By Mary Beth SammonsDuring these tumultuous and uncertain times, we’re all looking for the courage and inspiration to keep on keeping on. Many of us are exploring our identities and looking for clues and connections to our past, present, and futures stories. These stories can touch us, move us, and make us feel a little better, often deepening our connections to the people around us. We all have a primal need for belonging, and these connections are built around our stories.

Many of us are turning to 23andMe.com, Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, and other websites to discover family legacy stories, hoping to find a deeper sense of identity and the answers to profound identity questions: “What makes us who we are?” “To whom am I biologically related?” “Who am I?”

But sometimes digging into the family tree unearths pieces of a bigger story than the one you might have envisioned.

The good news is that experts say knowing the truth, even if it feels harsh or hard to accept at first, can be healing. In some cases, it can give us a sense of empathy and greater connection to others when we realize we are all human; sometimes we find ourselves making decisions that have a ripple effect for generations to come. In her book Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love, author Dani Shapiro says: “When we tell the secret that we feel sets us so completely apart from everyone else, we discover that it doesn’t and that to connect with others is valuable and powerful.”

Carole Hines has experienced firsthand how learning the truth can answer questions that have nagged her throughout her life. She always knew she was somehow different than her siblings, but it was not until she got the results of her DNA test that she knew why. All her life, she says, she never understood racism or prejudice. When a DNA test revealed the San Francisco resident did not share the 99% of European descent of her two siblings—that she did not have the same biological father and she was mostly Latina—she began a journey of deeper understanding into racial divides.

“I always was opposed to anything that diminishes people because of their race or ethnicity or how they live,” says Hines, 70. “Now I better understand what I instinctively knew in my pores, that I was of a different color, that I was a little bit different. Maybe I feel so strongly about racial equality because I was always fighting unconsciously for myself.”

Hines’ story underscores the experience of a growing number of DNA seekers who have received life-changing results that are forcing them to reimagine their identities. For many, this process has recast entire lives with surprises including shocking lineages, long-lost siblings, and family secrets that might have been buried for decades. It’s opened questions about heritage, ethnicity, race, culture, and privacy.

“If seekers approach the findings with an open mind, it can lead to a sense of empathy for others with different ethnicity, religion or race when we realize we are all human,” says Anita DeLongis, PhD, who is leading a study at the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Health and Coping Studies exploring the phenomenon of individuals uncovering shocking DNA discoveries.

For Mallory Guy, learning about her biological parents and their family history helped her better understand the cultural climate that forced them to make the decision to give their daughter up for adoption. Instead of dividing us, she believes DNA revelations can help unite us. Now, she says she really appreciates what her family went through, and she has taken these lessons of perseverance and put them into play in her own life.

Guy knew from an exceedingly early age that she was adopted. Her mother and father provided an incredibly loving home in Parma, Ohio, where she and her four siblings⁠—three of them also adopted—thrived. But the little girl who loved to read always imagined what it would be like to meet her Korean parents. She had a deep longing to find out more about who they were and what their life was like in the country where she was born.

In 2013, Guy, 33, now a mom to two young children, Emmie and Jordan, decided to take a DNA test to see if she had any genetic health red flags. After six years of hunting, she got her answer on September 3, 2019, when a cousin she discovered through DNA connected her to her biological mother and father and her two siblings in Korea. “I was shocked,” she says. “I was at work when I got the call and just couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”

When she finally made that connection, the myth that she had believed, that she was simply abandoned, was replaced with a new, life-giving truth. Guy had been born with a cleft palate, and her biological parents had made the tough decision to allow her to be adopted by Americans who could afford the extensive surgeries she needed.

“I had believed all my life that I was abandoned at an orphanage at four months, but now I know that my parents did it out of love to give me a better life,” says Guy. She learned her Korean birth name was Jae Boon Lee.

