The Trauma of Relinquishment - Adoption, Addiction and Beyond
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- Опубликовано: 13 май 2021
- Hear singer-songwriter, author and adoptee advocate, Zara Phillips in conversation with world-leading trauma and addiction expert, Dr. Gabor Maté on The Trauma of Relinquishment - Adoption, Addiction and Beyond.
Hosted by The OLIE Foundation - theolliefoundation.org/
Supported by Adoption Network Cleveland - www.adoptionnetwork.org/
Copyright of this video belongs to Dr. Gabor Maté - drgabormate.com/
Been having a difficult time, a former teacher recommended this. I was adopted as an infant out of S.Korea, by a wonderful family, but am plagued with depression and heavy addiction. Thank you for this enlightening video, and to a former teacher who recommended this.
same bro best of luck
same here adopted from s Korea I'm a heroin addict really smart but super depressed
@@lauraengel8894 sorry to hear that. There is help out there when you are ready. Also with therapy and the right medication, you can find happiness. Until then , be safe.
This absolutely blew my mind. I'm an adoptee who spent six weeks in an incubator and everything Dr. Mate says rings true.
Same situation.
I was adopted &I gotta say i absolutely hate it! Don't get me wrong, I love my mom&dad who raised me. I'm so grateful they did. They gave me such a better life. Couldn't be more thankful. It was an (in family adoption). They were such beautiful ppl.i also had two older sisters who were biological daughters to my adopted parents which made us a family of 5. They were 6 & 8yrs older then I was. I've always felt like an outsider. Nvr really fit in. I've hated my older sisters my entire life. As long as i can remember, that only feeling I've had for them. They were so mean to me. Nvr let me forget I was adopted. They use to flip thru magazines to find the ugliest freak show of a woman&say this is your real mom. I remember it like it was yesterday. We nvr once said I love you. Nvr any kinda words of encouragement. No support. I haven't seen them in about ten years. My parents did the best they could with what they had. They loved me, fed me,&treated me like i was their own kid. But the real deep emotional needs really weren't met. I've always wanted a family of my own. I now see that it just ain't gonna happen for me. I hate this emptiness inside of me. It's affected my entire life. The older I get the harder it is. I'm struggling to find myself, to find love, or to find someone to just make some kinda connection with. My anxiety & depression is outa control. Stopped seeking anything romantic bc when it don't work out it absolutely kills me. When ppl come&go outta my life hits me way diff then most ppl. It really hurts deep down inside. Almost like a death. I truly grieve the absence of the person outa my life. My abandonment & trust issues cut deep to my core. I nvr thought in a million years I grow up to no family, borderline basket headcase,&spend pretty 80%of my life alone. Prisoner in my own head. This is the first time I've ever spoke about this to anyone or online. Major big step for me. Anyways, adoption sucks!
Have you talked to anyone about this, your adoptive parents,.your biological mother maybe? Not to invalidate your experience,.but it's not that uncommon. You aren't the person in the world who can't trust anyone, feels empty, alone, like no one ever saw you and what not. You can start by finding people who have the same issues, instead of insisting that your experience was the sole, horrible trauma in the world. Relating to other people might help. You obviously become codependent in relationships by how you describe them. Self compassion is something that you really need,in order to have any meaningful relationship in your life. You might find the work of Bessel Van DER kolk, peter Levine and Bruce Perry helpful.
I hear you Erik and I get that. I feel sad and angry about the pain you feel. Your trauma is real and valid. Many of us incl me are right there with you. You are worth saving.
I so so feel and understand you . I'm a 61 year old male who was born and adopted in England . The struggle will never completely leave us ,it can't ,but there is so much more awareness and scientific knowledge that backs up Exactly how and why we feel so empty ,Sad and frightened at times . This being understood at last helps and supports me so much and I am hoping to join an adoptee's support group soon . Support and understanding is what we all need so much . I sincerely wish you well ,with Love ,Nick
Hey! I'm also adopted! I hate it too. But I will say this. Try and figure out how to love yourself. What brought you joy when you were a kid? What were you good at.
