“Do I belong here in the Netherlands? And what would it have been like if I had stayed in South Korea? ” Soorien Zeldenrust from Zwolle has these questions in her stomach. When she was three months old, she was adopted from the Asian country. “A lot of people around me said, 'You should be grateful, you are kind of saved.' Many people see adoption as a kind of fairytale, but I just didn't have that. ” Now, as an adoption coach, Soorien helps people with the same experience as her.
She has no memories of South Korea when she came to the Netherlands. Logical, because Soorien was only three months old when she arrived at Schiphol. Her adoptive parents picked her up. “The only thing that knows is that my body does have memories. I don't have an image, but I do have a feeling ”, she says.
Love sickness
Soorien, now 34 years old, does not feel completely understood. Despite having a good time with her adoptive parents, she feels pain and sadness. “I sometimes compare it to a serious heartbreak or when you lose someone. The advantage of that is that you know the one, but I don't know the one I lost. It hurts me a lot. You experience that pain in your body. I cannot trace who I miss or where exactly the feeling comes from. ”
Soorien thinks the feeling is mainly caused by her adoption at a young age. “It has also been proven that children have a great need for safety from their parents, especially during the first few months and years. I never had that safety at a young age. I was taken away from my mother after about ten days. As a result, my body went into a certain survival mode, ”she says. When she was three months old, she arrived in the Netherlands.