By Brad EwellTwo days after I learned I’d been adopted, we met to talk about the secret you’d kept from me. Looking back, I was completely unprepared for that conversation. I was still in shock from learning you weren’t my biological parents and that you lied by omission about this my entire life. What follows is what I wish I’d have known to express then in that first conversation. I didn’t know then that would be our only conversation about this. Had I been able to say these things then, I think it would have made it easier on all of us.

I don’t regret being adopted. I’ve had a great life; in reality I’ve been spoiled. You did a good job raising me to be the man I am today. You made me feel loved and supported. You taught me the importance of hard work and perseverance. You showed me the simple pleasure gained from working with my hands. You also guided me toward an honest life where I stand up for what I believe in without worrying much about the personal costs. When I look at my life now, I don’t see how I would have ended up where I am today if you hadn’t adopted me. I’ve got a great wife, wonderful kids, and a life I love.

But none of this changes my need to know who I am and where I come from. Searching for and reuniting with my biological family hasn’t been something I did as a rejection of you or as a result of some failure in your parenting. No matter how much you ignore my need to know, it will never disappear from inside of me. I simply have to understand who I am, and because of adoption, there’s more to that story than who raised me.

As I trace my roots, I begin to understand why I am the way I am. I still see your hand in molding me, but I also see the biological foundation of my attitudes and behaviors. I also know where some of my struggles came from. You tried to shape me to be more outgoing; maintain outward appearances; and adopt a go-along-to-get along mindset at home, but biologically it wasn’t who I was, so we clashed over these expectations.

Discovering my lineage and meeting my biological relatives makes me feel more like a whole person than I ever have. I’ve seen myself reflected back to me in others—my rebelliousness and personal style; my difficulty in going with the flow; my mischievous sense of humor; and my deep introversion. Since I’ve met my biological father and heard stories about my biological mother, these traits all make sense to me now. Before, it just felt like I was doing something wrong.

While I’m not sorry I was adopted, I deeply regret that you kept my adoption secret from me for 48 years. Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, I can see the places where I was trying to force myself into a mold that was never meant for me. While for the most part I’ve made peace with the time and energy I invested trying to be someone I’m not, I likely will always have nagging questions about what might have been had I stayed truer to who I biologically was. It’s still hard to look back on the internal struggles I had—feeling like I’d failed in some way for not fitting into the family mold. It makes me sad to think about the fuller relationship I believe we could have had if I’d known the truth.

In the end, what I hope you understand is that my need to know where I come from has everything to do with me and nothing to do with you. It’s not a result of some failing on your part. No amount of extra love or attention would have made my need to know who I am go away. From talking to others in similar situations I’ve learned that the need to understand our heritage is an inescapable desire many of us feel. How ironic that you told me several times “blood is thicker than water,” yet here we are with you now wanting to ignore that. You’re still my parents; you’re the only parents I’ve ever known; but I still need a connection to my roots to feel intact .

I hope this will all make sense to you. Please understand there’s nothing about my search that threatens our relationship, and in the end all I hope to do is become a better person through the things I learn.

Your Son,

Brad

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By Lisa CollinsWhen you were but two years old, I came into being.

We were unaware of one another’s presence, but we co-existed.

Separated by a thousand miles, yet side by side on this planet, we grew.

We were born alone, no siblings with whom to form that unique bond.

We were given a name and assigned a family.

But somewhere out there, just beyond reach, the other was there.

I don’t know why we were allowed to live for more than 50 years without one another, and why we weren’t permitted the connection so many take for granted.

Were we somehow assigned the payment for sins of the fathers?

Why were we destined to miss out on the comfort, the familiarity, of another human connected by blood, intertwined for life?

We will never know. We will always wonder.

We will never get that time back.

But from this point forward, we now know.

There is another person, no longer unreachable and distant.

A person with whom we share blood, and genetics, and values.

Silly little things, like a preference for rice.

Difficulty swallowing.

And a dark, easy tan.

And big, important things,

like stubbornness and independence.

Fierce loyalty.

Refusal to follow illogical rules.

And a smartass sense of humor.

We will never again be without.

No one can ever take this away.

We have less time left to be siblings than we had to be without.

So I choose to acknowledge, honor, and place immense value on this fact:

For the rest of my time on this planet, I will be

Finally, and forever,

Your sister.

BEFORE YOU GO…

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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…

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

• Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
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• Tell us your stories. See guidelines. 
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By Lisa Ann Yiling CalcasolaDear birth mother and father,

How are you? Where are you? Who are you?

I grew up with two Italian-American parents who have given me the world and more. I had as happy a childhood as anyone, the majority of my time spent running around outside in the grass and sunshine of a small, safe New England suburb. I have had many identities as an athlete, student, traveler and artist. I am in my third year of college in New York City.

From the outside my life looks fantastic, a true American dream. I’ve gotten everything I’ve ever wanted—moving to this big city to fulfill bigger dreams—and I should have absolutely nothing to complain about. I have been so fortunate, physically, financially, emotionally. I have the most caring and supporting family. I have no reason to be sad.

