The In-Between Lines project at Coram

Last week I attended a poetry night at Coram in London. The evening began with performances from several poets exploring the themes of the exhibition - heritage, identity, care experience, colourism, family and home. It ended with an open mic and a drinks reception.

This was the final event in a series which included an exhibition, a conversational panel and a panel with professionals.

When looking at the event information, this quote stood out for me:

“Over the years, I’ve struggled with feelings of anger, rage, and grief, but anxiety has always been my constant companion. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy models anxiety as ‘’intolerance of uncertainty’’. My adoption and racial identity generate precarity: not knowing how people will perceive me, what my biological family looks or sounds like, or whether my darkest days were benign or a terrible repetition of my family’s mental health history. Years of therapy helped, but it couldn’t heal the existential angst that a lack of identity creates. I felt so lost, and eventually I realised that I’d have to find a life narrative that served me.” - Anthony Lynch, age 23, one of the organisers of the In-Between Lines project

Many adoption professionals and adoptive parents have said to me/my peers that modern adoption is intrinsically different from traditional adoption. From this quote, and from attending the event, I can certainly see more similarities than some are willing to admit. In fact, creating a life narrative that serves us was one of the themes covered by Gilli Bruce in the How To Be Adopted virtual retreat in 2022.

I was blown away by the talent shown from the young people who performed their poetry during the evening. I was also very proud of Debbie Nahid from the Adult Adoptee Movement who spoke during the open mic to highlight the challenges faced by adoptees of all ages including lack of access to the adoption support fund and counselling. She echoed all our thoughts in that we wish these events existed when we were younger. Debbie also extended a hand to the younger adoptees, saying “we hold you and we can guide you”.

It was also lovely to meet many adoptees who I have met virtually on social media or chatted to via email. A recent quote from an adoptee says it so well: “ It's just so amazing talking to others whose brains are the same, and we just don't need to explain stuff!  Very humbling and also supportive!” Thank you to those I met for all your support and for attending How To Be Adopted events - so glad you’ve found them useful. One adoptee had spent the day feeding into a training project for social workers on the importance of language in adoption files - fab work and a huge emotional hangover from this work we do. Professionals take note when you ask us to input in this way! Oh, and I even met a lovely lady who discovered EMDR through this site, and is finding it helpful. Yay!

Read more about the event and follow the organisers @Inbetweenlinesexhibition on Instagram. It would great to see this event touring the UK if any adoption organisations would be able to fund this. As the young people themselves say: “The long-term goal is to form an online community of mixed and adopted creatives who can tell their stories through writing, art, photography, film, and more.”

Image taken from Coram.org

Who am I? A blog about identity from an adoptee’s perspective

Identity in adoption is a very complex matter and so many times I’ve asked myself the question, “Who am I”? This question is a seemingly straightforward one to answer, but for an adoptee it can be difficult and at times impossible. I ask myself “Who am I?” on a daily basis. It’s a reoccurring question that follows me all the time and particularly at the moment because I don’t feel like I fit in with my families. I feel lost.

For me, the concept of identity started around the age of 14 when I began to explore and fight with questions like, “Who am I?” “Where did I come from?” and “Who are my parents?” For adoptees in a closed adoption like mine, it can feel like an essential need to know the answers to these questions. But filling in the blanks is a difficult and complex process when you have no information to go by. The urge to know one’s family and ancestry is a basic human desire and I feel that identity is the centre point of self-awareness and meaning in life. In fact, according to adoptee and psychologist Betty Jean Lifton, the adoptee’s search for knowledge is, “An archetypal, Jungian yearning with profound life-changing impacts on the adoptee.”

Most non-adoptees take the answers to such questions for granted, they know enough about who they are. Adoptees, on the other hand, generally have little to no information about our cultural, genetic or medical background.  This can create the feeling of being lost and disconnected from our origins. We face a lifelong journey working out who we are in relation to our adoptive and biological families and our place within each family. We wrestle with questions such as, “Do I belong?” and “Do I matter?”

Navigating the world with a dual identity 

Finding our identity comes in different waves of emotions. For me, adoption feels like I am two people and I fluctuate between two identities. One minute I feel I am my biological identity, then my adoptive identity, and then a mixture of both. Both of my identities have their ups and their downs and are full of high emotions, discomfort, pain, loss and grief. 

I live with the family who raised me, but I often feel that there’s nothing there that connects me to who I’m meant to be. And initially I hesitated slightly when it came to my biological identity. How could even think about including that side of me when I’ve been separated from them for most of my life? Even now I don’t know them as well as I would like to, as my reunion journey has not been easy. 

However, since reconnecting with my biological mother I’m starting to open up more freely and show all sides of me. I feel I now have a stronger connection to my identity. When I talk to her I feel I am ‘the real me’, although often when these conversations are over I’m back to not feeling myself. I do want to include more of my biological family in my identity, and I will do once I feel I really matter to them. It will also help to know more about my roots, my family history and who all the different members are.

