The family that adopts us is our world. In that world, we live, we breathe, and we grow. They are our reference, our starting point, our home. There's no way that whatever our adoptive family does won't influence us. Of course, it's important to remember that all families are different, all adopted individuals are different, all adoption situations are different, and all forms of relationships are different. It's difficult to generalize and simply say that if things happen one way or another way, the trauma will automatically diminish. But what I discovered in my case, and from what others have told me, is that the way the adopting family treats us, will either reinforce or heal the trauma of feeling that "I was abandoned because there's something inherently wrong with me," also known as that internal voice that, like a broken record, says, "Obviously, I was born to be abandoned and rejected. That's my fate, that's who I am." Those internalized voices, those beliefs, came from somewhere. It's not something children just came up with on their own. It's not something they choose.

In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, I found myself battling my demons: my codependency, my inability to set boundaries, my inability to end the toxic relationship I was in, which clearly wasn't good for me, and my obsessive attachment to someone I really shouldn't be with.

Despite years of therapy, all the books I read, and all the twelve-step meetings, there was something I still hadn't understood. How could it be that despite all the knowledge, all that mental clarity, I still kept repeating the same relational patterns? Could it really be that the beginning of my life had impacted me much more than I had understood?

In 2021, I decided to find out once and for all when I discovered that free online therapy sessions were being offered in Sweden for adopted people. And this probably happened as a result of the data that came to light about the systematic theft of babies during the dictatorship in Chile in the 1970s and 1980s and their sale to first world countries. Countries like Sweden, where an estimated 2200 babies arrived.

The therapist who attended to me asked if I had already been to therapy and how I needed help. I got straight to the point, I told her that I had been in therapy since I was 17, but I felt I needed information on how adoption could have affected me and above all, whether this trauma could have been healed or at least mitigated with the family that adopted me. She asked me to describe a bit how it was growing up with my family, and it didn't take her long to confirm to me that beyond my adoption, my adoptive parents and the way they handled the fact that my brother and I were not their biological children, made the initial trauma of not belonging to their same genetic clan much more potent.

Now, before I continue with the next story, I'm going to make a parenthesis. Having children is not easy. I've seen it with my friends. It's the greatest love and the greatest demand. It's the most beautiful and most annoying relationship. It's energizing and draining. And from what I can observe, it's the greatest vulnerability one can experience. As my friend said the other day: "It's as if your heart suddenly was outside your body." That's why I've always looked at people who decide to have children with great admiration.

Returning to the topic, I'm going to use my own mom as a reference point and maybe some of you out there might recognize yourselves in this story. When she died in 2013, I felt like a part of me died with her. I was by her side until she took her last breath. She, who was so afraid of everything, shouldn't have been alone in such an uncertain moment. After her death, many people approached me telling me how much she loved us, my brother and me. "She devoted herself to you," they said. I would smile and agree: "Yes, my mom gave us everything." But inside, I wondered, how did no one ever see what was happening? For many years, I thought I was crazy and had imagined it all. Or that the real problem was just that I was too sensitive and everything affected me. That her behavior was normal, just a stressed-out mother. That my brother and I were unbearable, which is why she was always irritated with us. That if we had been better children, she would have felt better. Or at least if I was a better daughter. If I didn't ask for anything, if I behaved well, if I didn't make a fuss, if I understood and listened to her, if I didn't react to the abuse, the lack of boundaries with my body, if I didn't react to her hurtful comments, her hits. If I simply ceased to exist, maybe then she would feel calmer and wouldn't regret being a mother so much.

I started therapy when I was 17 years old. I asked for therapy because I felt a great heaviness in my soul, something that many years later was diagnosed as complex post-traumatic stress syndrome. For those who don't know, this syndrome differs from post-traumatic stress syndrome, as it is a condition that can develop after a person experiences prolonged and repeated traumatic events, such as sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse, severe neglect during childhood, being victims of kidnapping, enduring constant harassment, slavery, labor exploitation, being prisoners of war, survivors of concentration camps, cult defectors, or cult-like organizations, among other things.Post-traumatic stress syndrome develops after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. That is, the repetition of these events is what makes it complex, leading individuals to develop a series of survival mechanisms that differ from those of non-complex cases.

Survival mechanisms include, for example: difficulties regulating emotions, suicidal ideation, explosive or extremely inhibited anger; selective amnesia, dissociation, chronic feelings of helplessness, shame, guilt, or stigma; accepting the aggressor's way of thinking, values, and rationalization; isolation, chronic distrust, anger, and hostility towards others; repeated search for a savior, lack of intimate relationships, and inability to self-protect; lack of faith or feelings of abandonment, powerlessness, hopelessness, and despair; and loss of the sense of reality accompanied by feelings of terror and confusion.

In those therapy sessions specialized in adoption issues, the therapist also mentioned something I had heard about several times before but had never dared to delve into, out of fear of what I would find: The attachment theory.