And yet you cannot help how you feel, can you? You cannot apologize for your emotions because you are not in control of them. Or you can have control of them, but only after some time. I’m not sure—I’m still trying to figure that out. But the uneasiness and anxiety over my past is something I still struggle to understand every day. I have no immediate reason to be anxious, but I am.

Few people would guess this, because outwardly I am fairly energetic and optimistic. It is inside my own head, especially when I am alone, that this fog comes over me and I feel an unending loneliness, even with the knowledge that, not too far away, there are people who care a lot about me.

I guess I used to cry about this a lot, when I was four—at least that’s what my mom told me this past winter break. I just learned, after twenty years, that I was not merely put into a foster home; I was abandoned in a park. Forest Park, a truly ironic twist of fate, given that my home in America is a five-minute drive from another Forest Park.

It does no good to dwell on the past. I try not to be sad and think about you, but I am. Sometimes, I am. I miss you, these people I have never met. You left me, I presume, I hope, because you wanted me to have a better life, and here I am, twenty years later, with everything a girl could ever ask for.

And yet I am still not whole. I still miss you. I still feel lonely, especially in this city that is so vast. I still think too much, but I cannot help these thoughts: that for all my outward material comforts I sometimes feel an emptiness that comes out of this dark pit I want to keep hidden and buried within me. It is ugly and thick and I do not want to expose it. Because I am afraid of it.

I wonder if meeting you would make a difference, if the loneliness and anxiety I feel is linked more to the mystery than to the two of you, who seem to me more phantom than real. It is always the unknown that haunts us.

You wanted to give me a better life, but is this better? In one of the biggest most “successful” cities in the world, yet still feeling lonely, still feeling lost? I do not know what life would have been like with you in China, in our city of Fuzhou, of three point seven million people or more. I do not know what it would be like to have a brother or a sister, to see the world through an Eastern rather than Western lens. I have my education here, but what has this education taught me but that the world is far more complex than I’d ever imagined, with more and more terrible things happening each day?

And I do not know if this is related to you, or just to me, and to my growing up. And I do not know anything about you, who you are, what jobs you do or don’t have, if you’re short like me, if you’re athletic, or artistic, or happy. If you are even alive. I do not know, I do not know, and it is the not-knowing, the possibility that I will never know, that whispers to me when I am alone.

I miss you, but I do not know how much. Because my mother and father here are the ones who raised me, who taught me how to walk, and speak, and treat other people. They instilled these values in me. What values would you have instilled? Is it egotistical and nonsensical for me to even ask such questions? Maybe I should just accept what is and move on.

But like I said, feelings cannot be controlled. I can’t help how I feel. I can try to change my perspective, of course, but at the end of the day I still think of you, and I do not know if you think of me.

I hope to go to China very soon. I look forward to it more than any other trip, and of course I want to see the culture, but mostly I want to find you. I don’t know if this is possible. But it’s another distant dream.

Take care,

Your Fu Yiling

福宜玲Lisa Ann Yiling Calcasola is a writer and adoptee. Her work has been previously
published in Hyphen Magazine, Vol 1. Brooklyn, the Asian American Feminist Collective’s
digital storytelling project, and more. She wrote this essay in 2016. Find her @punkelevenn.

Severance Magazine is not monetized—no subscriptions, no ads, no donations—therefore, all content is generously shared by the writers. If you have the resources and would like to help support the work, you can tip the writer.

Venmo: @punkelevennBEFORE 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 Imee DaltonThere were so many things already happening
The night a gibbous moon
Peered down at a young woman
Poised on the brink of a pregnant pause
There were already fishermen in the tiny village
Getting ready for the next day’s catch
There were already pious congregants in the small church
Getting ready for that evening’s prayer
There was already a Cancer sun and Aries rising
Getting ready to fate the earth
Already a destined heartbeat rising
Already a pre-ordained ocean tide rising
And down by the beach
There was already a boat waiting
To ferry away whatever foundling
Came earth side that night
Because there were already
The sideways glances and whispers
Already known crucial players missing in this act
How is it that before the infant
Even had the ability to wail and protest
There was already the both/and
Of inexpressible joy and sacred heartache
A duo of life long friends waiting for her
And even before there was a mother’s
Clenched jaw and concentrated travailing
There was already a cord being cut
And when the time came to take her first divine breath
And arms and land were there to catch her
With the finality that only life can give
It seemed already woven into her story
The counting of how many rebirths
Until she makes it back homeAlong with being on the board of Encompass Adoptees, Imee Dalton is a mother, a creative, and an entrepreneur. She was adopted as an infant from the Philippines and is a transracial, international, kinship adoptee who has been actively processing her adoption story since 2012. 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 Michelle HensleyLight, water, love.

What a plant needs to thrive, to grow. Common needs for humans. But what if you didn’t get what you needed to grow? Would you somehow persevere?

I didn’t have what I needed to grow. I had the basics: food, shelter, clothing. They were fragile, not always in quantities that would lead to a secure sense of comfort. Clothing was mostly from garage sales or purchased with credit cards that would later have to be cut up. Shelter was a house that was mortgaged several times over to pay for a gambling addiction. Food was portioned, and we filled our bellies with bread and butter because maybe we were still hungry and that’s all we had left on the table.

