2024 adoptee round up

Happy new year! Time to round up some of last year’s highlights.

25th January 2025 afternoon retreat: book now

Places are going fast for the HTBA annual January adoptee community retreat with Claire and Gilli. You can see a rough agenda here and book your place. Suggested donation is £15 but you can put anything from £1 in order to check out. It’s running online from 2-5pm and we’ll cover the effect of trauma on the body and some tips on finding/starting an adoptee group near you.

Book now

2024 highlights

BBC Radio 4 Women’s Hour

Women’s Hour has been a dream for me for a long time. It was amazing to finally get the call, but bittersweet as well because I was talking about some very heartbreaking family circumstances rather than just bigging up How To Be Adopted and other great adoptee organisations.

Listen back to Claire from How To Be Adopted on Women’s Hour talking about a new report that recommends changes to contact arrangements (aka maintaining relationships) after adoption. It starts around 20 mins in.Also interviewed is Prof Beth Neil. You can learn more about the proposed changes to modern adoption practice here.

Expansion of adoptee peer groups throughout the UK

Groups are going strong, with contingents in London, Bristol, Devon, Cornwall and more. The fabulous Ryan in Edinburgh ran an amazing run of adoptee meet ups including breakfast, lunch and dinner!

‘We Are Family’ webinar on adoptees becoming parents

I’m regularly asked to present to adoptive parents and I always say no, until this year! Professor Beth Neil asked me to speak about my lived experience of being an adopted person and becoming a parent. This was part of a webinar for We Are Family and within the huor we managed to cover Beth’s extensive research into what happens when adopted people become parents, as well as two adoptees’ experiences - mine and Daniel Bishop who you may remember from this brillaint guest blog on being a late-discovery adoptee.

Currently only members of WAF can watch the talk back.

Anniversary of changing the Ofsted law re adoptees accessing counselling

18th December marked a year since the law change! I’d love to know your stories on how the law change has impacted you whether you’re a therapist or adopted person.

HTBA North London group Christmas meal

Sponsored by Tatlers estate agency, we had a wonderful Christmas lunch.

Before you go

Please make sure you’re signed up to the emails as that’s where we share goings on in adopteeland like books, plays, podcasts, etc.

Adoptee advocate burnout - Claire's story

I posted a blog last year about my experience of burnout and my need to take a step back. After this, the wonderful Gilli Bruce, from the team, contacted the Guardian to nominate me for a Guardian Angel award. I had no idea! When the Guardian called me to ask if they could interview me and send a photographer out, I was torn. On the one hand, I was absolutely exhausted and I knew I needed some time out. On the other hand, this was a great opportunity to get an adoptee’s viewpoint in a national newspaper. It would go some small way to redressing the awful imbalance where most stories about adoption in the media are from the adoptive parent’s point of view - the BBC being one of the main culprits. They even did a podcast episode on the language we use about care leavers and only interviewed an adoptive parent, no care leavers.

So, it was with some trepidation that I said yes to the Guardian article. In short, I put my physical and emotional health after the desire I have (and have always had since 2017) to help just one adoptee out there feel less alone. In that sense, the article was a big success. I was contacted by dozens of people saying thank you - even ex-classmates and colleagues I didn’t even know were adopted!

There followed an influx of new followers on social media and new subscribers to the email newsletters - hello to you all and welcome! But this meant even more beavering away behind the scenes from me! The extra exposure that this put me under also sadly led to some negativity and trolling from other adoptees. This was very hard to take as I didn’t have copy approval for the Guardian piece, which means I was potentially putting my relationship with my parents and siblings under threat as I had no idea what the Guardian would publish. It was a huge risk for me, on top of all the hard work I’ve put into HTBA over the last 5 years. It was very upsetting to get this backlash from other adoptees.

All of this led to an extreme situation in November of last year where by I was very stressed out and disregulated and starting to experience some physical symptoms - which I am now seeing a team of medical practitioners for. In fact, if anyone came to my talk at PAC UK for National Adoption Week you could probably tell I was struggling then. My talk was all about the nervous system and how, as adoptees, ours can need lots of additional care and tending. That is the lesson I’ve had to learn the hard way. You can have years of talking therapy but the body holds the score!

At this time, I made the heartbreaking decision to step back from the North London in-person adoptee groups that I set up completely from scratch and ran for 14 months. I am beyond grateful that two of the members stepped forward to run the logistics of the meetings, and Adopt North London agreed to continue their support. Sadly, I also decided to close my Patreon membership and stop running the monthly zooms for members. I am very grateful that two of the members stepped forward to run the Zooms and ensure they didn’t have to stop.

During this difficult time, Gilli Bruce and Lara Leon were an amazing support - thank you so much to you both, you’re angels!

As you can imagine, all this helped enormously to reduce my feelings of guilt that I wasn’t doing enough! Being enough! Changing enough! It helped me remember that there are lots of us and we can all do our bit, it doesn’t all fall to me. (Logically I know this!) The Adult Adoptee Movement have made my heart sing as it means the activism and influencing side of things is covered and I can focus on what I do best, blogging. I’m also great at sharing what’s going on in adopteeland, from new books to exhibitions, new groups and events. So please keep sharing these with me. I really miss Instagram for this because it was such a gorgeous community where we all shared and picked each other up. (Unlike Twitter!!)

