When Adoptees Know Loss Before We Know Love
November is a month for adoptees to dominate the conversations to help raise awareness on how it feels to be adopted. I'm participating in NAAM by writing about the challenging topics in adoption.
Trigger Warning: Physical Abuse.
Adoptee Remembrance Day - October 30th recently passed, and it's now National Adoptee Awareness Month, formerly known as National Adoption Awareness Month or NAAM.
NAAM has been rebranded from adoption to adoptee by the adoptee community, rightfully so. Adoption begins with us, not those who want to market us, make hefty adoption fees off the buying and selling of children, silence us, invalidate us, talk over us, and treat us like perpetual children. Let us not forget the government that continues to fail us worldwide.
November is a month for adoptees to dominate the conversations to help raise awareness on how it feels to be adopted. My way of participating in NAAM is by writing about the challenging topics in adoption.
One of the topics circling back in my life is this inner, innate reality that the "love" receptor (ability to receive love) inside myself seems broken or defective. I don't usually "feel" love or like people love me. I know they do because they tell me or show me, but sadly, to feel it has been primarily null and void.
Please understand I am not sharing this part of my journey for sympathy because, truth be told, this is all I know. I only share it so others gain an understanding and empthy of the adoptee experience because understanding is love.
I believe with my whole heart that this originates from the moment I was separated from my biological mother at the beginning of my life due to the broken bond and the trauma of separation.
Consider Reading: When Society is Uninformed On Separation Trauma, Education is Essential.
While being separated from my biological mother was a traumatic experience on its own, I was told at a very early age by my adoptive mom that my birth mother "loved me so much" that she gave me away. This would further taint my view of love and rob me of experiencing the genuine love that everyone talks about.
How do you love someone and then leave them?
This taught me that:
Love is pain.
Love is abandonment.
Love is leaving.
Love is loss.
Then, my adoptive mother chimes in and says, "Your birth mother's sacrifice is my greatest dream come true, being a mother. I will always love her for her selfless decision."
More mental mind fu*k.
It's hard to wrap my mentality around the reality that most non-adopted individuals likely don't consider the short-term and long-term impacts of maternal separation before someone is adopted. Suppose we use our knowledge and resources to research maternal bonding, prenatal bonding, and postnatal bonding; read as much as possible and learn how this process impacts a newborn or even a baby that hasn't been born yet. In that case, we will be able to gain a deeper understanding of why the loss of such bonding is a critical atrocity to adoptees around the world.
I encourage everyone to do this, adopted or not.
Because most people need to take the time to try to understand this piece of the coin, let me share a few things with you. Maternal bonding is an incredibly vital aspect of a child's development and overall well-being. It refers to the emotional connection and attachment that forms between a mother and her child, starting from the earliest moments of life. The significance of maternal bonding cannot be overstated. It plays a crucial role in shaping a child's emotional, social, and cognitive development.
When a child feels a strong bond with their mother, they are more likely to develop a secure attachment style, which is associated with better mental health outcomes later in life. Maternal bonding provides a sense of safety, security, and trust for the child. It creates a foundation for healthy relationships as the child learns to form emotional connections and regulate their own emotions. This bond also acts as a buffer against stress and adversity, as the child derives comfort and reassurance from their mother's presence.
Furthermore, maternal bonding influences a child's brain development. Studies have shown that positive maternal interactions, such as eye contact, gentle touch, and responsive caregiving, contribute to healthy neural pathways and the formation of neural connections in the child's brain. These early experiences shape the child's ability to learn, problem-solve, and regulate their emotions throughout life.
Consider Reading: Why Love Isn't Enough or A House Full of Stuff.
However, while some might say that maternal bonding is not solely limited to biological mothers, one must understand that mothers aren't interchangeable. Maternal bonding can be attempted with adoptive mothers, foster mothers, or any caregiver who assumes the role of a primary attachment figure. However, it is critical to know and understand this is unnatural, and no one can guarantee bonding will happen.
Consider Reading: The Perplexity of Forced Bonding in Adoption.
As adoptees, I encourage you to read these books from beginning to end to understand yourself more profoundly. As non-adoptees, I encourage you to read these books, take what you have learned, and let it soak in.
For non-adoptees, once you let it soak in, take it all and throw it in the trash. Put yourselves in the shoes of that newborn baby at the moment of separation from their biological mother and feel the terror they feel at the loss of the woman who was everything to them. They will cry until their spirit breaks, as they have just lost their whole world.
