The In-Between Lines project at Coram
London exhibition and poetry from young people - including adoptees - on the theme of identity.
Last week I attended a poetry night at Coram in London. The evening began with performances from several poets exploring the themes of the exhibition - heritage, identity, care experience, colourism, family and home. It ended with an open mic and a drinks reception.
This was the final event in a series which included an exhibition, a conversational panel and a panel with professionals.
When looking at the event information, this quote stood out for me:
“Over the years, I’ve struggled with feelings of anger, rage, and grief, but anxiety has always been my constant companion. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy models anxiety as ‘’intolerance of uncertainty’’. My adoption and racial identity generate precarity: not knowing how people will perceive me, what my biological family looks or sounds like, or whether my darkest days were benign or a terrible repetition of my family’s mental health history. Years of therapy helped, but it couldn’t heal the existential angst that a lack of identity creates. I felt so lost, and eventually I realised that I’d have to find a life narrative that served me.” - Anthony Lynch, age 23, one of the organisers of the In-Between Lines project
Many adoption professionals and adoptive parents have said to me/my peers that modern adoption is intrinsically different from traditional adoption. From this quote, and from attending the event, I can certainly see more similarities than some are willing to admit. In fact, creating a life narrative that serves us was one of the themes covered by Gilli Bruce in the How To Be Adopted virtual retreat in 2022.
I was blown away by the talent shown from the young people who performed their poetry during the evening. I was also very proud of Debbie Nahid from the Adult Adoptee Movement who spoke during the open mic to highlight the challenges faced by adoptees of all ages including lack of access to the adoption support fund and counselling. She echoed all our thoughts in that we wish these events existed when we were younger. Debbie also extended a hand to the younger adoptees, saying “we hold you and we can guide you”.
It was also lovely to meet many adoptees who I have met virtually on social media or chatted to via email. A recent quote from an adoptee says it so well: “ It's just so amazing talking to others whose brains are the same, and we just don't need to explain stuff! Very humbling and also supportive!” Thank you to those I met for all your support and for attending How To Be Adopted events - so glad you’ve found them useful. One adoptee had spent the day feeding into a training project for social workers on the importance of language in adoption files - fab work and a huge emotional hangover from this work we do. Professionals take note when you ask us to input in this way! Oh, and I even met a lovely lady who discovered EMDR through this site, and is finding it helpful. Yay!
Read more about the event and follow the organisers @Inbetweenlinesexhibition on Instagram. It would great to see this event touring the UK if any adoption organisations would be able to fund this. As the young people themselves say: “The long-term goal is to form an online community of mixed and adopted creatives who can tell their stories through writing, art, photography, film, and more.”
Image taken from Coram.org
After the Guardian article, where else can you find How To Be Adopted?
An overview of all the places How To Be Adopted has appeared, including the AdopteesOn podcast - woo!
If you’re new to the blog and need a How To Be Adopted fix, we’ve got you covered:
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.
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 ;)
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!
Adoption and Fostering podcast talking about contact after adoption, aka maintaining lifelong relationships (as it should be called)
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
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
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!
Gilli’s talk on her research into the life-long impacts of adoption which was another awesome webinar we did this year.
And of course the Guardian piece from July 2022.
What does it take to love an adoptee?
Do you have endless patience, nerves of steel and the ability to withstand constant attempts to push you away?
Do you have endless patience, nerves of steel and the ability to withstand constant attempts to push you away? Congratulations, you may apply to be the spouse* of an adoptee!
Being an adoptee is difficult, as I’ve outlined in my blogs about the adoptee fog and adoption triggers. Spare a thought, however, for the partner of an adoptee. Falling in love with an adoptee is no easy ride, as Anne Heffron hilariously relates in her book You Don’t Look Adopted. Most of us have more baggage than Heathrow Terminal 5 on the August Bank Holiday, yet what we crave most is unrelenting, unflinching, unconditional love. And reader, I think I’ve found it…
So what does it take to love and support an adoptee? When I asked my husband, he said: patience, nerves of steel and the ability to withstand frequent attempts to push you away. Despite all my defensive (and offensive) actions, which often come out of nowhere, he has yet to turn around and said, “Yes you’re right, you ARE unloveable and I’m walking out – just as you always thought I would.”
How to be an awesome partner to an adoptee:
1. Never play games
After we met via friends on a night out, he texted me the next morning asking me out. No ‘four-day rule’, no games. He’s never made me wait for a text or an email and whenever we’re holding hands and I give his a squeeze, he always squeezes back. Not nearly always. Every. Single. Time.