In March of 2020, Guy and her American family had planned to travel from Ohio to Korea to meet her birth parents and biological brother and sister. During their three-week stay, her Korean parents had planned to cook for her, and she had already scoped out a Korean grocery store in town. But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and Guy says the family had to postponed the trip until it is safe to travel again.*

Since their reunion, Guy speaks to her parents (through a translator app) at the beginning and close of each day. “It’s like a fairy tale, and probably the best way an adoption story can go,” says Guy. “In many ways, it is overwhelming because I have such a loving family and mom and dad here, and now I have another family in Korea who want to be part of my life. It is like we are catching up for lost time. I feel very blessed.”

“I think the most important lesson I learned is not to make assumptions about people,” she says. “We never know what someone’s whole story is and what they are having to deal with. It’s been a life-changing lesson and experience.”

For Alexis Sánchez, discovering her Mexican, British, and Irish heritage and Native American roots bolstered her belief that we are all connected. “I’d always had this fascination with Native Americans, and for some reason identified with them, even though my dad was an immigrant from Mexico and my mom had British and Irish roots.” In the end, she says, DNA testing “is showing that we are all related, regardless of what side of the border you come from. We are all human beings who come from the same place. We should end our divides in this country and remember we are all in this together.”

*Since this was written, Guy met her parents in Korea.Mary Beth Sammons is an award-winning journalist and author of more than a dozen books including Living Life as a Thank You: The Transformative Power of Daily Gratitude and The Grateful Life: The Secret to Happiness, and the Science of Contentment. Her latest is Ancestry Quest: How Stories From the Past Can Heal the Future. She’s a cause-related communications consultant for numerous nonprofits and healthcare organizations including Five Keys Schools and Programs, Cristo Rey Network, Rush University Medical Center and more. She’s been the Bureau Chief for Crain’s Chicago Business, a features contributor for the Chicago Tribune, Family Circle, and Irish American News, and a daily news reporter for Daily Herald and AOL News. She lives in the suburbs of Chicago.

By Chris WodickaIn a few weeks, it will be the 30th anniversary of my becoming a U.S. citizen. Even now, I can’t begin to tell you exactly what was required or how long it took. My adoptive parents successfully navigated that process for me when I was just a child, several years after my adoption from South Korea. We celebrated as a family afterward, but I didn’t understand what it all meant at the time. Today, I see more clearly how that piece of paper has shaped my life and what I have been allowed to take for granted. As a citizen, I have been able to vote in elections year after year my entire adult life. I have been able to work, get a U.S. passport, and receive federal financial aid. I have not lived in fear of deportation.

Other transnational adoptees have not been as fortunate. In many cases, the steps required for naturalization were not clearly communicated by the government or adoption agencies to adoptive parents. Today, it is estimated that thousands of adults who were adopted as children lack U.S. citizenship. These adoptees fall into a loophole from the Child Citizenship Act (CCA) that was signed into law in 2001. The CCA granted citizenship to many adoptees who were still minors at the time of enactment but excluded others, including adult adoptees born before 1983. The bipartisan Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2019, which would close much of the loophole, has been sponsored by Congressman Adam Smith of Washington and introduced in Congress, where it awaits committee action and a floor vote in the House. This legislation would grant citizenship to more than 50 deported adoptees and other adoptees without citizenship who are still in the U.S. It would also provide the citizenship that all intercountry adoptees are entitled to as the children of U.S. citizens, end the unequal treatment between adopted and biological children of U.S. citizens, and allow deported adoptees to come home, reunite with their families, and rebuild their lives.

Due to the widespread erasure of adoptee voices, many people’s understanding of adoption comes largely from the perspective of adoption agencies and adoptive parents. This mainstream, mostly positive narrative frames adoption around “families” and “love.” In contrast, for many adoptees, the experience is more complicated and often traumatic. These feelings can be acute and front of mind. In other cases, these traumas linger in the background, shaping how we perceive our place in the world: in our families, friendships, and sense of belonging. They can resurface without warning.

