clearly Parliament has been convinced that many women who are recorded as having ‘relinquished’ their child for adoption only did so because they had been manipulated  and pressurised to do so with other options being excluded without examination.  It is likely that adoption workers, clergy and maternity service professionals will all be found to have acted in a manner in which many women now feel they were ‘forced’ to give up their babies. 

Accounts by many women of their treatment in the maternity unit and/or in Mother and Baby Homes run by religious orders and as a feeder arm to adoption agencies is horrendous, especially when judged by standards applying now, but other factors do need to be considered.  The one factor that appears to have been frequently overlooked is the support or lack of support offered to the mother by her own family.  If the extended family was supportive, some young couples could and did marry and bring up their own child.  Without the support of the father of her child many women were able to take their baby home as their own family were willing for that to happen.  In some cases, grandparents provided childcare to enable the mother to work to support herself and her child; other families simply placed the new baby in their family as the youngest child of the mother’s parents, so a Mother became de facto an older sibling and the grandparents assumed the role, responsibilities…and rights of parents, just like Kat and Zoe in the Eastenders storyline. 

Governments formally apologising to birth mothers

The first country to apologise to birth mothers was Australia, this gave impetus to the campaign here in England and Wales.  However there are significant differences in part practice.  In Australia it was common for unmarried mothers to be chloroformed at the moment of deliver and their baby removed before they saw it or knew its gender.  They were also required to give binding consent to adoption within five days of the birth, some say they were not allowed to be discharged from the hospital without doing so.

In England and Wales, although a few women do give similar reports, the law was clear a mother could not give consent to adoption until at least 42 days after delivery and in most cases up to the 1970s would have her baby in a Mother and Baby Home or return to a Home shortly after birth.  Expectant mothers were generally admitted to the Mother and Baby Home when between 24 and 28 weeks pregnant – many say before their pregnancy became obvious.  Mothers were expected to care for their babies, albeit in a regulated structure, including being encouraged to breast feed as this was recognised as best for baby.  

If a mother requested that her baby went to live with prospective adopters or foster carers before being six weeks old, the mother could change her mind and require the baby was immediately returned to her at any point until the baby was six weeks - at which point prospective adopters could make their application to adopt.  To avoid adopters being upset by mothers changing their minds, many agencies chose not to place a baby until it was six weeks old when the application to adopt could be made immediately.  Once their application was submitted the child became ‘protected’ and could not be moved without the direction of the court. During the 13 week ‘welfare supervision period’, which could not be completed until the baby was 19 weeks old (6 weeks + 13 weeks) the parent(s) had to give informed consent before a JP and, if they chose not to do so and requested the return of their baby, it seems the court would look favourably on their request.  The problem seems to have been that no one actually spent time explaining this to most unmarried mothers, or explored with them how they might find a place to live with their child and what financial support could be available to them.  No wonder so many felt forced to agree to adoption.

This article was meticulously compiled and recounted by Pam Hodgkins MBE

Pam was born to an unmarried mother whose own mother managed the situation by arranging for her daughter to live 100 miles away from home and her baby to be adopted as soon after birth as possible. The birth and pregnancy were hidden from Pam’s birth mother's own father and brother.

Pam was placed with prospective adopters, who turned out to be wonderful despite having been turned down for adoption by CECS and NCH as did not have indoor loo or bathroom. It was a private arrangement made between the attending GP and a clergyman Pam’s birth mother was sent to stay with. When told the proposed adopters were 'only working class', Pam’s maternal grandmother is reported to have said "So, the father was working class, that is why we are in this mess!"

Pam grew up surrounded by love and truth. “I cannot recall ever being told I was adopted I just grew up always knowing, so I presume the word was first used when I was still pre-verbal. Love was extended to my birth mother, who my adoptive mother always held in high regard and to whom she always felt indebted - nightly prayers were 'God Bless Mummy and Daddy and Mary wherever she is'.“

Pam made one attempt to trace her birth mother when she was aged 13/14 after a row with her Mum about the time she had to come home from a party. It was the usual, ‘My real mother would let me stay until 11pm!’ She says, “Luckily I failed at that time, but later found I was very, very close.”

Pam married and had two sons. She became unwell with a rare condition aged 30 and got worn out saying ‘I don’t know, I was adopted’ to her GP and hospital doctors asking about family history. “If it was not important why did they ask? And if it was important why did I not know?”

Pam actually traced her birth mother sic months later and had a clipboard list of questions for her. She met her, loved her, forgot her list of questions! She worried about her birth mother and feared her marriage might today be classed as coercive control. 30 years on she was still grateful to her husband for marrying her despite [her having had a baby out of wedlock] …

Pam remained in contact with her birth mother, and they remained important to each other for 13 years until she died aged 67 of secondary breast cancer. Pam is resented by her birth mother’s husband and youngest daughter and has a limited relationship with other daughter although their lifestyles and interests are too different for them to be close.

Pam has built a relationship with her birth mother's brother and his wonderful family. He and his wife are parents to five born-to children plus three adopted. As a specialist in crippling diseases of childhood, he worked on secondment to Canadian relief organisations in the most challenging places and times. Also he had a TB hip as a small child and spent five years in sanatorium where he was not expected to live to adulthood. She also has very close relationships with her cousins and actually lived close to them in Canada for 10 years.

Pam’s birth mother told her who her birth father was when they first met. She also said he subsequently married an Oscar winning actress! Pam built a relationship that has endured with her birth father and his son of that marriage. She realised he would have been an awful father when he was 23 and her adoptive dad was much better suited to that role. She says, “Roy was an amazing man to know as an adult - once met, never forgotten. I sat with him on the day he died - 14 June 2017 - the day of the Grenfell fire - and also the day on which my adoptive father would have been 100.”

The idea for NORCAP came in the early 1980s. I read in the newspaper of an adopted woman who longed to trace her birth mother and I sent a reply via the editor, offering practical assistance as I had recently searched successfully. I also offer to discuss implications which turned out to be more powerful than I had anticipated. I heard back almost immediately from the woman and one other adopted person who I assumed had handled the letter. The next day, the postman delivered a sack of letters wanting help, and one contained the clipping from the newspaper intended just for the original correspondent.

