What if being told you were adopted changed everything about how you saw yourself?
In this deeply vulnerable episode, Debbie Korver shares her journey of healing from adoption trauma and childhood abuse — wounds she didn’t fully understand until adulthood.
Adopted as a child and raised in an abusive environment, Debbie spent decades believing she wasn’t worthy of love, that she had to earn her place, and that her needs didn’t matter.
But Debbie’s story doesn’t end there. Through traditional therapy, EMDR, inner child work, and transformative psychedelic experiences, she confronted the deep-rooted pain of being told she was adopted, the abuse she endured, and the people-pleasing patterns that followed her into adulthood.
This episode is raw, honest, and full of hope. Debbie doesn’t sugarcoat the hard parts, she talks about what it’s really like to carry adoption trauma, how childhood abuse shaped her sense of self, and the long road to learning self-love and boundaries.
If you’ve ever wondered whether adoption causes trauma, how to heal from childhood abuse as an adult, or if it’s possible to forgive yourself and your past — this conversation will move you.
In this episode, we talk about:
The hidden impact of adoption trauma and why it’s often dismissed
How childhood abuse shaped Debbie’s beliefs about worthiness and belonging
Why being told about her adoption became a defining traumatic memory
How EMDR helped her reprocess the moment she learned she was adopted
The role of inner child work in healing adoption wounds and abuse
Practical advice for anyone beginning their healing journey from adoption or abuse
FAQ
Who is Debbie Korver and what is her story?
Debbie Korver is a survivor of adoption trauma and childhood abuse who spent most of her adult life not knowing how deeply her past was shaping everything around her.
Adopted at birth and raised in an abusive home, Debbie built walls, became a lifelong people pleaser, and struggled for decades to understand what self-love even meant. It took entering therapy, initially just to work through a relationship issue with her child, before she slowly began uncovering the layers of trauma beneath the surface. Over four to five years of intensive healing work, she found her way to genuine self-love, clear boundaries, and a life that finally feels like her own.
What is the ACEs score and what does it measure?
The ACEs score, Adverse Childhood Experiences, is a 10-question assessment that measures the types of trauma a person was exposed to between birth and age 18.
Every yes answer adds one point, with scores ranging from zero to ten. Debbie scored zero on her first intake, not because she had no trauma, but because she was not yet ready to disclose it. Two years later, after building real trust with her therapist, she took the same test and scored a four. Her experience makes an important point: the score itself matters less than the trust and readiness that allow someone to answer honestly.
How did Debbie's childhood trauma show up in her adult life?
Most people assume trauma shows up as obvious distress. For Debbie, it looked like personality traits she had always been proud of. Here is what her healing revealed:
- Reading the room at age three — she could sense her parents’ moods before entering a space to protect herself from harm, and had spent her whole life believing this was simply a talent
- A guarded, forceful personality — the strong, closed-off exterior she had built was a defence mechanism, not who she actually was
- People pleasing — every decision she made was filtered through what would keep others happy, because focusing on herself was too painful
- Overprotective parenting — she became a helicopter parent out of fear that what happened to her would happen to her children
Each of these, she came to understand, were trauma responses — not character flaws.
How did EMDR help Debbie heal from adoption trauma?
EMDR gave Debbie the chance to re-enter a traumatic memory and change her relationship with it, not what happened, but how she carried it.
The first memory she worked on was the moment she was told she was adopted at age three. She remembers it in precise detail: where she was sitting, where her parents were, what was said. During the EMDR session, something shifted. She was no longer the three-year-old in that living room, she was adult Debbie, standing with her younger self, telling her what nobody had said at the time: that her birth mother was her mother too, that her feelings of loss were valid, and that she was worth far more than simply being a solution to someone else’s grief over infertility. That is now the memory she carries from that moment.
What is inner child work and how does it support trauma healing?
Inner child work means going back to the age when something painful happened and giving your younger self the love, safety, and reassurance they never received.
Debbie and her therapist worked through an adoption trauma book together that included inner child exercises after each chapter. The process opened something in her. She realised that the wounded part of herself was not a flawed adult, it was a three-year-old or six-year-old child who had been hurt and never properly comforted. Once she saw it that way, she could not be as harsh with herself. You would never tell a three-year-old to just get over it. Inner child work is the practice of finally refusing to say that to yourself either.
What is adoption trauma and is being adopted always traumatic?
Adoption trauma refers to the psychological impact of being separated from a biological caregiver and it can exist even in adoptions carried out with genuine love and good intentions.
Debbie had never heard the term before her therapist introduced it. The way she was told about her adoption at age three seemed positive on the surface, her dad knelt in front of her and explained it carefully. But her birth mother was never referred to as her mother. The loss of connection was never acknowledged. Her feelings about it were never given space. That gap between what was said and what a child actually needs to hear is where adoption trauma often takes root. Research confirms that early separation from a biological caregiver can affect attachment, identity, and emotional regulation, though the severity varies widely depending on individual circumstances and the support available.
How did Debbie find the courage to forgive her mother?
Forgiveness did not come quickly or cleanly. Debbie moved through rage, deep sadness, and serious consideration of cutting off the relationship entirely. What shifted her was a realization that arrived through therapy:
- Her mother had very likely been a victim of abuse herself
- Her mother had grown up in a family that devalued girls — none of which was her fault
- Breaking the cycle of generational trauma mattered more to Debbie than holding onto the anger
She chose forgiveness, but she also chose boundaries. The moment she started holding those boundaries, she says, something in the relationship magically changed. Her therapist’s response was: it is not magic, Debbie. You have your own back now.
Why does childhood trauma lead to people pleasing in adults?
People pleasing is not a personality type, for many survivors of childhood trauma, it is a survival strategy that never got switched off.
Debbie describes it clearly: digging into her own needs and feelings was too painful when those needs had been dismissed or punished throughout her childhood. Keeping others happy was how she stayed safe. She thought that making everyone around her happy was where her own happiness came from. In therapy she came to understand two things. First, that people pleasing prevented any genuine connection because you cannot be truly known when you are performing a version of yourself for others. Second, that the only way to stop was to learn to have her own back, which is exactly what therapy, boundaries, and inner child work eventually gave her.
How do you know when you are ready to start therapy for childhood trauma?
Debbie’s answer is honest: you know when you know and it is okay if that takes time.
She did not start therapy to address her trauma. She went because of her child. It took two full years of working with her therapist before she felt safe enough to open up about the abuse. Her advice to anyone who is not yet there:
- Be patient with yourself — readiness cannot be forced, and trust with a therapist takes time to build
- Do not give up if the first therapist is not right — finding the right fit is like any relationship, it takes time
- Start with journaling — write what you feel, write the letters you will never send, write your story. Every time you give your shame a little air, it loses some of its power
What does Debbie say self-love actually means?
“It means loving yourself for all your good things, but also all your bad things, because that is what makes you human.”
At the start of her therapy journey, Debbie could not answer when her therapist asked what self-love meant to her. The question stumped her completely. Years later, she knows exactly what it looks like. It looks like resilience. It looks like having her own back without needing someone else to do it for her. It looks like being surrounded by people who know the real her, not the version she spent decades performing for others. She closes the episode with words that carry the full weight of everything she has been through: her trauma did not make her strong. The healing she did is what made her strong.
