PTSD Nightmares

I read a woman’s story today. She was adopted from Bulgaria in the 1990s. I won’t share all of what she wrote but much of it is typical for many adoptees regardless. She writes that she is beyond grateful & blessed to be where she is now. Her husband was able to find her birth mother and sister as a Mother’s Day gift 7-1/2 years ago but her birth mother wants no contact with her. Her husband suggested seeing if the orphanage she was at was still around.

Like my own adoptee mother, she wants to learn more about some health issues she has been having. She notes – Like my own adoptee mother, she wants to learn more about some health issues she has been having. I understand. It was the same in my family.

What really touched my heart was when she wrote – I blocked everything from the orphanage out. After our stillbirth, everything from the orphanage has been coming back in full force to where I get these horrible flashback nightmares. Sometimes the nightmares gets so bad to where I injure myself. Finally was put on PTSD medication and it’s been a huge help with my nightmares. Still get them but not as intense and scary. I finally found a counselor that I go to that helps with the adoptee’s trauma. I couldn’t have been any happier to finally have a counselor that can help me process find was to cope and heal from the emotional, physical and sexual abuse.

Reading her story had me do a deep dive into Bulgarian orphanages (I was aware of similar issues in Romania from long ago). I’ll spare you most of the details.

One response was this – We adopted 2 children from Bulgaria 6 years ago. I would say try and send the letter. But expect nothing in return. Honestly your mother probably has little to no medical information to give you. In Bulgaria, our experience is that unless you have money – care and knowledge is extremely limited. We were not told a great deal about the children that we adopted. They hid how violent our son was and he was only 7 when we adopted him. Our adoption was extremely difficult because of all that they hid.

Another adoptee shared this and offered some resources – having no health history is like never ending Russian Roulette. It’s typical for adoptees to have their early life trauma resurface in connection to pregnancy & loss. I hope your counsellor is adoption trauma competent & can help you begin to process the connections. I recommend looking up Pete Walker’s book, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. You might also find Gabor Maté’s trauma videos on YouTube, useful. As a result of your loss, what you are experiencing is called ‘coming out of the fog’ & it’s fierce. There’s a fantastic blog by adoptee Gilli Bruce about leaving the adoption fog, that is worth looking up to explain it. Finally, read The Primal Wound by Nancy Verrier.

I learned that Bulgaria has been criticized for having one of the highest numbers of children in state institutional care in the European Union. Growing up in an orphanage isn’t easy. No happy circumstances lead to kids living there. These difficult circumstances and the fact that children don’t have access to the best resources for their development can cause issues. These appallingly treated children are a legacy of Bulgaria’s communist past, when families were torn apart for the greater good of the state. Some boarding houses were established just to cater for those born out of wedlock.

After The Emotional Storm

A kinship adoptive parent shares – I looking for help on how to support a 7 year old. In his dark moments, he struggles with feeling loved no matter what we do. Most of the time he feels loved but those dark moments are coming more and more. I assume it’s because of age, awareness and higher demands at school. He is in trauma therapy and we are trauma knowledgeable due to family history. We just started meds and they are helping but we all know that while meds can help, they are only a bandaid/short term fix to the storm in his head. My heartaches that he is in so much pain. I want to hold him forever and assure him he is loved, (and that’s what he has me do when he comes out of these dark moments). I know every individual is different. Each of my older kids have needed different kinds of supports through their storms. I’m just trying to get a handle of what supports this needs.

One adoptee shares – I’m 53 and still struggle with not feeling loved. It’s not that my current family doesn’t do enough, it’s the rejection of my natural and adoptive family that makes me feel that way. Its just part of who I am as an adoptee. I just wanted to pass on what my son’s psychiatrist told us. Meds should “fix” about 80% of his depression/issues. If it doesn’t, then he’s on the wrong meds. And until he reaches certain developmental milestones, he won’t be able to understand and process some things – so meds are the only thing that will help.

Finding The Right Fit

Therapy is hard. Finding a good fit with a therapist is hard too. It takes emotional effort and money but when it fits it’s great. Best thing ever. An adoptee from 1963 who spent 1 month in isolation before adoption, writes (including summing it up with the sentences above )-

As I was starting to unpack and really look at what adoption did to me – to us – a kept therapist told me, “But I know adoptees who are fine”. So I searched out one who was a former foster care youth and adopted at age 3. I thought she’d be a good fit, but she sacked me after 3 or 4 sessions because she couldn’t go to those places with me. I freaked her out. She couldn’t look at her own adoption wounds and didn’t want to.

