Adoption Trauma

[BastardChild]

I’m really struggling here. I can’t keep denying the impact of being ripped away at birth. I’m sorry. I’m all over the place at the moment.

Looking for support, trying to be an advocate for others that are part of this mess but without the voice. All of the Roe v Wade stuff and "supply line of children". The pain of others on Twitter, the fact that I can't get therapy and support in the U.K. as Ofsted is in control for adopted children and adults. The trauma is being passed on in my family. I'm frozen to the spot while dirt and chaos pile up around us. Pain, tight chest, nightmares, brain fog. Adoption is trauma. Children as commodity.

The Parliamentary Joint Human Rights Committee have been, I believe.

I'm an adoptive parent and I completely agree that adoption is trauma. My DC were both adopted at 10 months old after being in foster care from birth. They are now 13 and 16 and my goodness have they struggled. I won't go into details but both have had mental health issues as a result.

It didn't matter that their foster carers were wonderful loving people or that my DH and I have been loving parents and have been able to provide them with a very privileged lifestyle. My DC are dealing with the emotional trauma of their early life , even though they have never physically suffered and have been cared for well.

And the worse part of it is that no one understands. Schools don't get it - they just don't know how to support adopted children and often unintentionally make things harder.

I've had friends express unhappiness with the fact my DC get preferential status when it comes to school places. Another tutted and said it was unfair when I said I was pleased the school were using the adopted children's pupil premium to pay for two private tutoring sessions a week for him. Another accused me of being obsessed with the fact my DC are adopted and they I put them on an "adoption pedestal" ( whatever the hell that means)

They don't accept that my DC are in anyway disadvantaged.

I get really annoyed with people who tell me how lucky my DC are. I always say no - I'm the lucky one.

So many people think that if you take a baby and place them with wealthy , attentive and loving adopters all of their problems will go away.

They just don't. The problems really start when they begin to piece together their early life and question it.

There is a place for adoption , it's needed but more money should be put into preventing the problems that lead to adoptions having to happen ( properly funded mental health support , support for drug addiction etc.)

Both of my DC's birth mothers were badly let down by the state - they never stood a chance and the problems started for both of them when they were still children themselves and they didn't get the support they needed. It was almost inevitable that they would end up having babies that would be taken away. Both have had three babies taken into care and placed with adopters. It's tragic for these women and their lives have deteriorate even further ever since to the point where I don't think my DC will ever get to meet them.

Adoption has been an amazing thing for me as an infertile women who was desperate to be a mother. For my DC it's the consolation prize and all I can do is love ,help and support them through it all and give them the happiest life I can.

I hope you can get through this OP - it's been helpful to read about the feelings you describe so I can try to understand more of what my DC are feeling as they get older.

I'm really sorry for your experience. My husband was adopted and three cousins were put up for adoption. We're in touch with the cousins now and they and my husband are really messed up despite being adopted at birth. My aunts (birth mothers) are also really messed up. One in particular cried throughout my childhood about her son. Personally I feel that adoption should only happen when it needs to

I'm another adoptive parent who also agrees with you that 'adoption is trauma'.

Most children now are adopted through the care system where birth parents are unable to keep them safe, and adoption is viewed as the 'least harmful' for the child.
Surrogacy on the other hand is creating babies with the absolute intention of removing them from the mother who carried and nurtured them in the womb. It is a scandal waiting to happen in my opinion.

OP - will your local authority 'post adoption support' not help fund you the therapy you need? (I don't know if there is an age/time limit on this.)

This is a harrowing read, my heartfelt sympathy OP.

I didn't know about how closely connected mother and the unborn child are and wonder what this means for surrogates.

I hope you will find the peace and stability that you deserve op.

I'm so sorry to read this. And surprised to learn about the OFSTED requirement. Not least because i am an adoptee who has received brilliant counselling and mixed therapy from a therapist I'm almost sure wasn't registered with them.

In my case I was initially referred through work for stress and anxiety but my background and complex relationship with my adoptive parents needed to be unravelled during the sessions. I don't know if that's relevant and if the therapist didn't think it was right to stop the sessions.

What I really wanted to say was how helpful I found the sessions. I really hope you can access support

@BastardChild You’re right adoption is trauma. I can’t imagine having to listen to insensitive comments about your experience. The support situation is shocking. I hope someone points you in te direction of ‘real’ support.

Adoption is trauma and it rears it's head in the strangest of places.

I am adopted, the official line is that my mother chose it because they weren't married and didn't know if they could raise a baby. There was also an odd line about health issues in the family. I think the reality was rather different and they were shipped over from ireland to a mother and baby home here. I was taken away straight after birth and adopted at six weeks.

Today I have to fill in security clearance forms. They want to know if I was adopted, birth parent names (hate that phrase), my name at birth v adoption. WTF? I don't know the answers, it's going to delay my application by up to six weeks so I have to explain to my employer.

