A Deprivation of Resources Complicated By Adoption Secrecy Causes a Deficiency of Healing & Recovery for Adoptees
While times are finally starting to change for the adoptee community, it's no secret that resources for adult adoptees need to be more extensive and accessible.
Can you imagine with me for a few minutes?
Can you form a picture of what it might feel like to have a missing limb but not know how your missing limb came about? What's the story of the missing limb? Why won't anyone tell you or talk about it? Why is it such a secret, yet it's a massive part of you, who you are, and how you came to be? You know there is a story behind it, yet no one will "spill the beans." They say, "Aren't you thankful you have your life? You could have died!"
Can you imagine someone handing you a book yet they tear out the first three chapters of the pages? You are supposed to continue as if you know the whole story, but you don't. The book doesn't make sense because you need the first pages. You keep trying to learn about the first three chapters, but no one will help you.
Can you put yourself in the shoes of someone who lost their mother, father, and siblings in a car wreck at the beginning of life? Can you feel the loss they must feel? Imagine telling them, "Just be thankful you didn't die too!" The world expects them not to ask questions about their first family; they think love is enough to replace all they lost and gaslight them to be grateful. They also celebrate this loss and save no room for the grief that comes with it. They tell them, "Get over it & move on! You are choosing to stay in this pain!"
Can you imagine being that parent that comes home from a long day at work only to find out your five-year-old daughter's bike was left abandoned on the sidewalk, and she's nowhere to be found? You run frantically to every neighbor's house, searching for her. You contact the police, but they say they can't help; no one can help you. You are alone, but your mind, body, and spirit will search for her for the rest of your life. You never give up; every day is a struggle. Where is your daughter? Why are you all alone searching for her?
Can you imagine having such big feelings internally, yet the world has no resources for you? They also support and co-sign for all the pain you are experiencing because they support and celebrate your loss (adoption) and fail to acknowledge the realities of what an adopted person truly goes through. They won't listen to you; they assume all adoptions are Disney World-themed, a win-win for all involved. “Not my adoptee,” they say.
Welcome to adoption from an adult adoptee's perspective.
These scenarios are a small glimpse of what an adoptee might feel like being adopted. In light, adoption has been a complete, complicated mental mind fu*k to navigate, and I have always felt like I have been left for dead by those who should love me the most.
It has felt like a cruel joke I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
Did you know that adult adoptees are over-represented in prisons, jails, mental health & treatment facilities? We are also 4x more likely to take our own lives than non-adopted individuals. While times are finally starting to change for the adoptee community, it's no secret that resources for adult adoptees need to be more extensive and accessible. Unfortunately, they have been primarily non-existent for most of my life. Only within the last five years have things started to shift for adult adoptees, but we still have so far to go and so much work to do.
Adoptee resources are crucial because they provide support, information, and community for adoptees. When we have resources, they can help us understand our unique experiences, navigate the complex layers of relinquishment and adoption trauma, and connect with other adoptees who share similar experiences. With resources and connections with other adoptees, we can share our stories. As adoptees, we can become empowered to embrace our identities and navigate life's challenges.
WHEN ADOPTEES CONNECT, WE HEAL & RECOVER
While the younger and future generations of adoptees are venturing on a transformation in the adoption arena with more resources than ever before, what about the adoptees who are millennials or well into their adult life and have missed having any resources, tools or help to navigate the complex emotions that come with being adopted?
I see them, I feel them, I am one of them.
Adoption secrecy damages adopted individuals because it stalls our healing, creates a barrier to knowing our identity, and creates a roadblock to knowing our truth. When the adoption system is shrouded in secrecy, lies, and half-truths, it can damage adoptees and our sense of identity. With a clear understanding of our history and heritage, adoptees can experience a sense of connection with who we are.
When we don't know the truth about our ancestry, cultural background, and biological family, it can cause challenging issues that arise throughout our lives. It can also impact feelings of abandonment and rejection, impacting our ability to form healthy attachments with others.
Overall, the damage from secrecy in adoption can be significant. It's critical and life-saving that adoptive parents, adoption agencies, adoption advocates, and society know the importance of truth and transparency in adoption. This is one of the numerous realities adopted individuals have to experience.
Consider Reading: Living in Adoptions Emotional Aftermath.
It's only when we have our whole truth, do we have the capabilities to accept that truth, heal from it and move forward. There is no healing when secrecy is at the root of adoption because we can't heal if we don't know what we are healing from. Then we gloss our history over by sweeping it under the rug, applying the band-aid of adoption, and pretending our beginnings don’t exist. We are considered blank slates, but adoptees are far from that. The band-aid will eventually be ripped off, and we will be left to heal the lifelong wounds of adoption with separation trauma at the core.
