Luda Merino was born in Kochenevo, Russia, on March 27, 2001. The first months of her life were spent alone in the hospital, and then she was in an orphanage. At three years old, her Spanish mother adopted her. Since then he has lived in Madrid. She has long been dedicated to spreading the word about the early trauma of adopted people. First he did it on social networks and the media, and now he has just published an autobiographical book, You wouldn’t understand (Penguin, 2024).
Throughout the interview, via videoconference from her home, she shows memories and photographs that she keeps of her entire adoption process: a model of the noisy plane in which she traveled from Russia, the books that her mother bought to make it as good as possible. and photographs that show significant moments in her life, such as her arrival in Spain with a scared face surrounded by family. “Everyone wanted to meet me as soon as I arrived and I didn’t understand anything,” he jokes.
The reason for writing the book, as stated in the first pages, was the need to find first-person accounts about adoption. Why hasn’t something like this been written until now?
When I was little and a teenager, my mother had some pretty good books on adoption, written by psychologists and experts on the subject, which gave a series of advice on how to act with your adopted children. But I wasn’t looking for a guide for parents on what to do with an adopted child, because the child was me. So I always went to look for those parts in which the boys and girls were given a voice, and that was how I began to understand what was happening to me. When I reached adolescence I needed more answers, to find people like me with whom I could identify, and there weren’t any at that time. That’s why I decided to write what I would have liked to read when I was 15 years old.
Do we need to listen to the boys and girls who have been adopted? Is it a story yet to be created?
Fortunately, this is beginning to change, because the boom adoption in Spain occurred between 1995 and 2005, so now those children have grown up and are beginning to tell their experiences. The most beautiful thing that is happening to me with the book is that adopted people, or people who have adopted boys and girls, are writing to me, telling me that thanks to my story they are understanding things about their own lives.
Her mother writes in the letter that closes the book: “I say your book because you are the protagonist, although I am an important part of your story.” Should we change the adult-centric focus to think about adoption as a measure to protect children, and not as a way to fulfill the desire for motherhood or fatherhood?
In fact, this is already the case, adoption already works as a measure of protection for children, what is more difficult is for society to change the way it understands it. Some parents who want to adopt do so for a selfish reason, because they want to be parents. I’m not judging it or saying it’s necessarily bad, but it is and it shouldn’t be. Boys and girls have the right to have a family, the Convention on the Rights of the Child says, and the State has to give them a family. The protagonists in the entire process should be the boys and girls, not the parents.
In 2022 a Twitter thread his on the dissociation of pain after adoption. She explained that she never cried when she was little, and that this was a consequence of her cries not having been attended to in her early years. Was that one of the seeds of the book?
I published that thread as a way to tell a curiosity, but I never calculated the impact it would have, with five million views and dozens of comments. It was crazy. As a result of that, many media outlets called me and the subject began to be talked about. In fact, I didn’t even know that what was happening to me had a name, it’s called pain dissociation, and in fact before that thread I had only found one article that was where I found out the name of what was happening to me. Many people wrote to me, I especially remember the family of an adopted baby who had gotten stuck against a lamp, was burned badly and was not crying. In my case, my mother checked me every day in the shower to see if I had hurt myself because I never complained. Thank goodness I didn’t have appendicitis, because that’s where I stayed…
What does this pain dissociation consist of?
Dissociation is a disconnection of the brain from what is happening outside or in your own body. There are many variants, the one I had is pain dissociation, which consists of blocking physical pain, sometimes emotional pain, and also other discomforts such as cold or fatigue. When a baby cries and no one attends to him, he eventually stops crying because he learns that it is of no use to him. Your brain switches off when you feel pain.
The first block of the book is dedicated to trauma, especially fear of abandonment, dissociation and attachment. What does the famous “backpack” that adopted people carry consist of? Is it always loaded with bad things?
Not necessarily. For example, that pain dissociation we were talking about is dangerous when you don’t know you have it, because you could be burning or have a broken leg and not realize it. But when you know it, you learn to use it to your advantage. For example, in school, in Physical Education, I always got the best grades in stress tests because I was able to disconnect from fatigue and pain when I needed it. Another thing that I have taken advantage of is the fact that I am not able to fix my gaze, because I did not learn it. Babies learn to stare by imitating their parents or attachment figures, and since I didn’t have them, when they spoke to me I looked away or even turned on my back. So I became a very observant girl, because I was always looking at the environment, and that, for example, has been very good for me when drawing. Since I have other shitty things, like abandonment trauma, I try to take advantage of other “weird” things I have that aren’t necessarily bad.
That abandonment trauma comes from before the adoption process, and you always clarify it. Why are adopted people afraid of being abandoned again?
It is something completely irrational. You know that your mother (the adoptive one), your family and your friends are not going to leave you, but your head believes that it can happen to you again because it already happened. I always clarify that my traumas do not come from the adoption process itself, but from before, from the fact that my biological mother abandoned me as soon as I was born and from my first years in the hospital and the orphanage. The only traumatic thing about the adoption process itself is that the child is separated from everything he or she knows. I have an anecdote from when I came from Russia, which is when my mother put me on a super-noisy plane –to this day I know that it is one of the ones that makes the most noise, and that it moves a lot–, and also without speaking Russian, That was the only thing I understood, I gave him a hell of a time… he couldn’t stop crying and screaming. I had to be reassured by a Russian-speaking passenger so we could take off.
Another chapter is dedicated to the myths that exist about the adoption process. That it is expensive, that a biological child is loved more than an adopted one, that children can be returned… Which are the most harmful and most urgent to banish?
Without a doubt, that adopted children can be returned, because it connects with that fear of abandonment. It happened to me when I was little, and it is something that I have already forgiven my mother. I was seven or eight years old and I had one of my tantrums. I made such a mess that my mother didn’t know what to do. She has always been very knowledgeable, but situations often overwhelmed her. So he grabbed the landline phone in the living room and told me: “Luda, I’m going to call Russia and get back to you right now.” I believed it, of course, and I started crying. She noticed and immediately apologized; Years later he learned that it is a phrase that should never be said to an adopted child. We are not Amazon packages.
Regarding schooling, which in your case was very problematic, what would be the keys in the educational community with respect to adopted people?
The least teachers could do is try to understand the situation of adopted children and let them advise them. I’m not saying that they have to know everything about adoption processes, but they should at least be a little careful and listen to the parents. It happened to me at all educational stages: many people did not understand my peculiarities, for example that I usually needed to hug the teachers due to the lack of affection. There was everything, but some were very upset about it.
In another chapter he recognizes that he is going to step into several puddles, but he does not hesitate to do so. Why do you position yourself in favor of the adoption of diverse families, homosexual couples for example?
I feel that it is necessary to continue explaining that all types of families can adopt, as long as they have the conditions to do so. The reason is simple: if homosexual couples or single people can adopt, there will be more families available to adopt boys and girls. And this has to do with what we talk about changing the focus, because it means seeing adoption as a family for a child. The more families available, the better: single mothers and fathers, gays, lesbians… it doesn’t matter, as long as they are stable people. If the answer is yes, if you are suitable, why not?
You always use black humor to spread the word about adoption. Because?
Humor helps me to let go, to release tension in dramatic themes. In the end, I’m talking about things that itch me inside, and making the joke that my biological mother didn’t know what a condom was, for example, helps me relax.
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