In Their Own Words

Reading “Un-Adoptically Me” has been a book standing out for me as truly special. Elmarie’s writing is a masterpiece, every few pages carrying a story of its own, leaving you immensely curious what will come next. This book is hard to put down. Elmarie’s book is bravely honest and holds up a mirror for anyone carrying any feelings of pain or confusion from their past. The story is deeply personal, still it resonates with my own story, though my story is different in many ways. I am deeply touched by this book, and especially by the light of the author that shines through a story of intense difficulty – inspiring us as readers to choose courage and light as well. This book is composed by a brilliant author and holds a story of deep truth, relevance and meaning. The honesty of this book will set you free.

Even though I’m not adopted I could relate to so many events in life that Elmarie described. It made me realise I still have a few steps to go to become really free of my past.

A must read if you’re bound by what happened in your life in the past. This will help you to be forever free!

Un-Adoptically Me is an inspiring story about breaking cycles of trauma.

It is engaging and filled with poetic elements, powerful quotes, and experiences from various moments in Elmarie’s life.

It covers sensitive topics like death, emotional abuse, and adoption with respect and a personal touch that allows readers to understand these issues from the author’s perspective.

Many readers will resonate with her pain and struggles, finding inspiration to reshape their identities from a place of victimhood to one of victory.

I recommend this book to anyone who appreciates personal narratives about identity, healing, determination, and the bonds that connect us.

Her evolving relationship with her daughter and son has profoundly shifted my perspective on parental love, understanding, and living authentically.

Elmarie Arnold’s Un-Adoptically Me is a raw and personal memoir told through 88 vivid “snapshots” that trace her journey as an adoptee navigating the complex and lifelong ripples of primal trauma. It dives into the bittersweet paradoxes of adoption, love wrapped in loss, gratitude clouded by grief, and identity tangled in silence. Through poetic, bold, and often gut-wrenching storytelling, Elmarie lays bare her emotional landscape, from her childhood innocence to adult reckoning, through motherhood, heartbreak, and healing. It’s not a straight line. It’s layered, messy, and brave.

There’s a section in “A Life Reborn” that just clung to my heart—Elmarie writes about holding her newborn son for the first time in the same hospital where she was born and later adopted. That moment wrecked me. She’s breastfeeding him, watching this new little life cling to her, and all she can think about is how she’ll never abandon him like she feels she was abandoned. I’ve had my arms around my own kids and thought those same fierce, protective things. Her writing is like that, so personal it feels like it echoes something unspoken in you. It’s poetic without trying too hard. Honest without being self-indulgent.

What stood out most to me, though, was her unfiltered rage and heartbreak when she finally receives that cold, clinical letter from the adoption agency. Just nine sentences about her birth mother. Not even a name. No warmth, no story. As a mother, that shattered me. The way she talks about the absence—not just of facts, but of acknowledgment—makes you see how trauma isn’t always what’s done to you but what’s never given. It made me want to hold my own daughter tighter. Elmarie doesn’t ask you to agree with her or pity her. She just wants you to witness her truth.

Her writing about motherhood is probably what resonated with me the most. “The Shadows We Keep” is a letter she wrote to her son after learning he had been molested for years under her roof while she was lost in trying to “find herself.” The pain in her words is unbearable. Grief, guilt, shame. She admits everything. Doesn’t hide behind excuses. I found that passage almost too painful to read, but also too important to skip. It’s a brutal, beautiful reckoning. And what’s wild is, despite all this trauma, Elmarie keeps showing up. For her kids, for herself. She breaks apart and pieces herself back together again, and then somehow, she writes it all down for the rest of us to read.

This book is for anyone who’s lived through loss or felt alone in a room full of people. It’s for mothers, daughters, and anyone who’s struggled to feel like they belonged. If you’ve ever tried to heal something that didn’t leave visible scars, you’ll see yourself in these pages. I cried, I got angry, and I paused more than once to just breathe. And in the end, I closed the book and felt like I’d made a friend.

From the opening page, Elmarie’s storytelling literally opened my heart. Then came the heartache. The anger. The laughter. The joy. The divine. The tragic. The rebirth. I was on a visceral journey through someone else’s life that somehow felt like my own. I read it in one sitting—and sat in stillness for days afterwards.

At times, I found myself asking, “Can so much happen to one human being in a single lifetime?” And with every page, my own visceral memories of shock came flooding back.

Her raw, unfiltered voice reminded me—first painfully, then gratefully—why I became a Life/Trauma Coach and Family Constellator. Her story mirrored my own buried grief: the day I learned I had a half-brother given up for adoption. A family secret that shaped decades of searching and ultimately—through Family Constellations—led to a miraculous reunion 7 years later.

Elmarie, your book—with its many relatable triggers—helped me heal.

Thank you for baring your soul, for trusting us with your truth. We are all interconnected—and this memoir is a bridge.

Your voice isn’t just yours anymore—it belongs to all of us now.

Keep speaking.