I’ve written about my therapist before. And, while I feel like I did a pretty good job of connecting the dots of my story, she really helped solidify things for me, especially when it comes to my fractured relationship with my mother and where it comes to communicating with my birth mother (and, for the curious, I have yet to send her the note I wrote about here but it is on my list of things to do in early 2013).
Although it has been somewhat embarrassing to admit, it took the “permission” and validation of my therapist to finally feel like the issues with my mother and, to a lesser degree with my birth mother, were not about me, were not my fault, and were not up to me to fix. I felt like that may have been true but on my own I never could believe it or operationalize it in my own life. Seeing a therapist who specializes in all parties touched by adoption was the key for me. How serendipitous for me that I found her on the Psychology Today website.
Many adult adoptees tend to internalize issues surrounding their adoption, often feeling abandoned, to blame, and not worthy of knowing information about their placement or their birth parents. And, although we want to belong and feel connected, we often don’t, and we certainly don’t always feel we deserve to have information about who we are and where we come from.
My therapist wrote a piece, 10 Things Adoptees Want You to Know, for Huffington Post that is a must read for anyone touched by adoption. Not only does it provide insight for those in an adoptee’s life that can help bring understanding of how an adoptee might feel, but I think it speaks directly to adoptees who may need insight into what their needs/wants/desires are regarding being adopted.
She also started a blog/resource site (a work in progress) where she is hoping folks can go to ask a question, read an article, and get support –> asktheadoptee.
I encourage anyone who is adopted, has adopted, is thinking of adopting, or knows someone who is adopted, to read it. While the adoption process in this country is vastly different now than when I was adopted forty-six years ago, many of the threads of how an adoptee might feel are still the same. I am adopted, will always be adopted, but am no longer defined by it.
Maybe you’ve already answered this, but do you think these same kind of issues will be present for your younger son, who (if I’m remembering correctly) came to your family via donor embryo?
I think about this a lot, as my children came into being with the help of both a donor and a gestational carrier.
How interesting. I wonder if she’s done any research on kinship adoption. We adopted my two nieces after their parents were killed in a car accident and we struggle with attachment issues.
Thanks for this resource!
Thank you so much for posting this!!!
Thanks for posting this. I didn’t realize your therapist had this speciality — pretty awesome. Maybe I should find a similar professional, as I often find a lot of things I talk about with my therapist go right back to that core feeling of unworthiness/feeling of being flawed/fear of being abandoned. I have overcome this a lot over the years, but it is frustrating how much it still lurks in there, even when I know logically it makes no sense.
I love that piece and linked to it on FB and twitter. how fortunate you are to have found such a wonderful adoption-literate therapist!
(as for the rest of adjusting to life as mama to a fussy newborn in your 40s, hope she can help with that stuff too!)