It’s no secret that adoption impacts every adopted person differently. When sharing my story, I describe my separation trauma and relinquishment experience before I was adopted as three separate layers of the primal wound and mother wound:
The rejection from my birth mother before I was born.
The abandonment and rejection I received from her at birth.
The rejection and abandonment I experienced from her after I searched and found her.
They all come with their own set of layered pain, and they all have impacted me immensely in every area of my life. We must distinguish the difference in all three, as they are different dynamics to the lived adoptee experience.
I am so thankful I have arrived at a place of healing, and I have learned so many lifelong lessons along the way. While I believe all the articles I have written over the last decade are beneficial in many ways, it’s not until the last year that I feel my articles come from a more well-rounded space. My anger and rage have subsided. While I still feel those feelings and consider them natural feelings to the lifelong adoptee experience, my messages are better received and come across as more informative.
I’m not sure how much research you have done on the prenatal bonding experience that a mother and child experience before their baby is born? That was one of the many areas I wanted to dive into because I know this time in my pre-verbal and prenatal life didn’t go as planned.
What do I mean?
I was conceived out of an affair with a married man, and he was a close friend of the family, at least ten years older than my biological mother. Unfortunately, my biological mother chose to give me up for adoption. After spending a lifetime searching for clues to my story, I genuinely believe that she rejected the pregnancy, including me, before I ever entered the world.
This is entirely different from being rejected and abandoned after entering the world. But, at the same time, they are all very significant dynamics to the adoptee experience.
I wrote an article titled “My Birth Mother’s Shoes,” and in this article, I had to dissect my birth mother’s life and get to the bottom of her story. Why? Because I wanted to take my anger, rage, and pain and bring some understanding and compassion into the picture. This is one of the most powerful steps to healing for adoptees.
I wrote:
“I learned that my birth mother was never seen without a drink in her hand, even throughout her pregnancy with me. She was considered an alcoholic by those close to her, and they told me stories about her life that helped me better understand her. During the 20 years of silence from her, I was angry. I was hurt. I was rage-filled, and alcohol was the only thing that made a bit of a dent in navigating through this pain. It didn’t help me process anything, but it helped me not feel the truth.”
One of the worst parts for an adopted individual is that we’re dealing with roadblocks to receiving our truth every step of the way. Some of us never find it at all, and others gather fragments of clues over a 40-50-60 year span, and we barely arrive at a place of understanding after our life is well over half over. (if we’re lucky) Some of us have spent every bit of our lives feeling incomplete, lost, and filled with mental torment because living in the unknown is a tremendous burden.
What does this have to do with being rejected before being born?
Once we can assess the truth of our stories BEFORE THE GRAND ENTRANCE into the world, it helps us form conclusions on why things are the way they are and why our biological mothers chose to give us up for adoption. It gives a glimpse of her era and how things were in her life.
This information is critical to the healing of the adoptee experience.
Every tiny clue matters!
Once I knew that my biological mother drank alcohol the entire pregnancy with me, it was like the lights flipped on. I knew at that moment that she couldn’t possibly bond with the baby in her belly for nine months. So she actually likely and purposely emotionally and mentally blocked any bonding out, and alcohol was the primary way she was able to do this.
She was a sick woman long before I ever came into the world or was conceived. I had empathy and compassion for her and learned that her biggest problem was her alcohol use which ultimately killed her in her 60s.
While I have been able to acknowledge and accept that she didn’t bond with me in utero but likely discouraged such bonding before I was born, I can’t deny this hasn’t had a lifelong impact on my life. Did I bond with her even when she couldn’t bond with me? Perhaps, I would like to think so, but that doesn’t change the dynamic of me feeling, knowing, and instinctively realizing that she didn’t bond with me. It takes two to bond, so I can safely say I believe I just answered my question.
Many people aren’t aware that this is even a thing, but I tell you, it is. While trying to piece my journey together to assess this dynamic, I have purposely researched how vital prenatal bonding is with our biological mothers and the post-natal bonding experience. I wanted to dive into this so I could understand myself better. For my fellow adoptees reading, I encourage you to do the same.
While we already know the bond that was broken when I was born and separated from my birth mother and how it impacts every area of the adoptee’s life. This is the same for anyone separated from their biological mothers because this is a traumatic experience for all. Therefore, I encourage you to research Attachment Theory and learn about the implications of being separated from your biological mothers at the beginning of life.
“Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis suggests that continual disruption of the attachment between infant and primary caregiver (i.e., mother) could result in long-term cognitive, social, and emotional difficulties for that infant. Bowlby originally believed the effects to be permanent and irreversible.”
What’s also shared:
“John Bowlby, working alongside James Robertson (1952), observed that children experienced intense distress when separated from their mothers. Even when such children were fed by other caregivers, this did not diminish the child’s anxiety.”
They found three progressive stages of distress:
Protest: The child cries, screams and protests angrily when the parent leaves. They will try to cling on to the parent to stop them leaving.
Despair: The child’s protesting begins to stop, and they appear to be calmer although still upset. The child refuses others’ attempts for comfort and often seems withdrawn and uninterested in anything.
Detachment: If separation continues, the child will start to engage with other people again. They will reject the caregiver on their return and show strong signs of anger.
I believe in the reality that mothers aren’t interchangeable. I do believe, at times, a substitute mother can come into play, as in our adoptive mothers; however, the bond is nothing like that of the bond we are supposed to have with our biological mothers. I feel once the damage is done with the broken bond, nothing can repair it, and it can and does impact every area of our lives.
Research foster youth, foster adults, and adopted youth and adopted adults and see how the prison system, jails, treatment, and mental health facilities are over-populated with these individuals. Unfortunately, this is the reality of the aftermath of the primal wound and separation trauma. I could do the research for you, but I already have, and I encourage you to do the same.
But what happens when we are rejected before we are even born?
Rubin, a nurse specializing in maternity care doing doctoral work at the University of Chicago, perhaps laid the foundation for a theoretical construct of attachment that begins before birth states:
“She identified four specific tasks the women she observed navigated before childbirth: (1) Seeking safe passage for self and baby, (2) ensuring that the baby is accepted by significant others, (c) “binding-in” 3, and (4) giving of herself. These tasks formed a framework for her conceptualization of the psychological experience of pregnancy and, although she did not use the term “attachment,” Ruben states: “By the end of the second trimester, the pregnant woman becomes so aware of the child within her and attaches so much value to him that she possesses something very dear, very important to her, something that gives her considerable pleasure and pride.”
We can all acknowledge that this process of prenatal bonding can likely be interrupted when it comes to the feelings our biological mothers have about us when they are pregnant due to the very nature of the pregnancy outcome, I think this is noteworthy to investigate each adoptee’s experience.
I know that this dynamic in my journey has helped me understand myself. Yes, it was a hard pill to swallow that I believe my birth mother rejected the pregnancy and, in return, rejected me for the nine months she carried me. However, acknowledging this and accepting it as part of my story has brought me great healing and understanding of why I am the way I am.
If I’m candid and transparent, I feel broken because of this severed bond. Not only did my birth mother reject the pregnancy, but she abandoned me and rejected me after she gave birth. So while they are two separate things, I have often tried to take myself back to the days when I was in the womb and to try to process the feelings of my preborn self, to get to the bottom of what I might be feeling; at that time? Any chance of repair with her was shattered, because once I found her she rejected a relationship with me. Unfortunately, in my case this only added insult to injury setting me up for the biggest disappointment of my life.
In utero, I could likely feel the warmth of her body, but her coldness towards me was also felt. I could feel her desire to “get it over with” regarding the delivery and pregnancy altogether. I could feel her disdain and shame for conceiving a baby out of wedlock in 1974 and becoming pregnant by a friend of the family who was older than her and was married at the time.
I could taste the alcohol she drank daily as any attempt to dull the pain. What did that alcohol do to me every day of my life for the nine months she carried me? One can only speculate. She never sang to me; she never embraced my touch or the growth of her growing belly. Instead, her feelings of badness transferred into my tiny body, and I was born with the feelings of being bad that stayed with me most of my life.
While this all seems like a lot for an adoptee to navigate, walk through, and process, I can share that even when learning these things has been excruciatingly painful, it’s helped me heal.
I want to emphasize that it is critically important for every adopted person to know the whole truth about their beginnings and the story of conception. We need to know it, we deserve to know it, and it is life or death for us. Can you imagine not knowing who brought you into the world and not knowing your conception and birth stories?
I know you can’t because it’s unimaginable. But, it’s also inhumane to expect any human being to live through this painful and traumatic experience rooted in shame, secrecy, and lies. So, why are adopted adults still paying the price for others’ decisions and outdated laws from the baby scoop era?
While I hope this article sheds some light on the different layers of the adoptee experience regarding separation trauma and prenatal bonding, I encourage you to do your research and dig as deep as possible to uncover your truth. The truth holds the keys to acceptance and, ultimately, healing.
Let me also share that no one handed me this information. Therefore, it was up to me to fight the closed adoption laws and raise hell until I got my truth! Even when I was lied to my whole life, and I had people deliberately throw shade to discourage me from ever learning my truth, I kept pushing anyway. This is what I call THE FIGHT OF MY LIFE which is an article I wrote to describe what this struggle has been like.
For my fellow adoptees, have you been able to learn the truth of your conception? Do you feel like you bonded with your birth mother before you were born, and do you think she rejected the pregnancy? How do you think this impacted you?
Have you ever processed through this layer of the adoptee experience? If so, what did you uncover?If you haven’t, is it by choice, or are you lacking the information needed?
*The views and opinions expressed in this article and podcast are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova
Many of you have heard of the term “Gotcha Day” over the years, and it seems like it isn’t going anywhere. For those new to this term, Gotcha Day is a day our adoptive parents have picked to celebrate, reflecting the day our adoptions are finalized.
While I think many of them might have good intentions, this term is problematic for many reasons. I write this article to offer another viewpoint from an adult adoptee. I don’t wish to throw anyone under the bus if you choose to celebrate this day. While I have read many articles written by adoptive parents, why they choose to celebrate this day, and even an article or two from a biological mother, I have not read an article focused on an adoptee’s perspective.
I decided to share my feelings on this topic in this article. Let me be frank, my adoptive parents didn’t celebrate this day, and I am exceptionally thankful for this. However, after building relationships with adoptees worldwide for over a decade, I have experienced a lot of thoughts on “Gotcha Day.”
One dynamic that I would like to bring to light is that any child enjoys a celebration 99.9% of the time. If our adoptive parents decide to celebrate “Gotcha Day,” the adopted child is along for the ride. Kids don’t generally turn away from a party. This is when our grooming to celebrate the day we are adopted begins. Celebrating this day as a child might feel good.
Our adoptive parents have all the power to celebrate or not celebrate the day we legally became adopted. While they likely see no issue with it when we are children, we must not forget the adopted child grows up.
In 2018 I completed a poll on the How Does it Feel to Be Adopted? page and the question were for adoptees, and it said, “Adoptees, Are you in favor of the term “Gotcha Day?”
377 adoptees responded, and 95% said that “No” they were not in favor of the term Gotcha Day.
You read that right, 95%!
Adult Adoptee, Sarah says:
“I DESPISE it. It was referred to as my ‘Gotcha Day” and always involved a present, much like a birthday. It symbolized a day that sealed my fate of never returning to my biological family. Having it celebrated felt like my adoptive family was disregarding my biological family and my feelings about not being with them. My adoptive mom still celebrates it and brings me a present which I usually throw in the closet for months before opening, or I give it back to her.”
Another Adult Adoptee, Chris, says:
“My family did not celebrate it as I was growing up. I don’t care for the term “gotcha,” as it does feel like ownership. And while I understand that it may be a cause for celebration for the adoptive parents, it’s also a day of loss for the adoptee, even if they are not aware of the loss.”
While I can completely understand the feelings of these two adoptees, I share similar sentiments. I feel that if I were in a position to celebrate this day as a child with the terminology “Gotcha Day,” it would be a dehumanizing experience I likely wouldn’t fully understand as a child.
As an adult, I feel it belittles what someone separated from their biological mother has to lose to become an adopted person. It glosses over the reality we all experience. Do those who celebrate this day understand what we lost before they “GOT US?” Our biological mother and father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers, ancestry, culture, language, medical history, memories, and the list could go on.
I personally would be mortified and resentful if my adoptive parents groomed me to celebrate this day. For me, it was the day I lost everything! To be expected to celebrate it, would be a cruel thing to have to do and I find it insensitive to be encouraged to do so.
Our lives don’t begin the moment we are adopted.
So we have a [his]-story and a [her]-story, which are essential to our lives and experiences. So celebrating “Gotcha Day” solely focuses on the day we are adopted and not what we lost to get to that point.
Some families are using “Adoption Day” or “Family Day” instead of the dreaded “Gotcha Day.” While I respect the need to want to celebrate such a wonderful day in the new family, I must share that no matter how you slice it, you can’t deny the reality of what the adoptee lost to gain a new family.
I say we get rid of these celebrations altogether.
However, if you decide to host them, let’s be honest and have a day of mourning the day before or the same day, so we equally acknowledge all the adopted person has to lose before the adoption ever takes place. If we’re authentic, honest, and accurate, we must acknowledge this as part of the adoptee story, and it happens FIRST.
The sooner an adoptee begins to grieve the losses they have experienced, the better. Therefore, I suggest all adoptive parents become experts in The Grief Recovery Method for kids and learn as much as they can as an adoptive parents and apply it to the adopted child’s life. In addition, finding an adoptee-competent therapist would be beneficial to all involved.
I hope this helps clear up how adopted adults feel about celebrating the day we were adopted, specifically “Gotcha Day.” It’s particularly despised in the adoptee community. I genuinely believe that once we know better, we do better, so I hope this article shares some insight that can be helpful.
To my fellow adoptees, what are your thoughts on this topic? Did you celebrate “Gotcha Day” and if so, how do you feel about it now? For those who didn’t celebrate it, how do you feel about the term and celebrating adoption day?
Thanks for reading and listening! Pamela A. Karanova
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova
“All children are a gift from God,” – Says the world.
I believe this is part of the reason our adoptive parents refer to us as gifts; however, to refer to each adopted individual as a gift would insinuate that children are owned by someone who then bestows the gift upon a receiver and that this person is now the owner of the property being gifted.
I think people likely mean well; however, sometimes, they don’t understand the layers and depths of their words when explaining and exploring the different dynamics of the adoption and adoptee experience. Sometimes people can say things that are well intended, but the reality is that they can be hurtful to adoptees. On the other hand, sometimes, a little enlightenment on a topic can go a long way.
Let me get straight to the point. Children are free individuals, and no one possesses them in a way that they would be in a position to “give one” to someone else as a gift. Being your parent’s responsibility is entirely different from being their property.
Having my own experience with adoption and hearing the experiences of my fellow adoptees for over a decade, many of us feel as if we are referred to as a monetary possession when hearing from our adoptive parents and others. This comes off as a reflection of “ownership” to many of us.
However, when most of us are paid for with a cash price, is when the reality of our feelings gets magnified even more considerably. Not to mention the lifelong reminders we get from those around us and the families we grow up in.
The feelings of being referred to as a gift imply ownership, entitlement, and possession are many ways adopted people feel in our experiences with our adoptive parents and others. I now consider this line of thinking linked to adoptive parent parental narcissism.
Nevertheless, as if feeling this was not enough, many adoptees are expected to celebrate “Gotcha Day” or “Adoption Day” and referred to as a “Gift” as if the loss we experience before we are adopted does not count for anything. I will be writing about this soon.
We are expected to feel thankful and grateful that our adoptive parents took us in when our biological families did not want us. Assuming that an adopted child or adult should be more grateful and thankful than a biological child can be an epic failure in acknowledging and recognizing what that person had to experience to be adopted, to begin with. Expecting us to be more thankful or grateful than another person on earth is an unrealistic expectation placed on us.
Our biological connections matter to us and presuming that their loss doesn’t exist causes tremendous grief and pain for the adopted person, on top of the loss we already experience, and it’s not helpful.
Unfortunately, society at large and most of our adoptive parents have not left room for us to share our feelings because they assume we should be thankful and grateful. While many adoptees have not come to a place of sharing their true feelings, many of us are blazing the trailways and sharing how adoption has impacted us and made us feel.
I remember as a teen, I would have new friends or a new boyfriend, and my adoptive mom would suddenly act as if she had new friends and a new boyfriend. She would ask questions and want me to tell her everything about them and my life. She rarely had friends of her own, and she never had a boyfriend as she and my adoptive dad divorced when I was one year old. She did not have her own life and lived through me and mine.
I would constantly tell my adoptive mom to “Stay out of my business” when it seemed like she was constantly overstepping. Being a teenager, I thought she was just a nosey parent; however, when this carried over into my adult life is when I knew something was not right.
One of the phrases I heard throughout my childhood and adult life from my adoptive mom was, “Your life is my life, and everything that has to do with you is my business!” Anytime she would say this to me, it would strike a chord profoundly. Unfortunately, I had no healthy examples in my life of what a mother and daughter were supposed to be like, so I grew up thinking this was normal.
As I grew into my teen and adult years, I would still hear, “Your life is my life, and everything that has to do with you is my business.”
In my childhood, I also remember hearing “you were my greatest gift,” like a broken record about my biological mother giving me up for adoption and my adoptive mom sharing her elated feelings about this decision. Ultimately, my birth mother chose not to parent, which allowed my adoptive mom’s dreams to come true to be a mother.
But, while she celebrated, I suffered in silence as many adoptees do. As soon as her feelings of happiness came into the conversation, there was no room for my sadness about this woman who was gone, to whom I was very much connected. So while I believe she had no idea how damaging this would be, I am here to share that it was indeed damaging.
