About ten months into this adoption journey, I realized that I was not OK. I couldn’t get through a day without crying, and not only was I not enjoying playing with my children, but I also couldn’t think of anything fun to do. Every day felt oppressive, and I felt like I was constantly failing my children.
When we adopted, we didn’t just become parents, we became therapeutic parents. I knew that in order to help my children heal from their trauma, I needed to show them what precious beings they are and help them feel loved, and I just couldn’t find a way to do that. I made sure they had everything they needed externally – good food, appropriate clothing, time outside, unstructured play time, structured play time, stories, songs, outings, etc., but I couldn’t look them in the eyes with the unconditional love and adoration they needed to see. I had read enough of the parenting books and articles to know I was not doing well.
I felt alone. I had been trying to find an adoption competent therapist since the beginning, and I had done the lengthy intake for the local children’s mental health organization (waiting list approximately one year), and I was surprised by how difficult it was to find someone. I had also been waiting for the Pathways to Permanence course to run in an area close enough that we could attend, and when the most local one was cancelled due to lack of registration, I insisted we drive over an hour to attend the next closest course. I needed to talk to other parents who had adopted, and I needed to feel supported by someone other than my husband (as amazing as he is). The course was extremely important, and I strongly recommend every adoptive parent take it. Here was a group of people who understood why love is not enough, and why I sometimes resented having to deal with the impacts of my children’s trauma because I wasn’t there to prevent it.
Through the course, I got the names of two therapists, and one of them was able take us on, even though it was over an hour’s drive away. The four sessions our daughter and I had with her helped me a great deal. I learned that I needed to change some of my language and explicitly say things like, “because I am a good mother, and that’s what good mothers do.” This was not intuitive for me. I stopped saying things like, “We are going to leave in 5 minutes, OK?” because even though my “OK” was me checking for listening, it came across as me asking the then 7-year-old for permission. She encouraged me to give our daughter fewer choices and helped me see that it was too soon in the attachment process to try and empower our daughter. Then, the therapist went away for a month.
In the meantime, I realized that I could not be the mother I wanted to be while I was feeling so out of touch and hopeless. So, I went to my family doctor and asked her if she had ever heard of Post-Adoption Depression Syndrome, and we quickly agreed on an anti-depressant. Within a few weeks, I began to feel more like my normal light-hearted self. Things got a bit easier.
We were connected with another therapist whose office is a bit closer, and we continued to work on adjusting our parenting to meet our children’s needs. One thing I have had to work extremely hard on, and I am still struggling with this, is that we need to not say “no” to our kids. This is for real. These kids hear the word “no” as a rejection of them, and it goes straight to their core of hurt. When our therapist told me this, I said I understood that, but wasn’t it also important that they learn how to accept a “no”, given that they have to live in the real world? Her answer was simple, but it has made a huge impact on me. “Yes,” she said, “but not yet.”
This has permeated into other aspects of our parenting. Do kids need to learn to help out at home? Yes, but not yet. Do kids need to be able to take care of their own things? Yes, but not yet.
When a child is an infant, we teach them that the world is safe and that they are loved by meeting their every need, usually before they even realize the need. There are no “natural consequences” for an infant. We do not try to discipline or punish them because we know that would only hurt them. It doesn’t matter how old our children are when they come to us; when they come, they are in an infant stage of attachment, and they need the same kind of constant nurture and interaction that we give a newborn to help them attach to their parents.
In some cases, like ours, an earlier insecure attachment further complicates matters, and it takes a long time and a lot of work to help that child unlearn that adults are unreliable and learn that their parents are safe. My case, like that of many parents, is also complicated by my own insecure attachment style. Parents with insecure attachment raise children with insecure attachment, so I am working so hard on trying to change so much of my default reactions so that my children can develop a healthy secure attachment with me. I have to heal myself in order to be the mother I want to be. In the meantime, I have to deal with the impacts of the mistakes I make every day. It is exhausting, and I can honestly say have never felt so incompetent in my life.
We focus so strongly on attachment because no other aspect of childhood development is more strongly associated with positive outcomes than secure attachment. Yes, attachment is more important than literacy. I sometimes have to remind myself of that.
Many people wish to minimize the impact trauma has had on our children and their brain development, and we often feel that only the people closest to us and those who have also taken this journey understand what we are going through.
Through being the operative word. We are going through. We have to believe that over time, our love and therapeutic parenting will help our children heal. Still, we are coming to accept that we cannot kid ourselves that they will not continue to feel the effects of their trauma for the rest of their lives. Our children lost everything and everyone they knew, more than once. They will always feel those losses, and we can’t fix that. All we can do is be there.
So, we keep learning and growing and making mistakes, and learning and growing some more. Some days are harder than others, and some days are amazing. And that’s just how it goes.
Veggies and Dirt 