The Shame That Isn’t Ours: Adoption, Vulnerability and Connection

How the silence around adoption can create shame, and how connection helps it heal.

For many adopted people, shame can live quietly inside us. Not because we have done anything wrong, but because somewhere along the way, we learned that parts of who we are might need to stay hidden.

Adoption has often been surrounded by silence and secrecy. Files sealed, stories half-told, questions quietly discouraged. Many of us grew up sensing there were things we were not meant to ask, and that some truths, including our own feelings, might be best left unspoken.

That kind of secrecy shapes us. It can teach us to manage other people’s comfort, to protect those around us from our curiosity or pain, and to keep what hurts most deeply tucked safely away.

Shame grows well in silence. And for adoptees, that silence can start early.

Carrying Shame That Was Never Ours

Shame is deeply relational. It does not come from nowhere. It develops when our need for connection meets misattunement, misunderstanding, or absence. When a baby loses the person they are wired to attach to, the loss cannot be understood as circumstance. It is felt in the body as I caused this.

Even though none of this is conscious, the nervous system learns, something about me must be wrong. That message can settle deep, shaping how we see ourselves and how we relate to others.

Many adoptees speak of growing up with a sense of being different or “other”, without knowing quite why. Some of this comes from misattunement — moments when our inner experience was not mirrored back accurately. Perhaps caregivers were loving but could not fully understand the intensity of our feelings. Or maybe we learned that strong emotion led to disconnection. In those early patterns, shame often finds a home.

The sense of secrecy is not only emotional, but also written into the world around us. For many adoptees, the truth of our beginnings was kept from us or locked away in records we could not access. When our stories are hidden, it reinforces the idea that we must be hidden too. The secrecy surrounding adoption becomes something we carry inside us, an unspoken lesson that some parts of us are best left unseen.

Often, we learn to carry shame as a form of protection. If we can just be good enough, maybe we will not be left again. These protective ways of coping can be incredibly strong, but their burden is heavy, and not truly ours to carry.

When Vulnerability Feels Unsafe

To be vulnerable means allowing ourselves to be seen. For many adoptees, that can feel like the most dangerous thing of all. Our earliest experiences may have taught us that showing need, anger, sadness, or longing could risk the connection we most needed.

Vulnerability asks for trust. But if trust was broken before we even had words, opening up can trigger old alarms. We might find ourselves withdrawing, people-pleasing, or putting up walls without meaning to. These are not signs of failure. They are signs of a nervous system doing its best to protect us.

Beneath these protective layers are often younger, tender parts of us that learned long ago that being open led to hurt. For adoptees, vulnerability can carry a double edge - the longing to be seen, and the fear of what might happen if we are.

The Healing Power of Connection

Therapy can offer something different - not a quick fix for shame, but a space where it can begin to soften. The relationship itself becomes the work.

To be met with care, especially in the moments you feel least deserving of it, can touch something deep inside. When another person stays with you in your truth rather than turning away, the body begins to learn that it’s safe to be seen. Bit by bit, the old tension of shame can start to ease. The parts of you that have worked so hard to keep you safe may begin to relax, allowing what’s been hidden to emerge into the light of connection.

Relational therapy invites this kind of meeting. It isn’t about being analysed or repaired, but about being understood, held, and gently witnessed. In that steady presence, a new message begins to take root, that you can be as you are and still belong.

As those hidden places are met with compassion instead of judgement, it becomes possible to see that the shame you’ve carried never truly belonged to you. It was shaped by loss, by secrecy, by the absence of someone who could hold what was too much to hold alone.

Turning Toward Ourselves with Compassion

Shame tells us we are alone. Connection helps us find our way back to others, and to ourselves.

If you notice shame or the urge to hide, try to meet it with curiosity. That reaction is not a flaw. It is a part of you that once learned hiding was safer than being seen. You do not need to force openness or push yourself into vulnerability before you are ready. Healing happens at the pace of safety.

Through connection, whether with a trusted therapist, with others who understand, or within ourselves, we begin to reclaim the right to exist without apology. We can learn to be seen not as someone to be fixed, but as someone worthy of care, just as we are.

And perhaps, with time, we find that what once felt unbearable to share becomes the bridge to belonging.

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I’ve written more about how this shows up in real life - particularly in the experience of receiving my adoption records.