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.

Study into lifelong impacts of adoption by Gillian Bruce

Half of adoptees report significant life challenges, with a further third reporting medium-scale impact. Find out more about this brand new study into the lifelong impacts of adoption and the importance of adoptee wellbeing support...

Following the research project completed summer 2021 by Gillian Bruce of How To Be Adopted we can now reveal our findings on some of the potential lifelong impacts of adoption.

What did we do?

We devised our own questionnaire using opposing statements to explore 34 different areas of life where adoption was perceived to have had an effect, such a relationships, careers and parenting. We also researched existing research on the lifelong consequences of adoption.

What did we ask?

We asked a selection of UK adopted adults aged 21-70 about their lived experience of adoption from the rear-view mirror.

We asked about how being adopted had affected people in three areas of lived experience:

1. physically / biologically

2. socially-relationally-emotionally

3. psychologically

We asked about their age group; gender; age they were adopted; and whether or not they engaged with adopted adult support groups.

What did we find?

We found that:

Adoption creates a certain set of impacts across the three areas of lived experience. 

Although adoption is complex and individual and no two adoptees will share the same effects, clear potential areas of impact can be identified.

Half of adoptees (around 50%) have experienced high-impact across many of the areas explored and had sought help to try and manage their lives. 

This group had typically spent a significant amount of time and money on a range of support resources such as therapy, workshops, healing treatments, books, and spiritual avenues.

Around a third of adoptees (around 35%) were able to identify medium scale, significant impacts. 

These impacts had made some key areas of life difficult across the three areas of lived experience, and the adoptees had sought help in some form to overcome them.

Some adoptees (approx. 15%) reported very little impact. 

With a medium to high score in only one or two areas of the 34 explored.

Additional findings:

• Current age – largely, the younger respondents seemed to have experienced more challenges. This may be because their adoption happened at an older age and involved time in the care system (or some other kind of disruption) prior to adoption. Whilst some of the older adoptees had been highly affected, their adoption situations were often more straightforward.

• Gender – female participants reported slightly more disruption than males. However, cultural pressures on males to ‘tough it out’ may be part of this picture.

• Age of adoption – it was clear that the later the adoption the more significant the impacts, although some people in the study who had been adopted between 0-6 months had experienced high impact too. Family attunement or the provision of a loving, affectionate environment seemed to be a likely factor involved in the level of difficulty with adoption.

• Engagement with peer support – initially we had wondered if the engagement in an adopted adult community had any bearing on the level of impact experienced – however, this was not the case. Some adoptees in support groups reported low impact and some with high impact did not engage with any groups. However, it must be said that the prevalence of adult adoptee support groups is extremely patchy with many areas having no such provision. Many adoptees had never even heard of an adopted adult community or group in the UK and several reported joining US forums. It became clear that adoptees really valued sharing and learning from each other and experience a sense of belonging amongst others ‘who get it’. Watch this space!

Initial research into existing adoption research

We found that the most often quoted study was that of Silverstein and Kaplan (1982)* who reported ‘The Seven Lifelong Consequences of Adoption’:

1. Loss – adoption is a life-altering loss with no end, resulting in potential threat of future loss having a profound impact.

2. Rejection – from having been given away, resulting in a heightened sensitivity around any future hint of rejection.

3. Guilt and shame – guilt and shame around having been rejected, internalised as being ‘rejectable’ or not good enough.

4. Grief – loss needs a grieving process, but this is difficult when adoption is ‘sold’ to the child as a positive event that should be celebrated, should be joyful and that they should be thankful for. Grief becomes held back and stored in the body.

5. Identity – the lack of genetic, medical, historical and religious information leads adoptees to question who they are and where they belong. In later life adoptees are more likely to seek ‘belonging’ than their peers and are susceptible to the attraction of cults, gangs or anything that provides a strong sense of belonging, like the Armed Services.

6. Intimacy – due to all the above factors adoptees can build up a strong fear about experiencing another loss of intimate connection so can tend to avoid committed, intimate relationships.

7. Mastery / control – having had no choice about the most significant life relationships, with no say in early events, adoptees can engage in power struggles with parents or authority and have strong needs around autonomy.

Further research studies were found, these largely focused on a specific area such as educational attainments or mental health of adoptees.

Get access to all the data as well as insights from adoptees

If you would like to find out more about this fascinating project and get access to all the statistics and data as well as shared experiences from adoptees, please email: hello@howtobeadopted.com

Coming soon: Gillian Bruce we will give her conclusions and future ideas for how to improve adoptee wellbeing.

*We have not linked to further information on the Silverstein and Kaplan study as we do not want to endorse the websites where that information currently appears. If you have a more neutral source for the Silverstein and Kaplan study please let us know!

Photo by Leilani Angel on Unsplash

Finding My Way Out Of The Adoption Fog - guest post by Gilli Bruce

Sometimes fog is thick and dark and cloying, and you know fine well that you are in it. Sometimes it is invisible – as in the kind of fog that can wrap itself in and around adoptees. 

The term ‘being in the fog’ is often used to describe the way adoptees feel, think, operate and relate before they come out of the denial, conditioning and ignorance that cloaks the impacts of adoption. When we don’t realise that the emotional pain, and many other difficulties that arise, are a result of being adopted, we blunder around in the fog not understanding what’s going on or why. We grope around in our lives, feeling somewhat lost, trying different directions but unable to find our way. Feeling alone in our situation – because no one else can see our fog or even knows it exists. 

