Adoption and mental health issues

[RedPandaFluff]

Hi everyone,

A close friend of mine is looking into adoption at the moment. She's 40, single, own house and car etc. so financially stable. She's an amazing person - kind, generous, and super-smart. She'd be a fantastic mother.

The concern is her mental health. She's been off work on sick leave for ten months (she's planning to go back in the next 2-3 months once she gets a return plan agreed) due to severe depression. My friend has done everything she can to get herself well again, including funding hospital stays and treatments herself because the NHS is so stretched and couldn't offer the care she needed.

Would a history of mental health issues - specifically severe clinical depression - mean that she would be unlikely to be able to adopt?

It would be an issue yes and something they would discuss with her. I think the fact that the depression is so recent may mean she will need to take a year or so to show she is more stable.

I thought so. Thank you, @Ifeel1000yearsold. I've also advised my friend to come on here and read the adoption boards as I think she'll get a better understanding of the issues around adopting.

In theory no, but context and timing is everything.
I can't imagine that any agency would consider her at the moment, she needs to get back to work, get herself stable for at least a year, if not two.
She also needs to be sensible about this, for herself and any future child. The adoption process can be very stressful. Parenting is stressful, adoptive parenting even more so, and then layer in doing it on your own.
I'm a single adopter, its hard work being the parent and sole breadwinner, trying to hold down a job. I have an amazing son who has done exceptionally well, but he has pushed me to the edge on a number of occassions. I have been signed off work with stress, on other occasions I've just got by because I'm lucky enough to work part time. My physical health has deteriorated. My finances, particularly my pension has taken a huge hit.
Practical things, is her employer family friendly, do they support flexible working, can she fund a year adoption leave, what about childcare. Really important for single adopers is the support network, what happens if she becomes unwell again, particularly if she was hospitalised. I've had a few periods of ill health but my son was old enough to get himself up and out to school, and once he lived on ready meals and pizza for two weeks. Last year I had an operation and my parents were able to stay for a few days but it was a scary time for my son.
Adopting is a wonderful thing to be able to do, but you do need to be robust and resiliant. Your friends needs to be honest with herself about her ability to cope.

Hi @Ted27 - thank you for taking the time to respond. The concerns you have outlined are very much on my mind. She's certainly not resilient enough to start this process at the moment, and may not be for quite some time. She has limited family support (her DM is fragile and needs support herself) and I don't think she has considered the possibility (likelihood?) that an adopted child could have additional needs.

I'm hoping that she will get her life back to normal in terms of work etc. in the next few months, and hopefully the more she thinks about this, the more she'll understand what a massive undertaking it is and consider the points you've raised.

She is a fantastic person - I'm in awe of her in so many ways - and I'd love to see her dreams come true, but I'm very afraid that they won't and I'm worried about impact that could have on her. Further, and much worse, what would happen if somehow there was a successful adoption and she had a relapse.

I guess she'll find out soon enough that it's not realistic.

Further, and much worse, what would happen if somehow there was a successful adoption and she had a relapse.

Exactly the same thing that would happen with any other parent who has difficulties with mental health. Which is to say they would draw on their support systems and find a way through. Depression can be incredibly debilitating but being able to come through and recover - in whatever sense that means - shows strong internal resources. It would factor in her assessment but wouldn’t necessarily prevent her from adopting any more than post natal depression makes someone a bad parent.

She would need to be relatively stable and demonstrate she knows when her health is slipping and how to care for herself when that happens - and she would want to think about the age of children placed with her but there’s nothing to say she couldn’t adopt or that she would have any greater a struggle than anyone else, particularly if her depression is related to childlessness.

I think it's important to remember that there is no such thing as the perfect adopter. And that sometimes you do have to wait.
When I first looked into adoption I had very few of things I listed. So I made a plan. I changed jobs - to get the family friendly flexible employer who would give me a year adoption leave. But it took me two years to find that job. Yes it was frustrating but it had to be done, and I'm very thankful that I made that move. Much as I loved it, I would never have managed in my old job.
Some people need lose weight, stop smoking,clear debt, move to a bigger house.
Most issues can be overcome.
Support network does not have to mean family. My family are great, they think my son is the bees knees but living 150 miles away can't offer much practical support.So my friends are very important.
I think its helpful to think about different scenarios, what would happen if I fell over and broke a leg, got stuck in traffic and was late for the school run, had a rotten cold and couldn't get to the shops, what if I had a hospital appointment and needed a baby sitter, very important- covering school holidays,random snow days.
At 40 your friend is relatively young in adoption land. She has time to get herself in a stronger position

@Jellycatspyjamas and @Ted27 I'm taking quite a lot of positives from your posts, thank you. Especially that 40 is relatively young when it comes to adopting - I think that's one of my friend's concerns, that she's running out of time.

My friend is very emotionally intelligent and attuned to her illness; I believe she would immediately get help if she felt herself slipping. And she definitely has friends (including me) that she can lean on.

I do think not having children has contributed to her recent depression. She always saw herself having at least one and I think she's realised that meeting a partner and having a biological child is unlikely at this point.

I'm really happy that her mental health issues won't immediately preclude her from adopting. And I'll support her in every way I can if she decides that she wants to begin the process.

Exactly the same thing that would happen with any other parent who has difficulties with mental health. Which is to say they would draw on their support systems and find a way through Or they have children removed. And so I don't entirely agree with what has been said here, OP, and think that your concerns may be valid. Which is not to say the dreams won't come true, but I do think that adopted children have already been through the mill, and need someone who is pretty stable.

I don't think that the suggestion upthread that if the depression might be related to childlessness makes it less of a risk either, as adoption is highly unlikely going to be a "cure" for depression due to childlessness and in some cases makes it worse long term.

