How to be adopted

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Claiming space as an adoptee

Anyone else sometimes feel like running amok? Going rogue? Taking up some space for once? Here are a few crazy things I toy with doing from time to time. Things that, to even think about, make me feel super scared and cripplingly anxious.

However, I don’t want to break any official or unofficial rules. I don’t want to be “sent back” for not abiding by the terms and conditions of my adoption. Of course, then I remind myself I did not sign any terms and conditions. I wonder if I am being complicit in the secrecy that I so outwardly loathe and deride. If my behaviour is contributing to the sack of shame I carry over my shoulder wherever I go.

What’s the worst that could happen…?


Will I disappear in a puff of smoke if I…
Say I don’t believe in adoption as it is currently done?
Say I believe adoption is trauma?
Tell my children the lady whose house we visit annually is actually an extra granny?

Will I be arrested if I…
Name my birth parents on this blog?
Tag my biological siblings on Facebook?
Take a selfie outside my biological grandparent’s house?
Leave flowers on my paternal grandfather’s grave?

Will I deter future friends if I…
Answer the “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” question with the complicated truth?
Tell them about my attachment issues?

Will I be ridiculed if I…
Create a family tree on Ancestry?
Message a biological relative on ancestry and admit to being an adoptee?
Ask to be known by my original name?

Does an alarm go off of an adoptee claims their space on this earth? Or is it wonderfully exhilaratingly freeing? I’d love to know.... leave me a comment if you’ve done any of these things and tell me how it’s worked out.

Photo credit: Clem Onojeghuo clemono.com