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Helping Adopted Kids Think Freely About Their Birth Parents

I Shouldn't Tell Mom How Often I Think About My First Mom

I have yet to meet an adoptee who can honestly claim to have never thought about his or her birth mother, especially on birthdays.

It’s no wonder. Just think about how intimately we were united with the woman who gave us birth! What a connection we had for at least nine months. An inseparable bond. As inseparable as tea from hot water. As inseparable as a bud from the stem of a flower. As inseparable as the ocean from the sand.

Renowned author John Bowlby says that the mother is the hub of life.1

Author and physician Peter Nathananielsz says that much of the way our bodies work is molded and solidified during our time in the womb and that there are critical periods during prenatal development when our cells and organs decide how they will behave for the rest of our lives.2 Just think…at the very moment of conception, our entire genetic code was established that determined our sex and the color of our hair and eyes. At three weeks we had a beating heart, and at forty days detectable brain waves.

Perhaps even more fascinating is a phenomenon that goes on between a mother and her unborn child that absolutely boggled my mind when I learned about it.

Our First Conversations with Her

Who do you think was the first person with whom you had a conversation?

Would you believe it was your birth mother?

And, where and when do you think it might have happened?

This is the mind-boggling part —in the womb!

Dr. Thomas Verny says that during the last three months of pregnancy, and especially the last two, we are mature enough physically and intellectually to send and receive fairly sophisticated messages to and from our mothers. Our mothers set the pace, provide the cues, and actually mold our responses.3

What messages did we get from our birth mothers? I believe it all depended on her attitude toward us. If we heard, “I love you and am so glad you’re a part of me. I will do all that I can to help you develop into the person you were created to be. I can’t wait to see you. I will welcome you into the world in a way more wonderful than you can possibly imagine,” our response was certainly positive. We would have thrived on it. “Oh, Mommy,” our little pre-verbal minds might have “said,” “I love you so much and I can’t wait to be born so that I can nurse at your breasts and be held in your arms.”

On the other hand, what if we heard, “I don’t want you. I don’t even like you. In fact, I think of you as an ‘it,’ and frankly, I can’t wait to get rid of you. I wish I could”?

Our little minds may have responded like this: “All alone. All alone. Hurts so bad. No one will ever take care of me. I must ‘buck up’ and be strong so I can survive. Be strong. Be strong. Tense up. Be on guard so I won’t be tortured like this again.”

This kind of message to us would be unimaginably painful. Author Judith Viorst likens it to being doused with oil and set on fire.4

But it’s a subconscious pain. Dr. Arthur Janov says that this kind of pain is “not like a pinch where we yell ‘ouch,’ shake our fingers, and in a few minutes get over it. Instead, it’s like being pinched so hard you cannot feel it, so that the pain goes on forever because it is continually being processed below the level of conscious awareness. It doesn’t mean it is not there doing its damage — it just means that it is too much to feel.”5

Some of us can identify with those negative conversations, and many of them are still playing in our heads even though they were communicated so many years ago. Some of us feel at a cellular level that we need her love and welcoming attitude in order to survive. If we experienced a transracial adoption, this may escalate as we hit the teen years. Every time we look in the mirror, we wonder who we look like. Whom did my skin color come from?

I know for a fact that I didn’t have my birth mother’s love from day one, yet by grace, I am a survivor. As my husband always says, “From some people you learn what to do and from others you learn what not to do.”

Whatever the case, whether conversations with our birth mothers were positive or painful, prenatal experiences are encoded in our bodies, souls, and spirits, resulting in questions and thoughts that pop into our minds, often unexpectedly, throughout our lives.

Our First Thoughts about Her

Folks who aren’t adopted are often amazed at how early some of us think about our birth mothers, especially when I tell the story about the adopted girl who asked her mom prior to her third birthday party if her “lady” was coming. The mother asked what lady she was talking about. Her daughter answered, “The lady I grew inside. It’s my birthday, isn’t it?”7

Cheri Freeman thought about her origins at an early age also. She told herself stories at age three or four about how her birth parents missed her and how happy they would be to finally meet her.

Joe Soll says that from the moment he knew he was adopted at age four, there has never been a day that he hasn’t thought about his birth mom.

Frieda Moore found comfort when hurting by imagining her birth mother coming to find and rescue her, taking her home to live with her forever.

Pam Hasegawa, a fifty-nine-year-old adoptee advocate, says that when she had the lead in a play, she remembers thinking, “If she could only see me now! Would she be proud of me?”

Where did those positive attitudes come from? Could they have begun in the womb?

And what about those of us who have negative attitudes? Laurie, even as a young child, worried that her birth mother must be struggling and depressed. Others of us didn’t begin to think about our birth mothers until we hit puberty and shot up to six feet tall even though both our adoptive parents were short. Shirley Reynolds says that when she became a teen, she realized that she looked much different than her adoptive family. This propelled her into a fantasy world where her mother would be dark-haired and petite, like Shirley. And of course, she would be beautiful!

If we are of mixed race, we look at our skin color and wonder what race our birth mother is. Is she Indian or Scottish?

Some adoptees claim to never think about their birth mothers. Sally says that she feels guilty because she doesn’t think about hers, knowing that so many other adoptees do.

Sally is not alone. Many don’t think about their birth mothers for various reasons, but the reason may possibly be shame. Shame is that awful feeling, not that we have done something wrong, but that something is inherently wrong with us as a person. In adoptee language, “My life is a mistake.”

How about hearing your adoptive mother talk derogatively about the twenty-one-year-old down the street who was unmarried and pregnant, raving about how much shame she brought to her family? Connie Dawson heard this message at the tender age of ten as her mother delivered a veiled message that Connie herself was shameful and shouldn’t be “bad,” like her birth mother was. Or how about Sue who struggles with a haunting belief that something dreadful must lurk within her, which if found out by her adoptive parents, would cause them to bolt from her?

