This story may contain language and content that are upsetting or triggering.
Baby Rebecca with foster carers Jack & Iris.
I was an adoptee of the “forced adoption era” taken purely because my birth mother was an unmarried teenager. As an adoptee being adopted in 1969, I had absolutely no mental health support, nor as a teenager, young adult or adult. Adoptees taken today often have more complex backgrounds. However, I’m horrified at the awful statistics about adoptees now when there is supposed to be support out there with the adoption support fund (ASGSF). Over 1000 adoptees being sent back into care last year alone*. Why is adoption still happening?
What is my adoption story? What is the story that I want to be told? I doubt you will tell it. Being “adopted” IS trauma. Being removed from birth family and having our identity changed irreversibly is trauma. Are adopters today focussing on the adopted child’s prior life being traumatic without acknowledging that the “solution” of being adopted is also traumatic? Adoption is trauma.
My adopted mother wanted a girl. She had an 8 year old boy already but 2 subsequent miscarriages. In the process of adopting me she fell pregnant again but concealed the pregnancy. My “sister” arrived 11 months after my own birthday. Had I become redundant? According to my recently accessed adoption file the social worker speculated that my adoption was not successful – probably the only thing social services got right.
I have had many years of counselling starting in my late 30s. Adoption was never acknowledged as the potential issue. Aged 56 I now can blatantly see that it has been all along. Latterly (I acknowledged adoption issues specifically aged 52) counsellors refused to talk to me if I raised adoption because they weren’t OFSTED registered, and even when that stipulation was lifted in December 2023 I had issues up to September 2024, with counsellors refusing to speak with me about my adoption trauma . Last year I attempted to find a trauma informed counsellor through Adoption UK and was quoted £150/hour. Who can afford that?
As a child adoptee my voice was not heard. My thoughts and struggles never made it out of my head. I was never asked what it felt like being adopted by my adopters. I guess I just always knew that the way I felt was not important. So as an adult adoptee needing counselling being told I could not speak about it, how invisible and unimportant does that make anyone feel? As a child I was invisible then as an adult I am too. It’s truly shocking. And I am cloaked in an identity that is not mine. No wonder adoptees struggle.
Adoptees need specific counselling to address our very complex issues, issues that I have only just started talking about. My silenced thoughts that now aged 50+, I have started to acknowledge are finally making it out of my head. The revelation of being able to finally speak about them and putting pen to paper is a sobering experience, not only for the adoptee but for anyone who is prepared to hear the uncomfortable truths. Suddenly after 9 months of psychotherapy I am writing poems. I’m finally being able to access the unacknowledged trauma. Trauma that has been bottled up for 50 years, eating away at me without me even realising it. There are no statistics out there on adoptee deaths, this lack of statistical evidence compounds trauma and glosses over the many issues adoptees face. There needs to be a way of searching death records to get an idea of suicide, alcoholism, addiction etc all of which are over-represented in adoptees. You could say I am one of the lucky ones. I am still here. But I’m struggling to come to terms with the years of trauma that have been denied for me to acknowledge. I still wonder now will anybody listen.
Do I agree with adoption? Personally, I do not, except in all but the most serious of safety concerns. Changing a birth certificate to say that non biological people are your parents is just wrong. Long term/permanent guardianship is the way forward with proper counselling to address issues faced by children who are brought up in families with whom they have no biological connection. I am 56 and still trying to work out who I am. I am still trying gain access to records and make contact with birth family. I still don’t know who I am. I am part of two families (adopted and biological) but feel that I’ll never belong in either.
Rebecca today.
People like me, adult adoptees, are the voices of child adoptees today. We need to be listened to also, not just the adopters. We are the ones with lived experience who understand what it is like to be adopted, and some of us have found our voices. We now realise the huge impact adoption has had on us and should be the voices for children going through the system today. When will we be listened to by the people that matter the policy makers, adoption charities etc. Ignoring us is perpetuating ignorance and putting lives at risk.
I am a hole
I am a hole in a ripped pair of jeans,
But I am patched over and not to be seen.
The patch looks so pretty with flowers and hearts.
A life of illusion, a big f**king farce.
A smothering patch shouting “hey look at me!”
A veil of illusion for society.
But I am the hole being tattered and torn,
My existence is hidden and I cannot mourn.
I’m finding the courage to rip the patch off,
I will not be hidden enough is enough!
Not everything’s broken, I now know for sure
That the hole in my jeans really WAS NOT a flaw.
By: Smothered adult adoptee.
Rebecca Bowyer
*Approximatley 3000 children were adopted annually between 2021 and 2024. Data gathered by researchers at the University of East Anglia in 2025 suggests that approximately 2.5% of adoption placements disrupt before the Adoption Order is applied for (Rennolds, N., Murphy, A. & Neil, E, Pre-Adoption Order Disruptions in England: Learning from disruption reports. 2017-2024). According to data submitted to Adoption UK by adoptive families the rate of adopted children leaving the family home prematurely averaged around 3% of the surveyed population between 2021 and 2025