Reckoning with the Primal Wound is an adoptee led film created by Rebecca Autumn Sansom and her natural mother Jill. Together they explore what the Primal Wound is and how it’s affected their lives.
This film is really about Rebecca’s journey of coming to terms with who she is; making sense of being adopted; understanding the deep pain and loss she’s felt in her life; exploring how it’s not just her journey but many other adoptees too; coming to terms with hearing her natural mother’s journey and understanding that this experience has universal themes.
I think it’s a fantastic exploration of the profound impacts created when separating a mother and child; hearing and seeing the lived experience from both ends – the adoptee and her natural mother. It’s also insightful in demonstrating the common reality of how adoptive parents struggle to understand the significance of, and coming to terms with, the trauma from which they’ve built their family upon.
Often in reunion we adoptees are caught in the middle of competing emotional issues and we can sometimes shoulder too much of the responsibility of holding the space for all. I personally felt Rebecca’s film is such an empowering way to hold the space for herself and tell her story, bravo!
I love the range of experts within this documentary, especially all the lived experience and how professionals are interwoven amongst the personal stories. It’s so important to understand the huge web of interconnected people in adoption, the roles they play, how we are all impacted. It was especially poignant to see the longitudinal journey of reconnection facilitated by Jill’s social worker, who clearly cared very much.
Ultimately this film resonated with me because of its truth and validation to all adoptees who cannot just “get on with it” and act as if being separated from our natural mothers has no impact on us. Overall, the message for me rings true: that for deep healing to happen in adoption, there needs to be a profound reckoning of the impacts caused by separating a mother from the child, and acknowledgment that these are lifelong.
To learn more about the documentary, you can visit Rebecca’s website.
ICAV is running adoptee online events this September where adoptees will have access to view the documentary and participate in an online group afterwards for a post film discussion.
This is the one time of year where I’m reminded I don’t have that childhood family with amazing memories and closeness. I’ve always yearned, as only some other adoptees can know, for that sense of family where I feel wanted, cherished, loved deeply. I know my family, like many others, are never perfect, but the older I get, the more I see my childhood in my adoptive family and can only remember the pain it created for me. Adoption is supposed to be happy isn’t it? It’s what gets portrayed. But I know I had spurts of moments of happiness in mine — it’s so hard to recall because as I grow older and relive it all again via children of my own, I realise the level of neglect and trauma my adoptive family caused, that could have been avoided.
How do I get past it? Should I? Or do I accept it will just always be … yes it hurts beneath the surface, oozing with pain every time I have to think about “adoptive family”. I’m old enough now to understand this pain is part of who I am. It’s not going away but I can hold and honour what I’ve had to do, to come past it —to be functional, stable, loving.
Healing doesn’t mean the pain stops and goes away. Healing means I’ve come to accept the truth. I no longer sit in it drowning or reacting. I’ve learned better ways to manage my emotions. I’ve learned how to have boundaries and not give past what I’m willing to. I’ve learned it’s ok to remain true to my own needs. I’ve learned to accept what can’t be changed but to change what I can. I can accept them as they are and know they’re not capable, even if they wanted. I have to give it to me, myself. Love, connection, acceptance, nurturing.
Xmas, like Thanksgiving for Americans, is a time where as an adoptee, I feel those sad feelings for what I might have had but didn’t. I know the reality of reunions is that even bio family, if I ever find them, will most likely never be able to meet my emotional need for “family” either. So, this Xmas, I will bring my children and husband close and treasure every moment I have with them for they are the only true family I will ever have! I am thankful I was able to heal enough to have a loving relationship and become a mother myself and give to my children what I never got. This has been my life’s blessing and will be my focus this Xmas!
Hi. I’m Laney Allison, adopted from Ma’Anshan, Anhui Province, China in August of 1994 by a single mom. I was raised in Dallas, TX and I now live/work in Washington, DC, USA. I am a co-founder/co-president of China’s Children International.
You can reach me @Lane_Xue on instagram and follow the CCI instagram @cci_adoptees
This is a series written by Tamieka Small, adopted from Ethiopia to Australia.