Love was hard earned. It was conditional to behavior. Feelings of animosity and jealousy led to separation—physical and emotional. My adult self recognizes the disfunction, the probable mental illness, the absurdity of the accusations. I did not feel loved.

I moved out three weeks after high school graduation, and I was given a tree a short time after that. A houseplant ficus tree. I cared for that tree. I gave it light, water, love. I made sure it had a sunny window in every rented apartment and basement space. As it grew, so did I.

Finally, when I was living in a house to call home after I married, the tree thrived, and so did I. It grew so big and tall that it had to be replanted, cut back, split, and repotted many times over 30-plus years. It became a member of the family, fondly known as “the tree.” It stood in as a Christmas tree more than once. The tree lived at a trusted friend’s house when it got too tall.

Eventually, it made its way back and had to be hacked once again to fit into the space available. Leaves would drop in protest to the jarring change of space and severing. And then, as if by magic, new shoots would emerge, with new starts of a branch. I showered it with light, water, love.

It was a constant reminder that with light, water, and love, anything could thrive.

In a particularly tough patch in my life, I started to resent the tree. It had been a gift from a person who did not give me what I needed—love. I did not get the care and compassion that was essential to grow as a human being. I began to see the tree as a painful reminder of that person and I made plans to kill the tree. Yes, kill it, as in take it out back and hack it up with a hand saw, a hatchet, or whatever sharp tool I could get my hands on. I envisioned a scene like the one depicted in the movie “Mommy Dearest,” where Joan Crawford, in a fit of anger, chops down a prized ornamental tree.

I didn’t kill the tree. Instead, I made arrangements for it to live at the library. I gave up that tree. I now know that it will live in infamy in a space that was despised by the one who failed to give me what I needed. The thought of the tree getting to bear witness to all the growth and knowledge that’s nurtured in that building—everything I was denied—gives me peace.

The tree also produced a stub, a leftover of the last replanting. It was nothing more than a stump in a big pot. It had been unceremoniously shoved in a dark corner, away from light. It had been ignored, forgotten. There was no light, no water, no love, nothing.

A side glance one day brought shock when a flash of green caught my eye. From behind a chair, nestled deep in the corner, there was life. The tree had not given up. The tree had sprouted a new start, from deep beneath the soil, an offshoot, perhaps, of the stump. The tree had used its reserves, its inner strength, to show that it could persevere.

The new branchtree appears strong. It mockingly showed up, despite the lack of light, water, and love. It is here to grow. Its inner strength pushed through. It’s a survivor. It will not be killed. It has become the new tree, the courageous self-sufficient being that emerged. It’s now being given light, water, and love. It sits in the sun. It is growing. It will know that despite its beginnings, it alone pushed above the soil to emerge victoriously.

I am the new tree.Michelle Hensley was adopted as an infant and is in reunion with members of her birth families. She’s a mentor and facilitator at Encompass Adoptees, Transracial Journeys family camp, and Adoption Network Cleveland. Follow her on Facebook and find her on Twitter @Michell99944793.

By Michelle HensleyI was scheduled for surgery on March 25, 2020, but because of the quarantine, the surgery was canceled. My condition declined and I politely and persistently encouraged my surgeon to appeal to the board. The appeal was successful. The surgery was rescheduled, and I had the operation on April 17.

It was a much different experience than I could ever have imagined.

I wasn’t afraid of the surgery. I’ve had several operations in my lifetime. But what I wasn’t prepared for was being alone—completely alone—immediately after my surgery and the entire night I spent in the hospital. The nurses and patient aides were attentive. If I needed something, I pushed the button, and they were able to help with pain meds or small amounts of food. But I was alone. Because of COVID-19, my husband was not allowed to be with me. He dropped me off at the door at 6 AM and I didn’t see him again until the next day when he came to drive me home.

I spent the entire night alone and in pain and had no one to comfort me. I imagine that my birth mother may have felt the same way the night she gave birth to me. I tried to get comfortable, but couldn’t. I tried to sit or lie in different positions, but it didn’t help. I was in pain and I cried. I barely slept. I felt nauseous at times and struggled to drink even the smallest amounts of water. My heart ached for my loved ones. When the nurse did come in, she was quick and efficient but didn’t stick around for small talk. She didn’t provide any kind of nurturing or offer encouraging words. I cried more and thought about calling someone, anyone, but I didn’t want to be a bother. Adoptees do that—we feel bad asking for help, as if we should be able to handle everything or because maybe we are not deserving of basic human compassion.

Back at home, my husband has taken great care of me. All I have to do is ask, and my wish is granted.

I didn’t go to the hospital to have a baby so—unlike my mother—I have no shame about why I was there or any guilt about my behavior. My heart does not ache for a baby I wasn’t able to take home and I am healing physically. I have a new understanding of what my birth mother experienced the night I was born. The baby scoop era was tragic, and the homes for unwed mothers were horrible places. They were supposed to be medical facilities where the patients would be cared for, when in fact they were places where girls and women were shamed and chastised for having become pregnant. These women were left in rooms alone during labor and after they gave birth. They were told they deserved to be treated that way.