Or, how about being a black child with white parents and hearing others ask why your parents adopted a black child. How about when you’re only six years old and people come up to your mom at the grocery store and ask how she fixes your Afro-American hair? Or, if you’re a black teen and you walk into a convenience store with your white parent, you can’t experience “white privilege” even though your mom is white. Others look suspiciously at you instead.

Her Lifelong Impact

Whether positive or negative, and whether we like it or not, our birth mothers are a forever part of us. How we choose to respond to that reality will deeply influence the course of our lives.

Author Louise Kaplan says that in the death of a parent (which I believe can be likened to relinquishment), the dialogue between parent and child continues within the child and that the child remains attached in profound ways to that dialogue throughout life.8

When my dad died, one of his friends said to me, “You never lose your parents. They are always a part of you.” In my grief, I was rather skeptical, but since that time I have found it to be true. For instance, after every meal, Dad, in a mischievous way, picked up the unused silverware saying,

“This one’s clean!” We’d all laugh and say, “Yeah, Dad!” Over the years it became an endearing behavior, and in the years since his death, whenever I pick up clean silverware after a meal, I think of him and smile.

What about Our Birth Fathers?

We have examined a very important part of our existence —our birth mothers. But what about our birth fathers? Did they have no influence? Last time I checked the books on reproduction, it takes two to make a baby.

Thoughts about Our Birth Parents Are Innate

When I was almost finished with the final draft of this book I talked with a reunited birth father who adored his daughter but who had been rejected by her. His heart was breaking as he wept while telling me that he would do anything to have a meaningful father-daughter relationship.

Do many birth fathers feel the same way? Would they want a relationship with us if they had an opportunity? Do they feel the loss of us to the same degree that birth mothers usually do? As we do?

What if our birth fathers are rapists or serial murderers? Many of us were conceived in rape. How are we to tell our stories? How we to believe our lives are not a mistake?

As I’ve said, I believe that adoption can be likened to a big door. Over the top of the door is written “Birth Mother,” for our thoughts about her usually come first. It is often after we have gone through the adoption door that we find the words “Birth Father” written on the other side.

Ron Hilliard, of Palm Beach Heights, Florida, focused mainly on his birth mother and blocked out thoughts of his birth father because his father didn’t want to marry his mother and also urged her to have an abortion. Ron’s search for his birth mother ended in a cemetery and he is now looking at the back of the adoption door and wondering who his father is—and who he is as a result. This curiosity is being fueled by the fact that Ron has a fraternal twin brother who resembles his birth mother’s photos, while Ron doesn’t. This makes him wonder who he does resemble.

Some of us see the words “birth father” first on the adoption door.

Richard Curtis says that the loss of his birth father was the first loss of a male figure in his life, followed by the loss of his adoptive father when he was only five years old. As a result, Richard had no male role models and was left with what he terms a “father hunger” that he believes many adoptees experience.

Like Ron, Richard’s search for his birth father ended at a tombstone. However, after finding people who knew his father prior to his death, Richard can see that many of the choices and behaviors he has made in life closely parallel his birth fathers.

Crystal speaks of father hunger by calling it a “void” that colors her relationships with men and keeps her longing for a daddy even though she is forty years old. A friend recently asked her what she would do if she ever found him. To Crystal the answer was simple —“I’d quit my job, move in with him, and have him take care of me.” She then added, “I am joking… but not really.”

When our curiosity is aroused, our speculations about him increase. What kind of a person was/is he? Did he refuse any responsibility and abandon our birth mother, as in the case of Laurie? Out of deep hurt, she says she prejudged him as a jerk because he chose not to marry her mom or encourage her to keep her baby. She is actually happy that she doesn’t have to know him.

To Issie, her birth father is a non-issue. A few years ago she thought briefly about trying to locate him, but her fear of rejection was too strong. In addition, she has no proof, short of DNA, of who her father is.

Then there’s the nasty subject of incest. Sheila says that her birth father is her mother’s stepdad. She’s glad he died before she met her birth family because she doesn’t know how she would react to him. She’s accepted that he’s a part of her, yet she can’t comprehend his deplorable actions.

Dawn Saphir, twenty-seven, born in Seoul, Korea, and adopted at six months of age by a Caucasian family, says that based on what she’s learned of Korean culture at the time of her birth, she doesn’t have a lot of positive feelings about who her birth father may have been.

Some of our birth fathers may be completely ignorant of the fact that we even exist. How might our lives have been different had they been informed?

Karen says that she feels a great tenderness for the father who never knew about her. “He never had the chance to ‘give me up,’” she explains. “He never had the chance to know he was a father.”

Renee says that she had the amazing experience of finding her birth father recently and that the hardest part was discovering that he never even knew her birth mother was pregnant.

As I finish this section, I am reminded of my own birth father. When this chapter of the book was written originally, I had no idea of who he was, nor did I ever hope to know. My birth mother,  Elizabeth Lucini, refused to tell me his name.

I’ve always believed that if God wanted me to know who he is, it would be no problem…and want me to know, God did.

After 23 and Me and Ancestry.com, his military record surfaced. Even though he’s deceased, he leaves six siblings for me to find and meet.

The military records about my father were abhorrent and he left a family behind that was deeply wounded by his lifestyle.

More than anything, I am so happy to know who I am in Jesus Christ. That is where my identity is found. Without that foundation, I’m sure I’d be wondering if my life was a mistake and if I would turn out like him.

Our Dual Identity

If we were created from the very fiber of our birth parents’ physical and emotional beings, don’t you think our need to think about them would be innate? If we had in-utero conversations with our mother in the womb, wouldn’t you say it is natural for us to think about her as we are growing up and growing old? And if our birth father’s DNA helped determine the color of our hair and eyes, wouldn’t you say that he is just as much a part of us as our mother?

Wherever we are in the spectrum of perceptions about our birth parents, we must rest assured that our thoughts are normal. They are part of the fiber of our being. Part of the package of being adopted. It’s all about our identity… our dual identity.  Most of all, it’s about establishing an unshakeable identity by integrating all the parts of who we are—body, soul, and spirit.

