LEVANTE LIFESTYLE

THE ADOPTED CHILD - AN EASY INHERITANCE?

By David Smalley BA (Hons) with QTS, Dip. in Counselling, MBACP (Accred), UKRC.

Have you ever seen those ‘cute’ pictures of children in local UK newspapers highlighting the need for people to come forward as adoptive parents? I wonder how many of us give a thought about what might be the stories behind such children.

My interest and desire to understand more was heightened by my experiences of working with adoptees, adolescents and adults, and adoptive parents over the years. Initially I was struck and then intrigued: why did the adoptees mention adoption in such a matter of fact way? It was if such an experience was incidental to their lives, and often seemingly unimportant. Were they carrying a form of shame? Yet by being with them began to give me an insight into how they faced or survived in the world as a result of their journey. But why was their journey so different?

Adoption is a social construct often borne out of necessity, and its experience is not easily compared with those who are born and develop in their family of origin. And why is that?

To answer this requires that we have some understanding of what might happen when a baby is taken away from its birthmother. What is that baby’s experience as it develops and travels through life? For the older child who is adopted, how might their early life experiences impact on them? How aware and prepared are the adoptive parents, and particularly the mother, for what is to come and what has happened? And why might the adoptive mother now be most important in the adoptee’s life?

At this point let me say that I am not discounting the potential of gay and lesbian people becoming adoptive parents, because I am sure they have something to offer. However for the sake of this article I am focussing on the heterosexual couple becoming or who have been adoptive parents.
In attempting to answer these questions, the only starting place surely is with the birthmother, knowing that she is going to put up or may have to put up her baby for adoption; a decision sometimes taken out of her hands. What might be occurring for that baby throughout the pre and post-birth process of attachment and bonding? In Nancy Verrier’s easily accessible book ‘The Primal Wound’ she describes how “Many doctors and psychologists now understand that bonding doesn’t begin at birth, but is a continuum of physiological, psychological and spiritual events which begins in utero and continues throughout the postnatal bonding period. When this natural evolution is interrupted by post natal separation from the biological mother, the resultant experience of abandonment and loss is indelibly printed upon the unconscious minds of those children, causing what I will call the Primal Wound.”

Many might question what a new born baby can possibly be aware of? Without quoting authoritative articles, a new born baby is fully aware of its birthmother. It has been at one with her for the previous nine months, sharing and hearing her experiences, perhaps even knowing in an unconscious way that it is about to be abandoned. In all honesty can we say that the severing of that bond and attachment with the birthmother is going to have no impact?

If I am being a little judgemental, then those who choose or attempt to bury this slightly inconvenient fact could perhaps be considered to be living in denial? Or could some be attempting to deflect their inadequacies as adoptive parents? How could the separation from the birthmother to whom it was connected for fine months not affect an infant? Rightly you might ask how and to what extent.
It can never be entirely possible to describe the feelings that a baby might experience post separation, but evidence suggests they go through a process of mourning for the birthmother. It is natural for their survival that the baby seeks out an attachment with the adoptive mother, but bonding may well prove to be more problematical.

The baby and then the infant will mistrust this bonding in fear of yet another abandonment. The adoptive mother sees what looks like a normal baby, and later sees a laughing happy toddler, but cannot see this child aching inside. If the adoptive mother is really alert and attuned to her child she will notice the sadness, the pain and the fear, and by noticing she will be able to help it; for those who lack internal security, empathy and insight, the greater the ongoing ache inside for the adoptee.
For the adoptive parents full of hope and the desire to love there will be those ill prepared for these experiences, and it is not until between the ages of 18 months and three years old that the adoptive parents start to think, are we doing something wrong? For the mother in particular this feeling of rejection may trigger feelings about her own history, for example the limitations in her own infant bonding process, or her pregnancy experiences. And what if the adoptee comes into a family where the adoptive parents have biological children? It might seem to them that the adoptee is absorbing all the parental love and energy, and so it might well be, with these demands continuing deep into adolescence.

If the parents are ‘fortunate’ the adoptee might, as they grow into adolescence, arrive compliant and acquiescent. But on the other side of the coin they can equally be aggressive, provocative and anti-social. And it is often with the latter that parents seek help.