Even though I have been struggling with my own Korean American identity and adoptee experience, I was largely ignorant of the issue of adoptee citizenship. While I have supported other immigration measures in the past, I did not learn of the Adoptee Citizenship Act until earlier this year. Finally, I read and heard more stories of deported adoptees who’ve been forced to confront this other form of separation. As I’ve tried to learn more, I’ve come to better appreciate how U.S. policy falls far short. After all, many of our fellow Americans—both adoptees and other immigrants—cannot fully participate in U.S. life, even though this may be the only country they have known.

I believe issues of families and belonging are always paramount, and our current crises have only magnified this urgency. During this pandemic, we all probably know families who are struggling with forced time apart. Holidays, birthdays, and major life milestones are conducted via Zoom or FaceTime. For adoptees who have been deported, the uncertainty of not knowing when they will next see their loved ones has been the reality since even before COVID-19. Without the Adoptee Citizenship Act, deported adoptees will remain in unfamiliar countries, separated from their families and friends, and uprooted from their homes. For those who lack access to economic relief from their country of origin or from the U.S., where can they turn? When it comes to addressing policy failures that span years, we cannot completely atone for the injustices of the past. All we can do is act. With the bill expiring on December 10, it’s up to all of us to come together and demand our elected representatives in Congress pass the Adoptee Citizenship Act and finally provide internationally adopted Americans with the citizenship we were promised.Chris Wodicka is a transnational transracial Korean American adoptee. He is a member of Adoptees for Justice and lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Adoptees for Justice is an intercountry adoptee-led organization whose mission is to educate, empower, and organize transracial and transnational adoptee communities to achieve just and humane adoption, immigration, and restorative justice systems. Learn more about adoptee citizenship at adopteesforjustice.org. BEFORE YOU GO…

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Tell us about your own NPE story to the extent you’re comfortable sharing it.

Seeing only 1% French was the red flag in my initial 23andMe DNA report. I was raised to believe I was significantly French and Norwegian. A few months later I took the Ancestry DNA test to compare from the same database that my sister had used. Those results produced the most shocking and traumatic day of my adult life. I had a half brother appear on my DNA results, and I didn’t have a brother as far as I knew. A trip over to my mother’s house an hour later produced more confusion, dismissal, and a host of secrets started to come out. Apparently, my mother and BF worked together in the 80s and had a one-night stand. My mother never told him she got pregnant and never saw him again, or at least that’s what I’ve been told. My mother still claims she didn’t know to this day. I think the most painful part of finding this out is how my mother, birth father, and newfound family have treated me in the aftermath.

How far into your own journey were you when you started your podcast?

Six weeks after I had my DNA shock I published my first trailer for the podcast calling for NPEs to share their story and giving a launch date of July 2019.

What compelled you to start the podcast?

The only comfort I had in those first few weeks of shock was reading other NPE stories on the forums online. I was nodding along with their written stories and scrolling for hours and hours. I would read aloud parts of other NPE stories to my husband at all hours of the day and night. I wanted to be able to listen to these stories as I walked around the house and did my errands. I knew I couldn’t continue to sit in front of a computer the rest of my life but I wanted to bring the comfort of finding others like me everywhere I went. I searched “NPE” on the podcast platforms and at the time did not find anything like it so decided I would produce my own. I realize now I could have used other terms and certainly found other podcasts with these stories on them, but with my limited knowledge at the time I was unable to find other podcasts.

Did you initially find NPEs very willing to speak out, or did you have to coax people to share?

I have only ever asked one guest. My first one I had to search for on reddit; I was too afraid to ask anyone on the DNA sites because I didn’t want to break the rules and get kicked off if they considered it “self-promotion.” After that I’ve had a pretty steady stream of people who reach out. I’m booked for 22 weeks out. I can only handle about one guest a week at this time because I do everything myself including scheduling, recording, and editing. I’m only a hobbyist—I’m literally learning everything as I go.

I believe stories benefit the teller as well as the audience. From your experience sharing people’s stories, can you talk a little about the ways the stories help the listeners, and the ways telling the stories helps the storytellers?

I know every story I record is sacred. Somebody out there is listening and nodding along in relief. A lurker, or perhaps a new NPE bingeing on stories all night long when they can’t sleep from the overwhelming grief they are experiencing. I get emails from listeners saying they have been listening or bingeing all night long to some of these episodes.

