Blog Posts
Lived experience
Our blog posts are a collection of personal reflections and struggles with adoption.
Long Lost Family: an adoptee’s view
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.
A sense of belonging
I can go back to the first house I was taken to when I was adopted, not far from where I now live. The house I grew up in is in the village where I still live today. This is part of my jigsaw.
A match made in hell for adoptees?
Let’s remember that we were children but children grow up into adults and those adults want answers as to who they are and where they came from. Coram IAC owes it to us and our next generation. We are not ornaments or souvenirs, we are people with a past history and an origin story that belongs to us.
Adopted into Christianity: A personal reflection
In my Christian adoption, it was echoed at every stage: I was chosen not only to be adopted by a Christian couple but also chosen to be welcomed into something bigger than myself.
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Adoption: the case for an apology
We need the apology, we need the recognition, we need the acknowledgment that what was done to us was so wrong and we need help: we need help to heal, we need help to get our voices heard and we need the government to take accountability and to recognise the role they played
On screen: Intercountry adoption
Freddie’s inability to communicate her true feelings echoes that of us all. We are silenced, unable to articulate the trauma that lives in our bodies. We as intercountry adoptees are made to feel grateful for being saved from a culture that is deemed inferior to western society. However, those same western societies see us as different. This is the paradox of being an intercountry adoptee. We don’t belong to either society and never will.
It’s ok to take a break – we are!
15th to 21st May is Mental Health Awareness Week 2023. This year the theme is Anxiety. Fight or Flight – feelings of anxiety are our body’s innate response to stress or perceived danger. Anxiety can…
Mother’s Day Reading – Maggie Lyng
Beautiful reading from Maggie Lyng on Mother’s Day from the perspective as an adoptee. This is published in the loss section of A Page from my Life https://youtu.be/uwzR16C09F4 Thank you Maggie!
Musings on Mothering Sunday
Every year, I struggled with this Day. Nobody knew. Not one person. Not a teacher, nor my parents, nor my extended family, nor my friends.
You want me to be grateful for being a transracial adoptee?
Recently Colin Kaepernick has spoken about his experiences growing up as an adoptee of colour. The thing which distinguishes his and so many other adoptions is that his adopters are white.The sad fact is that…
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Adoptees and Therapy
What cannot be talked about cannot be put to rest. And if it is not, the wounds will fester from generation to generation. –Bruno Bettleheim Bettleheim could easily be talking about adoptees – Why is…
Government responds to JCHR inquiry report – our statement
Statement by Adult Adoptee Movement Friday 3 March, 2023 There is nothing new in the government’s response and even less of value. The only change they are proposing is one they are already consulting on.…
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What is plenary adoption and why is it time to abolish it?
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…
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The Importance of Genetic Mirroring
Genetic mirroring is being able to see yourself in the family that surrounds you because of your shared DNA, something adoptees are denied
Adoption Trauma: a Personal Reflection
How do we come to recognise that we are traumatised? At what point in your life do you allow yourself to be excused—and to excuse yourself—because you finally realise you have The Trauma? When I…
Gaslighting, or, Please Listen to Adoptees
Adoption makes people uncomfortable. If you mention you are adopted you generally get one of two responses: a slight look of horror and a quick subject change, or a tilted head “poor you”. I get…
The Harsh Reality of Living Without any Medical History
I am an adoptee born in 1974 and adopted 8 weeks later. I speak from lived experience of inheriting a genetic condition, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS) from my first mother but only discovering this in…
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Finally Being Diagnosed with Complex PTSD
When I was a teenager my mother told me I was not her biological daughter. I had been fostered but she refused to tell me who I was and where I came from. Social services…
Why Support for Adult Adoptees Must Be Adoptee-led
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
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Welcome!
We are hugely proud to launch our website. You can read all about Adult Adoptee Movement and meet our team on the About us page. This is our blog area where we will publish our…