An adopted person is usually paid for with a cash price, so our sentiments being referred to as a gift will likely be different than a biological child or a child that wasn’t paid for with monetary value. It makes us feel like a monetary possession. Yet, too often than not, we’re expected to be glad that someone on this earth cared enough about us that they created GoFundMe and received loans from family and friends to purchase us as if that wouldn’t impact us at some point in life.
I completed a poll on the How Does it Feel to Be Adopted? Page in 2015 asking adoptees if they were okay with being referred to as a gift. I had 378 adopted people respond, with 88% saying that “NO” they aren’t okay with being referred to as a gift. Can we consider this when we speak about adopted children and adults moving forward?
I would like to think that it counts for something significant that 88% of adoptees are not okay with being referred to as a gift, which implies ownership of a whole human being. Can we at least be sensitive that this is a problem and have the willingness to consider changing our language in adoption?
When I think of the children I brought into the world, they are my children, but they are also their own individual people. While I didn’t pay for them with a $45,000.00 cash price, I still do not refer to them as a gift because of the weight of ownership this implies.
One of the most amazing things I have received was from a friend, Frank Ligtvoet. He shared the song “On Children” by Sweet Honey In The Rock, and I wanted to share it. I think this song is powerful in so many ways. I would like to think it could be applied to the lives of those who wish to accept, acknowledge and appreciate that none of us own our kids. They are sons and daughters of the universe and the world itself. Adopted or not, this is a powerful reminder that no one has ownership over another, and no human being is a GIFT of monetary possession. Can we acknowledge that things ring differently for adopted people? Even with well-intended circumstances, adopted people are not okay with feeling like they are possessions and gifts.
It’s time our language and thoughts match up with this reality.
Take a listen below!
For my fellow adoptees, have you been referred to as a gift or felt as if you were a possession? If so, how did that make you feel?
*The views and opinions expressed in this article and podcast are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova
I am learning and growing to understand all the layers of the adoption experience from an adult adoptee’s perspective. I am entirely open to learning and growing in my experience, my story, and the stories of my fellow adoptees, intercountry adoptees, and/or multiracial adoptees.
Recently, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who is an intercountry adoptee, and the conversation was striking to me. She shared a piece with me I had never thought about before, and with this, I learned something very significant that I feel we should all understand, so I felt the need to share it in this article.
When most people think of adoption, they think of a “blessing” or a “wonderful outcome” for a child who was not wanted by their biological parents. Rarely do they know the other side of the coin, the reality of what adoption is, how separation trauma impacts us and what adoption feels like from the adoptee’s lens.
Some adoptees might be fortunate enough to receive the “picture perfect” adoption story; however, all the adoptees I know who could sympathize with this scenario still have deep-rooted issues that stem from the separation from their biological mother and adoption experience. Unfortunately, I have not met one who doesn’t, and I have been connecting with adoptees worldwide for over a decade now.
Let’s get straight to the reason behind writing this article.
Relinquish – voluntarily cease to keep or claim; give up.
Voluntary – done, given, or acting of one’s own free will.
Separation – the act or process of separating: the state of being separated.
When I first began to emerge out of the fog from my adoption experience, I learned that the classification of referring to my experience as “Adoption Trauma” was something I could wholeheartedly relate to. My adoption experience did indeed traumatize me.
However, it’s vital that I also recognize that the separation from my biological mother has also traumatized me. While many already know this, anytime a mother and a child are separated for any reason, a trauma occurs. This separation is classified as a traumatic experience and can cause a host of issues for the duration of the adoptee’s life. While we can undoubtedly suggest that the separation trauma from our biological mothers is traumatic indeed, it impacts us all at different levels.
Over the years, I have learned that some adoptees have gravitated towards a well-rounded adoption experience, and many of us struggle every step of the way. Sometimes we’re somewhere in the middle of a complex adoption experience with varying emotions and experiences. One thing is for sure; no two adoptee stories are alike. I learned at the beginning of my healing journey that a lot of times, the adoption experience is lumped into one extensive experience; however, I view the separation from my biological mother as one traumatic experience and my adoption from my adoptive parents as a separate traumatic experience.
When we say “ADOPTION TRAUMA,” when we speak about our experiences, I feel like we are speaking about the experience of our adoptive parents adopting us because this event happens AFTER WE ARE SEPARATED from our biological mothers for whatever reason. It begins at the moment we are ADOPTED. But what about the traumatic experience of separation that happens first?
While I think the adoption community means well, I see a significant issue with lumping these events together as one. Suppose you research separation trauma, mother and baby bonding and what happens when that bond is disrupted, and attachment theory. In that case, you will quickly learn of all the traumatic layers of losing a person’s biological mother. A baby can be fresh out of the womb, a toddler, or a preteen. Separation from our biological mothers will always create a wound, also known as the primal or mother wound. This wound is the greatest wound of our lives for many of us. For others, they aren’t so profoundly impacted by it.
But, again, it impacts each of us differently. Still, the extreme end of the spectrum is where I have found myself to be, and the most significant source of my heartbreak, grief, loss, and pain is undoubtedly the separation and loss of my biological mother. This is just my experience as I see it over a decade of coming out of the fog from my adoption experience. I don’t claim to know it all, but I have gained snippets of knowledge and understanding along the way.
While the term separation can describe anyone who has been separated from their biological mothers, relinquishment can not. I have learned that many adoptees don’t know if they were relinquished or stolen, which changes everything regarding how we speak about and view the adoptee experience. Being separated from our biological mothers is different from being adopted by our adoptive parents.
Totally different!
When speaking of my own story, I sometimes say relinquishment trauma when speaking of the primal wound or mother wound, but that’s because I know I wasn’t stolen. Instead, I know my biological mother chose to relinquish me.
When I speak of adoption trauma, I am speaking of the trauma I experienced AFTER separation from my biological mother and paperwork was finalized with my adoptive family and what happened moving forward. But, again, both are very separate things, and both hold very different experiences!
When I speak as a whole about other adoptees being separated from their biological mothers, I tend to gravitate towards separation trauma (instead of relinquishment trauma) because I don’t know if all adoptees were relinquished or not. We can’t assume all adopted people were relinquished. Many were stolen and sold on the black market and other various ways.
And even when adoptees are relinquished, a lot of the time, the biological mothers didn’t voluntarily give their babies up. Instead, they were often coerced and conditioned, which is a form of gaslighting and manipulation that leads them to feel the shame and guilt many feel, which leads to adoption.
Some might use the term “Surrender” when speaking of the separation of a mother and a baby. That means “to cease resistance to an enemy opponent and submit to their authority,” however that doesn’t align with the possibility that there is an UNKNOWN area where a baby could be a stolen baby.
Adoption Trauma, Separation Trauma, and Relinquishment Trauma all mean different things. I wanted to highlight this because I see “Adoption Trauma” used more and more. When I think a lot of the time, “Separation Trauma” is better fitting for what the person is trying to explain.
Not all adoptees feel like adoption traumatized them, and not all adoptees feel like separation from their biological mothers traumatized them. We all write our own stories based on what we know and our experiences in life with our adoption journeys. I want to spark conversations with this article and thoughts that will shed light on this topic for anyone that hasn’t thought of these dynamics.
I say, “Relinquishment trauma, compacted by adoption trauma,” when it comes to MY STORY, which fits me the best regarding my story. It’s no doubt that no matter how you slice it, Separation Trauma, Relinquishment Trauma, AND Adoption Trauma are all very traumatic experiences. However, it is good to distinguish between them when we communicate our experiences to articulate our messages more clearly and defined.
Adoptees, How do you refer to the separation from your biological mother?
Have you been able to learn if you were stolen or relinquished?
How do you refer to your adoption experience or the experience of others who have been separated from their biological mothers and adopted?
Do you use “Adoption Trauma” across the board, or do you distinguish the two as separate experiences?
I am curious about others’ thoughts on this topic.
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova
Wow, at how many times I’ve heard people whispering these sentiments as I walk on by with a giant-sized adoptee chip on my shoulder. I couldn’t even begin to count, but it’s a lot. Even when they don’t say it directly to me, I feel it.
But the truth of the matter is that if we’re being honest and transparent, a trauma occurs before every adoption occurs when we experience the separation from our biological mothers. Even when adoptees are removed from dire situations and taken into foster care to more safe environments, the trauma of separation is still present. Because of this trauma, every adoptee can equate separating from our biological mothers as a bad adoption experience.
Some of us have awful experiences after we are adopted, and some have wonderful ones. But, of course, no two adoption stories are alike. Still, one thing for certain is that before every adoption occurs, the trauma of separation from our biological mothers occurs first.
The world pretends that separation trauma doesn’t exist in adoption. They gloss over it and even celebrate it. But then, they sweep it under the rug, ignore it and act like it doesn’t exist. Yet, the separation trauma is genuine and the root of every adoptee’s experience.
Some adopted people don’t even understand or realize that this trauma can impact every area of their lives. Unfortunately, most of the world doesn’t acknowledge it or recognize it either. If they truly knew, would they still celebrate every adopted person’s trauma, not leaving room for the realities of the heartache every adoptee experiences before they are ever adopted?
When we know better, we do better. At least we hope that is the plan.
My reason for sharing this article is to highlight that we must acknowledge and recognize as a society that separation trauma is a real thing, and it hurts. Separation trauma always happens before the adoption takes place. When I write, I try to distinguish that the SEPARATION is TRAUMA. And while we can speak about adoption being trauma, for some of us, it can be. But separation trauma is a separate thing. It’s essential to identify them as separate events in our lives.
No matter who my biological mother was, how she was, or what she wasn’t, she was my biological mother. And no matter what the reasons were for our separation, it caused me a lot of heartache to lose her. But unfortunately, the world and my adoptive parents swept it under the rug because that is what everyone is told to do. We’re blank slates. But let me share a part of how the separation trauma showed up in my life.
At 12, I started drinking alcohol, and I started to run away. I started breaking the law, and I was in and out of group homes, juvenile detention, and drug and alcohol treatment. I was in an abusive relationship and pregnant at 15. This was only the beginning of what the world can consider “acting out” as a teenager. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of a lifetime of troubles. I drank alcohol for 27 years to cope with the pain.
But it was much more than that. I knew I was adopted, and to the very core of my being, I just wanted and needed to find my biological mother. But no one knew the internal agony I was going through. I didn’t even understand it. Read over some of my articles, specifically “She’s Bad,” and you can gain a glimpse of the feelings I have carried.
For those who want to apply the label to my life, “She just had a bad adoption experience,” let me share some advice with you. Instead of applying this label to me, my life, and my fellow adoptees, why not open your heart up to the possibility that there is much more to adoption than what you always knew?
You can continue to label me as the lady that just had a bad adoption experience, but I ask you to reconsider your thoughts. Maybe I share my pain because it brings healing to my life. Maybe I share it with my fellow adoptees to know they aren’t alone. Maybe writing is healing to me. Maybe it’s one of the only places I can share my feelings about being adopted, and non-adoptees can’t silence me, shut me down, and tell me how to feel? Maybe writing my thoughts about adoption-related topics has helped me more than the 100 therapists I have seen in my life? Maybe it’s a safe place for me, and the world is not when it comes to sharing adoptee thoughts and feelings?
Also, please understand that the sentiments of “she just had a bad adoption experience” come off as gaslighting and invalidating my trauma and pain resulting from separation trauma and my adoption experience. Please stop.
If you have made it this far, thank you for reading. Hopefully, this article helps non-adoptees understand that every adoption is rooted in separation trauma first. It’s so much deeper than me just having a bad adoption experience!
How many of my fellow adoptees have heard this at some point in your journey? How has it made you feel?
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova
I feel adoptees have the most powerful voice in the adoption constellation and we hold the keys to understanding and healing not only for ourselves, but the world around us. The key is that non-adoptees have the willingness to listen and learn. I would like to compile an article about why adoptees make the choice to search with an emphasis on it not wavering how much we loved or didn’t love our adoptive families.
Over and over I hear adoptive family members or non-adoptees discourage adoptees from searching because we should “Just be happy with the family we got” and “We have no idea what we are getting ourselves into” by searching. I would love input from my fellow adoptees to include in this article.
Here are the questions over 20 adoptees chimed in on.
1.) What made you decide to search and did this decision have anything to do with how much you loved or didn’t love your adoptive families?
2.) No matter what you found, do you regret searching?
3.) What advice can you share to your fellow adoptees that are searching or considering searching?
4.) What can you share with the non-adoptees and adoptive family members who might be discouraging adoptees from search?
Here are their voices
Adoptee Voice 1
Search is not about replacing your family, but about finding out who/where you came from and how you got to be who you are. While I always wanted to know more about my birth family, when I was pregnant with my first child the “want to know” became a “need to know”. While my birth family was not everything I hoped to find, I am so glad that I search. Not only was I able to have a 35 year relationship with my birth mother, but having all the facts of my adoption actually improved my relationship with my adoptive family. I was finally able to integrate my two family legacies.
Adoptee Voice 2
From the time I was little I knew I wanted to search when I got old enough. I waited until I was 28 to begin searching because I was busy w/ college, getting married, & having a family. It took over 20 years to find my bio. Family, & by that time my mother & both sisters had passed away. I have a half-brother still living & have had some contact w/ him, but he’s incarcerated in a federal prison, which complicates matters. I did get to meet my stepfather & my only living aunt, as well as talk to one of my uncles on the phone. We were planning to meet a few months later, but he died unexpectedly. I don’t regret searching. I only regret that I wasn’t able to find them until it was too late to meet my mother & sisters. My adoptive family was very supportive of me, but for adoptees whose adoptive families discourage them, I’d tell them that it isn’t about them. It’s about needing to know who you are, who you look like, where you get your quirks, etc. The best advice I can give those who are considering searching is to find a search angel. Don’t waste money on a private investigator when a search angel can do the same thing for free, & usually a lot faster.
Adoptee Voice 3
My need to search was about me as I needed to know who I was and where I came from. My parents knew this, and they totally supported my decision. 2. I have no regrets that I searched, because I found myself. 3. My biggest pieces of advice would be to have low expectations and a good support system. You’ll be disappointed if you expect too much, and it falls through, and you might run the other person off like I did with my brother. I wanted the relationship with him to undo the past, and there’s no way that was going to happen. I’d also say to do your own work before you even think of searching as reunion is filled with so many unknowns, and it’s good to have a therapist to process all that stuff with. Reunion is a roller-coaster, and you never know what’s going to happen, so it’s vital to have people that support you. 4. I’d respectfully say until you’ve walked in my shoes, you have no right to judge what I’m doing. This isn’t about replacing adoptive parents but about finding your identity. If people don’t understand that, then that’s their problem. Don’t let them stop you.
Adoptee Voice 4
I first felt the desire to search when I was in my early 20s, just a few years after I found out I was adopted. The decision to search was about finding my own history and filling in the holes in my life story and had nothing to do with my feelings for my wonderful adoptive family or their love for me. It always strikes me as strange that anyone would question why an adoptee searches when genealogy is such a popular hobby in this country. Isn’t a search for your birth parents really just the ultimate genealogy research? (Further complicated by closed records, of course!) 2. I will never regret searching. I ended up being found instead of finding and my birth mom and I are five months into a storybook reunion. But even if the outcome had been different, searching was something I needed to do for myself, to know my truth and my story. And now that I have it, I find it’s as priceless as I always imagined it would be. 3. To everyone searching, I would say, post your information everywhere, and, more importantly: never, never give up! You might be just one step away from finding what you’re looking for. 4. Non-adoptees or adoptive families who discourage an adoptee from searching are speaking from their own place of insecurity and fear. While adoptees who search need to be aware that things don’t always work out the way they might hope, they also need to remember that non-adoptees don’t have the same experience of life as they do and cannot understand. As Gertrude Stein said, “Let me listen to me and not to them.”
Adoptee Voice 5
1). As a twice-adopted person, by two separate families, I grew up with ideas of searching for my biological mother. She was the woman I often dreamed about; the woman without a face. My decision to embark on my search occurred as a 20-year-old young man. I did not have the experience of growing up in good families as an adoptee. In both, the abuse of me took precedence, although, in the second family, it was intermingled with positive responses. So, by ultimately looking for my adoptive mother, it served as an attempt to create the loving family for which I never had as a child.2). While I ultimately found both biological parents, exactly 20 years apart, there were problems. Yet, I absolutely do not regret searching for doing so filled in the blanks for which I had wondered about for decades. In the end, my biological mother abandoned me for a second time, as an adult, and I would only meet my biological father as he was dying of stage 4 cancer.3). Advice? Be prepared for the unexpected. It doesn’t always work out and yet, it may just work out. It can be the best time in your life, and the worst. It all depends upon the reception by the other side.4). A potential search is not about about wanting to abandon the family of your adoption. It is only about finding those missing puzzle pieces that can create the entire picture of a life still unfulfilled. Most people know their families, their parents, siblings and grandparents. Knowing of your origins is, in my opinion, one of the basic needs of being human. The adoptive family may feel threatened and yet, they should understand this is not about wanting to replace them by returning to the family of origin, but more, a gift they can offer by lending support, and clues, to their son or daughter’s early history. It is selflessness on the part of the adoptive family.
Adoptee Voice 6
I was found because I was too terrified of rejection to search myself. Thankfully my birth mom searched for me. From there, with her help, we found my birth father. I truly believe that it’s imperative to make the journey for the sake of self and descendants. The only advice I can give is to keep your eyes wide open, don’t expect good or bad outcomes as every situation is unique, and be brave. When you have a better grasp of who you are by way of your genetic links then you will understand fully why it’s so important.
