Adoption: rage, hopelessness, attachment

[Kintsugi]

Thank you for sharing, @Isobel Wolf. Each story I hear is a breath of validation.

Check out Dr. Sunderland's lecture, "Remembered But Not Recalled." It's on YouTube.

I'm going to read The Primal Wound soon as part of my research.

 

[Isobel Wolf]

I saw my T today. I really, really didn't want to. I've been searching for reasons all week not to...

Thank you for the rec! In my cart :)

My therapist worked in adoption group therapy before trauma also. She trivialized that aspect as well. Said that anecdotally she sees the same amount of people don't feel an attachment to their parents in non-adopted people, and shrugged it off as a nonconcern. She did that with a lot of things, I think to avoid me trying to read her body language to define what's significant to me (??) Kind of unhelpful. She did that with a lot of adoption things as I brought up talking points from the book, such as connecting with B-parents being helpful feeling grounded in an identity. Her response was "You meet someone that looks like you and sometimes that's it." She didn't recommend group therapy for adult adoptees. I wonder if that would be beneficial for me.. She recommended SLAA instead as well which is ridiculous as I avoid sex and my obsessions in that department are very much based, in my reckoning, on that need to find that deep parent-child bond without boundaries in partners and friends.

It also makes me angry when people who aren't adopted say "I feel adopted" because they had distant or critical parents. Makes me understand how marginalized groups resent people speaking over and for them. If you don't have firsthand experience, you can't compare!! Just sympathize.

I met a man who found his b-mom late in life and worked for her in her business, where I was training. And he looked at me tearfully and said he wished he never did. She was incredibly cold to everyone, but cruel in a special way to him. And his A-parents were like mine- picture perfect parents. I'm desperately curious, but also afraid... If they're awful people, if they judge me for how I turned out, I'll just feel like a double blight on the universe. I actually had to put down Coming Home to Self because every page made the tears pour til they were wrinkled.

It's so confusing when I read things that resonate and then I'm contradicted and I wonder, am I reaching for a feeling of identity? Am I more entitled to feeling disconnect from identity than anyone else? I start thinking the books are anti-adoption propaganda- when I repeat things from it to my A-mom it just contradicts everything they were told during the adoption.

A-mom understands more is known now than then about neuroscience, which catches a lot of flak, and the advances that explain adoption trauma, but still feels like it's a judgment about bloodlines and infertility and I just can't... can't break her heart, too. I can't tell her about the importance of the infant looking into her mother's eyes, and to smell her smell in the first hours after birth, and how her alien smell is why I would twist out of anyone's arms that tried to hold me. And how just hanging out for months with a bunch of other babies also being looked after by an elderly couple before I was placed was not a nurturing attentive place for a baby.

It's all so difficult. My older brother's adoption was planned, also closed, but no mental illness in his background. He had social anxiety growing up but overcame in therapy and is functional.

We are definitely brainwashed to feel guilt over the need to know and understand our birth story. And it must bleed over into not feeling deserving of a lot of things in life.

Ok this is already long but I'm going to keep going, might as well.

I volunteered in a dog shelter year before last, a year before I found out that my b-parents were mental patients. It made me remember how my a- parents surprised me with a dog when I was 8, around when they told me I was adopted but I didn't make the connection, and we went to pick her up and I started bawling hysterically when I saw her which shocked everyone. I remember expressing distress over separating her from her other owners, and I just could feel how powerless and strange it would be for the dog, and the people rehoming her were so upset to see me so upset. My parents asked, "Aren't you happy you'll have a dog?" And they thought I was just concerned about taking someone's dog. No, I understand that feeling-- that "I lost my child/parent in a grocery store" feeling, that completely primal panic that you can see in nature documentaries, like when a baby penguin gets lost and trampled in the huddle and is found lifeless and frozen. Everyone knows how messed up dogs who've been moved around are. Incredibly insecure, and that family dog was. Tearing up couches, escaping from 10 foot locked chainlink kennels and mailbox windows in garages. When you leave, your dog does not know if you're coming back.

Anyway, I felt the pain of every shelter dog. The cloud of "what was I for" that hovers over everything, and I do think all sentient creatures have an existential sense of purpose/instinct from moment to moment, or maybe it was just symbolic for me. Dogs were bred to be property and companionship. Adopted humans were bred to fill some void in a strangers' lives, as well. It's great to be loved by anyone but it is, well, unnatural to be blunt.