So what must we do for ourselves? What healthy choice must we make to move closer toward who we were created toward an unshakeable identity?

THE ADOPTEE’S CHOICE

To give ourselves permission to think about and discuss openly our birth parents, especially to our adoptive parents.

Giving ourselves permission to let natural thoughts surface reminds me of when I am getting sick. I feel nausea and the urge to toss my cookies. I hate that more than anything, so I concentrate on something else so that I won’t. But when I finally let myself think about the possibility, up comes my lunch, followed by an incredible feeling of relief. A similar sensation often results when we allow ourselves to freely think about our birth parents. The urge to do so is really unstoppable.

Perhaps all these thoughts are new to you. You want to begin your process of making positive, life-transforming choices but don’t know how. The following section will help. (You’ll find such a section at the end of every chapter.)

HOW PARENTS CAN HELP ADOPTED CHILD 

Parents, I know you and the fact that you’re reading this shows your heart. You would do anything to help your child come to terms with his/her first family. Here’s what you can do:

    • Bring up the birth parents in conversation. “I wonder where you got that curly black hair. Do you think it could be from your birth mother?” This signals to your child that it’s okay to talk about the birth parents…in fact that you welcome the sharing of such thoughts.
    • Remind your child where his/her life really began--in the heart of God the Father. It didn’t begin at conception, nor at birth, nor on adoption day. It began in eternity past in the heart of the Father. “You are His idea!” Use the chart here to explain to your kiddo.
    • Always show respect and a loving attitude toward the birth parents, no matter what kind of shape they’re in. You see, there is a DNA bond in us to them and if you criticize them, you will be rejecting and criticizing us.

HOW ADOPTEES CAN BEGIN

    • Try free-association writing. Write whatever comes to mind about your birth parents. No one is ever going to see it, so be as free as possible. When you are done, look back and discern basic themes that run throughout your piece.
    • Make a drawing. Imagine “The Adoption Door,” and draw both the front and back sides. Label whose title is over the doorpost—birth mother or birth father. Then ask yourself, “Where am I in this scene? Am I a casual observer, am I moving closer toward it, or am I knocking on the door?” Then draw yourself in the picture.
    • Write a letter TO and FROM your birth mother and father. Experts say that this is one of the most effective tools for adoptees to get in touch with buried thoughts and feelings. Pay attention to your body language as you write. Find a trusted friend and read your letters out loud to him or her. Be aware of your emotions as you read and record them later at the bottom of the letters. Be sure to date them, too!
    • If you are in an open adoption, write a piece about what you think it might have been like to be parented by your birth parents. What struggles do you think may have added to your journey?
    • If your adoption was transracial and transcultural, can you identify specific questions or confusions about your parentage?

Be sure and sign up in the right-hand corner of this site to receive future updates from me.  The blog is once a week, so rest assured I won’t glut your mailbox:-) Thanks, friends!

This is Chapter 3 of 20 LIFE-TRANSFORMING CHOICES ADOPTEES NEED TO MAKE. (Copyright, JKP.com). You may purchase at Sherrie’s amazon author site: https://www.amazon.com/Sherrie-Eldridge/e/B001H6IXQY/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

Here is the chart of where your child’s life truly began. Feel free to copy, but please give credit.

Sherrie Eldridge
Sherrie Eldridge is a multi-published author and an award-winning blogger.
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What Not To Say to Adopted and Foster Kids

Please Don't Say These Hurtful Things, Adoptive and Foster Parents

Have you ever run your fingernails over a blackboard? I have, and my gut reaction is to cringe, curl up my fingers, and wince until the physical and aural discomfort I’ve just experienced has passed.

Did you know that there is a similar finger-over-the-blackboard psychological sensation that occurs when incoming information doesn’t line up with our built-in belief systems? Clinicians call it “cognitive dissonance,” but lay people like us simply call it “mixed feelings.” It’s important that we understand this psychological phenomenon because it has a strong impact on our lives…most of us, anyway.

Where Do Painful Feelings Originate?

Every baby born into this world innately expects that his or her mother will provide connection, nurture, and love. That’s the way we’re wired in the womb, adopted or not. However, that privilege of being cared for by the one who gave us birth didn’t occur for many of us who were adopted. It might have occurred for a short time before we were relinquished, but eventually the painful separation came.

We expected and needed to drink from her breasts, lie on her warm body, and hear the sound of her familiar voice. But instead we were placed into the arms of strangers. Loving strangers, in most cases; nevertheless, they were strangers to us at the time.

This experience frequently produces mixed, sensory feelings. Incoming information —“I am being held by someone that doesn’t sound, smell, or look like my mommy”— doesn’t line up with “I love the feel, sound, and smell of my mommy. In her arms I feel so safe.”

Our basic belief system is being violated. Maybe that’s why many of us often feel an unexplainable sense of chaos and like something inside just isn’t right.

Cheri Freeman knows that adoption brings joy to many people, and even her. Yet she has a deep sadness that she is trying to overcome, stemming from the fact that a mother who gives you life is supposed to love you and keep you, not discard you.

Adoptive parents often say about adoption day: “It was the happiest day of our lives!” While most adoptees are happy to be adopted, our memories tell us that adoption day was the most painful day of our lives, for the person with whom we shared deep intimacy suddenly disappeared from our world.”

Ron Hilliard says that almost everyone showered him with the positive aspects of being adopted. “You are loved,” they would say. Yet in his heart he didn’t experience being loved. “I felt unloved, given away, and unwanted,” he says.

Frieda Moore says she “felt like an intruder —unloved, unwanted, and not worth loving,” even though her parents lavished her with unconditional love.

I am confident that Moses, an adoptee who lived in biblical times, experienced similar mixed feelings. He was born to an Israelite family, who along with the rest of the Israelite nation, was in slavery under the wicked Pharaoh of Egypt. God had called the Israelites to multiply and be fruitful, and even though they were suffering in abject slavery, they flourished. This disturbed Pharaoh, for he worried they might rise up and take over his kingdom. The more God’s people multiplied, the meaner Pharaoh got.