Adoptee Voice 7
I’ll start with the last question first because that situation annoys me. It’s not anyone’s place to get in someone else’s business about why they are doing something. We don’t owe anyone an explanation. We don’t have to defend ourselves to the clueless or earn their blessing. Most people who question our search already have their minds made up anyway. I would just say I’m sorry you don’t understand. You could always bring up the general interest in genealogy as evidence of how many people are interested in their roots, but it’s not necessary. Also, there’s my own example – my sister told me my mother finally had peace for the first time in her life now that she knew what happened to me and that I was ok. So searching can actually be a kindness to our families, not just self-serving. And I would say to my fellow adoptees who are searching not to get discouraged or give up. I didn’t find my family until I was in my mid-50s.
Adoptee Voice 8
I was just getting out of an abusive relationship and I needed a distraction so I wouldn’t go back to him. Plus I was always curious about where I came from. No regrets. 3. Don’t give up. But check your expectations at the door. 4. In end, whatever you decide to do, it’s your story.
Adoptee Voice 9
My dad died and I just thought that life is short and better to search sooner than later. Also I didn’t want to hurt my dad’s feelings in any way. Zero to do with how much I loved my family! I don’t regret it even when some biological family rejected me. Just do it-it’s better to know the truth. It has nothing to do with you. You can’t fully understand the feelings of an adoptee unless you are one.
Adoptee Voice 10
I decided to search because I wanted answers, pure and simple. I didn’t need anything, didn’t expect anything beyond gaining knowledge. I gained so much more but I actually went into it prepared for the worst. My adoptive family had nothing to do with it except for the fact that my experience with them – and particularly with my a-mother – was so bad that it put me off searching for years. I just did not want a repeat experience. I had a real negative association with the word “mother.” I do not regret searching. My search had a wonderful outcome but, even if that had not been the case, I had been so plagued with questions for so long it was just nice to have that settled and over and done with. Not that finding didn’t bring up a new set of questions but at least I learned the basic facts of my personal history.
Adoptee Voice 11
The first time I was aware that I wanted to search for my birth mom was when an adoptee friend told me she thought my b mom loved me and didn’t want to give me up. I remember feeling excited at the thought of finding my mommy that loved me. I was terrified to search because I knew it would mean being shut out of my adoptive mom’s life. She would stop talking to me if I did anything she didn’t like and that was absolute hell. When my adoptive mom handed over my non identifying information when I was in my early 30’s (I have NO idea why she chose to give this to me) I think I felt that was her permission to search. The journey to finding my b mom was a long one. I had lots of help from people who volunteered to find records on my behalf and that made the process so much easier and bore fruit much sooner!! I could write a book filled with the joys and pain of meeting my b mom. Without support from my husband I don’t think I could have done it, but I am NOT sorry I searched. My advice to fellow adoptees is making sure you have supportive people surrounding you when you search. Please DO NOT wait until your adoptive parents pass away to start this journey….you deserve to find YOU and that doesn’t just happen by being adopted into a new family. Finding out where I came from gave me such a sense of belonging. Did it heal all my wounds? No, only some. But I didn’t spend emotional energy wondering anymore.
For the adoptive families I would say find support for your own fears about this. I believe our fears keep us in a place of denying what is needed for healing. If you truly love your adopted child be the ADULT they need you to be. Remember no matter how much you wish they were your own, they are not. They belong to you AND another family. Consider this an opportunity to bring healing to your child’s life at the expense of it being painful and scary to you. I do not believe we can have an authentic relationship without looking at truth. Take their hand, and remind them you are not going anywhere!
Adoptee Voice 12
) What made you decide to search and did this decision have anything to do with how much you loved or didn’t love your adoptive families? I chose to find my natural family because it is my right to seek answers and know my heritage. I want the opportunity to bond with siblings, grandparents, cousins, and other family. I find it infinitely frustrating that adoptees are pressured into disregarding their own feelings about their first family because of the feelings of adoptive family and non-adoptees. Why do our feelings matter less? The love we feel for our adoptive family has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with it.2.) No matter what you found, do you regret searching? Not at all. I kept searching for 20 years until I found every single living relative.3.) What advice can you share to your fellow adoptees that are searching or considering searching? Don’t let anyone tell you that your feelings are less than. Keep an open mind, without expectations. Remember that your natural mother also suffered trauma because of the adoption, so she may have just as much of a hard time with reunion as you.4.) What can you share with the non-adoptees and adoptive family members who might be discouraging adoptees from search? Consider this: to an adoptee, our adoption feels like our entire family died in one day, and we are expected to be grateful for the situation we were forced into. We have the human right to mourn the loss of our first family just as if they had died. We are neither blank slates nor eternal children. We are forced to deal with the stress of living three entangled lives – the person we were born to be but never were the person whose life we assume but never fit into, and the person we create for ourselves as adult adoptees. It’s a very stressful and difficult to navigate life, regardless of how wonderful our adoptive families may be. We need your support! Denying our feelings will only push us away from you.
Adoptee Voice 13
I needed to know who I was and where I came from plus I was biracial I did actually find out my race from DNA testing before I searched or whilst I was searching but had not found. I am glad for the prep work or healing I did before searching because I did uncover a lot of trauma and drama. I was also lied to by my adoptive family, social services and members of my natural family so I was misled a lot while searching but I had a great search angel that helped me. The info I received was almost like working through grief bit by bit and also the letters I wrote to natural mom were very hard to write but each time I posted one it got a bit easier, she never actually got any of them. I was sad to find so many traumas in my natural mom’s life stemming from the fact she herself was abandoned at nine years old and went from one abusive relationship to another after my dad left her to marry someone of his own race. My dad took my bro and she kept my sister…. she lost my sister and my half bro 7 years later trying to escape the abusive jerk that she left me for…she got with another abusive jerk after that who told her she could not keep my sister either but they reunited when my sister was 16… My mum tells me that I am lucky and should be grateful she didn’t keep me and I didn’t endure what my sister did , but none of them asked how my life was growing up with and abusive manipulative lying my adoptive family… My reunion is not going that great there is too much pain all around. My mum doesn’t answer my calls or phone when she says she will which triggers me into a three day meltdown mode. My sister is overflowing with love but for all the wrong reasons and I just keep walking my healing path because truly that’s what it’s all about reunion or no reunion we have to heal from the loss and reunion just shoves that loss right in your face so now you are face to face with all the years lost whether it’s with mum or siblings or whatever adoption is based on deception and loss and healing is possible but it takes years of work…reunions do not fix the pain of the loss …
Adoptee Voice 14
) What made you decide to search and did this decision have anything to do with how much you loved or didn’t love your adoptive families? What made me decide? hmm sad occasion of someone showed me the realization that it’s time to do what I needed todo for years that I was ready for it 2.) No matter what you found, do you regret searching? Not at all. It’s important to do 3.) What advice can you share to your fellow adoptees that are searching or considering searching? Don’t expect miracles and acceptance from that moment on it’s not up to you alone 4.) What can you share with the non-adoptees and adoptive family members who might be discouraging adoptees from search? I can only say this: it’s not about you and with all the respect you need to support or walk away
Adoptee Voice 15
1) Curiosity. Who am I? And no, my family was amazing which made it even harder to talk about wanting to search because I felt like I was betraying them or something. 2) I do not regret searching. 3) I was actually found on fb by my birth mother. I had all the information that I thought could be helpful, full birthday and my full name (Irish + Romanian) 4) Helping someone get through something is easier than helping someone get through the unknown. In my opinion you can’t get closure until you know everything.
Adoptee Voice 16
I searched because when my oldest had a hidden medical condition. They tested me and I had it also! So I wondered what else might be hiding. #3) Don’t expect a Hollywood happy filled reunion. You were given up for a reason. You may or may not find that “missing piece of the puzzle”. Keep expectations very low and search for the right reasons
Adoptee Voice 17
My search began a month before my wedding day. I found out my birth name at the bank. My papers were in a vault along with my Savings Bond. I asked who is Linda Marie? Mom would not give me a straight answer. 2. I did not regret searching for the truth even though I ended up asking mom again for my truth 2 years later and mom’s reluctance to give me information. 3. If your mom has information continue to badger her and keep on asking.
Adoptee Voice 18
) I decided to search because it’s a natural human instinct to want to know who we are and where we come from. It’s impossible to know where your headed if you don’t know where you come from. It was tearing me apart inside to not know. My wanting to search was natural for a not natural situation. My pain of the unknown was SO GREAT I was addicted to alcohol most of my life because I couldn’t handle adoptee grief, loss & trauma and not knowing my answers. With the world celebrating adoption they make no room for our pain so I NEEDED TO KNOW MY ANSWERS. Trust me if I didn’t have the deep desire to know I would have much rather chose that route but that’s not how it works for many of us. My decision had nothing to do with my adoptive family and them loving me or not loving me. Love has NOTHING to do with us wanting to search and everything to do with needing the TRUTH. Without the truth we can’t move forward with acceptance and healing. Give it to God? Let me ask… If I don’t search and have the answers and beginnings of how I came about how do I know what to give to God? Am I going to hand him a question mark? Don’t think so….2.) I faced double rejection from both birth parents. It gets no more painful than that yet I still would rather know than live in the unknown because that was pure inhuman torture in my mind living wondering who my mother was and who my people were. Don’t regret it for a minute.3.) Think about your desire to search and pray about it and ask yourself if your pain outweighs the peace in your life regarding not knowing. If you’re at total peace not knowing great for you. But if you are bothered by it or it torments you then search and really try not to think of everyone else’s feelings. You deserve your answers and you deserve your truth! Everyone else can put on their big boy and girl panties and deal with it. I know it’s hard because when we make the decision to search we are going up against the grain and most people who aren’t adopted can’t comprehend our NEED and how deep it is and why we need answers. It’s important to stop trying to get them to understand. Trust me, the very few non adoptees who WANT TO LEARN will listen. They are worth talking to. Those who try to shut you down are ones you should leave alone. Most non adoptees will never understand us so I choose to stick with those who do understand me, my fellow adoptees. There is an army of us out here so you are never alone. Do what is best for you and don’t wait. None of us are guaranteed tomorrow.4.) Please understand this isn’t about you and it had nothing to do with you. You could have been the best most amazing parents in the world but we still need our answers and truth. You can either support us and help us or we will do it around you. It’s much nicer when we have adoptive parents who aren’t manipulative who make it all about them every time we open our mouths. For once please know this isn’t about you. I can’t say it enough. And for you to say “Can’t you be happy with the family you got?” I would like to respond by saying until you are stripped of your basic human rights of wanting to know who you are and where you come from you really should keep your comments to yourself. If you can’t support me please leave me be. And when I find less than what I dreamed please don’t be quick to rub it in my face that I should have listened to you. The trauma of being an adoptee and living in the unknown is horrific in itself so please don’t make it worse on us with your unsupportive comments.
Adoptee Voice 19
Keep looking and do not give up.
Adoptee Voice 20
My decision to search was my own, and had no bearing on the opinions of others. I knew I was adopted before understanding what adoption was, and my desire to know/search was formed at the same time. The only considerations regarding my AP’s was around informing them about my actions, both in searching and reunion. Again, the decision was completely my own, even forgoing the concern of my then fiancé. This was MINE, something I wanted my entire life, and nothing was going to dissuade me. I waited until I met the age of independence to start, because I had to. There was no specific trigger that set me on the path toward finding; it was ALWAYS something I knew I had to do. I have regrets associated with my search/reunion, but none about searching. Again, the need to know was like breathing. I simply had to do it; there was no consideration or hesitation. As soon as I legally could search, I did. My birth mother received me well enough. In hindsight, she, like so many birth mom’s, was damaged from the experience. Had I been more informed, or more mature, more whatever, I may have been better prepared. Over the course of 20 years, I found & lost her 3 times. I don’t regret this, it is what it is. My only regret was waiting 10 years to find/contact my birth father, because my birth mother requested she make first contact with him. I felt I was being loyal, but in truth I was acting in fear. Fear that I would rock the boat, and damage relations with b-mom. A relation that never existed, and never formed. Even if it had, I was wrong to let someone hold me captive. Advice to those beginning a search… invest in your own search efforts. Searching may seem difficult, but the journey will build strength and knowledge. Both will be needed in reunion. I’m not suggesting the final goal of reunion is bad, but like any relationship, it requires work. Perhaps more work than another relation, as there is commonly much emotional and psychological baggage associated with adoption. The birth mother and the adoptee are damaged. And depending on their own journey, each may be in a different place of readiness for such a relation. And quite often, the adoptee must become the parent. By this I mean they must come to reunion prepared, offering both understanding and the voice of reason. It’s so very complicated; I’m not sure how to address it for the purpose of this project. In short, the adoptee should be an active part of the search. The adoptee should educate themselves on their legal rights to information, and reunion related issues. Understanding why they or the birth parent are acting as they are will help them navigate next steps. Final points related to searching; be honest in communications with birth parents, be honest with yourself, start a journal to help organize search efforts and log events/emotions after reunion, be kind to those who don’t have to help you and gently push those who do. Lastly, take action, do not wait, people die. Time is NOT on the side of us adoptees, so don’t let discomfort or indecision keep you from taking next steps. One of the hardest things is to find a grave at the end of your search.To the discouraging voices, they can all suck it. They don’t know, will never know, and so can’t advise. Some may be heartfelt, and with your best interests in mind, but only YOU can decide. And only another adoptee can truly understand. We had no voice in what happened to us. We don’t owe anyone anything as it relates to being adopted. Do what you need to. If that is to search, than do so unequivocally. Naysayers and alarmists be damned.
Adoptee Voice 21
My answers to the 4 questions… #1 – I have known I was adopted since around the age of 10. I always had letters written from my birth mother to my Mom. In those letters there was mention of two boys. I always felt a disconnect with my family even though they were always good to me and I was always more curious about the brothers more than anything. My love for my family always made me feel guilty for wanting to find them, but I was also very afraid of rejection. I have a very uncommon birth name, so actually finding my brothers was the easy part thanks to Facebook, getting the courage to contact them, not so easy. I just decided I was about to turn 50 and I needed to do this and I did not tell my family until after it was done. #2- I do not regret it at all. But only because I was not rejected. #3 – We had about 3 days AND nights worth of texting before we met in person. You just have to be careful of letting a complete stranger in your life. #4- you have no way of knowing how they feel if you aren’t adopted yourself. Let them do what their heart is leading them to do. In my case it literally filled my heart with joy and made me a happier person for my family to be around…not that I was that bad before, lol, but when it works out, it’s a feeling I just can’t describe.
This blog post was compiled for all those in the world who just can’t understand why adoptees put ourselves “out there” to search in the first place, what our thoughts are regarding this search and how difficult it is for many of us.
No adoptee “Story” is the same and we each have a unique story and desire to be heard. So many in society want to speak for us, but you will never ever fully understand adoptees unless you seek our voices and ask us how it feels to be adopted.
Thank you to all my fellow adoptees who chimed in and made this article post possible. You matter and your voices matter. Keep sharing your voices! If you are reading this and you would like to answer the questions please reply to this article. Your replies will stay with the history of the page.
If you aren’t adopted and you made it this far THANK YOU for your willingness to learn from the experts in the adoption constellation! We appreciate you taking the time to read this post. You have made an attempt to try to understand how adoptees feel. Keep reading and keep sharing the voices that’s almost always ignored, the Adoptees!
I write about the difficult dynamics in adoption, the ones no one wants to talk about. As I have emerged from the fog of adoption, I’ve learned that not all adoptees are adopted for the reasons most people think they are. So what was the reason your adoptive parents adopted you? What were you told, and did it align with the truth?
Society paints a picture that adoptees are taken in when their biological families don’t want them. Their adoptive parents have taken on this responsibility to parent another person’s child to provide a safe and loving home for the child. The adoptive parents are then seen as heroes and often take on the superior attitude of saving an unwanted child from a life of despair. White savior complex sits front and center on many occasions regarding adoptions today. There is an underbelly to these false realities.
However, this is the opposite contrast of what many adoptees feel while we navigate life on the other side of the coin. For many of us, over years of our lives, we learn the truth about why we were adopted, and it opens up a level of understanding for each of us. We’re told we were chosen, and most of the time, we believe it. It’s a cushion to soften the blow of the realities about adoption. The chosen baby theory makes people feel better, even when it’s not true.
I am here to share the truth that most of the time, when a baby is adopted, the reasons they were separated from their biological mothers isn’t usually a pretty story. We must share this reality to stop setting adoptees up for the life-altering disappointment when they discover the truth. The separation trauma is traumatic enough, and we don’t have to add more lies and secrecy to it by using the chosen baby theory. I will be writing more about the chosen baby theory soon.
It’s rare for someone to choose to take on the responsibility of parenting another person’s child, with it being the first option. People generally want to have their own biological children FIRST, before adoption is ever spoken of. This means adoption is likely the LAST option vs. the chosen one. If you think your adoptive parent’s hand-picked you out of a line of babies, I can guarantee you this is a false narrative spun by the adoption industry. It’s part of the propaganda they sell to dress adoption up and hide what it truthfully is. The truth is, they took the next baby in line.
My adoptive mom was infertile. She couldn’t have kids of her own. So instead of healing from this significant loss and accepting those were the cards she was dealt, she adopted! I carried the load of her struggles with infertility my entire life. Somehow I remember saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” more than anything. She never healed from the divorce or her infertility struggles. I was the prime target of her emotional and mental outbursts and my adopted sister. Our adoptive father divorced her, left us, and moved away even when he knew she couldn’t take care of us. It was no secret that she was mentally ill. From an early age, I was her caretaker. I rubbed her back, put lotion all over her body, cleaned her room, changed her bedding. I ran her bath water, brushed her hair, cut coupons for her, cleaned the whole house, and the list could go on.
