Traumatic childhood-will this affect my application?

[Sprocker19]

Hi,
I have a personal history of childhood trauma and due to this, I remember very little of my life prior to the age of 12. It’s been difficult to piece together the ins and outs as my mother won’t discuss much and I lost my father as a child. I’m working with a psychologist in anticipation for applying to adopt, but I’m just hoping someone could give me some guidance on whether this inability to reflect much on my early life could be a problem? I guess I’m at the stage now where I’m wondering whether to proceed with the therapy and I don’t know how much my SW is going to want to know about my history!
Thanks for any advice.

Hi, it's very brave if you to be so honest about this.

The process of becoming approved to adopt is very intrusive and can be intensely draining emotionally. You will be expected to write an a reflective account of your life from birth to today and include all major events that have taken place. Then you will have to discuss this in-depth with your social worker. It's not so much about what you've been through but about how you've dealt with and and showing that you have resolved those issues.

I've heard adopters who were themselves adopted say they've had a rough time as they've had to discuss how they feel about their own adoption and decisions they've made regarding contact with their own birth families.

In your case they will be worried that you could be triggered emotionally by the background of a child placed and how this manifests in the child's behaviour. Also questions will be occur about your relationship with your mum and it's impact on any child placed.

As far as therapy goes, many people are advised the process will be put on hold until they have completed therapy. You say you have been seeing someone as part of your preparation to adopt, I suspect that your social worker might want a report for them and if therapy has been recommended but you didn't do it then this could be seen as a negative thing. Not everyone needs therapy to work through their issues but you have to have and be able to prove you have good reasons if you don't do it.

Hope this helps.

Thank you, that’s really helpful and much appreciated.

to add to the spot on reply from chocolate.

Bear in mind that many adopted children need therapy of some sort. My son is 15 and was in therapy from 11 to 13. Whilst the outcome was worth it, it was two very difficult year. It was obviously very emotional for him, but for me it was physically, emotionally and mentally draining for me. Its very hard seeing your child in pain and be unable to fix it for him. I work part time and just about kept my head above water becuase I spent Thursdays when he was at school practically comatose.
SWs arent looking for people with perfect backgrounds. You have a lot to offer a child because of your own history and ability to relate to their experience.
But for your own mental health and safety, I would complete any therapy you are undertaking and make sure you are strong enough to deal with it all. Good luck

I think the process varies depending on area and agency, I didn’t need to write an account of my life, not did I need to talk in detail about my childhood trauma, which was pretty extensive.

Our social worker wanted to know about my experience of being parented, the impact that had on me, the supports I used to overcome my past and the degree to which I still had work to do. She also wanted to explore the relationship I anticipated my children might have with my parents.

It did bring stuff up for me but, tbh, I’d done a lot of work on myself so was pretty stable and clear about the support I needed. I don’t think it’s an issue that you can’t remember - it’s often the case with trauma of all kinds, adult and childhood that we don’t remember details because of the way we process traumatic experiences. It’s more important that you know your own triggers, that you have a support network and that you’re fairly stable in your day to day life.

I’d also echo that children can really make you revisit your own stuff, so if you have an established therapy relationship before placement that can be a good thing because you’re not needing to go over old ground.

Childhood trauma touches many people, there’s no reason why it should stop you being able to adopt, the chair of my approval panel said that my experiences would make me a stronger parent to traumatised children and far from being a deficit he saw my having overcome trauma as being a significant strength. Try not to worry.

Also to say I was in therapy throughout my assessment process and well after placement - it’s not always the case that they’ll ask you to finish therapy before you adopt.

If all the people who had experience of childhood trauma dropped out of the adoption process, there'd be some pretty big gaps...it is about accepting the trauma and loss inherent in the process for any child involved. And knowing that you need to be far enough down your own journey/ healing process to be able to keep those two things separate. I think it can add to your parenting. But be prepared for curve balls as often unrecorded parts of your child's story can be triggering. It's good you're thinking into the corners of this possibility.