Then my girlfriend was talking to a friend who had lost a baby (stillborn) and was seeing a therapist to help her cope. The therapist was a midwife for 10 years with hundreds of births behind her. She focuses her clinic on mother baby bond traumas. She sees women who have lost children and children who’ve lost mothers – and now me. I wrote to her and laid out where I was at in my journey out of the fog and, nearly 4 years ago, she agreed to make a space for me.

Never Feeling Safe

An adult adoptee expresses how she feels –

Here it is in a nutshell. All I ever really wanted was to feel clean on the inside and I tried a lot of things to make that happen.

And it all boils down to not being able to untwist the core lie my whole existence on this planet this time around is based in and on.

Confusion is not a safe feeling. If you don’t feel safe your thinking processes are affected. You do things you wouldn’t do or not do things you would if you felt safe. The worst part is that you never knew why you never felt safe. It wasn’t a thought you could think through because the consequence of my honesty may mean abandonment.

I was stuck in a web of lies. Caught up in someone’s fantasy. A brain pickled in cortisol and oxytocin deprived. Being told this is gods will and how much I was loved yet no one would answer my questions.

And here we are today. After the truth set me free by opening the door to the demons I knew were lurking there. These were some hard core demons and then there were the encouragers and then there were none.

And here I am standing here loving me. I will be 72 in September, and I have learned to love me because I can love others better that way.

Now WTF do I need to do to get this adhd under control.

The Trauma Response

The inability to receive support from others is a trauma response.

Your “I don’t need anyone, I’ll just do it all myself” conditioning is a survival tactic. You needed it to shield your tender heart from abuse, neglect, betrayal, and disappointment from those who could not or would not be there for you.

From the parent who was absent by choice or by the circumstance of working three jobs to feed and house you.

From the lovers who offered sexual intimacy but no offered no safe haven that honored your heart.

From the friendships that always took more than they gave.

From all the situations when someone told you “we’re in this together” then abandoned you, leaving you to pick up the pieces when shit got real, leaving you to handle your part and their part, too.

From the lies. The betrayals.

You learned along the way that you just couldn’t really trust people. Or that you could trust people, but only up to a certain point.

Ultra-independence is a trust issue.

You learned: if I don’t put myself in a situation where I rely on someone, I won’t have to be disappointed when they don’t show up for me, or when they drop the ball… because they will always drop the ball sooner or later, right?

You may even have been intentionally taught this protection strategy by generations of hurt ancestors who came before you.

Ultra-independence is a preemptive strike against heartbreak.
So, you don’t trust anyone.

And you don’t trust yourself, either, to choose people.

To trust is to hope, to trust is vulnerability.

“Never again,” you vowed.

But no matter how you dress it up and display it proudly to make it seem like this level of independence is what you always wanted to be, in truth it’s your wounded, scarred, broken heart behind a protective brick wall.

Impenetrable. Nothing gets in. No hurt gets in. But no love gets in either.

Fortresses and armor are for those in battle, or who believe the battle is coming.

It’s trauma response.

The good news is trauma that is acknowledged is trauma that can be healed.

You are worthy of having support.
You are worthy of having true partnership.
You are worthy of love.
You are worthy of having your heart held.
You are worthy to be adored.
You are worthy to be cherished.

You are worthy to have someone say, “You rest. I got this.” And actually deliver on that promise.

You are worthy to receive.
You are worthy to receive.
You are worthy.

You don’t have to earn it.
You don’t have to prove it.
You don’t have to bargain for it.
You don’t have to beg for it.

You are worthy.
Worthy.

Simply because you exist.

~ Jamila White

A Blessing and/or Trauma

This comment, had me looking for an image – Saw a post where a lady has an unplanned pregnancy 2 months into dating. One comment said “adoption is an option”. This woman said – Yeah and a boatload of trauma in the child’s life.

When I found this image, I followed the LINK>Blessing Invalidates Trauma. She writes – When your biggest blessing invalidates my greatest trauma it sets me up for a lifetime of pain, suffering and isolation. It facilitates a lifetime of suicidal ideation, because the pain is just too great to process. It makes me feel more isolated and alone than non-adopted individuals can ever imagine. It makes me wish I was aborted and feeling like I want to die for most of my life, because my pain is greater than my desire to want to live. It drives me to attempt to take my life as a teenager, because you fail to admit I have lost anything. It drives me to a place of addiction, because at the end of every day the only way to manage every day life is to numb the pain. When you use bible scriptures to defend your blessing, it makes me question the bible and the God you are speaking of. When your biggest blessing outshines my reality, it makes me feel unimportant and insignificant. When you refer to me as a blessing, it hurts because you are invalidating my adoptee and relinquishee reality.