I started to learn in my early teens that my adoptive mother had a fear of going to a nursing home in her older age. She talked about this in my childhood many times, and by my teen years, it was very apparent to me that she had significant issues with going to a nursing home. As I started to connect the dots on this, and I experienced a life of hell in this home, it is evident that she adopted 1. Because she couldn’t have offspring of her own. 2. She didn’t want to go to a nursing home in her old days. These reasons are far-fetched from wanting to provide a loving and caring home to a child in need.
Another highlight about this reality is that our relationship was very strained my whole life, especially as I grew into my adulthood. She tried to convince me to be her power of attorney when I was 38 years old. When I was 38 years old, I was the single parent of a new 18-year-old high school graduate. I also had twins that were in 9th grade. I had my hands full to take on this responsibility, and I declined. If we had a healthy relationship and if she wasn’t abusive my whole life, I might have considered it. However, she went straight for my fresh out of high school 18-year-old daughter when I declined.
My daughter was barely out of high school, yet when she asked her and pursued her to be her POA. She was applying to colleges and ready to start her life as an adult. So why would she want to dig her claws in my daughter in this way? Because her plan with me backfired. I cared for her and catered to her my entire life until I finally broke free in 2005. I packed up a UHaul, all my belongings, my kids and moved across the country to escape her. It was the hardest thing I ever did because when you are adopted, you then step into a space of having no family and, in this case, no mother. I didn’t have one anyway, but we started our life over. I had no place to live, no job, no money, no car, and no keys TO ANYTHING.
I did this not only for my kids to have a better life but also for myself. So I could start the healing process from all my adoption experience has caused. I have come to life little by little, and today I’m thriving. However, this doesn’t mean that I haven’t been hurt by the reality of why my adoptive mom adopted me, to begin with. I see right through her intentions. It would be easier to believe the fairytale narrative; however, my life’s experiences won’t allow me to believe this.
I am not saying that some adoptees aren’t adopted for pure reasons, but I know I am not the only one who has figured out I was adopted to fill the void a biological child would have brought to my adoptive mom and her adopting for her wants and needs. It’s almost like I feel like a pawn in a game I never agreed to play. Unfortunately, because of this and all the abuse and lies she inflicted on me my entire life, we were estranged for several years before she passed away.
I’m curious about the experiences of my fellow adoptees? Do you feel like your adoptive parents adopted for “the right reasons?” whatever that looks like to you? Or do you feel there was another reason or even several? How has this made you feel?
Don’t forget this article along with all my other articles are available in audio for your convenience, just look up Pamela A. Karanova Podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes , Spotify. and Amazon Music.
Interested in treating me with a coffee, to add fuel to my fire? Click here.
Many thanks in advance to my supporters!
Thanks for reading and listening,
Love, Love.
*The views and opinions expressed in this article and podcast are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova.
The thoughts coming to life in this article are reflections I have had brewing for a very long time. My perspective is from the natural lens of an adopted adult who unfortunately had no one from my natural family looking for me, not in this lifetime anyway.
What do I mean by “I had no one looking for me?”
Many adoptees, myself included, have formed this fantasy that our biological parents made a big mistake, and they are coming to find us! Every day in my childhood, I dreamed of the day that my birth mother would reappear and take me back home to live with her. When we are told she “loved us so much,” it’s easy to attach all kinds of fantasies to this scenario. Dreams, fantasies, and wishes are endless and limitless. Sometimes I feel like my whole life was built on a fantasy, a dream, and a wish. But instead of dreaming about a husband, an amazing career, children, and a fancy car and house like most people, it was all about HER.
The biggest dream, fantasy, and wishes were always centered around my birth mother coming back to get me or me finding her. Year after year passed, and I hit my teen years, and reality set in. She wasn’t coming back, and as I reached adulthood, my fantasy was shattered and destroyed.
Here’s why – my birth mother was never looking for me, and she never wanted to be found. (These are two separate things) It’s hard to put into words the depths of pain this reality has caused me, but it’s shifted every part of my being to be disappointed and rejected in such a profound way, buy the woman that should love me the most. The high hopes in a happy reunion story came crashing down, and I have found myself picking up shattered pieces of my heart, step by step, trying to put the pieces together again. While I have healed at great lengths, I have accepted the pain is here to stay.
Not running from it has been the key to healing for me.
My biological father didn’t know I existed, and I was adopted without his consent. So it would be ludicrous for me to think he was looking for me. However, before I learned that he knew nothing of my existence, I had hoped he was trying to find me—more fantasies at their finest.
I am 12 years into coming out of the fog and navigating my healing journey, and things are much better today. I made a choice to leave alcohol alone and decided to feel the feelings of rejection, abandonment, and the primal wound, aka relinquishment trauma.
However, over the 12 years, there were many times the pain and REALITY of my truth were just too much to carry, and I wanted out. I had plans to leave the earth many times and I thought I would die from a broken heart. I don’t share that lightly.
But here I am, alive to share my story. The future seems to have developed into a more peaceful existence. Of all the time and energy I have spent on healing, I will never forget how it has felt to have not one person on this earth looking for me after spending a lifetime thinking they were.
It’s a sad feeling, dark and hallow at times like I wasn’t worth finding. It feels like I shouldn’t exist in a world where my own biological family could care less if I lived or died. To show up and exist in this world with these dynamics at the root of my very existence has been a never ending challenge most will never understand.
Thankfully, even when no one wanted to find me, I wanted to find me, but it doesn’t take 47 years of the pain away.
My desire to find myself, who I am, and who I am not is something that has taken me 47 years to experience. I have pondered what it might feel like if someone was searching for me, and I can imagine it would be the best feeling in the world.
Unfortunately, I will never know.
The adopted adults who have the experience of a biological family searching for them can hang onto that experience, so they will likely never know what it feels like for NO ONE to be searching for them.
However, I suppose that they could experience the maternal side OR the paternal side searching for them, which would give them a glimpse of what it feels like for one side to search for them, and another side not to search for them. Regardless of how it all plays out in each adopted person’s story, our very existence on earth comes with so much weight to carry. It’s painful no matter how you slice it.
But to carry the weight of NO ONE searching…
It hurts, and there isn’t much in the world that has topped this type of pain off. It’s primal, and it’s deep-rooted. But, the most significant part is that if we sit with the pain long enough, it starts to heal. I have sat in it for over 9.5 years without using alcohol to numb the pain, and it’s getting more manageable. Still, I can completely understand how some adoptees choose not to go on because the pain can be that difficult to navigate. That was once me.
Suppose a biological mother, biological father, or friends and family of an adopted person are weighing in the dynamic to search or not to search. In that case, I hope this article sheds some light for you in making your decision. This article is on a dynamic on how it feels when NO ONE is searching for you. On top of the pain and trauma from relinquishment, we also deal with this dynamic of no one looking for us that no one wants to talk about, yet it’s the reality for so many adopted people.
We must also take into consideration that some adoptees don’t want to be found. I can chime in and say, that they rightfully should be respected in this wish, however, how will you ever know unless you try to reach out to them? They deserve to get the choice in the matter. This means that even if you make the choice to search for an adoptee, the adoptee ultimately gets to decide if they want to open that door or not. We are all different and no two adoptee journeys are the same but I would think it would count for something if one of our biological relatives at least tried! I know it would have meant EVERYTHING to me that at least one of them tried.
It’s a tough pill to swallow. My heart aches for adoptees who stepped into a space where no one was searching for them and for those who stepped into a space where their biological parents don’t want to be found. I see you, hear you, and my heart is with you. You are not alone.
For adoptees, what has your experience searching for your biological family members?
Are you one of the adoptees who had no search for you?
Were your maternal or paternal biological parents or family searching for you?
Did they embrace a reunion, or did they not want to be found?
Don’t forget this article along with all my other articles are available in audio for your convenience, just look up Pamela A. Karanova Podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes , Spotify. and Amazon Music. Interested in treating me with a coffee, to add fuel to my fire? Click here. Many thanks in advance to my supporters!
Thank you for reading.
Healing through writing, one article at a time.
Love, Love
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova
Something that continuously feels like a kick in the teeth is the need for anyone to proclaim how their adoption story was a wonderful one, in the midst of an adopted adult sharing how our experiences have surfaced grief, loss, trauma, abuse, abandonment, and rejection.
Why does anyone feel the need to do this?
Do they know it’s harmful and hurtful to the validation of your experience and the pain you carry within that experience? I can’t help but try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but this topic is noteworthy of an article because I deal with it all the time. And this means many of my fellow adoptees likely do as well!
It usually goes something like this –
Adopted Adult: “I’m having a hard time processing the rejection of my birth mother, and my birth father passed away before I could ever meet him. I would have given anything to meet them both at least one time. I am really sad about it all. My adoption story has caused me separation trauma and adoption trauma that impacts me in every way. I will be working towards healing from these wounds for the rest of my life.”
Responses we get a lot of the time –
Birth Mother: “Sorry, your adoption experience has been such a painful one. I wish everybody had an adoption story like mine because it’s a beautiful one. Most adoptions aren’t like yours.”
Adoptive Parent:“You are basing your option on your experience, but not everyone has your experience. Our adoption has been the biggest blessing of our family, not just for us but our adopted son. God has a plan, and he never makes mistakes!”
Friend of the Family:“I’m sorry you had a bad experience. Can you imagine how your life would have been if you weren’t adopted? You must be so thankful that someone wanted you when your own biological family didn’t. Aren’t you grateful for the better life?”
NEWSFLASH PEOPLE – When someone shares heartache and pain, it is not okay to swoop in and share that your experience is so much better. Unfortunately, the adoptee is the one singled out, being labeled as someone who “just has a bad adoption story and experience!”
NEWSFLASH NUMBER TWO: Every single adoption begins with TRAUMA FIRST which constitutes a bad experience for every single adopted person. The loss of our biological mother is nothing to be celebrated, and if we are all being truthful and transparent, that very important piece must never be left out when speaking about adoption. To gloss over this piece is pretending as if it doesn’t exist.
I have also seen adoptees (who are usually in the fog) do this to fellow adoptees. It’s not okay, and it’s never going to be okay.
Let’s change things up a bit so people realize how fucking awful they sound.
Rape Victim:“I have been traumatized by my experience with John Doe. He forced himself on me, and even after I said “NO,” he took what he wanted to take and forced me to have sex with him, and I did not give consent!”
If someone responded to the rape victim like they do when adopted adults share their feelings, it might go something like this –
Friend of the Rapist – “I’m sorry John Doe violated you in some way, but I need to share that I have been his friend for 15 years, and he has never once violated me in that way. I think you just had a bad experience with him. Not everyone has that experience who knows and loves John!”
Family Member of the Rapist – “I have known John since birth, and he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s well-loved and supported in our family. You are the only person with a negative experience with John. I feel bad that you had a bad experience with John, and I hope one day you can move past it and move on with your life. and always remember, God doesn’t give us any more than we can handle!”
Friend of Person Raped – “I am mortified that John raped you! Are you sure you remember things correctly? Because this is a serious crime and John D. has never been accused of hurting someone like this before? Can you try to think positively about this? Of all the years I have known you, you are strong, and I know you will overcome this! One day, you will choose to move on!”
One more example –
Victim of Racial Discrimination:“Mr. Wilson called me out at work, in front of everyone, and he really embarrassed me and made me feel discriminated against. I was the only person of color, and he asked me to share the history of slavery in America and details about my history with racism. It made me really uncomfortable, and even when he could see I was uncomfortable, I told him I was uncomfortable, he pressed on and made me share anyway.”
White Co-Worker of Victim – “I’m sorry Mr. Wilson made you uncomfortable, but if anyone is supposed to teach us the realities of Slavery in America, don’t you think it should be you? You have the most knowledge!”
White Friend of Victim – “I hate this happened to you, but you are strong. If anyone can handle it, you can! I always want chances to learn about race, and if African Americans can’t teach us, who can?”
White HR Department Manager of Victim– “Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We will look into this, and hopefully, it won’t happen again. For the record, Mr. Wilson is well-loved around here, and we support him to the fullest. He’s been around 32 years and will be retiring soon!”
One last example –
Victim of Religious Trauma Syndrom – “I am down in a dark space because all the things I was taught as a child about God go against how I am feeling. My experience with God and church has caused me damage, and I need to find a therapist experienced in religious trauma to help navigate things. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like reaching out to my Christian friends. They will just tell me I am backsliding and the devil is controlling me!”
Friend of Victim –“ This isn’t my experience. You need to pray and ask God to clarify things for you. Then, get alone, and keep praying. Maybe even fast for a few days. God will reveal the truth and if you don’t hear him, try harder!”
Family Member of Victim – “I think you are confused, and you are focusing more on the negative instead of giving it to God and trusting him with your life! The enemy is trying to take control of your thoughts, and I will pray for you! We all need to pray! You are not praying enough! PROVERBS 18:21!”
ATTENTION: These are hypothetical but sadly at times can ring true for these victims of abuse and these things happen like this all the time. In no wayam I minimizing the experiences of those who have been treated this way, yet I am shining light on the ignorance that surrounds statements like this.
Do you see how awful these responses are and invalidating? Well, you wouldn’t say these idiotic statements to the victims of Rape, the victims of racial discrimination, or victims of Religious Trauma Syndrome, would you?
So I am asking you to stop saying these things to adopted adults. Anytime someone is sharing from a space of heartache and pain, they do NOT need you to glorify your amazing happy adoption story at the same time! So please consider stopping this as you are causing harm if you don’t.
Also, remember while you might be a birth mother or an adoptive parent, you can’t speak for the feelings of an adoptee! Please do not speak for us.
While you glorify your experience with adoption as being wonderful, they have possibly not reached adulthood yet, so they can enter a space of developing their own feelings. And no harm intended but they likely wouldn’t share their feelings with you! My adoptive parents are the last people on earth I have ever shared my real true feelings with!
This goes for anything in life. People need to be heard, validated, and supported when sharing pain, and that is IT! Just because YOU have a happy and positive adoption story, it doesn’t negate my sad, traumatic and hurtful one! When someone has to put a positive spin on someone else sharing their pain, it’s a dynamic of toxic positivity that is so invalidating to so many. Maybe after reading this article, people will see how they sound and make changes. We can only hope.
How many of you have experienced this type of treatment for my fellow adoptees? Has it been in public, online, or in your relationships? I would love to hear about your experiences! How do you handle them?
Don’t forget this article along with all my other articles are available in audio for your convenience, just look up Pamela A. Karanova Podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes , Spotify. and Amazon Music. Interested in treating me with a coffee, to add fuel to my fire? Click here. Many thanks in advance to my supporters!
Per-pet-u-al – Never ending or changing, continuing forever.
Depending on where you live, most people gain the legal status of being an adult between 18 and 21 years of age.
For all the “Adopted Children” between the ages of newborn and 21 years old, I hope by the time you might stumble across this article and reach the legal age of adulthood, things have shifted concerning the topic of this article. I hope those who know you and love you will allow you the space to grow up and stop confining you to the box of being a perpetual child. This article is for you and those who love you!
For all the “Perpetual Adopted Children” who are 18+ to 110+ years old, I’m writing this article for you and those who know and love you as well!
Recently, I have been in several conversations where I have been referred to as “The Adopted Child,” or I have witnessed one of my fellow ADULT adoptees referred to as an “Adopted Child.” Each time, this strikes my nerves and grinds my gears in a way that has been so significant that it’s sparked me to want to write an article about it.
My goal is to validate the experiences of my fellow adoptees who are well into adulthood, even some being seniors (over 65) who are still being referred to as “THE ADOPTED CHILD.”
This article is also to help our loved ones understand that the time is OVER when it comes to speaking for adopted adults and referring to them as “ADOPTED CHILDREN or THE ADOPTED CHILD.” I want to explain why this is damaging and hurtful to the adult adopted people who are no longer in a state of childhood.
If we are being authentic, adoption has deceived, manipulated, and bamboozled many people. We have groups of people who are convinced removing babies from their mothers is “God’s Will.” We have groups of people who PRAY for trauma to happen to a mother and a child, which is the trauma that occurs when a mother and a child are separated, and they believe when it happens, it’s “GOD’S WILL.” We have groups of people who think paying $27,000.00 for a white newborn infant or $7000.00 for a black newborn infant isn’t legalized human trafficking. We have groups of people who assume that adoption provides a better life. We have groups of people who think adoption is always a blessing, and if the adoptee feels anything less than positive feelings, they are labeled ungrateful and even tossed out of wills and disowned.
I could go on and on, but today I want to highlight individuals who continue to refer to ADULT ADOPTED INDIVIDUALS as ADOPTED CHILDREN and THE ADOPTED CHILD.
In 1974, I was a newborn entering the world and immediately experienced a traumatic experience by losing my biological mother. On August 13, 1992, I became a legal adult in this game we call “Life.”
I entered into a space where I have fought like hell from the beginning to find my truth, heal, and find happiness and wholeness within myself. Spending 47 years on earth, I am at a place where I have spent a lot of time learning, sharing, healing, recovering from ALL THINGS ADOPTION and life in general. Somewhere along the lines of life, I have put my big girl panties on and gotten authentic with myself. It has taken a lot of willpower and determination to do this.
Aside from adoption, I have given birth to three human beings, all adults now. I raised them as a single mother. I fought through the stigma and did the best I could based on the tools I had present at the time. I have a whole career in the healthcare field, and I also founded a national nonprofit organization. I have walked through the recovery journey and experienced the highs and lows of that process. Finally, I am currently living an alcohol-free lifestyle, and I now share my journey from a space of being RECOVERED. I have put in the blood, sweat, and tears and will soon CELEBRATE 10 years alcohol-free.
