In adoption circles, it’s known as “coming out of the fog”. “What that means,” says Claire Moruzzi, 42, a copywriter from London, “is the realisation that you were affected by being adopted. The accepted narrative is that adoption is a positive thing, and you didn’t lose anything, only gained.”
The process is different for everyone, she says, but often it happens after adopted people become parents themselves. This was the case for Moruzzi, who was adopted at two weeks old. She came out of the fog in 2013, when she gave birth to her son. “I didn’t understand why I felt so sad when I had my baby,” she says. She developed postnatal depression, and her GP referred her for counselling.
