Adopted and Seen: Your Personal Guide and Journal
Available on Amazon
My book serves as both guide and personal journal, offering understanding of the adopted experience alongside space for your own reflections. In the act of reflecting, you begin not only to make sense of your story but also to open space for healing. Each chapter examines a different facet of adoption, bringing together psychological insights with lived realities that many of us have never acknowledged as part of our shared story. In recognising them, we gently restore parts of ourselves that were hidden.
You Are Not Alone in This
If you've ever felt like something was missing, like you were carrying invisible weight, or struggling to make sense of patterns in your life that others don't seem to understand, you're not alone. As an adopted person and qualified therapist, I understand the unique landscape of adoption that shapes who we are.
The Unseen Impact of Adoption
Adoption touches every part of our lives, yet so much of its impact remains unspoken and unrecognised. Understanding how our earliest experiences of separation and loss create ripples throughout our lives, affecting our relationships, our sense of self, and how we navigate life brings a sense of understanding and clarity, and with that clarity, the possibility of healing begins to take root.
You might recognise some of these experiences:
- Feeling different, even when you can't explain why
- Struggling with attachment and relationships and seeing repeating patterns
- A persistent sense of not quite belonging
- Hypervigilance or people-pleasing tendencies
- Difficulty trusting or fear of abandonment
- Questions about identity that go deeper than family history
Finally, We Can Be Seen
You'll discover familiar yet previously unnamed feelings. In these pages you can begin to understand not just the impact of that separation but how it continues to influence who you are today. The format allows you to engage as deeply or as lightly as feels right for you.
I hope you find validation in these pages, along with a stronger sense of belonging and the beginnings of healing. This is the first step to living with inner freedom.
Written by Lara Leon, an adopted person and qualified psychotherapist, this work draws on both lived experience and years of supporting adopted clients.
What are readers saying?
"Gives us a voice and creates a safe space to step out of the shadows, even when the topics are difficult to face."
"This book doesn't just guide you; it invites you to reflect deeply"
Purchase here for £16.99 on Amazon
How This Book Was Born
This book is the culmination of my own decades of struggles as an adopted person and my years of work as a therapist with adopted clients. It addresses questions I've wrestled with personally and heard repeatedly in my practice and at the gatherings I've hosted for adopted people.
Most of us have spent years trying to be what others expected: grateful, easy going, high functioning. Meanwhile, we carried unexpressed, buried feelings of confusion, grief, anger, and guilt and unresolved trauma. I understand how lonely this can be, because most people don't recognise or know how to respond to adoption-related struggles.
As a confused, young adopted person, I wish I'd had a guide to understanding myself. I know it would have changed everything - how I saw myself and how I understood the emotions and behaviours I struggled with that no one around me could make sense of. My goal is simple: to offer other adopted people the validation, understanding and relief I spent years searching for.
For Those Supporting Adoptees
To the therapists and support professionals who recognise that our stories run deeper than what appears on the surface, this book is for you too. Within these pages, you'll find language for experiences that may have been difficult to name and a resource that bridges understanding between you and those you support.