I'm Denise, and this is my story.
I always thought I was resilient. Capable, organised, keeping everything running like so many women do - my boys, my mum, my clients, my home. Even after my 20 year relationship ended, I kept things going. Trying to protect my boys from the fallout, being Dad as well as Mum.
But I was exhausted. It’s all very well saying self care isn’t selfish, but who’s got time for that when everything falls to you? Making all the decisions, juggling work, home, an elderly parent, a dog, and teen boys who needed me just as much as when they were small. Still I kept going. What else could I do?
Overwhelmed and angry, and going through the motions, I kept coming back to the same questions - what about me? Who am I really, and what do I want now?
Later, I can see myself clearly, sitting on a park bench, hearing news that broke me - my heart smashed to pieces, barely able to breathe, wondering if my legs would carry me home. What flooded in at that moment wasn't just grief about the relationship and his new family. It was older than that. Much older.
I was adopted at birth. I'd always known, I'd always thought I was fine with it. But I wasn't.
The relationship breakdown triggered every fear I'd ever had - rejection, abandonment, not being enough, not being wanted. Fears so deep, because they'd been there since before I had words for them.
What I’d called resilience was actually my nervous system running on high alert for decades. Stuck in a state of chronic over-activation, my body trapped in survival mode, constantly scanning for threats even when I was completely safe.
It became blindingly clear I had a lot of work to do to heal a wound I’d been carrying all along. I started seeing the patterns it had led to in my relationships with life, other people, and myself - the imposter feelings, the low self-esteem, craving connection as I pushed it away, and the persistent feeling I just didn’t belong. The sense that something was fundamentally wrong with me.
It’s hard to learn to prioritise yourself in midlife when you’ve spent a lifetime being conditioned by the invisible rules girls and women are expected to live by. We’re told it's selfish to want anything for ourselves; too old, too late, just be grateful for what you have. Even if you’re starting to realise you don’t really want it any more.
It’s a time when women begin to wonder - when is it my turn? When do I get to do what I want instead of fitting myself around everyone else?
My situation was the perfect storm of waking up from a decades-long slumber that had me putting everyone else’s needs before mine, and the surfacing of an adoption wound - created the moment I was born - which I’d been carrying my entire life without even knowing.
I needed help, I couldn’t get through this alone.
To find answers, I had to look beyond traditional talk therapy. My healing led me deep into somatic work and understanding how the body stores what the mind cannot cognitively process. I started to see how deeply my adoption had shaped me. And how much of what I'd called my personality was actually a lifelong survival response.
I'm not the same woman I was on that park bench, I'm a long way from there. I still have hard days, the work goes on. But I know who I am now in a way I never did before. I know what I want. I know how to feel difficult emotions instead of managing them, numbing them, or performing my way past them.
As an adoptee, I intimately understand the hidden weight of the separation wound. But because that alone isn't enough to safely navigate complex nervous system patterns, I back my personal insight with professional coaching credentials and advanced training in Integrated Somatic Psychology (ISP).
What about you?
You might be a woman in her 40s or 50s who’s looking for more from life, or going through a significant life
change like divorce, career pivot, or kids leaving home. Perhaps you were adopted as a baby and
are beginning to see just how much that cost. Maybe, like me, you’re both. Fancy a chat?
