Adoptees Who Understand Their Story Judge Themselves Less (with Alicia Divico)
Alicia Divico, a licensed mental health counselor and certified addiction professional in Tampa, Florida, has spent years watching one connection most families never make, that adoption related loss can resurface years later as anxiety, identity struggles, or addiction. In this episode of Voices of Adoption, host Donna Pope asks Alicia Divico of Personal Wellness Solutions the questions many adoptive parents are afraid to ask out loud, including her own, since Donna is also navigating her adult son's ongoing struggle with substance use.
Loss Can Start Before Anyone Has Words For It
Alicia explains that attachment can begin before birth, since babies recognize the voices of the people around them in utero. When a baby's first experience is separation from that environment, it can register as trauma before a child has any words for it. That early rupture often resurfaces later as questions of identity, especially for adoptees raised apart from their birth family's culture or history.
Trauma Awareness Can Become Its Own Trap
Donna names a pattern she sees across the adoption community, where people move from being unaware of adoption related trauma, to trauma aware, to trauma obsessed. Alicia agrees, and says the way out starts with recognizing that the obsession itself has become the problem. From there, she encourages clients to shift the question from how they got here to what they need now.
Boundaries Are Part Of Loving Someone Well
Alicia is direct about a limit many adoptive parents resist, that love alone cannot substitute for a boundary, and a parent cannot be their child's entire community. She walks through what that looks like in practice, from limiting financial support to changing how and when she is emotionally available. Donna, speaking from her own experience as an adoptive mother, reflects on how hard that balance is between staying present and enabling.
Listen to Alicia Divico's full conversation with Donna Pope on Voices of Adoption and learn why understanding your story changes how you judge yourself.
Hear what a therapist wants every adoptive family to know about loss, boundaries, and healing.
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