The Adoptee In Me

I’ve been sitting with a familiar feeling this week. It feels similar to a feeling many of us in the adoptee community know well. I’m realizing it echoes what we often call ambiguous grief or loss.

I know that term traditionally refers to the loss of a person who is physically absent but psychologically present (or vice versa), but it feels similar.

As adoptees, we understand how it feels to grieve parents we never got to know, a life we were born into but never lived, loss without a funeral, and pain without clear edges.

Facing a serious health threat has stirred a similar feeling of grief in me.

Today’s post hospital follow up was a reality check. Hearing words like increased risk, not stable and you need to rest and heal hit differently, despite having heard similar words the past few weeks.

Being on the sidelines has me grieving my normal life. I’m told to stop, to wait, to rest, but everything in me wants to keep moving.

It’s grief for the version of myself who felt steady and uninterrupted.
Grief for momentum. For certainty. For the assumption that tomorrow would look like yesterday.

It’s heavy and carries ambiguity because something significant shifted without resolution. It feels like I’m trapped in someone else’s life. I worked hard on my healing journey for many years to strengthen my identity. Suddenly part of me is missing.

As adoptees, we are unfortunately used to holding complex, invisible losses while still functioning. What I have learned is that grief like this doesn’t disappear, but it softens when it’s named, and when it is witnessed.

Writing and connecting are how I make sense of hard seasons. This is one of them and I am posting here on my adoptee page, because I know you get it and I am not alone.

Some grief is not meant to be solved. It’s meant to be seen.

For my fellow adoptees:
Have you ever felt that ambiguous kind of grief resurface during other life changes? What brought it up for you?

Thanks for being here and sharing the journey. 🧡