Have you ever tried psychedelics? I think every adoptee (and then some) should try magic mushrooms to help them overcome their trauma.
I remember my first trip. I felt very small and because of how small I felt all of my problems seemed to be almost insignificant in comparaison. I remember crying because it was the first time that I felt completely safe. I felt loved. I felt there was purpose and that life would ultimately show me that purpose as long as I got out of my way.
This was in 2019. A *lot* has happened since then. But having a truffle trip (I live in Holland) changed my life for the better.
I hope more people take this medicine and treat it as such without all the propoganda and stigma.
I would love to guide more and more people in their trips.
Take care!
The horrible way ur "sisters" treated u was not because of any defect in u, they just showed their character. Im so sorry u experienced that💔. U did nothing to deserve it.
Im so glad people are talking about adoption. Thank you to all these elders!!!!
I cried and she felt inadequate. She thought I would have opportunities, so she gave me to an agency. I was placed at 4weeks. My life has been terribly difficult. I always make self destructive choices. I will never be ok. It’s always a struggle. It will never be over. I just wanted a hug and will never get one.😢as an infant, learning to soothe ourselves from birth…. It’s probably one of the worst things you can put someone through. Lying in the dark screaming… and no one comes. And the person you are screaming for will never be coming back. It creates an awful foundation. Abandonment on the bottom doesn’t make for a solid structure. I will forever be broken.
Well said. I feel the same 💔
Hi, I think it is great to finally articulate our feelings and throughout my life have often struggled to bring stuff out of cellular memories and the subconscious mind, but I do so in order to live a full life and don't want to identify as forever broken. I say that I'm a survivor, and this makes me feel better and more able to find the joy in life. The joy in the moment. I'm 70 yrs old and have made lots of bad choices but lots of good ones too. I was abandoned to a Foundlings Home at birth, and kept in a bassinet with a metal mesh top until adopted by sexual predators at 9 months of age, and suppose that I should have been locked up somewhere instead of muddling through as I have. Do people with such a bad start ever survive, let alone thrive? Yes, maybe not thrive but who does? I've experienced great lows but also have a capacity for great highs (from life itself not through self-soothing.) You'd better believe that my baseline orientation toward life is that of myself as an abandoned baby who is crying but no one comes, of course. . I find that everyone I meet is injured in some way, if not the way I was injured myself, and there is still the opportunity to love each other unconditionally. I send my love and understanding to you and all others regarding the abandonment that never stops for it is programmed into our very cells.
Emotions embedded in the nervous system. This makes so much sense! Taken from mother at birth. In foster care until 3mos. At age 5-6 having heard kids talk about when their parents brought them home from the hospital, I asked my adoptive mom if I went home with them. She said I was with a foster family. I asked Did I have a name? What did they call me? She said No, they just called you Baby. So I was nothing, nobody. The only identity I had was what my adoptive parents gave me. But I never felt like I belonged anywhere.
Same. It’s an f’ed up system. To expect us to turn out normal despite not even having a name or a stable consistent caregiver… insanity.
I’m 54 and have struggled all my life with those feelings of abandonment and unworthiness. My adoptive parents had a biological child that was special needs. He had a seizure disorder and some cerebral palsy and was diagnosed with anti social personality. Stress always. Needless to say my life has been a challenge….😢
OMG - I feel for you - my son was diagnosed with anti social personality - that´s horrific - not only for parents - and it was not my fault at all - even if his so called therapists often try to blame me for that. Shit like that simply happens to some people - but its not my fault at all.🤕
Thank you so much for sharing! I was misdiagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and I cannot blame the therapist because my symptoms/behaviors etc. were 1:1 the same. Back then I did not have the information that I have today because the fact of adoption was missing.
Misdiagnosed with BPD happend to me too. The female therapist at that time was much to young and much to inexperienced - just like most of those therapists here in this country of europe - they do not really know enough about trauma - just like Dr. Mate does. Thank you for that helpful video.
