Sharing Myself

Before joining the adult adoptees group, I’d get angry when people asked me about my adoption journey. I’d be like “I have to make a point” or “Why would you ask me these questions?” But now, it’s just sharing myself; it is the same as sharing my adoption.

Adoption is one way of forming a family and having children, but adoptions often come with trauma. I believe it would make a tremendous difference to the adopted child’s upbringing and development if the adopting parents could acknowledge and educate themselves about it. Facing the trauma and dealing with it means you can overcome it, there is drama, but this shouldn’t put anyone off adoption. From my own experience, it can be damaging not to acknowledge and address the issues and there is information, tools, people and institutions such as Mother’s Choice, available for parents to reach out to and access.

Growing up in a small village in Germany, I was never part of a community where I could feel free to share my experiences, so I wasn’t present to how important it was. Our adult adoptee group meetings are a safe space that we have, to share and to also be vulnerable and to be comfortable with that. To see how important this group is to the other members as well since none of us have really experienced this kind of sharing before, it’s pretty awesome.