She goes on to share a common adoptive parent response to a child’s question – Mommy, did I come out of your tummy? That adoptive mother’s answer goes like this – She loved you so much she gave you to me to raise, and I will always love her and be thankful for her decision.

She goes on to say – I was approximately five years old when this conversation took place, and it’s clear to me that my life was never the same. Every day, I was haunted every hour and every minute wondering, wishing, and dreaming about finding HER.

She also notes – No matter what questions I had or what mental torment I experienced from this moment forward, my adoptive mom’s joy and happiness trumped everything. My feelings didn’t matter when I was her biggest blessing in life, and her joy of being a mother trumped my feelings of sadness every damn day.

She suggests – Today is a new day and a new year. It’s 2020, and when you know better, you do better. More importantly – READ her entire essay !!

When The Name Is The Abuser’s

When the name we carry is also that of an abuser – today’s story (not mine).

I know changing names during adoption is typically a no, however I’m curious about opinions in this circumstance. I’m adopting my niece and nephews. The oldest’s (age 4) middle name is after his natural dad, and a man his dad claims as his dad. (In reality, it’s just an older man they befriended.) Both of those men being the main 2 abusers. In every kind of way. My middle name is technically after my grandpa, who abused me, and I’ve always wanted it changed, which is where this is coming from. I want to make certain that I’m not just projecting my own feelings, which I admit is possible. This case has been extremely triggering, given my past. Do you think in this circumstance that changing his middle name would be beneficial ?

One adoptee responded – My gut reaction is that this about you and your dislike for your own middle name (I’d encourage you to change it, btw). Have you asked the child ? My first thought is that you should keep the name the same for right now, while this transition is being made and because it’s his middle name, it doesn’t have the impact of a first name. Hold space for those two kids and see what comes up.

From another adoptee – His middle name is his choice. Period. Get the child in therapy and let him discuss his trauma and triggers. If his middle name ends up being a trigger for him, then have an open conversation about it. Leave your trauma at the door, when it comes to having an open conversation about his trauma. If changing your name will help you feel more comfortable, you should 100% do that !

From an adoptee (who changed their name as an adult) – you’re projecting. You should change your name for you, and you should wait to let kiddo change his name (or not) for him. I like the name I share with an abuser. It’s my name. When I changed my name as an adult, I kept the portion I shared with the abuser. My whole childhood adults pressured/“offered” to change my last name because of who I shared it with and I’m thankful I always felt brave enough to say no.

This person adds – Not wanting to share the name of an abuser is 100% valid, but it’s not the universal viewpoint. It’s totally possible in time that nephew may want to change his name, and it’s also possible that he won’t but you don’t know now. Also having changed my name has caused me significantly more extra work than I thought it would. I have to bring the court doc when I travel internationally, I have to list my old name as a “previous alias” when I apply for rentals, and I’ve struggled to get old documents because my ID doesn’t match their version. This is a much smaller reason than not fucking with someone’s identity, but I don’t think anyone should get to choose this for someone else who didn’t consent.

This one who is a foster/adoptive parent, and also shares that she was rescued from hopeful adoptive parents when she was pregnant at 17, says – I am allowed to share that both my sons (as they have requested to be called) have changed their names but differently and for different reasons. We made sure they discussed it with their therapist and reassured them that what they choose has no baring on the love and care we will give them (including whether or not they want to someday contact their biological family. Or how they want their Fostering/Guardianship/Adoption handled). Our only rule is, while they are allowed to express themselves and what they want to do, they absolutely may NOT attack their sibling for choosing a different path. Each journey is traumatic and will be handled by different people differently. We also reassured them they can always change their minds without judgement (But I won’t pay for another name change till after 18). Unfortunately, your nephew is not old enough to make these decisions for himself. And there lies the difficulty. In almost all cases, I do NOT suggest changing their name and do suggest waiting till they are older to decide for themselves. I will admit that I make exception for Sexual Abuse or Attempted Murder victims. I am a sexual abuse victim myself and my Dead Name is as it is called…Dead to me.

