“Adoption awareness is a moment of sudden realization and insight—an epiphany. Adults who discover that they were adopted may experience a wide range of emotions, including betrayal, abandonment, despair, and an inability to trust those who kept the secret from them.” Judith Land
Richard was fifty-five years old when his mother told him he was adopted—shocking. She was ill and casually mentioned the subject shortly before she died.
When Richard learned he was adopted, tears welled up in his eyes. It was an emotional awakening that aroused intense feelings of rejection, mystery, curiosity, and disbelief. He daydreamed of standing in the middle of a battlefield. This moment was his epiphany, a sudden intuitive insight into reality, followed by self-doubt.
His adoptive parents were dark-haired and French, but according to his mother, his original parents were Swedish, which explained why his children were tall, light-haired, and fair-skinned.
Richard was grateful a good family adopted him, but learning that he was adopted was emotionally traumatic, causing him to feel a sense of rejection, relinquishment trauma, grief, curiosity, and loss of his true identity.
“Why didn’t they keep me? Why did you keep this secret from me for so long?” he wondered. Questions his mother never answered.
Judith Land
Adoption Detective: Memoir of an Adopted Child 
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