Consider Reading: The Unrecognized Developmental Trauma of Early Relinquishment in Adoption.
We can't recover if we don't know what we are recovering from.
The secrecy in adoption has got to stop, and the only way to do that is to rip the band-aids off and pull the real and raw truth up by the root. The soothing balm of adoption can not heal all wounds. It might help some of us, but the root of separation trauma is still there, and it will surface throughout life in every way imaginable for adoptees.
I have been in therapy on and off my entire life since I was five years old. I remember many therapy visits were with my adoptive mom, adopted sister, and me for family visits. While topics were discussed at this appointment, and many more to follow, adoption was never mentioned or brought to the table. Ever. I don't think many knew the life-altering adoptee challenges in the '70s, '80s, and '90s.
But it's 2023 now.
Consider Reading: Ignorance is Bliss, My Experience with Therayping the Therapist
My adoptive parents divorced when I was one, and my adoptive dad remarried, moved away, and raised a new family as his own. He left us with our incapable, pill-addicted, manic-depressive, suicidal, mentally, and emotionally abusive adoptive mom. We were all three like a tsunami of water, oil, and vinegar, and no one ever got along with my adoptive mom being the triangulation dictator. Fist fighting was a constant visitor, along with my adoptive mom's suicidal attempts for all to witness and see.
As a pre-teen, teenager, and young adult, I experienced setbacks in the therapist area. None of them talked about adoption, and I didn't either. I am positive I never brought it up because it was such a taboo topic back then. I was also conditioned to be thankful and that my adoptive mom's dream coming true to be a parent trumped all of my internal grief, loss, sadness, anger, rage, and loneliness.
My feelings didn't matter, and no one acknowledged they did.
How many adoptees have felt similar ways?
I hated myself, the world, and everyone in it as a teenager. My pain was incredible. I tried to leave the world several times, but no one ever noticed. The sorrow I felt from losing my birth mother infiltrated every fiber of my being. I thought she would return to get me, but she never returned.
Who was she? Where was she?
The mental torment was lifelong until I finally found her at 21 years old and saw her face. And then, everything changed. I traded the agony and torment of the unknown for the heartbreak and disbelief of rejection. I exchanged one type of pain for more pain. Where was the help for me to navigate these feelings?
Consider Reading: Big Adoptee Feelings.
I could have used some adoptee-centric resources, but beginning my search in the 1980s, I was 100% solo, winging it all on my own. There were no internet or support groups. It's been a grueling process to navigate a healing journey, with no support system for most of my life and no tools to process the deep sadness that has lingered throughout my life.
I know I am not alone. Many adoptees feel this way.
Little did I know, I was navigating grief and loss all those years and had no skills to let those feelings out. But I was shut down every time I asked about my birth mother because my birth mother giving me away was my adoptive mom's greatest dream come true to be a mother.
I had no one to share my sadness with, so it showed up as anger, rage, substance use disorder, and self-destructive patterns, and I have struggled with suicidal ideation my whole life.
"If I could just leave the world, I wouldn't have to feel this pain anymore." - was on repeat in my mind.
Consider Reading: How Mother-Child Separation Causes Neurobiological Vulnerability Into Adulthood.
I didn't want to leave the world. I just wanted the pain to disappear; it almost killed me a million times. As an adopted person, with secrecy at the root of my adoption and deprivation of resources, the cards were stacked against me from the beginning as they are most adoptees.
Let me tell you something. Just because an adoptee doesn't talk about feelings like this as a child or an adult doesn't mean they don't have them. Instead, it means they likely have never felt safe sharing them, especially when they are expected to be grateful. We know deep down our feelings aren't welcomed because they don't align with the fairy tale narrative of adoption. The world celebrates adoption in all areas, so how can we feel safe sharing our heartache and pain? I have continuously been silenced, shut down, and invalidated.
“You should be thankful for your life! Your birth mother could have aborted you,” says the world! That is gaslighting at its finest.
Consider Reading: Aren’t You Glad You Weren’t Aborted?
While the internet has created access to instant adoptee-centric organizations, websites, tools, therapists, authors, writers, blogs, podcasts, and more, we must acknowledge this is all relatively new. This means it will reach future generations of adoptees, but what about those who missed this shift in the adoptee community?
