I was adopted at birth and was brought up always knowing that I had been adopted. I had a good life with my adopted parents, although unfortunately my adopted dad passed away just 1 month before my 2nd birthday.

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Although I was always curious who my natural parents were, I decided that I wouldn’t look for them while my adopted mum was still alive, as I didn’t want her to feel she wasn’t enough.Following her death 10 years ago, I decided to try and trace my natural parents. My adoption certificate had my mother’s name and age on, however my father’s details were left blank. I didn’t know anything about him, nor if he even knew I existed.

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After contacting the adoption service to trace my natural mother who was named on the certificate, they explained it was a legal requirement that I had to speak with their counsellors first to prepare me for the possibility that my natural parents may not want any contact, and how I would cope with the ensuing emotions. What they didn’t prepare me for was the opposite.

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A few years later when they finally found my natural mother, she told them she didn’t want to have any contact with me, so that side of my search proved fruitless and more disappointingly she refused to provide details of who my father was. I found it easy to accept her decision as I had already had a wonderful mother throughout my life, however, I had never known what I was like to have a father.

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My search hit a brick wall until last Christmas, when I received an ancestry.co.uk DNA kit from my partner. After a few months when I received my DNA matching results, and within a few weeks of speaking with my DNA matches, I found my natural father. This was the start of a life changing emotional roller coaster ride.

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I was obviously ecstatic that I had found my father, that he had known about me, and had hoped one day I would search for him, as he had been unable to search for me as he hadn’t been named on the legal paperwork for my adoption.

I have never felt emotions so varied and so strong in my life before that I felt over the ensuing weeks and months. I was totally overwhelmed with how I was feeling. Was my adopted life a charade? Did my earlier adopted life up to finding him matter anymore? My ‘family’ that I had been brought up by, were no longer my family. My happy memories from as far back as I could remember didn’t seem real, or meaningful anymore. I felt my entire life had been replaced in an instant, and I struggled to even understand who I was, and how I fitted in with my own past and future life.

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I contacted Helen to see if she would be able to help me make sense of how I was feeling and support me through this difficult transition. She brought a sense of calm to my situation as soon as I started speaking with her, helping me realise that my past was my past, and that the happy times I had growing up were an essential part of me. My adopted mother had instilled the values that I had lived my life by, and they still held true to who I was, and who I am. I found the timeline therapy sessions had helped me realise that my adopted life was every bit as important as my future was going to be with my natural father and helped me align the two, bringing sense and a balance to how I’d been feeling. This helped me to approach my new life in a far more positive and stable way than I had been experiencing before I started working with her. The work we did enabled me to continue progressing the relationship with my natural father, as well as two half-sisters, his wife and his extended family who had always known about me. Knowing that he had known about me and had hoped I would find him one day put extra pressure on how I was feeling about the whole situation. Would I be the person he hoped to find? Would I fit in? Helen helped me massively with this also, and how to deal with huge emotional swings I was experiencing. Without her help my mixed emotional state could easily have negatively affected my ability to build my relationship with my new found father and family.

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I have now built a fantastic relationship with my natural father and new family and friends, and undoubtedly this was as a direct result of the help that Helen gave me. This was the most challenging time I had ever experienced in my 54 years, and I simply cannot thank her enough, and I would have no hesitation in recommending her to others.