‘Doubt yourself and you doubt everything you see. Judge ourselves and we see judges everywhere. But if you listen to the sound of your own voice you can see forever’ – Nancy Lopez
Your voice matters. Our voices as adoptees matter. When you’re a person of colour, an international adoptee, queer person or a woman we all experience unique aspects of oppression from society. Our experiences are valid, our trauma, our abuse are valid and real.
Quite often there are people who try to tear us down, discount marginalised groups and gas-light us into believing that our pains and hardships were just a figment of our imagination; that we’re overly sensitive, that we’re ‘snowflakes’, but we must not let them have power over us, and over our minds. We know deep down when something isn’t right, when we have experienced something we shouldn’t have.
You have a voice, don’t let anyone make you doubt yourself. Don’t let anyone repress your intuition. Stand up for yourself, call people out, speak from your heart because your voice matters, and you’ll be surprised just how many people will feel the same as you, who will resonate with you. You will always find someone trying to bring another person down but we cannot let that dictate our lives in any way.
This is a series written by Tamieka Small, adopted from Ethiopia to Australia.
‘Be your own hero, be your own saviour, send all your suffering into the fire. Let no foot, mark your ground, let no hand, hold you down.’
Patrick Wolf
I don’t know about you but as a woman we are force fed the idea since we were little girls that a big strong man will come along and ‘save us’ from our troubles and fix all of our problems. And maybe not everyone believed that literally but I think you will find that especially for women the fantasy may linger in our subconscious more than we think. It can sometimes be a narrative we subconsciously place ourselves into, especially in relationships where all our inner fears and unhealthy beliefs are mirrored to us. I also know especially for the younger generations that love is painted as this happily ever after where the partner will come along and solve all our problems if we just find the right one, when really it is no one else’s responsibility but our own to fix our problems.
Maybe that’s just the nativity that comes with youth and young love. And for me personally I believed that as a little girl and when I got older I thought that to an extent that my partner should be there to go through every battle with me, to hold me up, be a shoulder to cry on, to cheer me on, to be everything to me, and I went through an abusive 3 year co-dependent relationship to realise that is not love. Its co-dependency. And co-dependency tends to happen with people who haven’t worked on themselves and their unhealthy coping mechanisms to defence mechanisms to having an unhealthy definition of what love is.
With being adopted as a little girl in some way or another I would dream of getting a letter from my birth family to come in the mail and to come tell me everything as to why they abandoned me. To come and save me from my loneliness, from feeling like I don’t belong in this country or community. It felt like I was an alien that fell out of the sky with no history, no past, just a blank canvas. I remember watching films like ‘Lilo and Stitch’ and feeling like Stitch exactly; who was exactly an alien with no real parents and trying so hard to understand why he didn’t. I felt like every hero and heroine who had no back story, and would often fantasize about being suddenly whisked away on an adventure, where I would find out an epic story about my roots and my birth family and realise my place in the world.
Basically, I was waiting for someone to come save me, to help me understand my pain but no one ever came. And that was devastating.
What I realised growing up, and from having experiences in different relationships that I was the one who had to save myself. I was the woman who had to pick up the sword and fight my own battles, to find out my own truth, to wipe my own tears from my face. I had to be the hero in my own story. I had to be the one to unpack my trauma and unhealthy coping mechanisms, unhealthy definition of love, and heal myself because no one else was going to do that for me. And frankly it’s no one else’s responsibility but mine. I think as adoptees we need to realise that, take accountability in our pain and trauma and take the steps in unravelling that and healing ourselves.
Because honestly if we’re told since children or traumatized into a narrative where we have to rely on others for our happiness and our rescue from our pain or suffering; we rid ourselves of our own personal power to do so. We put ourselves into a narrative where we become even more powerless than we already imagined ourselves to be as orphans or children or adoptees. But we have a choice when we get to adulthood; we can choose what our narrative is, we have the power, the proverbial pen to our story in our hands.
This is a series written by Tamieka Small, adopted from Ethiopia to Australia.
‘Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising every time we fall’.
One of the quotes that has sat for me since my high school years is this one; one I feel embodies the symbolism of the phoenix rising from the ashes, much like the previous quote before this is rebuilding ourselves anew. This one is more about never giving up no matter what. That a quitter will never be a winner, but a failure, or someone who fails but continues to try will one day in fact be a winner and be successful in whatever endeavours they find themselves on. Inner strength can be evident in the moments we pick ourselves back up and keep moving forward. Not giving into our most basic instincts and our egos (shadow self) or a negative-self-talk is so fundamental to our survival and wellbeing.