This theory describes the long-term dynamics of relationships between human beings. It also proposes that children instinctively form attachments to those who care for them, in order to survive, including physical, social, and emotional development. The biological goal is survival, and the psychological goal is security. Depending on how caregivers interact with children, they will develop different attachment patterns, such as secure attachment, insecure-avoidant attachment, insecure-ambivalent attachment, and also disorganized attachment. This pattern will serve as the relational template from which the person will then base their relationships in life.

In the case of individuals with complex post-traumatic stress syndrome, it is generally observed that they develop insecure or disorganized attachment patterns.

That pattern is characterized by, for example, the desire and need for connection and intimacy, but at the same time, the inability to receive affection and constant distrust.

The therapist recommended that I read several books on attachment theory, and I did. Because the first step to healing is understanding what the problem is, where the wound is. Becoming aware of the path traveled and the aftermath it left behind to understand which part of oneself needs to be embraced, which little piece needs to be integrated, and which shame needs to be broken.Here comes one of those shames to be brokenAt the German high school I attended, in that normalized racist context post-World War II that I've already talked about, and in which it's more than clear that the ideology of European colonialism that so deeply marked the world was still reigning without any impunity, the following happened.When I was 14 years old, the older students began to call me "Berta" because of the color of my skin. This name, at least back then, was a name they used to refer to domestic workers. The idea was to make it very clear that I was inferior. That they saw it, that I couldn't escape it. That I was worth less than everyone else.

Every day was torture. At night, I cried, wishing I didn't have to wake up the next day, and during the days, I pretended that none of this was happening. I dissociated from reality and smiled as if nothing was wrong. Because I could never complain or protest, since from home and from a very young age, it had already been made clear to me that my genes were defective, that they came from poor people or people from the slums, who, according to their racist beliefs, were of lesser value. The contempt from the other students was therefore justified.

And I believed them. That truth, as I mentioned before, was already internalized. My soul cried inside, and outwardly I carried the burden of being a human being of according to their beliefs, lesser value.But it wasn't until 2008, when I entered the twelve-step program for adult children of dysfunctional families, that I began to understand the harm that they had caused me. Slowly, I began to break through the denial that my family was loving, and I began to accept that my family was broken from the start. Gradually, I started to believe my truth and recover from the depression I suffered in 2009, when I couldn't take it anymore and all I wanted was to die.

This discrimination that I suffered is actually very common. You don't have to go to the extreme of growing up in the post-war German-Argentinian society for these stories to repeat themselves. The world is as it is. Little by little, someday, it will change.What's particular about it is the fact that I grew up outside of my biological tribe. Outside of my colors, my appearance. That the family who raised me, especially my mom, couldn't handle the fact that I didn't look like her. Who knows, maybe if I had looked like her, she would have found other reasons to attack me. We'll never know.

She could say things like, "You can't imagine, I had a three-year-old and a newborn." Sometimes she forgot that I wasn't her friend, that I was her daughter, and that in this case, she was talking about me. That particular time, my response was, "And who forced you to adopt another one? You complicated your own life! You shouldn't have adopted." I was already in my thirties when this happened. And it wasn't the last time. Another time I remember was when she confessed over the phone everything she would have done with her life if she hadn't had children, and to top it off, the countless times she told me, "Don't get pregnant, don't ruin your life."

So when people, after her death, commented on the love she had for us, I just smiled and nodded. Yes, she loved us. Surely, she did the best she could. Just like we all do the best we can, always.

But to answer the initial question, yes. The way the adopting family treats you will be crucial in the healing process. In my particular case, I believe my mom was disappointed in me from the day she went to pick me up from the doctor, because she reminded me of it all her life: "The doctor told us there was a beautiful, blonde baby to pick up, and when we went, it was you, you were so ugly. You were dark, and without hair even." This was confirmed by my aunt who told me the story that a few days after they got me, my mom took me to show to the neighbor asking: "Isn't she very dark?"

Learning to love oneself is essential for healing wounds. Everyone says it, everyone reminds me that I am the only one who can do it, that I can free myself from the trauma of my adoption and my adoptive family.I agree. Love has to come from within, to avoid, for example, repeating childhood patterns in current relationships. Fortunately, the key is still in my hands. But it's up to me to work hard and consistently. Experiences during early childhood play an essential role in brain architecture. Being exposed to violence or adversity during the first years of my life influenced the structure of the neural connections in my brain. My little girl brain, who so desperately wanted to be loved and told how beautiful she was with her colors, and proudly announce: "This is my daughter."

Note for those who want to adopt: Children feel the truth you believe about their origin, their value, and the circumstances of their adoption. What you believe about them, they will believe about themselves. What you tell them, they will tell themselves. Like little plants. If you water them and say nice things, they grow up healthy and strong.

Note for adoptees: Identity is your own property. We owe it to ourselves to accept and integrate all parts of our identity. No matter the story we are told or the beliefs projected onto us, we are, like the rest of the world, beings worthy of love, infinite and unique.

And as for me, sometimes I indulge in the fantasy of thinking that somewhere in this world, someone resembles me. Someone doesn't see me as stranger, someone recognizes me as part of their tribe. And inexplicably, I suddenly feel that at least a part of me belongs to something. A part of me has found its home.

And finally, I can feel the earth beneath my feet.