Thanks, Gabor Maté is doing great things standing up for adoptees.
I live in a "limbo" constantly dissociated....
Mate is now aligned with Adopt Change and was involved in a recent pro adoption conference here in Australia.
@@j.j.lehmann6377 Mate is not pro-adoption. If you listen or read his work, he is pro keep the child with the mum if at all possible. Here he recounts why that is so important- even writing to successfully keep an infant with an incarcerated mum.
Oh my. Dr. Gabor just did explain all my Anger and my hurt. Where they come from. I am 51; i was searching for all my answers. I am in the process of meeting with my birth dad. And I open all this relinquished trauma I had. I couldn’t explained why my temperament?Why I was like this? No therapy can pin point my ADHD. Now , I understand, and of course my therapist can treat me with my trauma… Thank you!!!
Dr.Mate you hit every subject on the nail. Thank you for explaining everything clearly. I was adopted at 3 months old in Jamaica West Indies in 1974. My adopted parents were sexually,physically,mentally and spirituality abusive which compound ed the trauma. I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder.
This was so amazing to hear each comment made and be able to think about it in a different outlook. I adopted a child at birth it was the most amazing experience of my life ! He’s 31 now and he is an incredible person. We have an amazing relationship. I lost my husband when my son was 12 years old so he had to deal with that also. And he was in a lot of counseling for the illness and the loss. But never the adoption. But I see hurt in his eyes, I see anger going sideways. I wish I could fix a couple things but you told me I did a couple things right and I’m so grateful! I feel so much better. Now for my child to feel better and you, Dr Gabor Mate’ have just been a God’s blessing. Thank you. I can’t stop listening to you. Everything is so intriguing and so spot on in my son’s life and in my trauma, I had as a child. And now understand my asthma. Thank you, Dr. Gabor Mate’!!! To the lady who I didn’t catch her name. What a wonderful fantasy to have. I pray you achieve that in your lifetime. Thank you both immensely.
Thank you so much. I am an adoptee and these issues always come up. Not a lot of support or info out on this.
“Relinquisment is the Trauma”
On that line, I threw my wooden chair on the wall. Now my chair is broken. Like many other things I break almost every week.
I am a 25 years old adoptee from the Philippines, was adopted at 1 year an a half by a canadian couple. Part of a family of 6 children. Am the only one adopted. Am going throught mostprobably the darkest part of my life.
I am filled with Rage & Depression. Never had sucidal thoughts, but I am just... just sad; & lost.
Therapy doesn't work for me. I don't know what to do. My biological mother was r🥀ped at age of 13, than gave me the name Emmanuel. Why? I don't know. I know nothing. It's killing me.
Stay strong. Don't give up I know what your going through.
Amazing - Thank you Dr. Mate. That explains so much of what has been a life - long personalized understanding of 'Why'.
Awesome video, thankyou everyone involved x
I was sad that the recording cut out right at the end as what Dr Mate was speaking about is so important, the trauma of state sponsored relinquishment. In New Zealand, as part of colonisation, my culture (Māori) are a minority of the population yet we are also the majority of incarcerated people.
I was part of closed adoption (1950-1988), and for the tens of thousands of us Māori, we were unable to have reunion, and many of us had our ethnic identity erased.
My heart goes out to all of us who are part of the adoption journey. May you find your peace, your self love and your tribe xx
I am sorry you experienced closed adoption. You had the right to meet and get to know your birth family.😢😅😂🤗😊😁☺️
Very powerful and deep ... I do think the work of special grief and crying is important for Adoptees ...The wounds of losses of family are deep in some of us and the loss of birth mother will certainly dominate parts of our lives ...Unmet needs for birth mother are pains and those pains are early losses to be captured again and felt - to become conciously mourned (with help sometimes) and that is the way to hold the baby and child inside and give it help .. Grief is part of the answer and it is oceanic in some Adoptees ..
agree,grief is so much part of our story and there is a lot of work we have to do around that.