The impacts of adoption are at best unknown and at worst denied. But thanks to new understanding around childhood trauma and neuroscience, what many of us have experienced is now being acknowledged, understood and validated.

We each have our own experience of adoption – some seem to manage to come out of it completely unscathed, some deny the impacts whilst wondering why they are alone, addicted, co-dependent, over-weight, angry, fearful, or overwhelmed with shame. Some come to realise that their patterns of disastrous relationships, their pull towards adrenalin-inducing danger, their whole life strategy in fact – stems from the early wounding. Often it is not until adoptees reach mid-life or beyond that the patterns can be seen, and the denial no longer works. This is when the fog comes into focus – sometimes all at once and sometimes a bit at a time.

My realisations came out a bit at a time – so my journey out of the fog happened at a snail’s pace, in stages and with periods of inertia as I came to terms with the latest insight or realisation. There are still little things coming to light. Here’s how I crept out of the adoption fog…

I was lucky enough aged 34 onwards to work for a company that invested in its people and working in the 1990s was a great time to be provided with personal growth and development training – there were still budgets for that kind of thing! We were exposed to personal growth work that showed me aspects of myself that were hidden in the ‘blind spot’ – that were unknown to me - yet were plain as day to those who knew me well. We used a model called ‘Johari’s Window’ where some of my blind spots were revealed to me and my self-perception was shaken up. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was manageable. 

We were given book suggestions and workshop recommendations and, armed with a new curiosity and a will to learn, I embarked on a period of self-discovery. The timing was right too, had this all occurred ten years earlier I would not have had any patterns visible enough to be noticed yet. 

As I began to come out of the adoption fog, I learned that:

• I was not authentic, I manoeuvred and manipulated things instead (to risk being ‘real’ was too risky)

• I led my life on the run, to sit still for a minute might mean feeling the pain

• I was frazzled with anxiety - but I hid it from myself with denial

• I could not say ‘No’ to anyone for anything; I was a people-pleaser

• I was a serial monogamist jumping from one relationship to the next in the search for attachment, and much more

Initially I DID NOT attribute any of these aspects of myself to adoption, but a start at clearing some of the fog symptoms had been made. 

So, I read some more and went on retreats and made some headway during my 30s and early 40s. With a dear friend I went to retreats at Cortijo Romero (a retreat centre in Spain), attended local workshops and national events and learned more about the human condition, growth and coming to a place of peace.

• I learned about co-dependency and what that means and that I was co-dependent (still working that one). I vividly recall reading Co-Dependent No More by Melody Beattie with horror and shock as I saw my own behaviour described in her pages.

• I read Women Who love Too Much by Robin Norwood in one sitting because I couldn’t put it down and was compelled to finish it as I was in those pages too.

• I learned that I had a very fragile sense of self. I was pervaded by a feeling of being ‘a leaf on the breeze’, with no ancestral lineage I knew of, no sense of ‘roots’ and a fractured identity – not knowing who I was, not knowing which bits were the ‘real me’ and which were the bits I thought I ought to be.

• I learned that I wore an upbeat, jolly persona as a shield from negative emotions through learning about The Enneagram. The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Don Riso & Russ Hudson has become my bible.

• I took a two-year NLP Master Practitioner programme and learned about all my unconscious drivers and how much I was filled with fear.

I attended spiritual workshops with Tony Robbins, Louise L Hay and Brandon Bays and learned that underneath all of this lived a shiny, joyful heart that I could access and grow. 

I still did not quite understand that my need for all this learning and activity was driven by the childhood trauma that is adoption – but the fog was loosening its hold on me and I was getting stronger and clearer.

Being made redundant and becoming a self-employed training consultant and coach really helped me to grow into myself as I had to become more solid; more real and more self-reliant. It was super scary and shaky at first, but after a few years I had developed enough inner strength to consider finding my birth family. I was 46 and realising that if I didn’t act soon it might be too late.

It took two traumatic years to find and meet all my birth family and that’s a huge, different story – but the expectations that I would be transformed into a pain-free version of my former self due to being re-united, were soon corrected. It wasn’t to be as easy as that. Still, I underestimated the impact of adoption. I was somewhat out of the fog, on my way through – but it was still misty.

In my early 50s, I added a few more onto the string of failed relationships, having lost my Dad, now I lost my Mum and – in a desperately lonely place – moved to a new house for a new start. 

A concerned friend asked if I would try online dating to find a new relationship and my answer from the gut was ‘No! There’s no point!’ – this visceral reaction was a turning point, a key question at the right time. I pondered on the question and the response – what was wrong with me? After all the damn work I’d done on myself, why could I not do what everyone else seems to do without too much trouble? It couldn’t be THAT could it? I didn’t want it to be THAT; that adoption thing. With my resistance to there being any problem in being adopted acknowledged, I decided to meet it head on. I rolled my sleeves up and got stuck into this psychological skeleton that I’d stuffed right at the back of the emotional cupboard.

Sitting with a cup of tea, munching biscuits and searching the internet for anything about adoption (I’d got to 53 having never looked at this before) I found a You Tube film entitled A Lecture On Adoption with Paul Sunderland. It was like being hit about the head by a very large mattress! Within 30 minutes the fog was revealed, blown away and the truth revealed. Adoption IS A PROBLEM!! It messes you up – you’re not weird after all. You’re adopted – and this is what it can do. Wow. A strange mixture of relief, elation and dread swept through me. I felt like a little mole who’d been tunnelling away underground – popping out into bright day light as I learned about the impacts of adoption for the first time. Within a further few minutes, I knew I needed to work with this man who knew, and could explain and help. 

