Bringing Comfort When Adoption Hurts

As a mother who adopted a child, Cam Lee Small’s story resonates with me. A variety of emotions are present through the adoption journey for the parents and adopted children alike. Today, Cam invites us to see that an adoptee’s journey is a human one. It’s one full of complex emotions that need to be untangled. It’s a process, but comfort can be offered along the journey when we center each of those individual adoptee stories on the adoptees themselves. It’s about helping them be seen and heard and offering space for their stories to be told. It’s a joy to welcome to Cam to the farm’s table today…

Guest Post by Cam Lee Small

“Should I draw my affliction?” an adoptee asked me.

I recently co-facilitated the “Self Esteem” curriculum that’s part of a week-long Korean adoptee culture camp just outside the Twin Cities.

I thought I misheard, “What? Draw your fiction?”

He corrected me, “No, like, my affliction… you know, like, I kinda feel left out wherever I go… where should I draw that?”

My camper wasn’t talking about FOMO kind of “left out.” He was talking about the “You don’t belong here” and “You should go back to where you came from” left out.

Have you ever felt that way?

I don’t think anyone likes to feel left out, wherever they go, no matter how much resilience it seems to produce.

I’m torn. I’m glad he felt invited to ask the question, but I’m heartbroken that he’s had to deal with it by himself.

It’s not that his parents don’t love him or don’t try. It points instead to the fact there are places in his life where he feels affliction, and that something about his experience of transracial international adoption plays a role in that. Currently. Presently.

You might not have to imagine how, as a person of color, growing up in a predominately white environment (and family) may not always be a child’s dream come true.

“The adoptee’s journey is a human one... A person feels in response to something, because we are someone. “

Its’s not the most pleasant idea to think about.

But, when we as a community can be honest the experience exists, and attend to those realities and fictions together, I’m persuaded we’ll begin to see more of these two things (at least):

1. We’ll learn how to draw more of our curiosities and distress into the light; to express and show them to trusted folks who can help, receive help too. [ps: the wisest adoptive parents don’t insist on being the only trusted folks in their adoptee’s corner, they accept support from outside of themselves!]

2. We’ll become increasingly passionate and equipped to address the external conditions that bring more sorrow than relief. Relationally and systemically.

“Every adoptee is experiencing their own kind of story, though. That’s why we need to hear from them.“

That’s not fiction. I’m seeing it happen in real-time. I’m just not convinced it’s enough.

I not convinced it is enough because I know how this feels as an adult adoptee myself.

I was born in Korea, but raised by a family in the United States. Yes, as an adult transracial adoptee with a psychology degree who runs his own practice, I know and understand the grief and trauma that comes along with being an adoptee no matter how loving the adoptive parents are.

The adoptee’s journey is a human one. We’re not just sad, or happy, or angry, or whichever basic emotion seems to appear on the surface. A person feels in response to something, because we are someone. And one of the most intimate ways to love someone is to learn more about them. Spend time with them. Be interested in what they have to say.

Honest, loving dialogue about the adoptee’s journey brings us closer to family, not further. I’m not sure where I’d be if it weren’t for people who were willing to call me into that truth.

Every adoptee is experiencing their own kind of story, though. That’s why we need to hear from them.

So, whether you’re an adoptee or someone who cares about adoptee-specific realities that exist beyond the dominant pictures of adoption we’ve grown up with, would you continue making space for these conversations?

Whether your birth family lives across the street or on the other side of an ocean, by God’s grace we’re invited, and becoming further equipped, to press on for new ways of being together.

“And – that there’s a way to sow comfort in our pictures together, toward a future where anyone who has ever felt left out would find a better place – wherever they go.“

Because love pursues truth. And truth is paired with action (1 John 3:18).

What if there was a trail of humility, kindness, mentorship; baskets of love and hope and peace to shape those moments and seasons? So that wherever they are together, whether it’s on a couch or through mountains and valleys, good things would be present. Yes, truth, but never without with love.

He drew it. The affliction. I’d never seen it represented that way before. Was that the important part?

Maybe. But I simply gave him space and time to draw it. And I saw him. Maybe that’s what he needed. We all need that to some degree, don’t we?

He could add to it someday. So could someone else. Maybe someone helps him take action or he learns to respond to it on his own. I suspect our journeys include some combination of both.

Not for the sake of ruminating on our pain alone, but to assure our neighbors (and be reminded ourselves) that we’re never alone in our pain. And – that there’s a way to sow comfort in our pictures together, toward a future where anyone who has ever felt left out would find a better place – wherever they go.

I hope to see you there.

Cameron Lee Small, MS, LPCC, is a licensed clinical counselor, transracial adoptee, and mental health advocate based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was born in Korea and relinquished into foster care at age three. He was then adopted in 1984 to a family in the United States. His private practice, Therapy Redeemed, specializes in the mental health needs of adoptees and their families wherever they may be in their own adoption journey. His work has been featured in Christianity Today, the National Council for Adoption, and the Center for Adoption Support and Education.

The Adoptee’s Journey: From Loss and Trauma to Healing and Empowerment is for the adult adoptee struggling with complex emotions and the practitioners that come alongside to support them. Cameron invites readers to see that every adoption is rooted in loss. Adoption is often framed by happy narratives, but the reality is that many adoptees struggle with unaddressed trauma and issues of identity and belonging. Adoptees often spend the majority of their youth without the language to explore the grief related to adoption or the permission to legitimize their conflicting emotions.

Adoptee and counselor Cameron Lee Small names the realities of the adoptee’s journey,
narrating his own and other adoptees’ stories in all their complexity. He unpacks the history of
how adoption has worked and names how the church influenced adoption practices with
unintended negative impacts on adoptees’ faith. Small’s own tumultuous search for and reunion
with his mother in Korea inspired him to help other adoptees navigate what it means to carry
multiple stories. His adoptee-centered advocacy helps adoptees regain their agency and identity
on a journey of integration and healing, with meaningful relationships in all their family systems.

{ Our humble thanks to IVP for their partnership in today’s devotional.}