Adoption Impacts - Rejection and People Pleasing - by Gilli Bruce

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rejection

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

• Not receiving contact at the usual level

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

• Not feeling included enough

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

• Being excluded or cancelled on for unknown reasons

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A ‘Please Others’ driver

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to make some shifts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You could look into exploring, for example:

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

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

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

Photo by whoislimos on Unsplash

Bad Robots, Wolves and Monsters

 Trigger warning: abuse

Hello world

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

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

Bad baby, bad blood 

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

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

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

Brave new world

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

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

Doodle bugs and apple crumble

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

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

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

Pole position for Pa

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

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

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

Never the twain shall weep

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

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

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

Born free and a bit wild

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

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

Schools out and ouch

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

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

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

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

Bad robots, wolves and monsters

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

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

The Abyss 

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

My Primal Wound 

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

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

The adoption fog

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

Birth mother and beautiful enigma 

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

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

Secret Sherlock and a little magic

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

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

Reunion city blues

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

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

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

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

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

Finding peace with Nemo

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

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

Much love xx

Read Helen’s previous blog Flying Above The Adoption Fog

Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash

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

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

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

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

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

More info about the film:

Official trailer for Return to Seoul

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

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

Held - a guest blog by adoptee Helen

I have always been curious about whether my earliest experience of being separated from my mother at birth and subsequently adopted might bear any relation to the insecurity and self-doubt I often experience in life and particularly in my work as a counsellor. In 2018 as part of an MSc Counselling and Psychotherapy I undertook a piece of research to try and explore this further. I used a methodology called “heuristic research” which essentially involves feeling into your own experience to get insight and implicit knowledge.  It was a very emotionally challenging and probably inadvisable process. This is an extract from some of my reflections at the time:

A cold morning in March and I’m trying to keep warm in bed. I don’t want to face the day. I’m thinking about an art exhibition I went to recently where I was drawn to an exhibit of some little white porcelain vases. There were several, beautiful fragile delicate ornate, like eggshell, easily fractured, broken. You were allowed to touch them. I held one in my hands and tiny bits of porcelain broke off like lace. “It’s okay…” the artist said “that’s meant to happen”. I loved these beautiful fragmenting vessels so light and delicate, at the same time containers, small, strong and rounded. This tiny vessel cupped in my hands, felt almost as if I was holding my self.

Thinking this soothes my miserable soul and a vaguely remembered poem drifts into my mind. It’s by my friend and poet Elizabeth Burns and it’s called “Held”. I haul myself out of bed to see if I can find her book and when I take it down from the shelf I see, ah yes I remember now, there’s a picture on the front cover of a beautiful round porcelain vase.  “Held” is the name of the title poem and it begins with a small child.

 “One year old and he’s discovering the river,

dropping stones in at the edge, retrieving them

He loves containers says his mother,

Then wonders, is a river a container?

The riverbed is: it curves its way….

down through these woods of wild garlic and bluebells,

letting the winding stony vessel of itself be filled

with springwater, meltwater, rainwater,  

[   ………   ]

and if the river’s a container, so’s a song,

holding words and tune; an eggshell

holds a bird, the atmosphere

enfolds the planet; everything is like a basket

says the basket maker, the earth contains us

we contain bones, blood air, our hearts

we are baskets and makers of baskets

and fresh from the hold of the womb

the boy child’s discovering how things

are held by other things: milk in a cup

food in a bowl, a ball in his hands

a stone in water, water in a nest of stones.”

Elizabeth Burns (2010)

The images in the poem are beautiful and simple. And they express a sense of what feels to be an emerging theme in my research. A theme around holding and containment. My research is essentially exploring what it means to be held and what happens to us when we are not held and the container of the mother is absent.

Could my being a fragile person who easily falls apart be a consequence of not being held? Not being held when I was born, at least not by my mother. By an incubator I guess (tiny, premature) or perhaps in the arms of strangers? Fresh from the hold of the womb, placed in the wrong container, or barely contained at all. Can something that happened so long ago still be felt all these years later?

Elizabeth’s poem is set in a valley called Roburndale, close to where I live, and where the river bends sharply as it meets a large rock face, it forms deep pools for swimming, the Fairie Pools. This is a place I know well and have taken myself to (dragged myself) in times of difficulty and despair knowing that immersing myself, swimming in these river waters brings life, invigorates. It does. It brings me into the world. It connects me and I become part of the world and I feel to come alive.