Finally he sent an edict throughout the Israelite huts that all male babies must be killed at birth by the midwives. Just imagine how Jochebed and Amram, Moses’ parents, felt when Jochebed was pregnant during this time. This probably affected their other two children, Aaron and Miriam, also.

Of course you couldn’t learn the sex of a baby during those times, but I can just see Jochebed fearing the worst when she heard Pharaoh’s soldiers riding through the village, shouting the edict.

Jochebed did have a boy, but the midwives valued life and didn’t kill him or other male babies at their births. This sent Pharaoh into a rage and he gave a second edict: All male babies must be drowned in the Nile River at birth.

Jochebed probably kept the curtains on her windows shut so that the soldiers riding by couldn’t see her baby. I can imagine her holding Moses close in fear that a loud cry would bring a fast death. They didn’t have pacifiers then, but if he didn’t need nursing, perhaps she put the tip of her little finger in his mouth for him to suck on. Anything to keep him quiet.

One day when Jochebed was nursing, an idea came. She would make a watertight basket coated with tar and pitch that was just big enough to hold her son. There would be a lid that would cover him and protect him from the sun and insects.

She knew that Pharaoh’s daughter Hatesphut came to the Nile to bathe daily. Jochebed believed that Hatesphut would hear Moses’ cry or see him in the basket and have pity on him and let him live.

Jochebed rehearsed this plan to her daughter, Miriam, for she was going to be a key player in the plan to save the baby. “You hide behind a tree, and when Pharaoh’s daughter discovers and opens the basket, she will look for a wet nurse. That’s when you are to approach her and say that you know of someone who would be willing.”

What an incredible faith Jochebed had in an impossible situation! She believed firmly that God would take care of this little life that he had given her. Jochebed was able to keep the baby’s cries muffled for a few weeks.

But when the cries got louder, she knew it was time to implement her plan. As she carried her beloved son down to the Nile, hot tears streamed down her cheeks as she softly sang him his last lullaby.

When she let go of the basket, she quickly hid behind some brush. The baby sent out heart-wrenching wails and every scream felt like a knife to the heart.

Every time she heard a cry, her breasts engorged with milk, which reminded her in a vivid way of the separation from her baby. She buried her face in her hands, sobbing.

I have often wondered how Moses reacted emotionally to being in a dark, stuffy basket. A totally foreign place.  A place where all human connections were broken. The record simply says, “He was crying.”1 The root of that word means “to weep, bewail, mourn, sob, weep continually, weep longer, wept bitterly.”2

Jochebed’s plan for her baby was carried out to the last detail. She was asked to be the wet nurse for Hatesphut until the time of weaning, which during those times was about four years of age. Thus, in an incredible turn of events, Jochebed once again held the child she cherished. It seemed overwhelming to grasp the fact that the daughter of  the one who wanted her baby annihilated was the one who snatched him from the jaws of death. I can imagine Moses’ mother recounting how he was miraculously saved and returned, but don’t you wonder if every time he heard the story, he may have experienced unexplainable anxiety?

The years flew by quickly until it was time for Moses to be weaned. Before they knew it, the dreaded day had arrived. Can’t you imagine Jochebed and Amram on the evening before the adoption? She may have gathered his favorite toys and clothes and put them in a knapsack while Amram may have been in the other room silently rehearsing a child-friendly explanation of the upcoming adoption. All the while he was praying. Where should I begin? How can a four-year-old child possibly understand that we are going to stop being his parents and give him to someone else?

When the grieving family walked together to Pharaoh’s palace, Hatesphut, the adoptive mother, was eagerly awaiting their arrival. Moses clung to Jochebed as they approached the palace. A servant dressed in Egyptian finery opened the huge brass doors and ushered them in. What a contrast the shiny marble floors, tall pillars, and statues of Egyptian gods were to Moses’ simple family abode.

In flowing silk robes and a high hat covered with jewels, Hatesphut greeted them with outstretched arms. “I am so glad to see you, son! I thought this day would never arrive.”

After a few minutes of awkward pleasantries, Amram, Jochebed, Miriam, and Aaron said, “We have to go now, Moses. You will be staying here from now on. We love you and will never forget you.”

As Jochebed handed her son over to Hatsephut, he screamed, “Mama, Papa, don’t go!” They gave him one last emotional embrace, turned their backs, and walked out. His body stiffened as he pushed Hatsephut away.

Even though Jochebed and Amram’s hearts were breaking, they  sacrificially let go of their son, knowing that there was a higher purpose for him. A specific role in human history.

And, that turned out to be true.

But Moses was in a place of raw loss. All that was familiar was suddenly gone.  Can’t you imagine his adoptive mother reminding him as he grew up of the joyous day he walked through the palace doors? I don’t know about you, but I think Moses would have had mixed feelings, big time.

How to Recognize Painful Adoption-Related Feelings

Attachment and bonding specialist, the late Gregory C. Keck, Ph.D., says, “The concept of cognitive dissonance is a tough one even for adult adoptees to understand, and even if they understand it, I don’t think that the understanding mitigates the feelings of abandonment. Actually, I’m not sure there is any explanation or reason that adoptees can embrace to resolve their loss. That’s not to say that people don’t get through it. Obviously, they do.”3

Dr. Keck makes it clear that cognitive dissonance is one of the highest hurdles adoptees must jump.

Therefore, our first order of business will be to identify two common markers that may indicate mixed feelings—something that produces a finger-over-the-blackboard sensation psychologically. One of those is hypervigilance.

HYPERVIGILANCE

The Synonym Finder says this about vigilance: “watchfulness, guardedness, wariness, caution, forethought, keenness, sleeplessness.”4

Magnify those words by 100 percent and we have hypervigilance!