I know now that you cannot really come out of the adoption fog, or indeed anywhere – unless you know where you are to start with. The missing piece in my growth journey had been the insights about the impacts of adoption and the work I did in therapy to clear that fog away.

Over three years I worked with Paul Sunderland (an addictions psychotherapist) and attended 12 Step programmes. The work entailed doing lots of healing work I didn’t want to do (and that’s another huge story). I resisted, denied and went emotionally kicking and screaming into dark places amongst the truth – to become aware, clear eyed and sane, with a solid sense of self. Now I’m out of the fog, although there are a few wisps still hanging around, but I can spot them and manage them! 

I share this journey in the hope that any adoptee reading this will take a shortcut and have a faster recovery than I did in my 20-year journey. God speed.

What is it with Ofsted regulating adult adoptee support in the UK?

STOP PRESS: Government consultation taking place NOW, please give your views: https://consult.education.gov.uk/adoption-team/adoption-support-agencies-proposed-regulation-chan/

In August 2020 I said I was writing an article about Ofsted and the barriers to accessing therapy as an adopted person in the UK.  

The response to that tweet confirmed I was not alone in my own confusion around:

1. Who can offer adoption counselling? Do they need to be registered with Ofsted, and - if so - why?

2. Does the UK government and Ofsted know that this layer of regulation is adding to the barriers adoptees face in getting support? Some are having to take other routes to therapy, including cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) which can have a neutral or even negative effect when it comes to adoption issues. And even more worryingly, some adoptees said they are at breaking point, they have self-harmed and had suicidal ideations.

3. Why are non-Ofsted registered therapists required terminate support if they later find out that someone they are treating is adopted? Not nice for anyone, particularly an adopted person who may struggle with trust and making attachments.

I didn’t get much further with the article at that time due to work and my two weeny ones. Then last month I tweeted again, and this time got an immediate response from Ofsted offering to set up a meeting. I must say, of all the organisations I’ve @ on Twitter, this was the first time I’d had such a speedy and non-defensive response. (Yes, Long Lost Family I am looking at you!)

The tweet itself was seen by over 16,000 people so thanks to everyone who shared it. And a huge and very heartfelt thanks to everyone who emailed or DMed to say how the cumbersome government regulations get in the way of accessing therapy - both finding someone competent and finding someone local to you (and affordable). I hope that together we can change this – both for ourselves and for future generations. 

What I asked Ofsted about support for adopted adults

On my call with Ofsted, I asked Matthew Brazier several key questions we are all wondering about.

Q. Why is the UK government regulating access to therapy / counselling services for ADULTS who were adopted as children?  

A.   No one is really sure why. It came about as a result of the Children Act 2004 but why adults aren’t an exception we don’t know.

Q. Have adopted adults been involved in discussions about assessment criteria and training content?

A.   There was a public consultation which adopted people were welcome to respond to, but adopted adults were not specifically consulted.

(Credit to Rachel from @onbeingadopted for tweeting a great summary of the key questions!)

After the meeting, Matthew sent me some further links on:

• Who has to register with Ofsted to provide support to adoptees (looks like it is both adoption agencies and independent therapists)

• The framework for voluntary adoption agencies most of whom have stopped providing adult adoptee support, i.e. TACT

• The framework for adoption support agencies i.e. PAC-UK, etc

I noticed that these resources focus on support for children, even though the Government site itself acknowledges that ‘adults are the main recipients of adoption support’.

I’ll keep you posted as to how we can try to get this changed. And of course I hope it goes without saying that I am not suggesting therapy for adopted people is completely unregulated. 

Adoptee experiences with trying to find therapy in the UK

Here are some of the comments I had about the matter of counselling for adopted people in the UK and how government regulations are a barrier. I also had a few comments from adopted parents about issues accessing therapy for their children, but I have chosen to keep this post just for adult adoptees. 

“Ofsted need to know how hard it is to access therapy. PAC offers some but depends on if your local authority have a contract with them. I don’t think they offer any therapy in the North. My local authority were re-negotiating/cancelling their contract in 2019 so I had 6 weeks funded and then was signposted to Barnardos Link which put me in contact with a local adoption competent therapist. This however costs £60/session. Out of range for a lot of people I would imagine. Have had therapy for a year and it has made such a difference. Osfted also need to know that issues tend to appear at important points in our lives i.e. having our own children. I would say my issues have increased as I’ve got older. I have had to find my own support.”

“I ended up going with a non-Ofsted certified therapist, and now after 2 years of building up trust with her while dealing with other issues I'm going to have to start all over again if I want to explore adoption.” 

“I’ve always been able to have counselling - but that’s only because I’ve always had great counsellors who are prepared to ignore the rules and realise what a nonsense the OFSTED rule is for adults. However, I’m aware that by doing this they are taking a risk. I am also a counsellor myself. I’ve had to have lots of therapy as a compulsory part of my training courses. There are no OFSTED registered adoption counsellors near me and all the adoption support agencies that provide counselling only do so for children. The whole thing is a farce and I cannot fully express how much it angers me! But I know you know this too.”

““There are no OFSTED registered adoption counsellors near me and all the adoption support agencies that provide counselling only do so for children. The whole thing is a farce and I cannot fully express how much it angers me!””

“Good luck with this. I've been arguing this point for years. Adoption is the only population where qualified & registered therapists, psychologists, counsellors etc need to be Ofsted registered to offer services. It makes no clinical sense & bars access to support.”

