Growing Up “Chosen”: An Adoptee’s Search for Truth and Healing
Lisa Chism’s story is one of identity, discovery, and the emotional complexities that many adoptees carry for a lifetime. In this excerpt adapted from her memoir The Adopted Nurse, Lisa shares the pivotal moments that changed her understanding of love, loss, and belonging.
Content Note: Brief reference to sexual violence
Growing up, I was told I was “chosen.” That word brought both comfort and pressure.
I felt grateful to have been adopted, and I worked hard to be the perfect daughter in return. Still, beneath the gratitude and perfection, I carried questions. Questions about where I came from, and about the woman who gave birth to me.
I remember as a young child standing in front of a closet in a room that was once my playroom as my mom pulled paperwork out of a shoe box. She told me my birth mom was “raped, but she knew the guy,” and that “she loved you so much, she gave you up so I could have a better life.”
Nancy Verrier discusses this concept in The Primal Wound. She cautions that this thread of thinking causes love to be equivalent to abandonment (Verrier, 1993). I will admit that at times, it's hard to think of love and being given up in the same context.
I do not blame my parents at all; but the notion that I spent my life working for relationships did not fully actualize for me until after I met my birth father and found myself in therapy. That was when I began to unravel the beliefs I had carried for decades—how adoption shaped my sense of worth, how it influenced the way I moved through the world, and how deeply it was tied to both my personal and professional identity.
“The notion that I spent my life working for relationships did not fully actualize for me until after I met my birth father and found myself in therapy”
I chose the title of my memoir “The Adopted Nurse” because I truly cannot separate the two. As a nurse practitioner, I understand the importance of knowing your family history. Everyday in my practice, I ask women that I am taking care of, “Is there any family history of breast cancer?” Often enough, they answer with concern laced across their face, “I don’t know, I’m adopted.” When this happens, I sit stunned for a minute. It’s as if we are sisters and part of the same club—the “I don’t know about my family history, I am adopted” club.
Around the time my daughter was 5, and after my adoptive mom had passed away, I began allowing the idea of searching for birth family to percolate. I told myself, and my adoptive dad, that it was merely a means to gain more family medical history for my daughter and myself. I made the first move by calling Catholic Social Services (formally Catholic Charities) and truly did not expect to get any information.
Soon after that first call, I learned my ethnic heritage. But the most impactful call came a few weeks later when the social worker responded, “Your birth aunt and grandmother consented to be found should you ever look”. I could not feel the ground. I was about to learn information I had been told all my life was “sealed.” I gasped and then asked, “What about my mother?” That was when I felt my world collapse; after wondering my whole life if she thought of me, why she gave me up, would she want to know me now, I was told something that truly made me feel broken. Without any warning, the social worker casually said, “Your mom died years ago when she was 26.”
“I could not feel the ground. I was about to learn information I had been told all my life was ‘sealed.’ I gasped and then asked, ‘What about my mother?’”
I care for women who are diagnosed with breast cancer and when I deliver this difficult news, I do so with care. The way the social worker so casually told me this with no warning left an everlasting impression on me. It also solidified my commitment to deliver life altering news in the most sensitive way I can.
I also learned my grandmother had passed the day I made the first phone call to Catholic Social Services. My birth mother’s family has shown me love and acceptance which did not prepare me for what would happen when I received a message from AncestryDNA from my birth father.
My daughter thought it would be “fun” to buy us all AncestryDNA kits for Christmas one year. I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into but one night, as her results came in, she sparked up and said, “Mom, who is this guy? I thought we knew all of our family?” It was a picture of a man in his 60-70s and had a high match for my daughter. My results then confirmed that this was my birth father.
I frequently counsel my patients about having genetic testing done to assess for a genetic mutation that increases their risk of breast cancer. I will often say “I understand if you do not want to know. Once you know, you cannot un-know.” I had no idea I would be faced with knowing this information. And now I could not un-know.
After a background check and several months of wondering if he saw the match or even cared, I received “The Message” that once again upended my world. It read, “Hello, it appears we have a close parental relationship on AncestryDNA. I would like to talk to you. If I do not hear from you, I understand.”
What happened over the next several months seemed a fairytale. But with every fairy tale, there is a hero and a villain. I did not know my birth father was an alcoholic. And his wife was not at all happy about my presence in their lives. Initially the love bombing from my birth father was intense and I was vulnerable. I found myself enraptured by his attention. But with that came the constant litany of his wife’s reaction. I was experiencing rejection by proxy and my emotions were in a tailspin.
“Initially the love bombing from my birth father was intense and I was vulnerable. I found myself enraptured by his attention.”
I began therapy and a journey of self-discovery I did not necessarily ask for. Now, five years later, I have finally processed what happened. I have ended contact with my birth father—well to be honest, he ended contact with me. The years he was in my life were some of the most painful I have ever experienced. When I finally learned how to put up boundaries in defense of the love bombing alternating with triangulation and manipulation between him and his wife, my birth father became more and more distant.
The journey toward healing began with courage to stand up for myself and end the abuse. It also took courage to realize I had been living in a fog since learning of my beginning. The wave of reality as I uncovered what adoption trauma means to me has resulted in a steep climb toward healing.
“The wave of reality as I uncovered what adoption trauma means to me has resulted in a steep climb toward healing. ”
I understand as a nurse, a woman, and an adoptee that for me to heal, I had to find compassion. Compassion for myself, my birth mom, and even my birth father. His life had been wrought with trauma growing up that likely impacted how he viewed the world and coped with his pain. It is through courage and compassion that I have found hope. Hope that I will continue to heal. Hope that the love and compassion I spread to others, will help them heal as well.
Lisa’s memoir has been described as “raw, intense, and deeply honest... a gift not just to adoptees, but to anyone seeking to understand the complexities of identity, loss, and healing.” If this glimpse into her journey moved you, we encourage you to read The Adopted Nurse in full.
