By Cheyne Bull, General Psychologist & Adoptee
Adoption isn’t an interesting anecdote – doing your own learning
For non-adoptees, there is something about adoption that is naturally fascinating, and can understandably make you curious or excited to know more. In reality, however, adoption is a traumatic loss of attachment and identity. To discuss adoption whilst being considerate of an adoptee’s experience and boundaries, doing some self-learning first can be helpful, like reading this article and checking out the resources below.
Attachment
Adoption can impact a person’s sense of attachment, relational security and safety. This can impact on the ability to trust others or manage healthy boundaries in relationships. As a result of experiencing ‘relinquishment’ adoptees may experience an intense fear of abandonment and rejection, along with feelings of powerlessness, and develop different ways of coping with these fears.
Sense of belonging and identity
Adoptees miss out on “genetic mirroring” – the experience of growing up with people you are biologically related to, and with whom they share similar mannerisms, personality traits, physical features, shared ancestral stories and likes and dislikes. Genetic mirroring is how we develop both our sense of self, and how we fit ourselves into the greater world around us. For adoptees, and even more so for transracial adoptees, the loss of genetic mirrors means forming identity and a sense of belonging in something of a vacuum.
Grief and Loss
Adoptee experiences of loss and grief are extensive – but these losses may never be discussed or acknowledged, making these feelings more likely to become stuck or unprocessed. This is what is known as disenfranchised grief – a loss that is not recognised by broader society and that is connected to stigma and shame. Another barrier to processing grief is that there is a kind of ambiguous loss associated with the inability to access birth family – who may be alive but physically inaccessible or uncontactable.
It’s different for everyone
If you’ve met one person who is adopted, you’ve met one person who is adopted. Our brains love to generalise, but it’s important to resist making assumptions. Some adoptees will have had a good experience growing up, others will not. Some adoptees might know a lot about their own story, others won’t. Some adoptees will be in relationship with their birth families, others may wish to be but can’t, others may not want this at all.
Lifelong journey
For adoptees, being adopted can feel more or less important or impactful at different life stages. Important identity stages – adolescence, becoming a parent, moving towards an age when our parents are likely to be elderly – these can all bring adoption to the fore. Going through reunion with family of origin also tends to be an intense time where people might need more support.
Strengths and post-traumatic growth
Being adopted makes adoptees empathetic to the complexities of family, identity, belonging and loss. Adoptees can hold a deep sense of solidarity for what it is like to be misunderstood and the unjust impacts of institutional practices and policies. When people go on a journey to explore what it means to be adopted, they are able to validate and process their loss and grief, construct more authentic relationships, and emerge with a strengthened sense of self and autonomy over their lives.
Resources
VANISH: Core Issues In Adoption
VANISH: Supporting a Partner, Friend or Family Member Who is Searching for Family
Australian Institute of Family Studies: Adoption Experiences
Mamamia: What It Feels Like to be Adopted
My Unknown Truth Podcast: Australian Experiences of Adoption and Foster Care
Paul Sunderland: Understanding Relinquishment Trauma – YouTube
Adult Adoptee UK: The importance of Genetic Mirroring
Yes! Magazine: The Trauma of Transracial Adoption