I’d like your advice and wisdom on something. My 16 yo daughter is going through some very challenging times right now, particularly with respect to her adoption. We adopted her when she was 2, after she had been in several foster homes, and after her birth mom finally surrendered her rights. My husband and I have always been open and honest with her about the adoption, and shared what we could with her about birth mom. Every year we celebrate her adoption anniversary.
In the past year, she has experienced a tidal wave of grief, loss and trauma over her birth mom. My daughter is so angry and sad about being abandoned. This is all bound up with the fact that she is a teenager and has a lot of the usual drama with school and relationships, and lately, her adoption grief is having a negative effect on both school and her ability to get along with people.
We are encouraging her to find safe outlets for her anger as she has recently admitted to scratching herself on her arms and legs, and hitting her arms with a hairbrush. Her school has put us in touch with a school psychologist as well, but our daughter is resistant. However, we will push her to start the counselling process with us as a family.
Does anyone have experience with this? We need some strategies for helping her deal with these issues. We are looking for local support groups as well, and your experiences and perspectives would be a big help. Thanks.
I never met my bio dad. I had feelings of abandonment, anger, lack of self worth. I never hurt myself. I did have suicidal ideation. I do to this day. I found my father at the age of 24, six months after he dead. I think what she is feeling is very normal. Therapy is helpful. I listened to a lot of very hard core music when I was a teen. It was a safe outlet for me. I did not have supportive loving parents in the home. She has a lot going for her.
Is she wanting to find her birth parents? Are you supportive of this? Will you be at some point? In the mean time I would encourage you to help her find those with similar backgrounds… I feel that only adoptees can fully understand their walk.
Personally I think one should be 20+ before doing this search because there is a possibility of more rejection and maintaining relationships can be difficult & confusing. Many adoptees simply have to fill in the blanks otherwise we are stricken with anxiety over who we are. Personally, I got into a bit of trouble with the law and alcohol when I was 15-18. I came out of it OK and met birth mother and half-siblings when I was 25/26. I did not keep up a relationship with birth mother but I think the experience helped me move on with my life and focus less on the mystery of my beginnings.
I wish you and your family the best of luck. Please try to be as supportive as possible and remember that you will always be her dear Mom who she will love and cherish forever.
Thanks for your kind reply and for sharing your experiences. Yes, she has been wanting to find her birth mom, and where we live, adoptees under age 18 can initiate the search, with parents’ permission, which we gave. But it stalled, because interestingly, that is what touched off the inner conflict she has been having, so for now, she is backing away from searching for birth mom. We did hear back from the social worker, after making initial inquiries, who told us that birth mom is unsure about contact and communication at this point.
I think that my daughter at first had a fantasy of what reunification would be like, and then, this profound sense of grief and anger just hit her like a wall. Right now she is so angry with her birth mom, and I have been trying to help her find a way to forgive her birth mom, if just to allow her to find some peace. We have never bad mouthed birth mom, and instead, we have emphasized that our daughter was placed for adoption (I never say ‘given up’ because that just sounds hopeless) out of love and concern for her welfare. Also interestingly, my daughter is the same age as birth mom when birth mom got pregnant with her. I think I appreciate how that resonates in my daughter’s life.
And yes, it might take a good long while before she feels secure enough to try again. We will support that too.
I once read a quote somewhere, danged if I can find it now, that went something like “Always judge others gently, for they may be fighting demons that would destroy you”. Perhaps you can approach it from this angle.
Thanks for your replies and kind thoughts. One thing we have learned, this is a process she is going through, and she needs to invest in the therapy as a process, rather than expect a quick fix. I know she wants to feel better. Having music, journal writing, is a big help. We are also encouraging more physical activity but she is 16 and strong willed!
Micadw, I am truly sorry you did not have the support you needed growing up. I wish you all the best in life.
I have zero experience with adoption, but I have had to recover from a very traumatic childhood.
If she finds that writing helps, I have a suggestion that might help her resolve some of the feelings a little more. It is a specific structure, a letter (but one that isn’t sent). There are four things to cover in it “This is what you did to me…” “This is how it made me feel…” “This is what I wanted from you…” “This is what I want from you now…”.
I found it often helped me get to the next steps in healing.
Well, that is interesting! My husband and I went to a meeting yesterday with the school counsellors, etc, to talk about my daughter’s challenges. It was exhausting. My mind felt it was about to implode.
I told my husband that if anyone was to know what was going on, outside of our family, I would hope they would understand and not be harsh, especially on our child. And I said, I would want to walk in someone else’s shoes before making casual judgements. I have not always done that, but this is a real wake up call for me.
To approach this with our teenager, we have counselled her to forgive her birth mom and to try to see what is beneficial in her own life.
Thanks for that. What did you do with it afterward? I have heard that a letter like that can be burnt or disposed of in a way that signals that a particular stage has passed.
I was taught very well what I did and did not want for my own children. My childhood made .e an amazing parent. I am very blessed to have had e very experience I did. The good and the bad.
