Abstract

As an adoptee, do you have mixed feelings about your adoption? If you do, you are not alone - adoptees often experience complex feelings of grief, anger, and questions about their identity.

Sherrie Eldridge is an adoptee and adoption expert, and in this book she draws on her personal experiences and feelings relating to adoption as well as interviews with over 70 adoptees. Sherrie reveals how you can discover your own unique life purpose and worth, and sets out 20 life-transforming choices which you have the power to make. The choices will help you discover answers about issues such as: Why do I feel guilty when I think about my birth parents? Why can't I talk about the painful aspects of adoption? Where can I gain an unshakable sense of self-esteem? Sherrie also addresses the problem of depression among adoptees and common dilemmas such as if, when and how to contact a birth mother or father.

This fully updated second edition includes new material on finding support online, contacting family through social media, and features three new chapters, including Sherrie's story of reuniting with her birth brother, Jon, in adulthood.

Sherrie Eldridge, the adoption expert who has so ably helped adoptive parents better understand their children's needs, is back again, helping other adoptees to learn from her own journey through search and reunion with her latest guide,Twenty Life-Transforming Choices Adoptees Need to Make. It's a well-written guide for adoptees of all ages, empowering them to grow in positive new directions-- regardless of the outcome of their search. If adoption is your mountain, Sherrie Eldridge is your best possible sherpa, for few understand all of its peaks and passes the way Sherrie does, and her sage advice can help you reach your own summit.
Elizabeth Jurenovich, Ms, LCPAA, LPC, LMFT Executive Director Abrazo Adoption Associates
Sherrie has written an honest book of courage, trust, and hope. Her practical ideas, deep insights, and all-embracing sensitivity will be of great assistance to adoptees as they construct their life stories. Her core message: Do not look away; discover who you are.
Dan Hughes, Ph.D., author of Building the Bonds of Attachment and Focused Family Therapy Workbook
As an adoptive mom and singer/songwriter and speaker at adoption conferences, I am once again VERY grateful for the honest and extremely helpful nature of Sherrie's latest book, Twenty Life-Transforming Choices Adoptees Need to Make. Her previous books have been instrumental in preparing me and assisting us after the fact in our own family's adoption of two siblings who'd suffered greatly. As our children grow and comprehend more of their past, present, and future, Sherrie's insights and significant research continue to be an indispensable part of the healing, understanding, and hope-inspiring process for our entire family.
Becky Wright, Singer/Songwriter/Speaker Founder of Tahlequah Orphan & Adoption Ministries Department of Artists in Christian Testimony, International
Once again Sherrie Eldridge has written a very helpful book for the adoption community. This time her efforts have been directed toward adoptees and the twenty ways in which she encourages them to take control of their own healing.
Nancy Verrier, M.F.T., author of The Primal Wound and Coming Home to Self
Although geared toward adoptee concerns and beliefs, Sherrie Eldridge's latest book provides practical and spiritual information helpful to both adoptive and birth families. Social workers, therapists, and adoption professionals will find this book an important companion piece to Ms. Eldridge's first book, Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew.
Dirck Brown, Ed.D., author Clinical Practice in Adoption; founder, Post Adoption Center for Education and Research (PACER)
Sherrie Eldridge is an award-winning author of seven books, including best-selling Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew. Eldridge founded Jewel Among Jewels Adoption Network, Inc., a non-profit, faith-based educational organization which offers resources to anyone touched by adoption--foster care and adoptive parents, birth parents, adoptees of all ages, social workers, mental health professionals, and university training programs. http://www.sherrieeldridge.com/
It is impossible to articulate how life-changing Sherrie Eldridge's book has been for me! This book gave voice to my thoughts, emotions, and actions that were holding me back from fully living the life I was created to live. Eldridge uncovers the common threads adoptees hold on to throughout our lives, including grief, loss, rejection, fear, hope and love. Many clients say, "I wish I had known about this resource years ago".
LeAnne Parsons CPC, ELI-MP, The Walk Your Talk Coach, Legacy Now Lived™
This is a powerfully written book. Sherrie's revealing documentation of her insights for adoptees combined with her own and others' intimate, personal experiences dramatically highlights her difficult but liberating journey.
Dale E. Theobald, Ph.D., M.D., Senior Medical Director for Community Home Health Services and Palliative Care at Community North Health Network, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Twenty Life-Transforming Choices Adoptees Need to Make is indeed life-transforming for those who will take advantage of the wisdom contained therein. The practical help given in chapters six and seven alone are worth the price of the book! So often as adoptees we can struggle with a lack of understanding from those who are not adopted, and how to respond to triggering statements or actions. Sherrie's wisdom on these issues is spot on. Adoptees will find great solace in her words and real help for the plethora of issues we deal with post-adoption. I am so very grateful for this amazing resource!
Deanna Doss Shrodes, Blogger, Adoptee Restoration, Author, Worthy to Be Found
Sherrie Eldridge speaks what so many of us wish we'd been able to explain to our adoptive parents. This has helped me tremendously as an adoptive mother myself now.
Rebecca Kiessling, Founder and President of Save The 1, Co-Founder of Hope After Rape Conception, International Speaker and Attorney, Adoptee and Adoptive Mother.