Never underestimate how important trust is to an adoptee. I’ve found from experience that any sniff of lying or cheating and the relationship is dead in the water. Once trust is gone, it can never be rebuilt. Knowing in my bones that he loves me frees up my mind to focus on other things. My hyper vigilance can take a well-deserved break.
2. Help me understand my triggers
My previous long-term relationship ended with my ex shouting, “Good luck finding someone to put up with your shit!” Oops. I don’t think either of us realised how much I was supressing that was leaking out in other ways. Now I think I know almost all of my triggers, so I can either avoid them or put strategies in place to cope with the fallout. This level of self-awareness is partly because my husband sits with me as I painstakingly sift though events, trace causes and find patterns.
3. Accept my non-traditional family
Because of adoption and my subsequent reunions I have three families. I also have an additional strand due to contemporary adoption and kinship care. It’s complicated, and we’ve found that a whiteboard comes in very handy when explaining who everyone is and how they all link up!
When I told him my family was estranged from my sister, but I was powering on, I think he loved the idea of my compassion and loyalty. I know that since then he has despaired with my single-mindedness, bordering co-dependency and superhero complex where I just can’t give up on her. He’s urged me to look after myself and put my mental health and our children’s needs at the forefront, but at the same time, he’s travelled the width of the country for visits, two of which were in prisons, and helped me support her financially. And all of this with absolutely no judgement about her situation and choices.
4. Encourage me to look after myself
Sometimes I just don’t think I’m worth looking after. In fact, most of the time. I fill up my diary, don’t go to bed early enough, and eat like a penniless student. This man doesn’t tell me off; he fills the fridge, runs me a bath, and places me in bed with a hot water bottle and some earplugs.
5. Support me through pregnancy and birth
After a traumatic first birth followed by post-natal depression, I was terrified when I became pregnant second time around. I think I was in the process of emerging from the fog, and suddenly – finally – realising how massive it was to have been given away as a baby and to have to bond with a new mother to ensure my survival.
Because I was so anxious, he agreed we could use our savings to hire an independent midwife to get me through the second pregnancy. It meant I didn’t have to start from scratch building trust and rapport with every new midwife, and could focus on staying calm and bonding with the baby.
6. Help me emerge from the fog
What a journey it’s been coming out of the fog. I’ve been mentally quite absent as I’ve submerged myself in podcasts, books, blogs, conferences and a lot of social media. There have been tears of sorrow, howls of rage and very tentative baby steps into being authentic with those I love. He’s supported me through the delayed bereavement as I finally mourned the loss of my birth parents, extended families, bloodline and identity. He was there for me after one of the hardest conversations I had, where I told my mum that adoption had caused trauma even though I came straight from the hospital into her waiting arms.
7. Indulge me when it comes to family resemblances
If you ask me, both my children have my eyes, ears, mouth and nose. They also walk and talk like me. My daughter even sleeps like me and wakes up like me. I am obsessive about this stuff; I love it so much. I clap my hands like a seal when I discover another expression or gesture we share, and never once has he said, “Oh no, actually I think that’s from my side of the family.” He lets me have every single one, because he knows how much it means to me.
8. Be open-minded about what makes a family (clue: not blood)
My husband is from a traditional family but there is no judgement applied to my higgledy piggledy assortment of relatives. He earnestly learned my preferred labels and corrects others when necessary, so for example that’s first names for birth parents, and definitely no use of the words “real” or “natural”.
Yes, he criticises my family if they’ve been a bit rubbish, but no more and no less than he does his own. When we recently made our wills and had to consider guardians for our children, my siblings were considered as equally as his, despite them not being blood relations.
9. Back me on parenting deal-breakers
Controlled crying and ‘crying it out’ were absolute no-nos for me when we had our babies. I just couldn’t stand the thought of them feeling abandoned for even one second. He supported me on this, despite pressure from family members and many, many (many!) months of broken sleep.
In all honesty, I know I have a problem setting boundaries because I am probably, deep down, afraid of rejection from my kids. I know this isn’t ideal for a parent. I am working on it every single day to be the best parent I can be. Amazing resources I have tried include (adoption-competent) therapy, books such as The Awakened Family by Shefali Tsabary and Brené Brown's wholehearted parenting course.
10. Rub my back until I fall asleep
Some nights (most nights), my mind is racing with all the things I’ve said to potentially offend people, or all the things I’ve forgotten to do to make sure people still love me. It’s a belt-and-braces approach to friendships and relationships.
