Interview with
Diane Dewey
Author of Fixing the Fates: An Adoptee's Story of Truth and Lies
Diane Dewey
Author of Fixing the Fates: An Adoptee's Story of Truth and Lies
Photo Credit: Lou Patenaude
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Diane Dewey holds a BA from Villanova University, the Honors Program in Liberal Arts. She later completed a certificate program from The Art Institute of Philadelphia, working for the Solomon. R. Guggenheim Museum and the National Academy, before founding her own art appraisal firm. Diane earned a Master of Science in Mental Health Counseling from Capella University in 2015.
She lives in St. Petersburg, Florida and near Schaffhausen, Switzerland with her husband and their rescue dog. Fixing the Fates is her first book. 
Click image above for excerpt.
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Diane answered questions about her memoir, reflecting on her journey of discovery as she learned the truth about her adoption and how she made peace with the past.
What was your initial reaction when you received the letter from your biological father?
I experienced a hiccup of hopefulness – that by meeting my him, I’d be understood at last, that finally someone would really fathom or be willing to grasp what it was like for me to be adopted. Until then, with my adoptive family, I’d needed to hide the pain of it. Here, with my biological father’s approach, was someone to whom I might not have to explain. He’d comprehend that aspect of my life and my suffering at being cut off from my ancestry. Or, at the least, he’d likely be curious.
When my biological father, Otto, contacted me, I was a forty-seven year old single woman living in New York City. I’d run out of patience and maybe even time, according to my biological clock, to find a soulmate. Although the dance with Otto would be platonic, even familial, I conflated the need to meet someone who might naturally get me with the need for my roots. Hope carried me along. That hope was the opposite of the despair I often felt at not finding resonance with anyone.
From a practical standpoint, I yearned to learn more details about my history. Then there was the deluded flattery, that far from being unwanted, I was now someone Otto sought to include in his life. He might have been under a hopeful delusion too, that by accepting the letter, I would accept him. Frankly, I was gratified that after all these years, Otto hadn’t forgotten about me; though I acknowledge an echo of unworthiness in this thanks. Tucked deep inside of all this was anger and resentment that he had somehow left me. But I kept that at bay in order to learn why it happened. I was looking for love that would comfort my sorrow. I had hope.
Did you resent your adoptive parents in any way for not disclosing the whole truth to you all along?
I know now that what they did was so typical of their generation that it certainly wasn’t personal. But it felt that way at times when I was younger – that I was singled out for a torture of withholding – of information, which also felt like something more - respect for me as a person. Especially when I traveled back to Germany as a seventeen-year-old and visited the orphanage where I’d lived but wasn’t allowed to glimpse anything further. I cringed. Openness was considered a threat back then. But it’s the basis for all relationships, and everyone senses that built-in truth. So, their secrecy tugged at me. My parents wanted to secure an exclusive relationship with me: They didn’t want biological parents in the picture. Now this insecurity seems understandable, particularly since as an adult, I can sympathize with and contextualize it.
Those were my parents’ sins of omission. A more serious botch was when my adoptive father lied to me, telling me my biological parents were dead. That hurt. As it happened, my adoptive dad passed away by the time the letter arrived from my biological father. Good thing, too, because I wouldn’t have been able to look my dad in the eye knowing he betrayed me – supposedly for the sake of protecting me. Or...was it him? My vindication is that events conspired to create a greater web – that the truth came out. Imagine if I had never known. That would have been the real tragedy.
When you discovered the circumstances behind your adoption and the links to your biological parents in all of this, did this change your self-perception at all?
It did, for better and for worse. My self-perception got a big boost when it finally emerged that my biological mother really loved me and had wanted to keep me. She fought to find me her whole life. Otto painted a different canvas, telling me that I’d been conceived on a one-night stand and that my mother had not suffered in surrendering me. Maybe this made him feel less guilty for having precipitated the whole thing. Afterward, I couldn’t view Otto with credence, and I lost respect for him. I felt deflated, as if this disappointment meant that I was a fool. But boundaries resuscitated me.
