ASSUMPTION:
All adoptees who advocate for family preservation must have had negative experiences.
If not, then why can’t they just focus on being grateful for their adoptive families?
Don’t they want to move forward?

(thread)

REALITY:
You’ll find that adoptees with a wide range of experiences advocate for family preservation, many of whom have ongoing relationships with adoptive family.
This is because grief and trauma have never been about gratitude.
Those are two completely separate conversations.

TAKEAWAY:
Moving forward is *all about* understanding the root of our trauma so that we can truly understand how to better care for our overall health.
Permanently separating mother & baby causes lifelong trauma into adulthood. The adoption knowingly promotes & perpetuates

family separation trauma for profit.
This is the conversation we’re having.

Adoptees who advocate for family preservation often get met with a lot of black-and-white thinking.
The reality is, the adoption experience is far more complex than “positive” or “negative”.

Too often, the focus is also on the quality of relationships we have with our adoptive families rather than on the adoptee themselves—and about how the traumas of maternal separation & family separation affect multiple aspects of health (mental, emotional, which directly link to

physical) and the multiple dimensions of loss experienced throughout a lifetime.

Adoptees are 4x more likely to attempt suicide than non-adopted people (this number is only what’s reported, so the actual number is likely far higher.)

Assuming we can simply “move forward” does not even make sense. Life and biology do not work that way. The answer to trauma has never been about “looking on the bright side”, but about validation, empathy, and compassion.
Please listen.