As for the storytellers, I wish I could explain the relief, giddiness, and joy I hear in their voices after I sign off. Some of what they tell me afterwards is pure gold, but of course off the record after I’ve stopped recording. They all sound like a weight has been lifted off their shoulders; sometimes they’re exhausted and yawning. I leave every recording session feeling filled with empathy and love for my fellow NPEs.

Why do you think storytelling and sharing is so important for NPEs?

I don’t think most NPEs receive true understanding and empathy from people. We get it. We can empathize with each other’s heartbreak, confusion, anger, and, sometimes, joy. Finding a community has been life-saving for me in this journey.

In one episode you mentioned that you sought therapy after your NPE discovery. Can you talk about how you chose a therapist and whether it was difficult to find someone who understood NPE issues?

I chose a therapist by pure panic. I literally had a panic attack at 3 a.m. a few weeks after my DNA discovery and thought I was going to be hospitalized. The next morning I called my clinic and got in with the first available intake appointment they had. No research went into it, and I happened to be paired with a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) practitioner. I gained tools, but I don’t know what the “right” therapy is for anyone. I literally had to take it a moment at a time and fill my entire world with NPE everything, including reading articles on Severance Magazine, and joining online support groups.

You mentioned at the end of the episode in which you tell your own story that you’re not an expert. That’s something I feel strongly about—people, even other NPEs, trying to speak for everyone, wanting to be spokespersons for NPEs. I believe each of us is an expert on our own experience, but none of us can speak for everyone. Can you address that, whether you agree or disagree and why?

I don’t know anything. I joke with other NPEs that I’m waiting for someone to write the handbook on how to guide us through our DNA discovery. I get skeptical when I hear anyone opine on what I should do with my family members or what I should be feeling. Especially the online threads on forgiveness, or forgiveness-shaming as I like to call it. We can each only share our own personal experience, and I agree that none of us can speak for everyone. Sometimes we share experiences, and in that moment of understanding and empathy we can all nod along with each other. Those are the moments I like.

Have you seen many commonalities as you hear more and more stories? What issues resonate most?

Yes, the mothers. I hear the same mother being described in so many NPE stories. Self-centeredness sometimes appears in many of their stories. Actually many of the parents involved, including birth-fathers, have a thread of self-centeredness woven in. I realize this is rooted in shame and self-protection, but all the same it exists in so many NPEs stories.

What has surprised you in the stories you’ve heard?

I still get surprised every week. I actually have to take notes the whole time to keep up with all the family members and timeline. I have been surprised by the violence I find out about. It makes me a little sick with the rape, murder, and child abuse I have heard and read about. My heart breaks whenever I imagine an NPE as a helpless child in some of these circumstances.

Is there anything else you’d want readers to know about NPE Stories?

I merely consider myself an organizer for the podcast NPE Stories. It’s a safe space where NPEs can share audible versions of their stories. I may help them along with a few questions, but I try to leave room for them to fill the space in their own words. It’s not live, is completely editable, and can be anonymous if the guest prefers.

Are you seeking NPEs to tell their stories, and if so, how would you like them to contact you?

I have a rather long waitlist, but if someone doesn’t mind scheduling 6 months in advance, I go in the order of emails received. I record everyone’s story who is willing, and I can be reached at NPEstories@gmail.com for scheduling. I have a Facebook page, NPE Stories, and I’m on Instagram @lilymwood.Lily Wood, host of NPE Stories, is a 39-year-old stay-at-home mom of three children. When she and her husband, Graham,  were in their twenties, they started an app development company that’s since been acquired by Buzzfeed. In addition to raising her family and hosting the podcast, she volunteers with the American Red Cross as a disaster worker. BEFORE YOU GO…

Look on our home page for more articles about NPEs, adoptees, and genetic genealogy.

• Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
• Let us know what you want to see in Severance. Send a message to bkjax@icloud.com.
• Tell us your stories. See guidelines. 
• If you’re an NPE, adoptee, or donor conceived person; a sibling of someone in one of these groups; or a helping professional (for example, a therapist or genetic genealogist) you’re welcome to join our private Facebook group.
• Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @Severancemag.

By Lana BrammannI recently visited Earth Sanctuary—a perfect place to reconnect with my soul and nature. There I found peaceful ponds, sacred stone circles, a labyrinth, Tibetan prayer and Native American medicine wheels—all nestled in a protected forest.  Perhaps, I thought, it would also be the perfect place to connect with my recently discovered BioDad, Michael,  who passed in 2017. After my NPE (not parent expected) discovery and after having found his family, I understood my gravitation toward all things Native American. Visiting this land, with its sacred Native spaces, had me hopeful and happy for a soulful adventure.

Leaves crunched beneath my feet on the winding path. Deep breaths and deliberate steps… inhale… crunch, crunch, crunch … Exhale… crunch, crunch, crunch. Wearing low-tread sneakers instead of hiking boots was an intentional choice that forced a more mindful gait on the muddy, slightly hilly trail. At each activity location I said a prayer, left an offering, and felt lighter. The Native American prayer place surprised me. It felt familiar, though I’d never been to or seen one. Intuitively, I peeled off my sneakers and socks, then stepped barefoot on the flat rock at the pond’s edge. With hands outstretched and palms up, I closed my eyes and thought of Michael. In my mind’s eye, I had a strong vision of the man whose genes created me. His face was clear from photographs shared by his family. The stories they’d generously shared of his struggles and joy created both peace and sorrow. One deep breath and a tear ran down my cheek. Two breaths, another tear.

I told him how sorry I was that he’d passed before I found him. I explained that for a year and a half I’d begged my mother for information; yet she insisted he was not my father. I asked Michael if he knew I was his child during those two times, 47 years ago, when he came out of his home in an attempt to speak with my mother and peered around her at me. I thanked him for helping me find my new house (it was nothing short of a miracle) and for watching over me, especially as I navigated this traumatic discovery. I purged silent tears and years of sorrow for Michael, the father who created me, and for Skip, the assumed father forced into a teenage marriage then also withheld from me after his divorce from my mother. Tears fell for my mother’s family, who turned their backs, and for both fathers’ families, who have recently enveloped me in love and warmth. Tears fell for puzzle pieces that finally fit together.

As if to indicate I’d overstayed my welcome, a squirrel eventually emerged from the bushes a couple feet from my toes and watched for a few moments before scampering behind me to the place where offerings were left. It’s as if the squirrel was saying, “Okay, that’s enough… go on your way.” I left an offering of sage and thanked Michael and the squirrel before putting on my socks and shoes and continuing along the path.

I took solace in the realization that Michael is in the rustle of wind in the trees, the solitary call of the owl every night at dusk, and the shimmer of the lake. He’s in the notes from my cello, flute, and mountain dulcimer. He’s in the activities that bring me comfort and joy, which seem so foreign to the rest of my assumed family.

His relatives have shared that he was flawed and far from perfect, but a very kind and loving human. He loved nature, was musical, and his soul ran deep with his Native American heritage. He and my mother couldn’t have been more opposite. With this knowledge, certain memories with her take on a different significance. It makes me giggle to recall the time I dragged her on a surprise adventure through two inches of mud for hours of mushroom hunting. What makes the recollection so sweet now is knowing he would have relished the spectacle with impish joy, as my very urban, very perception-conscious mother had no option but to indulge me by investigating fungus in the mud.

