As part of National Adoption Week, we wanted to shine a light on adoptee voices through our latest podcast episode, ‘Life as an Adoptee – Vanessa’s Story’. We spoke to Vanessa, one of our Trauma Ambassadors, about her experience of adoption and trauma.
Vanessa was adopted as an infant in 1968 and always knew she was adopted. One of her earliest memories was of her brother arriving from a different family. Yet her family rarely talked about adoption growing up, and she did not really consider the impact that being adopted would have on her mental and physical health.
“It wasn’t something you talked about openly, and certainly there was no support to explore any feelings around it. I wouldn’t say I was discouraged. I think there was a certain amount of shame that was felt, and we know now about a lot about shame, trauma and the connection between the two.”
Until she reconnected with her birth mother in her adult life, Vanessa had never seen someone who looked like her. She described looking in the mirror, not knowing who it was that was looking back at her.
“The term used is genetic mirroring. I had no one that looked like me in my life until recently when I reunited.”
One of the biggest issues Vanessa would like to be addressed for adoptees is access to family medical records. Vanessa grew up not knowing if there were any hereditary conditions in her birth family. Doctors would often ask if she had any family history of certain conditions. When she was not able to answer, they would assume that she did not, rather than assuming she did. Adoptees like Vanessa could potentially miss out on life-saving screening programmes because of this assumption.
“That was the first question I asked my biological mother – what did everyone die of?”
When a baby is adopted, their NHS record is closed and a new one is created. Now there are ways to connect these so that any important medical updates can be communicated, but it does not happen as frequently as it should. Health inequalities for adoptees are also not measured or recorded. Vanessa would like there to be a flag on her record that she is an adoptee, explaining that she does not have her full family medical history.
“It’s not being studied because we’re not visible. It’s not flagged in our health records.”
Vanessa was diagnosed with ADHD in her 50s, something she says is common in the adoptee community. In her case, she was only diagnosed after a year of psychotherapy to treat trauma.
“We know that adoptees have much higher rates of neurodivergence. We know that trauma presents similarly in many cases.”
She has also experienced depression and anxiety, like many adoptees. Despite this, there is a lack of mental health support for adoptees, as until recently only certain mental health providers could work with adoptees.
“There’s evidence that that adoptees are four times more likely to both attempt and complete suicide.”
Adult adoptees are also not recognised as having had adverse childhood experiences. There is no consideration of the fact that although they have parents, they were also taken from parents, and often placed into families from different cultures or countries.
She talked about the gender differences between adoptees and how women often face moments during pregnancy or childbirth where they have an awakening, as having their own babies heightens their awareness of what they went through. The lack of family medical history is also passed on to the next generation.
She struggled with forming secure relationships because of the trauma of being separated from her birth family and of the unstable household she grew up in.
“I personally never felt a strong sense of not belonging, but I also didn’t feel a strong connection. And from a very young age, I wanted to not be there… There’s a loss of self-esteem from being given away.”
Despite experiencing abuse in her adopted family, as an adoptee Vanessa still felt a sense of obligation to her adopted family.
“Because we were given a better life, you felt a sense that you owed your parents.”
In recent years, Vanessa has found peer support to be very useful in processing her feelings about her adoption, and she is now part of the UK Adult Adoptee Network, which advocates for adoptee issues and adoptee rights. They have been campaigning to get an apology from the government regarding the systematic harm the adoption system caused both adoptees and birth families.
If you have been affected by anything discussed on our podcast and would like to find further support, please get in touch with our Information and Guidance Team.
You can listen to the podcast here or watch our TikToks here.