Even most adults find forgiveness hard to do. Maybe if she’s allowed to express the anger she feels she won’t be turning it onto herself. She’s got a lot to be mad about. If she knows her birth mother is hesitant about meeting her, welp—kicked to the curb again. And being the same age now as her birth mother was when she gave her away, she may be asking herself if she would make the same choices. Teenagers already question themselves a lot and she’s got a heaping helping of questioning everything.
Unconditional love, if you can do it; let her worry her anger like a bone in safe ways like talking about it, not acting it out. IMHO she needs individual therapy and some family therapy too could help everybody get through this. And can’t you bad-mouth the situation without trashing the mother? I know it would make me feel better if my mom cared enough to feel anger on my behalf.
My birth mother had three kids and I was the middle child. The only one she put up for adoption. I’m still pissed.
Do you have psychologists that work with adoption issues? - around here I’d know exactly who to call.
Can she work with teen moms - maybe a crisis nursery or somewhere that gives teen moms a break? Would she be willing? Maybe seeing how exhausting young children can be - and how challenged young single moms can be, might help her understand her birth mother’s position a little. If her birth mother was facing addiction challenges, perhaps something like Al-Anon (or the one for teens where the name is escaping me) would help?
Teens can easily be caught up in being the center of their universe - if you can do something that will help her see the other side, she may start to recognize that her situation isn’t ideal, but was ‘for the best.’
Me too. Entirely different circumstances but my 16 year old son is going through some challenging times emotionally/mentally. Finding the right people to help him has be unbelievably frustrating. Not being the right person to help him is hard.
Sadly from what I’ve seen is many kids are adopted away by birth parents who have mental issues. Sadly many of those things are genetic so an adopted kid might just inherit their parents susceptibility to things like substance abuse or mental issues like depression or even schizophrenia.
Now those things can all be dealt with if the adoptive parents know about the birth parents and can be prepared when those issues first start popping up.
I hope you can get her in for professional mental help.
We have an adopted daughter also, although she’s much younger than yours. These sort of feelings related to birthparents are not unususal, and so we’ve given this issue some thought, but in a theoretical way. We haven’t (yet) experienced something like you have, and aren’t experts, so take the following whith a grain of salt:
I wonder if part of the issue is that you’ve emphasized that your daughter was “placed for adoption out of love and concern for her welfare.” First, that sends the message that when you love someone very much, you walk out of their lives and never come back - not something that you, who love your daughter also, want her to think. Second, you’re saying that her birthmother made the right call, and there should be nothing to forgive - that boxes your daughter’s emotions in. Third, unless you’ve extensively interviewed her birthmother, you don’t actually know her reasons, so you’re lying to your daughter - the issue here is, I think, self-evident.
I don’t mean to imply that you should be badmouthing her birthmother. That’s far worse. However, I think it would be better to be more neutral, and cast adoption as a choice the birthmother had to make. Sometimes, when people make choices, it’s the right choice; sometimes, even with the best of intentions, it’s the wrong choice; often, there is no right or wrong choice, just good or bad reasons. But you still have to make the choice.
Becky, thanks for your input. I think that’s a good distinction you make about separating the situation from the mother. We have always said to our daughter, your feelings are normal, they are what they are, etc. It has taken a long time for her to actually identify the anger, so that is a positive step, we feel. Still, finding a way to safely vent the anger is key right now.
Dangerosa, our daughter works with special needs kids in a volunteer capacity, and she loves it, so thanks for affirming that. She also did a short stint with the food banks as part of school, and that was helpful,too. I agree with the idea that she needs to see how the rest of the world is different from her immediate experience, to help her get perspective. We have access to a psychologist who is also taking this into account. Our daughter’s school counsellors also echo that feeling, as well.
Zut, I think those points are valid on the surface but of course, each situation is different. We did not actually interview the birth mom, but we spoke extensively with birth mom’s case workers and the foster families our child lived with, that also dealt with birth mom. So we had a very complete picture of her immediate situation as well as the full medical history and family history for birth mom, (leaving out the essential identifying characteristics for privacy reasons, such as address and Social Insurance Number.)
We know why birth mom had to place our daughter for adoption, so there is no doubt there.
I think it is possible to give our daughter the compassionate reasons her birth mom placed her, as well as fully acknowledge our daughter’s grief and pain and profound sense of abandonment. The two do not mutually exclude each other. There is no boxing in of feelings. We have always identified birth moms decision as a choice and given the context for that choice. FWIW, birth mom wrote our daughter a letter spelling out her reasons. Also, we had a lot of info about birth mom as I have said, but birth mom also picked us from a group of 4 families, so the info went both ways.
Still when we tell our daughter that her birth mom picked us to adopt, our daughter doesn’t seem to process this as a good thing. But that’s ok, perhaps she will in time, just as she might some day understand that her birth mom had reasons for placing her, and had to make a hard choice. And we have been clear on that. It was a hard choice. And yet when our daughter grieves, we are completely sympathetic, and we do not judge her feelings. They are what they are. This process is not scientific, it feels like 2 steps forward, 3 steps back at times.