I’m sorry if I missed anyone off, I’ve been working and home schooling too and it’s been a bit mad! Please drop me another line and I’ll add your comment here.

The therapists’ viewpoint 

“As a qualified counsellor, I would definitely counsel adult adoptees if it wasn’t so onerous to be Ofsted regulated.”

“I don’t want to register with Ofsted to offer adoption counselling as it stigmatised that adoptees must need a special treatment when in reality they need help to understand their feelings and emotions from their own views. I have the experience but don’t seem to tick the boxes…”

I did hear from a few therapists and I’d love to hear from more, particularly anyone who has chosen not to register with Ofsted and help adopted people ‘under the radar’. You can remain anonymous.  

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

The yoga retreat where I found my voice

For a big birthday last year I treated myself to a one-to-one yoga retreat. I was feeling very burnt out from working, parenting, and the tail-end of coming out of the fog. I almost didn’t go, even up to the day itself because I thought it was too self-indulgent and I was frightened of being vulnerable on my own with the yoga teacher.

Fortunately, the teacher was the amazing Julie Bickerton who looked after me well all weekend. As well as 6 sessions of yoga, we did forest bathing and meditation. I also had a full body massage and lots of time to journal. Julie cooked all my meals for me - which is a luxury as a mum of two young children. Julie is also a coach, and so we talked a lot about this blog and my plans and hopes for the future.

One amazing after-effect of the weekend was that I came back standing and walking taller, and my throat chakra had opened to the extent that when I spoke I didn’t recognise my own voice! I spoke confidently, clearly and slowly for the first time in living memory!

I asked Julie Bickerton, yoga teacher, to give us a few tips for opening the throat chakra including poses and affirmations. If you try any of them, I’d love to know how you get on.

“Each one of the chakras reflects a basic, inalienable right. Loss of these rights blocks the chakra. Much of the work of yoga is to reclaim these rights to heal.” 

Chakra 5 the throat chakra is associated with the right to speak and be heard. 

Uijayi Pranayama is a good practice for unlocking blockage in this Chakra. This breath helps to conquer fear, and steady the mind. The breath is slowed through a subtle contraction in the throat making a sound similar to that of the distant ocean. It can be practiced seated in stillness or during an active asana practice. The sound and movement of the breath is soothing and helps to attune awareness to each breath . A deeper smoother flow of breath will result. 

Chanting a mantra is a form of toning encouraging the basic vibration within you to come out through your throat as sound. As you exhale let the breath out of an open mouth making a sound no judgement spontaneous, could be a grunt a squeak, a moan a roar might vary initially but then tends to settle into a sound that resonates. Let it develop and come. 

Postures that are all about opening up the shoulders, releasing the head and neck, opening or stimulating the throat area:

• MATSYASANA: FISH POSE 

• HALASANA: PLOUGH POSE

• SALAMBA SARVANGASANA: SHOULDER STAND

• NAKULASANA: MONGOOSE POSE 

Affirmations: 

• I hear and speak the truth 

• I express myself with clear intent

• Creativity flows in and through me

• My voice is necessary

Great reference books Anodea Judith Eastern Body Western Mind a comprehensive analysis of psychology, somatic therapy and childhood development theory and Chakra Yoga full of a wealth of practice ideas.

Find out more about Julie Bickerton Yoga

Find out more about fellow adoptee Rachel Young’s yoga

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 

Long Lost Family's response to my open letter

Last year when Long Lost Family was back on our screens, I wrote a rather cross open letter to the LLF team. Having recently come out of the fog and working with adoptees both in London and online, I felt the show wasn’t a realistic portrayal of adoption reunion. I also said that in the episodes I watched the adoptee often appeared alone with no family or friends, and the adoptee always called the birth parent ‘mum’ or ‘dad’ upon meeting. I added that I was concerned about what support was given to adoptees who appeared in the programme.

Here is an excerpt from my open letter to 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 (…) 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 in the drama, you are a source of frustration and bewilderment for me and many adoptees I know. “

This year, when the new series came out, my open letter caught the attention of the LLF team and I received this reply. I’d love to know whether you watch Long Lost Family or What Happened Next and and what you think of this detailed and thoughtful reply from the executive producer.

Dear Claire,  

I am writing to you in response to your letter to Long Lost Family, which has been brought to my attention by Nicky Campbell. We are aware that the stories that we include cannot reflect every adoption and separation experience. I am sorry that this means you choose not to watch the programme.

We acknowledge that the series represents the stories of only a few of the 4,000 applications we receive each year from people searching for their families. This is a fact which we do acknowledge in the opening commentary of the programme.

The reality is that some searches are impossible for us to solve; some birth relatives do not want contact in any circumstances; and some do want contact but without LLF cameras being present. All of these variables we understand and must take into account. However, this means that the stories which can be told do tend to be those with positive outcomes. In our follow-up series, 'What Happened Next', we have deliberately chosen to include stories in which the relationships did not work out, or which show the enormous complexity of building a relationship after a lifetime apart.

'LLF' and 'What Happened Next' should be seen in tandem. They are watched by the same audience and demographic.

To answer some of your specific complaints:

• We do try to include family members whose lives have been impacted by adoption, from the adoptee to their spouses and children, sometimes even their adoptive parents. These decisions are predicated on the wishes of the people involved.

• We have included examples of adoptees talking to their adopting parents about the impact that the search process has had on them. For example, we have shown an adopting mother expressing concerns. In another instance, an adopting mother chose to meet the birth parent of her daughter. They chose for their meeting to be filmed.