I contacted social services to ask for details of organisation that would help these people and was told there was none. However the director of SSD in Warwickshire, where I lived, met with me. She agreed an organisation was needed offered to help if I started one. She did not mention she was retiring in six weeks and moving to Cornwall! And so NORCAP began by accident, one might say like the majority of its subsequent members.

I was working as a teacher in further education but spent next three years being told, “Yes, but as a SOCIAL WORKER…” Anyone feeling patronised by social workers today should have felt what it was like 40 years ago! In 1986, I gave up and trained as a social worker. I always 'worked' for NORCAP from the day it was set up until I retired in 2011. I was only employed by the organisation part time for four years and full time for six. Once a qualified social worker, I worked for the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) as a regional consultant in the Midlands and as a project of BAAF set up the West Midlands Post Adoption Service. I was also independent Chair of various adoption and fostering panels and an initial chair of an Independent Review Mechanism (IRM) panel. I worked with others, particularly Julia Feast, to persuade the government to include access to intermediary services for birth relatives of adopted adults in the 2002 Adoption Act.

I retired to Canada in 2011 with the intention of doing post-grad research into the high incidence of premature death amongst adopted people, particularly adopted young men under 30. This hypothesis grew out of practice experience when providing intermediary services and the not infrequent number of times we found the adopted man we were seeking had died as a teenager or young adult. Although backed by a university the intention was thwarted as the data I needed - from three national cohort studies - could not be exported outside the EU. I returned to the UK - the pull of grandchildren too strong to resist - and was shocked to find the progress we had made towards universal intermediary services in 2002 and implemented in 2006 was so eroded by the complexity of regulation and the decade of austerity to the extent few people had any access to a service that was affordable. I have been working with former NORCAP friends over the past two years to try to establish an entirely volunteer staffed intermediary service and this had actually been assisted by the learning and experience gained during the pandemic that has shown us the many options for using new technology and working and training remotely without diminishing the quality of service. I should be 100% retired but there is still clearly work to be done. 

I am not grateful to my parents for adopting me

When I started my blog in 2017, I used the strapline: “Just your average angry/grateful adoptee here in London, UK.” This was to convey the dichotomy of emotions I, and many/some other adoptees, feel. I was coming out of the fog when I started this adoptee blog, and many of my early posts are full of anger, sadness, grief and confusion.

I made a conscious decision not to include any expressions of gratitude in my blog or my tweets. This is because as adoptees many of us have been (subconsciously?) conditioned to preface any comments about being adopted with grateful acknowledgements such as:

 “I love my parents but… one day I’d like to find out more about my roots”

“I’m grateful I was adopted but… it has brought certain challenges”

“I had a great upbringing but… one day I’d like to have a relationship with my biological parent/s”

The reason I choose not to use prefaces such as the ones above is not because I don’t love my parents or have a good relationship with them. And it’s certainly not because I want to hurt or upset them. It baffles me that because I don’t use these prefaces people assume I had a “bad adoption” (whatever that means). However, the reason I choose (not) to do this is because I want to make the point that we shouldn’t have to preface our thoughts and experiences with these platitudes and – surely – if we don’t feel the need to use them, that could mean we have a really strong relationship with our adoptive parents? I’ve noticed that some people, including APs, only choose to listen to adoptees who have had a “good adoption” (whatever that means) and I do not want to contribute to that problem.

I don’t think it’s healthy for adoptees to feel they have to add these caveats. I myself used them in the past and this must have started at such an early age that I don’t remember, but I do remember the conversations always went more smoothly if I took the time to acknowledge my parents’ feelings before my own.

Having made the decision not to use these caveats in my (at this stage anonymous) writing was the easy part. Sticking to it was difficult. I had to edit and triple edit my blogs and I held my breath every time I pressed publish in case somehow my mum would instinctively know I’d written about adoption without including my caveats ‘like a good girl’.

I meet lots of adoptees as a result of the groups I help run and events I attend, and I can tell you that adoptees of all ages from 20 to 80 are using these caveats, as well as ones like, 

“I had a happy upbringing but…” 

“I don’t want to upset my lovely parents but…”.

We don’t even realise we are doing it most of the time!

I suspect one of the reasons we use these caveats could be that somehow deep down we believe we are ‘less than’ and our needs are secondary (to those of our adoptive parents).

This speaks to a deep insecurity that if we do not show a level of deference or gratitude we may be rejected or ‘sent back’ because we are not honouring the unspoken agreement. This unspoken agreement comes from the shame narrative around (often young) unwed mothers and illegitimate babies. As illegitimate babies, we were seen as ‘lucky’ to get a home and a family, particularly if this was a two-parent heterosexual Christian family. Presumably to save our souls from the sins of our mothers (never our fathers, of course).

So we grew up with the spectre of the children’s home looming over us, familiar with phrases like “languishing in care” (which was used only recently on Twitter). With the unspoken inference being, if it wasn’t for us “taking you in” bringing you up “as our own” who knows where you would be. Maybe in an orphanage, left on a doorstep, or even dead…? Whilst our parents themselves may not have said or thought these things, we were exposed to popular culture, playground taunts and comments from extended family, neighbours and teachers. In fact, when my sister hit a crisis point in her adolescence, our uncle – incidentally also her godfather – was quick to suggest my parents “wash their hands of her.” And many of us can tell of experiences where we have been urged to show gratitude and avoid upsetting our APs after “all they’ve done for you” by acquaintances and even strangers at dinner parties and on aeroplanes.

I wish I could say that only older adoptees such as myself heard things like this, but I know of one teen adoptee whose parents said they will “put her back into care” if she doesn’t toe the line. I told a close friend I was nervous about appearing in Grazia magazine talking about being adopted and having post-natal depression. I said I hoped my mum would be supportive of my choice to appear in the magazine. My close friend urged caution, reminding me of everything my parents have done for me.

