What It Is and Is Not

Every November it comes back around – National Adoption AWARENESS Month. While all adoption-related issues are important, the particular focus of this month is the adoption of children CURRENTLY in FOSTER CARE.

The first major effort to promote awareness of a need for children in the foster care system to be adopted into a permanent family began in 1976, when Massachusetts governor Mike Dukakis initiated Adoption Week. The idea grew in popularity beyond that state and spread throughout the nation.

President Gerald Ford later released the first National Adoption Week proclamation. In 1990, the week was expanded to a month because of the number of events and states participating. For many, the foster care imperative has been lost along the way and it has become a celebration of adoption in general. Proof of this is National Adoption Day (traditionally a Saturday) observed occurring in courthouses across the nation, when thousands of adoptions are finalized simultaneously.

During the month of November – many states, communities, public and private organizations, businesses, families, and individuals celebrate adoption in general as a positive way to build families. Activities and observances include recognition dinners, public awareness and recruitment campaigns, and special events shed light on children who are in need of permanent families (ah, back round to the kids in foster care – finally).

Even in non-election years, elected officials at all levels are supportive of efforts to build adoption awareness. Both current officials, and candidates especially, are often receptive to invitations for their participation in events with family appeal.

So now you know a bit more about what National Adoption Awareness Month was actually meant to achieve and how it has been hijacked by adoption advocates more generally.

Good Intentions, Broken Promises

I can’t even begin to count all of the sad stories I have read about open adoptions that don’t stay open. So many original mothers, who surrendered their baby for one reason or another, with expectations of continued contact, at the least photos and updates, who discover too late that they’ve been dismissed by the adoptive parents.

Here’s today’s story –

Her son is 4 and a half. She gave him up for adoption at birth to what she believed were the perfect adoptive parents. They promised her they’d keep her updated with pictures, texts, phone calls, etc. She just wanted to remain a part of her son’s life at a distance. She didn’t want to steal their thunder. She just wanted to know something about her son as he grows up but always intended to respect the adoptive parent’s relationship. The adoptive parents agreed to that expectation of the original mother.

They knew her situation, which was that she was single mom with 3 children to support. She had zero family to help her. She simply couldn’t afford another baby. Her son’s father (she also has a daughter by him) is from India. She knew he’d never be a part of his son’s life, as he isn’t even involved with his daughter.

Within a month of giving them her son, they stopped all communication. They won’t respond to any of her texts.

She is beside herself and doesn’t know what to do. She signed 50 pages of documents at the hospital, in a tiny room with 15 other people present as witnessed. They rushed her to sign the papers without giving her any time to read what she was signing first. They even had a taxi waiting outside for her and told her she needed to hurry up. She doesn’t have no clue what she signed.

She is at a loss as to what she can do now. Her son will be 5 in May. He has black hair, black eyes and beautiful golden skin. He doesn’t look anything like his adoptive parents, so it is likely he’s going to ask questions. She doesn’t want to step on any toes or ruin anyone’s relationship.

She just wants them to keep up their end of the deal. She admits that giving him up was the hardest decision she ever made. She only wants to be able to see his pictures. See how he’s doing in pre-Kindergarten. She just wants to know her son is alright.

She adds – “I don’t do drugs. I don’t drink. I don’t party. I’m a trauma bay RN and at the time, single mom struggling to feed my 3 kids and keep a home for them. I refused an abortion. I wanted my son to live a good life and accomplish something. I’m now engaged to a wonderful man that knows my struggle.”

This is a cautionary tale for any woman who is pregnant and contemplating giving her baby up for adoption because she has a set of prospective adoptive parents promising they will keep her updated. I’ve seen too many of these stories of the adoptive parents then closing communication. This woman ends her story with “How I wish I could go back in time and change my decision.”

Healing Trauma

I’ve only just learned about this book and have not read it but didn’t want to wait for whenever, if ever, that might happen to pass it on to readers here.

Many adoptees and foster children have some degree of trauma. It is said that this is one of the best-known books about trauma, and in particular early life trauma (which especially applies to the topics I cover in this blog). 

It is not light weight reading, has almost 500 pages that includes a significant reference section. Someone who did read this (link at bottom of this essay) says – “It’s very in-depth, giving plenty of detail, but it’s not unnecessarily complicated. There’s some technical terminology used, particularly with respect to the functioning of the brain, but I thought this was explained well.”

Van der Kolk is a psychiatrist who initially began working with trauma while treating war veterans. There was a lot that wasn’t known about trauma then. He’s been an active researcher throughout his career and often considered at the forefront of new trauma-related knowledge.

