A Therapist Explains Why Adoptees Judge Themselves So Harshly
Long before an adoptee has the words to describe it, something in them may already be responding to loss. A licensed therapist says that response can follow a person for decades, surfacing later as anxiety, addiction, or a habit of judging themselves far more harshly than they would ever judge someone else.
In this episode of Voices of Adoption, host Donna Pope sits down with Alicia Divico, a licensed mental health counselor and certified addiction professional at Personal Wellness Solutions in Tampa, Florida. Alicia has spent years treating adults for trauma, anxiety, and addiction, and has come to see a pattern that rarely gets named directly, that adoption related loss can resurface far later in life, in forms no one thinks to connect back to it.
Attachment Begins Long Before Birth
Alicia explains that a baby can recognize the voices of the people around them before birth, which means some form of attachment may already be forming in utero. When that baby's first experience is separation from everything familiar, it can register as trauma before the child has any language for what happened. Not everyone carries that early rupture the same way, Alicia notes, just as not everyone who experiences a traumatic event develops PTSD.
The Loss No One Names Right Away
As adoptees grow older, that early loss often resurfaces as questions of identity. Alicia describes clients raised by a family of a different ethnicity than their birth family, left navigating where they belong and where they fit. Genetics complicate the picture further, since adoptees carry inherited family patterns and generational history that may look nothing like the family raising them.
Trauma Awareness Can Become Its Own Trap
Donna names a pattern she has watched play out across the adoption community. People often move from being unaware of adoption related trauma, to trauma aware, and eventually risk becoming trauma obsessed, where trauma becomes the only lens left to see through. Alicia agrees, and says the first step out is recognizing that the obsession itself has become the problem. From there, she encourages a shift away from dwelling on how someone arrived at a struggle, and toward asking what they need in order to live through it.
Why Love Alone Cannot Replace A Boundary
Alicia is direct about a limit many adoptive parents resist. A parent cannot control another adult, and love and compassion cannot substitute for an actual boundary. She describes boundaries that flex with a parent's own capacity, whether that means limiting financial support, stepping back from unsafe situations, or simply changing how and when she is emotionally available. Setting a boundary, she notes, can start small and tighten gradually over time as a relationship changes.
Community Is Not Something One Person Can Give
Alicia tells Donna plainly that an adoptive parent cannot provide their child's whole sense of community alone, no matter how much they love them. She points to professional support through a directory like Psychology Today, along with recovery communities such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Celebrate Recovery, and SMART Recovery, depending on what a person's belief system and needs call for. Alicia also points to something less clinical, the intentional rituals and gatherings that give people a sense of belonging, the same kind of community that research on the happiest countries in the world consistently points back to.
Understanding Your Story Changes How You Judge Yourself
Toward the end of the conversation, Alicia offers the idea that gives this episode its title. She explains that people tend to defend their own choices instantly while judging someone else harshly for the exact same thing, simply because they understand their own story and not the other person's. The same principle, she says, applies to adoptees examining their own history. Understanding where a feeling or a pattern comes from does not excuse it, but it does make it easier to meet with patience instead of judgment, for adoptees and the families raising them alike.
Every conversation on Voices of Adoption shows a different piece of what adoption asks of the people living it, and this one is a reminder that self understanding is not a small thing to chase. No matter where you are in your journey, you'll find people who understand.
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