• We do not dictate the names that adoptees choose to call their birth parents. This is certainly not something that is scripted or requested; all of the contributors use whatever terminology they are most comfortable with, be that Christian names or formal/informal titles. There may be deep rooted explanations for why some adopted people choose to use the terms "Mum" and "Dad"; it is their choice.

• Most importantly, both the searcher and the found person are offered intermediary support by a qualified ASA, qualified social workers, and counsellors or psychologists if needed.

The countless complexities and sensitivities of individual searches are difficult to reflect. No single story can ever be a universal truth.

However, we feel that in creating a documentary series that reaches 5 million viewers, we have helped to shift public opinion by removing the stigma and shame that has for many years surrounded those separated from the family of origin. The programme has inspired many people to search for the answers to their own family mysteries. It is a known fact that fostering and adoption teams deal with many more enquiries in the period after these documentaries have been aired.

While some of those people searching will find further difficulties and complexes as a result of their search, statistically, many are happy that they searched even if it is only to have answers to their questions.

Finally, the Long Lost Family search and social work team have provided answers for, and reunited, more than a 1,000 searchers over the past 10 years; of whom less than 20% are filmed. The remaining 80% are given the exact same duty of care search experience and support as the 20% who are filmed. This is something of which the entire team at LLF are justifiably proud.

Thank you very much for your letter and for raising your concerns with us. I do hope we have been able to answer the points that you have raised about the search process and the duty of care that lies behind the programme.

The Executive Producer at Long Lost Family

Photo by Erika Giraud on Unsplash

———————————

I’d like to thank the producer for this thoughtful and detailed reply and for giving permission for it to be published in entirety. It is still my hope that within my lifetime we see the full adoptee experience realistically portrayed in the mainstream media.

I’d love to know what you think of Long Lost Family, so let me know in the comments below or find me on social media (links below).

Here are my other blogs on adoption reunion:

• Adoption Reunion: Top Tips

• Reunion Rocks, Reunion Sucks

• Sorry These Seats Are Taken

And my most popular blog post: Why Are You So Angry?

7 reasons I love Anne Heffron

I’m super excited right now because Anne Heffron is calling in live to our adopted adults support group tonight. It’s taken a lot of organising, and the technology might fail us yet (we are in London and Anne is in the States) but I can’t wait for Anne to inspire the group as she has me. 

 Many of the group members aren’t active online (think of all that spare time they must have, not being on Twitter!), so this will be the first time they’ve heard Anne’s thoughts on being adopted, and how we can live our best lives in spite of its challenges.  

So, here are the 7 reasons I love Anne:

1.    Her ability to see into my brain

Some of Anne’s blog post titles seem to be taken straight from my private diary! How does Anne see into our brains like this?? She is expert at helping adoptees feel seen and heard – and (crucially) just a little less weird.

This one, in particular, resonated: Why I am Hardwired to Beat on the Door of Someone Who Doesn't Want Me (puts most of my dating history into perspective!)

This one is also something that many of us have been thinking but unable to articulate as well as Anne: Calling it National Adoption Awareness Month is So Stupid

2.    Her granularity

Where my style is to write a Buzzfeed-style listicle with a sentence or two for each point, Anne writes a whole blog for each separate point. Her blogs can be extremely granular and she is not afraid to explore every nook and cranny in the quest for understanding and healing.

I don’t think there’s a healing method she hasn’t tried on our behalf from paddleboarding to EMDR, gratitude journaling to cold water surfing. She’s even given up chocolate and coffee for us and examined her poop.

3.    Her dedication to the adoptee cause

Anne understands the importance of living a full life beyond the challenges that being adopted can bring. She’s set up a healing retreat with therapist Pam Cordano, called Beyond Adoption: You. (Currently only available in the States.)

 She also encourages adoptees to write their stories, and says that’s been the most healing and transformative process for her, when she self-published her memoir You Don’t Look Adopted. She also understands why telling our stories is so terrifying for many of us.

When Anne is not running her retreat or her writing workshops, she can often be found talking to adoptive parents online to try to get them to see another angle. Now that’s dedication.

4.    Her honesty

One of the things I love most about Anne is her ability to say what she is really thinking, not what she thinks her readers want to hear or are ready for. She has really gone deep with some of her topics and almost speaks to unspeakable at times. 

She is honest about the depth of love she had (has) for her adoptive mother. She is also honest about how she believes she was affected by relinquishment and not always feeling seen or able to talk about being adopted when she was growing up.

On top of all this, Anne appeared on the podcast AdopteesOn with her ex-husband talking about how being adopted affects relationships. If you haven’t listened, I sincerely recommend it.

5.    Her willingness to try and fail

As Brene Brown* says, if you’re not in the arena you don’t get to criticise the person who is putting themselves out there and daring greatly. Anne is well and truly in the arena, being vulnerable, expressing her ideas and being willing to be criticised.

I see Anne as the Lena Dunham of adoptionland, she isn’t afraid of typos, of getting something wrong or saying something offensive (see below). 

*Skip to 6.30mins for the “Man in the arena” speech

6.    Her grace under fire

If something Anne says has offended someone, she tends to be extremely gracious. She handles criticism with humour and humility and she is always happy to learn and grow.  

7. How she likes to challenges us

Anne is keen to stretch her thinking, and in turn, that stretches us. She constantly tries to encourage us to stop censoring ourselves and be honest. One of her most challenging blogs for me was, The Fairy-Tale Fuckery of Reunion or You Owe Me, Bitches, Part 2

This paragraph in particular moved me on in my journey. It may have only been millimetres, but every millimetre counts when you’ve felt stuck for so long:

“I am standing here with a full bowl of food, crying because this other bowl I have is empty.