Another way of looking at this, however, is that how your friend talks about her situation to you might not be giving you the full picture, she may be more stable than you think, she may well have thought through more than she is telling you. Can you encourage her to post about her thoughts - anonymously - and get advice and insights directly?

Or they have children removed.

It takes a lot to have a child removed, mental health issues would need to be such that they utterly compromise the parents ability to care for their children, with no support systems or engagement with treatment. You’d need to evidence that mental health issues were such that they caused significant harm to the child which is a fairly high threshold.

All children, adopted or otherwise, need stable adults in their life - someone who has recovered from poor mental health will generally have better strategies to call on in the event of relapse. The vast majority of people will experience poor mental health, a tiny proportion have their children registered much less removed.

This is my experience:

In 2010 I basically had a breakdown with work related stress and anxiety and was diagnosed with depression. I was off work for 8 months, never returned to my employer and got a different job doing relief work. In retrospect I came off my meds too soon and at the beginning of 2015, having changed jobs twice more I was put on medication for panic attacks and diagnosed with general anxiety disorder. We started the adoption process in 2016 and my mental health was of no interest at approval panel. We were approved unanimously.

However, our first link went nowhere as they felt I wouldn't cope due to my mental health. For our second, successful link it was also an issue. The child's SW was happy to proceed but had lots of questions that needed answering before we could go to matching panel.

As it happens overall my mental health improved while on adoption leave, proving that my issues were indeed caused by my job. That being said, parenthood has broken me on several occasions and each time my husband has taken over in order for me to recover. There are times when I genuinely don't know how I'd get through the next 24 hours without him. As they get older, it the impact of early childhood trauma is having on both my child and our family.

So to answer your question, it is possible to be approved to adopt after being signed off work with severe clinical depression. However there is a big difference between being approved to adopt and actually going on to adopt a child. Your friend would need to have a significant period of time between going back to work and being approved to show that her mental health had stabilised

Mental health unfortunately does still have stigma attached to it, unlike most physical health conditions where language is often very different -

As a single adopter I would have said pretty much the same thing to someone posting about a physical illness. @ifchocolatewerecelery has been through and recovered from illness, but as she says, her husband was there to step in. As a single person you don't have this safety net. There is no one who can just automatically step in. No matter how great your friends are, no one friend can be there 24/7 the same way a partner is. So you do need to think very carefully about your support systems and network as a single adopter.
I became quite poorly in 2018 and had surgery last June. Fortunately it was only gallstones so by no means life threatening. But it was a very difficult 9 months waiting for my operation. I only got through my because my son was 14 and fairly independent and I had that family friendly employer who let me vary my hours so I could work when I felt well, I also work part time, I don't think I could have coped if I worked full time.
Whilst I don't think I have a particular mental health issue, I am also in no doubt that my mental health has taken a bit of a hammering on occasion, Again part time working got me through as I had time when my son was at school to sleep, go to my support group, go to the gym or whatever I needed to do.
So whatever the illness, its important to start from as healthy a place as possible

So there's more than the mental health issue - there's the lack of partner to seriously consider also.

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. I too considered adoption (years of infertility and four cycles of donor egg IVF before we conceived our little girl) but when I researched it, I realised that adoption isn't just "the next best thing" to having your own child. It's a completely different experience and chances are the adopted child will have suffered some sort of trauma, or have additional needs. I wasn't certain of my ability to meet these needs, and that's with fairly stable mental health and a partner.

I'm going to confess to my friend that I posted on here (and hope she understands why) and ask her to read your responses. I think she'll get a really valuable insight into what could lie ahead.

@RedPandaFluff there are lots of single adopters, we all make it work, you can make most situations work if you are creative in your problem solving

Everyone, single or couples, have to think about how to make it work in their situation. For me, the big stumbling block wasnt being single, it was my job. Much as I loved it, it just wasnt going to work, definitely not as a single adopter, maybe of I was part of a couple - who knows, but it would still have been difficult.

Mental health unfortunately does still have stigma attached to it, unlike most physical health conditions where language is often very different

It is true that there is still unfair and unhelpful stigma, but actually I don't think you can compare it to physical conditions (where there is no depression) here.

Where you have a depressed parent, even if they have been good at preempting it getting serious and seeking support, you are still talking about someone who is needing a great deal of "me" time in the sense that they would be less emotionally available for their dc. For an adopted child the impact could well be significant.

For those not not good at preempting, we are talking about the same thing except more so - potentially the parent not wanting to get up, go out, struggling to engage at all, anger. It really would be disingenuous to suggest that this does not happen in some adoptions, and for any child it could cause "significant harm" (to use the word relating to threshold) even if the child is not removed.

I have absolute sympathy with those who suffer depression and agree that everyone will have times when they fall out of their window of tolerance/flip their lid, but I do think that to suggest that clinical depression leading to months off work is normal or average is not right, and it is also not a reasonable assumption that most people suffering will become expert at managing future episodes. In caring professions time off for MH might be more common than in the private sector than in the private sector, for understandable reasons, including burn out but it is not a "norm".

To bring up any child you are looking at having to help them manage their emotions while also managing your own. With an adopted child the psychological and emotional issues are often harder to deal with for many reasons. By stable, I meant people who are emotionally intelligent who are able to deal with setbacks quickly, knocked off their feet less frequently, good boundaries, able to live within their own personal limitations and so on - more likely to be consistently emotionally available and able to cope.

I am sorry if this sounds negative, but I have seen some of the fall out where things have not worked out as hoped. I am also not suggesting "never say never" and I also believe that depression does not equate to not having a great deal to offer in relationships.

This was my fear, @itpsmeoffthatihavetochangename - it seems to me that adopting a child requires MORE stability and the requirement to offer more security for the sake of the (potentially very vulnerable) child.