You can comment with any adoptee news and events below, and/or email hello@howtobeadopted.com and I’ll share them in my email newsletters. Guest blogs are EVEN more welcome at this time as it helps take the pressure off me, so again please get in touch if you want to share a guest blog you’ve written.

Yummy things that have been helping while I’m recovering from burnout:

• Watching some relaxing TV like Emily In Paris - usually I would be busybusybusy and not allow myself ‘trash TV’!

• Reading beautiful books like The Marriage Portrait and Demon Copperhead

• Receiving some beautiful flowers and a fab book in the post from two of you lovely lot, thank you :)

• Cuddles with my hubby, my kids and my baby niece and nephew

• Boardgames with the family - we are currently loving Quirkle and Sushi Go!

Little by little I can feel myself starting to slow down, very gradually, and step out of flight/flight. Bear with me. I hope this helps someone somewhere take some time to tend to their nervous system too.

Photo by Kinga Howard on Unsplash

PS Bristol people! A new group has started led by a lovely lady called Becky. You can email me hello@howtobeadopted.com if you want to be put in touch with Becky.

PPS Another thing we’ve decided to do during this slightly fallow period is to make the videos from the virtual retreat free and available to all on YouTube: see the HTBA videos - huge thanks to the wonderful Gilli Bruce, Lara Leon and Anne Heffron for their enthusiastic agreement to share their talks :)

To my friend - a letter to my adopted friends

To my friend and who asked his birth mother for a more honest dialogue and she never replied...

To my friend who was ghosted by her birth mum...

To my friend who discovered her adoptive dad gave up a son for adoption 15 years before he adopted her...

To my friend who didn’t find any biological family until he was 76...

To my friend whose adoptive brother destroyed the letters his birth mother sent before he had a chance to read them...

To my friend who had never met her birth mum until she went to her funeral in handcuffs with a police escort...

To my friend whose adoptive mum knew her birth mother’s name but didn’t tell her while she was searching...

To my friend who travelled from America to Greece to meet her birth family...

To my friend who travelled to Korea to meet her biological father but neither of them speak the other one’s language...

To my friend who grew up black in 1980s Sweden...

To my friend who found Irish heritage but was told she can’t celebrate St Patrick’s Day because she is ‘not really Irish’...

To my friend who was told her birth mother died but she is not sure how to verify if this is true as it was an international adoption...

To my friend who never worked after having her four children because she couldn’t bear to be away from them...

To my friend whose birth mother was raped and was never able to tell a single friend that she had a daughter who was adopted…

To my friend who is extra close to her adoptive family but afraid to say in case it upsets other adoptees...

To my friend who travelled with his birth mother to the exact place in Europe that he was conceived 40 years ago...

To my friend who knew his adoptive brother’s birth mother reached out to him but their adoptive parents threw the letter away...

To my friend who first held hands with her father age 29 and felt something deeply spiritual...

To my friend whose birth mother ‘joked’ that she can’t stand children...

To my friend who almost went on Long Lost Family despite big reservations because he was so desperate for answers...

To my friend who found out in his late 20s he was adopted...

To my friend who had a birthday card through the post telling her she was adopted ...

To my friend who was turned away for counselling because the therapist wasn’t Ofsted-registered...

To my friend who decided not to become a parent because she was still processing her adoption...

To my friend who was told she looked like someone and discovered it was a half sister living locally...

To my friend who saw on her paperwork that  her birth mother was described as ‘educationally subnormal’...

To my friend who found her sister on Facebook and when they met they were wearing the same outfit...

To my friend whose birth father can only call her on his way to work so his wife doesn’t find out...

To my friend whose half brother wrote and performed a song about ‘bastards’ after she made contact...

To my friend who was adopted with his sister but the adoptive parents kept her and put him back into Care...

To my friend whose little brother was ‘removed’ by social services at age 8 and adopted, leaving the brother age 10 behind...

To my friend whose adoptive parents didn’t allow him to have contact with his biological siblings in case he didn’t bond with his adoptive sister...

To my friend who doesn’t know how many brothers and sisters she has...

To my friend who went to meet her birth father in prison knowing he was charged with murder...

To my friend who travelled by herself to the Middle East to find relatives and answers...

To my friend who didn’t know she was Jewish until her 30s...

To my friend who sobbed his way through his first adoptee support group...

To my friend who identifies with her birth name more than her adoptive name but is too scared to change it in case it upsets anyone...

To my friend who has been caring for his elderly birth mother for years without his adoptive family knowing ...

To my friend whose adoptive family said she was weird when she came out of the fog...

To my friend who has stopped reading fiction because the adoption-insensitive landmines are everywhere ...

To my friend who only feels like her ‘non-trauma self’ after two glasses of wine but then the next day feels like she should never have been born ...

