People Who Make a Difference: The Woman Who Created a Community for Other Adoptees

In adoption circles, it's called "coming out of the fog." "What this means," says Claire Moruzzi, 42, a writer in London, "is the realization that you have beenaffected by your adoption. The accepted narrative is that adoption is a positive thing, and you haven't lost anything, only gained."

The process is different for everyone, she says, but often happens after adopted people become parents themselves. This was the case of Moruzzi, who was adopted at the age of two weeks. She emerged from the fog in 2013, when she gave birth to her son. "I did not understand not why I felt so sad when I had my baby," she says. She developed postnatal depression and her GP referred her for counseling.

"I suspected it was partly because I hadn't dealt with my feelings about the adoption," Moruzzi says. "Before I had the baby, I had never really examined how I felt." The feelings intensified when she had her daughter in 2015. "I realized I was part of a line of women," Moruzzi says, "and I didn't know anything 'they."

Moruzzi searched unsuccessfully for resources for adult adoptees, so created How To Be Adopted, a website providing a community of support for adult adoptees, where posters share advice and experiences.

Moruzzi also runs a monthly support group in North London. "It's a place," she says, "where you can share things without always having to say, 'I love my family and I'm happy,' or explain why you might be curious about meeting someone." one that looks like you, or find out more about your grandmothers.

"Claire has worked selflessly to support hundreds of adoptees," says fellow volunteer Gilli Bruce. "I joined her a few years ago, adding a few small contributions, but Claire did all the donkey work and went unrecognized for too long."

Adopted adults, says Moruzzi, often “struggling with relationships, friendships and reunions. People reach out to their biological parents and become cold and ghostly. Adult adoptees may struggle with addiction, people-pleasure, or identity. When talking about being adopted by others, the questioning can be insensitive: “People say, 'Why are you bothering? You have your family. Why do you need to dig up the past? »

Now that ancestry testing is so popular, Moruzzi finds it mind-boggling. Adoptees “have to pretend that biology doesn't matter to us. Other people can go to Ancestry.com and do their family tree. Why ...