Sometimes hypervigilance comes in handy if a car is crossing the median and heading directly toward us. Or, when a toddler has fallen into the deep end of a pool. We can be “Johnny on the spot,” which can be good. But at other times, it’s distressing. Our systems are constantly working overtime to sort out dissonant beliefs and emotions.

Therapist and best-selling author and speaker Nancy Verrier says, “Although the adoptee might not be consciously aware of the fear of abandonment, which is then felt as free-floating anxiety, there is an attitude which can be readily discerned. It is a kind of watchfulness or cautious testing of the environment, which is called hyper vigilance.”5

Lois Rabey, an author and speaker who was adopted at nine days of age, says that one of the ways hypervigilance manifests itself in her life is through the physical reaction of an extremely sensitive “startle reflex.” For example, when she’s in a room and doesn’t know someone has come in, she has an exaggerated reaction. Her family knows not to come up behind her and say “boo!”

Lois, a late-discovery adoptee, believes the major reason for the hypervigilance she experiences in adulthood was a contentious relationship with her adoptive father. “He wanted me to be his biological child,” she explains. “So even though I didn’t know that, there was a tension and a pressure to try to please him. I just didn’t succeed because I couldn’t. I was always afraid and said to myself, ‘Is he going to be mad? What can I do?’”

Lois’s innate belief system told her that dads are supposed to love their daughters. When she found in her dad only disappointment that she wasn’t his biological child, fingernails scraped over the blackboard of her tender adopted soul.

Authors John and Paula Sanford say, “In the womb, every adopted child has in his spirit experienced rejection from his natural parents.  He may have been reacting in his spirit with resentment, tightening up in defensiveness. Certainly rest and trust are not formed in him”6

Another indication that we are experiencing mixed feelings is an undercurrent of anxiety.

ANXIETY

I resonate with what author Selma Fraiberg says about adoptee anxiety. She says, “Can a baby under one ‘remember’ this traumatic separation from his original parents? No, he probably will not remember the events as a series of pictures that can be recalled. What is remembered, or preserved, is anxiety, a primitive kind of terror, which returns in waves in later life.”7

Many of us experience anxiety but may never associate it with adoption loss. “Oh, I’m just a nervous-type person,” we may say to ourselves.

Sue Coons, adopted at nine months and found by her birth mother fifteen years ago at age forty-three, says that she developed a panic disorder when she was eight years old and never really understood it or had treatment until the last decade. It was very difficult for her to deal with and created troublesome limitations in both her personal and professional life. She couldn’t travel at all.

Lois Rabey links her hypervigilance with anxiety. She says that on an emotional level she has worried excessively about what might happen in the future to those she loves, from the present to years and years out. She tried everything to rid herself of the worry. Prayer. Meditation. Counseling. All to no avail.

When she became a grandmother she grew more and more exhausted with worry about her grandchildren and other family members. Overwhelmed with anxiety, she made a choice and said to God that she was going to commit all that she was worrying about to him and intentionally let go of it every time it came up again. That decision has eased her hypervigilance and anxiety over time.

Words and Statements That May Produce Painful Feelings

Cognitive dissonance occurs automatically and involuntarily for many adoptees, but adoptive parents and other people in an adopted child’s life can inadvertently trigger mixed feelings.

I believe that, for the most part, the following types of statements are well intentioned and born out of ignorance; nevertheless, they can have negative repercussions in an adoptee’s mind and heart.

“YOUR BIRTH MOTHER LOVED YOU SO MUCH THAT SHE GAVE YOU TO US.”

Trying to equate love and abandonment just doesn’t work!

I am reminded of the song that says, “Love and marriage, love and marriage…go together like a horse and carriage.” What if we changed the phrase “love and marriage” to “love and abandonment”? Sing with me now: “Love and abandonment, love and abandonment, go together like a horse and carriage . . .”

Rather ridiculous, isn’t it? Is it any wonder that being told that love is what led to our relinquishment produces mixed feelings? Yes, there may have been a loving adoption plan, but to most of us, separation from our birth mothers translates as rejection and abandonment, pure and simple.

Connie Dawson says it translates like this: “I love you/go away.  Your birth mother loved you so much; she made a loving plan . . . blah, blah, blah.” Or, “Your needs are important/don’t search for your birth parents or you’ll hurt me.”

Dr. Keck says, “I think it just confuses kids when people tell them that their birth mothers didn’t keep them because they loved them. I think it makes the kids feel even more responsible for inconveniencing their mothers by being born. Also, I think they must feel bad (guilty) about feeling bad, sad, lonely, or abandoned. After all, if someone did this because they loved them, what gives them the right to feel whatever they feel? Also, I think it makes ‘loving’ someone difficult since love is what ‘got rid’ of them. If their mothers loved them so much, should they have any negative feelings? Should they love her that much? I do wonder if anything helps kids feel better. Is it better or worse to be ‘dumped’ by a loving mother than by a hating, abusive, or terrible one?”8

“YOU WERE CHOSEN!”

Adoption experts Drs. David Brodzinsky and Marshall Schechter say, “It has long been popular in adoption circles to emphasize that the adopted child is a wanted child or, as in the title of Wasson’s 1939 classic children’s book on adoption, THE CHOSEN BABY.

This emphasis is a fairly straightforward piece of denial: Usually a child is available for adoption only because he was unwanted. It is no accident that Wasson’s story neglects to mention the existence of biological parents. It is not an easy task to change an unwanted child into a wanted child. This challenge is, however, exactly the task faced by adoptive parents. They must convey to their adopted child that, although he was born to other parents who didn’t want him, he is now their beloved child and shall always remain so.”9

Lori says that she just couldn’t believe the line, “You were a chosen child; nobody could love a kid more.” She knew that her parents had adopted her in a last-ditch attempt to save their ailing marriage.

A poem by Mi Ok Song Bruining sums up the chosen-child dilemma:

THEY SAID

They said

smile for the camera

Open your eyes, they are squinting.

They said

Stop crying, stop feeling bad.

Those kids who call you “Chink”

And “Flat Face”

Don’t know anything

Besides, you probably provoked them.

