![]() By Dr. Liz DeBetta Four years ago I wrote an essay for NAAM called Adopted Bodies Are Good at Holding it All In. Revisiting this piece of writing is an act of reflection and a way to track my growth. To remind myself that healing is possible and that I am doing it one day at a time even when it feels like I’m not. At the time, I was in the midst of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy and had written and performed my now award-winning solo show Un-M-Othered for the first time. I was deeply engaged in the radical act of making my truth known so that I might feel more healthy and whole. So that I might feel worthy of taking up space. So that I might help others to feel seen, heard, and understood. In that essay, I wrote, The thing I want most in the world is to be healthy and feel whole. In many respects, I am healthy by society’s standards, but I am not healthy in myself because I have never felt like a whole person. I feel unhealthy because I feel like a fraud. I feel like my insides don’t match my outsides, and I am constantly exhausted by trying to figure myself out. I have struggled to feel worthy of taking up space. I am so used to keeping myself small by not talking about things. By holding it all in. By ignoring my own pain, I have made myself numb. I have made myself a container of fear.
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![]() by K E Garland Ever since I was a child, I’d sensed something was wrong with me. I used to fantasize about and crave sex, well before I understood what it was. At the end of my eighth-grade year, I succumbed to desire and lost my virginity. Afterward, I developed an art of quickly connecting with boys—and eventually men—through mutual attraction. Once I received a man’s sexual attention, I determined if I actually liked him. Sometimes I did. Many times, I did not. I thought this behavior would subside when, in my early 20s, I met and married my college sweetheart and then had two daughters. Unfortunately, the pattern persisted, so I became adept at hiding what I perceived to simply be a socially unacceptable personality flaw. ![]() by Cindy Shultz It’s been 7056 days without my son. The ache in my soul is relentless. Since losing my son to an adoption nearly 20 years ago, confusion and scrambled thoughts have ruled my mind as if I have no will of my own. I am bound by panic when confronted with a decision for fear that it will be the wrong choice again. In the fall of 2004, when I found out I was pregnant with my 3rd child, I was excited to tell the father! He was intoxicated as usual and came over to sit on my lap. Stroking my hair, he cooed in my ear, “We’ll take care of this. Everything will be ok.” I didn’t immediately realize he wanted me to have an abortion. Could I get an abortion? Heartbeat International advertised “options counseling.” When I went, they showed me graphic videos and suggested adoption instead. The lady said, “It’s open now, you know. You can remain in your child’s life”. ![]() by Shannon Quist When you ask someone about their Ghost Kingdom, what you’re really asking is: What is the fiction you’ve created to cope with your loss? Who are the characters you wish were in your life? What are the scenarios you would choose for yourself if you had that power? Betty Jean Lifton defined the Ghost Kingdom as a psychic reality, an alternate scenario, a daydream and a fantasy built up in the wake of the indescribable loss that occurs in adoption. Adoptees fantasize about their biological families, mothers about their relinquished children, adoptive parents about the children out of their reach. The concept of a Ghost Kingdom was created to give helpful metaphorical language, that of haunting and regret and loss, to the adoption constellation so we could describe the jarring interference of “what could have been” in our lifelong experiences. We usually conceptualize the Ghost Kingdom as the fantasies that occur in separation as we confront the impossible, the unknowing, but as I learned when I met my mother for the first time, sometimes our fantasies are too hard to let go of, especially when reality isn’t what we want it to be. The following is a short excerpt (with a few necessary omissions) from a book I don’t intend on publishing. I wrote it for my daughter so that she might have something of our biological history to dig into if she is ever curious about it. It’s about the first day I met my mother and a reflection on both of our Ghost Kingdoms as they sat in the courtyard alongside us while we established what would turn out to be a four month long relationship before she passed. ![]() By Anna Linde I came to Sweden as a six-week-old baby, adopted from Brazil. Dealing with life, as well as navigating intimacy and distance, is an ongoing process when you come from a background and history of traumatic separations. Coming from an upbringing in a white-dominant society, I’m used to being “othered,” but what has been truly shattering is that Swedish society doesn’t use the term “race.” Being othered and exposed to racism in a country where race isn’t acknowledged is a trauma in itself. Since my teenage years, I had a will and curiosity to dig deeper into the true meaning of roots, family, and culture, where my own sexuality played an important role. After I took my BAs in social work, I studied Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dance and Movement Therapy (DMT), where my interest in psychosomatic expressions accelerated. A natural continuation to this was to do my Master of Science in Sexology and now, I´m also a Certified Sexcoach (WASC) and a Sexological Bodyworker in training. I integrate different levels of consciousness through the practice of movement to extend and connect what your body is trying to express when your words are not enough. How would words ever be enough for us to heal later on? |
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January 2025
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