The Real Adoption
While it is wonderful and encouraging to see families with adoptive children thriving and building a good healthy bond; I would also caution people to understand that adoption is not always the “Let’s hold hands as a family and run through a meadow laughing” scenario. Sometimes it takes a lot of commitment and care to manage the needs and behaviors of children that are adopted. Sometimes it sucks the life out of you; sometimes it challenges you beyond any energy level you think you have, and sometimes it brings out the worst in us! Often, I think adoptive families are afraid to admit that real shit happens, and that it isn’t always a fairy tale. I happen to feel that it is good and healthy to just let it out…let people know that it isn’t all roses, just as all “typical” families endure from time to time.
You aren’t just adopting a child…you are adopting behaviors of theirs that are not natural or normal for lack of better words. You are also adopting a set of behaviors for yourself that do not feel natural for you and that you don’t feel good about deep down inside. There are so many love/hate aspects to this, and there is no “reset” button, no option to “re-do”, like,”Hey, caseworker, I think you set us up with the wrong match, can you come back?” you just have to bear with it and endure it. There is a war going on, and it takes every ounce of energy you have to continue to try to find ways to praise a child that has made it his mission in life to torture you, and make you pay for the sins that his birth mother did to him. He will continue to find ways to get negative attention minute after minute, hour after hour until you just cannot find positive things to praise him about. So you spend your days in an all out war that tears at an energy, power you felt you had. It rips away at the love you wanted to give him and the way you wanted to have a real loving family relationship with him. You wonder why you opened this door to such a miserable life; you wonder why you opened up your sweet and docile little family to such ugliness. But you are also a warrior, a fighter, so you don’t just sit and take it; you fight back to protect the rest of your family, and sadly, that fighting back makes you feel worse than you’ve ever felt in your life. You know that it really isn’t this child’s fault; he was brought to his knees by the abandonment from his mother, his father. It’s not his fault he was neglected horribly early on, and never ever learned to trust anyone. He learned he needed to parent himself, and its against his entire belief system to let you in. And it’s not his fault that all of this neglect caused his brain not to grow….it caused his brain to take “another route” and therefore, he really doesn’t have the skills to understand that he has now taken the reigns of abuse, and is abusing himself by not letting others in to love, nurture and care for him. He doesn’t understand why he does this every day, and he doesn’t understand why he feels he doesn’t deserve anything good in life; deep down, he feels he is a bad person. Day after day, you beat yourself up trying to help him understand that he is a good person, he is worthy of love and a family that wants the best for him. But he doesn’t hear it, he truly doesn’t hear it. He knows in his heart of hearts that he is bad, so he spends all his time making that a reality that you cannot fix. It is this cycle that spins out of control day after day, and no one wins.
It’s 13 years after adoption day, and it feels like we’ve traveled the world in war torn countries. Our therapist says we have PTSD. It’s hard to move on from such tragedy because it comes over and over again. You try to find new things to be involved in, to enjoy with your other children while you “parent” the sad one from afar. He lived in your home with you for 9-10 years until you finally realized there was no way you could “do this” anymore…it dawned on you when your husband was out of town one time, and you had to lock yourself, your other 2 sons, and your dog in your bedroom one night to avoid his violence and melt downs, and to stay safe. You thought to yourself, “this isn’t how most people live, right? This isn’t healthy is it? Does this go on in other homes?” And you looked at your sons and your dog and you thought, “Something has to give”. Then you move to another house because you wanted your kids to attend a smaller school, and it was a good time for a change. The last house contained so many nightmares and times of conflict, that you felt maybe all the neighbors knew the illness going on in the house. It was too close to all the other neighbors houses and it was as if you all felt you needed more room to breathe. So you move in the new house, and you get settled in, and the school year goes well, but the internal family battle is stronger than ever.
One day you take your kids to an appointment for the older son to get his leg braces (he has special needs of course) and your parents are in town visiting you; they are alarmed at how things have escalated with the “angry one”, they are concerned for your wellbeing/everyone’s wellbeing. You go to the appointment anyway, as you do day in and day out because it’s not acceptable to just crawl into a hole and let your life, and the world pass on by. You understand the war is still going on, but you have no choice, you still keep moving. Then the “angry one” decides to kick the younger one in the crotch, as you all are trying to exit the building. It is hard and angry the force that he inflicts on the younger one. Suddenly the world rips apart; that is it, that is the end. You try to calmly take the angry one to the car, but he runs away towards the traffic, but you get him and bring him back. He is screaming at the top of his lungs, cars are starting to pull over to watch, people are walking by horrified thinking that you are abusing him. Your whole body is shaking, and you are sweating profusely from the scary adrenaline coursing through your body as you try to get him buckled in the car to leave the scene. It’s like you are trying to get in the bunker to avoid the firing, but you can’t ..you can’t move from your spot, you have to safely get the angry one in the car to move to another safe place, but is there a safe place? You realize there is NO safe place…none. It hits you right then and there that this isn’t going to get better, this isn’t going to change. Your parents are shaking and not sure what to do….everyone was frozen in time for a few minutes and it seemed like hours. What do we do now? You all get in the 2 cars, and only you are in the car with the angry one. You scream at the top of your lungs that you can’t do this anymore. You drive to the only safe place you know, the counselor’s office. Your mom stays with you and angry one at the Counselor’s office. One counselor takes the angry one to a separate office, while you and your mom sit with the counselor you trust the most in the world, and you cry so hard you can’t breathe. You let out the nightmare with all the tears and energy in your body. You let it all go. You determine that the angry one cannot come back to your home anymore. And so begins the next leg of the journey.
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