Adoption: rage, hopelessness, attachment

[Kintsugi]

I become obsessed with things regularly. It is a natural part of my yearly cycles.

This obsession: adoption.

I can't seem to get enough, even though I try and try to stop, because I am definitely not in a place to handle this bullshit. I can't seem to help myself, though. As with all of my obsessions, I'm totally addicted.

Other adoptees, I've learned, call the process through which I am going "defogging."

I keep experiencing desperation, so much grief, and so much rage. It all hits me in waves. I'm clawing desperately around for validation: as it turns out, almost all of the resources out there are for parents who want to adopt, have adopted, or crazy sunny stories about how great adoption is. Apparently, this is a huge problem. All of the "real" adoption stories are buried, shouted down, villified. The traumatic experiences of adoptees are dismissed as untrue or abnormal. But they. Are. Not.

I feel like I'm spinning out, and I don't know how to steady myself. To make matters worse, I've just made plans to see my (adoptive) mother in a couple of weeks, which is ALWAYS hard, but right now, it feels impossible. My work life and school life are both bursting into flames.

I just don't know how to cope.

 

[Ronin]

Simie is there a way to view that visit as visiting a friend you haven't seen in a long while?

Or reframe in a way that isn't about families & the whole huge clusterf*ck families are, but a more neutral territory?

 

[Anarchy]

I'm not an adoptee

But can really identify with those feelings.

I'm betting that when the time for the visit comes around, that the ambivalence that kept us going, will paper over the cracks. It doesn't resolve the underlying stuff and the feelings of invalidation, but it gets us through.

Silly question, no answer required. you say that this is seasonal, is there other stuff in your life that this is serving as a lightning conductor for?

Laurence Heller describes "the nameless dread" in developmental trauma, that we rationalise as being due to... X, y or z

But it's a sort of all pervading, over powering, pre verbal thing, from screwed up attachment.


Sending you:hug: and kind thoughts

 

[Kintsugi]

you say that this is seasonal, is there other stuff in your life that this is serving as a lightning conductor for?

I'm not super sure I understand this question, but I think I do? I started thinking Sunday night about my foster brother, who raped my brother (also an adoptee), who sexually abused me, and all of this rage started pouring in. The next day, I don't even remember why, I just was like, "MUST. FIND. ADOPTION. STORIES."

It has been totally f*cking intense.

@Ronin, that is a good idea. I'm having trouble not wanting to grab my mother and be like, "Did you even consider that adopted kids were traumatized? Why do adoptive parents place responsibility on children for talking about adoption, when we all know how much it hurts adoptive parents? And why didn't anyone point out to me sooner that the reason I feel the need to protect everyone from my emotional experience might be because I was unconsciously TERRIFIED of being abandoned again?!?! WAS THERE EVER AN ADULT ON DUTY, OR JUST ME???"

 

[ladee]

I totally understand your last line in your post. And I am not adopted.
Thank you for verbalizing something I have lived with my whole life.
Gentle hugs for pain inflicted on us by others.

 

[Kintsugi]

I saw my T today. I really, really didn't want to. I've been searching for reasons all week not to see her, but I forced myself not to cancel. Even today, even as I was halfway there (and it is a long drive, 40-60min), I was sabotaging myself and making up reasons I had to go home. I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to puke. I was all nerves. It was bizarre. I never get like that. Even my usual calming/grounding car tricks weren't working. I just felt like someone about to jump out of a plane without knowing if I had a chute.

And then my session made me so ANGRY. My motherf*cking therapist knew I was circling and circling to this. She knew it was coming. I'd even brought up adoption a couple of years ago, when we first started talking about attachment, and I first poked the sleeping giant.

And then today, I say, "Like, remember when I said I wasn't sure if I actually loved my parents? Apparently that's.not uncommon with adoptees," and she gives this look, this eyes-wide-open-taking-a-deep-hard-breath look, and I say, "You KNEW? You knew and you said nothing?"

And it comes to light that she used to work pretty deeply in adoption issues, before she did PTSD. And she tells me that she felt I wasn't ready, that my profound issues with emotional splitting/black and white thinking were standing between me and being able to hold a lot of conflicting emotions about my mother at the same time (so true, but still, that bitch), and she talks about how much my emotional IQ has grown lately etc etc, and I'm just, like, "What the F*CK, Doctor?" Because she knew this would happen. And she just let me walk right into it, like a beehive she knew I'd knock into after I stumbled around long enough.

It was a really emotional session. I feel like a disaster.

 

[scout86]

That doesn't SOUND like a disaster to me. Not really. It kind of sounds like 'progress'. You know? Sometimes it's kind of messy? (For the record, I've had a couple of incidents where I KNOW my T was looking at me, thinking, "I was wondering how long it was going take you to notice that.")

 

[ladee]

I agree with @scout86 , have had this happen a few times myself.
Its progress.
What would you have liked for your T to have done differently?
And I may be completely off the mark here and correct me if I am wrong.
In therapy or in life when I felt I had had a breakthru..and someone already knew my solution, I would feel stupid for it taking me So long. Feeling stupid is a trigger for me.
I would spiral down to square one.
I still go off center..and sometimes dissacoiate..but get grounded much faster.
I used to feel deep shame that I didn't have my answers and someone else knew all along.
To me, at that time of my recovery , it meant I wasn't worthy of someone sharing that information and making my journey a little easier.
You may have a completely different reason for your feelings.
If so, would appreciate knowing where you figured out where the feelings came from. I always want to learn where feelings come from. It helps me on my own journey.
I do appreciate that you shared. Gave me things to think about.

 

[Kintsugi]

I appreciate that framing, @scout86, but also, I drove from therapy to work crying to the Tarzan soundtrack. Yes, I feel like a disaster.