And every time we fall and pick ourselves back up we learn something new and shed outdated beliefs or perspectives that no longer serve us, whether those beliefs be about ourselves, the world at large or how we perceive love or success. In each mistake there is a new lesson to be embraced and a new aspect pf ourselves to be explored, and we can expand and become more than we ever imagine ourselves to be; and no longer limit our potential by limiting beliefs or perspectives which is essential to personal growth and life.
This is a series written by Tamieka Small, adopted from Ethiopia to Australia.
‘When we are at our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change’.
Avatar Aang
I think it’s safe to say that for almost every person they may hit rock bottom at some point in their life or very damn near close to it. For adoptees, a lot of us endure some of the most painful experiences and battles, from being abused or neglected in orphanages or families, suffering from homelessness, being kicked out of home, substance abuse, child trafficking and the list can go on.
This is another quote I learnt from Avatar: Legend of Korra when the heroine’s past-life-self came to her when she had lost almost all of her powers as the Avatar. Aang appeared and told her this; that when we hit rock bottom, when we lose so much or everything, we have our minds and souls are so cracked open and vulnerable that we are exposed to seeing new perspectives on life and our pain; in a way that we can help rebuild our lives in a new way; that we can start over anew. We can finally see what we did that wasn’t working then we have the chance to use new tools or solutions to our problems. When we have fallen so far, it is a good opportunity to rebuild ourselves anew from the foundations of the ashes upwards. When we become humbled this way, our ego has less of a hold and power over us, and we choose to transform and change into a better version of ourselves that serves our highest self and happiness.
This is a series written by Tamieka Small, adopted from Ethiopia to Australia.
‘Forgive those who have wronged you, not because they deserve forgiveness but because you deserve peace’.
Depending on your unique individual adoptee story, adoptees in general experience a lot of hardships, from trauma, separation trauma, to abuse. Trauma can rewire the brain sometimes in a way that makes us more susceptible to pain, whether that be from rejection, bullying, abuse or stress. It’s very easy to hold onto pain and build resentment and anger, and I know for me personally growing up I was the type to hold grudges, even years after the wound had been inflicted.
It wasn’t until I stumbled across this quote that it shifted my perspective on forgiveness; that it isn’t something we do for the other person, but what we do for ourselves, for our own sanity, for our own healing and wellbeing. Carrying around pain (and this is not to say we have to do this to deal with trauma as trauma is more complex than that, that’s not to say it cannot be a part of that process) is a heavy burden to carry, and you might not think so, but when you begin to unravel all the past pains, whether that be on your own or in therapy, and you see how it can affect you emotionally, psychologically as well as physically, and spirituality you will be surprised about how big of an impact it can have on a human being.
Carrying around anger or resentment is like carrying around poison, it may be repressed and under the surface, maybe buried down deep, but it can eat away at the beautiful soul you have underneath all that pain. You can easily spot someone who is plagued by their past and pain from a mile away, you can feel the weight of their pain within the way they carry themselves, the way they speak and speak about themselves and the world around them.
When I found this quote and I truly embraced it into myself. I felt so much weight being lifted it was almost euphoric; although for me I carried around years of pain and anger, from being bullied all my childhood to separation trauma and neglect. And truly I did sit there and think ‘why should I carry around this pain while this other person goes on with their life with no care in the world? Why should I suffer for their mistakes or their mistreatment made from another human being?’
Sometimes it’s a choice we make for ourselves, whether or not to move on, or carry that pain with us, or to let it go so that we can find the peace and happiness we deserve.
by Rowan van Veelen adopted from Sri Lanka to the Netherlands.
My two mothers
ADOPTION
Am I unhappy in the Netherlands?
I’m against adoption and still happy with my beautiful life in the Netherlands. It’s not as black and white as everyone thinks.
I can be happy in the Netherlands and at the same time unhappy about the lack of not knowing my biological family.
