“What happened was a long time ago, Natalie. You’re the one who won’t let go of the past.”

How I wish I could. Just let the past go. Be free, live in the here and now. My whole life—what now amounts to thirty years of therapy, thirty years of meditating, and seventeen in the twelve-step program—has been about trying to accept and let go. I can’t control the world, but I can take responsibility for my actions, for seeking help. The message has always been the same: Accept, feel, let go, and be grateful. Accept, feel, let go, be grateful. Become aware, act accordingly, give myself love, value myself, ignore the voices in my head that keep repeating the message of worthlessness. That message that breathes through every pore of my being. Before I even realize it, it’s there, whispering in my ear, offering explanations for why people around me behave the way they do. Always confirming the underlying belief. Blinding me to the complex, nuanced reality.

Of course I know all this, so even feeling pain or anger makes me ashamed.

Very recently, thankfully, I was finally able to attend a group therapy session for adoptees, organized by the same institution that provides free therapy to all adopted people, in Swedish: adopterad.com.

For many years, I had been trying to find other adoptees and talk about the issues that affect only us. In fact, back in 2017, during one of my lowest points in depression, I decided to seek psychiatric help—even though I was already seeing a psychologist. I felt like I couldn’t go on anymore, so I had an interview with a psychiatrist who was supposed to refer me to another psychiatrist, where I assume I would get medication.

This psychiatrist interviewed me for an hour. He asked me all kinds of questions, including what kind of help I was looking for. I told him directly: I would love to go to group therapy with other adoptees. He looked at me, puzzled:

The psychiatrist looked frustrated, irritated. I was calm, not backing down.

I looked at him, paused for a moment, and said:

I’d like to add a small detail here: that psychologist was Martha Cullberg, one of the most prominent psychologists in Sweden, who has written multiple books. It became painfully clear how ignorant society is about this topic—and this person in particular. Not even this psychiatrist, who was adopted himself, could understand the level of trauma he was dealing with.

Of course, not everyone needs to know their biological origin—but let’s just say it’s not that hard to understand that someone who doesn’t know might want to know.

So, in the spring of this year, 2025, when I was finally able to join a group and meet other adoptees, I thanked the heavens and every saint from every religion and belief system, because at last, I could begin to understand myself a little more—through the stories of others. And just as I had imagined, reflected in each person’s story, I could see an immeasurable pain. And not only that—I could hear the same questions I carry within me:

I cried through the entire first session. And not from pain—but from gratitude.

Accept, feel, let go, be grateful.

In this search to accept myself, to understand what’s happening to me, to forgive myself—in 2018, the last time I went to the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo with Simón—I asked for an interview with someone who could explain more to me about Argentina’s adoption laws. Because let’s not forget: we are never detached from the history that precedes us.

This person explained the history of adoption law in Argentina. The law was officially enacted in 1948, granting adoptive children the same rights as biological heirs. So then, before legal adoption existed—what was there?

From what I understood, there were “child circulation practices”, referring to those transactions in which the responsibility for a child was transferred from one adult to another. In Argentina, such practices have a long tradition, and various sources indicate that despite the lack of legal regulation, throughout the 19th century and much of the 20th, adoptions were carried out either by charitable organizations or informally between private individuals. These children weren’t “real” children—not biological ones—but at least they were given the right to inherit just like biological heirs.

But what does that really mean?

The first word that comes to mind is: illegitimacy.

In June 2002, I moved to Sweden.

Now, in this new world, the reflection I received of myself was completely different. I became another character—one I didn’t identify with. I couldn’t find myself. I didn’t recognize myself. And I didn’t understand what this new society was telling me about who I was.

Now, twenty-three years later, I’ve developed a character and an identity rooted in the reality that surrounds me. Basically, I’ve become Swedish. I’m still a fish out of water—but for different reasons than I was in Argentina. I’m a fish out of water because, quite literally, I come from a different stream.

What I mean with all of this is that we, as people, are never separate from the reality around us, nor are we immune to the message society reflects back to us about who we are. I always say it:

As I mentioned before, adoptees—or people with substituted identities—are surrounded by messages about why we didn’t grow up with our biological parents, from the very day we are born. Daily messages, from early on, like mantras repeated consciously or unconsciously everywhere we look. Mantras we hear and repeat to ourselves endlessly—about illegitimacy, unworthiness, and more. Silent mantras, etched into the retinas of our eyes, filtering everything through that lens and echoing the same message into eternity. Without even realizing it.

“Do you think you would have been different if you’d grown up with your biological family?” people have asked me many times.

The number one cliché I always heard—and denied for most of my life—was that my low self-esteem came from the fact that my biological mother abandoned me. That meant I identified as abandonable. According to this cliché, I felt like I didn’t have the same value as a baby who grew up with their biological family. Defective from the start.

“That can’t be,” I’d think. “It can’t be that simple.”

How unfair.

But I’m just a fish swimming in the current of a given fate.

The voices I internalized were those of my adoptive family, when they spoke about my genes; my schoolmates, who reminded me of the color of my skin; the teachers who treated me differently for not being blonde and white; my little first-grade boyfriend, also adopted, who told me we belonged together because we had the same skin tone. The voice of my mom’s friend who, referring to someone else planning to adopt, said: “How horrible! Who knows where those genes come from?”

The reflection society gave back—saying I was damaged from the start—spoke loud and clear, again and again.

And me? Running, endlessly trying to disprove that message.

But I know that deep inside me, when I manage to be still and quiet my mind, there are other voices.

Sometimes I can’t sleep, thinking of what a waste all these years have been—how I haven’t been able to free myself from that internal prison.

“Naty, you’re just a fish in the current.

Everything is perfect as it is.

Accept, feel, let go, be grateful.

And sometimes, I can even fall back asleep.