To my friend whose knows her birth mother regularly searches for her online but she hasn’t actually reached out ...

To my friend who was invited to her half-sister’s wedding but not asked to be in the family photos ...

To my friend who was told by her local authority that they couldn’t help her search as her birth mother was of ‘unusual ethnicity’ ...

To my friend who spent three weeks perfecting a letter to her birth mother but despite it being received she never heard back...

To my friend whose birth mother died without revealing the name of her birth father ...

To my friend who was told by social services to let sleeping dogs lie when she enquired about finding her first mother ...

To my friend who was told that older adoptees are making things worse for younger adoptees with all their moaning as it’s putting prospective adopters coming forward ...

To my friend who waited a year for her files to find most of it was redacted ...

To my friend who asked for medical information to be the law for adoptees and their children and was told that birth parents right to privacy is more important ...

To everyone who is handling microagressions, microrejections and more...

To everyone who has fought and battled the system and societies expectations to have difficult conversations and push for their rights to find clues to their identity and put together the pieces of their story. To everyone who has managed to find some joy from a relationship whether that’s with birth family, adoptive family or a family they have created themselves (including friends). You deserve this joy. Soak it up. And remember to always nurture your relationship with yourself.

We should not have to do this alone. We should not have to pay our own money for searching, mediation, dna tests etc or wait over a year to see our records. And this is in the UK - in other countries it’s even more difficult and sometimes impossible to ever get any information, particularly when it comes to transracial adoption.

I would love it if you felt able to add your thoughts, comments or wishes below…

Image Omar Lopez on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/@omarlopez1

National Adoption Week round-up

Thanks to everyone who attended the Voices of Adopted People: Messages for change day on Monday 18th October, the first day of National Adoption Week 2021. Thanks to PAC-UK for facilitating the day and One Adoption for supporting. Huge shout out to teammate Gilli as this was her first time speaking in public as an adoptee. Bravo Gilli!

You can now watch the How To Be Adopted talk and those of the other adoptees, including Debbie Nahid, Adoptee Futures, Zara Phillips and Adopteens.

Click the link below to watch on YouTube…

Watch the recording of the adoptee conference

(All the talks are powerful, but if you only have time to watch our skip to 40 mins.)

Some comments from the day:

Well done Claire!

Thank you Claire, so important to recognise

Well done to claire and co.

thank you for everything you do Claire and Gilli. So grateful. Your story resonates so much Gilli x

such important work,bravo ladies! Just signed up for your emails.

Brilliant both of you. Thanks so much for sharing

Thank you Claire & Gilli, great insights.

This is incredible! Thank you!

Well done Gilli!

Your story really resonates Gilli!

Just found my birth family at the age of 62, my fog has lifted

Thank you Claire and Gilly

Great to see you both and thanks for sharing and doing all you do. x

Thank you for sharing - really helpful!

Great call to action - help us campaign.

Thank you so much Claire and Gillian - so many excellent points raised. I like your mole analyogy

Sorry - mole analogy Gillian!

thank you both, and a huge thank you for your blog (I wouldn't be here at this event if I hadn't discovered it!)

Thanks so much, both Claire and Gilli. Really helpful to hear your stories and think about the life-long journey of reflection and support needed.

Thank you for sharing Gilli and Claire, about the 'fog' and lifelong impact of adoption, so valuable.

Thank u Claire and Gilly your stories of coming out of the fog - so helpful in getting a deeper understanding of how my adopted teenager feels.

thankyou very interesting and thought provoking as a practitioner in Adoption

Thank you all so much

I am in awe of you both, thank you so much.

brilliant thank you so much

Thank you Claire and Gillian, I was always brought up being told I was chosen, this I liked, it made me feel wanted and special, not previously sure I wanted to come out of the fog in fact made a conscious decision to stay in it, I have denied my adoption story as I have never had a reunion but recently realised I live in denial

HUGE thank you so much

Thank you Gilli and Claire for speaking about such a heavy topic with lovely smiles!

👏👏👏

Thank you so much, very insightful for me as an adoption social worker

Thank you so much for sharing :)

Brilliant work Claire and Gillian!! Thank you

It's also having a therapist that can ask the right questions for someone who maybe coming out of the fog.

Well done!

Thank you so much both of you its so helpful

Really interesting, lots to think about from practitioner perspective

Fantastic talk - thank you both

Thank you so much!

Thank you both Claire and Gilli.

Thank you Claire and Gillie

Thanks both - such helpful insights. I've just signed up to your newsletter.

thank you Claire and Gill

excellent morning from all of you. I believe you are recording. Great for future dissemination.

lots to think about from an adopter's perspective too, feeling almost guilty for being part of it on hearing from you guys

Thank you to everyone involved in putting on this event today. It is already brilliant, so emotional and thought - provoking - an adoption support social worker

Mind blowing. Thank you all so much

Many thanks to Debbie, Claire and Gilli - these stories are so important to hear, and you sharing them is a huge gift. We're so very grateful.

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

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 

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