ANGRY AT ADOPTION IS NOT THE SAME AS ANGRY AT ADOPTIVE PARENTS
My adoptive parents did everything out of love. What they couldn’t give me as adoptive parents is the mirroring and the comprehension of my losses.
It is very simple to see that they are my parents but there is also the character part, which is organic and where we differ. Why would I be mad at them about this? This is something unfair to expect from adoptive parents because they can’t give that either.
Just like every parent, they make mistakes in education and that’s okay! So I’m not mad about that either. So I can say personally, I am against adoption but at the same time grateful for who my adoptive parents are. At the same time, I missed my biological parents. Being adopted is not black or white but grey.
AGAINST ADOPTION BECAUSE .. ?
I found my biological family and my papers were correct. So why would I oppose adoption? As mentioned above, I have good parents, so what’s the problem then?
The problem is that money is made from me at my most vulnerable moment in life when I was a baby.
The moment I depended most on others, my vulnerability was taken advantage of.
For others to make money, I feel like something that was traded. It’s a scarey feeling that people arranged everything in the procedure to get me to the Netherlands. It’s not a safe feeling. This makes sense because it was never about my safety but what I was worth as a baby for sale.
So yes, I’m super happy that my papers were correct and that after 27 years I met my family! But that doesn’t change the way this went and the negative consequences on my development because of these events.
NOT ONLY IN SRI LANKA
Then why am I against adoption from all over the world? Because as long as money is made from adoption procedure, children’s rights will be violated.
As long as demand from the West exists for babies, the supply will be created in poor countries. This doesn’t stop until the demand stops.
If you have to adopt if necessary, do so from within the Netherlands. Believe me, I understand how difficult the choices are for being childless, but you must never forget the importance of the child.
Part 1 of a 3 part series on Sexual Abuse within Adoption
I write this in honour of the survivors who spoke out with much courage in both the Royal Commission and Revelation. They inspired me to no longer be afraid to speak up. Change is only going to happen if we shake off the mantle of shame and name the perpetrators and no longer allow them to hide!
Most people in the adoption community understand and accept that there is trauma and loss involved for us, the adopted person. The trauma we refer to in adoption is usually what I more correctly term “relinquishment trauma” – the trauma that comes from having connected in utero with our mothers and then ripped away for whatever reason, never to connect to her again, unless we are lucky enough to be reunited or have an open adoption (which is rare in intercountry adoption contexts). Many well known professionals like Dr Bessel van der Kolk and Gabor Maté have spoken at length about the childhood traumas involved in being relinquished or abandoned.
In this 3 part series, I want to talk about one of the traumas that occurs to some of us after our adoption – the trauma of sexual abuse within our adoptive families. This topic is too often hushed up in shame and guilt and we, the adoptees, are left to deal with the ramifications – alone, and unsupported.
During COVID-19 I’ve had extra time to be able to watch some documentaries. One of the most impactful was Revelation on ABC which is an investigative documentary by Sarah Ferguson following on from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Sexual Abuse. I felt compelled to watch it because at the time, the media was covering the release of Cardinal George Pell, who reached one of the highest levels of office in the Catholic hierarchy, and was set free on legal technicalities after taking his case to the Supreme Court in Australia. He had previously been found guilty of child sexual assault by two separate courts but those decisions were overturned. Being a survivor of sexual abuse within my adoptive family, I was horrified and angry at this news like many other survivors! I was triggered and reminded of the lack of justice for people like me, whose perpetrators get away with their crimes! Triggered also because I understood intuitively how much courage it must have taken for the one brave soul and allies to stand up against the Catholic church and dare to take it on, speak his truth, and hope/pray that justice would prevail. Sadly it didn’t! Like me, that brave soul has to live knowing that no matter how hard we fight for our inner child who has been so badly wounded, there is sometimes no legal justice to ensure the perpetrator is punished for their crime. The other trigger was to watch the Pope shortly after, speak out in support of Cardinal Pell, likening his “suffering” to that which Jesus Christ suffered. Ughh for those of us who do believe the victims, this is like the ultimate twist and it sounded just like my adoptive father crying out when I confronted him a couple of times over the phone for his deeds from the past. He demanded that I stop “crucifying him”. Could there be any further twist to us victims being portrayed as the perpetrator, causing their suffering?!