That's the preverbal loss adoptees feel, starting our lives with separation trauma (loss) before we feel love. Some might say I had to have my birth mother FIRST to lose her. I did have her for nine months before we were separated. My cells and DNA are the same as hers. The trauma of relinquishment is stored in my body, in my subconscious memory.
Consider Reading: Relinquishment Trauma, The Forgotten Trauma.
No matter how you dress it up and spin it, being given away by your mother and passed over to strangers doesn't feel like love to most of us. It has a way of completely conflicting our views and experiences of love, loss, and life. Not to mention internal feelings of self-worth, identity struggles, and feeling utterly disconnected from the world and ourselves.
Consider Reading: When God Calls You To Adopt.
Love cost me everything.
I have struggled with the concept of love my entire life. I remember my teenage years and being a run-a-way, in and out of group homes, detention centers, juvenile jails, and out in the streets. I searched for acceptance, belonging, and love anywhere I could, but I had no self-love. When I was 14 years old, I got linked up with a violent and troubled individual about four years older than me. He was just released from juvenile jail. He convinced me he loved me, all while he would physically assault me to the point of broken bones, lacerations, bruises, black eyes, and rings around my neck from being choked. Even to the point of miscarrying a pregnancy at fifteen because he was so abusive. I stayed with him for four years.
Would you like to know why I stayed with him so long?
Because my self-esteem was trash because when your mother abandons you, who could ever love you more than her? This would create an internal deficiency and defectiveness that most therapists don't understand. If your momma doesn't ride with you, who will ride with you? I was thoroughly untethered and consumed with feelings of grief, loss, abandonment, and rejection.
I developed a very deep internal self-hate, and I believed that my boyfriend truly loved me because he never left me like my birth mother did. He could have walked away at any time, but he didn't, so that was love to me. The love I showed him was never leaving him like my birth mother left me.
Remember, love is pain.
Talk about a mental mind fu*k at such a young age. It has taken me an entire lifetime to unravel this mess adoption has caused. And quite frankly, I am not 100% where I need to be. I will be untangling this mess for the rest of my life.
I started drinking alcohol to cope with these fuc*ed-up emotions at 12 years old, and my dependency on alcohol to not feel my pain lasted 27 years. In 2012, I spent a decade alcohol-free so I could work on my adoptee issues. Alcohol and substances don't mix well with healing, and I knew it. I tried and failed. I knew I had to be completely free from substances to truly get to the root, and I did.
During that decade, I have had to work so freaking hard to find a way to love myself. After about 40 years of disconnecting from myself (adoption creates this disconnect), I started to see a glimmer of hope inside myself, and with that, a little value for myself came into play. I'm 49 now, and after spending a lifetime working on myself, I finally love myself, and with that, I can love others better.
I've gone to counseling in the past about adoption, and this love thing surfaces frequently, and I just started therapy again. The new round of therapy (EMDR) isn't focused on not feeling love but on other adoptee issues regarding triggers I would like to work on. However, one of the many times I was in counseling, I remember the therapist (lay pastor at a church) saying, "Well if you don't feel love, that tells me you are much more of a genuine person than most because you don't do things for "love."
That was another mental mind f*ck all by itself. WTF.
I will never forget one of the first times I felt a glimmer of someone loving me, and that was when my oldest daughter got one of her first tattoos when she was around 19 years old. She decided to get "Pamela" tattooed on her right shoulder with many flowers around it. Even thinking about it, I get super emotional, and I feel loved by my daughter. Why did this create such an overwhelming feeling of love from my daughter, but other things don't?
I must be candid; I am still conflicted regarding love. I know I love others, and I love my kids, close friends, etc., but feeling like anyone loves me is nonexistent. Do I know they love me? Yes. But on any given day, feeling loved, valued, or influential is not a part of my life.
I feel alone, even after 49 years of mapping out the madness, finding my truth, and even after creating Adoptees Connect, having dozens of adoptees in my close circle, and having three kids of my own. Most days, the only love I feel is the love I can give others and the love I am developing for myself.
Will I die this way?
Likely so.