1 in 5 b-mothers fails to bond with her child. When I recused a senior dog, I had difficulty letting it love me unconditionally, and I've never had any maternal instinct apart from the pets I've had. Babies absolutely freak me out. If b-mom was distancing herself emotionally for nine months, feeling the impending loss and that fear of abandonment are the stress hormones you were marinating in, no love, it's no wonder attachment is this thing you can only long for while it triggers, like you said, overwhelming despair that you can't ever have it, that you barely knew it...

 

[Isobel Wolf]

Oh, T also said "A lot of people feel detached from their parents," meaning people that aren't adopted. And that was a topic ender to me. No exploration. Nice training, adoption/trauma specialist :rolleyes:

 

[Kintsugi]

Luckily, my T isn't nearly as dismissive. I just felt incredibly betrayed that she seemed to know what I was navigating better than I did, and she didn't point it out or warn me that I was about to trip into this hole she saw coming. She's very sympathetic, I think.

I have a really complicated relationship with my (a)mother. We're close in this way that was extremely toxic and damaging for such a long time, but over the past five years (during which, I'll add, my mother has been finally seeing a f*cking therapist), she's developed a lot, and our relationship has been increasingly positive. That doesn't, of course, undo the damage from the past, and there are a lot of things she won't admit to, or she'll qualify her share of blame into meaninglessness.

In any case, my T is astutely aware of the complexities of our relationship, and I can see where she didn't want to poke the adoption issue too hard the first time I brought it up; I was having enough trouble already.

My family, as you can read in this thread, was not picture-perfect, although they are economically privileged, so they may appear to be.

There was a lot of mental illness in my family's history. My (b)mother was diagnosed bipolar, although I've always wondered if she was misdiagnosed. She was raped for years by her step-father, then she was homeless for a couple of years as a teenager. She had a habit, it seems, of being in bad relationships. I don't know. I have an aunt, her sister, who is apparently really unstable ("batty as f*ck" were the exact words used to describe her, I think). I've never had the opportunity for contact with her, although I've tried to find her.

My mother hasn't faced the facts when it comes to updates in the science of child-rearing. My cousin does attachment parenting, and my mother writes it off, even though my cousin is super smart and an obsessive researcher with mountains of evidence to back up her parenting practices. My T and I talked about that, about how threatening it would be to my mother to embrace that science, what the implications would be that she was dead wrong about "crying it out" and all that nonsense.

*sigh*

 

[Mit]

Something I have discovered since reading Verrier's book and talking a bit to a friend is how important it is the child 'fits' with the adoptive family.

My adoptive parents were and still are descent well intentioned and caring folk.

But I also experienced them as frightening and over controlling. I was timid and sensitive unlike my non adoptive brothers. They seemed able to push back and resist my parents, in effect negotiate the terms of their relationship.

I was so busy feeling gratitude and a sense of duty towards them I always complied with all their demands.

As an adult I reacted by moving away (to the opposite side of the planet for a while) and whilst we are in regular contact we don't see much of each other, which is down to me.

My adoption experience was compounded by frequent hospilitisations throughout my childhood. That may also have been a very different experience had I a different relationship with my parents.

My own experience of being a parent is one of continual evolution. My adoptive parents style was formulaic, perhaps their attempts to truly treat me the same as their biological sons resulted in them not noticing that I was actually different and needed to be treated differently. I wasn't ever argumentative, I never miss behaved. And yet I was threatened with the cane, in the same way as my more emotionally robust brothers. I was 5 when they adopted me, so was it beyond anyone's comprehension my needs might be different.

Of course this was 50 years ago, and along with my medical treatments, I repeatedly get told things were done differently then.

This 'excuse' may be true. But it does me no favours now. And to be frank I am sick of hearing it.

I made contact with my biological mother 4 weeks ago. We've exchanged letters so far. A meeting has been suggested, perhaps in time. It's another new experience.

 

[Isobel Wolf]

Of course this was 50 years ago, and along with my medical treatments, I repeatedly get told things were done differently then.