By the time I learned the truth about my surrender, that there had been a protracted battle to keep me, I was beyond depending on my story for my self-worth. I’d had to fall back on inner reserves and on my intuitive knowledge that the bio-mother always suffers. She was marked by trauma as much as I was. This is true in every surrendering. I now know this from having met mothers who, for whatever reason, relinquish a child. There is tremendous grief. If it had been possible for me, as a young girl to truly grasp this, I would have experienced far less feelings of worthlessness.
I had often felt invisible, and now that I embraced a more accurate vision, my life was powerfully connected to my biological mother. I felt present. It was a conceit to think I hadn’t mattered, a way of punishing myself, the victim, for my pain. A new dynamic formed: Despite what anybody said, in time I would rebound. Nothing could deter me from knowing that I mattered, or that my integrity was all I had.
Once a family is broken apart, what is the most important thing to keep in mind when trying to mend fractured trust and/or feelings of betrayal?
Honesty about oneself: That I’m as capable of acting as thoughtlessly as the next person – whether it’s in times of stress, or ignorance, or insecurity. When I look at my past selves, I can see that I’ve been equally insensitive. When I discovered that the truth from Otto was more important than his self-image, I looked at times when I’d been too weak to speak honestly. I grew compassionate. My quest for candor requires that I shine a light on my shadow: What are my anxieties all about? Where do they originate? I own them. It’s a self-truth - I need to be bigger than those who don’t seek it.
Was the writing of this memoir cathartic for you?
It made me both fuller and more stripped down. I revisited emotions that I had to inhabit in order to write the memoir’s scenes - fear, grief, pain - the places I’d rather not go, being a hopeful optimist. Identifying feelings in words fortified me. It brought coherence out of the confusion and emotional flooding that had often overwhelmed me. It put me back together again. Structuring sentences about emotions to which I hadn’t previously tapped into made them seem linear, even logical. I exposed myself, partly in service to others, by communicating. It brought me out of myself, out of my loneliness and into a conversation. Welcome to the world, it said.
Where do you find sanctuary? (#WheresYourSanctuary)
In the oddest places…like where I fold laundry in the cellar. It’s cool, protective, and quiet - a place where I might experience random epiphanies and a place to reacquaint myself. Walking, always walking, grants me peace. I also like the darkened cabin of an airplane on a night flight. People don’t expect anything of me, and the flight time is unaccounted for. I can read until I slump over or write until I can no longer see. No one comments on it. That’s a haven, a true sanctuary for me.
What was your initial reaction when you received the letter from your biological father?
I experienced a hiccup of hopefulness – that by meeting my him, I’d be understood at last, that finally someone would really fathom or be willing to grasp what it was like for me to be adopted. Until then, with my adoptive family, I’d needed to hide the pain of it. Here, with my biological father’s approach, was someone to whom I might not have to explain. He’d comprehend that aspect of my life and my suffering at being cut off from my ancestry. Or, at the least, he’d likely be curious.
When my biological father, Otto, contacted me, I was a forty-seven year old single woman living in New York City. I’d run out of patience and maybe even time, according to my biological clock, to find a soulmate. Although the dance with Otto would be platonic, even familial, I conflated the need to meet someone who might naturally get me with the need for my roots. Hope carried me along. That hope was the opposite of the despair I often felt at not finding resonance with anyone.
From a practical standpoint, I yearned to learn more details about my history. Then there was the deluded flattery, that far from being unwanted, I was now someone Otto sought to include in his life. He might have been under a hopeful delusion too, that by accepting the letter, I would accept him. Frankly, I was gratified that after all these years, Otto hadn’t forgotten about me; though I acknowledge an echo of unworthiness in this thanks. Tucked deep inside of all this was anger and resentment that he had somehow left me. But I kept that at bay in order to learn why it happened. I was looking for love that would comfort my sorrow. I had hope.
Did you resent your adoptive parents in any way for not disclosing the whole truth to you all along?