They said

Feel lucky

You were “chosen”

Really meaning

I was also given up.

They said

We are offended,

You have everything, so be happy.

Be appreciative, and

Never let the tears show.

They said

You don’t belong here.

Where do you come from?

Do you speak English?

Do you like America?

As if I just landed

From a distant galaxy.

They said

Everything I hoped and dreamed

And prayed they wouldn’t.

They still do.10

“ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE!”

Another statement that sometimes causes mixed feelings is “Accentuate the positive.” You know—count your blessings, count them one by one.

As I’ve spoken with hundreds of adoptees all over the country, I’ve discovered that this message is particularly common in religious families.

A well-meaning parent, church or synagogue member, or member of the clergy can unintentionally inflict harm by focusing exclusively on the many positive aspects of adoption while denying the negative and/or mixed feelings many adoptees have.

In the past, places of worship weren’t adoption-sensitive. Adoption wasn’t mentioned.  People didn’t recognize that adoption is a mixed blessing, filled with pleasure as well as pain. Instead, they looked at adoption through rose-colored glasses, trying to make it a win/win situation for unplanned pregnancies and infertility, never giving a thought about what effect adoption has on the child.

Currently, there are wonderful changes afoot, beginning in the United States with church-based adoption support programs and trainings. Dr. Karyn Purvis and Dr. David Cross at TCU Institute of Child Development have developed and emerging intervention model. Online growth groups abound.  A huge evangelical movement in America, the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) hosts yearly summits with internationally-known adoption speakers and experts. Hospital-based, “adoption sensitive” training programs have begun under the tutelage of Rebecca Swan Vahle, restoring honor to every member of the adoption triad.

At last…at last… the tide is turning positively!

However, it is my belief that the adoptee’s voice is still not publicly featured. At the  time of this writing, we are still somewhat of a novelty.

Reflecting back, however, amongst those raised in the closed adoption era, eerie echoes of “accentuate the positive keep adoptees in bondage to the  chaos inside. Ron Hilliard says that when others would try to affirm the positive but he wasn’t feeling positive in his own heart, he felt guilty and ashamed. It was confusing to him why his heart would not be in agreement with those who tried to accentuate how fortunate he was. Like the good adoptee, Ron never verbalized the negative — he just smiled and nodded at how “lucky” he was to have such wonderful adoptive parents who rescued him from abandonment.

Scott D. Stephens, L.I.S.W., a post-adoption social worker from Cincinnati, knew something wasn’t quite right in terms of what he was feeling, but he didn’t have words to describe his mixed emotions. The message was somehow communicated that being adopted was a positive blessing and that positive feelings were expected in response. His parents would say things like, “Isn’t it wonderful that you were loved so much that your parents chose you?” or “How fortunate you are to have been adopted!”

While all this was true, Ron’s heart never quite believed it. All the emphasis on the positive never allowed room for the painful. As a result, the pain was never validated.

“YOU ARE SPECIAL.”

Another finger-over-the-blackboard statement claims that we are “special.” I believe many adoptive parents intuitively know, even though most of them are not informed, that we are grieving. In perhaps an unconscious attempt to comfort us they may use this phrase. Others who are not educated about how an adoptee thinks and feels may do the same.

Some of us receive the statement with pride and gain a sense of self-worth. However, to many it means:

• Others have high expectations of us.

•We must prove our worth by excelling.

•We’re not like everyone else in the family… we’re different.

•Perform!

• Be perfect.

• Conform! Conform! Conform!

• It’s not okay to just be ourselves.

Paula Oliver says that she can remember raising her hand in elementary school and telling everyone that she was adopted. Later on the playground the kids made fun of her by saying stuff like, “Your mom didn’t want you so she threw you away.” Paula says, “I ran into the school crying and was found by a teacher who told me that being adopted made me special because my parents chose me, while most parents are stuck with their kids! That was little comfort — it was more like a burden because I didn’t feel special.”

Whenever I teach this point during trainings, many parents get upset. “Can’t I tell my child she is special?”

My answer is always, “Of course, but not in regard to adoption.”

“WE LOVE YOU JUST LIKE OUR OWN.”

Adoptive parents think they are giving us a great compliment with these words, but more than often, they wound. When well-meaning parents say, “We love you just like you’re our own,” their child may naturally wonder or hopefully ask, “Well, if I’m not your own, then whose am I? Where is my real family? Where do I belong? The parents’ statements often translate as “You’re really not our own. Almost, but not completely.”

Says one adoptee, “I can’t stand it when people differentiate between biological and adopted kids. ‘Oh, we have three of our own and then one adopted daughter.’”

What are healing words instead? “We have six children.”

No singling out of the adopted child. We hate that and it hurts.

“YOU BELONG.”

Another statement concerns our sense of belonging. Try this simple exercise. Fold your hands together as quickly as you can. Then look. Which thumb is on the top of the fold? Is it your right or left? Let’s say, for example, it’s your right thumb. Now do exactly the same exercise, at the same speed, but aim at getting your opposite thumb on the top of your fingers. Not as easy as the first time, is it?

The awkwardness in this simple exercise could be likened to many adoptee’s feelings of not belonging. I can’t tell you how many adoptees say in support groups, “I feel like an alien, like I wasn’t born, like I was just dropped down to earth by a stork or something.”

Connie Dawson has awareness of feelings like of not belonging. “I guess I’m a partial belonger,” she says. “I was a good ‘fitter in-ner’ in my adoptive family, in which it was never a topic for discussion. Although I have been warmly received by my birth aunt, I don’t really belong there either—at least not the way I imagine other people belong. When I’m visiting her, I feel accepted, but I notice she doesn’t throw a family dinner when I visit. One of her nephews (my cousin) will call on the phone and I’m jealous of the endearing and warm teasing they do with one another. I have this persistent feeling of not being entitled to really belong, to really take a seat at the table, to really be heard in a group, to really trust myself, to really trust others. You probably would be surprised to know this if you observed me in action, but I know I could be so much more.”