This 'excuse' may be true. But it does me no favours now. And to be frank I am sick of hearing it.
.

Yeah and I don't buy Himmler's defense either. The generations where this was accepted did not go unaffected by that.

Was the process difficult or lengthy to make contact? How did you take the plunge? My mom offered to send me the paperwork which she says is in a bank vault about the adoption, and I've asked her twice in the past 8 months because I want to know, so I don't have to open my life up to a stranger until I'm ready for an encounter of such realness:nailbiting:.

but of course no papers have been forthcoming and I don't want to open her wounds. I don't want to have to wait til they're both dead to get my questions answered.

 

[Kintsugi]

@Isobel Wolf Do you know if you live in a state where adoptees can retrieve their original records? I didn't know this until recently, but most adoptees' birth certificates are fake (what the actual f*ck, amiright?), and there are only a few states where adult adoptees are allowed to retrieve their own information (how kind).

A lot of people in the adoptee community I've recently engaged with found their biological relatives through a "search angel," someone skilled who looks for your parents/relatives for free, or through DNA kits/databases (like Ancestry and 23&me).

My (b)siblings located me themselves when I was eighteen. It only took about six months for them to find me on their end, but they had my (a)parents' names I think. Unfortunately, my (b)mother had died when they started looking, and my (b)father died when I was twenty-four, so I tend to have the perspective that reunion is better rushed than forestalled.

I'm happily overwhelmed by all of the other adoptees in here sharing their experiences.

I've been corresponding a lot these past couple of weeks with my half sister and my... well, hard to say what she is. She's not related to me. She's the mother of my nephew and also the daughter of the woman who lived with my (b)father as husband and wife for some 20 years or so. Anyway, they've been helping me find the answers I'm seeking. It's been overwhelming but so helpful for me. I fear my (b)siblings right now (see here for my (b)brother saga of last year), so these two women have been extremely useful and safe points of entry to learn about my roots.

 

[Mit]

I went through social services to get my adoption files. It took a while, three years in fact (but over two of those were due to the useless social worker). The replacement social worker was better. It was fairly easy from the records to find a last known address. She hadn't moved far. I used the public register of births marriages and deaths.

I then asked the same social worker to act as intermediary. He wrote to her on my behalf. She responded through her daughter in law. We've just started exchanging letters through the social worker.

Be careful of disclosing too much if you don't want to be found on social media.

Thank you for the thread @Simply Simon

 

[Isobel Wolf]

Do you know if you live in a state where adoptees can retrieve their original records?..

Picked up Coming Home to Self and it's the same author of Primal Wound :) slipped my mind. The quote on the first page by Salmon Rushdie

Those who do not have power / over the story that dominates their lives /power to retell it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as time changes, truly are powerless because they cannot think new thoughts.

I went from reading your brother saga, which got me so riled up, and the user comment on it that "blood doesn't matter," then this quote. And I'm even more existentially confused than ever!!

Unfortunately I've let similar people to your (b) brother, twice, friends of whom I thought to myself that there is no way they would abuse my generosity, into my home indefinitely and they proceeded to ruin my life in ways I can't begin to describe. It's not normal, as the roles were reversed and I was let into a friend's house under similar circumstances when I moved out of state, he didn't really live in the house, by I abided by all his strict, weird rules and was basically at his beck and call for cleaning and informal therapy- he was insane, I was sympathetic- And he still ruined my life! So it's not just living styles not meshing. It's a pathology of people who draw people like us in to feed on them.

So getting to that point where the hard boundary has to be enforced is entirely stressful but such a learning experience. Anyone who tries to invite themselves in and make a mess of my hardly won ordered privacy gets the boot. It's a total type that has worn out their welcome with any support system and then they smell your kindness and trust and the vampire descends to suck the peace out of everything.

All it takes it to get tangled in another person's web, so I fear everyone and have retreated further and further into isolation. Now I have less than nothing, I live in small places so I can "no" to people who want to use me for a crashpad under the pretense of suddenly feeling we're so close but really they just need what I have, so the only thing that I would fear from meeting new and opportunistic (b)family members would them preying on my (a)parents, who do not deserve the drama they had avoided by having a closed adoption.