The importance of names

My biological surname has always been special and it meant even more to me after it was eliminated. Just because I haven’t used my biological surname since I was eight, doesn’t mean that part of me has disappeared. Physically it has, but emotionally and mentally it’s with me every day. It’s inside of me and only I can see that. 

Growing up, I intertwined my two surnames into who I was as a person, but my biological surname always came first because I felt that was who I was. I felt my biological surname was very special. The only other person I knew who had that surname was Formula 1 driver Jenson Button and so growing up I made sure I never missed an F1 race on the TV! 

The importance of photos and stories

Another aspect of identity for me is being able to see photos from when I was very young. When I saw so many pictures of me as a baby it was very special and emotional. I’d been waiting so long to see pictures of me as an infant! Previously I felt that the first three and a bit years of my life existed – but not in their entirety. Each new photograph I see helps to build a sense of who I am.  

I also love to hear stories of when I was a baby. My maternal aunt told me one of these stories when I met her and it meant so much to me. To others these details may seem insignificant, but for me I treasure anything I hear about my past.

Who we look like

While I was growing up I hated looking in mirrors, as I didn’t resemble anyone. Looking in a mirror just accentuated the fact that I was adopted and I looked like a stranger.  I found looking in mirrors hard and it was something I avoided. 

When I began my reunion journey, I thought I really don’t mind who I look like, I just want to be able to look at my biological family and say, “Yes I can see you in me”. 

But when I met my biological mother, I found it difficult that I didn’t look like her. No matter how many times I saw her and her family, I couldn’t see me in them. Instead, they kept saying I looked like my biological father and this drove me a bit mad. I think this led to me wanting to see my biological father because I wanted to resemble somebody and see my genetic features in another person. When I finally saw him it was obvious I was his daughter – I look a lot like him and have certain characteristics from my paternal family. I hope one day I will be able to see myself in my maternal family too.

How identity shifts after reunion

After reunion I had to try and figure out a new identity for myself in order to feel calm and relaxed. It took three years to work out who I am now, and what identity means to me as an adoptee. I recently completed an Ancestry DNA test because I didn’t want to keep navigating the world as ‘a mystery’.

I’ve spent my whole life trying to figure out if I belong anywhere in this world. That may sound harsh, but it’s the reality of the adoption experience, which is often not fun at all. We have to fight to figure out our past and build our identity and that’s why it’s so important to us. 

I hope by sharing this with you today it will help others who are going through a hard time or struggling. I hope you will find comfort in reading my story and knowing you are not alone.

Danielle 

 Photo by Tachina Lee on Unsplash

Finding my voice through adoption blogging

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

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

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

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

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

Speaker at One Adoption conference on identity and contact

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

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

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

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

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

First Facebook Live, thanks Al and Scott

AdopteesOn inteview

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

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

Celebrating this milestone, thank you Haley

What’s coming up in year four?

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

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

Finding the pieces - an adoptee's journey to feeling whole

I hope you enjoy this moving and inspiring guest blog from adoptee Gilli Bruce.

——————-

Finding the pieces of your jigsaw is one thing… you also need some glue.

As an adoptee I felt like a hotch potch of pieces, many pieces were missing, some were broken and some were from the wrong box all together. My attempt to piece together my fractured identity started quite late, I was 43 before I could steel myself to brave it.

Childless, an only child and in a decidedly dodgy second marriage – the need to literally pull myself / my ‘self’ together grew too strong to remain marginalised in my sub-conscious. By this point the missing pieces, blanks and questions had gathered enough collective force to propel me into action.  

All that - and the pain of course. Up until then I’d squashed down the emotional turmoil and buried it under the pile of nonsense, cultural myth and family legend that insisted I was lucky to be adopted. There are many different tales and chapters in my adoption story – but this short account deals with the aspect of ‘pieces’.

If you are raised with your birth family – it is taken as established fact that you get trait A from this person, feature B from her, talent C from him – this ailment from her and so on and every one in your family knows these things too – so you belong. Being adopted in 1962 – I knew nothing. Nada. Zilch. I minimised the need to find my ‘pieces’ telling myself; “I’ll just find the bit about my medical history – fill the information void so I can answer doctors’ questions, see what’s in the blood that I should know about.”

Secretly I wanted ALL the pieces – every last scrap that could tell me who I am, every clue that could complete the puzzle and help me to feel whole, I just couldn’t admit it even to myself. The fear of not being able to find anyone or anything was too real and the fear of being rejected again – unthinkable, so ‘I’ll just go for medical details’ felt like the safest route forwards. And still……

Massively curious by nature anyway (who does that come from?) I wanted to know whose nose I have. Whose genes gave me this unruly hair? Whose sense of rhythm has me up on the dance floor at the first opportunity? Whose love of colour draws me to art and design? And who’s to blame for my weird digestive system that makes me need to eat painfully slowly? None of these aspects were from my adoptive family. I was different. I didn’t fit.

