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 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. 

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 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.

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 B.K. Jackson

Until recently, most people likely haven’t encountered someone who’s been knocked off balance by a DNA test result, so it’s understandable they might not appreciate the magnitude of the impact. But it’s just a matter of time. Mind-blowing DNA revelations are becoming so common that some DNA testing companies have trained their customer service staff representatives to respond empathetically. While those employees may know the right thing to say, here in the real world the people around us often haven’t got a clue how it feels — like a punch to the gut.

If you’ve become untethered from your genetic family, you might get a second surprise: some of your friends and loved ones may be remarkably unsympathetic, often infuriatingly judgmental, and sometimes even hostile. It’s clear that although DNA surprises have become ubiquitous, social attitudes haven’t kept pace, and a stigma remains.

When you’re in a free fall and looking for something to grab hold of, negative reactions can set you spinning off your axis.

It shouldn’t be surprising that people may not know what to say to someone who’s received shocking DNA results. After all, few know how to comfort someone who’s experienced the death of a loved one, even though grief is a universal experience.

If your world has been rocked by a DNA surprise, let those around you know what helps and what doesn’t. And if you haven’t been so affected but want to help and support someone who has, it’s worth trying to put yourself in their place and imagine what the experience has been like. Or better yet, simply ask. But think twice before adding to their distress with one of these unhelpful yet commonly heard responses.

This well-meant platitude isn’t comforting to those who didn’t feel loved and nurtured by the dads who raised them. It’s like pressing a bruise. They wonder whether their biological fathers would have given them the love their dads didn’t or if the dads who raised them loved them less because they weren’t true progeny. And those of us lucky enough to have had precious relationships with our dads don’t need that reassurance. It’s like telling the bereaved their loved ones are in a better place. It’s what people say when they don’t know what to say. It doesn’t soothe our roiling emotions or patch the holes in our origin stories.A more cynical take on the same idea, this attempts to make light of those roiling emotions. If we were lucky, we know our dads are the men who loved us, bandaged our knees, held us, worried about us, sacrificed for us. Our love for them and theirs for us is ineffable, immutable, inseverable. But it doesn’t make us any less curious about the men whose not insignificant sperm gave us life and gifted us with half our genetic makeup.This tries to mollify us and discount our feelings at the same time. Blood is exactly what makes family, consanguinity being the first definition of kinship. Certainly there are also families of affinity, but the familial love we feel for them doesn’t alter the fact that our blood relatives exist and they matter to us.Of course we’re the same people! And yet we’re not. We may feel diminished, less of who we thought we were, or, if we always knew deep down something was amiss, more at ease, more authentically ourselves. All the cells in our bodies are different than we thought they were. Each contains the DNA of someone unexpected that encoded the traits that are the foundation of who we are.No, we can’t. But missing is akin to longing. We can wonder what we missed and long for what never was. “What you don’t know can’t hurt you” — the flip side of this comment — is equally untrue. It’s precisely what we don’t know that does hurt us. We don’t know where we came from, what genetic landmines could detonate our health, or the biological relatives who may be out there, somewhere, not even realizing we exist.Letting loose the family skeletons tends to be frowned upon. But just as grief is too heavy to be carried alone, keeping secrets is a lingering burden that feeds isolation and loneliness. It’s a comment that whispers, “You’re a dirty little secret.” It’s not our shame, but it is our truth to tell. As Anne Lamott famously wrote in “Bird by Bird,” “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”Wonder and longing often fuel a desire for reunion with biological relatives, which may be perceived as an affront by our families or as a threat by biological relatives who fear the shame exposure of their long-kept secrets would arouse. Discouraging a search for biological family sends the message that our need to know fundamental truths is insignificant compared to others’ needs to protect their secrets.That millions take DNA tests to see where they come from and millions more trace their lineage seems evidence enough that knowing about one’s pedigree matters. But tracing a family tree isn’t an option for NPEs (non-parental events or not parent expected) who can’t establish filiation, nor is protecting themselves against collateral damage — invisible health risks. For example, I worried my whole life about birth defects, cancers, and other genetic diseases that were the legacy of my Russian ancestors. Fortunately, I discovered I descend from robust Sicilians who lived long, healthy lives. Not so lucky is the ticking time bomb of a 40-year old NPE who doesn’t know he has a father and four half-brothers who all died of heart disease before 45. We simply want the same knowledge everyone else has.Having a good life doesn’t make us immune to despair, confusion, or grief. Ask anyone who’s lost a parent. Comments such as these disregard the sense of dislocation we feel after having been unceremoniously severed from our family trees. And lack of ceremony is key, because when something is lost, even if it’s something we didn’t know we had, there’s grieving to be done, whether the unknown father is dead or yet living. But there are no ceremonies, rituals, or social supports for this particular bereavement.We likely won’t get over it unless we’re able to grieve our losses and gain answers to the questions that others never have to ask about the things they take for granted — knowledge that is their birthright, but, they believe, not ours.Understand it’s complicated. The issues and feelings a DNA surprise give rise to are numerous and diverse. The most meaningful thing you can do is listen and acknowledge the feelings, but withhold judgment. Sometimes a willing ear and kind silence is the best response. Consider how you might feel if you learned you’ve been a secret for decades and what it’s like to see your family tree pruned by half. Erase everything you know about your father: his name, appearance, forebears, and medical history. Erase everything you share with him: his surname, religion, ethnicity. If you didn’t know all this, would you still be who you are? Would you not feel stripped bare and dispossessed? As Michael Crichton wrote in “Timeline,” “If you didn’t know history, you didn’t know anything. You were a leaf that didn’t know it was part of a tree.”Return to our home page to see more articles about NPEs. And if you’re an NPE, adoptee, donor-conceived individual, helping professional or genetic genealogist, join Severance’s private facebook group.BEFORE YOU GO…

