Truth and Justice

Verity - Ilfracombe

Can there be any truth or justice in this barren landscape of adoption trauma?

I was told at the tender age of 15 that I should never mention it again, that it was against the law to try and find my child and the best thing for me to do was to forget about it and get on with my life.

The only way that I could do that was to bury the pain. I found many unhealthy mechanisms to do this including but not limited to drugs, sex, alcohol, shopping, binge eating. Anything rather than processing the emotion to find healing. Healing wasn't a thing in the 80s or even the 90s, you just had to get on with it and wear your stiff upper lip. And of course, I had been told by adults, who knew what was best for me, what to do - keep quiet and forget.

There had been times over the years when I had started to try and find my daughter. I had approached organisations and the original adoption agency but I was always stopped by those words in my head that said 'you are not allowed to find her'. I wish I had done more, maybe I was weak but I think the truth is they had done a really good job on brainwashing me to believe that trying to find her was wrong. I wish I had done more, I wish I had found her sooner.

It was only when I stopped drinking and came out of the dark that I was hit head on by a barrage of emotions and a visceral need to find my daughter. Before this I had never thought about looking up search groups on FaceBook groups or other ways of finding her. I'd been stopped by the brainwashed voice in my head telling me - no, you're not allowed.

Coming in to the light has been the most painful thing I have done. It has changed me. She is all that I think about and it consumes me. I really should get some help with that because it removes me from my life and puts me in another world of imagination that doesn't exist. A world where we are reunited and everything is OK.

I have spoken my truth to a handful of people, I should do it more often.

Forced and coerced adoptions didn't stop in the 70s, they went on well in to the 80s - they still happen today but the focus has changed. They are less looking for young and unmarried pregnant girls because there is help available for them today. Help that I should have received but was held from me.

There is truth, I can speak my truth but there will never be any justice.

Verity, your image is so very meaningful to me in so very many ways.

Verity - Ilfracombe