On Mother’s Day, not long after my surgery, all I could think of was all the birth moms who suffered in silence. Many were told to never ever talk about it, and they went home as if it didn’t happen. They buried their pain. I’m so sorry that happened all those years ago. I’m sorry that it was the memories of a lonely night spent in pain in the hospital that allowed me to understand the depth of that loss.Michelle Hensley was adopted as an infant and is in reunion with members of her birth families. She’s a mentor and facilitator at Encompass Adoptees, Transracial Journeys family camp, and Adoption Network Cleveland. Follow her at Facebook and find her on Twitter @Michell99944793.

I circle my birthday on the calendar every year.

As the date draws closer, its approach feels increasingly like warm, heavy breathing on the nape of my neck and I begin to think about it daily, as much as I don’t want to. The breathing on my neck intensifies. I work hard to bottle up anticipation that bubbles up from my soul. When it is a week away, anxiety skyrockets. Try as I might to banish all birthday thoughts and emotions from my mind and body, I’m unable to. The more I try not to think about it, the more I do. Thank you, irony.

Then it arrives. It’s here! The big day! Time to celebrate! Celebratory texts and Facebook posts begin rolling in. Regardless of what’s planned for me on this most wondrous of days, I don’t need to guess what this day will be like or how I will feel. It’s my birthday after all. October 10^th is here. Yippy.

Anxiety levels now reach all-time highs, or, to be precise, match the same highs set each preceding year. I don’t know what to do with myself. There is one certainty with my birthday: I will find a way to sabotage it. As sure as the sun rises each morning, my birthday will somehow become a fiasco.

For most of my life it has been like this. I wish it would stop, but it won’t. Like a family of pit vipers slithering over each other in a dark den, something buried in my subconscious moves, waiting for a chance to strike. I’m riddled with emotional pain and loneliness even though I’m blessed to be married to a superhero and am a father to two wonderful children who go out of their way to do nice things for me. I feel as if I am seeking something that cannot be found.

Regardless of whether we have a party, go out to dinner as a family, or do any of the other good ideas my wife comes up with, I try my best to be happy. Yet that happiness is as elusive as sleep is to an insomniac. The celebration and presents are never enough to quell the pain, and then the sabotaging kicks into high gear and I turn into a monster in the presence of people doing nice things for me. I snap. I peck at their nests. I bark. I am fussy. This is not me in entirety, but it is who I unfortunately become on this day.

Some form of trauma boils up from the depths of my being. It takes charge as much as I fight it not to. It’s in control, not me. All I truly want is for the day to be over. Please, can it be October 11^th? I am not good enough for my birthdays, and they are not good enough for me. It wasn’t until very recently, when I turned my gaze within and introduced myself to the core of my being that I finally could grasp the source and depth of this angst.

You see, I’m adopted. Born a bastard, I was separated from my biological mother at birth. The woman I spent nine months preparing to meet was gone in an instant. In my most vulnerable state, I was motherless. Without mother. At the time, I was overcome by a high degree of trauma, a trauma that cannot be undone. Worse, this trauma is precognitive. I, like millions of my adoptee crib mates, do not know what life is like without trauma, as we were introduced to life in such a traumatic state. Due to recent scientific studies, we know this to be true. Babies are born expecting to meet their mothers, hear their voices, smell their scents, taste their milk.  When their mothers are not available, they become traumatized. If puppies and kittens must stay with their birth mothers for a few weeks before being adopted, why is it okay to separate a newborn from her mother at first breath?

After reading and processing this research, I could finally grasp the source of my annual torment. It’s my adoption trauma raising its ugly head and expressing itself.

My actual birth day was not a happy day. There were no relatives there to hug me and fawn over me. There were no flowers and balloons in the hospital room. No one was smoking cigars anywhere. I was moved into the natal ward to be cared for by nameless faceless baby handlers.  I cannot account for the first few weeks of my life. There are no photos. There are no family stories. I do not know who bathed me. Who fed me. Who swaddled me. My biological parents did their best to forget about me and move on with their lives while I was swept into the system as a ward of the state. It is hard for me to imagine how a human being could be more vulnerable.

I have been reunited with my biological family, including my birth mother, since early 2017. She and I have become very close since our reunion. We routinely explore our feelings about my adoption and have deeply emotional conversations about my issues. We become extraordinarily vulnerable in the process, and she wants to take all that pain from me. She never knew the depths of trauma adoptees are exposed to, and she suffers in guilt as a result.

As much as adoption agencies and society at large claim one can paper over this separation with love, there is no amount of love that can fix this vexing situation that arises through the act of adoption.

She was not without trauma, either; it has riddled her since my birth. We cannot forget that birth mothers suffer too. I listen and help her unpack her suffering and sadness. We promise each other that we aren’t going anywhere. One separation is enough for her and me.