One of the areas of healing for me has been acceptance. This area of my life feels very defective, and it's a hard pill to swallow at times. Part of my issue in life has been finding reasons outside of love to keep pressing on in life. Sometimes, I ask myself, "WTF is the point?" and then I remind myself that being here, pouring my tears out over the keyboard, might be one of the points.
Even when typically I don't feel loved, have other adoptees felt the same way?
Knowing they aren't alone is the point.
Maybe.
I usually don't share this reality with those I know because I don't want them to feel a burden, like they have to do more, more, and more to show me they love me so I can actually "feel it." It's just a piece of who I am. It's not all of me. They likely would only understand if they were also adopted.
One of the most significant parts for me is that I have found some love inside myself, which I have struggled with my entire life. I have also found joy inside myself and with those I love. I have found happiness in the things I love to do, and I crave to experience newfound memories with new friends, old friends, my kids, and those I am close to.
I have no ulterior motive. Feeling love isn't what motivates me. Giving love does. I have love in my heart to send it out in the world as much as I possibly can, and for me, that's the most important because that has been all I know.
Do I feel important? Not really when it comes to the world. I first had to learn to become important to myself, which is exceptionally challenging when your biological mother throws you to the wolves, and my counterfeit mother adopts for her selfish desires. It's difficult to make sense of this sh*t, especially love. #adopteeproblems
I know I have a lot to give the world, and I do my best to do that, but I feel like an invisible adoptee, and quite frankly, at this point in life, that's a comfortable place for me. It's all I know. I prefer to stay in the background, out of the limelight, appearing only in the shadows.
My love for others, especially my children, close friends, and fellow adoptees, is significant, solid, and endless. I live daily to send love into the world by working with elderly people and adoptees, extending it to my awesome kids and close friends. I have a lot of love to give, and hopefully, if you are reading this, you have felt the love!
Maybe by the end of my life, I will feel loved more, but I am not counting on it. I have accepted this is a part of the broken maternal bond that happened when I was separated from my birth mother. I hope that those reading can gain a better understanding of why some adoptees have a hard time receiving love, feeling loved, and expressing this part of being adopted. It’s hard to tap into feeling loved when our beginnings started with the most significant loss of our lives from the woman who should LOVE us the most.
If any adopted parents are reading, please consider this when considering adoption or when raising your adopted child.
Q & A
For my fellow adoptees, I would love to know your thoughts on love. Experiencing it, feeling it, receiving it, giving it. Am I the only adoptee who is mentally fu*ked when it comes to receiving love and feeling it? Could you help me reframe this or view it in a different light? What has helped you if you struggle in this area? Please feel free to drop your comments below.
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 and for supporting me and my work.
Understanding is Love,
Pamela A. Karanova
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.
Thank you for this♥️. I too have a really hard time understanding and receiving love. Now that I have gone no-contact with my adoptive family, my brain likes to tell me that I failed at family twice, who else could love me? I am still trying to restructure my internal narratives, but I am starting the process of healing with ~therapy~.
I recently found a therapist that shares a number of identities with me (queer Asian adoptee who has gone no-contact with their white parents). With that, I have been able to go places in my brain worms that I would never otherwise have. I am able to start to heal the pieces of guilt and shame because I can finally find that sense of understanding of this complex beast that is adoption trauma. It has been a truly lovely experience and I look forward to feeling the progress as I continue to see them.
I have also been healing my understanding of love through the people around me. It is a new concept to me that people can express care by having conversations about our needs and boundaries without being met by anger or abandonment. I know the bar is on the floor, but it has been so healing to be able to have these conversations, set and uphold boundaries, and still be met with kindness through it all. I am challenging my internal narratives every day, and I hope at somepoint my brain will accept this new normal.
I am truly thankful for the adoptee community. You all make me feel less alone.
Thank you for talking about this. I realized recently that I don’t actually feel love. I have to talk myself through what the person told me to remind myself „aha! They do love me.“ But I DO NOT feel it. It is so hard in reunion because I have a sibling I love very much and has acted in a loving way towards me but it’s still terrifying because I can’t feel anything. I worry that even though I’ve done a lot of work on myself and act in an overtly loving and interested way they won’t continue a relationship because I’m not behaving „normally“ (not adopted). It makes it even weirder that their parent’s decision put me in this predicament and caused such damage. And I did not have „bad“ adoptive parents. This was a really validating piece for me. Thank you. But what an awful thing to have in common, right? And I walked around for decades not even realising this was actually happening…