#300th post

I was just a baby when I was adopted, and a child still when visiting my birth country many years later. Now, it's only a few moments before I hit my thirties. It feels like I'm out of time, even though I never thought I'd make it this far.

I'm lucky to have had a wonderful upbringing. My adoptive parents did everything they could to make my brother and me comfortable. Food, fairytales, and culture. But it remains a fact that my brother and I were the only brown children in our elementary school for our entire run there.

And I know my natural mother couldn't have taken care of me. She would have been ostracised. Not to mention the trauma it would bring her to keep me. I do not blame her.

Doesn't take away the fact that adoption is inherently a traumatic experience. The first person you get attached to abandons you.

Adoption cannot happen without loss.

Anxiety. Depression. Identity Crisis. Abandonment Issues. Commitment Issues. Reactive Attachment Disorder.

Just Girly Things.

Flunking out of school when I used to be at the top of the class. Seeing numerous psychiatrists and therapists who eventually fell through. I made friends with whom I cried and laughed, and then eventually dreaded their presence when I couldn't keep up or was too confused about who I was.

So many years lost just stuck inside my own head.

But we're getting better. Keeping up with the days, going for hikes with the dogs and volunteering at puppy schools.

Investigations on adoption agencies, therapists who are adopted themselves.

We'll be alright.

- Lina