Let me be as honest as I can, I grew the FUCK UP, and it wasn’t easy. I have many scars to prove it. But, I have the knowledge and a drive most people never experience in their lifetimes. A significant portion of my knowledge comes from lived experiences, which fills my tank up when stepping into a space of ADULTHOOD. I have earned the right to remove the mindset that I am a perpetual child in the eyes of those who view “THE ADOPTED CHILD” as never growing up. I am sure most of my fellow adoptees over 18 years of age would say the same.
Why has society not grasped the TRUTH that I am no longer a child? I haven’t been a CHILD since 1992 when I turned 18 years old. And even then, I was a teenager, growing into my own person. To be continuously referred to as a perpetual child my whole life has caused damage to my personal experience and self-esteem. It has belittled and invalidated my feelings and emotions as if I currently respond from a child’s space. It also gives the impression I am immature and inexperienced in life.
It’s an INSULT in its most profound form.
I would love the world to put some respect on my journey and put some respect on the adoptee journey altogether. I realize wholeheartedly that society at large has been conditioned with this perpetual child mindset when it comes to adopted children. Still, I am here to challenge anyone reading this article to ponder your beliefs and consider changing the words you use when speaking about any adopted person.
I try to give people the benefit of the doubt on topics like this. However, maybe people genuinely don’t understand how their words impact adopted people. For those people, I ask you to open up to the willingness to learn that it’s never been okay to refer to adopted adults as “ADOPTED CHILDREN,” and it’s never going to be okay.
This is because so many of us rightfully take offense to it, and we will start calling people out on it, even people we are close to whom we have relationships with who we know and love. So from this day forward, I am standing up for myself to anyone who refers to me or any other adopted adult I know as a perpetual child.
In truth and wisdom, I am coming for you!
Hopefully, anyone who has made it this far has gained some knowledge and understanding of the damage that comes from this line of thinking, and maybe they will make the conscious choice to choose their words wiser.
Additionally, I hope any adopted adults reading can gain validation that they aren’t alone when they are continuously faced with this reality of being looked at like a perpetual child in our adoption journeys.
Once we know better, we do better, and we have to do better.
Don’t forget this article along with all my other articles are available in audio for your convenience, just look up Pamela A. Karanova Podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes , Spotify. and Amazon Music. Interested in treating me with a coffee, to add fuel to my fire? Click here. Many thanks in advance to my supporters!
Thanks for reading.
Love, Love
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova
Before sharing specifics, I need to bring Seasonal Affective Disorder to light. I suffer from this each year as fall approaches until early spring. Because of this, I feel what I describe as the “black hole” is much more prevalent in my life during that time frame. One of the dynamics of my healing journey is that idol time has proven to be a struggle for me. I have more idol time during the fall and winter months because I hate the cold, and can’t enjoy my number one escape, nature. When I’m trapped in the house, I experience a part of me that makes me feel guilty for resting, or when I’m not busy, a part of me feels dysfunctional. But, on the other hand, part of me always feels like I need to constantly be productive, active, doing something.
Another part of me flourishes in a unique aliveness and sweet natural essence. I can see beauty in everyday life, and I find happiness within myself and my surroundings. The sunshine fuels my passion to be alive, and I strive to be active and never miss a moment to make a memory. Sometimes I run off into nature alone, and sometimes I take friends or family.
And then, there is a part of me that is missing; it’s hallowed and empty in that space that I call the black hole.
The black hole wants to be filled up, but it has no ending and depths. It goes on forever and ever, hallow. Sometimes I don’t think about it being there, especially in the summer and spring months. Other times in the fall and winter months, it’s screaming for attention. I describe it as an itch or a void. I have identified it’s significantly different from the black cloud that used to follow me everywhere I went, from all the sorrow I felt from adoption.
I do my best to cover the defective parts and let happiness soar, but deep down, hidden from the world is a different story.
Sometimes it feels like something inside is broken that created the black hole, and no matter what I try to fill it with, it never fills up. I filled it with alcohol for 27 years, but 9.5 years ago, I stopped that habit. Drinking alcohol kept me from noticing the black hole most of the time. The black hole has been screaming to be filled ever since. Sometimes its scream is more potent than others.
How did this black hole come about?
It used to feel like the black hole was in my heart because my heart was deeply saddened and sorrowful from my adoption experience. I always thought I would die from a broken heart, but I have learned over the years that it was grief and loss that were trying to come out. The broken heart feeling hung on day in and day out, never leaving. I have spent 10+ years working towards healing, and my heart feels better most of the time.
Finally, around August of 2021, the sorrow and sadness I always carried deep down lifted, and I can’t quite explain it yet. Other than working towards healing for over 12 years, I freed myself from an awful and unhealthy 9-month toxic relation-shitin my life, which is possibly one of my best decisions for my emotional and mental well-being. After this fake connection was severed, I have felt exceptionally FREE because it just wasn’t a good fit.
I am finding a distinct difference between the broken heart feeling and the black hole feeling. It’s at the center of me, and it reaches the deepest parts of my mind, body, and soul. Most of the time, it doesn’t hurt. It’s just there, but it has a nagging and itching desire to be filled up.
It doesn’t want to be empty.
Can it ever be repaired?
I suspect the black hole was created when the natural bonding process with my biological mother was interrupted, and the separation from her has left a black hole that can never be repaired. Acceptance of this reality has been a KEY component of my healing.
Do all adoptees carry this?
I constantly find myself trying to fill it up, but the most significant thing has happened. I can identify when I’m trying to fill the unfillable black hole with unhealthy choices.
What are the unhealthy ways I try to fill the black hole up?
Sweets
Unhealthy food
Over-eating
Dating
Overextending myself
Trying to “save” others
Wanting to move
Starting a new job
Not setting boundaries with people
Creating a project adding more responsibility to my plate
Finding something new to fill the hole.
Buying material things I don’t need
Temporary satisfaction with unhealthy things
Making commitments, I don’t want to make
People-pleasing aka fawning
“Treating myself” with unnecessary things
Creating a new “bad habit.”
Being impulsive
Over-planning
Filling the void with people, places and things
Acting on other peoples ideas and plans for my life before I think thoroughly if that is something I want to do
Being lazy, giving the black hole what it wants
Acting on obsessive thoughts and feelings
Not spending enough time to think about things before I act on them
Avoidance from dealing with reality
One day I might try to fill the black hole with food where I overdose on sweets and food that I know isn’t good for me. One day I maybe have the itch to start a new project that I know I don’t have time for. Another day I might be searching for a new job I don’t need or a hobby that I like, that causes me to spend money I don’t need to spend. Another day, I might be trying to create something unique that no one has ever done before adding an unnecessary responsibility to my life.
I spent a lifetime trying to fill the black hole with Jesus, but that didn’t work permanently. It did work short-term, as long as I avoided the reality of the black hole. It only left me feeling like I was ashamed and defective even more because Jesus is supposed to cure it all. But I am the exception. I gave up on him, and I am glad. That was like running a never-ending rat race, always falling flat on my face in the end. Pretending that the hole didn’t exist or praying it away caused more harm than good. It was a constant war, and it was a game I decided I didn’t want to play anymore.
I won’t lie; it’s not easy to soothe the black hole. When I think about things thoroughly, and I walk away from an unhealthy choice or sporadic decision that attempts to fill the black hole, it sometimes feels like walking away from a drug I have been strung out on for a very long time. Sometimes it feels like death. I recognize that giving into filling the black hole will fix the empty feeling it carries, but only temporarily. A little time passes, then I am faced with something new that will temporarily “fix” the black hole. But, of course, it never goes away, but I can soothe it by choosing healthy things, or I can take a hit of the unhealthy choice, and it also temporarily fixes it.
Everything changed when I started to look INSIDE MYSELF for the answers, instead of looking for things outside myself in other people, places and, things.
I’ve accepted that something is always going to be missing from my life, due to separation trauma compacted by adoption trauma.
The most amazing thing has happened in the last few months, but it’s not been easy to discover. Finally, I have IDENTIFIED when I have unhealthy feelings and thoughts that directly fill the black hole! Recognizing this is the first step, and I am thankful that I am at a healing space in my journey where I can acknowledge this and RECOGNIZE IT. Some people go to their graves, never making it to this point. While I had alcohol in my life almost daily for 27 years, it wasn’t possible to even identify this dynamic, let alone dissect it, acknowledge it and, work on it. Alcohol blocked me from tuning into my true self and stood in the way of me truly feeling my feelings.
Some people might say, “How do you know this is directly related to the separation from your birth mother?”
From deconditioning and coming out of the fog regarding my adoption experience, it has opened up 12+ years of research on the topic of adoption. In learning to navigate all of the emotions and feelings that I have stuffed my whole life, I have learned that the primal wound, aka the mother wound compacted by separation trauma and adoption trauma, can impact every area of an adopted person’s life. Sometimes it’s more intensified for each of us, and some adoptees seem to be more well adjusted and they don’t have very many issues.
Everyone responds to trauma differently. We must learn to recognize that mothers aren’t interchangeable. The void and trauma damage that happens from the separation of our biological mothers can and does leave lasting imprints on an adopted person that can last a lifetime.
For me, adoption has always bothered me to my core, and I have done everything under the sun imaginable to fill the void. However, I am now learning that the void adoption has left created a black hole that I keep trying to fill. Conclusion: The reality that I can not fill this hole has been life-changing for me. Now that I can distinguish this dynamic, I can ask myself, “Do I really want to do this, or am I just trying to fill the unfillable black hole?” I make a conscious choice to do my best to choose the healthiest option for me, but I fall short all the time and that’s okay. I am a work in progress like we all are.
What that looks like for me is making myself wait on making decisions and giving myself time to sit with them and process them thoroughly before I act. Sometimes this takes me a while, and people don’t always understand that. Why is she taking so long to process?
Well, that’s actually because I am PROCESSING trying to make the best decision possible for myself, instead of reacting and acting from a DYING place to fill the black hole. The most significant piece to the black hole is acknowledging it, learning more about it, and not running away from it. So I am opening up about it and having conversations about it. I recognize it’s not present all the time, although it is always there.
I suspect non-adopted people have this black hole feeling, but maybe they don’t describe it this way. I think the black holes can come from different traumatic events in life or things that have always been missing. Our mothers and fathers missing or absent would likely be at the top of the list for many people. I think abuse of any kind can provoke a black hole, as well as accidents or situations that spark C-PTSD and PTSD. Abandonment and rejection of any kind can spark a black hole feeling.
Self-awareness has been vital and learning to listen to my mind, body, and spirit when it comes to how I’m feeling. Tuning into how other people make me feel when I am around them and acknowledging how I feel by myself has been instrumental in my healing and growth journey. Even when others might pressure me to move faster or respond quicker, I take my time.
Today, I welcome the black hole, and I realize that it’s something that might be here for the rest of my life. I’m learning to replace it with positive aspects and to be easy on myself if I fail. I am not numbing it with substances; I’m not running from it. I do not deny it’s there. But, I’m learning to make friends with it, which helps us understand one another more profoundly. I am also celebrating the fact that today, I AM FEELING. So many people stuff these holes with drugs and alcohol, and I am doing none of that.
This alone is a cause to celebrate!
For my fellow adoptees – have you ever experienced a feeling that feels like a black hole?
Does it come and go?
How would you describe it, and where do you think it comes from?
How do you handle it and deal with it?
Biological mothers – Does losing your child feel like a black hole or would you describe it another way?
Don’t forget this article along with all my other articles are available in audio for your convenience, just look up Pamela A. Karanova Podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes , Spotify. and Amazon Music. Interested in treating me with a coffee, to add fuel to my fire? Click here. Many thanks in advance to my supporters!
Thank you for reading,
Love, Love
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova
I know the title of this article is so much easier said than felt, but man, I have to share a few things about the experiences and wounds that many of us carry that I describe as very deep-rooted abandonment & rejection wounds. When we think of these wounds, we tend to believe that they began after we were born, but I suggest they could have started before birth due to the research I have done over the last 10 years. Just what we need, more cards stacked up against us. But knowledge is power, and it also promotes healing.
I have lived with this wound for 47 years in addition to my time in utero, so I understand how it can manifest in an adoptee’s life and how we can try to hide it and cover it up or act like it doesn’t exist. Sometimes many of us don’t understand this is even a thing. But no matter what we do, abandonment and rejection issues always seem to circle back around and rear their ugly heads.
I am not sure if you have thought about this or not, but many of us experienced our very first feelings of rejection while we were still in the womb of our birth mothers. I share this because I have researched prenatal bonding and prenatal psychology to try to understand my wound better.
We are all supposed to grow a strong bond with our biological mothers while still in the womb; however, that bond doesn’t always happen for adoptees. Research shows that biological mothers can and do bond with their babies while in utero, so it’s only safe to say that they can also disconnect and not connect with the baby during pregnancy. I learned we all have a critical process of development before birth, and it’s possible to be born with psychological issues due to a lack of bonding and connection with our biological mothers. This would only add to separation trauma, compacted by adoption trauma.
To help me understand the bond I should have had with my birth mother during conception, I read many books and articles that helped me understand how important this bond was because then I understood what I was missing if I didn’t have this bond with my biological mother. I also learned how this had impacted me throughout my life into adulthood.
However, many times when an adoptee is going to be relinquished for adoption, our biological mothers purposely try not to bond with the baby growing inside their bellies for nine months. Why? Without a strong mother bond to us, it’s said to be easier to relinquish when the time comes. With this, sometimes, our biological mothers can purposefully try to block any emotions or feelings that come with bonding to the baby they are carrying for nine months. As a result, we feel this rejection back to the beginning for many of us before we were ever born. Sometimes it takes us a lifetime to connect the dots and make sense of it all. And sometimes adoptees go to their grave, never really understanding that the abandonment and rejection we feel aren’t who we are; it’s something that happened to us. It’s sometimes next to impossible to weigh these dynamics out, let alone heal from them.
It’s impossible to heal a wound by denying it’s there, so I wanted to write about this wound many of us carry that is no fault of our own. While researching conception and how babies can and do tune into their mother’s emotions during these nine months, even if our biological mothers aren’t purposely trying to not bond with us, their feelings of us are felt by us and can be carried in our subconscious memories. It’s no wonder many of us don’t understand the complexities of this wound because no one is teaching us or telling us that it exists.
Once we know more, we can heal more.
For me, my desire to HEAL was SO GREAT. I wanted to research the entire scope of pregnancy and pre-birth for myself, so I could try to get a better idea of my beginnings and how it all went down with my birth mother. Some of these discoveries I have learned were hard to grasp, but they have helped me understand from a more profound level, which helps me understand myself better. In return, I am learning to have empathy and compassion for myself and my birth mother. Every little clue to my beginnings has helped me heal, and I hope my fellow adoptees explore this dynamic so they can try to understand themselves better.
“From a prenatal psychology perspective, the development in the womb and the birth process can have a huge impact on who we are as adults and the behaviors that we default to.”
This alone inspires me to learn as much as possible about my prenatal life and to learn all the information that I can about my birth story. As adoptees, we’re usually always considered blank slates; when we enter into the contractual agreement, we don’t sigh; we call this adoption.
While society and our adoptive parents at large spark our stories beginning with our adoptive parents, the adoptee community is circling around to let the world know that our stories didn’t start at adoption. They started long before then, and our stories before adoption matter, and they are essential to each of us.
While I began to fight the world for my truth, I learned many things about my biological mother that helped me understand her decision to relinquish me for adoption. So I wanted to step into her shoes to learn more about her life as a child, her life growing up and her life when she conceived me, the days up to my delivery, and her life after. I wrote about this before in an article titled “My Birth Mother’s Shoes.” In understanding her journey better, I understood my life better.
I learned I was conceived out of a one-night stand with a married man. He was a close friend of the family, ten years older than my biological mother. The pregnancy with me was hidden from him and everyone around. It was a secret, and no one was supposed to know at all costs. I can only imagine how my birth mother felt during that time. Maybe she didn’t feel at all because I learned she drank every day through the entire pregnancy with me. I genuinely believe she rejected the pregnancy while she was pregnant with me, and even when I could have bonded with her because I was connected to her, she was not bonded with me and even likely fought this connection off. By learning about her alcohol abuse, I am left to speculate. I learned she worked up until the day she had me and went back to work the very next day. She checked into the hospital under an alias.
I think she felt “bad” for being pregnant by a married man, and one of the feelings I have carried my whole life is the feeling of being BAD. Read, “She’s Bad.” The feelings of secrecy and shame likely consumed her, which makes it no secret I have had to work hard to remove the way she felt from my life because it has always felt like I was born with that shame, secrecy, and badness. I have felt sad and lonely for most of my life, and I believe this was also the feelings my birth mother felt during her pregnancy and the days leading up to my birth. In many ways, for many years, it defined who I am because that is all I have known. However, I am not those things, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t felt like them for most of my life. Learning to separate them has helped me tremendously.
David Chamberlain, Ph.D. states in his book, Babies Remember Birth:
“A bad birth can be like a thorn in the flesh, which keeps getting inflamed.”
We can all guarantee that any child relinquished for adoption can be equated with an inhumane and bad birth/experience. It’s one of the most significant traumas we will ever experience, yet society continues to turn a blind eye and act as if it doesn’t exist.
In Babies Remember Birth, if you skip to page 134, you will find chapter 10, titled PITFALLS. If you decide to read on, you will learn of many individuals who experienced separation trauma and what that felt like as they participated in hypnosis in therapy and tap into their preverbal consciousness.
One person even said, “It was like a funeral at birth.”
David Chamberlain, Ph.D. also states in his book, Babies Remember Birth:
“Things said during pregnancy can leave harmful imprints, “birthmarks” that are psychological rather than physical. But, even inside the womb, babies can learn to cope with unhappy parents.”
I am sharing these dynamics in this article because I hope all my fellow adoptees understand that the wounds of abandonment and rejection they carry are valid, legit, and so very real. They can and do go back to our preverbal and prenatal lives. For each of our individual lives, it helps by investigating further by asking more questions and not giving up or taking “no” for an answer.
