Out of a small group of adoptees who were adopted from Sri Lanka to NSW, Australia:
3 have committed suicide
3 have had a few failed suicide attempts
3 have a history of self-harming
2 have been in Jail
Many experience mental and emotional distress
These are only the cases that I know of but this should be ringing alarm bells!
Often adoptees seem perfectly happy, we are great at hiding our pain. There are some adoptees who claim they are completely unaffected by their adoptions. But sometimes a traumatic event can trigger a reaction that affects them in a way it would a non-adopted person. We are taught to be grateful for losing our families. We are expected to fit in and ignore our past. We usually have no idea that a lot of our responses to trauma stem from adoption. Why would we think that adoption could be the cause of so many of our problems when it only brings positivity?
These are the things we need to be talking about.
Linzi Ibrahim
