This post is dedicated to those who have wished for mental healthcare and been told there is none for adoptees unless you are the “child” or the “adoptive parent.” There are professionals available who are adoptees! The road to finding a clinician is just as difficult as the struggle, but the search is well worth it. Resources from our trip to KAAN are listed below. Seek them out.
© N Sleeman
My pangs of loss came at the moment my son’s bones pushed
through my stretched skin. I imagined my own birthmother feeling my bones as I
traced her hand from my warm, watery sphere.
That moment was only a glimpse of the indescribable beauty
of seeing my son emerge with the same square-mouth cry that I had been told I
had since my first memories. I had never seen myself reflected in another human
being, though I was 32. Until that point, my world consisted of red-headed
women, Gonzo
girls and the Cocke County Fairest of the Fair.
At fourteen, I locked my adoptive mother out of my thoughts.
The world and its realities came crashing in, and I was ill-equipped. Therapy
in those days was taboo. Asking for mental healthcare was admitting failure and
in the South, telling our small town I was “downright crazy.” My mother had
been “locked up” for a couple of months, and pity visited our home.
As afternoons of Depeche Mode, journaling and sleep
continued, my mother fretted. She read articles on depression and watched me
closely. Teen suicide graced the covers of magazines and became the subject of
afterschool television; I learned various ways to end the pain … pills and cars
in closed garages.
Yet, I found solace in my writing. My pain poured out on the
pages of Sanrio notebooks, but my adoption identity vocabulary was lacking. The
pages filled with anger and bitterness. I wrote my mother a letter saying, “I
wish you had never adopted me.”
We push those we love away when we are injured.
In my children, my life unfolds in reverse. Their joys are
mine; their losses are mine. Their experiences often play out for me as if in déjà
vu. With them, the umbilical cord was never severed … and that is where my
yearning for my birth mother resides.
As my son approached his teens, his safety was compromised. He
spoke with me only about the isolated
incidents. But as they became more noticeable and overwhelming, I was
unable to insure his safety. We worked diligently with mental health
professionals to gain sweet weekends … only to see the fear and anxiety creep
in as the school week loomed on Sundays.
Over and over, I heard, “Kids can be cruel. If it weren’t
his race, it would be something else. Everyone is picked on.” But as Robert O’Connor, MSW,
recently stated, “What if you cannot melt because of your skin color or the
shape of your eyes? Identifability makes the difference in being able to avoid
harassment.” Our hyper-visibility
is our weakness in these social
settings where power games are at play.
As my son entered high school, I finished my first return to
Korea since my infancy. My soul was suffering from the lack of connection to my
biological family. Loss and jetlag consumed me. Meanwhile, my son was
struggling with hallways full of larger kids, meaner kids, competitive kids.
We push those we love away when we are injured.
One evening, a simple question became a trip to the
hospital. A professional who did not know us, took away my powers as a mother.
Decisions were taken out of my hands, and in a quick 24
hours, I entered a room with a padded door, a small window and a bed where my
son lay sobbing. I caressed his head as I had many times throughout his life. I
only had a few minutes with him. Through his sobs, he begged me to take him
home and assured me I could keep him safe. I explained that he must be brave
and cooperative, and that I would work tirelessly outside that room to get him
released.
As I walked away, I felt weak and clammy. My heart was being
ripped from my chest. No mother wants to give the care of her beloved child to
strangers.
In walked my birth mother. I felt that pain that I imagined
she owned to this day. Slowly, I walked toward the door, my back became her
back as I attempted to hide my sobs of sorrow and shame.
All the years of thinking I was doing a great job as a
mother were tossed and broken. Never will I be able to give advice to another
parent. The confident days of toddlerhood are over, and his adolescence reveals
behaviors that I exhibited too. While they may seem like “normal” teenage
behavior …
… dying his hair
… joking uncomfortably
… carrying a pocket knife.
I remember my behavior …
… dying my hair
… laughing uncomfortably
… carrying a pocket knife for protection.
But inside, I was seething and hurting. Inside, I wanted to
stop living. Inside, I wanted the pain to stop.
In moments of anger, all teens will say hurtful things. As I
used, “I wish you had never adopted me,” my son has blamed our unknown
biological family for his insecurities.
We push those we love away when we are injured.
He is searching for his place in the world and his identity
in it. I am reformulating my place and identity as well.
My daughter worries as I exhibit the telltale signs of
identity search … “you, and your loud music and tattoo shopping” she says. I am
not the mother either of my children once knew.
My year has spiraled, but I am still here. Shaken, but
supported by a therapist, despite the loss that adoption has given me, despite
my loss of control as a parent, and despite the loss of my remaining
parent.
This coming year promises new discoveries as we venture as a
family to Korea for five months. Those connections I lost long ago reside in
Korea. If I cannot quench the desire to find my biological family, I can at
least satisfy cultural curiosities.
Please refer to these clinicians, who are adoptees, for more
information on adoption loss in children and adults.
Joy Lieberthal, LCSW at www.adoptionechoes.com
Katie Jae Naftzger, LICSW at www.adoptiontherapyma.com
Feminist columnist, Rosita González is a transracial, Korean-American adoptee. She is married to a Brit who refers to himself as an Anglo-American and is a mother to two multiracial children. Rosita was adopted in 1968 at the age of one through Holt International. Her road has been speckled with Puerto Rican and Appalachian relatives and her multiracial sister, the natural child of her adoptive parents. While quite content with her role as a “Tennerican,” her curiosity has grown recently as her children explore their own ethnic identities. She considers herself a lost daughter, not only because of the loss of her birth family, but also because of the loss of her adoptive parents. Rosita embarks on a five month stint in Seoul, Korea in fall of 2015. Follow her adventures as an adoptee on her blog, mothermade.