I am compelled to speak out for adoptees like me, who suffer within our adoptive families from sexual abuse. I believe it’s one of the worst forms of trauma that is layered upon our already fragile bedrock of trauma from relinquishment. It has taken me decades to feel open and liberated enough to speak freely about how this has impacted me. I speak out because I tried to participate in the Royal Commission but in the end, I didn’t get to because by the time my lawyer confirmed I was indeed considered technically “under State care” whilst my abuse had occurred, I was too late – the Royal Commission had 1 week left to go and were no longer taking testimonies.
I was initially denied the opportunity to share my story in the Royal Commission because as soon as I said “I’m adopted” they automatically told me that abuse occurring within the “private domain” was not included. I should have said my abuse occurred technically while I had not been adopted. This point in itself highlights one of the areas in which we adoptees speak out about for what is wrong with adoption – and that is the lack of responsibility for us long term, by the Stateor Institution. The State/Institution takes us, places us, assesses our adoptive family, theoretically screens them, educates them, matches us to them, and deems them “eligible” to adopt. So if the institution that is so intricately involved with placing us “gets it wrong” (in hindsight), and it turns out we are abused by the people chosen by them to be our “parents” – how is it that they can escape having “no responsibility” for any part in our abuse? Remember – we are young children and never got a say. We are in the most powerless position. I argue that being adopted should not deem us as being outside “institutional carefrom a long term perspective” i.e., adoption is a long term form of State/Institutional care. The astute will understand that the prevailing “once-off transactional view of adoption” is one of the largest reasons why States/Institutes are happy to adopt children out and push adoption as a first solution. It enables them to wash their hands of us and not be held accountable for what happens after. In comparison to our peers who end up in other forms of alternative care that don’t sever the State/Institutional responsibility – e.g., foster care, guardianship, stewardship, or kinship care; they were allowed to participate in the Royal Commission and are followed up on long term.
I know in speaking with other adoptees around Australia how frustrating it was for us to have been excluded from the Royal Commission. While the Royal Commission is holding most institutions accountable for the lack of responses to sexual abuse, the very institutions who placed us into adoptive families where abuse happens, ends up never being accountable for their role.
The Royal Commission was just one way in which I would have liked to have helped create visibility to those of us who suffer sexual abuse whilst in adoptive families we are placed in, as a form of institutional care.
Another option I have, is to seek the services of a lawyer and take up my own personal case against the perpetrators and/or those who deemed my adoptive parents fit to adopt a child. This path in itself is a lengthy and emotionally taxing process. Not many of us end up doing this because being adopted, the mantra to be grateful weighs heavy. Our relinquishment trauma also usually means we have so much to deal with already. I have met only one intercountry adoptee who took legal action against their adoptive family for sexual abuse. To do so, has been a heavy price of further abandonment and unresolved family dynamics. It is a toxic mix of issues adoptees have to struggle through if they are to ever seek legal justice for this type of crime.
Over the past few years, I sought to find a lawyer who could pave a way to claim justice for me but the experience has been just awful! It is terribly re-triggering each time I speak to a lawyer who has no idea about intercountry adoption from the adoptee perspective and the impacts of abuse in the adoptive family. Too many adoptees in ICAVs network have experienced sexual abuse. For most, contemplating seeking justice is just too hard. To have the fortitude and emotional strength to get through the process is almost an unattainable goal, the financial cost prohibitive, finding a lawyer with the right expertise is difficult; most of us just want to move on and try to put it behind us. Each time I spoke to a new lawyer, I’d have to tell my experience all over again. It’s been one of the most invalidating experiences of my life! The last lawyer was the worst, telling me the initial consult would be free but then proceeding to bill me anyway. Lawyers can re-trigger us with their preying mentality that reminds us of our perpetrators! Out of six lawyers, I experienced only one who had any compassion, acted humanely and with empathy. The rest were all legalistic with no heart or soul. There’s something to be said for a profession who needs to be trained from a trauma and racially informed perspective to represent us. Every adoption lawyer I spoke to has never heard of representing us, the adoptee. Their services are all for the adoptive families! It’s taken me over 2 years to be strong enough to write about this experience or to consider trying again.