Richard Curtis says that since he was a total surprise at his reunion, birth relatives gave various degrees of welcoming. He says he deluged them with questions about his birth parents, hungry to learn the details of his heritage. And then he thought to himself, Now, where does Richard fit into the lives of these people? On the fringe. “I have this deep need to bond with real blood relatives,” he explains, “but I feel like I’m not really a part of either of my families.”

Author Corrine Chilstrom, after learning that her eighteen-year-old adopted son committed suicide after leaving home for college, pounded her fist on the kitchen table shouting, “Adoption! These kids never feel like they really belong in this world. Who will ever understand?”11

For many, the preceding statements and words simply don’t line up with what we believe in our heart of hearts is true. Like teenage kids at our first dance, we try so hard to have “good rhythm” with our dancing partners, but instead we seem to step all over their toes. But we can put an end to the awkwardness by making a better choice regarding our mixed feelings.

How can one help an adoptee feel like she belongs?

  • Tell us we’re easy to love.
  • When talking adoption, tell us that the yuckiness of feeling different and that we don’t belong won’t last forever. There will be times when we will revel in being different.

I can tell you, though, that it’s taken a lifetime for me to get to that place.

OUR CHOICE

To claim both positive and painful emotions as valid and verbalize them.

Ron Hilliard describes our choice beautifully when he says, “As I have learned to accept both the positive as well as the negative, I now have opportunities to articulate both and can claim my mixed feelings as valid.”

HOW TO BEGIN

If we still deny that our adoption experience produces mixed feelings, the healing won’t begin. Here are some suggestions:

  • Record your current circumstances in a journal.
  • Draw a self-portrait. How about getting a huge piece of paper?  Then, have someone trace your whole body. When the drawing is complete and you are alone, write down the conflicting feelings coming out of your head and heart. Draw the people and messages that are prompting them, and then label the physical effects on every part of your body.

When you are done, title your portrait in big letters “ALL OF MY FEELINGS ARE REAL AND OKAY!”

  • Create a collage out of old magazines and newspapers depicting your mixed feelings. I remember cutting out a photo from a newspaper of a man who was weeping. He was a survivor of the Holocaust. I didn’t know why I cut out the image, but looking back, I can now see that it was because it was how I was feeling inside. It would be thirty years later that I would learn that I am of Jewish descent! Our roots run wondrously deep.
  • Try to identify and then name the conflicting feelings, record them, and then say aloud, “I am having mixed feelings, and that is perfectly normal andacceptable.”

Now that we’ve learned about these finger-over-the-blackboard reactions, it is important that we educate ourselves about the dynamics within our adoptive families. We’ll talk about that at some length in the next chapter.

Don’t forget to sign up for blog updates in the right hand corner! I’d love staying in touch with you.

(Excerpt from 20 LIFE-TRANSFORMING CHOICES ADOPTEES NEED TO MAKE (Available at “store” link on this site.)

 

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How Many Adoptees Are Rejected by Birth Relatives?

This woman represents adoptees and foster kids who wonder if they will be rejected when meeting or reuniting with birth relatives. Sherrie takes the adoptee through this possibility, helping to process the fear, and then presents a life-defining choice the adoptee can make.

Rejection.

Just the sound of the word sends chills up my spine!

Rejection is the dark side of the search and reunion process. The agonizing side. The side that is rarely, if ever, talked about, the side media never covers.

It is also part of our adoptee “rite of passage” into a healthier, more fulfilling life. So, don’t despair, my friends, if you are experiencing this right now. You will get through it.

How many of us are rejected? Statistics, like most aspects of adoption, are sadly non-existent, but many claim that only a minority of adoptees are rejected by a birth relative at reunion. During the years I have been researching and talking with other adoptees, however, I have found rejection to be rampant and common.

Why do birth relatives reject some of us? Does our physical appearance remind our birth mothers of our fathers, whom they have no positive feelings for? Does seeing us trigger issues in them that they have never dealt with? Are they emotionally and mentally unbalanced? Or are they just downright mean?

What does it mean to be rejected and how does it feel? Webster’s gives us a good start on understanding its basic message. “Refusing to have, take, or act upon. To refuse to accept a person. To rebuff. To throw away or discard as useless or unsatisfactory. To cast out or eject. Something rejected as an imperfect article.”1

Ron Nydam, Ph.D., gives a vivid illustration from a client’s encounter with his birth mother. She told her son: “If you want answers, see a psychiatrist; if you want a companion, get a dog.”2

I will never forget when I was reeling from my birth mother’s rejection. While attending my first American Adoption Congress, a man at one of the book tables asked me to tell him my story. I got to the part where I was going to say, “All I wanted was for her to say the words ‘I love you,’” and I lost it. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “It really hurts, doesn’t it?” I knew by the tone of his voice that this wasn’t some platitude—it came from his heart. This dear man took me into the lobby of the hotel and told me how he had experienced the same rejection from his birth mother years ago. Still, after all that time, he wept.

As I personally became aware of this fear of being forgotten and shared it with the adoptees in my support group, eyes welled with tears and you could have heard a pin drop.

Karen says that her birth mother rejected her “right out of the gate.” She didn’t even give Karen the dignity of getting to know her first before making up her mind. Karen was her dirty secret and she couldn’t stand the thought of others knowing. She told her that her mother (Karen’s grandmother) would also reject her. 

As Karen reflects on the rejection, she says, “She didn’t just reject me—she wanted nothing to do with my son, her own grandson! When I found her, my son wasn’t even one year old, a beautiful baby. How could she reject him? The only time I met her she reviewed pictures I had brought of him with detachment and terse comments.”

When birth siblings learn that a parent conceived an unknown child, their reaction may be to reject us as well.

Laurie’s birth half-sister found it difficult to speak with her since she was told that Laurie was her half-sister. Laurie, like Karen, was her birth mother’s secret. Laurie has tried to make contact, but her birth mother wants nothing to do with her. She is hoping that one day she will speak to her, or that at least she will eventually develop a relationship with her half-sister.

