this loss doesn’t come with flowers
Adoption-related grief is something both adoptees and society often struggle to fully recognize and understand. Because adoption is so frequently framed as a positive experience, conversations about grief and loss are often minimized or unrecognized. As a result, adoptees grow up questioning their own feelings, unsure if they are “allowed” to grieve experiences that they may also feel grateful for.
This is part of what makes adoption-related grief so complex. It often exists quietly, without acknowledgment, validation, or space to openly talk about what was lost.
There is a term for this experience: disenfranchised grief.
what is disenfranchised grief?
The term “disenfranchised grief,” coined by Dr. Kenneth Doka, refers to grief that is not openly recognized, validated, or supported by society. It is the type of grief that exists without acknowledgment, understanding, or space to openly mourn.
Unlike grief that is publicly recognized through funerals, rituals, sympathy, or communal support, disenfranchised grief is often questioned or ignored altogether. As a result, people experiencing it may struggle to even recognize their feelings as grief in the first place.
For adoptees, this can be especially complicated because adoption is so often framed entirely as a positive experience. When adoption is only discussed in terms of gain, there is little room left to acknowledge the losses that came before it.
the losses in adoption
Adoptees grieve people, relationships, experiences, and parts of themselves connected to the separation from their biological family. This grief can exist whether an adoption is closed or open. Maintaining contact with biological family does not erase the loss of being raised apart from them or the emotional complexity that can come with navigating multiple families and identities.
For many adoptees, grief is not always tied to one specific loss, but to the ongoing experience of separation, disconnection, and unanswered questions surrounding identity, family, and belonging. Even when adoption is loving or open, there can still be grief connected to growing up separated from biological family, personal history, or parts of oneself that feel difficult to fully access or understand.For transracial or international adoptees, grief may also involve disconnection from culture, race, language, or community.
And for many adoptees, the grief itself can feel difficult to define because it is tied not only to what was lost, but also to what never had the opportunity to fully develop in the first place.
disenfranchised grief in adoption
Disenfranchised grief does not always look like grief in the way people expect it to. Because adoption-related loss is so rarely acknowledged, many adoptees grow up disconnecting from or minimizing their own emotions without realizing it.
Instead of openly grieving, adoptees may dismiss their feelings, avoid difficult conversations, intellectualize their experiences, or convince themselves they should not be affected at all. Over time, unresolved grief can surface indirectly through anxiety, emotional numbness, perfectionism, relationship struggles, identity confusion, feelings of emptiness, or a lingering sense that something feels “off” but difficult to explain. And sometimes, the grief becomes so normalized that it simply becomes part of how adoptees move through relationships and the world around them.
Even acknowledging grief can feel uncomfortable because society treats grief and gratitude as opposites. Having language for disenfranchised grief can help adoptees make sense of emotions that previously felt confusing, isolating, or difficult to explain. Grief that is acknowledged has the opportunity to be processed but grief that remains silenced continues to surface in other ways.