The argument can be raised from the adoptee’s perspective that we need our truth to gain this reality of our beginnings, and they are correct. This is why I will always side with my fellow adoptees learning their truth because everyone deserves to know who they are and where they come from. I fought the moment I came out of the womb and likely while in the womb. I even wrote about it one time in an article titled “The Fight of My Life – Revised.” I have fought like so many of my fellow adoptees have to learn our truth when it seems like the whole world is up against us.
I was never giving up, but I almost died trying many times over.
One of the many discoveries I have learned is that although I feel abandoned and rejected by my birth mother, she didn’t know me to reject me. Instead, she rejected the unresolved wounds that she had never processed due to her alcohol dependency. She rejected her decision, the outcome of my adoptive parents divorcing when I was one, and that her decision didn’t create a better life for me, only a different one. I acknowledged her alcohol abuse was a focus of her life way before I was born. She had a hard life and a challenging childhood. I heard many stories, and every little clue helped me understand better and begin healing in return.
Separation trauma can impact adoptees significantly, and everyone reacts differently to trauma. However, one of the most significant dynamics for adoptees is that we often suffer in silence because our adoptive parents and the world celebrate adoption. In return, they celebrate our trauma. They leave no room for our sorrow or sadness. Our conception and preconception stories, and birth stories are a part of our history. Even when we’re considered blank slates, what happens during these times matters to adoptees.
While abandonment and rejection from our adoption experiences can and does impact each of us significantly, and sometimes the wounds last a lifetime, the more we learn about our [His]-Story and [Her]-Story, the more we learn about ourselves. So it’s essential to separate the differences between the things we have control over and the things we don’t. We had no control over what happened to us as babies, but we can fight like hell for our truth. I always try to remember I am not how abandonment and rejection from adoption has made me feel. I am not the pain and heartbreak. Yes, it’s been a part of my life and always will be, but we are all so much more than how adoption has made us feel. We have a purpose, and we all have many countless reasons that the universe brought us together.
Being adopted, it’s sometimes hard to feel like anyone cares about you. But I am here to share that you won’t feel others care about you until you put yourself first and learn to care about yourself FIRST. For me, that meant letting go of the feelings of being misunderstood. My fellow adoptees get me, and that’s good enough for me. But, unfortunately, other people can’t get me because they aren’t walking in my shoes.
So much of what adoptees experience and endure along our journeys aren’t our fault. The feelings of abandonment and rejection aren’t our faults either. I hope you know that you are so much more than how adoption makes you feel wherever you are in your healing journey. You are NOT how abandonment and rejection make you feel. Trauma doesn’t have a healing time frame, so be easy on yourself and allow yourself to feel the feelings when they surface. Then, allow yourself the space to seek healing and guidance by adoptee-competent trauma specialists.
It’s not your fault, and you didn’t deserve the pain adoption has caused you. You are not your abandonment and rejection. You are more valuable, and your story is of utmost importance, back to the very beginning.
Never stop fighting for your truth; you deserve it. Never stop researching and learning about the wounds we carry. Understand, most of society won’t acknowledge them, so it’s up to YOU to do the work. But, acknowledging these realities is the first step.
I hope this article helps one of my fellow adoptees out there.
For those who have made it this far, have you been able to gain any information on your biological mother to help form a conclusion of what your preverbal and prenatal lives might have been like?
Have you made the connection that the way she felt during pregnancy could very well be impacting you to this day?
Don’t forget this article along with all my other articles are available in audio for your convenience, just look up Pamela A. Karanova Podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes , Spotify. and Amazon Music. Interested in treating me with a coffee, to add fuel to my fire? Click here. Many thanks in advance to my supporters!
Love, Love PK
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova
“Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” – Janis Joplin.
When an adoptee is adopted, we are immediately put in a position where we are expected to forget our former selves and carry on with life as if our pre-adoption life never existed.
When we grow up and start to develop internal feelings about this, these feelings often manifest outside ourselves in many different ways. Some of us use unhealthy coping mechanisms like using substances or alcohol. Some of us are perfectionists and overachievers. Some of us are workaholics. Some are addicted to food and spending money. Some of us are rage-filled and angry as hell. Some have healthy coping mechanisms like working out, exercising, hiking, running, bike riding, jogging, volunteering, writing, etc.
But it’s no secret that when we start to tap into our real feelings and begin to express them verbally, we are walking a thin line here, and we feel every bit of it. I could possibly describe it as modern-day blackmail.
Blackmail- “To cheat, deceive or defraud someone for personal gain. A fraudulent scheme or ruse.”
What does this even mean? Many of us have a lot to lose, and we live in fear and intimidation that if we upset our adoptive families, we could have terrifying outcomes. Many of us have similar feelings regarding our biological families, so we remain silent because the risk we take sharing our emotions is too consequential.
If our adoptive parents love us and take care of us when our biological parents didn’t want us, we must be thankful, grateful and we damn sure aren’t supposed to share any feelings that don’t line up with this narrative. It feels like blackmail, and it constantly hangs over our heads.
We give you love if you pretend everything is perfect.
Thoughts like, “If they knew how I feel, would they still love me?” or “If I share my feelings publicly, I will be disowned?” So much of the time, the adoptee can’t share their feelings, even if they want to. Our biological and adoptive families don’t have to say anything; we just know it! We feel it in our souls. Our compliance in keeping quiet is usually in exchange for being included in the family dynamics and receiving the love that’s conditional from the beginning. Trust me, the adopted children that grow up are the first to be left out of wills and shunned or excluded in the family dynamics. If we speak privately or publicly, we take the chance of losing it all!
So most of the time, adoptees might have online roles or share pieces of their story. Still, they often use pen names to write. I don’t see many adoptees sharing particular details about their birth parents and adoptive parents publicly because of these reasons. I’m not saying they don’t write about the adoptee experience; I’m saying they are sometimes afraid to share anything that doesn’t line up with the fairytale narrative.
I also see adoptees write or share about their adoption experience, and they feel as if they ALWAYS have to include, “My adoptive family was wonderful or I am thankful my parents chose me.” They don’t feel they can be real and raw without saying these things before, or after they say the truth that adoption has impacted them negatively.
As a result, I sometimes describe our experiences in a way that others can understand, and I call it the “Adoptee Whammy Effect.”
This is based on having four parents: one adoptive mom, one adoptive dad, one biological mother, and one biological father. In addition, of course, many of us have step-parents or parental roles, which would add layers to this example.
Let’s also not forget to recognize that some adoptees adopted internationally have not had the opportunity to find biological families, and some adoptees adopted domestically haven’t searched for various reasons.
This example assumes that the adopted person has two adoptive parents and two biological parents they have attempted to reunite with over their lifetimes. Let’s also accept and acknowledge that before every person is adopted, they experience separation trauma from being removed from their biological mother. This should never be viewed as a positive experience; it’s traumatic. I have learned from other adoptees that even when they have the “Assumed Picture Perfect Adoption Experience” and they have ZERO WHAMMYS, they still have separation trauma that haunts them, and it impacts them in every way throughout life. That alone is enough for an adoptee to feel completely wrecked by adoption. Adding the whammy’s to it, only magnifies the grief, loss, pain and, trauma. Research separation trauma and the primal wound and learn so you can see for yourself.
When I share “Ideal and Fulfilling” relationships with our parents, I mean the adoptee’s relationships with the specific parent (bio mom, bio dad, adoptive mom & adoptive dad) have been generally a loving and healthy one.
What’s Assumedin Adoption – Every adoptee has an ideal and fulfilling relationship with both adoptive parents. After searching for their biological family, both biological parents receive, love, and accept the adoptee. But, unfortunately, this is the fairytale narrative that most people believe happens in most adoptions.
What Really Happens to Multiply Our Grief, Loss, Separation Trauma & Adoption Trauma:
A Single Whammy – This is when we don’t have good experiences with one of the two adoptive parents OR one of two of the biological parents
A Double Whammy – We don’t have good experiences with two of our parents. It could be one adoptive parent and one biological parent, OR both adoptive parents OR both biological parents.
A Triple Whammy – We don’t have good experiences with three of our four parents. It could be one adoptive parent and both biological parents, OR both adoptive parents and one biological parent.
A Quadruple Whammy – We don’t have good experiences with all four of our parents, both adoptive parents and both biological parents.
I try to leave it up to the adoptees to describe what they consider a “Good Experience” when it comes to each of our individual maternal and paternal parents and each of our adoptive parents because no one else should define that for us.
In my case, I am hands down A Quadruple Whammy and some EXTRA ISH!
I am not going into all the grimy details on WHY I have a quadruple whammy, but I will share briefly that I was estranged from my adoptive mom before her passing and have no relationship with my adoptive dad. In addition, both biological parents rejected a relationship with me after meeting them each one time. Finally, I have an adoptive step-monster who essentially doesn’t exist in my life for various reasons I’m not going to make public.
As a result, I don’t feel connected to or a part of any family except the three adult kids I birthed myself. I have accepted this, and I’m at peace with it at this stage of my life, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t lost so much in the process. It still impacts me (and my kids) until this day, and grief and loss are something I will be processing for the rest of my life. This doesn’t mean I am not thankful for what I have, because I am. My kids are the reason I keep living.
What does it cost for me to share my story? I can’t list everything, but I will highlight the main areas that come to mind.
I have lost three shots at having a nurturing, loving, and caring mother. Three chances and I struck out all three times. I will never know what a loving relationship looks like from a mother other than seeing it in other people and their mothers. I have no mother to call, and I never really have. With this, I have never felt a mother’s unconditional love and support. There is no wound on earth quite like the mother wound. When you have it x3 as I do, it only magnifies it.
I have lost the chance to know and grow up with and have relationships with my biological siblings. This is unforgivable, and the pain will echo for a lifetime. I have a lost/missing sister somewhere out there, and I have a half biological sister who resents me because I was adopted, and she wasn’t. She, too, bought into the fairy tale narrative that adoption is rainbows and unicorns, and it’s always a better life. She relinquished her baby for adoption just like my birth mother did. Giving your baby away runs in the family! She thinks I should be grateful, and I am NOT. She knows nothing about the trauma I experienced in my life, nor has she tried to understand that I might have had a different life than her, but it damn sure hasn’t been a better one. Because of our differences on the issue, we have no relationship today.
I have lost a sense of self because I have had severe identity struggles from childhood to adulthood. Only until I fought like hell for my truth have I been able to come to a place of internal peace in the last five years. That’s a lot of time lost!
I have lost a normal childhood; while most kids are frolicking in the fields, I was obsessed with finding my birth mother. It never left my mind. Read “The Sky and I.” I was also consumed with being the caretaker for my sick adoptive mom. I was traumatized over and over again by her manic depressive episodes.
I can’t connect with celebrating or even embracing a culture. I didn’t find out my ethnicity until I was 40 years old, and now I don’t even know how to tap into something that has been null and void my whole life.
The dream I had of how much my birth parents “Loved Me So Much” was nothing more than a pacifier statement and a myth to stall my healing, and it stood in the way of me knowing the truth. No truth = no healing. The truth is, not all birth mothers love their children, and not all of them want to be found. My birth mother is one of them. Being told she loved me so much shattered me once I saw her, and she rejected a relationship. Please stop saying this to adoptees!
I have lost the ability to understand what love even is. Your mother is supposed to be your ride or die and the one who fights until the end of the earth for you. So when your mother “Loves you so much” she gives you away to strangers, it’s a significant mental mind fuck. I am still making sense of it, and I am not sure I will ever understand why I was told this in this way? Did they know this would forever manipulate my view of what love is? This “lesson” has caused catastrophic consequences in my lifetime.
I don’t know what it’s like to be a part of a real family, aside from my own three adult kids. Being adopted to me feels like I’m still an orphan because I never felt like I fit in with my adoptive family. I always knew I was the second choice. But, I am FOREVER grateful for MY FAMILY WITH MY KIDS. Without them, I would not be here.
I have taken on an impending sense of deep-rooted sadness that will be with me until I leave this earth, for the fact that me being adopted IMPACTS MY KIDS, in every way! The trauma from relinquishment and adoption is generational, and I see my kids experiencing some of the things I did because of my adoption story. I will always hate adoption because of this. I can handle how it makes ME feel, but because it impacts my innocent children in such a profound way, I will never be able to forgive adoption. It will also impact my future grandkids, and their kids. Fuck adoption.
I have lost the ability to trust because I learned early on from my adoptive mother that life and love are based on conditions. I have lived my life feeling like everyone wants something from me. Love is like a carrot, dangling over my head my whole life. The love will be snatched away if I say or do the wrong thing. Well, I’m an adult now, and I don’t want that conditional love anymore. I am learning to trust a few people, and I appreciate small circles.
It’s taken me 47 years on earth to feel complete within myself, finally. The hell I had to go through to get here has consumed every part of my life. Because of this, I feel like I missed out on many moments of my kids being younger and the ability to find beauty in everyday life because most of my 47 years have been spent recovering from separation trauma compacted by adoption trauma. I resent this, and this is one of the reasons I don’t want to waste any more time and I am very selective on what I use my time on.
I have lost every chance at having a father in my life. My biological father didn’t know of my existence, and he didn’t sign any adoption paperwork. However, once found, he still doesn’t want a relationship. My adoptive dad divorced my adoptive mom a year after adopting two daughters; (even when he knew she couldn’t care for us, he left anyway!); he moved over an hour away and remarried. He raised three stepsons as his own, and I honestly feel I don’t even know him. He’s always been far away, and he’s only visited Kentucky 3 times that I can remember, in over 30 years of me being here. On the other hand, I have been back to Iowa at least 20+ times. No father/daughter dance or date, ever. No one-on-one time, not even an hour. Ever.
Trust – I have lost the ability to trust the people who are supposed to love me the most. They kept my truth from me for their gain. They paid a cash price for me. They said whatever they had to say to soothe my deep-rooted desire to find my biological family. I don’t just give trust away; people have to earn it in time.
Missing Memories – I have lost all memories I should have made with my biological family’s maternal and paternal sides. This has been one of the most complex parts for me to fathom. I will never know any grandparents or aunts and uncles. I have met a few biological cousins, but we have no shared history. It’s hard building relationships from scratch. To much time is missing. The grief has knocked me down so many times over in my life. It’s consumed me so profoundly; some days and seasons in my life, I didn’t even want to go on with living. The sadness has been that great.
Judgment – When people learn of me, maybe in a professional setting or even in the dating world, I am always putting myself at risk for pre-judgment because people can read my whole life story on my website before they get to know me real life. This impacts me significantly in life, and I am still sharing my story with my fellow adoptees, but it doesn’t come without a considerable cost! It’s a HUGE PRICE TO PAY!
People assume I am stuck – When I am still writing about adoption, many people think I am stuck in the places I am writing about. However, the truth is that I am not stuck. I have been stuck in the past; however, I have moved on in my life, I have accepted adoption for what it is, I have healed and continue to heal. It has always been the most significant thing in my life that has hurt me the most. I am sharing my feelings with the world, specifically my fellow adoptees because people need to know they have been sold a lie when it comes to adoption. I share so my fellow adoptees know they aren’t alone and aren’t crazy about their feelings. I am also sharing because it helps me heal, and non-adopted individuals can learn from an adoptee’s lens. They are why I keep writing, but I have happiness and wholeness in my personal life, and I am no longer stuck. However, that doesn’t stop people from making assumptions. The great thing is, I could care less what people think.
I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
As you can see, I have nothing to lose by sharing my story – I have already lost everything. When any adoptee shares their story, even if it’s in small pieces or micro-doses, please understand that sometimes that might be the very first time they ever let these feelings come to light. Sometimes it takes us an entire lifetime for adoptee feelings to come out of our mouths. So please listen without judgment and understand that to share our stories, especially publicly, we have A LOT TO LOSE! Be kind, be compassionate, and most of all, have the willingness to understand that there is much more to adoption than what society has been sold.
In sharing my story and being a lifeline to my fellow adoptees, because I have nothing to lose, I can share from depths that many others can’t. When I share from these spaces, I heal a little more each and every time I release feelings that have been inside for 47 years. Because of these reasons, I keep sharing.
For my fellow adoptees, do you have the fairytale narrative that’s assumed by society?
Or do you fit into the Single, Double, Triple, or Quadruple Whammy Effect?
How has this impacted your short term and long term?
What has helped you heal?
Don’t forget this article along with all my other articles are available in audio for your convenience, just look up Pamela A. Karanova Podcast on Google Podcasts, iTunes , Spotify. and Amazon Music. Interested in treating me with a coffee, to add fuel to my fire? Click here. Many thanks in advance to my supporters!
Thank you for reading, Love Love
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova
Disclosure Statement: If you are someone who considers yourself a Christian, Jesus Follower, Church Goer, Religious Guru, Or if you believe your way of spirituality is the only way, I am asking you to save your comments, judgments, and opinions and share them on other platforms as there are many churches, online platforms and religious circles that would love to use the glory in your story to promote their church and religion. Please don’t come here to use your story to discredit mine. This page and article isn’t for you. We are all free to have our personal spiritual beliefs and journeys. My space’s boundary is not allowing others to use their personal stories to belittle mine.
Pieces of my childhood: bible stores, devotionals, prayers, using scripture to let me know I was going to hell from a very young age for dating outside my race. Being forced to sign covenants that I wouldn’t have sex before marriage or ever drink alcohol at 12 years old. Being cursed to hell for using the “lord’s name in vain.”I learned all gay people were going to hell. Being manipulated to believe like my adoptive mom, and scriptures being used as a way to control me starting at a very young age.
