Mental Health Preparedness: My experience with mental illness growing up adopted
Trigger Warning: suicide ideation, self-harm, adverse childhood experiences.
“Adoptees suffer from a fear of loss. They see loss all over the place.”
“No amount of reassuring can diminish what adopted persons perceive as a stunning difference between themselves and other family members.” - Dr. Marshall Schechter, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine [1]
I discovered these quotes on a fact sheet furnished in 1994 by the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse. I found a fading copy among my 1978-79 adoption documents after my parents’ deaths. The fact sheet acknowledges that not all adoptees emotionally struggle to the same extent, and some don’t seem to struggle at all. For me, these statements strikingly describe my own perception. At age 43, I am solitary because I cannot risk any more loss by being close to people. Not only did I “perceive a stunning difference” between my adoptive family members and me, I continue to perceive an alienating difference between me and all other members of my species.
The fact sheet was created to raise awareness and empathy for issues that many adoptees face. This 9-page document was given to my family by my psychotherapist around the time it was written, 16 years too late. She felt it was important to consider that my identity and mental health issues were related to my “genealogical bewilderment.”
“The concept of genealogical bewilderment (GB) was first introduced in the 1950s, when two
psychologists working in a child guidance clinic became concerned about child maladjustment in adoptive families. GB is said to be a condition from which individuals can suffer when they do not know their genetic parents.” Sants, (1964 p. 33) [2]
By age 16, I already had several psychiatric hospitalizations behind me and my adoptive mother
could barely bring herself to look at or speak to me. I believe our difficulties were due to my parents’ lack of preparation for a maturing person (not just a cute baby or a gifted pianist-ballerina child) unrelated to them whose sense of genetic severance contributed to significant mental health problems. Now that I know my biological families, I believe both genealogical bewilderment (cutting my biological ties) and genetic predisposition (mental health issues among biological relatives) led to my mental health challenges. Keep in mind that unless they are orphans, many if not all adoptees are in the position to be adopted as a result of financial, emotional, lifestyle, or social instability in their birth parents’ lives. They are born of instability and parents should not be surprised if that surfaces in a child’s behavior.
“ I believe our difficulties were due to my parents’ lack of preparation for a maturing person (not just a cute baby or a gifted pianist-ballerina child) unrelated to them whose sense of genetic severance contributed to significant mental health problems.”
A 9-page fact sheet would have been better than nothing at the time of my adoption. I believe my parents and I might have avoided many conflicts had they been required to complete adoption training with coursework in childhood development and racial sensitivity. For example, someone should have advised my parents against claiming I was ‘Italian’ only for the truth (half black, not Italian) to be cruelly pointed out to me by a racist schoolmate. How could I trust my parents or believe they didn’t view me as ethnically inferior after that?
When I was adopted in 1978, there was more literature on the effects of adoption than you might think, but my parents did not take initiative to seek it nor did adoption facilitators offer any. I believe they should have had individual and couples therapy to examine their emotional patterns, existing family dynamics, personal traumas, and prejudices. I am certain my adoptive parents had PTSD from a series of tragic events including the stillbirth of a full term baby boy. This is what led them to apply for adoption before having a healthy boy 7 years prior to adopting me.
I am not sure my parents would have adopted had they been shown adoptee testimonials of bewilderment like those highlighted in the fact sheet. I encourage adoptive parents to also keep in mind that whatever neurological/behavioral traits a child has inherited from two biological families may express themselves in ways that do not align with the adoptive family’s expectations.
“I am not sure my parents would have adopted had they been shown adoptee testimonials of bewilderment like those highlighted in the fact sheet. ”
I was prescribed antidepressants at age 7, in 1985. It didn’t matter that I was a gifted and compliant student, had many friends, activities, the best toys and clothes. I carried a sense of disconnection and severe separation panic that made me uncomfortable to the point of voicing that I didn’t want to live. Again, I was 7. There was a striking discrepancy between the ease with which I performed in life, my contentment with my adoptive family vs. internal anxiety, sense of feeling unsafe and alienation.
Prospective parents, please ask yourself how you would feel if, after spending money to bring a child into your home and lavish it with gifts and activities, your 7-year old obedient, popular, gifted child tells you they think they would be better off dead and resorts to self-harm? What if they are not gifted or obedient at all? Are you emotionally, physically and financially prepared for any and all mental, cognitive, or physical disabilities that a child might develop?
You can show an adoptee your version of love by spending money and saying prayers. But it might take more study and emotional work for you to be a person your adoptee will love once it is no longer a small child under your control. They will remember how you treated them when they were grappling with emotional issues stemming from family separation in which they had no choice, but you did. Are you prepared?
PLEASE NOTE: If you experience thoughts of suicide or self harm, you are not alone. Please feel free to use these hotline below:
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline - 800.273.8255
Sources
[1] Hochman, G., Huston, A., Prowler, Mady. (1994). Issues facing adult adoptees. National Adpoption Information Clearinghouse, 1-9.
[2] Sants, Harold J. 1964. Genealogical Bewilderment in Children with Substitute Parents. British Journal of
Medical Psychology 37: 133–41. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