@@zaraphillips4159 Were you in the video ? I am heading a few people trying to create an easment in UK law to Revoke their Adoptions as Adults .. It's a human rights issue for some of us injured by Adoption itself .. Some of us have been child abused inside Adoption .
Facing the birth mother loss and family is bad enough but other abuses too make some people's Adoption a mind altering destuctive experience .... I have done therapy of a deep variety for over 30 years because I was physically crippled by Adoption pain .. Physically yes .. And in the therapy rooms the screams and howling that came out of my lost and helpess shook the walls .. Like I had been murdered ..
So I know trauma-work and it's incredible importance ... The work goes on into old age now .. Past cancer and life's other arrows and slings .. Past other losses and deaths ...
"Life needs itself and calls you to it no matter what " ... Keeps one alive like a spolied but strange miracle .. One IS life ..
Bless you Zara with whatever you need .. Ms Singer of the pains and more .. xx
ruclips.net/video/rA7Evll9cC4/видео.html
That's my video regarding (UK) "Revocation of Adoption" ... It would only solve some degree of small release but it's important for some ... In the UK we have under-used "Special Guardianship Orders" whereby some kids are just given Guardian Care up to 18 and the child is NOT severed from birth family nor their identity .... Under-used probably for financial reasons since the State prefers the economic model of Adoption since it has no further financial responsibility...
Truth is so many adoptees are disturbed inside adoption (often blamed on the Birth family ) and current stats are showing large rates of NEET (not in employment , education , training ) and up to 45% + who seek mental health services (ages 16 - 24) ... My experience as a patient-experience monitor in the NHS for 10 years was this is an understatment of the bigger truth since I saw many patient coming from Awkward Care , Adoptions and fostering .. .. Nearly all mental illness I saw anyway was trauma buried and early sexual abuses were common in all context of psychosis and Personality Disorders..
However Adoption equipped me to live beside Hell and to try to understand it ..I am glad you try to save young people from Suicide too .. Yes that's very close to my heart .. I lived it often enough as a youngster and young person .. Hard core.. Bless you all ..
It seems a life-long sentence of loneliness
Omg. The grieving starts when the reunion begins. Truer words are not spoken. You finally can let go. You can talk. You can cry. You’ve been bottling up everything for so so long. AND I thought I wouldn’t be adopted anymore. And I was so despondent to realise that I was still an F’ing adoptee
Can relate to so much. It is the extreme reactions that are hard to deal with although I have got a lot better at recognising and reducing them.
As an adoptee from the 60’s I do wonder how many would adopt if they were given guardianship instead of the right to replace biological parents. The former shifts the focus to the needs of the child. The latter addresses primarily the need of adopters to fulfill a parenting need & potentially a desire by the child to replace birth parents. It would definitely sift out those who are seriously in it for the child. Once I understood the process, I was saddened & angered to know someone could pay to falsify my birth certificate & pretend they had birthed me. I felt like property. As an adult I see it as a form of trafficking- esp when there is a profit made or coercion/gaslighting is involved. Adult adoptees need the right to reclaim their original birth certificates and have them certified. Forcing them to accept a lie about something as basic as their birth is obscene. I can’t stand looking at mine.
It absolutely breaks my heart thinking that my (adopted) children may feel this way about me, and their birth certs. 💔
But I think I "get it" from your position too. Hope you are finding healing.
You nailed it. Being forced to lie about being adopted when I clearly looked and acted nothing like my adoptive parents left me not ever free to be my unique and complicated self. It’s a huge source of imposter syndrome shame and self doubt in many other parts of my life. If they just could have called themselves my aunt and uncle (in the friendly but non-biological sense) that would have saved me a lot of pain and ongoing identity crises.
I’ve done the work, I enjoy my life, I still want to annul the adoption order placed on me. It’s intolerable to be forced to live with a falsified identity, and even more so the more I do my own work. This is an injustice, and the fix isn’t therapy. The fix is justice. We need the right to annul.
What are you talking about? You can't change something that has happened, that is denial of reality.... Whatever happened, has happened, and we can't undo that.