My parents have done a lot for me, yes. But no more and no less than any of my non-adopted friends’ parents have done for them. Again, the inference I hear here is that they have done something extra to be commended, given that I am an unwanted baby who would have “languished” in the raggy doll bin if my parents hadn’t come along and “saved” me. The thing is, my parents didn’t wake up one day and decide to offer a family and home to an unwanted baby. They tried to have a baby for ten years and then decided to adopt. They don’t campaign for support for adoptees; they don’t advocate for birth parents’ rights; they simply wanted a baby. Preferably one that they could pretend was their own. (*Forces self not to add “That’s just the way things were in those days.”*)

And I am theirs. I am very happily their daughter. However, I am also genetically someone else’s daughter too, and I have a complete and total right to:

• all and any information about my heritage

• embark any relationships that are open to me, if/when I feel strong enough to pursue these

You have these rights too. We all do. No apologies, no caveats.

Photo by Amadeo Valar on Unsplash

Finding my voice through adoption blogging

Happy blogging birthday to me! Happy blogging birthday to me! Happy blogging birthday How To Be Adopted! Happy blogging birthday to meeee! This was the year I came out of the woodwork and started to use my real name and photo, and it’s been exhilarating. Here’s a little summary - do read to the end to find out how you can get involved in what’s next for How To Be Adopted.

Photo and full name in a lil’ ol’ publication called Grazia

This past year has been a wild ride, as I decided to shed by anonymity in a very public way with this piece in Grazia magazine, written by journalist and PR guru Isabella D’Emilio. I didn’t sleep properly for weeks and even phoned my mum to check she was ok with it before it was published. I know, cringe. Funny how the need to be ‘approved of’ by my parents is still strong even at the age of 39! I cannot stand upsetting them. But I know I need to speak my truth to help myself and others. In his YouTube seminar on Adoption and Addiction, Paul Sunderland says the biggest indicator of a child’s wellbeing is for their mother to be able to tell a cohort narrative of her life, so I owe it to my kids to get all this organised and articulated.

Never thought I’d end up looking constipated in Grazia magazine…

I’m actually very emotional about the feedback I still get on this piece because I had no idea I would have additional challenges around pregnancy, birth and feeding my baby, as a result of my early experiences. I hope to raise awareness and get more support for new parents who have had early trauma themselves.

Speaker at One Adoption conference on identity and contact

In February I was honoured to be asked by One Adoption and PAC-UK to speak at their identity and contact event. Although One Adoption is an adoption agency, they are committed to supporting adoptees and first families, which some agencies only pay lip service to. There were other adoptees and first families on the panel as well which helped me make up my mind (Clarissa and Dee are dream cheerleaders, thank you ladies).

I was shaking like a leaf but honestly? I loved it. I said everything I wanted to say both about being an older adoptee still searching for pieces of my identity, and about being an auntie and having restricted contact with my nieces and nephews. Many of the delegates came up to me afterwards and/or emailed me to say it it was a powerful presentation which encouraged them to make meaningful changes in their practice.

If you would like me to present to your organisation, please get in touch.

Live (yes, live!) Facebook chat with The Adoption & Fostering podcast

Al Coates has been politely badgering me for years to appear on his podcast, but I went one better and did a Facebook live. We touched on many of the topics I raised in my speech at One Adoption, including my perspective as a first aunt maintaining a relationship with nieces who have been adopted or are in foster/kinship care, and the lack of UK-wide support for adoptees.

First Facebook Live, thanks Al and Scott

AdopteesOn inteview

In for a penny, in for a pound! I’d already had the pleasure of speaking to Haley for her Adoptees OffScript episodes, and now this AdopteesOn interview was a dream come true. It wasn’t perfect, but I am very happy with the outcome. I even named my birth parents cos I was feeling KICKASS!

My friend Joe, who will be my partner in the forthcoming How To Be Adopted podcast said, “You were funny, passionate, vulnerable and brave.” Thanks Joe!

Celebrating this milestone, thank you Haley

What’s coming up in year four?

There is so much exciting stuff coming up, I cannot wait to tell you all. The focus will be on sharing adoptee voices through the upcoming podcast and supporting the UK community of adoptees. To be the first to find out, please do get on the How To Be Adopted mailing list. We never spam you - in fact we have never even sent an email yet!

Speaking of which, How To Be Adopted is a passion project on top of my two real jobs: being a mum and being a content editor and strategist for a digital agency. If you’ve found the blog helpful, you can now buy me coffee which three people already have - thanks lovely people. Or, if you’d like to donate to an amazing charity, The Open Nest is what inspired me to start this blogging journey.

Why are you so angry? Part two

A confession... I wasn’t telling the whole truth in my popular blog post about angry adoptees…

I worked so hard on my blog post Why are you so angry? It’s been read by 4,000 people and is my most popular post after What does it take to love an adoptee? The post was prompted by an email I received from a single male adopter asking (rhetorically I think),“Hello, i've (sic) parts of your blog. You seem very angry that you were adopted. I find that hard to understand- would you rather a child not prosper mentally and go on to lead a better life and have a dad/mother who loves and cares for them.”

In response to this, I wanted to explain in a constructive way why many adopted people are angry. I wanted to explain why having adoptive parents who love and care for you is not always enough. And I wanted to refute the suggestion that being adopted means you can prosper mentally (once I’d finished totting up how many thousands of pounds I’d spent on therapy). 

Rather than my personal story, I chose to focus on things like the social narrative around adoption and the disenfranchised grief adoptees feel. All of my points were researched and from the heart. However, I deliberately didn’t share much of my story. I was terrified of ‘being found out’ and being labelled ungrateful. Not by haters on the internet, but by the people who matter dearly to me. I was terrified of tempting fate and ruining my reunion should any of my bios stumble across the blog. Worse still, I was terrified my parents, brother and sister would see it and metaphorically throw me out; closing ranks as those bound by blood are known to do.

So, now in 2019, almost a year later, here are some of the things I am really angry about.  Looking at the list, many of them I’m actually really sad about. There is a known link between anger and sadness: the NHS states that anger can be a part of grief and “…there are things that make lots of us feel angry, including being treated unfairly and feeling powerless to do anything about it.” 

It goes without saying that my parents did a lot of things right, and I was – on the spectrum of adoptees – incredibly fortunate to track down and meet both bio parents. Goes without saying, and yet I feel the need to add it here. Mum, if you’re reading – this is my disclaimer. I love you and I know you did the best with what you knew at the time. It just wasn’t always enough. 

