Finding Michelle Canu

They told me I was a success story. They lied.

Before I ever became an author or an advocate, I was a foster kid. I was a file number lost in the cold world of the Maine adoption system. I spent my life believing a false version of my past, a story written by caseworkers and abusive foster parents.

I had once thought I was the girl who made it out alive. I was the damaged child who finally became something more.

That narrative was destroyed during an interview, where I was asked whether my struggles stemmed from an abusive foster home, or from my drug-addict biological mother. Soon, I realized that everything I knew about my mother, my heritage, and my adoption was a construct designed to keep me quiet and complacent.

From the gut-wrenching reality of life inside adoption to the biological war of bipolar disorder and PTSD: This is my relentless hunt for the truth .

I went looking for my mother to explain the past, but I ended up finding the daughter who is strong enough to own the future.