@@alvodin6197 Why not? A married person can divorce a spouse and reclaim a surname. Why can’t an adoptee annul an adoption and a fictitious birth certificate? Why do they not have the right to reclaim an original, factual birth certificate? This doesn’t mean the marriage or the adoption did not happen. It means one has the right to reclaim their preferred identity - especially if they had zero choice in relinquishing it or in presenting a fictitious birth certificate. This needs to be a federal right. Stealing a child’s identity and access to medical history is obscene.
This is absolutely true! We have two adopted children and both of our children have suffered greatly! I wish we would have had more information going into adoption. Our daughter, especially suffered great trauma while in CPS then we adopted her. All that she has suffered and been through now makes sense. It’s all so much trauma. It’s a shame she has had to suffer so much!
Very validating and interesting, particularly admire Gabor's work! (I was orphaned at birth at the collapse of soviet union) Thanks for this!
I just wanted to say this was an amazing session. Thank you for doing it!
Some very interesting and helpful discussion , but isn't the requirement that we live a lie with a false birth certificate, under Draconian legislation while being forced to take part in the delusion that we are related to strangers an integral part of what contributes to the unique mental health problems of adoptees?
Sharyn - Yes indeed you are correct .. Many non-adoptees do not see Adoption is often a falsification of "feeling-in-existence" that does cause it's own neurosis... That is to say splitting self - from the self of feelings into a self of denied feelings and social alienation or a performance self . ..
I think your nutshelled addition above say's it all because whatever losses and trauma one has about the birth mother (both birth parents if you are older at Adoption) then one has the forced adjustments to strangers who may well be non-empathic and poorly attuning to the child ..Often well attuned to their own needs and fantasy of making a family life too. That's why adoptees lose so many emotional rights - right across their developments of all sorts of other needs .. The needs to be seen and heard at depth properly ..The need to cry out the loss and the need to rage at life being so unfair .. The need to grieve is stifled and chained too inside many Adoptees I have met .. You are right .. Adoption is a child care model that perverts "child care" into something else that erases so much like birth identity and birth family history ... Lots of Adoptees know this ... The "experts" are still catching up .
Exactly, and with zero consent from is possible. We need to have the right to annul the adoption orders placed on us. It’s intolerable being forced to stay in a legal relationship with people against your will.
@@rabzde-rivers7232 what do you suggest should have happened to you instead?
@@Julia29853 . In my case I would have been better off with kinship-care and my father - certainly not Adoption and altered-identity-trauma. Support for that even back then could have happened - but that's a long story .
So well said ,I agree one hundred percent with every word ,I'm a 61 year old male ,born and adopted in England ,I still have so much work to do on all this ,it's been a very rocky road ,and sometimes feels like a miracle that I'm still alive . Best wishes ,Nick .
Wonderful. Thank you Zara and Gabor. My book 'Life In-Between' by Julia F Richardson also looks at adoption trauma and a journey of recovery from addiction, especially food addiction
thanks Julia will recommend your work,food can be a big addiction for adopted people.
@@zaraphillips4159 thank you so much
@@juliarichardson1023 Just bought it and excited to read it. Thank you for mentioning your book!
I Think this was a very interesting topic I learn A lot And how powerful this has been and the impact on trauma in these kids its so sad🙏🙏🙏
A very valuable discussion, particularly for me as a prospective adoptive parent. Grateful for sharing this here!
Thank you
Thank you so much for this talk. I'd very much like to receive a list of resource materials you mentioned at the end. Such Gratitude.