 The secrets we keep

• My birth mum initially didn’t tell my biological dad she was expecting.

• My paternal grandparents were not told or asked if they would consider raising me.

• My biological father was not named on my birth certificate as was the law at that time: couple not married + father not present at registration = “Father unknown”. (Remember these were the days when a man’s reputation was more important than a child/future adult’s identity*.)

• My parents waited until I was 13 to tell me I had been an identical twin. We were both due to be adopted by my parents but because she died at birth she never became part of our family and was never considered their child or my siblings’ sister.

• My twin was buried in a communal grave behind the hospital and I had to contact the local council myself to be given the ‘co-ordinates’ of the grave. I visited this baby cemetery by myself and will never forget the chilling experience. Why have my parents not visited? I’ll let you consider that.

•  My dad intimated that my biological dad was a nasty piece of work, so I believed for a number of years I may have been conceived due to rape or incest. This was not the case. They were just two teenagers from Southampton.

 The baby they longed for

• I was in hospital for 16 days after I was born and my mum can’t remember on which of these days she met me.

• My dad’s mother disowned him after they adopted me. They weren’t on the best of terms anyway, but a bastard baby was perhaps the nail in the coffin?

• From quite a young age, my mum told me she “tried for ten years before you came along”. As I grew older the penny dropped… if a woman can theoretically get pregnant 12-13 times a year, they tried 100+ times before they conceded defeat. Although very loved, I was not especially ‘wanted’ or ‘special’, I was choice number 100+.

• My parents had two biological children after adopting me and another little girl. I love my siblings dearly but I cannot deny this family dynamic was challenging at times. When my sister had her son a few years ago, while delighted to have a new nephew I was gripped by a primal feeling that this ‘real’ grandson would usurp my son. Blame on too much watching of Game of Thrones! There’s always a hierarchy and blood trumps all.

Therapeutic parenting hadn’t been invented

• On the whole my parents didn’t recognise/support me with my attachment-related feelings and behaviours.

• My parents moved house a lot and I went to four primary schools, which I believe may have contributed to my attachment issues.

• My compliance and people-pleasing was not discouraged, in fact at times it was encouraged as this made for a simpler life for my teachers, parents, etc.

• Some of my idiosyncrasies were seen as odd and different by my parents. The same for my sister. Our quirks were generally not celebrated or recognised as a) they didn’t fit in and b) they may be genetic and passed down from ‘they who must not be named’.

• My sister and I were not encouraged to have our own stories; we were characters in our parents’ adoption story.

• When my sister said she wanted to find her birth mum, aged about 11, my mum scoffed - rather than swallow her pride and normalise those (normal) feelings. I think it’s so important for adoptive families to have therapy in order to compassionately handle these moments.

Are you the woman I’ve been searching for?

• I feel that I can’t really be mad at my birth mum because she was adopted herself (at an older age than me in sadder circumstances) and didn’t hugely get on with her parents i.e. had a ‘worse’ adoption experience than me.

• My birth mother admitted she drank and smoke during pregnancy and “walked up and down a lot of stairs” from which you can draw your own conclusions. 

• Early on in reunion my birth mum forgot my birthday. I know memory loss is a recognised phenomenon with birth mothers; it still made me feel pretty shitty.

Still my dad even if you didn’t want to raise me

• My biological father didn’t tell his children they had a sister. 

• My biological father’s wife refused to meet me for a few years. When we were due to meet and I got stuck in traffic, she said it was a sign from God and cancelled the visit. I’ll leave that one there!

• He had to be cajoled into telling his mother and siblings about me. I still haven’t meet my two uncles or my aunt and I met my bio father in 2006!

• When I said being adopted was hard, my birth dad asked me to imagine what it was like to be a young man in the late 1970’s. I kid you not. He also once asked me when I was going to “stop harping on about adoption”.

Of course we don’t mind you searching!

• My parents knew my birth mother’s married surname but kept it from me. I spent my late teens and early 20s searching for her using laborious non-internet methods. Hello microfiche!

• When I showed an ex-boyfriend all my precious files, he looked at my birth mother’s marriage certificate dated a few years after I was born and said, “So you’re officially a bastard then.” Nice bloke.

• I asked my biological and adoptive parents to meet for the first time over a coffee before my wedding day. They refused and I was so anxious I got hammered fairly early on and don’t remember over half of the day. I feel sad when I look at some of my wedding photos. 

More support needed for adopted adults 

There are lots of things to be happy about, even grateful for, with my life as it is now. This is not a blog about how much my mum loves me and how much joy she gets from my children. This is a blog about anger and sadness and not getting the right support particularly as a child but also as an adopted adult in reunion.

I had some support from PAC-UK and some self-funded therapy but I have mostly relied on peer support to get me though reunion, which has been one of the most challenging experiences of my life. 

Thank you to On Being Adopted, Anne Heffron, Caitriona Palmer, Haley Radkee, Sarah Meadows, Mark Wilson and all my on- and offline adoptee friends – you rock. Thank you for making this lonely and misunderstood journey that bit easier.

*Not sure how much further society has come on this one. Answers on a postcard!

Photo by Gabriel Matula on Unsplash 

Meet Twayna Mayne: comedian, black woman and transracial adoptee

Introducing transracial adoptee and host of the adoption and fostering podcast Loco Parentis, and the writer and comedian behind the Radio 4 series Black Woman.

Twayna and I first met on Twitter when she released her podcast Loco Parentis in 2018. Since then Twayna’s gone on to write and perform a comedy show on Radio 4 called Black Woman where, as well as talking about black British identity, she also talks about being a transracial adoptee growing up in the UK in the 90s.

Twayna and her older brothers were adopted into a white family and their two younger brothers were adopted into another family just round the corner. Officially Twayna’s paperwork went through when she was 14, and she remembers going to the High Court in London “to be adopted”. 