This or That

I have a friend who discovered late in life what she had always felt – her “father” wasn’t actually her genetic, biological dad. What is often referred to as NPE (not parent expected). Today, she wrote –

There is a stunning feeling when you need to take personal responsibility to wrongs done to you. It is stunning and confusing. Sometimes causes a wound that is blinding and at times suffocating. Running in circles, like chasing your tail, some things are hard to accept. Accept it. Done, work with it.

Many therapies work to meet injuries and reform and transform them on many levels, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

I have found some injuries lead to what I have come to describe as “this or that” mentality. There isn’t a remedy. There is no answer, there is no change, there is no hope. You have a rich milieu and a drive toward contrast. Second that drive lets up, feels like you are being drawn back to the “this” instead of reaching for the “that”.

“That” is the therapy, whatever is moving you away from the “this” which is the wound, the impossibility of circumstances that twist your heart, wounded your life. You have that to work against constantly, with endless, incessant pressure that if used well and correctly you can possibly actually reach the “that”.

You may face people saying you need therapy out of that, yet due to circumstances that became your personality structure. This is what you take responsibility for: the drive, the determination of that personality structure.

There are some things that cannot be undone and you may never stop feeling that. You are not “responsible” for that, but for the drive that it gives you.

This requires a high degree of self-education, character and discipline, to define an act and act upon it. Otherwise, seems the “this” swallows you up. An enormous cost for something you had no hand in deciding or wanting. How the cookie crumbles.

Crumbled a great deal of energy on your plate.

When questioned, she further elaborated – What I have been looking at and trying to formulate thoughts and direction is around these types of wrongs and any scale of wrong that you had no hand in. It comes up on you and your life and personality is defined by it.

You are left “dealing with it”, taking responsibility for something that you cannot change. It has to change you. You go through a great deal, bone cutting, soul cutting, breath restricting pain and change. You can’t “fix” it.

There is a lot of therapies to “fix” us, to heal, but some injuries don’t heal…then what?

I have been looking at a lot of circumstances, studying them, looking into the dynamics of what drive people in all types of ways. It is always some deep wound, a deep “wrong” that drive people one way or another. So I began to look at the drive…THAT is what we are responsible for. Not the wrong, but the drive.

Hard to take your mind off the wrong and the injury – and if you look at that too much, you might miss the opportunity to understand your drive painful and impossible situations might give a person.

I need to add one response to her – We have no say in the matter as to the wrongs committed upon us by others in this life. But we do have a say in the matter if such wrongs destroy us or not.

As a child, I had a horrible act committed upon me as six. A physical scar of which I carry to this day. I could have let the shame I felt, the anger, hate, and rage I felt towards the persons responsible simmer and boil in me for the rest of my life. But it would have destroyed the person I was before the event. They would have succeeded in utterly destroying the rest of my life.

It took me time. But for the sake of my life and sanity. I learned to “Let go” of that shame, anger, hate, and rage. Else, that poison would have gone on inflicting and reliving that act in my mind day after day the rest of my life. And my perpetrators would have succeeded in destroying “me.” So I let it go.

It doesn’t mean I forgive them! That will never happen!

But I can honestly say I’m back to being who I started out in life to be “I’m me” and the physical and emotional scar left over from that attack no longer has any sting, any meaning to me. Other than an old scar.

One of the core teaching Buddha taught about suffering in the world was that. One of the traits of suffering in the world is that it’s natural for humans to not ‘Let Go’ of past injustices. The violent act is over in minutes. But for the rest of our lives, we carry that suffering and pain like a great weight upon our souls. No one forces us to. We do it to ourselves by way of our Ego. And therefore we suffer for the rest of our lives. Not only that, but in time, we inflict that suffering upon others. Ie “Misery loves company.”

Therefore, we should learn to Let Go. And in doing so bring Peace to the Soul.

I never went to therapy for what happened to me. I was very young when it happened and my parents were of the generation that believed in that old motto and hope ‘He’ll grow out of it and forget.’ That never happened. I had to discover that healing on my own when I was older and I did.

I’m glad I never got therapy. For I feel therapists, though good intentioned, perpetuate that suffering by continuing to remind you that your helpless victim that somehow broken.

You only remain that if you refuse to ‘Let Go.’

I’m a Survivor!

