I am adopted. I am a birth mother and also a mother through adoption. I have lived through all ‘three faces’ of adoption and know how each ‘face’ affects millions of people's lives all over the world. I am passionate that conversations around adoption need to come out of the closet and the secrecy surrounding the subject must disappear. By writing my books, I am on a mission to support adoptees, birth mothers, and adoptive parents and help them realise they are not alone. After publication of my first book in the Survival Without Roots trilogy, I am humbled that people are reaching out to say that reading Book One has helped them so much.
As an adoptee, a birth mother, and an adoptive parent, Anna Anderson tells her story with compassion, humility, and grace arising from her first-hand experience of all ‘three faces’ of adoption.
Book One, set in the ‘50s and ‘60s, captures her first eighteen years after being adopted as a baby and transported to a new life in a North Yorkshire market town. Anna grows up as an only child and an ‘imperfect fit’ for the ‘Mum’ who raised her. She's engulfed by constant criticism, control, and complete withdrawal of love. Perfection is paramount in her Mum's eyes and displaying emotions is forbidden. Join her as she careers along the rocky road of life choices towards devastating consequences. Will she survive her upbringing and the grief and loss encountered along the way?
Fiona leaves no stone unturned as she describes the journey of her years dabbling with drugs and alcohol brought on by the trauma of growing up adopted. Fiona shows a true spirit of determination to fight through her adoption traumas of rejection and abandonment. I wondered all the way through this book whether she would succeed or if her experiences would eventually be too much for one person to bear.
The true-life story of Fiona who always felt displaced, a girl looking for belonging and security. This is Me No Darkness Too Deep, explores the ups and downs when as a young woman she roller-coasted, travelling from city to city and meeting trouble at every stop. Fiona spent many years in the depths of dark and desolate places, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. She was beaten, she slept rough and was used and abused and endured the horrors of rape. Carrying the weight of being an adoptee meant that she struggled through abandonment and rejection issues.
As a follow-on from her first book, Fiona tells us of her never-ending search for love and affection and the difficulties in forging relationships. I was rooting for her to have a happy ending. If you have read This is Me: No Darkness Too Deep, then you must read this second book in Fiona's trilogy to see where her adoptee journey takes her. It's not the ending I expected!
Fiona Myles author of This is me – No Darkness to Deep presents her second book This Is Me – I’m Adopted a true-life autobiography. Fiona was adopted at 8 months old. From the age of 6 when her first real memory of being told she was adopted registered, she started to feel different. Always being reassured she was special, chosen and wanted seemed to just enhance that feeling of not being the same as her brother and sister. Emotionally the struggle was intense as instead of being able to speak about how she was…
I recommend this book as it explains what to take into consideration when trying to understand the adopted child. I am adopted and did not realise that a lot of the lifelong trauma I have felt was related to adoption. It is a must-read for adopted people, adoptive families, birth parents, and adoption professionals.
The Primal Wound is a seminal work which revolutionizes the way we think about adoption. It describes and clarifies the effects of separating babies from their birth mothers as a primal loss which affects the relationships of the adopted person throughout life.. It is a book about pre-and perinatal psychology, attachment, bonding, and loss. It gives adoptees, whose pain has long been unacknowledged or misunderstood, validation for their feelings, as well as explanations for their behavior. It lists the coping mechanisms which adoptees use to be able to attach and live in a family to whom they are not related…
Communication through letters is a lovely way to be able to say what you feel to all those in Gaynor’s life who shunned her, loved her, and abandoned her. She never met some of the recipients, but the feelings and emotions as an adoptee have remained lodged in her memory for years. Her book unearths them and unleashes them through the power of the written word. Gaynor does not hold back and writes her letters with an honesty and a rawness that is touching.
It is the 1960s; a sixteen-year-old girl is in a mother and baby home; her heart is breaking as she prepares to give up her baby for adoption.
Shunned by society, she has no choice.
That baby was me.
Join me on my life’s journey through the letters I have written to everyone who has shared my unique story. Follow me as I find the courage to share this story, from my birth to my unhappy adoption to getting married and becoming a mum and granny.
Learn how I took control of my life after disassociating myself from my past,…
This book kickstarts a conversation around adoption at a child’s level. Whether adopted or not, the child will begin to ask questions and find out more after listening to/reading this book. Written around two characters – a duck and a goose – it is invaluable for parents, teachers, and children. Professionals working in the field of adoption will find this book a useful resource as it deals with many difficult and emotive ‘adoption’ questions through the power of a story and beautiful illustrations too.
This listing is for the original award-winning edition of Delly Duck, featuring one duckling. For twins/sibling groups, please click on the author's name or series title, and select the "Sibling Group Edition."
Created by Holly Marlow (adoptive and biological parent, and author of Room in the Nest, Adopting a Little Brother or Sister, So You've Adopted a Siblingand Cousins by Adoption) and her sister, Suzy Garland.
When Delly Duck lays an egg, she is excited for it to hatch. But she doesn’t really know how to keep an egg safe, or how to look after her chick when he hatches.…
As a trauma therapist and dedicated researcher, I love uncovering valuable insights within lesser-known books. There are hidden gems, free from the pressure of commercial success, crafted by authors deeply committed to research, understanding, and the art of writing itself. Their dedication resonates with me, as I believe in the profound value of information and the power of critical thinking. Through my own book, Traumatization and Its Aftermath, I aim to emphasize that psychological concepts often lose their depth in translation and my mission is spreading awareness and fostering a deeper understanding of trauma and its intricate facets. With that idea in mind, I chose these five titles.
A fresh take on the difference between trauma and hardship in order to help accurately spot the difference and avoid over-generalizations.
The book integrates the latest findings in brain science, child development, psycho-social context, theory, and clinical experiences to make the case that trauma is much more than a cluster of symptoms to be tamed, but instead best understood as development gone off course, away from growth and towards (only) survival.
This book prompts a profound shift in perception, inviting to view trauma as an intricate and diverse experience, a point of view that ultimately leads to sharper treatment and, hopefully, more healing. It encourages a transition from asking, "What happened to you?" to the deeper question, "What is your relationship with what happened to you?"
Traumatization and Its Aftermath: A Systemic Approach to Understanding and Treating Trauma Disorders
The book is comprehensive, bold, and practical-a much-needed resource for the assessment and treatment of trauma. Instead of the traditional focus on the overall importance of healing, Traumatization and its Aftermath decodes why some people don't heal as easily as others, analyzes the various failures of diagnosis, and explains how to make therapeutic interventions truly effective.
This book offers a systemic deep dive into traumatization that clarifies myths and misinformation about the entire spectrum of trauma and provides both clinicians and non-clinicians with the right level of validation, preventive measures, conceptualization methodology, assessment tools, and healing facts that have not…
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