I know now that what they did was so typical of their generation that it certainly wasn’t personal. But it felt that way at times when I was younger – that I was singled out for a torture of withholding – of information, which also felt like something more - respect for me as a person. Especially when I traveled back to Germany as a seventeen-year-old and visited the orphanage where I’d lived but wasn’t allowed to glimpse anything further. I cringed. Openness was considered a threat back then. But it’s the basis for all relationships, and everyone senses that built-in truth. So, their secrecy tugged at me. My parents wanted to secure an exclusive relationship with me: They didn’t want biological parents in the picture. Now this insecurity seems understandable, particularly since as an adult, I can sympathize with and contextualize it.
Those were my parents’ sins of omission. A more serious botch was when my adoptive father lied to me, telling me my biological parents were dead. That hurt. As it happened, my adoptive dad passed away by the time the letter arrived from my biological father. Good thing, too, because I wouldn’t have been able to look my dad in the eye knowing he betrayed me – supposedly for the sake of protecting me. Or...was it him? My vindication is that events conspired to create a greater web – that the truth came out. Imagine if I had never known. That would have been the real tragedy.
When you discovered the circumstances behind your adoption and the links to your biological parents in all of this, did this change your self-perception at all?
It did, for better and for worse. My self-perception got a big boost when it finally emerged that my biological mother really loved me and had wanted to keep me. She fought to find me her whole life. Otto painted a different canvas, telling me that I’d been conceived on a one-night stand and that my mother had not suffered in surrendering me. Maybe this made him feel less guilty for having precipitated the whole thing. Afterward, I couldn’t view Otto with credence, and I lost respect for him. I felt deflated, as if this disappointment meant that I was a fool. But boundaries resuscitated me.
By the time I learned the truth about my surrender, that there had been a protracted battle to keep me, I was beyond depending on my story for my self-worth. I’d had to fall back on inner reserves and on my intuitive knowledge that the bio-mother always suffers. She was marked by trauma as much as I was. This is true in every surrendering. I now know this from having met mothers who, for whatever reason, relinquish a child. There is tremendous grief. If it had been possible for me, as a young girl to truly grasp this, I would have experienced far less feelings of worthlessness.
I had often felt invisible, and now that I embraced a more accurate vision, my life was powerfully connected to my biological mother. I felt present. It was a conceit to think I hadn’t mattered, a way of punishing myself, the victim, for my pain. A new dynamic formed: Despite what anybody said, in time I would rebound. Nothing could deter me from knowing that I mattered, or that my integrity was all I had.
Once a family is broken apart, what is the most important thing to keep in mind when trying to mend fractured trust and/or feelings of betrayal?
Honesty about oneself: That I’m as capable of acting as thoughtlessly as the next person – whether it’s in times of stress, or ignorance, or insecurity. When I look at my past selves, I can see that I’ve been equally insensitive. When I discovered that the truth from Otto was more important than his self-image, I looked at times when I’d been too weak to speak honestly. I grew compassionate. My quest for candor requires that I shine a light on my shadow: What are my anxieties all about? Where do they originate? I own them. It’s a self-truth - I need to be bigger than those who don’t seek it.
Was the writing of this memoir cathartic for you?
It made me both fuller and more stripped down. I revisited emotions that I had to inhabit in order to write the memoir’s scenes - fear, grief, pain - the places I’d rather not go, being a hopeful optimist. Identifying feelings in words fortified me. It brought coherence out of the confusion and emotional flooding that had often overwhelmed me. It put me back together again. Structuring sentences about emotions to which I hadn’t previously tapped into made them seem linear, even logical. I exposed myself, partly in service to others, by communicating. It brought me out of myself, out of my loneliness and into a conversation. Welcome to the world, it said.
Where do you find sanctuary? (#WheresYourSanctuary)
In the oddest places…like where I fold laundry in the cellar. It’s cool, protective, and quiet - a place where I might experience random epiphanies and a place to reacquaint myself. Walking, always walking, grants me peace. I also like the darkened cabin of an airplane on a night flight. People don’t expect anything of me, and the flight time is unaccounted for. I can read until I slump over or write until I can no longer see. No one comments on it. That’s a haven, a true sanctuary for me.