Last night, I had a dream that Lilith, our pit bull, tried to bite Annie again. When I woke up, I thought it was just another Annie Is in Danger nightmare, which I have a LOT, but it felt different.

Later in the day, I was reflecting on something someone wrote on an adoptee forum about how it's amazing that we know not to take pups from their mothers too young, but we act like children are dolls to be moved around whenever.

Anyway, Lilith and her litter were mistakenly removed from her mother immediately after birth, and I know that's where a lot of her crazy issues come from (it's really a bad thing to do that with puppies... probably also babies!), and looking back on my nightmare, it was all about Lilith. She was enraged, snarling, snapping. I had to jump on her and tape her mouth shut like a crocodile. I think the dream was about me, not Annie or Lilith. Me. I'm snarling. I feel like I need tape.

I agree with @scout86 , have had this happen a few times myself.
Its progress.
What would you have liked for your T to have done differently?

I think I might actually be experiencing transference. Because I'm just so pissed. My T and I have a very "peer" relationship, and that's great, and she does not coddle me at all, and she says exactly what she thinks, but today every time she defended the ignorance around the adoption process or played devil's advocate for my mother, I just wanted to say, "Why can't you be on my f*cking side, just for today? Why can't you just see me and understand how grief-stricken and enraged and confused I am?"

Of course, she did, and she does. I truly thought she was going to seriously cry today. Her eyes were full of tears for me, and her voice cracked, and it was overwhelming to me. But I still feel pissed off. I feel like I am just now experiencing the emotions of a cosmic injustice, and I just want to rage at anyone available.

 

[ladee]

I get that 100 percent. I really do. Just had this same conversation with my best friend. That I needed her to acknowledge my feelings and the changes I have made in recent months in regard to my son. She got it and with deep sincerity validated me. And it was growth for me to ask. But was a little pissed off too that I had to ask.
Sometimes we need our support to be mind readers.
Just once in awhile.
Bet when you go back the two of you will have another talk about this. But thank you for sharing. I absolutely understand now.
Gentle hugs

 

[illusionist]

Feel for you @Simply Simon ....I really do. Although my background is different, I was adopted, my adopted parents died when I was three and four...I do understand.

Last week I was talking to a friend who had adopted a little one at the age of two. They are proud of the little one, exclaimed that he has no after affects from his previous two years.....all is ok because he is loved and spoilt now ( so that makes everything ok). He could not see how being yanked from his mother could cause any long term problem..how one day he may want to see his mother again .....why would he if he has everything he needs ?

I had to walk away as this is not the only person whom I know who has adopted, and refuse to see that these kids can have emotional issues..are not addressed, or considered...just give them a nice life and they will forget about all the nasties. It's a lovely thought but so far from the truth.

 

[scout86]

A 'cosmic injustice' sounds like a very good description. It's totally unfair that you weren't born into a situation where you could be raised by good parents who gave birth to you. And, it seems pretty stupid for 'the system' to over look any potential repercussions from the adoption process. It makes a whole lot more sense to deal with problems than to ignore them and pretend they don't exist.

Most of my 'orphan experience' is with horses and cows. It does make a difference with them, and those differences vary with whether they had a chance to form an attachment to their birth mother or not, how old they were when the separation happened, what happened next, and it's different for the two species too.

Cows have a system where the calf is parked somewhere while Mom eats. When they're first born, they are hidden, with mom closer by. As the calves get older (think a week or more) they are left in 'day care centers' where an older cow supervises and they may not see their mom for hours. In the evening, the cows come home (where that expression probably comes from) and they spend the night with mom & the rest the herd.

Foals stay close to mom 24/7 and that's a huge, big deal. I've raised orphan calves, one in particular whose mother never claimed her, where I kept them safe in a barn at night and dropped them off at 'day care' after i fed them in the morning. At night, when the cows came home, they'd head to the gate and, if I wasn't there, hollar for me until I got there to feed them. I'm sure it wasn't as good as having a cow mother, but it was better than being dead, which was the other option.

Foals have more challenges because they're wired to have mom available all the time. Sometimes you can graft them on to another mare. I think that's probably the best case scenario, but I think it's rare that that bond is as strong as the original one would have been. From what I've seen if the foal never bonds with its real mother and you happen to have a good surrogate available immediately, you don't notice much difference from the normal situation. But the more things deviate from 'normal', the more complicated things get. Worst case scenario, IMO, is a foal orphaned at birth, raised exclusively by people. Most of the time, there are HUGE behavioral challenges, largely because we feel sorry for them and think they're too cute to enforce any discipline. Somehow, they have to learn to be a horse and it's hard to learn that from a human.

I'm guessing people are more like dogs. Baby people are WAY more helpless and dependent than horses or cows. More like dogs and cats (or rabbits). But I'd also guess the nature of the challenges is going to vary depending on the age at separation, the interval before a adoption, etc. The other thing you have with people is the ability to imagine what things might have been like, 'if only'.

That was probably TMI. :) But I'm totally sure any adoption scenario presents potential problems, and not addressing them seems like a disservice to all concerned. With people, I'm guessing there are a ton of variations in motives and expectations that adoptive parents being to the situation. That probably makes a huge difference too. If your adoptive mother is someone who lacks the capacity to see that adoption is complicated, I'm sorry. That seems like it would be a huge barrier to the best possible relationship with her. It also seems like 'anger'would be a potential response to her denial. Especially if you couldn't afford to be angry when you were a kid. Just having her (or anyone else) deny the legitimacy of your feelings is a good reason to feel anger. (But you're probably right. The anger towards your T is probably transference.)