Not all adoptees feel a great sense of loss.
I read that recently, from an adoptive mom.
Apparently, according to her, not all children left by their moms feel a sense of loss, heartache, whatev.
It is interesting to me, because I used to claim that I didn’t feel that sense of loss.
It is interesting to me because I have seen so many adoptees start out that way, and then admit they felt a tremendous grief.
Are there some human infants hardwired so differently, that they don’t feel the painful loss of mother?
Do they exist?
I don’t think so.
Yes, all adoptees, suffer extreme grief, whether or not you want to admit it.
Posted by justenjoyhim on December 20, 2008 at 9:51 am
Here’s what I don’t get — it honestly doesn’t harm us adoptive moms if our kids suffer grief, loss. WHAT harm does that do for us to admit that our kids suffer, are vulnerable, feel these things? Why do our children need to be viewed as some sort of superhuman beings who don’t feel the loss of the first person to whom they were so intimately connected, the only person to whom they will ever have that strong a connection.
Never mind — I think I just answered my own question while writing this out — the only person to whom they will ever have that strong a connection.
I guess that does threaten some adoptive moms.
That’s a shame, because in being threatened by that, those adoptive moms don’t let their children feel the full sense of loss that their children do feel.
Thinking out loud here, Joy.
Posted by Michelle on December 20, 2008 at 11:14 am
Joy, isn’t adoption propaganda just peachy? If you tell a human that they didn’t lose a mother, but gained a family, then the human will believe it. After all, the government and society all say it, so why wouldn’t the adopted person believe it?
It reminds me of how so often people didn’t want to believe that a priest could rape and sexually abuse kids and teens, nor was it seen as the heinous crime that it is – it was the “troubled” priest who couldn’t help himself. How many people bought into that myth, including the victims?
It’s interesting how society had no problem believing that a woman who had sex out of wedlock was despicable and her baby taken from her (how convenient it was, though, that all those infertiles were waiting in the shadows for her baby!) – yet a priest that raped a child or a teen was simply moved to another parish.
Posted by echaos on December 20, 2008 at 3:18 pm
So very true! Even though I have never felt that adoption was the worst thing in my life, nor did I blame it on every thing that went wrong, I have always had a feeling of grief surrounding my adoption.
And really, what do adoptive parents know about it any way (this coming from an adoptive parent
)
Posted by jr on December 20, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Well, it WAS an adoptive mother who said that.
Posted by Mei-Ling on December 20, 2008 at 8:49 pm
I’m going to go against the grain and say that not all adoptees feel grief.
I was one of them once, and you were too. You can testify to the feeling that adoption loss didn’t matter. I believed it quite strongly, I believed that I was happy.
Because I felt angry and darn it if anyone was going to dictate to me how *I* should feel.
It’s the same for those adoptees who claim to feel no loss. I don’t see why we should “lecture” them that they do feel a loss. It’s not doing us any good to convince them when they feel what THEY feel and it’s not doing them any good because they don’t see it from our perspectives.
I do not believe that an AP would be able to tell you exactly how her child feels. It’s an adoptive parent so the perspective so the viewpoint on grief and loss is really just her looking at her happy & cute 2/3-year-old toddler and thinking that s/he’ll never feel any loss because of mommy’s parenting skills. It frightens her.
But she may be right. Junior Adoptee may in fact grow up perfectly content and happy. There’s nothing wrong with validating those feelings, too.
Posted by joy21 on December 20, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I think that is actually an physical impossibility that adoptees don’t grieve.
That being said, as you point out Mei-Ling, many adoptees claim they haven’t been affected as a result of lack of awareness, people pleasing, fear of repeated abandonment, shame, fear of being seen as damaged and a whole host of other reasons.
It is a silly conversation though, and sad to me that it is believed, wouldn’t it be bizarre if someone lost their family through death and claimed to be unphased?
We are actually exiled from our families, the intent is a bit more deliberate.
Posted by Mei-Ling on December 20, 2008 at 9:56 pm
“Because I felt angry and darn it if anyone was going to dictate to me how *I* should feel.”
That should say *because I felt happy… @@
[many adoptees claim they haven’t been affected as a result of lack of awareness]
I think they’re telling the truth. Every adoptee is different.
Posted by joy21 on December 20, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Yes, all adoptees are different, but all humans share certain developmental needs.
There is no such thing as a human who doesn’t need to be parented.
The bond is so strong out of interest for survival of the species, all children breathe, eat, and to bond with their own tribe.
Humans are in fact much more similar than different, that is why they are so predictable.
Posted by pickel on December 21, 2008 at 3:29 am
I know that my son has grieved and will always grieve. However, I do not let it affect our daily lives because if I did then it would overcome us. If he brings it up we talk about it and help him feel secure. At his age we have not even been able to broach the subject of his birth mother, as he just does not understand. He is five and has many special needs.
I think today, adoptive parents are more aware and don’t push things under the rug to make the world look like rainbows. But, we also don’t want to focus on grief.
Posted by Michelle on December 21, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Pickel,
I don’t know the story of your a-son’s adoption – but is there any possibility of reuniting him with his mother/family? When I hear adoptive parents understanding the grief, I wonder what they’re doing about it other than acknowledging it. If a child is grieving a mother he lost, wouldn’t the logical solution be to search for his mother, father or any other family members?
Posted by Yes All Adoptees Feel a sense Of Loss « According To Addie on December 21, 2008 at 4:50 pm
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Posted by papa2hapa on December 21, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Loss and grief exists in all aspects of life. In the KAD community we express it many different ways, and whether or not some KADs want to say they’ve experienced loss and grief or not, it exists.