Fully Understanding the Trauma

From someone who experienced foster care in her youth – Does anyone else feel a level of rage hearing people say ‘I wanna adopt older kids out of the system,’ yet they don’t seem to be capable of fully understanding the trauma of it ? It’s feels almost like a way of saying – I’m such a great person, I mean look at what I do.

Like no matter how many times I explain what care is like and how serious something like that is – it’s like they shut down or ignore me in order to hold onto their ideals. I feel like I’ve never had someone say it well who also fully understands how deeply traumatized and vulnerable older kids in care are.

An adoptee notes – Saviors gotta save – it isn’t about you, but about themselves and their desires.

To which, someone who had been in foster care and aged out of the system responds – Yes, I truly think it’s a savior complex. I aged out of a youth shelter that I was so fortunate to have as a place to live. I lived there for about three years, collectively between two stays, and saw many teens get adopted and “returned”. I always was confused why everyone was so eager to be adopted. While I loved the shelter for what it provided for me, I would have been grateful for a place to lay my head outside of the confines of the shelter. I wasn’t allowed to check myself out, so I was never able to get myself financially established before aging out. If I had been in a home, I would have had more potential to take care of myself before being dropped on the street.

Another person without any of that background, admitted – I used to be one of those people (not saying that to people actually but it was originally my plan before I discovered the realities). Is there a good way to adopt or foster? I’d never ever want to come between a child of any age and parental reunification. I just genuinely desire to create a safe space for kids who don’t have anyone to look out for them, and to make them feel like they have a safe place they can always go, no matter what. But I don’t want to create more trauma and the more I learn, the more it seems like, no matter what, within our current system there is no such thing as doing it ethically/genuinely putting the kids first.

An adoptive parent who adopted from foster care notes – I would highly suggest extensive reading/training/therapy/etc. What the original commenter was saying is that people go in expecting to have an incredibly grateful child, that is just so happy to be in a home that they will fawn (fear response) into doing everything the adoptive parent (AP) wants. After all the AP “saved” them. Then, the adoptive parent realize that the children have major trauma and don’t connect the way biological children connect. The vast majority of parenting plans that work with biological children don’t work for children from trauma. Then they give up. In their minds, they often think I did everything I could but they are just so ungrateful.

So going in, eyes wide open, with a full toolbox of skills, and a therapist – you already have good relationship with, where you have already addressed any obvious traumas from your childhood and any problems you have with relationships.

One of the best foster situations I have ever heard of was a adult prep house (often referred to as a LINK>Transitional Living Program). They took in 3-4 teens ages 16-18 at a time. They knew all the local helps available and would work with the teens to prepare for adulthood. They were family in every aspect except financial. So when one of them gets excited about their promotion, that is who they would call to share the news. When one of them graduates from college, they try to attend the event. When one of them got engaged, that is who they would make the announcement to. Some even walked a few of them down the aisle. They had like 30 adult “children” that stayed in contact with them. True, many never reach out after they leave and the foster parent never tries to force a relationship after adulthood. The house was always there, without pressure, so teens could chose to come or stay, dependent upon whatever situation they were facing.

The Fear Never Goes Away

Not the source of today’s story.

(Not my own story either) I just really need to put this weight down somewhere where those who read it will understand. I also hope expectant moms who are considering relinquishing their child might see this and consider yet another way their choice can impact their child.

I was adopted as an infant. My mother willingly and intentionally relinquished me. My adoptive family was overall loving and kind. I am (finally) in reunion with my first family. I have never had Div of Children’s and Family Services involved in my personal life, though I’ve witnessed it firsthand with friends. I say all of this to show that there is no “logical” reason for how I feel, and that it is directly related to adoption trauma —

I am always, every single day, on edge and terrified of anything that could separate my son from me. My son is safe and healthy and loved, I am in my mid 30s and safe and secure, and yet… there is always the fear of having him taken from me and given to someone else nagging in the back of my brain. All day every day. I carried that fear through my pregnancy, and now still carry it at almost 18 months postpartum. The idea of him being taken from me makes me feel panic and sick inside. It’s its own kind of terror.

This is adoption trauma, 35+ years down the road. Even in a “happy” adoption story.

Blogger’s note – I was always worried that some do-gooder would misinterpret my family dynamics and my children would be taken away. It is not an unreasonable fear these days. Fortunately, my sons are now old enough that it is no longer a fear. Anyone who has witnessed the system in action has reason to be afraid. Even those of us without such a history worry about it. Adoptees carry such fears because they were separated from their birth family (regardless of the circumstances) and that is totally understandable.