“I think I have the right to have both bowls full. I think the world owes me something. I think adopted people are owed the truth of their origins. I think I am owed the respect of family members to meet me even though I don’t fit the lifetime narrative of their family. I didn’t exist for their whole lives, and now here I am, a sister, a cousin, and aunt, and I want in.“

I like to think of this as akin to the ubiquitous Instagram quote: “You are not to blame for what happened to you, but you are responsible for how you move forward.”

Anne has also introduced us to many new terms and concepts, such as the vagus nerve, the parasympathetic nervous system and umbilical confusion. Learning is fun!

So there you have it, my fangirl blog post for Anne. P.S. This blog is not sponsored by Anne Heffron, in fact she has no idea I’ve written it. Hi Anne! Thank you for all your support, both personally and for the adoptee collective xx

Where I find support and solace as an adult adoptee

When I started my blog a couple of years ago my aim was to share my experiences to help other adoptees. Now I want to share what’s worked for me in terms of support. I’ve talked about my supportive partner and being in therapy - these are my pillars and everything below is additional to that.

A lot of this falls into the category of self-care, which - although a trendy buzzword - has really helped me. You will notice that the majority of things on the list are things I have found myself and, in many cases, paid for myself. Currently this is the scenario for many adult adoptees, but by connecting we can share resources and – in the future – work together to form a central support organisation in the UK.

The Needy podcast by Mara Glaztel

Mara is not adopted but she is a self-confessed people pleaser as many adoptees are. She also focuses a lot on boundaries which I know many of us struggle with, as highlighted in the recent episodes of AdopteesOn. The Needy podcast is wonderful and she has lots of (free and paid for) resources on her website. I would recommend starting with episode one, and if you only have time for a few more, try episodes 4, 8, 14 and 21.

• free resource

• not specifically for adoptees

Restorative yoga

When I was coming out of the fog, I spent many evenings weeping and sniffling by candlelight at my local restorative yoga class. Something about holding a (soft) pose for a long time until the emotions emerge from where the body has been holding them. When I spoke to my yoga teacher, she said being able to cry in the class means I feel safe there.

Also known as cuddly yoga, there are lots of props like bolsters and blankets and the instructors are usually very soothing. As I am not religious I find it very grounding to listen to a calm voice tell me everything is ‘exactly as it should be’. At the end we lie in savasana, or corpse pose, under blankets with lavender eye bags. It’s dreamy. Classes are not cheap where I live in London, but you can find free classes on YouTube. I really love Yoga with Adrienne, who has lots of yoga videos for anxiety and stress.

• paid for locally - ask in your local library or local Facebook group

• free classes online

• not specifically for adoptees

 Fellow adoptee Rachel Young has a great yoga channel on YouTube and she will be guest blogging for me soon with some calming, grounding poses for adoptees. Can’t wait!

Self-compassion meditations with Kristen Neff

Kristen Neff is the self-compassion guru and has worked with Brené Brown, among others. She says that research has shown that “self-compassion is one of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal to create health and happiness.”

i recommend Kristen’s self-compassion workbook, as well as the short meditations on her website, including a meditation for self-compassion.

If you are new to practicing self-compassion, be aware that some uncomfortable feelings may surface initially. Kristen describes this as: “when we give ourselves unconditional love, we discover the conditions under which we were unloved.” It does get easier with practice. I remember bursting with laughter when my therapist suggested I look at myself in the mirror and say, “I love you”. Now I can say it without laughing: “I love you. You are doing a great job. What you are feeling is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation (being adopted).”

• free resource (meditations)

• paid for resource (self-compassion workbook)

• not specifically for adoptees

The Baggage Reclaim podcast

Not for the faint hearted, this has a totally different vibe to the Needy podcast mentioned above. Baggage Reclaim is ideal if you’re ready for some tough talk about boundaries, co-dependency and other issues many adoptees have told me they struggle with. There are loads of episodes and some may not be relevant i.e. the episodes about dating. I recommend starting with some of the earlier ones, such as episode 22: Stop asking permission to have boundaries. Episode 118 is about pretending to be someone you’re not and episode 38 is about being too hard on yourself.

• free resource

• not specifically for adoptees

I know other adoptee friends who swear by gardening, exercise, etc. I would love to hear what works for you. We can never not be adopted but we can support ourselves and each other to heal and be emotionally healthy.

Also, if you have ideas for the type of support needed by adult adoptees in the UK please comment below or contact me directly. I would be interested to know how many people would be wiling to pledge financial support to a UK organisation. Currently in the business planning stages but it does feel like an obvious gap in the UK that I would be honoured to help fill. UK-wide survey on what’s needed and how we can fund it coming soon!

Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplas

Claiming space as an adoptee

Anyone else sometimes feel like running amok? Going rogue? Taking up some space for once? Here are a few crazy things I toy with doing from time to time. Things that, to even think about, make me feel super scared and cripplingly anxious.

However, I don’t want to break any official or unofficial rules. I don’t want to be “sent back” for not abiding by the terms and conditions of my adoption. Of course, then I remind myself I did not sign any terms and conditions. I wonder if I am being complicit in the secrecy that I so outwardly loathe and deride. If my behaviour is contributing to the sack of shame I carry over my shoulder wherever I go.

What’s the worst that could happen…?

Will I disappear in a puff of smoke if I…
Say I don’t believe in adoption as it is currently done?
Say I believe adoption is trauma?
Tell my children the lady whose house we visit annually is actually an extra granny?