In episode one of her Radio 4 series Twayna talks about being an adoptee and specifically a transracial adoptee. Recorded in front of a live audbnwich I enjoyed a few chuckles at Twayna’s adoption jokes, although – as you’ll know if you follow me on Twitter – woe betide any non-adoptees joking about adoption! The power of humour is truly amazing, and I often feel much lighter after having a good giggle with my adopted friends about it all. Twayna’s humour is bang-on the money, and I really admire her and anyone who has the courage to bring niche topics such as adoption to the mainstream, particularly in a stand-up comedian capacity.

Twayna’s Radio 4 series covers how it felt to be one of only a few black children at her school, and how she also experienced a level of white privilege as a result of being brought up in a white middle class family. She challenges the number of white people who say they want to adopt a black child, and says “If transracial adoption is no big deal – and I think it is – then we should all be able to get in on the act…It’s time to stop romanticising adoption, particularly of children in care and ethnic minorities.”

The Black Woman series is highly recommended and I hope Radio 4 commissions Twayna for a new series. You can also check out her other episodes on identity and representation, gender and sexuality and colourism.

As I mentioned, Twayna and I first met when she launched her Loco Parentis podcast. As one of the only UK-based adoption podcasts by an adoptee, I was delighted when it launched. I recommend all the podcast episodes, particularly the episode with Marleigh Price on race, identity and how adoption is a lifelong journey and not a singular event. Twayna and Marleigh talk about the feeling of straddling multiple worlds that adoptees and care experienced people often talk of feeling, where we feel like we’re responsible for managing the emotions of both our adoptive parents and biological parents. Managing these complexities can be very exhausting for us. 

Marleigh’s dad’s family didn’t know she existed until she was in her 20s. She talks about how being adopted cuts you off from the rest of your extended family: aunties, uncles, grandparents, etc. Twayna says she identifies with this as, although she was adopted with two brothers, and their other two brothers lived locally with a different adoptive family, they had no contact with their wider biological family until adulthood. There’s been a lot of talk recently on Twitter and at conferences such as the One Adoption conference I spoke at in February 2020 about challenging the norms around contact with first families, including siblings, after adoption. Twayna presents an important point: if your siblings are in touch with your bios, this can be quite awkward if you don’t want to be in touch with them. The interview also touches on some of the joys and challenges experienced after reunion, with Marleigh talking about discovering she dances like her cousins, but also ruminating that 30 years of separate experiences cannot be overcome immediately just because you are ‘blood’.

The Loco Parentis podcast is rated 5/5 on Apple Podcasts and Twayna’s guests include many familiar names from the UK adoption and fostering landscape including Martin Barrow, Andy Elvin from TACT and Professor Anna Gupta from Royal Holloway University. As well as professionals, she also interviews some of her friends who have been adopted or care experienced, including fellow comedian, writer and actor Sophie Willan, With her podcast guests, Twayna’s style is relaxed and informal - more like a conversation over a cup of tea than a formal interview.

I really urge you to have a listen to both the Radio 4 series and the podcast. As Twayna herself says: “I hope you enjoy it, and if you don’t - it’s on you.”

Photo by Matt Stronge.

Born into a bubble of love?

Does the emotional environment around a child’s birth matter? 

I woke up today thinking about childbirth. I couldn’t remember if I cried when my children were born. I do know that my first child was placed in my arms after a minute or two and my second came to me immediately. This second birth was my “good birth”. The room was full of love, joy and even laughter. My face was serene and my smile was wide. There was a celebratory feeling in the room and even some laughter – such a great reliever of tension. 

We’d planned for this second birth to be as calm as possible because the birth of our first child had been stressful. This made me wonder about the experience my birth mother had, and how it may have affected me as a newborn and beyond. 

Pregnant in the late 1970s, society’s judgement of unmarried mothers at that time would certainly have had an impact on her treatment during antenatal checks and at my birth. In fact, she has told me herself that many medical professionals were dismissive, rude and even negligent. This is a horrible experience for a petrified young woman, and I am sure the baby (i.e. me) would have picked up on the sadness and shame in the room. 

This got me thinking about one possible difference between traditional and contemporary adoption. For children adopted today, with the trauma they carry and the challenges they face, many* will have one thing we older adoptees didn’t have: a happy birth. Although there was perhaps a chaotic environment at home or much deeper problems that would become apparent in months to come, to be born into a bubble of love and placed straight into your mother’s arms? That’s something that no one can ever take away from you.  

 *Not all, of course. 

If you are interested in the themes of this blog post, I recommend reading more about

• attachment theory

• the treatment of unmarried mothers

• how trauma is thought to stored in the body 

Anne Heffron is also a great person to follow on Instagram as she talks a lot about how the initial “welcome” into the world may have affected her as an adoptee. 

Photo by Aditya Romansa on Unsplash

I asked my mother when she met me

I asked my mother when she met me.

She couldn't remember.

"It was either day three or day five," she said, as though she was talking about going to the cinema.

I said, "Not to worry mum, it was a long time ago!"

Then I went for a drive in my car and shouted at some other drivers.

I parked my car, got out and kicked a bin.

I walked to a cafe and snapped at a nice lady serving cream teas. 

This is my story of a lifetime of treading on eggshells in order to keep my precarious place in my "forever family". My family may argue that my place has never been in doubt, but my nervous system says otherwise. The curious dichotomy an adoptee lives with is that of being "very, very wanted" and yet at the same time totally unwanted.

Until I had my first baby I was very much, "Oh yes, she did what she had to do. She was eighteen; this was the late 1970s for goodness sake!"

This is an example of what many adopted adults call 'being in the fog'. Once my little boy was placed in my arms, the truth lay heavy on my chest as I had never laid on my first mother.

----

Thanks for reading. Would love to hear your comments below x

I am not your shame

I'm 37 years old. Last night I was given up for adoption. Again.

I felt alone and frightened, just as that baby was. My nervous system went into overdrive, just as that tiny baby's did.

And the shame. Searing shame overtaken by anger and resignation, but still that lingering shame. It's always there.

Then something else, something new. A feeling of freedom. I felt almost giddy. I don't have to put myself through this anymore. I am worth so much more. I am worth a full page announcement in The Times. I will not be hidden. I will not hide.

One thing I didn't feel was surprise. As an adoptee I'm atuned to rejection in its many forms. You may not have seen it that way. Perhaps to you it was merely an error of admission; a failure to introduce me in a busy room; not the right time, the right place, the right circumstance. In that instant I saw that baby crying and crying and crying as backs turned and footsteps echoed away.