I was an older child adoptee. My father committed suicide when I was 3. My mother told the neighbors she killed him. My sister, brother and I were put into foster care. Two years later my mother relinquished the now four of us. An alcoholic aunt kept us for awhile until she died. Seven years later, the four of us were adopted by a family that had three older daughters. I wrote this song with a couple of friends : ruclips.net/video/PZZIJs1qaDM/видео.html
How can anyone argue with this, spot ON! - mch appreciated - Pink Adoptee x
Agree to everything except where Gabor said “what baby in their right mind would want to be born Jewish?” I am proud to be Jewish and I was born Jewish and adopted into a Jewish family as traumatic as my experiences where, I feel that being Jewish and religious is something I would not change about myself as my soul feels right about that. I agree with all the Torah laws and think it’s a big gift from G-d to have given humans an instructional way to live best for us as humans. It just makes sense and I continue to study every day and am constantly awed and shocked by what I learn. I suggest Jewish and non Jewish people study Torah instead of right away biasing against the religious aspect of it due to the sometimes pressuring and spiritually hypocritical way it is given over. Having objectivity is sometimes best in understanding and not using it as a weapon against self and others
He said specifically, "What baby in their right mind would want to be born Jewish in Germany under the Nazi's?" it's the "in Germany under the Nazi's" part that I think was the point he was trying to make with regards to the statement often said to adoptees "we choose our parents". I didn't take it as a negative statement on being born into a Jewish family.
I agree with you, Thyra, from the outside-looking-in (as a non-Jew); but it is possible that this man feels he would have still wanted to be Jewish even if he found himself in Nazi Germany. It seems as though being Jewish is "everything" to him. OTOH, I completely disagree with the idea that we choose our parents, that's a lot of "woo" and with the nightmare stories I've heard about child abuse and neglect, I really don't think these children suffering these things chose to have the parents who abuse them. That's just mental abuse to say that to a person who was abused in their household or by extended family. Mental abuse on top of physical abuse, so much trauma! We need to not add to the trauma of human beings!
You are making crap up. He didn't say that at all.
He was referring to being born into the Holocaust. Not something I would choose.
So I'm dealing with my fiance who is adopted Andrew suddenly. We just met his birth mother which at 1st was fine but then her behavior turned very quickly to seem sexual towards him. Which now I'm learning is called genetic sexual attraction. I literally confronted her and told her that she made me uncomfortable and needed to stop she continued to do it and then I just informed her. Family her children hurt siblings of her behavior it was an extremely uncomfortable situation. And she was causing tons of problems in my relationship of 12 years. Do you know a specialist who could deal with this am a widow? My husband suffered from bipolar disorder and took his life in 2011. So when anyone comes into my life with dysfunction I immediately can feel? The person it's probably coming with harm she wouldn't admit her behavior she made. It seem like I was crazy and then she even made him really uncomfortable enough for him to say something to her. I would love to have no contact with her at all. But I am trying to be there for my fiance which I truly love. If you have any counseling that maybe would help please fill me and thank you so much
At 60, I finally have the strong urge to reclaim my birth name. There needs to be federal advocacy for those who wish to reclaim their original birth certificates as official. Really, falsifying a birth certificate is obscene.
I'd like to know the correlation between smoking and adoption
@gaiadance For some smoking eases stress and anxiety which is high in adoptees due to the trauma. It can be seen as self-soothing and/or self-regulating like all forms of addiction. I can recommend checking out Paul Sunderland. He is just as amazing as Dr. Gabor Maté and explains very detailed the link between adoption and addiction.
How work amygdala in adopted?? neuroscience??
There is a very strong possibility my 3 granddaughters will shortly be adopted. They are very young and I want to become their guardian but i think it will not be allowed. I have deep distress that they will be adopted and we will never see them again.
Is there any way to access references to the stats Gabor speaks of here?
No wonder I love extreme metal
Scusate se scrivo in italiano ho appena conosciuto la mia mamma biologica la mia storia abbastanza inquietante ho scoperto che mamma è stata ingannata una suora ha raccontato a lei che io ero morto quando sono nato. Ai miei genitori adottivi hanno raccontato che lei era morta.
Anyone remember the developmental psychologist Gabor mentions in the talk?
@Kumari Malin Rehnvall Dr. Gordon Neufeld
@@D07770 thank you!