Will I be arrested if I…
Name my birth parents on this blog?
Tag my biological siblings on Facebook?
Take a selfie outside my biological grandparent’s house?
Leave flowers on my paternal grandfather’s grave?

Will I deter future friends if I…
Answer the “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” question with the complicated truth?
Tell them about my attachment issues?

Will I be ridiculed if I…
Create a family tree on Ancestry?
Message a biological relative on ancestry and admit to being an adoptee?
Ask to be known by my original name?

Does an alarm go off of an adoptee claims their space on this earth? Or is it wonderfully exhilaratingly freeing? I’d love to know.... leave me a comment if you’ve done any of these things and tell me how it’s worked out.

Photo credit: Clem Onojeghuo clemono.com

9 things I would give my sister for Christmas

Would her own name, her own bedroom and a hell of a lot of support around attachment have stopped my sister becoming what they call in the trade “a bad outcome”?

As thoughts turn to Christmas, I don’t know where my sister is – again. Even with all the therapy and mindfulness in the world, I can’t always stop my obsessive thoughts about how she was failed by so many along her journey, including me. (With the caveat that many have helped too, although often after much of the damage had already been done.) 

With sensitivity to the fact that this is not my story to tell, and there are minors involved, here are nine things I wish for my sister:

1.   Her own name

All the reasons we were given about her name being changed were logical and seemed to add up. We didn’t question it. Now I know from speaking to other adoptees that having your name changed can bring a lot of issues. If it had to be changed, could she have been given a middle name linking her to her first family? 

2.   Better understanding of attachment 

My sister had some time without a primary care giver and I am wholly convinced it did irreparable damage. If we had understood this better we could have tried to support her more appropriately. Instead, we were all raised with the post-war “put up and shut up” model that my parents were comfortable with*.

3.   Support at school

My sister had huge issues at school, but was assessed as “on the border” which they rounded down to “doesn’t need support”. If I had a time machine I would get her to take that test again and lose one goddamn point. She needed and deserved so much more than any teacher at any school gave her. She was treated as a “normal” pupil who could and should be expected to adhere to school policy. 

Before I got back in my time machine, I would ask her teachers to read the stats around life outcomes for care experienced children who are excluded from school. And ask them to consider that exclusion is another rejection, another confirmation of unworthiness and dispensability.

4.   Her own bedroom

Having your own space is important for developing a sense of identity, particularly in adolescence. Our house wasn’t huge and two of my siblings shared a room. This meant when my sister most needed her own space, she literally had none. I cannot add any more here except to say, I was selfish and I should have agreed to a ‘timeshare’ of my room.

5.   A relationship with her birth mother 

Although originally thought to be unsafe, her birth mother went on to have a large, happy family. I do not know why the ‘rules’ cannot be updated if a birth parent’s situation changes along the line. I believe they would have both benefitted from some form of contact, as is more the norm today.

6.   A lifestory book

A lifestory book including photographs is something I would gift all us older adoptees, although I know many younger adoptees would say theirs are a load of rubbish. With more than one home before she came to us, the first few chapters of my sister’s life were blank. Without anything concrete, except a teddy with her original name, it may have felt that these chapters simply did not matter. It doesn’t take long for a traumatised brain to change that sentiment into “I don’t matter”.

7.   A friend

As I now have some understanding of attachment I can see why she had difficulty forming and maintaining friendships. And I am ashamed to say we weren’t good friends growing up, particularly not when she most needed one in our early teens. 

A good friend can be a lighthouse. If I could, I would gift my sister one good friend to understand her and see her through tough times. 

8.   A reunion with her birth mother

For reasons I cannot share, their reunion was thwarted and there won’t be another chance. 

When the reunion was first mooted, I could have got on a train to chaperone and support her. I didn’t. This makes me feel really shitty. I’m so sorry, sis. At the same time, there is not enough support in the UK for adoptees and care leavers undertaking delicate reunions. I believe the system that separated mother and child has a duty to support them during reunion and beyond.  

9.   A hug over a hot chocolate

I miss you sis, you crazy fool. Please hang in there wherever you are and don’t you dare go anywhere before I get to say all this to your face over a hot chocolate. (Definitely not a cup of tea; your teas are minging!) x

* Every time I mention my parents in a blog I literally seize up. I have written about the fear before, and it belies my age by about three decades! But I promised myself when I started this blog that I would not excessively compliment my parents in order to sugar-coat some of the challenges. None of my blogs are the whole story so please do not assume anything about my relationship with my family from reading a few blog posts.

Self-care meet-up for adoptees by On Being Adopted - my review

A wonderful experience with a small group of UK adoptees, including healing yoga and a safe space for sharing stories...

I’d been looking forward to Rachel from On Being Adopted’s mini-retreat for adoptees for a few months. We met on Twitter and connected over many elements of our upbringing. We both have a desire to find more creative and/or hands-on healing for trauma (in addition to talking therapies). And we're both passionate about connecting with other adoptees, specifically in the UK. 

This event was to be a mixture of yoga, which is a way many of us manage our feelings, and talking with other adoptees. I was nervous but the location - a Buddhist centre - felt very peaceful and spiritual, and the room was small enough to be intimate yet large enough for us to comfortably move through the yoga sequences Rachel had designed for us. 

Rachel took us through a series of grounding poses, mostly standing up, such as the warriors one and two, and several balancing postures. This part of the day was about an hour long. There was enough repetition of the poses to enable a sense of flow, and enough variation to keep us alert. After a series of twists, which help regulate the nervous system, we settled into a long savasana with two guided body scans. Rachel finished the session with some pranayama breathing which is good for calming the mind. 