It's the same with health, get asked if any issues run in the family and I say 'no I'm adopted' they always look a bit shocked.

My sister and I have both had massive issues through life, her with attachment and neediness, me with alcohol, and I am autistic which hasn't helped.

I wasn't aware of the counselling thing, that has been an eye opener.

I hope you are OK op.

OP is just making the point that adoption, whatever the circumstances brings with it unavoidable trauma.

That doesn’t mean adoption isn’t preferential in some circumstances for some children, it just means that whatever the circumstances of adoption there will be trauma as a consequence.

This post isn’t the place for trauma too trumps. Just accept that OP is discussing her experience of trauma. Whether or not you think that might have been the lesser of two evils for your DH in his particular circumstances is an entirely separate issue.

please can i add a counter message . i was adopted in the 60s at birth and although i don't feel it was a great fit i had a very positive upbringing with my adoptive parents . i love them to bits and can't imagine feeling i could have loved birth parents more or differently.
i have made contact with my birth mother and that has been a very negative experience- she doesn't want y to know me or build any sort of relationship and has not told her family about me. seems ridiculous to me in this day and age that she that she denies me and her two children she had after and kept the opportunity to have a relationship of some sort.
that is unforgivable in my view .

Your thread has been on my mind OP. Hope you’re doing OK today.

I’m not an adopter or adoptee but people close to me are both. I think the ‘gratitude’ issue is extremely damaging. I also think it’s very different to think about adoption now, compared to pre-‘open’ adoption from the mid-70s onwards. OP mentioned the respectable adopters of illegitimate babies. The overpowering need for respectability meant that in the old days before open adoption, adopters were vetted a lot less than they are now. They pretty much just had to be in a heterosexual couple, (ie with a man around) making them more ‘respectable’ on the patriarchal scale, than the woman or girl who had given birth to the baby. (The baby’s father is never mentioned in all this- it’s like he didn’t exist).

A lot of the safeguards that exist now for adoptees simply weren’t there for the adopted child/adult in the past. That makes the ‘grateful’ line that adoptees are expected to tread feel even more obnoxious. What did they have to be grateful for? They may been lucky who they were placed with. Or just as easily, unlucky, being raised by completely underprepared, unsupported, non-insightful and punitive adopters who shared the same patriarchal mindset of looking down on illegitimate people. But who also happened to have wanted to be parents.

Things are very different now thank God. Not perfect or even good, by any means. The lack of support for child and adult adoptees and for adopters still is shameful. But in a few decades the Christian patriarchal religion has lost its overall grip on society and politics. (Still very much there for a lot of people though, and these value are not just in Christian communities obviously!)
In the last decade, about a third of kids were born outside marriage in the UK. That’s unremarkable to many people, as it should be. Abortion is available, safely and legally too here, as it should be. It’s one of those ‘there but for the grace of God’ things to think how different things are now from the very recent past.

So I agree that it’s frightening to contemplate America potentially lurching back into religiously- led shame and lifelong punishment for sexually active women, by inflicting on them illegal and clandestine abortion ie potential death or injury, or forced motherhood, or taking part in forced adoption. All because a couple of extra judges picked by Trump disagree with abortion.

@BastardChild I can't offer advice but I want to give you a massive high five for speaking the truth. I'm 48, adopted as a baby and it has effected every corner of my life.

I was brought up being told I was lucky which we all know translates into you should be grateful. I always knew I was adopted and so did everyone else in my small town, I know all the comments. I'm the bastard, the dirty secret, the baby who's mother didn't want her. The eye rolls, the expectations, the palpable fear that my adoptive mother had that I'd turn out like just my birth mother. The whole thing is a shitshow.

I'm a full grown adult and I'm still angry - but I wouldn't want to say anything out loud - because after all I should be grateful for the trauma, the secrets and the lies. Got to keep everyone happy, my feelings don't count because I'm so lucky!

I've never found a therapist who has been able to help and hearing that OFSTED are now involved just shows how little regard we are given. There must be more of us out there, I've met a couple over the years but it doesn't seem to be something that's out in the open.

@BastardChild , that is the most visceral, heart-rending and accurate description of the deep-seated and lifelong shame and trauma of being adopted I have ever read. I intend to ask my adopted teen to read your words - and this thread - in the hope that it may help her to see that she is not alone in her rage and shame and her inherent belief that she is utterly worthless. Your post - and those from the other adoptees here - has given me greater insight into the lens through which my DD views the world, and why she struggles so much in every aspect of her life.

I hear you and I agree that adoption IS trauma.

I will also add that I am shocked at the Ofsted registration requirement for therapists and counsellors working with adopted adults; as if you haven’t lost enough agency over your own lives! I truly didn’t know this and I would be happy to lobby AdoptionUK and my regional adoption agency on this matter.

