Every year, I struggled with this Day. Nobody knew. Not one person. Not a teacher, nor my parents, nor my extended family, nor my friends.
Recently Colin Kaepernick has spoken about his experiences growing up as an adoptee of colour. The thing which distinguishes his and so many other adoptions is that his adopters are white. The sad fact is that there are a disproportionate number of children of colour in the system and available for adoption. Take a look […]
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Adoptees and Therapy
What cannot be talked about cannot be put to rest. And if it is not, the wounds will fester from generation to generation. –Bruno Bettleheim Bettleheim could easily be talking about adoptees – I have asked myself these questions many times, with good reason: I am an adoptee and a therapist. It is every adoptee’s […]
Statement by Adult Adoptee Movement Friday 3 March, 2023 There is nothing new in the government’s response and even less of value. The only change they are proposing is one they are already consulting on. To say we have had the opportunity to have our voices and experiences heard and to then do precisely nothing […]
Plenary adoption is what is generally meant when we talk about adoption. It is the legal mechanism by which a child is placed permanently into a family and becomes the child of a new parent or parents. In the UK, the original birth information is placed on the Adoption Register, a sealed record which the […]
Genetic mirroring is being able to see yourself in the family that surrounds you because of your shared DNA, something adoptees are denied
How do we come to recognise that we are traumatised? At what point in your life do you allow yourself to be excused—and to excuse yourself—because you finally realise you have The Trauma? When I say ‘finally’ I mean that as adoptees we have lived our lives thinking that we were ‘not quite right’ because […]
Adoption makes people uncomfortable. If you mention you are adopted you generally get one of two responses: a slight look of horror and a quick subject change, or a tilted head “poor you”. I get it. Adoption is complicated and you don’t want to put your foot in it. Of more concern are those who […]
I am an adoptee born in 1974 and adopted 8 weeks later. I speak from lived experience of inheriting a genetic condition, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS) from my first mother but only discovering this in my 40s. I’m 49. When I look back at my life up to now, I can pinpoint times that I […]
When I was a teenager my mother told me I was not her biological daughter. I had been fostered but she refused to tell me who I was and where I came from. Social services knew I had been deceived throughout my childhood but they did not tell me the truth. I felt sad and […]