Back to the beginning, my whole life has been chosen for me, especially all the heartbreaking parts. The loss of my biological mother, the loss of my biological father. The loss of genetic connections and a sense of wholeness. I lost my medical history and learning what my ethnicity was. I was a secret up until the very moment of birth, swept away and forgotten about as if I never existed. But then, she walked away and went back to work the next day signing her rights over ever to see, hear or speak to me again as long as she lived. I never agreed to keep her secret.
But none of us get to pick our beginnings, right?
True, but most people’s beginnings don’t start with a traumatic experience on the first breath you take entering the world, and most people don’t start their first breath with their story being built on a bed of lies.
In adoption, others make this decision for you because they want you to have a “better life.” However, this one decision can and does impact an adoptee’s life forever.
If people knew the depths of separation trauma, would they still make this choice for another human being? If they knew that basing one’s life on pretending, secrecy, and lies would destroy me from the inside out, would they still pick this choice?
Probably. Because an infertile adoptive parent’s desire to have a child is more significant than their desire to give a flying fuck about the separation trauma that child will experience being separated from their biological mother and being forced to bond with strangers.
Either way, for me and my story, the damage is done. We don’t get do-overs or a rewind button.
So what’s the point?
The point is, I get to choose now. I get to write my story. I didn’t get to choose back at the beginning, but I get to decide now.
If you have read my articles, you would know I was adopted by a woman who suffered from severe mental illness issues. While I have empathy that she had a side to her that was kind and loving, I rarely felt it or saw it, but others did. Some of her mental health issues were possibly being treated, and some weren’t. My entire childhood was filled with her emotional and mental outbursts. I tried to articulate this experience in an article I wrote called “The Narcissistic Adoptive Mom.”
I do remember pills everywhere, all the time, but how would I know she’s addicted to prescription drugs? I remember her sleeping all the time when “normal” parents would be up. Getting up for school, setting the alarm, and getting myself ready every morning was a pretty regular routine. As a child, I had no idea that this behavior was abnormal or her outbursts were signs of mania and depression. I was a child. I had no fucking clue I was knee-deep in disfunction. This disfunction was all I knew.
As if my biological mother passing me over to strangers wasn’t enough, I never bonded with my adoptive mom, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t forced to try. That was traumatic in its way, and I have yet to be able to describe how that’s made me feel. I started to be repulsed by her presence when I was a child. This only increased as I grew up.
Some of her emotional outbursts consisted of her threatening to overdose and commit suicide while running to her bedroom with all her pills in a shoebox, taking the phone, shutting us out, and locking her bedroom door, telling us she wanted to die. We would be left outside her bedroom door screaming, crying, hysterical because we thought she was going to die, sometimes for hours. This happened over and over again. She even had a manic episode and ran out of our 3rd store apartment and laid in the middle of the street while we watched, because she was going to kill herself in front of us.
Abuse comes in all forms.
I feel these episodes caused me C-PTSD as a child.
I remember always saying, “I’m sorry, Mommy, I’m sorry” my entire childhood. At some point, during one of her millions of episodes, I took the blame that it was all my fault and at every attempt, I tried to console her but the endless manic episodes seemed to be inconsolable. But I never stopped trying. Somehow, as a child in elementary school, I did something “bad” to drive her over the edge continuously. While doing inner child work a few years ago, I named my 5-year-old self, I’m sorry. After doing much healing and self-work, I understand that was a trauma response.
It’s no doubt that this woman who adopted me didn’t bring security into my life, but instead, she traumatized me; while she may have had some good and positive qualities, the trauma always comes to my mind when I think about her. I don’t have loving and caring memories of her. She might have loved me in her own way, but her real reason for adopting me is that she didn’t want to go to a nursing home, and she wanted a caretaker. I will be writing more about this soon.
How do I know this? Because she never stopped talking about not wanting to go to a nursing home, and she started priming me for this when I was in elementary school. While my entire childhood was filled with caring for her as a mini servant, other kids were out playing with friends, having sleepovers, and running free in nature. Not me, I had a chore chart a mile long, and I was groomed to rub her back and body giving her massages all the time, and to do many other disgusting things I do not want to share. I was responsible for cleaning my room and cleaning her room also. I ran her bathwater, bathed her, scrubbed her back, put lotion all over her body. I brushed her hair, put her makeup on her. Weird fucking shit, right? Again, I can’t share some because it’s too disgusting. I was adopted to fulfill her needs.
But, eventually, I grew up.
When I had my kids, this new level of fear took over me that she would get custody of my kids if something ever happened to me. This haunted me! Thinking about this sometimes took my breath away. Then, as my kids got older, I started noticing some things she started doing with my kids, as she did me as a child. This was when I decided to pack up a 22-foot Uhaul and move across the country to Kentucky, far, far away.
She visited Kentucky on occasion, and it was always catastrophic drama when she showed up. Even after setting some very firm essential boundaries with her, one time, she threatened to sleep in her car on the side of the road, so my kids felt bad for her. She would talk negatively about me, in my own home to my kids behind my back. I could go on forever at the drama she showed up with and the trouble she caused in my life. I started my alcohol-free journey on August 13, 2012, and she has always been the most significant trigger I have ever had. Putting my recovery and sobriety first, spending 30+ years tolerating her inappropriate behavior, finally, letting her know she’s never welcome to come to my home again. And she never came into my house after this.
I always felt like she had her claws in my kids, and her motive was to put a wedge between us so that they would feel sorry for her, and then they would be the ones next in line to take care of her. My intuitions were correct because when my oldest daughter, 27, turned 18, my adoptive mom asked her to be her Power of Attorney. I had previously refused, and our relationship was non-existent, so my kids were the next best thing. I have had nightmares off and on since having my kids that she would take them from me, and in the dream, I felt the horror of how a mother feels when their children are removed from their care. But then, I would wake up, feeling like this was always her plan.
However, I could always see right through her mind games and manipulation, and finally, I was able to set more firm boundaries and remove this toxic person from my life once and for all.
Her plan didn’t work; it backfired on her. But, after setting a no-contact boundary, I will never forget one of the last conversations we had.
She said, “You don’t have to talk to me here on earth, but you will be seeing me again in heaven one day!”
Did she threaten me with heaven?
It was like a punch in the gut. This is something I never thought about until she said it. I will never forget how this made me feel. I was sick at the thought of having to see this woman in heaven one day.
Would we be on excellent terms in heaven?
Would she be a normal mom in heaven?
Would I be pretending she didn’t traumatize me my whole life in heaven?
All these questions began to swim around in my brain. My conclusion is, if she was going to be in heaven, that’s damn sure a place I never want to go.
Hell to the no-no.
And, I didn’t sign any adoption paperwork.
While coming out of the fog about adoption for 10+ years, I have also been coming out of the fog about religion. While adoption is celebrated worldwide, so is Christianity and religion. My views don’t stop with this one experience. They go far beyond and are endless on why I can no longer support Christianity and the Bible. But I respect you do! It’s been just as difficult as coming out of the fog about adoption, and I’ve found it to be a lonely and isolating journey. To conclude, everything you had always been told in life was a lie can be difficult to step into, especially when you enter this space many times in a lifetime. But, the flip side is that today I am walking in freedom, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It has been exceptionally liberating to step into a space of making my mind up about what I believe and why I believe it without others cramming it down my throat. Also, the fact that the only way I will ever be forced to see my adoptive mom again in heaven is ONLY if I believe in the shenanigans, to begin with, which is refreshing.
Regardless of what I believe in or don’t believe in, hopefully, if you are someone that reads this, you can save space for others who believe nothing like you without trying to “prove them wrong” or “prove a point” on why your beliefs trump another’s beliefs.
I can say from a personal standpoint; I don’t care what you believe. I care what kind of person you are and how you treat people. I care about integrity, compassion, and empathy. I’ve seen people claim to believe in a higher power and be rotten to the core deep down and treat others like shit. I’m sure we’ve all seen different variations in our lives, but my goal is to learn from others and offer a judgment-free perspective if someone inquires about my input. At this point in my life, if I had to attach my beliefs to a label I would say my personal views align closest to Agnostic.
While I’ve been told I was going to hell from a very early age for dating outside of my race, the truth is – I didn’t even know what “race” I was until I was 40 fucking years old. Adoption prohibited me from knowing my ethnicity, so I never had a culture to celebrate, study or feel like I was a part of. Did it ever occur to anyone that the possibility exists that I dated “outside of my race” because I knew that person wasn’t a blood cousin or blood brother? It is more profound than just wanting to be rebellious and a rotten teenager. Now that I am out of the fog about religion, I can confidently say that if this is what the bible is about, you can miss me with it.
Many adoptees have this feeling of “badness” attached to them just for being born. I wrote an article to express my feelings about it one time called “She’s Bad.” Then you add that with my religious upbringing, being told I am going to hell, and constantly feeling “BAD” because I internalized this because of my adoptive mom’s mental illness and outbursts. It’s no wonder I started acting BAD my teen years and then got tossed in the school for the “BAD KIDS.” I didn’t do well in public school constantly because my childhood didn’t allow me the capabilities to be able to learn well with the life I was dealing with at home. Being in and out of detention, on probation, in group homes, a teen runaway (the list could go on), and you see why this feeling of badness has been so strong? Now, add religion to the mix. They convince you that you are born a sinner, and your flesh will steer you in the wrong direction every time if you listen to it, so you are conditioned to feel like you are BAD when you fail and follow your fleshly desires over God’s plan for your life. They teach you your flesh (intuition) can not be trusted, and in return, you can’t trust yourself.
Talk about a big bag of trash!
That’s putting it as politely as I can.
Do you not see the cards stacked against me as an adoptee and so many others? It’s taken me 47 years to see the light and to be able to call BULLSHIT on all of it. I tell myself daily; I am not bad; I wasn’t born bad, I wasn’t born a sinner, I am NOT going to heaven or hell because I don’t believe they exist. I want to organically be good and offer the world the genuine me because that’s who I am. Not because I’m trying to stay on God’s good side so I don’t go to hell. I’m so thankful the lights have come on so I can deconstruct in a more graceful and profound way. The only way I can genuinely save myself is to get REAL with myself. No more fucking pretending. That shit is for the birds.
Let me be completely transparent, I want to live my life NOW. I don’t want to wait to live until I’m dead. I want to spend time with those I love while I’m here, alive and well on earth. We live every day, we only die ONCE. I’m determined to make it count.
Have you ever known anyone to “threaten” another human being with seeing them in heaven? Have you ever had someone threaten that you were going to hell for your actions?
Dear Adoptive mom, I’m sorry, but you will not be seeing me in heaven, and even when you cursed me to go to hell, I won’t be showing up there either. Today I am finally able to look myself in the mirror and love who’s looking back at me without the profoundly ingrained feelings of badness adoption, you and your religion ingrained into me.
The thoughts of heaven and hell are traumatic for me, so on top of deconstructing Christianity, I am deconstructing from the notion that I will never be good enough, and heaven and hell will NOT be the deciding factors on what happens to me after I’m dead.
I’m good enough now, and I was good enough when I came out of the womb. The world’s conditioning and others’ beliefs made me feel otherwise, but I see the truth and the light today. I have joy in my heart that I’m following the path that seems real to me and not full of secrets, lies, and half-truths. Not to mention made-up stories, used against me to try to make me BE GOOD.
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Thank you for reading, Love Love
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of the author, Pamela A. Karanova. Reproduction of the material contained in this publication may be made only with the written permission of Pamela A. Karanova
You have come to the right place if you are looking for the best adoption quotes from the adoptee’s perspective. This article shares 100 Heartfelt Adoptee Quotes that Honor’s the Truth of Adoption from the adult adoptee perspective. As we enter 2022, I decided to call my fellow adoptees to help collaborate and share quotes from the heart, reflecting the voices almost always overlooked in the adoption constellation. So, 100 of us came together to capture some of the feelings and experiences adoptees go through during their lifetimes.
While you read these quotes, we ask you to remain with an open heart and mind and enter the possibility that we all have a lot to learn from one another. We must recognize that adopted children grow up, reach adulthood, and consume the rollercoaster journey that adoption brings. We are mothers, fathers, sisters, cousins, doctors, nurses, teachers, public speakers, advocates, writers, authors, D.J’s, lawyers, homemakers, students, etc. As we grow up, we host lifelong experiences, and every experience holds value to our lives and stories.
By sharing 100 Adoptee Quotes with the world, we hope that a new level of awareness will arise that there is so much more to adoption than what society recognizes. Maybe perhaps love isn’t enough or a house full of stuff? Perhaps we should start talking about relinquishment trauma as soon as possible? Maybe adoption hurts more than we would ever know?
Again, we ask for open hearts and open minds.
Thank you to each adoptee who shared their heart here. While you read this article, you will receive validation that you are not alone. We’re in this together, and our voices are valuable and worthy.
We are stronger together.
100 Adoptee Quotes
1. “Adoption very well might have kept me alive, but it taught me to hate and despise my authentic self, until the age of 64 when I learned my truth.” – Mary Constance Mansfield
2. “Adoption changed who I was and made me who I didn’t want to be. Then, I was forced to change who I became in order to love who I am! Adoption Sucks!” – Ofir Alzate
3. “I used to think it was delightful to hear my birth story until one day; I realized that my story sounded quite different than that of my biologically born siblings. Mine had holes, missing pictures, and name stories and included zero features traced back to mom, dad, aunties, or grandparents. The story of adoptees, as told by those outside the triad, is never quite on the mark and often rings like a fairy tale. That’s why today I tell my own story using all the bits I’ve gathered along the way through writing and art in a way that is authentic, and in a way that says my story matters too.” – Lynne Rachell
4. “I miss my home, my culture, my country. I miss my mom.” – Margit
5. “Once I gathered my thoughts and suffered the pain from the betrayal and no family support after discovering late that I was adopted, things started to become clear. The healing process began, and I realized how lucky I was because all of the abuse and trauma came from a family I was nothing like. It all made sense to me, and I started to embrace my uniqueness, and I’m glad I wasn’t their blood after all.” – AnnMarie Serpe
6. “My adoptive parents didn’t know how to meet my needs. I never felt “enough.” Even though I was loved and raised in a better situation, I still grieved for the family I lost. One had nothing to do with the other.” – Andrea Burke
7. “I was never the true person I was supposed to be. I was born into being someone else’s fantasy. I never fit in and never belonged anywhere. My life adopted was a struggle to just be the real me. Even though it’s touch and go, until I met my biological family, I felt out of touch with me. At least now I have landed somewhere, right? – Ellen Ular-Olson
8. “Through all the emotional abuse, I never fit your puzzle in a family. I don’t belong. I can stay in a broken adoption cycle full of shame, pain, and blame, or I can rise and be the best I can be while removing the toxicity and pain; that is what my family brought me.” – S.M.
9. “Adoption may have given me a better lifestyle, but it destroyed my self-worth.” – Kate Kendall
10. “Society needs to stop using the term “adopted” when referencing to animals. It’s dismissive to humans who are adopted. Instead, use the term “rescue.” Unlike us, these animals are actually chosen, whereas we adoptees are merely the next available. Please stop equating our adopted experiences to those of shelter animals. – Cindy Olson McQuay
11. “My “adoption trauma” is the government denying me access to my own records.” – Marci Purcell
12. “Even if your adoption reunion goes well, adoptees often feel like they are on the outside looking in at their birth/first families.” – Daryn Watson
13. “My conception MADE ME; it didn’t make ME. I am not my conception.” – Jeannette Mantilla
14. “I was adopted. But I was not raised in adoption. I was raised in deception.” – Kris Rao
15. “As an adoptee, I am the bridge between two worlds, hanging on by my fingertips!” – Daryl Fuller
16. “Trauma hides who we are like a cloud blocking out the sun. It doesn’t diminish our radiant brilliance.” – Simon Benn
17. “For 50 years, I pretended to be “your” child. You always told me I could be anything I wanted to be when I grew up until I told you I wanted to be who I was “born” to be.” – Virginia Miller
18. “It’s clear to me I’m an unwanted intrusion into her healed existence. My letter was not welcomed and was rebuffed firmly with kind words. An iron fist in a velvet glove that has punched me so hard I can’t breathe for a while.” – Nick Mabey
19. “Being adopted is like being stuck in some sort of senseless protective custody from your truth and DNA: Forever hostage in the trap of a triangle that no one else sees. I’m surrounded by constant reminders of how much pain was felt by the two families I am caught between in order to exist in the life I have. How could I not feel that being born was the crime I am paying for?” – Kristen Steinhilber
20. “What I’ve learned from deconstructing my thoughts and feelings on my Adoption story is that the grief I hold for my family that I never had the chance to be – for the biological siblings I never go to know or meet – that the longing for my roots doesn’t undermine the family I was raised in. Humans have a great capacity for love. I can hold space for both my first and adoptive family. I can now finally do that without feeling guilty.” – Allison H.