Although I didn’t know then I was an NPE, when I was a child I was confused by interests and perspectives different from those of the family in which I was raised. I was kept from Michael, and, ultimately, from Skip, the man assigned the role of father. I’m grateful to Skip for stepping in as a father when he had no obligation to do so, and to Michael’s family for sharing stories, photographs, and accepting me as if I’d been part of their world all along. I just wish I’d met him myself. For a child who had no fathers, who would have thought I’d be blessed as an adult to have had two?Lana Brammann grew up in Orange County, California, where she never quite fit in. She now thrives in caffeinated bliss with the natural abundance of Whidbey Island, Washington. She provides love and sanctuary to unwanted tortoises, retired racing greyhounds, and parrots. The parrots, like Brammann, sometimes say things they shouldn’t. She’s a member of the International Society of Genetic Genealogists. Look for her on Facebook.BEFORE YOU GO…

Look on our home page for more articles about NPEs, adoptees, and genetic genealogy.

• Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
• Let us know what you want to see in Severance. Send a message to bkjax@icloud.com.
• Tell us your stories. See guidelines. 
• If you’re an NPE, adoptee, or donor conceived person; a sibling of someone in one of these groups; or a helping professional (for example, a therapist or genetic genealogist) you’re welcome to join our private Facebook group.
• Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @Severancemag.

By Sara EasterlyA common mistake adoptive parents make when hearing adult adoptees speak about adoption trauma is discounting their experiences because “times have changed” or their adoptee hasn’t voiced similar feelings. Some parents will straight-up ask their adopted children if they feel the same way and then rest easy when their children deny having similar feelings. Differing details of adoption stories can be used as evidence of irrelevance. Adoptee voices that land as “angry” are often quickly written off as “examples of a bad adoption.”

“Not my adoptee,” is a knee-jerk, defensive response that blinds parents to adoption-related dynamics that may be uncomfortable or painful to consider—especially when everything seems to be going swimmingly in early childhood. This posture, though, discounts the real and proven trauma inherent in adoption, missing an opportunity to fully support adopted children and ultimately benefit from closer, more authentic relationships.

That trauma looks good on you.

One reason it’s so easy to miss signs of adoption trauma is because it can present so well.

Adoptees are unintentionally groomed to be people-pleasers. Once we’ve lost our first mothers to adoption, we can work incredibly hard to win the love of our next mothers. We strive to measure up—doing and saying whatever is needed to keep our adoptive mothers close. This is all unconscious and certainly not meant to be fraudulent. To our brains, running the show, it’s simply a matter of survival. Children need parents, after all, and attachment is our greatest human need, taking priority even over such basics as shelter and food, as explained by child developmental psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld.

Of course, “good,” compliant behavior is welcomed and adored in our culture. What parent wouldn’t find a well-behaving child absolutely lovely? As a mother, I confess that my job feels so much easier when my kids behave. Unfortunately, though, the more adoptees are praised for our good behavior, the more our unhealthy patterns are reinforced and extend outside of our family relationships. We’ll ditch our true feelings in a heartbeat if it means feeling treasured and keeping loved ones close.

Other manifestations of adoption trauma are valued by mainstream culture: perfectionism churns out hard-working, dedicated students and employees who’ll always go the extra mile—nobody spotting the adoptee’s frantic need to prove his or her worth. Adoptees often make natural leaders—nobody knowing that we can harbor a desperate need to be in charge that started upon relinquishment when our brains decided nobody was looking out for us, so we’re best served when we’re at the helm. People-pleasers can also be charismatic, supportive, empathetic, and generous … others unaware of the self-sabotage that can be at play behind the scenes. We can seem unfazed in the face of stressful situations, many not understanding that’s because we’ve spent a lifetime diminishing our feelings and disregarding deep pain in order to become masters of compartmentalization.

These are traits we value in society. They serve. These traits aren’t all bad, of course. But they can be inwardly destructive—especially if adoptees aren’t aware of them, and most certainly if the cost is the adoptee’s true sense of self.

Adoption blinds.

Another reason it’s harder to spot adoption trauma is because it hides itself from adoptees themselves. The grief of losing a first family member through adoption is so significant it’s not easily looked at by the adoptee. Like looking at the sun too directly, it will burn. What’s more, our experiences of such great loss are often preverbal, before we learned words like loneliness, isolation, abandonment, and hopelessness to help us understand our overwhelming emotions—so overwhelming, sometimes, they aren’t felt. Our brains protect us in that way, because to feel them just might do us in.