Adoption took my first family, my grandparents, my family tree, my genetic history, my heritage and my bloodline. Enough is enough. Adoption will not take my dignity. You will not take my dignity.

I am not your shame. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I have done nothing to be ashamed of. Except to keep quiet while you humiliated me to cover your own back.

I will not be your secret any longer. I refuse to be complicit in your compartmentalisation.

I know now that you shame me to protect yourself from being shamed by others. You are still protecting yourself as you did when you walked away from that rapidly swelling belly almost 40 years ago.

I need you to know that I am not "Lucy", I'm your daughter. The one you gave away. The one you've been building a relationship with for eleven years. 

I will not come to your funeral as "Lucy". It's time to speak up. If you want your secret to die with you, consider me already dead.

*Name changed.

An open letter to Long Lost Family from an adoptee

Dear Long Lost Family,

While I was still in the adoption fog, I watched you avidly. I delighted in the resemblances between the reunited relatives and looked forward to a good cry at the emotional climax of the programme. (It’s well-edited, I’ll give you that.)

Now, with two adoption reunions under my belt, and being firmly out of the fog, I can no longer watch you. I’m sorry.

While non-adopted people delight the drama, you are a source of frustration and bewilderment for me and many adoptees I know. How can something so popular, fronted by adoptee himself Nicky Campbell, get it so spectacularly wrong? 

Here are a few reasons you leave a bad taste in the mouths of adoptees, as well as many adoptive families and birth/first families:

1. You shortcut the search process

Searching for birth relatives can take a lot of time, a certain level of skill and some money. I know people who have searched for decades and found limited information. I know people who have relied on the kindness of strangers online to provide a breakthrough. I know people who have gone against all their instincts and spat into a DNA test tube in desperation. I know people who have spent hundreds of pounds on private detectives - the very top researchers cost upwards of £2k.

It is unrealistic to set expectations that the average person could have the success rates of the professional researchers on Long Lost Family. Many of us find incomplete information and/or end up following red herrings for months or years. Not to mention the many contacts made by adoptees via post, email, social media and sites such as Ancestry that go unanswered.

2. The adoptee is usually shown alone

No adoptee is an island, we have families and friends so why are these generally not shown on the programme? I’ve blogged about how lonely it feels to go through reunion alone. It’s the only major life event I haven’t felt able to speak openly to my parents about, despite their verbal support for me searching.

I appreciate many people do not involve their adoptive families when they search, for a number of reasons, but I don’t think it’s helpful to always show the adopted person embarking on reunion alone. I feel Long Lost Family covertly reinforces the idea that adoptees should feel guilty for searching and/or the adoptive parents would be upset or angry if they knew. Even if the adoptee doesn’t want to involve her parents, there must be a sibling or friend they can bring along for support?

3. The adoptee always says “Hi mum!” or “Hi dad!”

This happens too often for it to be a coincidence so I’ve come to the conclusion it must be written into the Long Lost Family contract that if you benefit from the programme’s help you have to stick to this formula. It’s far more common for adoptees to use a biological parent’s first name at this stage, even if they are not on good terms with their adoptive family.

4. There’s little in the way of follow-up after adoption reunion 

I know you have spin-offs where you revisit the families, but overall there is little in the way of medium and long-term follow-up. So many reunions flounder after the first meeting and/or the initial honeymoon stage, and this isn’t made clear, which can leave some adoptees feeling like failures if they struggle. More support is needed to help reunions thrive. 

5. The wider relationships can be hugely impacted, which you don’t show

I feel we have a responsibility to show that it can be difficult for birth parents’ other children to assimilate, particularly if they didn’t know they had a sibling who was adopted. Partners of birth mothers and fathers can also struggle, as shown in this outstanding episode of AdopteesOn where Haley talks frankly with her biological dad’s wife.

I have been contacted by partners of adoptees who are struggling post-reunion, asking what they can do to support. My own partner has had to take on a huge role to support me on the adoption reunion rollercoaster.

6. There’s not enough signposting to support for adoptees and birth/first parents

It’s important to give as much information about the (limited) services for adopted people pre- and post-reunion available in the UK. For support with adoption reunion in the UK, including free/affordable counselling and intermediary services, contact PAC-UK (phone line 020 7284 5879).

7. Adoptees are spoken for 

Let adoptees speak for themselves in their own formats. You can read/hear real accounts of adoption reunion from the following:

• AdopteesOn

• Born in June, Raised in April podcast

• Who Am I Really podcast

• An affair with my mother by Caitriona Palmer

• All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

• Angela M Barra

So, Long Lost Family, I won’t be watching tonight I’m afraid, but I hope this blog post has given a tiny snippet of the reality for many of us.

Yours,

An adoptee x

UPDATE: Long Lost Family replied to my open letter!

Photo by Cheryl Winn-Boujnida on Unsplash

Do you have a family tree you could share?

Do you have a tree? Hmm... well the short answer is no. And the long answer is: I’m too scared to start a tree because:

• I don’t want to find out how Ancestry differentiates between adopted children and ‘real’ children (dotted lines? Parenthesis?)

• I don’t want to break the website trying to fit my complicated family into their (probably) simplistic framework.

• I don’t want to have to choose between my adoptive family and my biological family when it comes to inputting my mother or father, and I’m guessing it won’t accept two of each.

• I’m frightened to see just how much everyday people are obsessed with their ‘blood’ going back centuries (when “it’s not thicker than water you know, it’s really not: we make our own families, etc etc”)

• I’m worried an alarm will sound in my parents’ house if I type my birth name onto a website “traitor alert!” “Sound the ungrateful klaxon!” “Stop press: snotty-nosed foundling snubs selfless couple who ‘took her in’!”

• I’m worried biological relatives I have never met will politely ask me to ‘untag’ myself from ‘their’ family trees, despite DNA ‘evidence’ I’m related.

• I haven’t been given explicit permission by my birth parents to announce my existence to extended bio family and it may seem as though I’m ‘making waves’.

• A bio relative may express interest initially then ‘ghost’ me once they discover I am a black sheep/rotten apple/etc.
  