21. “Part of the lived experience for intercountry adoptees in the USA is being told by all of society, as children, that we can never be the president of the United States. This is an aspect of intercountry adoption to the US that is seldom talked about but has weighed on my mind for as long as I can remember.” – Meggin Nam Holtz
22. “Finding my voice as an adoptee has been a lifelong pursuit & finally, I am at a place where I welcome connection with others who have gone down this road as well. Together we stand strong and invite others to join us on this journey of self-identity.” – Abby Jacobson
23. “Your Mother is the one person in this world who is supposed to love you, no matter what. Mine didn’t.” – Stephenie King
24. “And where is the adoption trauma you speak of? It is the expression of an infant’s rage at being torn from its Mother. This is experienced as a life and death moment by the infant/child. We are dealing with the normal and expected response to a premature infant/maternal separation. This pre-verbal trauma is stored within the body and, when recalled (not remembered), is experienced as an emotional flashback. This is the biological base upon which the child’s infancy and childhood is precariously placed.” – Michael Grenfell
25. “Voice of the Adoptee Child – Please, do not love me “as if” I was your own. Love me because it is inevitable to love a child. Take my hand and come to know my heart – my Mother and father’s share with me. They are part of my fabric. Do not try to rip them away, just because their pattern does not fit your décor.” – Copyright, Shirley MacKenzie
26. “Sending heaven-bound love to the mother who gave birth to me, loved me and was brave enough to let me go to a better life than she could provide; and to the mother who raised me as her own and who gave me a true mother’s love and guidance.” – Judi Euritt
27. “The hardest parts of being adopted: Society celebrating your adoption without acknowledging what you have lost!” – Maria Roach
28. “I was a foundling, discovered naked in a beer box, adopted shortly after. I was told to feel grateful and to live as if it never happened as if my story started in that box. The fact that I was there and yet can never remember how my life began haunts me as I carry that weight of pre-verbal trauma every day. I want to rip the flesh from my bones and dig down to see if the truth is buried there.” – Baby Lilac
29. “My adoptive parents want to pretend I wasn’t a baby taken; my biological parents want to pretend I wasn’t a baby given. Imagine your very existence being uncomfortable for everyone.” – Jennifer Harris
30. “I am one of the lucky ones. I speak to my first Mother on my birthday, the adoptee’s eternal day of dread. She sends me a card, thoughtful gifts, and we chat about life. Still, this “birth” day consumes me with unrelenting sadness that lingers in for weeks and takes hold of my very soul. It weakens my spirit and my bones. I suppose it always will.” – Susan London
31. “Being an adoptee is living in a world of unknowns while simultaneously trying to create a world you have control over.” – Jullian Drzewoszewski
32. “An adoptee experiences their first death, at birth, let the grieving begin.” – Robbin Lee
33. “Always on the outside looking through frosted windows.” – K. Henson
34. “I want the world to know that Adoption = a lifetime of fighting to learn my truth that I deserved from day one.” – Cynthia Dort
35. “Living with strangers, confused and detached. Not fitting their script, hearts felt split.” – J.Q.
36. “When I had my own child, it was the first time I saw myself. As she grew, I knew her. I realized I have been in survival mode since birth. And it is okay to be me so that she can be herself.” – K.B.
37. “I may have been “chosen” by one family (if you even subscribe to that “chosen adoptee” bullshit to begin with), but in order to be chosen by one family, I had to be rejected/abandoned by the family/lies that brought me into this world. Rejection is real. It hurts.” – Laureen Pittman
38. “Space is a difficult concept for Adoptees who are often clingy and want to solve any conflict right then and there. We are afraid that whoever needs space from us will never come back.” – Kirk Andrews
39. “It doesn’t matter to me” feels like “you don’t matter to me.” – K.B.
40. “Being an adoptee doesn’t solely define me. However, being an adoptee is a lifelong experience!” – Jane A.
41. “Adoption isn’t a better life. It’s a different life that started with loss and grief. Reunion is often seen as a Hallmark moment and thought to heal everything, but it only showed me all that I had lost. Being an adoptee is a life of overcoming obstacles that normally wouldn’t be there.” – Lorah Gerald @theadoptedchameleon
42. “Adoption has affected every aspect of my life.” – Tonya Jean Nunnally
43. “Perfectly in order with God’s plan. Blessed with the full spectrum of emotion. Particularly gratitude. To see how much He’s cared for me and blessed me in a myriad of ways.” – Christopher Thomas Wilson
44. “Ripped from our Mother’s womb. No bonding time. Who are we? We are the ones who create ourselves. Lost, but hopefully, found.” – Willetta Hill Calvin
45. “In any context other than adoption, the expectation of instant love, trust, attachment, loyalty, and gratitude to a complete stranger would be seen for what it is: evidence of a personality disorder. Society needs to stop pathologizing adoptees for reacting normally to narcissistic abuse and put the blame where it belongs: on the adults who expect traumatized children to adjust to their world being altered in every imaginable way, including a new identity forced on them by new caregivers.” – Jodi Moore
46. “As an adoptee, so many pieces of my identity were a mystery. I’ve spent so much time trying to figure out who I am and what my purpose is. Going through the reunification process shifted all of my identity work. Now I live my life balancing two deeply conflicting feelings: infinite gratitude for who I am as part of my Adoptive family and an infinite longing for who I would’ve been as a part of my Biological family.” – Ellie Rosen
47. “As an infant closed adoption adoptee, I have had not just an overwhelming sense of loss my whole life but fear and dread of it. For most of my life, I was pro-life. Partially because of being adopted. In just the past few years, I now wish I was aborted because of the lifelong pain in my soul that seems to get worse and not better. Many of us decide we no longer want to live with it and put an end to it ourselves.” – Tony Sanderell
48. “My parents always made me feel special, so I grew up proud to be adopted. I am still very proud. I just wanted to let my biological parents know that I had a wonderful life, and I was very loved. When I found my biological father, I told him he could not have hand-picked better parents to raise his son. He was very happy to hear my life was as wonderful as he hoped.” – Joseph M. Zinni Jr.
49. “Adoptees share the unique experience of carrying the rejection of relinquishment while also trying to balance the natural human need to be loved and known for who we are. Very little people and spaces can feel safe for us. I have done an immense amount of healing through the building of relationships with other adoptees who understand this experience innately.” – Laura Summers @lauraisalot
50. “I cried for her as if crying for God to be with me, to know someone who can never be known, someone who is known by their absolute absence.” – Kevin Barhydt
51. “I was robbed of the person I was supposed to be. I don’t fit in anywhere – Not with my adoptive family, not with my biological family. I’m like a puzzle piece that was cut apart to fit into a puzzle it didn’t belong to. You can put it in the new puzzle, but it doesn’t look right. It no longer works in the original puzzle because it’s been altered. It will fit in the space, but the picture will never look as intended. The damage was done. That’s what adoption has done to me.” – Jewel Kingsley
52. “Growing up as an adoptee, I was always jealous of my friends that could look in the mirror every day and know where their genetic makeup came from. For me, all I ever saw was a person that I didn’t really know where he came from or where he fits in.” – Robert Knotts
53. “Thru the eyes of an adoptee… We were born as ourselves. Then our identity was taken away, and tried to be made as someone else. We are neither; we are both, plus the person we have become. This is who we are.” – H. Carter
54. “Two moms are not easy to have. Both assumed I would be A-OK with the “adoption plan.” I guess in the end, they both lose out on my true self – which is tragically sad for all three of us. In order for me to be free, I had to grieve them both, even though they are both alive. It’s the toughest thing I ever had to do to be me.” – Jennifer Vroon
55. “Adoption made me a stranger to myself.” – Jessica R.
56. “Adoption robbed me of my living my heritage. I don’t fit in anywhere, and not one “immediate” really knows or cares how I feel, even if I try and express my hurt, pain, and loss.” – Julie Blanchard
57. “My whole life, I have mourned the loss of my original Mother. I don’t know anything different. Yet, I search for beauty and love in the present. Sometimes I find it.” – Paul Kimball
58. “I wish I was aborted all those years ago.” – Dawna Unsell
59. “Adopted people are some of the most incredible humans I’ve ever known. My hope is that adoptees, who have worked on healing and have the fortitude necessary, will start to tell their whole truth about adoption. Let’s not perpetuate the adoption tropes we see in popular culture and media. Let’s be the ones who say the truth: family separation is traumatic and lifelong.” – Haley Radke
60. “Adoption is the beginning of a never-ending search for oneself. We live in the land of loss. We are lost. Maybe forever?” – Sara G.
61. “I’m a stranger that everyone knows, but I don’t know how to explain my reality.” – Lawrence P.
63. “Adoption is a form of human trafficking. It’s critical to see it as part of the fastest-growing multi-billion dollar criminal industry in the world. Adoption trafficking has led to generational trauma, suicide, and murder of human lives. In order to bring about the necessary paradigm shift based on the need to save lives, we all have to take responsibility in understanding and accepting this truth. ” – Moses Farrow, LMFT
64. “I have found myself reflecting more about my adoption as an adult. I am grateful that I have had the chance to connect with my roots and learn about the life that I would have had in a very culturally different community. I love to learn more about my birth identity, but I also have such an appreciation for my life now.” – Yael Adler @fromgypsytojersey
65. “I am a cultural Frankenstein caught between two distinct cultures neither one wanted to take me in. I have learnt to accept that I am stuck in no man’s land, neither British nor East Asian, just me.’ – Lucy Chau Lai-Tuen
66. “The joy and tragedy coexist for me as a multi-ethnic adoptee. It is a complex existence to wake up and begin again every day at ground zero, not knowing where I come from because it’s being hidden from me, despite asking for years on repeat kindly and urgently, by the birth mother (her Mother and birth counselor) and the ones who chose to adopt me. Adoptees are not replacements for the voids within adoptive or birth parents, nor are we supposed to be the embodiment of the dream that our adopters pressure us to be. This high level of feigned ignorance mixed with an extreme level of master-manipulation of not only my reality but also my ancestry (past) and my human narrative, which informs my present/future is selfish and unbecoming of any human being looking to live truthfully and love in truth.” – Doux
67. “Adoption feels like a very long rocky road of sadness and rejection but can end up in a smooth and beautiful journey of self-love and acceptance with the right support.” – Michelle @babybebrave_
68. “We’ve heard it all for centuries in the adoption community, “Love is all you need!” I’m here to tell you that love isn’t enough or a house full of stuff. I needed my truth because there is no healing from secrecy, lies, and half-truths. And even after I have the truth, the trauma, grief, and loss will remain lifelong visitors. I feel robbed of what normal people have like I’m marked. Acceptance is key, and acknowledging adoption has stolen 47 years from me. I’m doing a life sentence for a crime I didn’t commit but I moved across the country and abandoned them all. No more tug-of-war split between many families, never really belonging to any .” – Pamela A. Karanova
69. “Starting an adoptee’s story with adoption is like picking up a book and jumping straight to chapter 4. You’ll figure out some things somewhat, but never fully like having those first three chapters.” – Lee McLamb
70. “My true identity will never be. It was thoughtlessly taken away from me. Leaving me longing for answers no one else understood to see. My life as an adoptee has been both complicated and lonely.” – Pamela Lovell Guerin
71. “Adoption is like having an aerial view of a stagnant labyrinth, you can see the twists and turns, but there is no flow from one section to the next. Following the path with constant and unforgiving dead ends, you are left alone and starving. This labyrinth becomes your home where you are forced to exist lost and forgotten, even by yourself.” – Maura Nicholson
72. “Adoption caused me to be stripped of my biological origins and live in an emotionally abusive, alternative reality. I felt like a mistake, with no right to be born. I needed to know how I got here, who and where I came from. It took 50 years to find my answers and enjoy living authentically me.” Barb R.
73. “Being adopted means searching for yourself in the faces and names of strangers and wishing everyone would just take a DNA test so you could get back to your tribe. It also means even after you search and find biological family, you will still probably feel like you don’t belong to anyone.” – Sophi Hamovitz-Richman Fletcher
74. “I came into the world alone; a discarded, relinquished, innocent baby. I had waited 9 long months to meet a woman who I would not actually meet until 32 years after my birth. It wasn’t until I met her face-to-face that I realized how deep this primal wound really is, and finally, I began to come out of the fog. The memory of being one with my Mother is frozen in the year 1981.” – Kimberly R. Weeks, LCSW, CADC I
75. “Now that I have my entire adoption file and original birth certificate, I am still left wondering who I really am. I have been listed as No Name K, Mother’s Name’s Baby, Baby Girl K, Sharon Louise K, and Wendy Kay J, all in the span of 6 weeks. It’s no wonder adoptees struggle with their identity.” – WKJ
76. “I am not a toaster, so why can I readily access more about my toaster than I can about my time as a sentient being?” – Anonymous Adoptee
77. “The best thing adoptive parents can do for their children is allowing them to be different. They will have physical differences, different talents and skills, and different weaknesses. Don’t attempt to mold them in your image, and celebrate the things that make them unique. Be careful not to allow their differences to make them feel ostracized.” – @amamelmarr / Reddit
78. “Please don’t ask why I’m adopted because it will end the conversation faster than saying I’m friends with Prince Andrew.” – @oranges_and_lemmings / Reddit
79. “RELINQUISHED; It’s not that you couldn’t hold on. It’s the fact that you let go.” – Anonymous Adoptee
80. “I think the biggest struggle is finding where I fit into my own world, not anyone else’s. I can be whoever anyone needs me to be, but when it comes to myself, I still feel like the child waiting for that one person I depended on to lead me to success, but my arm is left extended.” – Lexie
81. “I always knew I was adopted. My parents never sat me down and had a formal conversation with me. That wasn’t necessary because mine was an “open adoption.” I was in contact with my biological parents and siblings from the beginning. My parents felt it was important for me to be close to my oldest sister, and she spent nearly every weekend at our house and would even go on vacation with us. I loved spending time with her. It was very painful when she eventually moved away the summer after fifth grade. It had a really negative effect on me, and I felt lost and became withdrawn from my peers. Sometimes I wonder if it would have been less confusing and painful if I didn’t meet my biological family until I was an adult.” – Tia
82. “Embrace culture and change; never be ashamed of your roots. I was adopted at 1 year old from Vietnam and brought to the U.S. My adoptive parents never embraced my culture, and I was put into a predominantly white school until I was 18. I always felt ashamed for being Asian and looking different. It took me years to appreciate my ethnic background, but I am so glad my perspective has changed.” – @Rough-Philosopher-34 / Reddit
83. “All adoptees experience trauma and deserve someone taking the time to address that trauma and help them heal. Also, there is nothing like getting to know your heritage when you never knew where you came from. Finally, to adoptive parents – please let them get to know their biological brothers and sisters if that’s an option because it means so much to know your biological siblings and you find out you have so much in common; every adoptee should experience it if possible.” – Louis
84. “Just because I was raised in a good family doesn’t mean I don’t deserve and yearn to know my beginning story.” – Gina Durham
85. “I am a 60+-year-old woman where I just found out my birth mother lives in The Villages, Florida. The most Trump-centric place on earth. I had search angels guiding me through DNA, etc. All of them say I should contact them, as I have known I was adopted since I was 3. But although this is what I always wanted, I do not think at this stage of my life I want to get involved with a Trump person. Is it horrible that I don’t want to get involved? Btw, I found my bio dad. His family has been wonderful.” – Randi C.
86. “I see you, I hear you, I feel you, said no one.” – Rebecca Leqve
87. “Only adopted people know the experience of your loving ‘family’ and community expecting you to forget your Mother and father, ignore who you are and where you’re from. Requiring a state of voluntary permanent amnesia in which you’re criticized for wanting to recover.” – Kimberly S. Worden-Poledna
88. “Adoptees never experience unconditional love. They are taught that love must be earned again every day. They must demonstrate gratitude every day. It’s a horrible existence.” – Rebecca C.
89. “When I first admitted to being adopted, it started to feel normal to me for the first time. When I internalized that I have more than one root, I realized my strength. Now my adoption is a part of me that makes me who I am. If I hadn’t been adopted, I wouldn’t be who I am today.” – Gamze Bilir-Seyhan @birevlatedinilmehikayesi
90. “Relinquishment severed my soul and my spirit. Adoption and religion didn’t save me. It fractured me.” – Xiomara R.
91. “When I was on the inside, I was one with you. When I was born, you disappeared. Ever since then, I have been stuck in survival mode. And nothing, I mean nothing, numbs the pain. The purchased baby spends their lifetime paying the price.” – Veronica Collins
92. “My adoption story is the fuel that drives everything in my life. I am bigger than the box that holds my story. My voice will NOT be silenced, and if I can get up, I will show up.” – Ms. Ereka HowardMS Certified Life Coach
93. “Not applicable; adopted; do not know my history. Just words filled out for decades onto doctor forms. Now that I know. I am giddy with the knowledge that everyone else takes for granted.” – Meg Cullum
94. “Adoptees were born to do hard things, starting from birth.” – Zinta K.
95. “At that age, she did not know how to miss them, and now she does not know how to remember them.” – Lori Mier
96. “Purchased to heal a wound that was not my responsibility to heal. Identity: stolen, hidden and refused.” – Michelle M.
97. “Dear adoptive parents, our lives didn’t start with you.” – Cam Lee Small, MS, LPCC
98. “The way adoption has impacted my life is that every relationship, every situation is filtered through the prism of the trauma. I have found healing through connection with other adoptees, but it is about living with being adopted and knowing we are like an alien species in this world. We are the voices of the primally dispossessed, and we are beginning to be heard, but it is slowly, slowly, drip by drip. I believe that change will come based on the lived experience of the adoptees who share their stories.” – Julia Richardson
99. “I don’t want to be an island. I crave community, belonging, and reciprocal love – but fear that I’ll only ever be accessible by boat.” – Shantu
100. “Being pulled in every direction trying to keep everyone happy, which leads to self-neglect and poor mental health…and the never-ending cycle continues.” – Harley-Jade E.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read quotes from 100 adoptees. Please share this article in your online communities. Our hope is that we raise a brighter light around adoptee voices and bring the truth to light, one story, quote, and click at a time.
If you are an adoptee, what quotes spoke to you the most? Could you relate to any of your fellow adoptee’s quotes?
Maybe you are an adoptee and missed the call to be included in this 100, we still want to hear from you! If you are an adoptee who has a quote to share, please drop them in the comment section below.
If you are not an adoptee, but you have been impacted by this article in some way, we would love to hear your thoughts as well.
Once again, a special thank you to all 100 adoptees who took the time to share your quote with me, and in return collaborated with one of the most important articles we can share. 100 of us coming TOGETHER to share our truth is a powerful initiative.
XOXO P.K.
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