Mom.
The word is sacred. The word is for the one who changes diapers, bathes, sings-to, gives bottles, soothes tears and plays game with their child.
I've always had a way of hurting the people who love me unconditionally, is it because I subconsciously know they are stuck with me or because of some deep rooted trauma from being an adoptee and feel like I am unlovable and deserved to be placed. (I don't think that on a conscious level.)
The words came exploding from my mouth. "You are NOT my REAL mom!" If there was ever a sentence I wish I could take back, it would be that one. I'm pretty sure that's when I packed up my Little Mermaid suitcase and ran away. I didn't get far, it was raining and I hid behind the garbage can next to the house. I couldn't have been more than five years old.
I had a horrific temper, there were many days I would refuse to go to school and developed severe separation anxiety in elementary and middle school. It's a bit hard to separate it all.. was it due to my dad's deployments? I was and still am 100% daddy's girl. Was it due to being adopted? Was it genetic? Was it my environment? Was it due to hormones being out of balance during puberty? It's probably a combination of them all.
It had gotten to the point where my mom would have to physically drag me in to school and sit in the counselor's office every day to ensure I went to class and as a safety net for me.
It got the point where my dad had to remove my doors and they looked at inpatient psych wards. It was too much. My parents selected a school called American Day. It provided structured, personalized, clinically intensive partial hospitalization programs and intensive outpatient programs for individuals 14 years and above with psychiatric and emotional disorders. The group therapy programs are designed to serve those who need the structure and intensity found in inpatient psychiatric programs but who do not require 24-hour inpatient care. Basically I would be picked up in the morning, receive counseling along with regular classes and do my work from my regular school and then be dropped off at home.
I was 14. I remember crying for the first couple of days and being the youngest. A van would pick me up each morning. It was embarrassing to pass my friends in the van as they waited for a school bus. The boy on the van had a pet monkey. It's funny the things you remember. My family actually regrets that decision, I made friends with older kids who had a lot of disorders and drug habits.
I'm not sure what changed, but by the next year I rejoined my middle school classes and things went back to normal for the most part. I was taught about panic attacks, how to change thought patterns and relaxation techniques.
These days, I can't even relate to those emotions, I don't know that person who did those things.
Did this all stem from being adopted? "For me, being adopted was normal. knowing I was adopted was as natural as having a belly button. It was just always there." - Madeline Melcher. I've always loved being adopted, being a little bit different, having my own thing.
Do adopted kids sometimes grow up and do horrible thing? Yep. You know who else grows up and does horrible things? Non-adopted kids.But, i've been reading a lot of research about the separation of child from her birth mother. That is is a traumatic event that deeply impacts the adoptee, creating special needs that must be addressed throughout the adoptee’s life.
I learned there are two ways adoptees act out. One is compliant and one is rebellious. Some who act out will go to the extreme of running away from home, threatening their adoptive parents, rebel academically and even attempt suicide. A 2001 study shows that of teens in grades 7 through 12, 7.6% of adopted teens had attempted suicide compared with 3% among their non-adopted peers.
I never got to that point, but I understand getting to that point. I also bounced between compliant and rebellious.
"The adopted child who acts out, is, in essence, attempting to initiate some form of rejection from parents, teachers, peers and others in order to prove that she is unlovable or she finds herself rejecting these same people prior to being rejected by them. This type of child is obviously troubled and it is easy to identify as needing help. However, parents and therapists often try to counsel the child into acting more appropriately, instilling tough love or even unknowingly furthering the child’s abandonment issues by sending them to boarding school, camp or other such institutions." - The Psychology of Adoption Trauma and the Primal Wound
Sounds familiar huh?
"For the compliant child the situation can actually be much more devastating. As a compliant child who is either not causing problems or actually well engaged and visibly successful, she is not seen as having any problems at all. Parents see this child as well adjusted to life, including being adopted, and with no outwardly troubling signs of concern, this child is often overlooked and not given any form of counseling or assistance in dealing with life or emotional wounds. It is difficult for anyone to see that the child who is often referred to as, “mature for her age” or “pleasant and articulate,” is actually in equal distress to the child who is acting out. Both are hurting, both are devastated by the trauma of relinquishment and both have no way to articulate, understand, contextualize or grieve the loss they have endured." Adoptee View: What Can a Tiny Baby Know?
Continued from that blog:
"These two behavior types present themselves at various ages, though adolescence is the most common time for them to reach their strongest levels. Additionally, some may actually experience both behavior types, switching from one to the other depending on their environment or transition back and forth throughout maturity. Also noteworthy is that no matter the age of adoption, infant through teen, all adoptees essentially suffer from the same issues."
I feel for the author.. is it just dismissing responsibility of my actions and blaming it on being adopted? Would this have happened had I not been adopted?
I don't know the answer to that, but it's something others who are part of the adoption process can be aware of, whether a birth mom, adoptee or adoptive parent.
In my letter to Macii and Tom, a lot of the things I wrote to them were to help them expect some things that may happen that are not so pleasant, but if it does happen that BB can come out on the other side of it a wonderful and fully functioning adult.
These things also affected my choices in adoption, maybe in being more open we can prevent BB from going through some of the hard times I did, maybe we won't. I'll let you know how it turns out. I can only talk from my experience and the research that resonates with me.
If you have a story you would like to share, please feel free to contact me at Jacqueline.Leeker@gmail.com, with your permission, I'd love to share as many stories as possible and not only educate but help each other through adoption, something I consider a wonderful and beautiful thing. Is it perfect? No. Is it worth it? More than you could ever imagine.
I'm an adoptive mom and I don't buy the "primal wound" theory at all.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the suicide study you cite is that they don't sort out the children adopted at birth from the children adopted through foster care. Kids from foster care have, by definition, experience some sort of trauma in their lives.
There is no solid evidence that supports a primal wound theory. The whole idea only serves to make adoptees feel badly about themselves and to guilt pregnant women who are considernig adoption into parenting.
Thank you so much for reading and commenting!
ReplyDelete"Post Trauma Stress" by Frank Parkinson and "Dear Birthmother," by Kathleen Silber and Phyllis Speedlin cover a bit more about children adopted at birth and the "primal wound theory." Though both gloss over the topic and don't go terribly into depth about it.
Psychiatric times published several studies of a majority of children who were placed within their first year of birth and compared their mental health to the mental health of children who had not been adopted, they looked at both international and domestic. One of the links is here: http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/articles/adoption-and-mental-illness
As a supporter of adoption, the last line resonates the most with me, "Despite the study’s findings, Keyes emphasized that most of the children adopted as infants are well-adjusted and psychologically healthy."
Also on a personal note, being adopted as an infant my mom talked about how I was inconsolable the first couple of days when I was first taken home, and she contributes that to as infant not having the voice, smell and bond from my biological mother. It makes me wonder how long that stays with a child, how much does that affect an adoptee as they grow up.
I'm not looking to prove or disprove a theory, but to ensure I write a balanced view of my experiences with adoption. I've had amazing experiences, but they aren't all perfect.