After a break for tea and biscuits we took our places on our yoga mats again and began sharing stories. Each person talked for around 5-10 minutes and it was free-flow so we could talk about anything on our minds, rather than needing to give a linear background to our adoption. This was quite refreshing! Rachel was clear about the ground rules: everything said is confidential, and avoid interrupting and/or trying to fix anyone’s problems. This was crucial for me, as I find it very hard not offer solutions or (some might call them) platitudes. It was great to be let off the hook in this respect.

I was worried that sharing 'into the ether' with no follow-up would be rather odd. But it really surprised me that sharing in this way felt good. The knowing nods were all that was really needed! I found there were many overlaps to our experiences, yet everyone’s story was unique. It was lovely to meet some of the adoptees I have spoken to on Twitter, and see someone I met at the Open Nest Conference 2017.

I left the meet-up feeling lighter and extremely validated. Sometimes I think I’m weak for finding all this hard, or maybe I’m just not trying hard enough to make tricky issues like reunion work. This meet-up reassured me that actually it all is just very bloody hard, and we are all doing the best we can. 

Thank you to the other participants and jolly well done to Rachel for making this UK adoptee meet-up a reality. Here’s to the next one! 

Find out about more meet-ups from On Being Adopted

Express an interest in Rachel's book club for adoptees: NEW!

If you're interested in yoga for self-care, self-worth and helping with anxiety, I really like home practice with Yoga by Adriene

And if you have any ideas for future meet-ups, let me or Rachel know. Or feel free to do one of your own! Rachel has proved there is a big appetite x

Natalie @zumbanatalieuk and Rachel @onbeing_adopted

Six things I've learned since coming out of the adoption fog

Wow it’s been a tough year. Coming out of the fog started slowly in my early thirties, then it accelerated massively when I had children. If you don’t know what the fog is, it’s a term used to describe how you feel about being adopted.

Here are six things I’ve learned since coming out of the fog:

1.    I’ve been lying all my life

But I didn’t know I was lying – at least not consciously. Every time I told someone I didn’t feel any different, or agreed with them that as I was adopted as a baby it “didn’t count”, I was lying.

If you had asked me at any point up until my early thirties how I felt about being adopted I would have said “absolutely fine!” then gone out and drank three bottles of wine and slept with a random.

Even post-reunion I was still in the fog. Yep. It’s pretty foggy in there.

2.    You can’t force anyone out of the fog

The first rule of adoptee fog club is: people only come out when they’re ready. You cannot force another adoptee out of the fog, however gently.

My own journey out of the adoption fog went something like this:

• have my own children

• read the Primal Wound

• start listening to Adoptees On and other podcasts

• join a local support group for adoptees

• wake up one day shouting “Holy sh*t!”

At the point everything hit home, I wanted to gather all other adoptees in my arms for a communal cry and a big cuddle. But it doesn’t work that way; people are only ready when they’re ready.

3.    I hold adoption trauma in my body

What are you talking about? What trauma? You were adopted as a baby! Even I subscribed to this attitude until recently, but now that I know differently I can literally feel it. And it’s always been there.

My adrenal system has always worked overtime but I didn’t know why or how to calm it down (apart from the aforementioned wine and bad sex). 

The burden of being adopted weighs heavy. I hold it in my heart, but also in my hips and my throat. It may never go away, but things that have worked for me include:

• yoga

• massage

• therapy

• meditation

Things still to try include:

• reiki

• EMDR

Anne Heffron has talked about the vagus nerve with some tips on what worked for her. I’d love to hear about what worked for you.

4.    Being adopted has made everything harder

As much as my close friends joke that I have ‘special needs’ because I’m adopted, I really do. From what I know about the way adoption is currently supported in the UK, adopted children do now have a protected status at school and can access additional support. (If this is not the case, please get in touch so I can amend my article!)

Because this wasn’t in place when I was growing up, I struggle to allow myself any additional concessions, when actually sometimes I need to give myself a break, or ask others to be more sensitive and/or supportive. I know there is a school of thought that says by being brought up this way I’m now more resilient, but I’m starting to disagree.

5.    Being adopted doesn’t get better with age

I wish with all my heart I could say it did, but I’ve found these ‘middle years’ so far the hardest. That’s not to say it just gets progressively worse, it definitely fluctuates and I hope I’m simply in a trough rather than a peak right now due to my recent emergence from the fog. Did I mention the fog? Man it’s good to be out, but I do sometimes miss that comfy blanket of ignorance.

I do however know that being an adoptee is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life, rather than something that eases off and eventually vanishes.

6. The adoptee community is awesome!

Oh how I wish I’d found them sooner. But better late than never. The online adoptee community is fantastic, so supportive of one another and encouraging us in our baby steps to speak out and cope with the daily strains of adoption, search and reunion, etc. Thank you so much to you all.

And the support group I attend has been so powerful for me in my journey. There are adoptees from many walks of life, with different stories to tell but one fundamental thing in common. I look into their faces and I see acknowledgment of the primal wound, and that is something I didn’t know I needed so badly. I heartily recommend other adoptees to seek out an adoption support group near you, or start one of your own!

There are some people doing incredible work both online and IRL including:

Adoptees On

Lost Daughters

Out of the Fog podcast

Six-word adoption memoir project

The Open Nest

Anne Heffron's blog and book You Don't Look Adopted

I Am Adopted.net