The error, often born out of unawareness by some adoptive parents under this severe provocation, is to consider sending the adolescent away to a ‘special school’ or a referral to a psychiatrist/psychologist. What the adoptee feels is that the parents are validating that they are no good, because they were given away at birth; they are only repeating the rejection and abandonment they experienced so early in life. Attachment has been proven difficult to achieve and bonding even harder, and unknowingly what might be going through the adoptee’s mind is: “Now when I need you the most because I am acting out my pain and I ache inside, you are going to abandon me.”
Is it hardly surprising the adoptee acts up. It takes resolve and courage for adoptive parents to continuously deal with that archaic wound, but if they do, does it not serve to model how pain can be held, something the adoptee can replay in their future.

Adolescents all arrive at a time when they start to explore their own identity and history. But for the adoptee this is a little more problematical. The biological child has certainty about theirs, but for the adoptee there may be uncertainty. It is possible they are still not fully aware of their birthmother’s history or her and the father’s genetic origins.

What if the adoptee wishes to explore their history? Would it not be helpful if the adoptive parents have an understanding of this need and be facilitative in the process, and do not see it as a threat to whatever relationship they have with the adoptee? Is it not natural for the adoptee to want to seek out where they came from without being burdened with those intro-jected feelings: “I am being disloyal to my adoptive parents?”

That wound and the difficulties in bonding will have affected the adoptee’s sense of self, and often this manifests in a sense of loss, basic mistrust, anxiety, depression, emotional and behavioural problems and difficulties in future relationships with others. Even as the adoptee gets older and where they are well informed about their adoption, the knowledge that the birthmother gave them up voluntarily, might lead them to observe, “I understand why she had to give me up, but why doesn’t that make me feel better?”, and, “Being wanted by my adoptive parents doesn’t compare with being unwanted by my birthmother.” Such thoughts and feelings travel into their future relationships.

In their adult relationships they will test out the trust of their partner, sometimes to the limits, as they will not easily form an attachment and then a bond; there will often be a sense of vigilance, because of the fear of abandonment. At one level they are probably needy because of their in-built insecurities, yet to the world they may well present something entirely different since that is the way they learnt how to survive the wound. Their compliant mode serves them well. But what of the older child who is adopted, do they portray the same difficulties?

I do not wish to label all older children who come up for adoption, but in all probability they will have experienced a foster home(s), and were possibly split from their siblings. It does not take a vast leap in the imagination to understand why many older children may not be with their natural parent(s), hence the chances of them having experienced a secure attachment and bonding with their birthmother is at best problematical, and in all probability they will have arrived at a foster home anxious, fearful and with an insecure attachment. They may then be subjected to the possibility of a number of homes until they are finally adopted. All this serves to do is to compound their original insecurities.

Being realistic however this may be the best that is on offer, and the unfortunate they may never be adopted. Perhaps their history was not so ‘cute’! So is it possible to help adoptees or adoptive parents who are struggling?

In summary yes, but for the adoptee it may not be a quick fix. For them, their predominant difficulties appear in their relationships, and nowhere more is this played out than with the therapist, where trust is the key issue. Is this person trustworthy? Will they abandon me if I become too difficult? Will they be available for me even if I act out my discomfort? Can I let them see behind the mask that I present to the world and into the pain that resides within?

It will not come as a surprise that the roots of the ‘here and now’ issues presented by many adoptees are often found in the seeds of those archaic and development feelings originating from the wound and abandonment. Such ways of being and feeling are in the therapist’s awareness as they work with such clients, and healing only starts to take place when the client has the strength to start to explore that wound and have it witnessed. However, many clients choose, and perhaps understandably, to just deal with their here and now issues, not wishing to make the longer term changes that counselling can offer.

Adoptees may have had a difficult start to life, whether adopted as a baby or as an older child, but that does not mean that all relationships, including those with the adoptive parents, have to be turbulent as a result. But for those where it is, sometimes I have been asked “do I really need therapy?” On occasions I have had to reply: “Can you afford not to be in therapy?”