Last night, on meeting an adoptee for the first time, a friend and I were asked “Did you have a good adoption?” In a split second, I had to decide whether to let it go or to challenge this language with a complete stranger. [laughing] “I could give you a rant about why I don’t […]
Author: Adoptee
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Adoptee Voices 2023
I had a ‘good’ adoption but I hate adoption. I hate the sense of not belonging of always being outside/other. I resent the way non adoptees usually view adoption. I wish that I’d had support from someone with insight to work through my issues instead of finding the primal wound in my forties and realising that no not everybody feels or thinks that way about things. It totally screws with your head and relationships, definitely your relationships!
Male adoptees living in the UK, and perhaps living with mental health issues, often put a brave face on things to stay strong and not show the cracks in our minds on the outside. We drink with the lads, we put up shelves, we are the strong ones, and we are the ones people lean on for support, we are not about to start asking for support ourselves for god’s sake, right?!
But there is a price for this help. Always a price. And that price is having your life put on show, having your complex, raw, unprocessed emotions filmed, Davina leaning in.
Plenary adoption is what is generally meant when we talk about adoption. It is the legal mechanism by which a child is placed permanently into a family and becomes the child of a new parent or parents. In the UK, the original birth information is placed on the Adoption Register, a sealed record which the […]
Support for adult adoptees is in short supply, and we are working hard to campaign for better access to counselling. There is often a lack of understanding, even an unwillingness to admit, the struggles adult adoptees face. We look at the conflicts of interest when adoption charities provide support to adult adoptees