Traumas in your life are the very difficult emotions that you processed alone.
Reread that, and think about that for a moment.
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A trauma that I have been healing from for the past couple of years now has been my adoption story.
I was adopted into a family with no connection to any of my biological relatives. I felt incredibly alone for many, many years. Discussing my adoption was taboo; it was as if I were an apple tree trying to grow in an orange grove, and nobody ever acknowledged that I was, indeed, different.
It wasn’t until 29 years later that I met any of my biological family. That’s 29 years of trying to process everything by myself. It’s been a journey—a lifelong one—and it still is.
When I had my own child, I truly believed I could finally put my adoption story behind me. I thought I wouldn’t feel so alone anymore. And, in a way, having my daughter did bring healing, but only temporarily.
Then, when my daughter was 10 months old, we fostered and later adopted my sister-in-law’s daughter, who was just one year old at the time. While fostering her, so many repressed emotions resurfaced—emotions I had buried deep within myself for decades. They came flooding back, sending me into a depression. I couldn’t escape my story. I couldn’t escape myself. I couldn’t escape “adoption/adoptee/adopted” And I hated it.
I didn’t want to feel this pain anymore, but I had no idea what to do. I just knew I could no longer ignore this. Now having a new type of adoption story with actually adopting I knew this had to be dealt with. And I knew if I wanted to be the mother that I wanted to be to my children then I had work to do.
Eventually, I surrendered and accepted that this really was a part of my identity—not my whole self, but a huge part of me. And that’s when the healing journey began.
The traumas we experience cannot be erased, but we can learn how to identify and understand them. Only then can we begin to heal from them.
One way to begin healing is by acknowledging what you went through, validating your experience, and sharing it with others. It’s not enough to think about it in silence. You need to talk about it. Take what’s swirling in your mind and articulate it into words.
For years, I thought I was alone, but I’ve learned through my own journey that I never really was. I’ve also learned how many people out there suffer in silence, just as I did.
I want you to know: You are not alone. There’s so much strength in sharing your truth, in finding connection through the pain. Healing doesn’t mean erasing your story; it means finally allowing yourself to be seen, to be heard, and to be whole.
The Wild Gems 