This can range from sending an email to the school PTA, to forgetting to send a birthday card, to offending a next-door neighbour. I am hyper-hyper vigilant, and sometimes – like a baby – I need help calming down and soothing to sleep. If you find someone who wants to rub your back until you fall asleep for the next 50 years, marry them quick.
*Of course, much of this applies to parents and close friends of adoptees too. And one day, if I'm brave enough I'd like to explore what it means to be the child of an adoptee.
Top 5 take-aways from The Open Nest conference 2017
Summary of my first adoption-related conference with tips for adoptees and anyone who loves and/or works with adopted, fostered or looked after children.
Myths and Monsters of the Child Protection System: examining truth, identity and belonging through poetry, film and photography.
This was my first adoption-related conference, and what a banger! Sombre surroundings in the Foundling Museum’s picture gallery, with a line-up packed with talent and courage. We heard from adult adoptees and care leavers, adoptive parents, kinship carers and Professors Anna Gupta and Brigid Featherstone – all wrapped up with an improvised, impassioned speech from Lemn Sissay.
Here are my top 5 take-aways, with tips for adoptees and links for further reading:
1. The power of stories
Storytelling is part of the human condition. A great story is more powerful and persuasive than facts and figures. Yet the dominant stories we hear about adoption and child protection are not the whole picture. Those in control of the narrative – professionals, policy makers and adoptive parents, create them.
This is why it’s crucial that we, as adoptees, tell our stories. And not just us but first families too. Birth mothers, in particular, deserve better stories. As photographer Lizzie Combes said If you don’t see yourself reflected (or you don’t see yourself reflected positively) this can be hugely problematic. It creates stigma and is very damaging to self-esteem.
The Open Nest project with birth mothers was incredibly powerful and I would love to see the Poem Portraits in a public exhibition, if not on a bus or tube poster. I’d also like to hear from first fathers, who rarely appear on mainstream programmes such as Long Lost Family.
2. The importance of language
For many looked after children, the only information they have about their early years is in their file. A file is a collection of documents written by strangers using professional wording (aka jargon).
Families can be misrepresented if social workers are not careful about the language they use in meetings and reports. This is people’s lives, history and heritage we are talking about. Once something is written down, it becomes more credible even if it is not a fact.
When negative language is used about birth parents, children can grow up fearing this “lurking” presence, which can bring on feelings of shame. If my birth parent is a bad person, does that mean I am too?
The advice for social workers is: remember the human in front of you. Can you switch to assuming the positive rather than assuming the negative about this person?
3. Movement and creativity can ease trauma
Trauma is held in the body, and in order to live fully we need to get it out. Rebekah Ubuntu said moving her body is not a “nice to have”, it’s what keeps her alive. She recommended sport and dance as good examples. I would add yoga to this list, and I would love to hear how you use movement to deal with trauma and anxiety.
Rebekah Ubuntu leads questions and answers
Creativity was one of the themes of the conference, and Lemn Sissay stressed the importance of art in all its forms. He said creativity is not “for someone else” or “just for artists”; it’s at the heart of who we are. Many of the speakers used poetry, imagery and Rebekah Ubuntu showed a heart-breaking film shot at her mother’s graveside.
4. All families are dysfunctional
I could have punched the air at this point. What a refreshing, freeing statement. Thank you Lemn Sissay!
As Lemn said, let’s not kid ourselves that adopted children are going from dysfunctional birth families into functional adoptive families. That all families are in some way dysfunctional is a universal truth that is not acknowledged.
So why haven’t some people made this connection? It’s too scary to admit we are all fundamentally the same.
5. Keep talking and hugging
Silence + shame = a dangerous combination. That the two are a lethal mix seems obvious, but both are incredibly pervasive in adoption. Lemn later added: “silence is not resilience”. It’s damaging to grow up in a family where adoption is rarely discussed; the elephant in the room.
Silence is the enemy / Clogged into throats
When Lemn Sissay went to live in a children’s home he was not hugged. Worse than that, he said, was the lack of acknowledgement that what he needed was a hug. Imagine the emotional resilience of a child who lives without touch.
Now, if you’ve read this far go and give someone in your dysfunctional family a big hug.
Thomas Coram peeking out from behind Lemn Sissay in the Foundling Museum picture gallery
The Open Nest founders and trustees have big open hearts and I am so happy the charity exists. Please support them if you can, this is incredibly important work that truly makes a difference.
Useful resources:
Brene Brown is amazing on stories
AdopteesOn is a podcast where adoptees speak about the adoption experience
Lemn Sissay's Origin Stories on Radio 4
Kristen Neff on common humanity and self-compassion
The Primal Wound, Nancy Newton-Verrier