A Note to Begin
Hello, community! I’m Mirella, a second-generation, twice-adopted therapist and writer and mother (and all of the things), based out of Seattle, where I live with my husband and son.
Hello, community!
I’m Mirella, a second-generation, twice-adopted therapist and writer and mother (and all of the things), based out of Seattle, where I live with my husband and son.
I am originally from Sofia, Bulgaria, where I lived until the age of five. When I was three, I watched as my birth father, who was from Iraq, killed my mother, a Bulgarian national, and then died by suicide. My grandmother adopted me in the aftermath, but was herself dying of cancer. Bulgaria was newly democratic, and I faced real risks whether I stayed in the country or didn’t. I left by nightfall to the United States in December of 1993, when I was adopted by an American family.
Outside of writing, I’ve spent most of my career working in and around adoption and adoption-adjacent issues, many of which I write about publicly and also plan to explore here with you.
The first five years of my postgraduate career, I was a crisis worker in child welfare and psychiatric mental health. I now hold a clinical license in social work and specialize in treating individuals with complex identity concerns and survivors of trauma and (separately) narcissistic abuse.
I am currently writing a memoir about surviving my parents’ murder-suicide and the two adoptions that followed. The story itself is about a crisis I faced when I got engaged to be married, and I didn’t know whether my uncertainty about the commitment was a result of past trauma or a sign that I was in the wrong relationship. Perhaps you can relate?
As a contributor, I am most looking forward to sharing my thoughts about identity and inheritance, the complexities of adoption, and the specific kind of cognitive dissonance many of us are asked to hold for years, if not a lifetime. I also want to talk about what it means to heal, and the limits of healing (which I feel are just as important to know about, but often overlooked).
I am deeply grateful for the connections that come through the I'm Adopted and other adoptee communities and for the chance to create something new here with you that might be of use. Above all, I want the adoptees that access this space to know that you are not alone, and that there is always hope in choosing what you do with the hand of cards you are dealt.
Until next time,
Mirella
Mirella Stoyanova
Mirella Stoyanova is a writer and psychotherapist, a second-generation adoptee, and twice-adopted international adoptee of Bulgarian and Iraqi origins. Mirella was adopted from Bulgaria to the United States at 5 years old. A former crisis worker and licensed clinical social worker, she combines her global perspective with clinical training to bring nuance and clarity to conversations about who we are, what makes a life worth living, and what it takes to heal ourselves and our world. Mirella lives in Seattle, Washington, with her husband and son.
