Have you seen the Netflix documentary Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter? If you haven’t, I highly recommend. I share some of my thoughts because I felt so impacted after watching it this week.
Warning: it can be triggering for those who have suffered physical violence, emotional and/or sexual abuse, emotional control and manipulation in their adoptive family.
It’s still fairly unusual to see in today’s mainstream media, the experiences of biological mothers who give up their children to adoption. It’s especially rare to see any who exhibit such tenacity and perseverance to find out what happened to their child or go to such lengths to ensure justice is sought for their child. I often wonder about my Vietnamese mother and how she would feel to know my story of adoption that also involves neglect, sexual and emotional abuse, and illegal adoption at the hands of my adopters? Would she fight for the truth of my life to be revealed if I’d been successful in my suicide attempts? Would she be angry at my adopters for the harm they caused? Would she regret every single day that she chose to give me up?
I think every adoptee living a situation like me wishes we had such a fire mum to fight for our justice and truth. What would I give to have a mum who actually stands with or for me? My reality is that I experienced the first and second mother’s both failing me in significant ways. The concept of a “loving mother” eludes many adoptees like me who suffer significantly from their first and second mothers.
It’s really sad that this mum Cathy Terkanian, and her daughter Alexis, never got to meet in physical life. Even sadder, that they got separated so needlessly if only some resources, supportive attitude, and help were offered for a single young mother! How differently things might have turned out. This is one of the major sliding door moments we confront in our minds as adoptees – always wondering “what if” yet being left with such an immutable reality of “what already is”. We lose so much in being separated from our biological roots. In Alexis’s case, she lost her life as well. I will refer to her here as Alexis as the name given to her at birth. Adoption in its plenary form takes away our identity as well and replaces it with a fake identity, as if we are born to the adopters. This is another major loss we critical thinking adoptees often talk about from a human and child’s rights perspective – our right to original identity and origins.
This documentary also reminded me of the other excellent Netflix true crime documentary involving intercountry adoption that aired earlier in 2024 – about Chinese born adoptee sent to Spain — The Asunta Case. I have every reason to believe in watching this too, that her adoptive father must have been sexually abusing her like Alexis, like I. Like the 31 testimonies of our latest ICAV Perspective Paper: Sexual Abuse in Intercountry Adoption – being abused in our adoptive families is far too common with 1/3 experiencing some form of abuse, and 1/6 experiencing sexual abuse in intercountry adoption. What needs to be addressed is action taken to hold accountable the adoption agency and entities who facilitated the adoption, for their role in deaths and abuses of adoptees. Where is the accountability of the adoption agency to adequately assess these adoptive parents? In Alexis’s case, the background check on the adoptive father should have been a minimum but it appears to have failed! In my case, I was able to hold my adopter (who pled guilty in 2023), and the government and adoption agency accountable but I know in countries like the USA, this is often not possible. Nor is it possible to undo one’s adoption. Both of these things needs to change for adoptees to have better rights in adoption.
As to how Alexis suffered, it was emotionally hard to listen to her friend share what Alexis had exposed about the abuses in that family. I’m so glad her friend did the right thing and encouraged her to speak up – but sadly, like the many experiences in our ICAV Perspective Paper, we are far too often not believed or the issue is dealt with in a way that further traumatises us. It’s so important to educate schools on the traumas in adoption and ensure their processes for reporting abuse prioritises the safety of the child, not the comfort of the adoptive parents. In my video resource for professionals, Chamila’s experience in having her sexual abuse reported at school was very much like Alexis’s.
The other part that was hard to watch was the bullying and abuse of a vulnerable child by adoptive father whilst the adoptive mother did nothing except stand by him, silently and actively supporting him and doing nothing for the child. This was my mother too. It hurt to watch. As far as I’m concerned this adoptive mother in the documentary is as mentally unbalanced as the criminal perpetrator. She should also be held accountable after all, she is the other adult, the two of them took Alexis as a child and wanted to be her parents. Why should this mother be let off from her role in being accountable for Alexis’s suffering? She does not deserve any of her ashes in my opinion. She failed her in every way!
Then there’s the distorted and unhealthy co-dependent love relationship between the adoptive parents in both Netflix pieces. How they manage to get past adoption assessments tells us that the assessment to become an adoptive parent is not comprehensive enough. Having studied my psychology degree, I believe assessment of adoptive parents should be done by trauma experts trained in psychology and psychiatry fields. I suspect most social workers and adoption assessors lack the right training to prevent this type of emotionally disturbed and clever parent from getting through the system? Even adoptive parents who are psychologists can be harmful in adoption, check out this experience of Vietnamese twins.
It was interesting how one of Alexis’s friend’s described her as “a chameleon — always changing to please everyone”. If you know the adoptee community well, you will see this talked about regularly in how we reflect back on our lives of people pleasing and being chameleons. We do this constantly and desperately, trying to be liked, to be given any ounce of kindness or love! Our rejection sensitivity is ultra high because of the experience of abandonment from our mothers! I previously explained how we cling to our adoptive families, even the most toxic ones, because we so desperately want to belong and fit.
The religiousness of the adoptive family and the hypocrisy with what goes on behind closed doors is also sadly common amongst those of us who are abused in our adoptive families. Being made to go to therapy from the church minister – this reminds me of another Netflix documentary, Boy Erased with lived experience of Garrard Conley showing the harm done by religious people who are not professionally trained in trauma or counselling. The harm done by christian religions in adoption cannot be understated!
Given I also advocate for our voices at the highest levels internationally in intercountry adoption, at the Hague, it always disturbs me that when an intercountry adoptee dies either from suicide, murder, or other suspicious means, our biological families are never notified. Most of them assume as Cathy was told, that we have a glorious life in a rich country with incredibly loving adoptive parents and being given everything our biological mother couldn’t give us. But little do these mothers know adoption is rarely so happily forever after and that many of us suffer trauma – as a minimum, from being separated from her, and in intercountry adoption, from also being separated from our country, culture, and ethnicity for transracial adoptions. There is no long term followup on any adoptee, domestic or intercountry, and the majority of biological families have little idea of the reality of our experiences or outcomes.
In my community at this time of year, we often have adoptees die of suicide because Christmas and New Year evoke connotations of “happy family” and “hopeful” times but this is sometimes not our reality. I hope these Netflix films help the public better understand the complex realities of adoption and the role the adoption industry plays in marketing untruths and being totally unaccountable for their failures, as significant as murder.
Thank you Cathy Terkanian for stepping up and being more of a mother to Alexis now. It is too late for her life to continue but her legacy will remain and she is not forgotten. You have memorialised her life in such a powerful way, ensuring she did not suffer her traumas in vain. By telling Alexis’s story, you are also helping our community of adoptees who are abused, murdered, and suffering to be seen and for the realities of the adoption industry to be visible and shown for what they are – damaging, harmful, and impacting many of our lives with little accountability.
I wonder if the Chinese biological mother of the Asunta Case will ever know her daughter died in such a tragic way too? Who is memorialising her life or calling out the wrongs in intercountry adoption where murder and death of the adoptee occurs?
Resources
The legacy and impacts of abuse in adoption
Sexual Abuse in Intercountry Adoption (ICAV Perspective Paper with 31 intercountry and transracial adoptees giving input)
Pound Pup Legacy: lists cases globally of abused adoptees