Recently, my birthdays have improved. It has helped to learn the science behind what a newborn knows and yearns for and how the absence of those things results in trauma. This has truly aided me in my quest to understand myself. Added to that, several biological family members love to celebrate my birthday with me too, as they hold it in high regard and see it as a monumental day that absolutely needs to be celebrated. Some want to celebrate all the “lost” birthdays we didn’t get to celebrate before our reunion. Further, I have found solace with adoptees on social media and in a local adoptee group I run. I’ve learned that there are many other adoptees who find birthdays equally painful and anxiety inducing.

With time and healing, my birthdays are becoming less toxic and angst-ridden. I am more relaxed and I smile more than frown. Birthdays are meant to be happy days, and I am on the path to making sure that my birthdays are happy before they run out.— Adrian Jones, an advocate for adoptees and heart health, lives in Marin County, California with his wife and two children. Visit his blog, An Adoptee Shares His Story. Look for another of his essays here. 

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By Vanessa SagerMany adoptees dread an elementary school project that seems to be universally assigned — the family tree project. The teachers ask children to research their roots and family origins to find out where they came from and what their heritage is. Most children like me, adopted during the baby scoop era, lived in families in which we were simply expected to assume our place in the adoptive family and take our identity from it. I first encountered the family tree project when I was in 2nd grade. It created consequences from which I not only never recovered, but which also shaped my future in unforeseeable ways.

I have a strong memory from that school year. I asked my mom, “What am I?” I meant what nationality was I, where did MY people come from? Kids at school were talking about this and I could not join the conversation. Stephanie was German, Korey was Korean, what was I? She had no answer for me other than the vague and slightly suspect information given to her by the social worker who arranged my adoption. It wasn’t good enough for me.

One afternoon she was putting away laundry, and I was following behind her, peppering her with questions. Am I German? Yes. Am I Russian? Yes. Am I Danish? Yes. I suspected she was frustrated and just saying yes to everything, so I tested her. Am I Chinese? Yes. She was walking faster, furiously placing towels in the bathroom cupboard, and I could see only her backside. Am I Indian? Yes. Am I African? Yes.

Oh, Mama! In my memory, she’s now running away from me, unable to give me the answers I so desperately needed. My mom loved me with a fierce mother-love, but by this time in our lives together as mother and daughter, she had figured out that I could not accept this love. I could not feel it. She had learned to give me space and not to smother me. This was the true test of her love for me: to love from an arm’s length and neither force me to feel nor to return her love. Oh, wretched adoption.

I became obsessed with other cultures, with maps, with foreign languages. I spent countless hours staring at my reflection, looking for clues as to who I might be. I signed up to be pen pals with scores of children from around the world. In high school I was a foreign exchange student and lived for a year with a German family and went to a German high school. I was looking and waiting for some unknown something to reveal to me what my heritage was. I thought I would recognize it when I found it.

Many years later, when I was in my 40s and had finally found my family and the truth about my heritage, I had an acute, physical sensation of coming down from the clouds of fantasy and wonder and resting my body firmly on solid ground. I had facts. I was something. For the very first time in my life, I felt real.

Also during this time, I was going through old papers, photos, and documents and found a letter the social worker who had worked my case had written to my mom. It was dated the year I was in 2nd grade. In it, the social worker, Marjorie, thanked my mom for getting in touch with her but she regretted to tell my mom that she could not reveal any more information about my natural parents’ heritage as there was nothing more in my file about that. My mom never told me that she had done this, that she had tried to find me answers, that her fierce mother-love exhausted every resource she had in 1975 to give me what she knew I needed most.

My mom died young. She died before I learned how to receive her love and how to properly love her back. And so now it is I, with a tender daughter-love, who finally knows and feels how much she loved me, who must return her love from afar.Vanessa Sager lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she turned her curiosity about world cultures into a passion for teaching English language learners. Follow her on Twitter @bglundquist.

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By Liz DeBettaMy body remembers

the shiver of separation

the moment of release

from anything and everything I ever knew

My body remembers

the renunciation

the retraction

the ricochet

of loss

Pain becomes an echo of that loss

that thunders through my skull

screaming

Forcing me to remember what my body refuses to forgetTrauma lives in the body. When you don’t have words to remember, your body will store those memories in fascinating and complex ways. Being an adopted person means living with an overwhelming storehouse of anxiety and confusion that comes from being separated from the mother who carried you in her womb. The only safe place you ever knew is gone, and your baby brain learns to operate on hyper alert, constantly on the lookout for danger. Or, as I like to call it, always waiting for the other shoe to drop (or the shit to hit the fan). Suddenly you are untethered and adrift in a new world with strange sounds and sights and smells that don’t make sense except that you don’t yet have words for it so all of that fear gets locked inside and becomes a constant companion. I have lived with so much fear, so much anxiety, and so much confusion that it’s exhausting. I’d love to sleep, to really and truly sleep, but that is difficult because my body remembers and my brain won’t relax.Breathe

Relax

It’s not real, it’s only a dream

But it feels real and I can’t separate from the feelings that bubble up while I sleep

