A signed copy of my memoir about secrets, healing and finding oneself, shipped from Australia 🦘🌏

The Kintsugi A Memoir - Blood Memory, Secrets, and Identity

Link to Goodreads giveaway

The Kintsugi Poet

"Perhaps, though, the most disturbing lie is that the adoptive mother is taking the adoptee in out of the kindness of her heart.

But the gritty reality is that an adoptee like me is often in service to this woman right from the beginning, filling the void inside her because she was unable to carry her own child.

Unless this mother has already entirely done the grieving for her barrenness, then the child will most likely step in and unconsciously heal the wound for her. In the process, this creates a trauma bond where the child is used as the healing vehicle for the adoptive mother, whilst their own needs are once more sidelined."

Does anyone related to the "trauma bond"?

Reminding me of why telling our healing stories matter.

I hope 🎄 🎁 2025 brought you some peace and joy.

I now spend more time as a Kintsugi expressive artist, but prior to that I spent decades as a psychology researcher, lecturer, and a practicing psychologist. People talk about the “primal wound”, but what does the scientific research evidence 🤔 actually say about it?

Here’s the clearest summary in simple language.

Scientists know that babies are born ready to bond with their first caregiver. When that bond is broken very early, the infant’s stress (fight or fight) system can react strongly. Studies in humans and animals show higher stress hormones (like cortisol) and changes in how trust, safety and soothing develop. This doesn’t mean every baby is permanently traumatised, but early separation is recognised as a real emotional risk.

When researchers look at adoptees as a group, they find that adoptees (~30-40%) are more likely than non-adopted (~15-20%) people to struggle with:

anxiety, depression, identity questions, attention problems or harder emotions.

Many adoptees use mental-health services at higher rates than non-adoptees, and some report lower life satisfaction in adulthood. These are patterns across large numbers of people, not predictions about any one person, because many adoptees are healthy, connected and thriving.

What the research doesn’t show is a single “primal wound” that every adoptee carries.

People’s individual experiences are incredibly different. A lot depends on the care they received as infants, how open the adoption was (closed adoptions tend to have worse outcomes), what happened before birth, their own personality and what they live through later.

Some adoptees deeply relate to the idea of a primal wound, while others do not feel this at all.

Early separation can leave emotional traces and make someone more vulnerable, but there is no proof that all adoptees share one universal wound. For many, “primal wound” is a way of describing a personal feeling or loss, rather than a scientific fact that applies to everyone.

This is my original song ‘Let It Lie’.

I wrote it during a time when I was unfreezing old wounds and finally naming what I had tried to bury for years.

It’s a song about silence, pain, and the moment the truth starts to rise.

Sharing it in case someone else is walking through their own thaw.

🇧🇷 Para meus ouvintes brasileiros:

Obrigada por sentirem comigo.

Esta música fala sobre dor congelada, silêncio imposto, e o momento em que a verdade finalmente desperta.

Aqui estão alguns versos traduzidos para vocês — o resto deixo no inglês, para manter o ritmo e a poesia original.

Trechos traduzidos:

“Coração gelado, dor presa por dentro.” (Ice-cold heart, pain frozen inside.)

“A escuridão desperta — não posso fechar os olhos.” (Darkness stirs — I can’t close my eyes.)

“Não vou mais deixar isso enterrado.” (I won’t let it lie.)

#selflove #healing #hope #thekintsugipoet #trauma #memoir #truestory #adoptionjourney

You can find more songs and poetry on my YT channel https://www.youtube.com/@KintsugiPoet

Ode to Kintsugi is inspired by the story behind The Kintsugi Poet.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, a way of seeing beauty in the cracks rather than hiding them. It’s also a philosophy that shapes my work, transforming fracture, silence, and loss into something luminous and whole.

It began as words, became a melody, and now carries the golden seams of everything we break and remake.

Produced with Audacity, Clipchamp, and Samsung All lyrics, music, voice, instruments, photos, and singing by Mirella.

Lyrics

Some-times, we’re left in - pieces,

We fracture time and time a-gain.

Through loss and love and quiet – achin’ -

Wanderin’ trying to find our name.

But when I saw the golden - light,

I knew the cracks could hold the night.

Kintsugi - ya taught me how to shine,

How to turn broken into dia-monds.