Developmentally, most children won’t even have the capacity to reflect upon adoption loss until much later in life. This is what’s known as “living in the fog”—a state of denial or numbness in which adoptees are unable to closely examine the effects of adoption. When directly asked, in-the-fog adoptees often won’t have the consciousness, or the words, to talk about adoption trauma. We spend years, and possibly decades, feeling more comfortable parroting society’s or a family’s lighthearted interpretation of adoption than trying to articulate our underground, confusing, complex emotions.

When we sense a disconnect between our nuanced feelings and culture’s saccharine-sweet story of adoption, we blame ourselves. When we fail at being “perfect,” we are prone toward additional self-attack. When we’re more three-dimensional than simply “good” adoptees, we can resort to secrecy in order to keep the darker parts of ourselves hidden from those closest to us. In any of these ways, we can end up living a double life, censoring large swaths of ourselves—making it harder to feel fully known and rest in a sense of deep love by those closest to us.

This is why it’s critically important to listen to out-of-the-fog adult adoptees. Adoptees who share their stories aren’t usually doing so for fame, glory, or money, but out of a genuine desire to support other adoptees. We share on the other side of healing—or in the midst of our healing—in hopes of opening adoptive parents’ eyes to our innermost secrets that we wish our parents had had access to in our younger years.

Are some of us angry? Absolutely. Society hasn’t made room for our voices in the story of adoption, despite the fact that we’re its central players. Some of us have been let down by the people closest to us—again and again. Some of us haven’t felt seen or known. Some of us have been mistreated. Some of us have sought to take our own lives to stop the pain without having to shed light on adoption’s darkest manifestations.

“Not my adoptee” could easily be your adoptee—whether you or your child recognize so right now. Like all children, adoptees eventually grow older; hopefully, in the name of their mental health and wholeness as individuals, their feelings around adoption will evolve over time. As your child matures, you’ll want your child to look back and know that you did your best to understand them, to see them, to know them, and to guide them. While all adoptees are different, and each story is unique, listening to #adopteevoices—an array of them—is of utmost importance when raising adopted children toward their full developmental potential.Sara Easterly is an adoptee and award-winning author of books and essays. Her memoir, Searching for Mom, won a Gold Medal in the Illumination Book Awards, among many other honors. Her essays and articles have been published by Psychology Today, Dear Adoption, Red Letter Christians, Feminine Collective, Her View From Home, Godspace, and others. Find her online at saraeasterly.com, on Facebook, on Instagram @saraeasterlyauthor, and on Twitter @saraeasterly.

BEFORE YOU GO…

Look on our home page for more articles about adoptees, NPEs, and genetic genealogy.

• Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
• Let us know what you want to see in Severance. Send a message to bkjax@icloud.com.
• Tell us your stories. See guidelines. 
• If you’re an NPE, adoptee, or donor conceived person; a sibling of someone in one of these groups; or a helping professional (for example, a therapist or genetic genealogist) you’re welcome to join our private Facebook group.
• Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @Severancemag.

By Lisa CoppolaThat evening Ma ate clumsily from a bag of cheese curls, and the orange dust caked on her fingers; crumbs hung from stray hairs on her chin. Her left eyebrow tensed with each dramatic revelation the show brought. The episode was about the reunification of a mother and son after decades apart. They fell into each other’s arms, and I became as tense as a pole. My heart sped up, and a hard lump formed in my throat. I remembered the box in the upstairs closet labeled, “The clothes Lisa came in,” as though I’d been purchased in a store—a real human doll with a blank slate background. “I never stopped thinking about you,” said the mother on tv. Tears escaped from my eyes. I wondered aloud over the years but had never asked the actual question.

“So Ma, what do you actually, really, know about my birth mother?

She looked at me, one hazel eye lifted slightly. She breathed in carefully, turned to me, and switched off the tv.

“Well, her name was Margaret. Your name before we got you was Libby. But we thought you were more of a Lisa.”

My cheeks flushed.

“Libby? Like short for something, like Elizabeth? Lisa’s better anyway.”

