Nova-Lilly (33) on her adoption: "Why had the agency placed me with such a woman?"

After a devastating report on abuses, the Netherlands immediately suspended international adoption. Nova-Lilly (33) also had to deal with this. She was adopted from Sri Lanka, but had a terrible childhood.

'All my childhood I was punished. Sometimes I had just 'looked wrong', sometimes my room was not properly tidy. Then my mother would empty my desk drawers on the floor. "Start over," she shouted. I was seven. If I was "not nice" she would take me to her sister. After a week, sometimes longer, I was allowed to return. My brother and sister were just at home. According to her, they were 'nice'. '

'I was adopted. My adoptive parents, Peter and Marja, were invited by the adoption agency to pick up 'their' child in Sri Lanka. They preferred a girl. Once arrived there were only boys. Marja and Peter suddenly only wanted a girl on the spot. I was six days old and literally moved somewhere when I lay in their arms. In the Netherlands I had a brother of one, their biological child. When I was four, another girl came from Sri Lanka. '

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Nobody knew

'My mother had an extreme urge for order. I took it over indiscriminately, but from the age of five I became more articulate. My mother didn't like that. I was corrected all day long. It went so far as to punish me from swimming lessons if I put too much butter on my bread. Sometimes my mother tore my hair or forcibly dragged me down the stairs. My father allowed all of that. I suspect he was also afraid of her moods. My brother and sister were also sometimes punished, but less violently and much less often. They were a lot more docile than I was. I thought it was my fault that my mother treated me like that. I tried to be invisible, didn't complain, not even to my aunt when I was staying there. '

'From the age of fourteen, I cycled 20 kilometers to and from school every day for years because, according to my mother, I' didn't deserve a car ride '. My brother and sister were brought. No one around me noticed how my mother was treating me. If someone ever asked questions, a teacher or a neighbor, my mother told victimfully that I was a stubborn teenager. I was fifteen when my mother kicked me out after an argument about the dishes I was doing the wrong way. I cycled laps for two days. I slept in a bus shelter because I thought I was not allowed to come home. I still don't understand that nobody spoke to me. My father, brother and sister did nothing either, apparently they did not dare to argue with my mother. Finally, the police noticed me.

Learning to feel

'At that time I couldn't make friends either. I was very defensive. If I felt attacked, for example after a comment that my clothes were not nice, I immediately started calling names, which turned every contact into a fight. After secondary school I wanted to study, but according to my mother I was too stupid for that. I thought she was right and worth nothing. Eventually I enrolled in a college degree in law, even though my mother predicted it would be a fiasco. I moved fifty kilometers further for my studies, from Gorinchem to Tilburg, and moved into a student room. Because of the peace I got there, I fell into a depression, which brought me to a psychologist. During the first session, my therapist asked what I was feeling. I could only stare at her. Where should I feel something? What then? Is feeling in your stomach? Higher? I felt that my therapist was from another planet. Yet through her I gradually got to know and recognize my emotions. I discovered that I was entitled to an opinion, that I could be there. That made me grow, and during that time I made a few friends and even got a friend. '

“When I took him to my parents, he was shocked to see my mother sitting us at the children's table while she and my brother and sister sat with relatives. She laughed out loud when my father, brother and sister called me a profiteer and family parasite. That gave me confirmation that the way I was treated was really wrong. I tried to talk to my mom about it, but all she said was to "do some good work on myself." And somehow I kept believing her. When you have such a bad self-image, it is difficult to get away from it. Even though I graduated, moved in together and found a nice job where I received compliments, I kept feeling like a nobody. Against my better judgment, I kept hoping for a good relationship with my family. '

Liar

'When I was 29 I was allowed to go on holiday to Sri Lanka with my aunt and seriously ill uncle. My uncle wanted to go to Sri Lanka with me and my sister as a last wish, so that we could see our culture. I was honored. I was not yet busy with my adoption, I only got angry when I thought about my biological mother because she had given me up, but I was very curious about my culture. My mother thought we should refuse because otherwise we would 'rake up' things. My sister did say no, showing that she was on my mother's side. An hour before boarding, my mother sent me a picture of my father in the hospital. He was in pajamas on all kinds of tubes. "Your father has cancer and was hospitalized," she wrote. I was perplexed, knew nothing about it. My aunt told me that my father only had keyhole surgery, a biopsy had been taken and the result was fine. She was surprised I didn't know this. My mother was clearly out to ruin my vacation, and that area made the scales fall from my eyes. I finally understood that something was really wrong with her. And so maybe not with me. '

In a candid conversation about the past, my aunt told me that my mother was a copy of her father, who had treated her the way she treated me. Apparently I released something in her that brought out the worst in her. Nowadays I don't judge that harshly, but at the time I was furious with my mother and the world. Which adoption agency would have placed me with such a woman? And why had my aunt never intervened? Because it turned out that she had suspected that things 'happened'. But, she said, she never got a grip on how serious it was. She assumed I would confide in her if necessary. But that was precisely the problem. I didn't think I was worthy of being 'saved.'

'The holiday in Sri Lanka was great. I thought it was very special to recognize my skin color, to see that in Sri Lanka I was not a little bastard, but someone with a common height. I really felt at home in that country. Back home I was full of stories, but when I visited my parents, I was not given any space to tell my story. At that moment the last suture thread snapped. I wrote a letter to my mother in which I indicated that I had

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