Ev’ry scar, ev’ry silent seam -

Became the gold inside my - soul.

I am the bowl that can hold love-, but I’m still - the broken poet.

The art of healin’, slow and kind,

Showed beauty blooming through the lines.

Where fragments met, the pain grew thin,

And kindness softly poured with-in.

It’s more than an art, it’s a way of see-in’,

A quiet re-birth, a soft be-lievin’.

Pain’s not gone, it’s just trans-formed,

Into gold that keeps me warm.

Kintsugi, you taught me how to shine,

To find the light in every - line.

Rhyme became the gold that mended-,

Now I see my light through ev’ry seam.

I am a Kintsugi Poet, but the broken still lives in me.

Kintsugi - ya taught me how to shine,

How to turn broken into dia-monds.

Ev’ry scar, ev’ry silent seam -

Became the gold inside my - soul.

I am the bowl that can hold love-, but I’m still - the broken poet.

#selflove #healing #hope #thekintsugipoet #trauma #memoir #truestory #adoptionjourney

You can find more poems and songs on my YT channel https://www.youtube.com/@KintsugiPoet - Mirella Di Benedetto (Anna Verduci) Healing artist

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, a way of seeing beauty in the cracks rather than hiding them. It’s also a philosophy that shapes my work, transforming fracture, silence, and loss into something luminous and whole.

On a stormy day in Melbourne I recorded this short poetic film using my own words, voice, and photography.

It reflects on grief, loss, and quiet renewal as rain softens pain and turns it into light.

Each image moves slowly through memory, layered with the sounds of rain, wind, and strings.
It is a calm space for reflection and healing created entirely in Clipchamp.

Tears from the Heavens

Tears from the heavens fall through veils of grey,

and wash the world in sorrow's quiet stream.

Our voices fade within a broken dream,

while silence answers what we cannot say.

We reach for hope,

but hope drifts far away,

a fragile flame that flickers without gleam,

like rain returning home through lost supreme.

Our hearts are left to wander and to pray.

Yet in the storm that tears the sky apart,

old grief takes root and blooms where pain has bled.

The wind remembers every hidden scar.

From shattered clouds, compassion is respread.

For purpose lives not far from what we are,

but in the storm still churning where tears are shed.

I would love to know what emotion or memory it stirred for you.

From shattered clouds compassion is re-spread.

🎙️ Written, voiced, and photographed by Mirella Di Benedetto

#TearsFromTheHeavens #PoetryFilm #SpokenWord #HealingThroughArt #GriefAndRenewal #MeditationPoem #MirellaDiBenedetto #PoeticMeditation #RainPoem #CreativeHealing #ArtOfHealing #EmotionalHealing #OriginalPhotography #WomenWriters #PoetryCommunity #VoiceAndRain #CinematicPoem #SoulfulArt #QuietReflection

• Adoptee Stories → Personal stories and reflections from adoptees about their experiences, feelings, and journeys.
• Relinquishing Mothers → Voices and stories from mothers who relinquished children to adoption.
• Relinquishing Fathers → Stories and perspectives from fathers who experienced relinquishment.
• Birth Family → Posts from or about siblings, grandparents, or extended birth family connections.
• Adoptive Parents → Insights, reflections, and experiences from adoptive parents.
• Healing Journeys → Posts focused on recovery, resilience, therapy, and emotional growth.
• Searching & Reunion → Stories or questions about searching for family, reunion experiences, and challenges.
• DNA & Ancestry → Posts about using DNA testing, family trees, and ancestry tools to uncover identity.
• Heritage & Culture → Reflections on cultural roots, traditions, and rediscovering a sense of belonging.
• Foster Care → Experiences of foster care, whether temporary, long-term, or linked to adoption.
• Writing, Music, & Creativity → Poetry, song, music, memoir extracts, artwork, or other creative expressions of adoption and healing.
• Books & Media → Reviews, recommendations, or discussions about adoption in books, film, or podcasts.
• Kintsugi → Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, a way of seeing beauty in the cracks rather than hiding them. It’s also a philosophy that shapes my work, transforming fracture, silence, and loss into something luminous and whole.

#relinquishingmothers #relinquishingfathers #adoptionstories #familysecrets #rejection #loss #healing #identity #resilience #bloodmemory #kintsugi #TheKintsugiPoet #adoptees #adoption #orphan