I am wondering then: is the river is holding me? The water, the riverbed? Or perhaps the earth, and the woods of wild garlic and bluebells. Some spiritual traditions consider the earth to be a mother, who holds and nourishes us. The poet Ted Hughes saw rivers as primal conduits to the core of our inner nature. Swimming in the river at Roburndale feels primal somehow. Perhaps I am experiencing a return to the waters of the womb and an emergence into life. Is that too fanciful? Would jumping into a cold bath have the same invigourating effect? Possibly yes. But at the same time there is no doubt that the river flowing through this lush hidden valley soothes me, almost as a mother to an infant. It calms me and I feel reconnected somehow. I feel as though my estranged psyche comes to dwell more fully in my body. I feel soothed and held.

I have always liked the work of the paediatrician and psychoanalyst Winnicott who developed a concept which he called “indwelling”. A capacity to dwell/exist/be present in your body. Winnicott carefully studied mothers and babies and came to the conclusion that “It is the provision of a safe holding environment that allows the infant to indwell”, traditionally the “safe holding environment” being the mother. Winnicott considers this capacity to indwell to be the bedrock of emotional health (Winnicott 1956).

This would suggest then that babies who don’t experience a safe holding environment would struggle to indwell. Perhaps in that case there can only be a sense of exile from the self, a feeling of not being at home, an existence that is outside of oneself. And a sense of forever trying to find a way back.

 Ref   Burns.E.(2010) Held. Edinburgh: Polygon

Photo by kazuend on Unsplash

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

Sorry these seats are taken: a short reflection on adoption reunion

As some of you will know my reunion hit a bit of a stumbling block earlier this year after being fairly rosy for a good number of years. I’ll go into this in more detail when I’m done processing everything as it’s all still pretty fresh. It has a lot to do with coming out of the fog, I think.

In the meantime, this is just a short reflection that came to me after journaling the other evening before bed.

Imagine being invited to a small party and when you arrive the host greets you warmly but doesn’t offer to take your coat. Confusing, huh? This is how reunion felt to me.

Imagine you arrive to meet friends in the pub and they don’t shift up to make room for you at the table. They seem pleased to see you; they are smiling. But no one offers to make room for you. Afterwards you realise they were only smiling with their mouths.

I really wanted them to shimmy up to make room for me at the table, even if someone’s bum cheek was hanging off the edge of the bench. Reunion felt like the whole table just shrugged and said it’s lovely to see you but these seats are taken.

I would love to hear about your experiences with reunion, and if you have found journaling to be useful in managing the feelings around adoption. It’s great to be able to share what’s in our toolkits.

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.

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? 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. 

A-Z of adoption triggers (Part one: A-C)

I’ve never been “officially” diagnosed with attachment issues, but here are my top adoption triggers, so see what you think! 

 It kind of makes sense to feel upset and anxious around the themes of (possible) abandonment, I think? I’m hoping other adoptees will get in touch saying “Me too!” – and let’s exchange tips on what works in terms of healing. I’ve touched on a few things in my last blog, but keen to have – and share – a big healing toolkit.

A is for Ageing

Not something one can avoid but certainly more noticeable as time marches on.

 I’ve been friends with the same group of girls since we started secondary school, when our mums were about the same age we are now. So whenever we meet up I’m acutely aware of how much they’re now looking like their mothers. Just a fleeting expression or gesture and their whole ancestry appears in front of me.

As my appearance changes with age, I have no idea who I resemble. Although I’m in reunion and see my biological parents fairly regularly, their faces are not imprinted in mind as my family’s faces are. I also don’t know many, if any, of their/my relatives aka my wider genetic pool – I’m may end up looking like an aunt, cousin, grandparent or even great-grandparent! Who knows?

 B is for Birthdays

It’s a no-brainer really for adoptees to be triggered around their birthdays. In my teens and 20s I went extremely off-kilter around my birthday, which is a polite way of saying I screamed and shouted at my friends and boyfriend and cried on every single birthday. Friends have since told me they were afraid to attend my birthday parties, but more afraid not to!

I still do cry on my birthday but I accept it as part of the adoptee experience. I suppose I am crying for the little baby arriving into the world and going straight into a metaphorical Waiting Room between two mothers. For most people, birthdays mark the day you joined your family. Not so for adoptees.

I know some people “celebrate” their adoption day as well (or instead of) their birthday. Gotcha Day, is it called? I’d love to hear from you about how this works and whether it helps.

 C is for Christmas

I’ve had insomnia since October worrying about Christmas. I feel an intense need to opt out of all the celebrations and hide in a hole. Not really possible with two little ones!

 However this is coupled with an even stronger need to be in all places at once so I’m not “forgotten”. My nightmare scenario is all my family realise they have a better time without me there, i.e. that I am dispensable.

I’d love to hear from other adoptees whose parents also have biological children to understand if this is maybe a factor.

Coming soon: look out for the rest of the alphabet of adoption triggers coming soon! I'll be covering pregnancy, childbirth and my love/hate relationship with Long Lost Family.