How it works in my birth state is that I submit a notarized form to the court to see if they have also submitted. I can get non-identifying records such as health concerns which (b)parents can update through the years, and only if they have also submitted can I receive identifying records. All I know are the vague circumstances and that they wanted to assure (a)parents that (b)parents were from an educated background as well. I've printed the paperwork out a few times now, but can't decide if I want identifying or non. And being this blank slate, what my (a) parents see me as, has been so much my identity. That overwhelming sense of the concealed information comes like an avalanche and is inexpressibly paralyzing.

@Mit Wow that is a long time. Desires and needs can change so much in three years. I admire your bravery and that you persevered and made contact. I hope the revelations bring you some measure of comfort.

 

[Isobel Wolf]

I'm not sure how I botched the html in my post to make it all hyperlinked- mods would you mind cleaning up my mess? ugh sorry

 

[Mit]

I saw my adoptive parents this weekend, it was my mother's birthday, she was 88. They are kind and descent people, but both struggling with age related health problems.

In front of my partner and my two teenage sons my mother recounted the story of wanting to adopt a girl, but on seeing me in the hospital decided to adopt me. My small size (born 3lbs) and large blue eyes seem to do it. It is always very weird to listen to this stuff. My son's kept glancing at me to gauge my reactions. The strange thing is that there is never any talk about what went before. It's as if my life actually started then, but of course there is another story that led to me being in that place up for adoption. It seems so odd not to mention it...

I asked them what is was like the first time they took me into hospital for surgery. In those days parents weren't allowed to stay with children in hospital. I was three. They said they could hear me crying out for them as they left the ward and it made them cry. They said I didn't know what they had been through having to repeatedly leave me behind in hospitals.

My partner looked at me then. Back at home after the three hour drive we talked about it. My partner said how striking it was that they didn't think about how I might have been affected being left behind, crying out for them.

They seem to think that because I was so young I wouldn't be affected, or wouldn't remember anything. They would never think that this wasn't my first experience of being left, or abandoned by a mother, they don't think I could have been affected when I was separated from my biological mother. At six weeks old? What could I know.....

That has always been their belief, that I wasn't the one who was suffering. I asked them if they remembered how ill I always was from the anaesthetic after coming around after surgery. They said I wouldn't have remembered. And yet I do remember retching for hours, sometimes for days after the anaesthetic. They were surprised I could remember fighting not to be given a foul tasting pre-med that always made me vomit.

It amazed me at how much faith they put in their belief that because I was very young I wouldn't be affected. Children are resilient is the common refrain. Seems to me children must possess super powers then, not to be affected by this type of thing.

The mistaken belief that a baby or young child is too young to know or be affected by separation from it's mother is still a common one. And it's one that my parents still believe...

 

[Kintsugi]

@Mit The faith in the resilience of the very young used to be unshakable. The practice of dropping children off at a hospital today seems unthinkable, yet it was the practice of the day, that children didn't need the support of their parents and mothers and children didn't require much initial contact following birth to be well-adjusted and happy. Babies have been treated as objects by our culture and others for a long time.

We know now that resiliency is not something forged through early hardship but early security. Nonetheless, modern adoptive parents rally around the battlecries that they are saving infants from a dimmer future than they can afford for their adoptive children. Sometimes that's true. In many ways, it was for me, though people still don't seem to acknowledge the loss and grief of such a 'solution' to 'unfit' parents.

Your experience of feeling that it is as if your life only began when your adoptive parents took you is extremely common. I think the idea that an adoptee had no past previous to their adoption is unfair. It seeks to erase part of the child's history. One adoptee said that it was as if the lives of adoptees always start on chapter two, and chapter one is buried (forgive me if someone said that here and not elsewhere; it's hard to keep it all straight). That erasure of history, identity, beginnings is in itself a source of bitterness for me.

I think this practice is rooted in selfishness: adoptive parents often want so badly to make it as if an adoptive child is their own and was never anyone else's. The notion is sort of ridiculous on its face. Adoptive children don't jump from our adoptive parents' foreheads, the tangible product of their desires, like Athena from Zeus. I was conceived, gestated, born, held by my natural mother, and then given away.
Whenever my adoptive mother talked about my adoption (which was next to never), what she focused on (always, always--nothing about my biological mother) was that she was there to cut my cord. How... metaphorically on the nose, amiright?