I want sleep to be an oblivion

A place where I can just relax and breathe

A place where I can take a break from myself

Instead I sweat, cry, search —

for something

or someone

I never find

An endless pattern of up, down, into, through —

stairways

elevators

escalators

hallways

rooms

Desperately searching

Knowing that if I can find it

or you

I will be OK

I want to be OK

to breathe

to relax

to let go

So that when I wake up

I can be here

instead of stuck there

where I can’t find you

frantically wandering on the edge of panic

on the edge of despair

where reality is blurred by the darkness that still seems to threaten me

I have a recurring dream that is a manifestation of my fear and anxiety. It’s been happening for twenty years and it always makes me feel drained, panicked, and powerless. I wake up full of raw emotion, vulnerable and scared even though you are right next to me. Even though you are here and I am not alone. Every time it happens I’m less able to focus, less able to feel capable, less able to be present with you or anyone else. I have to struggle to find enough balance between what I know to be real and what, even though it feels so real, is only a dream. This recurrence is a reminder of how deeply embedded my fear of loss and separation is, a reminder of my terrified baby self who didn’t understand what had happened or why it was happening. This recurrence is what keeps me stuck in those preverbal memories that have such a strong hold on my inability to open up and express my feelings. How can I find the words to say how terrified I feel at the thought of losing you, or anyone I love? That losing you in the dream feels worse than death. It feels like I’m drowning in my own panic and I can’t stop moving because if I keep moving I might keep some of the panic at bay. If I keep moving I might get closer to finding you and then I can rest. So I spend most of my time waking and sleeping in a kind of constant motion to make myself feel safe. But I am safe and unsafe at the same time in this pattern and this constant tension creates a cage that I long to break free from. I have to fight my way back to feeling ok again in the aftermath of the dream because it haunts me and clings like a dark shadow refusing to let go. It makes me feel too much like I’m wearing my skin inside out. But these scars are invisible, only I can see and feel them. This is the stuff that love can’t fix.Liz DeBetta is a PhD candidate in humanities and culture, Union Institute & University (certificates in Women’s and Gender Studies/Creative Writing); a lecturer of English at Utah Valley University; and the writing and performance mentor for Act Risk No More. A member of Actor’s Equity and SAG-AFTRA, she’s interested in performance-based narrative writing for healing and social change from a feminist perspective within the areas of adoption culture and reproductive justice as a way of disrupting dominant narratives and shifting paradigms for adoptees and birth mothers. Her writing has been published on “Dear Adoption.com” and in “#MeToo: Essays About How and Why This Happened, What it Means and How to Make Sure it Never Happens Again.” She’s a team facilitator of Adoptees Connect in Salt Lake City and is researching the benefits of creative writing to heal adoptee trauma.

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By Billie BakhshiDear Donna,

How’s my big sister? I’ve fantasized about asking you this ever since I found out you existed.

I thought I was the oldest of our mother’s children, but then there you were.

I was 24 years old, nursing my second-born on the sofa when our mother suddenly burst out and said, “I’m not going to my grave with this.” She revealed that she’d been 17, unwed, and pregnant in 1967 and had been sent to live at the Booth Maternity Home for Unwed Mothers. The unnamed boyfriend wouldn’t marry her, so her parents made arrangements for her to be squirreled away, protecting the family from shame.

She lived in a dorm. Think “Madeline” — remember, the children’s book? Except all the girls were pregnant and weren’t to talk to each other to preserve their anonymity. When they walked outside — not in two straight lines as in Madeline — they each wore a slim gold wedding band so they could be passed off as respectable, married, mothers to be.

At Catholic Charities, unwed mothers were “prepared” to relinquish their babies. They were told they were saving the baby from the stigma of being a “bastard” and were being given chance at a re-do in life.

She named you Donna, after the song by Ritchie Valens, which she heard playing on the radio when she was there at the home for unwed mothers. You were whisked away after being born. She saw you a year later, at a relinquishment hearing, and she described you as tall and blonde.

I was stunned by my mother’s confession. I wanted to find you. You’d been there all along — the big sister I always wanted. But then our mother shut down and she’s refused to say another word since.

Armed with your birthdate, the name of the hospital, and the adoption agency, I began to investigate. Booth Maternity Center was gone, and St. Joseph’s University had bought the property. Catholic Charities would not release any information. Sealed adoption. They allowed me to write you a letter. If you ever went looking for it, you’d find me. Maybe. Vital Statistics was another dead end. I posted on the International Soundex Reunion Registry and hoped. With each passing year, my hope of finding you has dimmed.

I imagine you’re the lucky one. The wanted one. Your adoptive parents must have really, really wanted you and fallen in love with you at first sight. Mom was beautiful when she was young, and she always had an eye for a gorgeous man. I just know you’re gorgeous, too. How your mom and dad must love you. I know that not all adoption stories are the fairy tales the Hallmark Channel wants us to believe they are, but I hope yours was.

Meanwhile, I was our mother’s second attempt at keeping a man who didn’t want her. You escaped my fate. Maybe my existence was a constant reminder to my mother that she was unwanted. She never loved me. My first memory of her is of her beating me. I learned to keep my distance, to lay low.

She was unpredictable, her mental health an issue since childhood and exacerbated by drug use. Joan Crawford had nothing on her, and I became the codependent caregiver.

