When I say I understand what it’s like to feel like a stranger in your own story, I’m not saying it from a textbook. I’m saying it because I lived it.

I was adopted. I went through the anger, the numbness, the “good child” mask that quietly eroded my sense of self. I lived the tension of being grateful and resentful at the same time. Of feeling chosen… and yet somehow still unwanted.

And I clawed my way through it — slowly, painfully, imperfectly — until I started to feel like me again.
Then something unexpected happened.

I met my younger brother — also adopted. Different family. Different upbringing. But when I looked in his eyes, I saw it all over again. The resentment. The confusion. The hidden grief.

Only this time, I wasn’t the one drowning. I was the one who had made it to shore — and I knew how to throw a bit of rope.

This guide was born from that moment.
It’s not theory. It’s not repackaged Instagram therapy. And it’s definitely not written from a pedestal.

It’s lived experience — organized, distilled, and offered to you with open hands.

Because if even one adoptee can feel less alone, more whole, and more powerful in their healing after reading this…

Then every page was worth it.

— Jade