However I have been helping a friend with his tree and it has felt very empowering to see his mother’s name there in black and white. There’s a cool feature where Ancestry automatically populates any known siblings, parents, grandparents etc so we literally watched his family tree grow before our very eyes - and you can’t argue with the DNA!

So I will be creating my tree soon, and I’ll keep you posted on how it feels, if any bios contact me, and whether or not I’m struck by lightning for publicly stating information that a court decided should be kept secret.

I’d love to know how you’ve navigated the world of Ancestry.

What is life story work and why does it matter?

A look at the “trove” project and how adoptees and care experienced children can build a sense of identity by keeping their mementos and memories safe…

Note from How To Be Adopted: I am honoured to feature this guest post from an anonymous adoptee and would love to hear your comments below…

I attended an event entitled “Life story work and object importance for children in care and adopted children: trove project” on 8 October at the Foundling Museum in London. As an adult adoptee I attended to see if the latest research on life story work for children might contain insights I could co-opt into my personal work on my own life story - albeit three decades later than their intended use case.

Over two hours we were told about the latest prototype of “trove” - a digitally enhanced memory box utilising raspberry pi (a small single board computer) and radio-frequency identification (RFID) technologies so children can record their memories and attach them to their precious objects using an electronic tag: providing a safe ‘container’ for their mementoes and memories. The project is informed by theories of narrative identity and object attachment and draws on Brodinsky’s concept of communicative openness. A researcher from Bristol University, Dr Debbie Watson, led the project and Chloe Meineck from Studio Meineck led design. The work was supported by Mulberry Bush Org and CORAM and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Researchers wanted to create a more coherent story for children and to have these children be involved in creating their own stories having heard so many examples of “gaps in memory” from them.

Capturing a child’s life story

My understanding of trove is that it comprises two key elements:

1. A treasure trove box

This belongs to the child and is stored in their bedroom even if they move from one home to another. This enables the child to have a physical storage space they have direct control over to keep physical items most precious to them.

Dr Debbie Watson shared stories of children in care only having bin bags to store precious items when moving homes. Trove struck me as a deservedly respectful way to honour the importance of such items. The trove box contains an orange cross and video screen. When a child places their item on the cross a picture of that item is taken and shown on the video screen. The child can then record a time stamped audio file linking the child’s voice directly to that precious item. This is stored on the cloud on a personal password-protected archive owned by the child. The trove has headphones, so the child can listen to old audio recordings when placing a specific precious item back on the orange cross. Children tend to add more audio recordings for specific items over time.

2)    A “trove” app

This is installed onto the phone of a carer or parent, but is accessible via a password known only to the child (clearly problematic, but this is still early trials).

This enables the child to capture new memories when they are on the move (not at home with their physical trove box). If they went to the beach and loved flying a kite a child could use the app to take a picture, record an audio file describing what happened and how they felt. This is uploaded onto their digital archive to look at days, weeks, months, years or decades later.

Object attachment - building key chapters of your story

A young adult adoptee spoke on why physical objects were important to her. I was impressed by her bravery and candour sharing such a personal topic with an audience. Adopted at 11 months old and now a young adult, she had no objects with her when she was adopted. Her birth father subsequently gifted her a teddy bear, which had been given a significant family name. When asked why this object was so important she said it was physical evidence that one of her birth parents loved her enough to give her a teddy bear. This broke my heart and I can totally relate. I recently found out my birth mother knitted baby clothes the week after relinquishing me, which social workers passed on to my adoptive parents. I was never told and don’t know where they are. I’ve felt quite angry about this new discovery and hearing her discuss the meaning behind such objects explains why.

She spoke about her life story book – a brief history of her made by her adoptive mother. It contained photos of her birth parents and her foster family before the adoption. The bear was more important to her than the book, because it was ‘real’. The book was ‘just facts’. The bear was there to support her when she cried at night as a child. She says the bear is still important to her, although the role it plays now as an adult is different. She called it her ‘treasured object’. Her advice to counsellors and social workers in the audience was they shouldn’t focus purely on digital items like photos; physical objects matter too.

Another speaker said such objects play a role in the child’s story. They are treasure because they are irreplaceable. They give the child control over their story - so often lacking in their life when placed without giving their consent.

Researchers commented the use of trove sparked new conversations between children and primary caregivers. It prompted them to ask about their siblings, to ask why they were in care, and to ask whether contact was possible.

Your story matters in shaping who you become

Another speaker, herself previously in care, began by asking the audience: “Think of a personal item that holds a memory of high importance. How far would you go to keep it safe?”

She invited the audience to raise their hand once they’d thought of their item. A sea of hands went up. I was struck that my mind was completely a blank. I could think of no such item.

She spoke of how an emergency overnight relocation as a young child left her with no personal items, creating identity confusion. She began hanging around troubled children in parks, unsure how to fit in. To explore her identity she mimicked her foster parents; getting the same haircut as her foster mother. She started her own life story work at 20 and is now a life story champion in Bournemouth. She said if she’d had a trove box she would have recorded theatre experiences shared with her foster mother - not just the sights, but the smells and sounds too. She says she feels incomplete without past memories and thinks trove should be used to record both happy and sad memories.

Ideas for adult adoptees

As adults we are freed from only having a trove. Instead we can make our entire homes a treasure chest of personal items that mean the world to us. I look around my flat today and notice I’ve never hung photos in my homes. Until five years ago I shied away from choosing art to decorate my walls and now it is filled with pieces attached to personal stories. This year I started to fill my flat with plants since I realised having life in my home brings me joy and calms me.

• What other personal items could I more openly decorate my home with that I am attached to?

• What items celebrate who I am and where I’ve come from?

• What sights, sounds, smells, and flavours could be more present here that reflect who I am?

• What could I have on display that narrates the full story of my life?

This might be a redundant list of questions for some, but I suspect many adult adoptees don’t fully have their answers.

As I write with my birth mother and discover more of my story I want to integrate this into my home. She recently told me about her favourite music artist and shared she first listened to him when pregnant with me. I quickly Googled the Top 40 music chart from the month I was born and have that single now playing quite regularly on my speakers at home.