At 17, I was so starved for love that I found myself in the very same circumstances that our mother had been in all of those years earlier — unmarried and pregnant. And she tried to inflict the same heartbreak on me, making calls to maternity homes and adoption agencies to make arrangements for me.

I didn’t know our mother’s history at that point, Donna. I only knew that I could not live without my baby. But when I learned about you, when I fully realized the depth of our mother’s cruelty — being so willing to inflict on me the same heartbreak, completely unnecessarily in the 1990s — it was more than I could bear. I distanced myself for many years.

She never saw my daughter, except in pictures, until Serena was 4. She completely missed the first milestones. I couldn’t bring my daughter near her. What if she gave Serena away when my back was turned?

Cody was the first newborn our mother saw me interact with. I think seeing me, blissfully breastfeeding, triggered her. I was happy. She was not. Her response — her resentment and anger that I had a baby and a husband while she had neither — was, “You have a sister. No, I won’t tell you anything about her. Now stew.”

Our mother is no longer a part of my life. I am finally healing. That said, what do I bring to the table?

• A completely unhappy family history of intergenerational trauma, abuse, and mental illness.
• An obsession with breaking the curse of said intergenerational trauma, a happy marriage, and four great kids who would adore having an Auntie Mame. (I warned you that I fantasize.)

 Confession: I’m so afraid of what I might find in you. Are you plagued with the same mental health problems and addictions as our mother? Will this information disrupt your life or hurt you? Because I don’t want that. No, I can’t help you bridge a relationship with her. Please don’t ask. I burned that bridge permanently.

I only wish you love, joy, and peace, dear sister, even if we never meet.

I’m on 23&Me and hitting Ancestry next.

Love,

BillieBillie Bakhshi lives with her husband and children in Las Vegas, Nevada. You can read more of her musings at her blog, The Family Caretaker.

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By Kevin GladishOn May 26, 2015, thanks to a change in Ohio law, I received a copy of my original birth certificate in the mail. That day, I finally learned a truth that I had long suspected but denied my entire life — that I was adopted. I was 43 years old.

Six weeks later, I began writing and speaking publicly about it. And I haven’t really stopped.

I had no idea then how writing and storytelling would save me. In those first days, my words were raw and filled with both a newfound freedom and a newfound grief. Learning that I was, in fact, adopted, was like putting on prescription glasses for the first time after years of not even knowing I couldn’t see. But it also meant seeing how long I’d been lied to and what believing those lies had cost me.

I posted my blog to Facebook and waited. At first, my confessional ramble felt like a selfish act of rebellion. Until then, I’d only told a few people what I’d learned. I knew that the news would come as a shock to most — not so much that I was adopted, but that I had only just now found out.

It was embarrassing, like finally admitting that I’d been pretending to laugh along with a joke that I never got, a joke that was on me the whole time. And yet there was also a relief. Despite how I felt, I knew it was not my fault. I simply could not fathom that the father I loved and trusted my whole life, a man I still today sometimes miss terribly despite everything, could look me in the eye when we were both grown men and lie. But that’s what he did. Having seen one too many clues, I’d finally gotten the guts to ask him if I was adopted.

“No,” he said. “You’re not.”

I had a decision to make, and I did what I think a lot of people do when confronted with whether to believe someone they love. I chose to ignore the growing mountain of evidence: photos and timelines that made no sense, memory fragments, and my own reflection in the mirror. I chose to believe my father.

None of this changed what I’d always felt inside. I’d spent a lifetime averting my eyes and changing the subject whenever the conversation turned to family ancestry, a topic that inexplicably made me uneasy. I’d say I was mostly Slovak (I know now I’m mostly Irish) and taught myself to repeat lines like, “I take after Mom. My sister takes after Dad.” In truth, I looked like neither, and deep down I’d always felt like a fraud playing badly at a game of charades.

That first blog post was read by hundreds of people and passed on. I got calls asking if I was OK. People connected me with online support groups of other late-discovery adoptees, with whom I shared more. And for the first time, I felt a layer of loneliness I never even knew existed begin to fall away. I began to relate to people, for the first time, as me.

Of course this was also frightening. At times I was seized with sudden irrational panics squeezing my throat and chest. I imagined losing everyone, being rejected and abandoned for telling the truth. I was sure that somewhere a meeting would be called to decide that I had stepped out of line and needed to be punished. And though my father by this time was gone, and my mother was in the grip of severe dementia, I still believed there would be dire consequences for exposing the truth.

None of this happened, of course. It was all in my mind. But such is the power of deeply held shame.

Until I began telling my own story, I’d been a character in someone else’s made-up tale. It may have been a nice story, but it wasn’t mine. And it wasn’t true. And just as I had been putting my health at risk each time I walked into a doctor’s office and wrote down someone else’s family medical history instead of my own, I was making myself soul sick every time I repeated it.  Now, I could finally start to get better.

It would be a while before I could begin to trust myself. My first instinct, to this day, is to assume that I am always wrong. “You need to listen to your gut,” I’ve been told, and it’s good advice. But what if you’d spent a lifetime convincing yourself that your gut was telling you lies? Journaling and meditation help, along with honest friends I trust. But I’ve got a ways to go.

