When Sophia, adopted as a baby, set out to find her birth parents, she hoped it would give answers about where she came from and why she was given away.
But nothing prepared her for the tumultuous events this reunion sparked. What began as a quest for truth gave rise to a secret that went on to change the course of her life and challenge all that she knew about love.
This heart-breaking and brave true story explores love and loss, belonging and identity, and the lifelong consequences of a mother-baby bond broken too soon.
• Sophia, what first motivated you to search for your birth parents, and what were your expectations before beginning that journey?
Like many adoptees, I reached a point where I needed to understand where I came from. It was not about replacing my adoptive family, whom I loved, but about completing the missing pieces of my biological heritage and identity. I hoped for answers about why I had been given away, fantasised about a relationship with my ‘real’ mother and yearned for a sense of ‘belonging’ within myself but which was a vague and abstract notion I didn’t fully understand. I never imagined that my search would lead to feelings and experiences so life-changing or challenge everything I thought I knew about family, love, and myself, especially as an adoptee who had grown up without my biological roots and which most of us do and can naturally take for granted.
• Your book explores themes of identity, belonging, and adoption. How did your understanding of yourself change as a result of discovering the truth about your origins?
Reunion helped me understand that identity is far more than the family who raises us. I came to appreciate the profound influence of biology, genetics, and our earliest attachments. It also made me realise that many of my lifelong questions about who I was had perfectly understandable roots having spent the first five weeks with my birth mother deepening the natural bond that was then suddenly severed. Ultimately, the journey led me to greater self-compassion and a deeper understanding of the complex emotional legacy that adoption can leave.
• The reunion led to revelations that challenged your ideas about love and family. What was the most difficult aspect of sharing such a deeply personal story with readers?
Without question, the fear of being judged. This is an experience that is still widely misunderstood, and I knew many people would instinctively view it through a moral lens rather than a psychological and biological one. I shared my story because silence helps no one. If even one adoptee, birth parent, or professional feels less alone or better informed as a result, then the vulnerability has been worthwhile.
• Genetic Sexual Attraction (GSA) is a complex and often misunderstood subject. What do you hope readers will take away from your account of this experience?
I hope readers come away with greater understanding rather than judgement. Genetic Sexual Attraction and intimate relationships that can often develop from that after lifelong separation is not about choice or predatory intent; it is a recognised phenomenon that can occur after close biological relatives meet for the first time as adults and is powerfully magnetic in nature. My memoir is not an attempt to justify what happened but to explain it honestly. I hope it encourages more research, better education, and proper counselling before and after reunions, so that adoptees and birth families receive the support they need and fewer people experience the profound trauma that can otherwise follow.
• Helen, when working on a memoir that deals with sensitive and controversial topics, how do you balance emotional authenticity with responsible storytelling?
This is the crux of any memoir writing process. In real life, our experiences shape outcomes and our understanding of the world in very subtle ways, and in vastly numerous ways. It is obviously impossible to include every single event in the book-version of our lives. The key to storytelling is to understand what the most relevant ‘turning points’ of our personal narrative are. This is what humans do all the time, subconsciously, to understand the world: We simplify our memories to help ourselves make sense of our own narrative, or to help others understand our stories. The key to writing a memoir is to consciously understand these turning points, and to explain why the characters may do what they do. With sensitive subject matter this is especially important not to make leaps in understanding.
As a co-writer, I am always one-step removed from an author’s lived experience, so I am always trying to view the story from the reader’s more simplistic lens, and an author’s more complex and multi-layered lens.
• What was the collaborative process like between the two of you? Were there particular moments in Sophia's story that were especially challenging to write or revisit together?
Helen: The process was a mix of early drafts from Sophia, which she had already written, and regular long video calls. I tried to keep Sophia’s language and turns of phrases as much as I could, while weaving it into a structure, for example by structuring the chain of events into chapters with tension points; or weaving in some of the reflective passages into appropriate moments of the story which lend itself to that. In a collaborative writing project there are always many rounds of edits, with Sophia, and those close to her, editing, rewriting or adding bits accordingly.
Sophia: It was certainly a collaborative process, and like any memoir dealing with deeply personal events, there were moments that were emotionally demanding for both of us. I had already written much of the story before Helen became involved, but her experience in shaping narrative was invaluable. She helped organise a complex timeline into a clear, engaging structure, finding natural story arcs, building tension where appropriate, and creating the kind of pacing and chapter endings that encourage readers to keep turning the pages.
Throughout the process, I stayed actively involved to ensure the story stayed true to my voice and, most importantly, to the emotional truth of my experience. There were many rounds of revisions as we refined not only the chronology but also the balance between recounting events and reflecting on what they meant. Revisiting certain chapters was undoubtedly challenging because it meant reliving some very painful memories, but careful process produced a memoir that is both authentic and accessible to readers
• The book highlights the lifelong impact of a mother-baby bond being broken through adoption. How has writing Forbidden Love influenced your views on adoption, attachment, and emotional development?
Writing Forbidden Love deepened my understanding of just how profoundly our earliest and, significantly, biological relationships shape us and the development of our ‘internal working model’ of relationships and our own self worth. While adoption can certainly provide loving, secure families in many cases, it also begins with a traumatic separation for the child that can leave an enduring imprint. We need to acknowledge both realities: to celebrate adoptive families, when they are loving and caring, while also recognising the lifelong impact that relinquishment and severing of the unique symbiotic mother/baby bond inevitably has on attachment, identity, and emotional development for the adopted child and on into adulthood. Ignoring either side does a disservice to everyone involved.
• What conversations do you hope Forbidden Love will spark among adoptees, birth families, adoptive families, and professionals working in adoption and counselling?
I hope it encourages more open, compassionate conversations about the realities of adoption, not just its joys for the adopting couple and the perceived happy ending solution for a baby whose mother for some reason can’t or doesn’t want to ‘keep’ them, but its inherent emotional, biological and spiritual complexities. I would like to see greater awareness of the psychological and neurobiological effects of separation from mother for the child, more education and targeted research about what has been termed Genetic Sexual Attraction, and better preparation and post-reunion support for everyone involved. I hope it reminds people that empathy, rather than judgement, is the starting point for gaining a better understanding of these deeply human experiences.
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