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By Cory GoodrichI look in the mirror now and I see the face I have always seen — same Disney princess eyes, same prominent nose. The hair color changes with my whim, but it’s still mine, straight, fine, and always out of control.

I look in the mirror, but now I also see someone else’s face staring back at me. His face. It unnerves me.

By the time I was born, my mother already had three children who looked strikingly like their father: blond and angular, small eyes, narrow nose. When I emerged, the doctor took one glance and said, “Well Ernie, you finally got one that looks like you!”

She repeated this over and over throughout my life: You look like your mother. She wanted that story etched deep in my brain so that when I questioned my dark hair, my unusual nose, or my short, curvy build so unlike my lanky siblings’, I would say, oh, that comes from Mama.

But it didn’t.

Those features came from my father. My real father. The man who was not the same father as the one my brothers and sister had. The truth was as plain as the nose on my face. Literally. My nose was the Garnett nose, not the Goodrich nose — and my mother knew it. In order to conceal that obvious truth, she built her own narrative so that when I questioned the differences I secretly suspected on a deep, unconscious level, she could repeat it as a mantra. You look like me, you look like me, you look like me.

I discovered the truth shortly after my fifty-first birthday. I was the result of an affair and everyone in my family knew that I was not really a Goodrich. Everyone but me.

And so now, when I stare at my face in the mirror, I see his features, not my mother’s, not even my own. I marvel that this newfound knowledge has the power to change my self-perception so entirely, even though I have been me for half a century. Why should learning that my father was not the man who raised me have the power to change how I see myself — to throw me into an identity crisis of epic proportions?

Damned if I know.

I look through my childhood photos, searching for clues, or maybe to try to find the person that I used to be, and I’m struck by how sad “little Cory” always appears. I think back to those formative years and I remember that ever-present sense of loss and sadness that I always felt but could never understand.

Children intuit things. They are so much more observant and aware than we give them credit for. There was a part of me that knew I was different from my siblings, but I didn’t understand why, and then I would feel guilty for even having those feelings. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t fit in? Why did I think of myself as an outsider? Why did I self-inflict so much of the blame for my parents’ eventual divorce?

Because I knew, deep down, that my very existence was the reason. Because children know.

I look at my childhood photos and I see the little girl that I was and I want to hug her. I want to comfort her and tell her, It’s not your fault.

I want to tell her that she feels different because she is different, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t belong.

I want to tell her she is a gift, a miracle, a blessing that came from the love between two people — and just because those two people didn’t end up living happily ever after together doesn’t change that. She is their happily ever after.

I want to hold her and say, You are not the cause of your parents’ divorce. They have their own lives to live, their own choices to make. This is not on you.

I’d tell her she will grow up to be an empathetic warrior chick who writes and sings and paints and acts and has two little girls of her own that she protects fiercely. She will be a good mother. I’d tell her: You are going to be okay. You are loved.

And then I realize, all these things I would gladly say to my childhood self my fractured adult self needs to hear too. Can I look at my reflection — at my Franken-Cory mixture of DNA — and give her the same compassion? Can I say those same words to myself?

This will become my mantra. It’s not your fault. You’re going to be okay. You are loved.— Cory Goodrich is an actress, singer-songwriter, painter, writer, autoharp player, and collector-of-weird-instruments who lives in the Chicagoland area. Check out her website, blog, and recordings at www.coryshouse.com and her paintings on Instagram@corygoodrich.Severance 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.

On Venmo: @Cory-Goodrich

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.