I believe it must exist in order to love and hope to also exist.
Besides, science has proven that even infants who have lost human touch experience those sensations depsite not being able to “label” the emotion with words. It is innate within us. Not learned.
Posted by Kippa on December 21, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Well, I think that people feel what they’ve experienced.
One way or another, it’s unavoidable
They may process it differently, but it is felt and it is there.
Being separated from one’s beginnings has to be a loss, no two ways about it.
Posted by Jessica on December 22, 2008 at 8:06 pm
i am adopted, and i feel no sense of loss.
there, i said it.
i’m honestly so surprised that so many other adopted people do seem to feel so much loss or resentment.
maybe it has to do with the environment or family you were raised in with your adoptive parents? i dont’ know…
i have just recently begun reunion with my birthmother and her children; it is definitly a rollercoaster, and i’m happy i’m getting to know them bit by bit. it may be a little bit of a disappointment that i didnt get to grow up with them, but i do not feel a sense of ‘loss’ per se.
i feel happy that i now get to potentially add new members to my family.
why is is so many see it as a loss by being adopted?
Posted by caramelgalore on December 23, 2008 at 12:29 am
I had myself believing that I did not have that feeling of grief and loss and that I was happy enough to be totally unaffected. But it did hit as an avalanche of decades worth of pent-up loss and grief. The physical manifestation was so great that my spine began to degenerate and I had new and mysteriously fractured vertebrae in my spine. The emotional-physical connection is so intense.
Now that I am in touch with it and am processing it, I can see that it was always there because it had manifested in the parts of me that I always wanted to fix, but of which I could not determine the origin. It is the root. I am a classic case of spending my first 4 months in a bin, with limited human contact. As I process it, I am healing in every way and can now go days without wearing my back brace. I suppose I could not identify it until I was ready to process it. It seems so obvious now.
Posted by Marlo on December 23, 2008 at 6:27 am
I think the need to be parented and to be loved and kept by our moms does lead to a huge loss in every one of us. But that survival instinct is also the reason we can’t access or accept the pain for years, or for our entire lives. Even though my aparents were open and loving, it wasn’t safe for me to feel the loss for many, many years. It still feels pretty scary.
Posted by issycat on December 23, 2008 at 10:33 pm
See here we go with the terms again. How can a person feel “disappointment” but not any kind of loss?
Is this for real?
Disappointment, in my book, is a nice word for loss. You know?
My worry is that there are adoptees out there that are in so much denial of their feeling that they can’t even bring themselves to admit any kind of loss.
I mean, adoptees are not raised by their mothers, their biological mothers. And we’re not ok to say that this is a loss?
How can it not be a loss?!!!
And how is stating the loss “invalidating happiness”?
Sometimes I feel like this adopto-blogosphere is bizarro-world.
There is loss in being relinquished (abandoned).
It’s what one does with that loss that matters.
Posted by Elizabeth on December 23, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Jessica are you enjoying your xmas break from school? You must be quite young, and full of adopto cool-aid.
You might want to take some psych classes in college to learn about human development. All babies are best nurtured by their own mothers.
I’m wondering if you have any addictions that are numbing your pain and loss?
Posted by Mei-Ling on December 24, 2008 at 3:16 am
Alright then, Joy. I have a scenario for you.
Adoptee A is adopted when she is just an infant. Her bparents found her and although she states, “I did not want to be found. They kept asking me over and over again to contact them, to be with them like family, but I just didn’t feel that way. I have spent time with them and although they are very nice people and I am happy she gave me up so I could have this life, I do not feel a loss. I do not ‘know’ them. I do not ‘feel’ empty without them. I AM happy the way I am. This ‘is’ me.”
She’s met her bioparents and spends time with them on occasion (because they watch over her granddaughter), and she says she would have preferred not to be found even after being ‘in contact’ with them for quite a few years (I think) because she is quite happy with her life now.
What’s not to believe about that? Why can’t someone believe their bioparents are nice people… and still not feel a loss over it?
Posted by missinpiece on December 24, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I think many adoptees don’t feel the loss or grief until they are in the throes of adulthood. At least that has been my experience – I felt the loss in my youth, but didn’t feel it really deeply – perhaps didn’t acknowledge how deeply i felt it – until I hit about 30, pregnant with my first child. I’m struggling still to come to terms with it all still, and think that I always will be struggling to come to terms with it.
Posted by Sunny on December 25, 2008 at 11:34 pm
There can be no loss more primal or more profound than the loss of one’s mother.
And mothers are not replaceable.
Some are too afraid to admit just a teeny, tiny bit of loss, lest the whole house will fall down.
Either that or they’re the most shallow sociopaths alive.
Posted by Brett Bailey on March 12, 2009 at 2:10 am
As an adopted son, 19 yrs. old, I do not have grief of a loss of my birth mother, but I do have a loving mom and dad that have always been that to me.
Posted by joy-joy-joy on March 13, 2009 at 12:12 am
That’s what they have always told you isn’t it Brett?
Good Boy
Posted by Another Adoptee on June 15, 2009 at 10:22 pm
I am a 47 year old adoptee in a reunion for 2 months. During my life i did not identify it as loss and grief.. but now it clearly was. It went from day dreaming to wondering to a realistic dream. Other feelings i can clearly identify as grief and loss now. But had you asked me alot of questions years ago the answer would have been no and now they are yes. As we grow and learn what shapes our personality, as well as the lessons of age, the wisdom makes us realize alot. I never realized the full circle effect that adoption played in my life. Reading others blogs has helped me to realize alot more than i was ever aware of. I think its called brain washing, but thats part of the being a chosen, special child isnt it?