“Nope, just Libby. Margaret was mentally ill; we know she lived for a while in the State Hospital. Also, we know that she may have been raped—or something.”

Raped—or something? A tremble tightened in the pit of my stomach.

“By who? Who raped her?”

“It may have been another patient. They didn’t tell us much.”

She sounded a bit too removed.

“Seriously? Really? That’s really nuts, huh?”

I reached for an Oreo out of the tin Dad kept on the coffee table and casually ate it while my hand shook from the adrenaline.

“We tried to find out more after we got you but they gave us very little information.”

I steadied myself onto my feet and moments later found myself in the bathroom. I leaned onto the sides of the sink and peered closely into the mirror to study my nineteen-year-old face, a typical daily practice. That night it came with more information. My intense blue eyes stared back at me and I tried to see what was in there, what kind of entity I even was. Probably human I figured. As a kid, I thought the mysterious indentation on top of my skull could have been where I was released from a port when the ship dropped me off. My reflection continued to stare back at me like a stranger. Ma was not the type to fuss about her looks or to diet like many of my friend’s dieting mothers, which the feminist part of me appreciated. Still, with no biological guide to help me know what I may have been growing into, I had to look to magazines and media and tried to sort out what kind of woman I may be destined to look like. My frame was a thin hourglass shape. Magazines told me this was acceptable, but also told me that thinner would be better. I had full lips. I was not necessarily pretty; I was not cute. I was sexy. I was a hot girl, but I wanted to be beautiful. Sexy and hot got you noticed, got you chosen from a crowd, got you sought after for a moment. Beautiful, however, got you kept. At that point, I was living out the role of a sexy and disturbed girl that sometimes got herself into trouble.

Daring to peer even closer, I tried to see both the rapist in me and then the mentally ill woman in me and wondered which parts come from whom. Questions arose: What kind of mental illness did Margaret have? Could she be scary, like my brother Simon? Or,  was she more like me, either lost in daydreams or stuck in annoying obsessive thought cycles? Maybe Margaret would understand my quirks. Then, the first of what would be daily visions played out in my head. A woman’s mouth struggling to open smothered by a gnarly hand, her head pushed into the plastic covering on a hospital mattress. What did it mean to exist only because a woman was raped?

This inquiry was big, too big to fathom. Doubt reserved a dingy backseat in my brain and whispered to me. Perhaps it wasn’t. Maybe she lied, maybe they were in love. Maybe she was religious and lied because of her faith. Or, maybe it wasn’t a patient. Maybe it was a doctor or a counselor, someone who could take advantage of a mentally ill woman living in a hospital. The man was a looming dark shadow, standing tall and hovering and faceless. I only existed because of a bad seed.

I left the bathroom that night and paused to look at the wooden doghouse that hung off the wall in our kitchen. It had been there for as long as I could remember. Five small dog pieces, each about two inches tall, and each had one of our names written on the front: Ma, Dad, Russell, Lisa, and Simon.* Dad’s dog was a bit taller than the rest; Ma’s was plump and smiling. My older brother Russ’s dog was scuffed up and guilty, his big black eyes pointed up to the right. Simon’s dog looked out of place, like a different breed—a terrier perhaps. Mine shined with innocence, wide-eyed and floppy eared. For many years, when one of us kids got into trouble, Ma would announce our dog’s move into the doghouse. It didn’t happen too often for me. Simon was occasionally in there for ignoring her. It was Russ whose dog was always hanging in there and it still was in there that night. As though I was in a kind of visceral trance, I walked up to the doghouse, moved Russ out, and moved my dog in.

*Names have been changed in the interest of privacy.Lisa Coppola is an adoptee advocate and creator of the Voices Unheard Speaker Series, which is put on through Boston Post Adoption Resources. She lives in the Boston area and is working on a memoir about healing from sexual trauma and tracking down both of her biological parents. Look for her blog, visit her author page on Facebook, and find her on Instagram @morethanjustaluckyadoptee.BEFORE YOU GO…

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