#8 Breaking the Cycle of Existential Denial
The truth will not disappear just because others refuse to see it.
Adoption is a system built on erasure — the erasure of origins, history, and identity. But what sustains it is not just the initial severance. What keeps it intact, generation after generation, is denial.
Denial that adoption is rooted in loss.
Denial that adoptees carry an unspoken grief.
Denial that the system itself is built to erase, not restore.
To break the cycle of adoption’s existential denial, we must first name it for what it is: a refusal to confront the consequences of severance.
The Mechanics of Denial:
How the Cycle Persists
Adoption does not just take a child from one family and place them into another. It rewrites reality — for the adoptee, for the first family, and for society at large. And to sustain this illusion, denial must be enforced at every level.
🔹 Sealed Records & The Erasure of Truth
- Adoptees are legally denied access to their original birth certificates, medical history, and ancestry.
- Courts and agencies uphold secrecy under the false pretence of protection.
- First families are often told to disappear, reinforcing the belief that they no longer exist.
🔹 Forced Gratitude & The Silencing of Grief
- Adoptees are expected to be “grateful” for their new lives, with no space to mourn the one they lost.
- Expressions of loss are met with defensiveness, guilt-tripping, or outright rejection.
- Society frames adoption as a rescue mission, making adoptees feel selfish for questioning it.
🔹 Pathologizing the Adoptee Experience
- When adoptees struggle with identity, depression, or abandonment trauma, the issue is framed as a personal defect rather than a systemic consequence of severance.
- Adoption-related trauma is rarely acknowledged in mental health discourse, leaving adoptees to navigate their grief alone.
This is how the cycle is sustained: denial at the legal level, denial at the emotional level, and denial at the societal level.
The Toll of Denial:
What It Does to Adoptees
The cost of existential denial is paid by adoptees.
🔹 Identity Confusion — Who am I if my past has been erased? If my name, family, and history were changed by law, what is real?
🔹 Deep-Rooted Isolation — Without acknowledgment of severance, adoptees are left to grieve losses no one else will admit exist.
🔹 Anger Without Validation — The adoptee who pushes back against the adoption narrative is labeled “angry,” “bitter,” or “damaged.”
🔹 Estrangement as a Form of Survival — Many adoptees go no-contact with adoptive or biological families because the weight of denial is too great to bear.
To live in adoption’s denial is to live in a world where your pain is invisible.
Breaking the Cycle:
What It Takes to End Existential Denial
To break this cycle, adoptees must first reclaim what was denied to them. And for that to happen, society must be forced to see what it refuses to acknowledge.
🔹 Adoptee-Led Truth Telling — The dominant adoption narrative must be rewritten by those who have lived it.
🔹 Legal Recognition of Identity Rights — Every adoptee should have access to their original records, names, and histories.
🔹 The End of Forced Gratitude — Adoption should be recognized as a system of loss, not a fairytale.
🔹 Support for Adoptee Mental Health — Adoption trauma must be acknowledged as a legitimate and lasting impact of severance.
Ending existential denial means tearing down the illusion that adoption is only gain, that adoptees do not suffer, that identity does not matter.
The Cost of Breaking the Cycle
Make no mistake — breaking this cycle comes at a cost.
- Adoptees who speak out will be dismissed, attacked, and gaslit.
- Adoptive families will resist change, unwilling to confront their own complicity.
- The system will fight back, because secrecy and silence are what sustain it.
But the alternative? Another generation of adoptees forced to live inside a lie.
The cycle ends when we refuse to comply.
No More Denial — Only Truth
The world will tell adoptees that their pain isn’t real, that their questions are betrayal, that their stories don’t matter.
But the truth will not disappear just because others refuse to see it.
Denial is what sustains the system.
Breaking that denial is what will end it.
Hello, my name is Shane Bouel,
I’m a retired, qualified designer, lecturer & e-learning specialist seeking true connection.
I am an adoptee of forced adoption, living in Bali — a place that, like me, holds the weight of displacement and the echoes of histories rewritten. My journey is one of systematic erasure, existential severance, and, ultimately, reclamation.
Adoption is often seen as an act of love, a new beginning, a gift. But beneath that narrative lies a deeper, often unspoken truth — one of loss, identity fracture, and the struggle to exist in a world that does not recognise what has been taken.
I have spent years unravelling my own story, uncovering what was erased, and reclaiming the self that was meant to disappear. It has been a journey through grief, awakening, and profound transformation. And now, I invite you to walk that path with me.
From here, we embark on a journey together.
