Everyone loves to tell you that your parents’ choices — the circumstances, the lies, the discoveries, the highs, the everyday mess — is “normal.” behavior.

But it’s not.

Normal is just whatever sits comfortably in the status quo, and let’s be real: kinship, foster care, and adoption are anything but the status quo.

We don’t need research to tell us that.
But it seems like the world only believes us when there’s data to back it up.
And honestly? That’s aggravating.

I’m more concerned with what’s going on inside of us.
The stuff numbers can’t measure.

I read this post the other day by therapist Laney Wallace — she broke down what the nervous system actually needs. She laid it out in a triangle, kind of like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. What caught my eye were two sections: very important and most important.

Under very important, she listed things like:

• solid interpersonal relationships,
• healthy family dynamics,
• access to choices.

But under most important?
She wrote: secure childhood attachments, co-regulation with caregivers, safety, security, and more.

Now let me ask you this:
How many of us were stripped of the most important stuff, yet expected to move through the world like we had it?
How am I supposed to self-regulate when I was never taught how to co-regulate with the person who was supposed to teach me?
When was I ever given the time?

This shit is confusing — until one day, it’s not.
And even that takes serious work.
Work to undo what’s been done.
Work to forgive choices that never should’ve been ours to carry.
Work to make peace with the hand we’ve been dealt.

The truth is, the adoption system was designed to center the people doing the adopting — not the community of adoptees living with its impact.
It’s backwards.
It always has been.

Will we ever find balance?
Deep sigh.
I like to think we do.
With so many advocates speaking up and our community growing in connection, I believe we’re getting closer.

But here’s the part that never changes:
There is no handbook for us.
There’s one for adoptive parents.
One for agencies.
One for birth relatives.

But for us — the adoptees?
Nothing.

So if this whole thing still feels confusing, babes, you’re not broken. You’re real.
And we don’t need to simplify it to make other people comfortable.

We need to erase what was expected of us.
And start creating our own lanes.
The first step? Admit it.

None of this was ever supposed to make sense.
No child was ever meant to be torn from family by force or circumstance.
No one was ever meant to figure it out alone.

Fancy words can’t erase the sadness and disappointment of it all.
But owning the truth ourselves first- may be the key.

From my little writing corner with love,

Teisha

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