Adoptee Reclaimed

Parental relationships typically change from authority-based to mutual respect-based in early adulthood. If there was a lack of recognition or respect for adoptee identity in childhood, this is often clarified in adult-child to adoptive-parent dynamics...making for a very painful wake-up call for the adoptee.

Many adoptees navigate the natural shift of dynamics with their adopters by trying to prove adoption impact was real or keeping up lines of fake dependency on adopters well into their adult lives.
This doesn't work.
Either the adoptee is left entirely unheard, or the adopters grow tired of it and begin to take advantage of the adoptee fiscally or emotionally.

If an adoptive parent was not capable of recognizing and addressing adoption trauma in their adoptee's childhood, retroactively addressing it in adulthood is highly unlikely. For the adoptee, this means that a respectful and meaningful relationship is also unlikely.
Because parental dynamics shift with age, the adoptee must grapple with this reality and determine boundaries that are appropriate for their adopter's capacity as soon as possible, in order to avoid wasting time or being taken advantage of.

Dear adoptee,
What if you just left it all behind?
You know if this applies to you (and maybe it doesn't - leave it here then ☺️)

This post is for the adoptee who has found that, for you, adoption wasn't love.

Ok.
Leave it.

Leave
The grief
The confusion
The false family
The pain
The fake name
The constant explaining
The endless hoping
The desperate conforming
The disappointment
The rage

Look at it tenderly.
Love what it wanted to do
Let it be what it is: not enough.

For many of us, adoption is not enough.

That is okay.
Leave it.

You made it this far on your own two feet.
What would happen if you let your best self shine?

I did that. It took a long time and a lot of support - and more than a few gigantic leaps of faith.

I found my birth family. I saw their wounds. I stand a safe distance away.
I am leaving them be.

I closed the chapters of my adoptive family. I saw their inability to grow. I do not expect them to act like family.
I am leaving them be.

I looked in the mirror. I saw my needs and my weaknesses. I worked hard to build my strength.
I am letting me be 💗

Hey friends, today I wanted to talk about two of the more common nervous system trauma responses adoptees may experience: FREEZE or FAINT.

Nervous system integration is essentially your brain-body connection. A healthy nervous system is steady and ready to respond to good and bad experiences. An activated nervous system may be locked in stress mode, causing burnout and anxiety. Trauma responses occur when your mental health impacts your physical and emotional functioning and throws your nervous system into an activated state.

In the face of a percieved threat, the body and brain may 'disconnect' from each other, or it may feel like a traffic jam in your mind and body.

Adoptees are particularly susceptible to getting locked into a trauma response like Freeze or Faint because our early childhood adversity, maternal seperation, and adoption trauma, may have trained us to identify and hyper-focus on 'threats' during critical brain development.

Good news! The nervous system can be trained! However, if an activated nervous system is paired with poor living conditions, persistent exisential threats, or lack of trauma-awareness, adoptees may live in an activated nervous system for years.

Understanding the difference between the two activated states can help you understand how to soothe and restore brain-body connection.

Drop any questions below and I will do my best to answer them!

While being told you were 'chosen' has a nice ring to it, the deeper implications are not often considered.
Phrases that promote a saviorisim approach to adoption include:
"You must feel so LUCKY your parents adopted you"
"Your parents CHOSE you."
"Well, you COULD HAVE BEEN (exposed to some horrible wild scenario)"
Etc, etc.

These phrases aren't just shallow and uninformed. They silence adoptee experiences.

The first simple fact is that most forms of saviorisim rhetoric like this are just not true.

The truth is, most adoptive parents don't really cherry-pick a child. The child must first have undergone catastrophic loss to even be available for adoption. Then, timing must happen to align with when adoptive parents complete pre-requisites for adoption. Ultimately, most of us were simply the next available - or completely out of other options. Our adoptive parent's 'choice' was, in some ways, a complex set of factors that aligned. In truth, our adoptive parents usually didn't choose 'us' specifically. They just wanted to adopt 'a child' or maybe 'a little (specific gender)', or, in some cases, 'a (specific race) baby'.