I am a late discovery adoptee. I am always seeking help to educate those whom are travelling a parallel journey
I think this is a very powerful talk. I've heard him before. And l think this knowledge is becoming 1:27:31 I however disagree on a couple of points 1)The place of biological Fathers"s in relinquishing. Siting primates and evolution. The grief is similar because it's the lost of lineage....men can now bottle feed. I've never meet my BF but l just know l feal more connected to him. 2) he tries as a therapist imply that our trauma is much the same universally. When it's a specific specialised topic of ptsd, ....its a trauma within a trauma. I feel he tries to normalise this. Thus minimising. 3) he speaks to is around his trauma waiting at an airport and his great fear. Adoptee trauma is far more intense. I think Paul Sutherland is better as he recognises this in more detail. Whilst l like life choice life....again a bit dismissive. I like the connection as a real person to Mother Earth 🌎 and the universe..or..our ancestors Choice for us to live. He is an expert on Trauma of course and we'll respected. But, there are some subtle differences within the adoption triangle, our shared loss and grief .
But Hay great to hear those thanks so much Sarah. 🙏
Christine Andrews aka Christina Barry-Graham.x
I am mixed race.
And now Gabor Mate is working for Adoptchange.. so disappointing, but not surprising as he really didn't "get" what adoption was about in this video.
Mate has risen to fame very quickly, thanks to clever marketing. His peers do not view him as favourably as his customers!
Thank you Sharyn, i was not aware. Very disappointing outcome.
@@j.j.lehmann6377 Perhaps because he isn’t out to suck up to his peers. His point is to help people. BTW, I’m not a “customer.” I’m a highly educated adoptee who reads. How you love to belittle people you don’t know.
@@SN-sz7kw I am also an adoptee. I am also highly educated and read. I do not know Mate personally, but certainly here in Australia he is working with the pro-adoptive lobbyists Adopt Change. He is a reductionist in his thinking, and this is problematic for us as survivors of forced adoption.
Thank God he is involved. He describes my six decades experience brilliantly. Children are not born to fulfill the parenting cravings of strangers. Separation from the birth mother has traumatic lifelong implications. Supporting biological families as a first priority is in the interest of children. Adoption is a last resort. He gets that.
This rieks of oldfashioned ideas that you see in horrormovies that orphanned children are innately bad. This is deeply saddening to watch.
International adoptees are treated like commodities, its human trafficking and racist colonialism. Many are abused raped and sometimes tortured by the adoptive parents. Those are the issues.
Did you listen to it? I didn’t hear that at all. Other than the intended focus was on those who have struggled, it was all about compassion.
He encourages "victims of abandonment" to sit on the pity-pot for the rest of their lives, thriving on
blaming others (and circumstances) ... insisting to stay the victim. Am leaving, after 25 minutes . . .
we were all victims of circumstance, but if you had continued to watch the whole talk you will see that in no way do we stay victims,we talk about healing and moving forward. I am not sure who you are in the triad? but sadly the way you view us is what we are always up against and if the child is not allowed to grieve their loss then they will stay feeling like victims....if they are allowed to heal then they move forward.
Karin Junker, Wow, sounds like you totally misinterpreted everything that's said by Gabor! He makes a safe space to look at ourselves without judgement and instead with love, compassion and forgiveness so that we can start the journey to heal ourselves.
I totally agrre with you Karin, if those who harmed us finally took responsibility for their policies and practices of adoption, then a whole lot of healing would flow on from this atonement. I am currently sitting in the mad as hell pot - because no one in West Australia is willing to recognise that my human rights were violated and the states survivors need redress amoungst many other things!
Real healing takes time and can look different for everyone. Get off your high horse and stop assuming the road to empowerment looks the same for everyone.
Sitting with the feelings of being a victim has allowed me to explore depths of myself. I spent years putting off my healing to pretend I was strong and happy and dealing but it was fake.
If society and governments acted to support survivors of adoption, with redress mechanisms and a whole platform of services which are currently inadequate, then our healing/recovery, what ever it gets named might be a lot lot easier! Mate, has risen to fame thanks to clever marketing on social media platforms, he is not an expert in adoption specific trauma. After he became a speaker for an Adopt Change conference in Australia last month, I have no respect for him.