OP, thank you for speaking out, there is such a narratuve about being grateful and lucky and it's just not true.

I have a relative who reconnected with my family (the birth family). Her roots and connection to us are so important to her and it has been a hard road.

Ive recently read 2 x autobiographies 1 from the Birth mother (who is a US actress) and 1 from the now adult child and it's very moving to read how the trauma affected specifically the adult child's life and has really stayed with me.

Genetics was even worse, like I did it on purpose just to annoy them. The fleeting look of exasperation. The look of surprise that I hadn't done a search. The fucking depression that followed.

Do you mean an NHS genetics service were impatient with the fact of your adoption? This thread is an eye opener.

Wow. Thanks to all of you. A bit overwhelmed at the level of response and the stories. Feeling much more positive today. Yesterday was tough.

Jesus. What a callous, clever dick obstetrician. I’m not sure the decade makes much difference to treating people with basic decency, does it? I know awareness has improved, but fundamentally knowing what adoption is and being polite shouldn’t have been a big ask.

I am so sorry to hear some of these stories. I do strangely know what you mean about compartmentalising difficult responses. Managing to hear and not fully absorb. It should t be on you to do that all the time about such a huge thing.

I completely accept that adoption can have traumatic effects for some(many) but I don't think it is the case for everyone. I don't believe I have experienced any trauma through being adopted as a young child, my parents were always honest and I knew I was adopted and that my mother had been too young to be a parent etc. I'm not saying my experience is normal, just showing it can be different. I accept I am lucky to feel this way though and I absolutely agree that there should be less barriers facing adoptees who need the help and support of a counsellor.

I don't see being adopted as a consolation prize but in my case as a bonus - I feel very lucky to have my parents and to have had a stable, loving upbringing.

Thank you @BastardChild for starting this thread, I have signed up to MN just to write a reply.
Another adoptee here, 50 years old and feel that I've spent my entire life trying to keep my rage at the injustice of it all under wraps.

My teenage (15yo) birth mother was forced to give me up by her own mother. When I was 18 months old I was given to a couple in their early forties who had suffered a still birth 12 years previously. My name was changed to a more formal version of what my mother had given me and my two middle names were replaced with new mum and grandmother's names. This still makes me angry.

Not all adoptions are the wonderful panacea for the unwanted child/childless couple. We had no connection to each other but were thrown together like objects from a lost and found box and expected to make the best of it. My replacement mum was abusive, physically and emotionally but I had no one to tell. Once I was adopted there were no follow up visits from social workers, I basically became the property of my new parents. From the outside it looked like a successful adoption but only because I was so compliant and effectively voiceless.

In 2004, out of nowhere I started to experience overwhelming feelings that I was going die, it lasted for a couple of months. At the time I put it down to work stress/burnout/depression but they literally disappeared overnight. It was the strangest (and scariest) thing I have ever experienced but it left me feeling desperate to find my birth mother. I eventually found an obituary for her, she'd been in a hospice for the last few weeks of her life after battling cancer for years, she was 48. The dates tied up with the time I thought I was going to die. I believe there is a bond between mother and child. Grieving the death of my mother is something I feel I will never recover from. I thought I had plenty of time as she was so young. I don't actually have the adequate words to describe how I feel about it, it's such a profound feeling of loss.

To add insult to injury, when I asked for access to my adoption files I was told they'd been lost along with hundreds of others when the department moved buildings. No apology. I know my birth father's name was in my file because my parents apparently met him. No chance for me to ever find him now, all terribly sad and the feelings of injustice continue.

I also echo the sentiments of many other adoptees who have posted. And @BastardChild I completely understand your name choice, sadly.

@BastardChild 45 here, Catholic adoption, mother shipped over from Ireland, utter shitshow. Sexually abused by paternal grandfather who used to tell me if I told anyone my parents would send me back.

It's taken me years to access the trauma counselling I needed and that's because I'm only finally in a position to afford it. Every word you are saying resonates, as does the anger behind it. I see you, even if Ofsted don't 🙂

@InRepair this is so eloquent, thank you:

'Not all adoptions are the wonderful panacea for the unwanted child/childless couple. We had no connection to each other but were thrown together like objects from a lost and found box and expected to make the best of it'.

I sat in on a few adoption panels some time ago - and while I cannot fault the adopters who were coming to panel I could not shake the feeling the state was taking the children of poor people and putting them with people who were just lucky enough to have better resources. It made me wonder what the outcome would have been for the birth parents had they had access to a modicum of the resources the adopters often had. Since then I’ve started looking a bit more at how other countries approach adoption and can’t help but think we need to radically rethink our approach here. Safeguarding above all else, of course, but there has to be a better way.