Years later, I am still new at this. Every word I write and speak of my truth is a battle against self-doubt and uncertainty. But that’s precisely why I keep doing it, long after some would prefer I “get over it.” Again and again, I am saying: “This is me. This is true.” And every once in a while, someone will say, “Thank you. Your story helped me.” I hear not only from other late-discovery adoptees but also from those who are healing from their own family secrets and inherited shame. I listen, and our stories become a conversation, one that saves us both.

Of course there’s always a risk in telling a true story. Not everyone will want to hear it. But someone, somewhere, will need to hear it, just as badly as you need to tell it. I hope you will. I’m listening too.Kevin Gladish is a late-discovery adoptee, writer, and storytelling performer living in Chicago. He started documenting his discovery and search for birth family soon after finding out he was adopted at the age of 43 and is working on a full-length solo performance piece that is yet unnamed. He’ll take suggestions. Check out his blog, A Story with No Beginning: A Late Discovery Adoption Journey.

Look for more essays on various aspects of genetic identity here. Do you have a story to share? We want to hear from you. Find our submission guidelines here.

By Adrian JonesI share exactly 0.0% DNA with the people with whom I share a last name and my childhood. I don’t look like them. Never have. I have lived nearly five decades as an adoptee.

Regardless, my adoptive family is my family. They raised me and cared for me. They taught me important life lessons and good values to live by. I had plenty of opportunities to grow and little to want for. They provided me and my younger adopted sister a very good life and supported us during the difficult times.

For the most part, we were accepted as one of them across the many branches of the family tree. (There’s a small limb on my maternal side, however, that did not accept me and my sister). While I share a last name with my parents and am legally their child, there’s always been some part of me that feels like I’m not them. To be sure, I am a Jones and our family traditions will be carried forth by me and my children. The family tree will remain standing; I have no intention of cutting it down. There is no doubt about that. All the family histories and lore are as much a part of me as the clothes on my back. In a way they are what keeps us together.

My parents loved us with all their hearts, but there isn’t any amount of love that can fill all the holes created by one’s relinquishment and adoption. I have found it hard to shake the fact that, as an adoptee, I’m known throughout my family as that — an adoptee — someone who came from another genetic line, a limb cut from another tree and grafted onto theirs. When the Jones family gets together, I’m cognizant that they share DNA that I do not.

Three years ago, driven by medical necessity, I charged full steam ahead into finding my biological parents. I found them, still living, along with three half-sisters. They are lovely people who have welcomed and accepted me. Both parents had buried my existence into complete secrecy since the day of my birth, and outside of their respective spouses, no one in either family knew of me. Once I arrived on the scene, both parents came clean with their families, immediate and extended, and the cat was officially out of the bag. The relinquished child had returned.

I’ve been so welcomed that they’ve invited me to mini family reunions on both sides, and I’ve met uncles, aunts, and some first cousins. On the outside looking in, I think it would appear that our reunion story is that of a heartwarming Hallmark movie, and I think in many ways you could make that argument. All things considered, it’s gone very well and I am grateful for that.

These reunions, as with so much about adoption, are complicated. I’m surrounded by people with whom I share a large amount of genetic material and I can trace physical commonalities between us. I love this. By physical appearances alone, I feel at home. I belong. I am surrounded by my blood.

But commonalities end there. While we share genetic material, we do not share history, traditions, family lore. We are missing these things that serve as connective tissue. Stories roll off their tongues as they naturally do when families get together. I am a stranger to them. I feel like I could have been there for them if only people had made different decisions about me several decades ago. They wear their family’s history like a comfy pair of worn-in jeans, but these jeans do not fit me. In fact, I do not want to try them on. At times, it’s hard to hear their stories and memories. I wasn’t there for them. For any of it. Am I supposed to be excited to hear them? Am I supposed to adopt the stories as if they were mine? So far, I cannot. I’m an outsider looking in.

I love these people. I truly do. And our relationship is deepening into really meaningful places. As we unpack decades of separation and learn to move forward together, I’m hopeful that our collective future will bring beautiful experiences and memories. We’ll begin our own family history and lore with a rather unusual start date — one with much of our lives already behind us. I’m fully committed to building upon our relationships, but I know there is a moat between us created by time, separation, and life events.

When we get together with many members of the family and I look like others, it’s nearly impossible to not feel conspicuous. Why is this?

I’m the adoptee who showed up at the front door, pushing fifty years old, with decades of my life behind me, and behind them. How much of an outsider am I? What level of intrusion does my presence bring? They assure me there’s no intrusion, but I cannot help but feel it. In the presence of my own genes, I am an interloper.

Sometimes, when we are together with their extended family, I wonder if they collectively sing this song from “Sesame Street” in their heads, a song that haunted me in my youth.

One of us is not like the others

One of these things does not belong

Can you tell which thing is not like the others

By the time I finish my song?

— Adrian Jones, an advocate for adoptees and heart health, lives in Marin County, California with his wife and two children. Visit his blog, An Adoptee Shares His Story.

Look for more essays on various aspects of genetic identity here. Do you have a story to share? We want to hear from you. Find our submission guidelines here.