Questions to ask to build a sense of identity

I was reading part of Nancy Verrier’s excellent Coming Home to Self last night and the Search For The Authentic Self chapter has an exercise strongly linked to life story and identity. It offers the following open-ended phrases for adoptees to complete:

My favourite flavour of ice cream is -

My favourite colour is -

I like to read books about -

My favourite type of music is -

I like movies about -

My favourite actor is -

My favourite TV show is -

I prefer baths/showers -

My favourite flower is -

My favourite tree is -

My favourite sport is

If I had a choice, I would pick _____ as a career. -

I find that I am most at peace (in the forest/in the desert/at the sea side/in a meadow/______ -

Spirituality means ______ to me. -

I’ll leave you to read Nancy’s wonderful book to see the full list of phrases, but you get the idea. She says many adoptees initially struggle to know the answer to all these questions.

Perhaps adult adoptees could reflect on these phrases and consider how their home could become a trove displaying what they treasure most, who they are and where they come from. How wonderful would it be to make a home that celebrates the answers to all these questions?

More info about the trove project

To get in touch about the trove project: chloe@studiomeineck.com

To get in touch about the research behind trove: debbie.watson@bristol.ac.uk

Dear dearest adoption, a backward impossible paradox

I’m honoured to feature Sarah Meadows, director of the play YOU, as my first guest post.

Here is her piece:

Dear adoption,

You are a concept, an ideology, A policy but YOU are impossible to put into words. But we try. 

You’re full of blind corners and unliftable weights. 
You’re a stop start traffic pile up.

Dear dearest adoption... You are the “rich” (and bereaved) taking from the poor. 

You are planes with babies and children confused by a foreign land. You are do gooders with agendas that stink of shit. 

You are the hopeful hearts of lonely souls you fill them up and its pollution. 

You are a teacher a huge social teacher that is still struggling to find its authority and may quit if we’re not careful. Pay HER better. Care for HER better. Give HER a better pension. Give HER a union why don’t you. 

Mothers and children. Mothers and children. The most vulnerable in every story. The ones they let off the sinking ship first. The ones used as emotional blackmail when trying to stop a war. 

The ones who are the abused and traumatised. There’s no other way of putting it adoption I’m afraid. I wish there was. 

A backward impossible paradox. A dark fairytale. An industry. An economy. 

Shattered lives and jigsawed hope and always love. Of course. Always love. But the weights are tipped I’m sad to say and hopeful love and best intentions are often drowned. 

Listen up. 
Hear the unbearable. 
Accept the unacceptable and perhaps then YOU may be possible. 

To speak plainly adoption. 

You’ve got a lot to learn. 

You need to listen to your children. 
The ones you most ignore.

Sarah is on Twitter: @SarahMeadows1

Watch the trailer for the play YOU

If this format resonates with you, you must check out the amazing Dear Adoption website and Dear Adoption Twitter.

Friendship, goodbyes & holidays: adoption triggers part two

Even adoptees who have only ever lived with one family can struggle with attachment on a day-to-day basis, or when a big life event occurs...

Thinking about the situations in which I struggled as a child, and sometimes still struggle with now, it's clear to see I have some issues with attachment. It's a relief to know there's a reason behind it all, but it was never noticed and/or acknowledged, much less supported as a child. I am from the "blank slate" era where what a baby didn't know couldn't hurt them.

I'm skipping straight to F, G and H for this next instalment of events and situations that I, as an adoptee, have struggled with. I wonder if some of these resonate with you?

Friendship

When I was eight I made my best friend join an official club stating we were each other’s best friends. We had a badge, a motto and a password. So far, so normal. Only my friend was forbidden to have any other friends. Let's just say it didn't end well. If I'm honest, I still struggle to “share” friends now, although I’m a lot better than I was!

As you can imagine, now I’m a parent, being at the school gates everyday is a big reminder of my anxiety around making (and keeping) friends. My main goal is to avoid projecting any of this on to my children. As Monica from Friends would say, "I'm breezy!" Wish me luck with this.

The perfect Monica Friends Breezy Animated GIF for your conversation. Discover and Share the best GIFs on Tenor.

Goodbyes

No surprise that I have separation anxiety and a deep-seated fear of rejection. Three of my close friends live abroad and it’s fair to say I didn’t take the news well when they left. My reaction to being told someone I love is leaving is somewhere between:

–      total shutdown where I feel cold all over and immediately and methodically set about cutting them out of my life, and

–      clinging on to their ankles like a tiny desperate terrier doing full-on dog weeping

In my more rational moments I have said to them, "I love you and I want you to be happy". But I still feel like beating my fists and shouting “How could you leave me?”

Holidays

Of course I have anxiety about travelling to and from my holiday destination and making sure I have all my bookings confirmed; I'm a 'perfect' compliant adoptee after all. This is a given for me, and I honestly can’t imagine a holiday without it. But the issue is more serious than that. My mind starts to spin when I think about the people I am leaving behind. How can I be sure I won't be forgotten and/or replaced while I am away? This feeling has faded a lot since I married and now have my own young family, but when I was younger it was debilitating.

I still shudder to remember my first time away from home at Girl Guide camp. I was so homesick and subconsciously may have been reliving my early abandonment. In a town far from home I hallucinated I saw my mum and I started following her down the street. Never did it cross my mind to tell the Guide leader I was struggling, and ask her to call my mum for me. Never did it occur that I could ask to go home.

And when I started going on holiday in my teens, I was the sad sack queuing for the resort payphone on my one-week holiday clutching ten-pence pieces in my sweaty hand. While backpacking in my 20s I wrote, addressed, stamped and posted 20 birthday cards before I went. I chose to sit in horrible internet cafes emailing home rather than experiencing the new countries, cultures and people. I struggle so much with being in the moment on holiday, so it’s no surprise that mindfulness has been a tough concept to get on board with! (I do heartily recommend trying it though.)

Let me know if you've experienced any of these attachment-related issues. You can comment below or contact me. It helps to know we are not alone, and as I heard on the Adoptees On podcast recently: these are normal reactions to an abnormal situation. 

I've also blogged about my struggles with ageing, birthdays and Christmas.