Secondly, while saviorisim language is often well-meaning, it is a backhanded reminder that we, the adoptee, almost always did NOT have any agency in the saving. We did not have a choice. With very few exceptions, most adoptees were whisked into a binding life-long contract without knowing, understanding, or agreeing to it.
Think about it: If the age of consent for s3x is 16 or older in most states, there is no reason to think the age of consent to abolish or reform YOUR LEGALLY BINDING FAMILY should be any more lax - but the vast majority of adoptions proceed without any form of informed consent, or even a clause that permits the adoptee to dissolve or ammend the ruling later.

Thirdly, the language creates a huge shadow of self-doubt. "Why did I need saving?", "What kind of danger might I be in?", "What is wrong with my flesh and blood if my own flesh and blood couldn't keep me?"

These are more than just questions. They become deep psychological haunts that take years to work out.

Time to reintroduce myself!
👋 Hi, I'm Rae.

I am a domestic American adoptee, in a closed adoption since I was 3.

The digital adoptee community has been my home and haven for over half a decade now.
I'm in a reunion relationship with my maternal biological family and recently established contact with my biological father!

I have counseled adoptees from all walks of life and many experiences of adoption for about four years now. I offer private digital sessions as a side from my main job working in construction. I am trauma-informed and versed in child development, brain-body integration, and addiction and abuse recovery coaching. I borrow from somatic methods and Internal Family Systems models in my work, but customize framework to each adoptee. It is important to know my work should never substitute medical grade care from a state-licensed professional.

Some other things about me you should know:
- I have lived in six different places over the past eight years. Right now, I'm in GUAM! (Guam is a tiny island in the middle of the great big Pacific Ocean, and the island is a territory of the United States.)
- My family consists of my spouse Rob, our rescue dogs Riley and Riker, and our cat Riggs.
- Nerodivergent people and I click really well - I have ADHD and suspect my adoptive family may have been neurospicy too.
- Years of investment in coming out of the 'adoption fog' and recovering from adoption trauma has enabled me to redefine and re-enter limited relationship with my adopters. Unfortunately, my adoptive father passed away shortly after I began to reintegrate, permanently shifting family dynamics.

If you are an adoptee, please introduce yourself below! If you like, I will add you to my adoptees-only close friends story for more personal content about my specific experience of adoption.

If you want to dive deeper into the adoptee community I always recommend , and - but I have tons more resources and accounts for you to discover in the highlights portion of my profile.

As we enter 2025 I have lots in store - so be sure to stay tuned! In the meantime, here are a few New Year's reminders for you.

Cheers to a great new year!



#2025

Arizona Adoptees! Please consider!

--
Adoptees Connect, Inc. - FYI

For a fun social experiment, ask your friends if they have a 'secret' social media account. Their reaction will tell you a lot about them.
I have done interviews, offered coaching, led workshops and proof-read adoptee memoirs through this platform. Many of my oldest friends don't know. Hopefully, if everyone is kind, they will never need to.

I haven't been able to get my page verified because I would have to change my name to my full legal name to let Meta compare it to my driver's license - and I am not interested in letting my painful realities and coping intermingle that much with my 'normal' life. As a member of a widely misrepresented and pathologized group, it is social and interpersonal su***de to tie your real-life name to something this controversial and personal.

I watch and worry as more and more adoptee accounts are mysteriously shut down on some platforms when they start using language that illustrates the strong ties between adoption and cr!mminal behavior like hum@n tr@ff!ck!ng, fr@ud, disownment, financial uhbuse and much, much more.

Sorry friends, adoption is quite messy in the real world. We often have to keep ourselves safe there by staying semi-anonymous (and semi-unofficial) online.

I would like to add:
If I am not socially safe enough to use this platform freely, even with thousands of followers and half a decade of disseminating the nuances and problems with adoption, it is no wonder many adoptees stay silent.

Adoptees are often shamed for having masking behaviors. I'm here to say: it is not bad if you aren't up to sharing your adoptee voice in your personal life. I don't share it much in mine! Protect yourselves first and foremost.

Oh, and for those non-adoptees reading? You might 'know an adoptee who is fine' - but rest assured, *my* oldest closest friends "know" one too 🙃

Hey adoptees - take what you need 💚
We balance many complexities in adoption and a lot of those little mantras you see just don't quite cut it.

Here are some that help me take a breath and come back to myself. 💚💚💚

This one is going to be one you won't want to miss!