Bigger questions such as ‘What the hell happened?’ Have you thought about me AT ALL?’ ‘What were you bloody THINKING of?’ would come later and belong to a different account - at the beginning these were still buried.

I really believed that finding these genetic pieces would make me feel whole – bring some  sense of who I am….if I could just find who I’m meant to belong to I’ll be all fixed I thought. Again way down in the sub-conscious was an idea that went something like…’ I will find this family, we’ll all bond and I will belong to them and all will be well’.

I hadn’t factored in that pieces don’t just stick together on their own – you need some glue. In families that glue comes from early infant bonding and shared history – naively, impatient to belong immediately I didn’t really acknowledge that, I had no genetic belonging experience to refer to.

So – finding the pieces as I did, was and is a wonderful and helpful thing – it WAS a good start – but I was disappointed (this sounds a bit bonkers now) at the start of my family finding - to NOT feel magically transformed. I realise now that at that first starting point when we all met, we didn’t really know if we all wanted to belong to each other, to even BE bonded. The glue was still in the shop. We hadn’t even set off to town to buy it – we weren’t certain we wanted it. But, really quite quickly I did piece together the picture:

• Nose – Birth Father 

• Unruly hair – An Aunt 

• Sense of rhythm – Birth Father

• Love of colour / art – Birth Mother

• Weird digestion – Birth Father 

Now, 12 years later, I have nice relationships with both birth parents (we get together a few times a year) and I have 4 siblings; 2 lovely brothers and 2 amazing sisters, a wonderful brother-in-law, great nieces and nephews – all lovely people. So by now, I now know where a fair bit of ‘me’ comes from:

• Being something of an organiser – Birth Mother

• Being sensitive and needing of solitude – Birth Father

• Being independent, strong and determined – Birth Mother

• Being a gentle, softy too – Birth Father  

• Being madly affectionate and tactile – both sides of my birth family – all cuddlers (no wonder it was tough growing up with non-cuddlers)

• Being a mad animal lover – an Uncle and Sister too

And so it goes on and we are all still learning. The younger of my two brothers sees his mother in my gestures, the elder of my two sisters sees her sensitivity in me and we see each other’s vulnerability in each other. I saw myself at 17 in a photograph of my younger sister they showed me of her at 17 – I actually thought they’d somehow got a picture of me in an outfit I couldn’t remember!

The stories of the search, the finding and meeting along with the aspects of finding my birth family that have been tough are for another time. My early years, the rebellion, the mad times in the fog, the life lived on the run all have some value in the sharing along with a life lived as a joyful soul who has been successful and had lots of fun despite it all.

Thanks go to my birth family for welcoming me back and their willingness to keep on building and bonding with me, for this is what I learned – the pieces of information did help but the glue was time. Time and shared history, commitment and patience allow me to share that today I have a soul-mate relationship with my elder sister who I’d choose as a dear friend even if we weren’t related.  My younger brother is wonderful, he and I are building our closeness when we get chance and I value his presence in my life. It seems we had to make some shared pieces and create our own glue along the way – the ‘Superglue quick fix’ simply isn’t available for human bonding.

As for feeling more whole – I realise that actually in the end – that was down to me. The King’s horses and the King’s men couldn’t put this Humpty together again – I had to do it myself. 

I now have a solid sense of self that became actualised through the process of fighting to find my records, pushing on when it was tough, working with tenacity to reach career goals, caring for myself with costly therapy and finding a non-religious spiritual practice. I’ve worked hard to create lasting friendships, a lovely relationship and found what works for me through sheer hard work. So in being my own best friend I am finally standing on solid ground, feeling mostly whole, most of the time which feels like some kind of ‘normal’ whatever that is.

—————————

Deep thanks to Gilli for sharing this moving and inspiring piece. I think many of us can relate to the feeling of squashing things down until such a time when it feels unavoidable and necessary. I also relate to Gilli’s description of the bonding challenges created by adoption reunion. I’d love to know what you think, and I will pass all comments on to Gilli. Thanks for reading x

 Photo credit: "031 - Irony" by Del Amitri is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

What is life story work and why does it matter?

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

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

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

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

Capturing a child’s life story

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

1. A treasure trove box

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

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

2)    A “trove” app

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

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

Object attachment - building key chapters of your story

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

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

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

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

Your story matters in shaping who you become

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

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

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

Ideas for adult adoptees

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Questions to ask to build a sense of identity

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

My favourite flavour of ice cream is -

My favourite colour is -

I like to read books about -

My favourite type of music is -

I like movies about -

My favourite actor is -

My favourite TV show is -

I prefer baths/showers -

My favourite flower is -

My favourite tree is -

My favourite sport is

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

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

Spirituality means ______ to me. -

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

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

More info about the trove project

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

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