Richard Curtis says, “Even though I have not been overtly rejected by birth relatives, I have the feeling that I’m being ignored or at least overlooked by family members who just don’t know what to do with me. Both of my birth parents were deceased when I finally conducted my search and so my ‘reunions’ have been with siblings and cousins.

That being the case, after the initial shock and curiosity of discovering a secret birth relative, most members of both families have relegated me to receiving a card at Christmas or an occasional e-mail. At first I tried to take the initiative and keep in contact, especially with my siblings; but I’ve gotten little response.”

Okay, that’s enough. We know the realities of rejection. Let’s not stay there unless we are currently experiencing it.

Then, fellow adoptee hurt words are validating. But for the rest of us, let’s move on.

If we’ve received hostile responses from birth relatives, how do we usually react?

WE ISOLATE OURSELVES.

Isolation and rejection partner to silence us. We are frozen in fear and don’t want another soul to know our experience. We feel we have been branded for life.

We do need isolation from the rejecting birth relatives, but not from fellow adoptees who have had similar experiences. In their company we can find a good kind of isolation, where we experience protection, comfort, strength, validation, and healing.

As I personally became aware of this fear of being forgotten and shared it with the adoptees in my support group, eyes welled with tears and you could have heard a pin drop.

I thought about it a lot in the days to come. Aren’t we as rejected adoptees a little like prisoners of war? Aren’t we missing in action in many ways?

While studying the subject of being forgotten, I saw a poster-sized reproduction of a U.S. commemorative stamp. Two words grabbed my attention—NEVER FORGOTTEN. The poster depicted an army dog tag on a chain, inscribed with the words, “MIA and POW—NEVER FORGOTTEN.”

My husband purchased a gold ID bracelet with a chain like a dog tag. On one side I had the jeweler inscribe “Baby X.” On the other side were the words “Never forgotten.”

THE MESSAGE BEHIND THEIR WORDS

Again, here is it so helpful for us to take a deep breath and think about the psychological dynamic of projection. All the rejecting person can see is themselves. So, when they are saying rotten things about us, what are they really doing? They’re telling us how they feel about themselves. How freeing this is!

Let’s take some examples:

  • “I can tell you are in therapy.” (I need to be in therapy.)
  • “I knew I couldn’t trust you.” (I can’t trust myself.)
  • “You are a secret in the family.” (I have a secret I’ve kept from my family.)
  • “You remind me of your rapist birth father.” (I can’t get my rapist out of my mind.)
  • “You aren’t important to me.” (I am not important.)
  • “You are disposable.” (I am disposable.)

OUR RITE OF PASSAGE INTO A BALANCED, HEALTHY LIFE

Of all the things I’ve learned lately about our adoptee journey, the concept of the adoptee’s rite of passage is the most exciting. Listen to this story and then we’ll draw parallels to our own experiences.

I am reminded of a story about a young American Indian man who was about to go through “the rite of passage into manhood.” Prior to this event, he was prepared to defend himself in every way. On the day of the rite, he was blindfolded and led, gun in hand, into a dark forest and left alone overnight. The blindfold remained all night.

During the night, whenever the wind blew a leaf or an animal scurried through the underbrush, he was sure it was a wild animal seeking to devour him. He was terrified. When morning dawned he removed his blindfold and saw a path leading off to his right. He thought he saw someone at the end of the path. As he contemplated the figure, he realized that it was his father, aimed and ready to shoot anything or anyone that would hurt his son.13

LIES AND TRUTH ABOUT REJECTION

There is always an end to the dark night of our experience. Many of us might have believed that we’ll always be in the darkness and shame of rejection. Like our anger issues, we may easily believe:

  • “There must be something wrong with me or he/she wouldn’t reject me. This is shame.”

I bet you anything, my friend, after you’ve done all your searching and reunion “work,” that you’ll find it’s not about you. It’s about the dysfunction of the person who rejected you.

  • “Something I did or said, ‘made’ him/her/them reject me.’
    We don’t have that kind of power! No one does. We all make choices. The rejecting person’s choice was totally his/hers.
  • “I’ll never get over this hurt.”

There’s our black and white thinking. We will always have memories of the hurt, but the shame, the stinging shame, will fade in time. I promise you. Like the Indian teen, there will come a day when the sun rises and you realize you were never alone…that’s why we need one another. Those fellow-adoptee friendships are vital!

ONE THING NEEDFUL

I believe as a fellow adoptee friend to you that I can speak frankly, more so than anyone else. Okay, here we go!

We Need to Get Over Ourselves

Yes, we need to quit throwing pity parties, focusing on past hurts, licking our wounds and accept a “new template” for our future life.

Rejection does NOT define us, friends.

We are amazing people. We have survived pre-adoption trauma that’s unbelievable. We are survivors…now we need to step into that role with confidence.

Think back to the Cherokee teen. Of course, many sounds, movements around him, darkness and all kind of scary stuff. But, he trusted in his inner strength, already built into him through his training by his dad, that he would come through night…strong!

That’s you, friend.

Stand strong. Stand tall. You are amazing.

OUR CHOICE

We can reject our rejection and not let it define us.

HOW TO BEGIN

  • Journal, journal, journal. Journaling provides a place for you to

pour out your innermost thoughts and feelings.

  • Describe your “adoptee rite of passage.” Where are you in the process? Draw a timeline.
  • Get a momento, like my ID bracelet, to remind you of the day you rejected the rejection(s).

The biggest “take away” for this chapter is—don’t do it alone! If you don’t know fellow-adoptee friends, contact me. I know adoptees from all over the world that support one another through the “rite of passage.”

Please be sure and enter your email address at the right hand corner so that we can stay in contact!

 

(This post is Chapter 18 of 20 Life-Changing Choices Adoptees Need to Make. Copyright, Jessica Kingsley Publishing). You may purchase on the “shop” page on this site.