What about the adoptees who have died by suicide because they had no tools and their pain was too great? What about all the adoptees who are spending life in prison, hefty sentences in jail, struggle with lifelong substance use issues, or have suffered mental health struggles for an entire lifetime? What about those who have never made the connection that being adopted can impact every area of our lives? What about the adoptees who don't have internet access or those who choose not to use the internet? What about the adoptees who don't know another adoptee to share feelings with? What about all the statistics to back these realities up?
Consider Visiting: Adoptee Remembrance Day - October 30th
I consistently think about these adoptees, which is a substantial element of why I keep writing, sharing, and enlightening on all the complexities and layers of the adoptee experience. This is one of the significant components of Adoptees Connect, Inc. being created.
On June 1st, 2023, our Adoptees Connect - Lexington, KY group met. The connections are invaluable and life-saving!
While concluding this article, I ask that you extend empathy and compassion toward them if you have made it this far and know an adoptee who fits into these areas. I urge you to be willing to listen, learn and explore deep conversations with adoptees to understand the adoptee experience better. Please support adoptee-centric organizations because they are saving lives. We need more adoptee-centric resources and tools to work through the interwoven, complicated, and perplexing layers of the adoptee experience. Being an ally for the adoptee community is an immense gift to all adoptees. You don’t have to be adopted to try to understand how it feels to be one. You have to be willing to listen and learn from those who have the most superior expertise in the adoption constellation based on our unique lived experiences, the adoptees.
I work in the home health field full time, primarily working with the senior population to assist them in living independently so they don't have to relocate to nursing homes. Many years ago, I cared for a lady named "Pauline." She had advanced stages of dementia and was in her mid to late 80s. I would get her up each morning and get her to bed each night. Every night when she would get in bed, I would "tuck her in" She looked at the ceiling, and her eyes glazed over.
She would say, "I was adopted from a home in Louisville. I never knew my family; I would if they ever looked for me. I wonder who they are and where they are?"
I knew this was an internal mental torment because even when she forgot her kids' names, husbands' names, and family's names, even with advanced dementia, she never forgot she was adopted and never stopped wondering who she was and where she came from. Pauline died, never knowing the answers so many people take for granted.
Who am I?
Where did I come from?
I continue writing for all the Pauline's out there. How many adoptees have died and will die without ever knowing their truth?
I hope that the world shifts the pendulum on adoption and acknowledges there is another side of the coin and that one begins with loss. Before every adoption occurs, the adoptee and natural families experience a devastating loss. Once we can acknowledge as a society that his loss matters, it's life-altering, and find ways to help educate, adoptees will be allowed to heal and recover quicker, faster, and sooner in life. Slowly, over the years, we will have fewer and fewer Paulines. I truly believe education is critical, and adoptees creating more resources is the key. No one else is going to do it for us.
Consider Reading: We Should Be Fighting for a World Without Adoption.
I see you; I feel your pain for all the adoptees who feel forgotten, lost, and alone. Please don’t give up, and know you aren’t alone in feeling like you do.
I have compiled a list of recommended resources for adoptees and advocates. You can find it here: Recommended Resources for Adult Adoptees and Adoption Advocates.
Thank you for reading.
Understanding is Love,
Pamela A. Karanova
ASK ME ANYTHING COLUMN
Each month, all subscribers receive an “Ask Me Anything” newsletter — which will answer one or two adoptee-related questions from paid subscribers. Think: What adoptee healing tools have been the most valuable to you? How have you navigated the grief and loss process? What made you want to search for your biological family? How was your reunion once you searched? Do you regret searching? If you have a question for me, please email it to: pamelakaranova@gmail.com
Here are two recent questions:
When Speaking to Adoptive Parents About Adoption
Ways to Better Understand and Support Adopted Teens
Here are a few articles I recommend reading:
100 Heartfelt Transracial Adoptee Quotes that Honor the Truth of Adoption by Pamela A. Karanova & 100 Transracial Adoptees Worldwide
What Are the Mental Health Effects of Being Adopted? By Therodora Blanchfield, AMFT
10 Things Adoptive Parents Should Know – An Adoptee’s Perspective by Cristina Romo
Understanding Why Adoptees Are At A Higher Risk for Suicide by Maureen McCauley | Light of Day Stories
Toward Preventing Adoption- Related Suicide by Mirah Riben
Relationship Between Adoption and Suicide Attempts: A Meta-Analysis
Reckoning with The Primal Wound Documentary with a 10% off coupon code (25 available) “adopteesconnect”
Still, Grieving Adoptee Losses, What My Adoptive Parents Could Have Done Differently.