In this book, he repeatedly stresses the importance of recognizing the changes that occur in the brains and nervous systems of people who’ve been through trauma, and targeting treatment accordingly with the goal of getting back the functioning they have lost. He is quoted as saying, “Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think.”

Imaging studies have produced some new understandings about flashbacks. There’s activation of the right brain along with a drop in activity in the brain structure called the thalamus, which prevents the events from being remembered as a coherent narrative, as would be the case with other kinds of memories.

Brain scans have also shown an impaired self-awareness. Van der Kolk explains that this is why it’s important to work on breathing, mindfulness, and recognizing the link between physical sensations and emotions. He writes further: “The body keeps the score: If the memory of trauma is encoded in the viscera, in heartbreaking and gut-wrenching emotions, in autoimmune disorders and skeletal/muscular problems, and if mind/brain/visceral communication is the royal road to emotion regulation, this demands a radical shift in our therapeutic assumptions.”

The book pays a lot of attention to early life trauma, including issues like attachment and attunement. The author explains that trauma increases the need for attachment, even when the only attachment figure available to the child is the abuser.

Van der Kolk championed adding complex PTSD as a separate diagnosis from PTSD. He was part of the working group that proposed C-PTSD for inclusion in the DSM-IV, and the group that proposed developmental trauma disorder for inclusion in the DSM-5. American Psychiatric Association did not approve any of these suggestions as new diagnoses.

I am indebted to Ashley of The Mental Health @ Home blog for her review which is the basis of my own blog today. You can read more about this book in her article.

Unbelievable But

From the PostSecret App comes the story of a woman hired to be a baby-sitter. When the baby-sitter sees the adopted daughter’s photo, she realizes it is the same photo she gave to the adoptive parents when she gave up the baby to adoption. Now what ?

One woman says, as an adoptive mom I’d be more worried about the original mother finding the situation emotionally hard, if she doesn’t say anything about her true relationship. What a thing to go through alone! That being said, if I was her I’d probably it a secret and run with it, so that I could see my child. If they didn’t know who she is, it obviously isn’t an open adoption.

Another says, there was such a torrent of ignorant comments on that post. It was hard to follow or know is where to post thoughts of my own. So mostly, I just liked the adoptees’ posts and tried to support them. I did comment where it felt helpful. You adoptees are super brave – and it was great to see so many voices out there giving the alternative narrative in some of the threads. (It had been mentioned that many commenters said to adoptees “sorry you had a bad childhood but most adoptees had good ones.”)

One adoptee said – “I think she should’ve excused herself and then, explained to them why. Plus let them know she won’t bother them, etc.” When asked to explain her comment, she admitted that she is ALSO a birth mom. “As a birth mom I would feel guilty and would need to say something and hope everything worked out and the adoptive parents were accepting or at least not angry. As an adoptee, if I found out my birth mom was purposely deceptive (knowing and not saying something is deceptive), my opinion of her would not be great. And my experience as an adoptee wasn’t great – lived with a very narcissistic adoptive mom. So I just think honesty would go along further than lying in this case.

Another adoptee said – She should just make herself known. As an adoptee I would give anything to know who my birth parents are.

Another adoptive mom said –  I think this is such an incredible opportunity that sadly is likely to turn into a disaster. I would give anything to have my son’s real mom that involved in his life. What an amazing gift! I just wish we could get the adoptive parents in this group to realize how valuable this would be.

Another woman points out – there is a good chance because of the trauma that the birth mom went through, she may be mentally unstable. What if some idiot is telling her to keep quiet and be happy you get to see the child? What if she decides one day she can’t take this situation anymore and wants more and try’s to kidnap the child? This is quite an unpredictable situation.

Another adoptee says honestly, I would have loved for my mom to have come into my life as a child. I always missed her.

One more, and I’ll close today’s blog –

I am the daughter of an adoptee. I have an aunt who is also an adoptee. My grandma (mom’s adoptive mom) raised me and was also a foster parent. My first reaction was ‘awwww how sweet and perfect’… and then, once I thought a bit, ‘I really hope that mom has support, that has got to be such a roller coaster of emotions’… then ‘wait a minute that means it was a closed adoption *sigh*’… and then just best wishes that she’s able to disclose her identity to the adoptive parents and that they are supportive and that everything will work out, even though I’m guessing that might be a fairytale… 


Normal, Not Cured

Today’s story comes from a woman who was in foster care as a youth.

I live a perfectly regular life. I have a career, kids, a loving husband. I go on vacations, I read, I cook, I attend PTA meetings. I go to parties, concerts, weddings. I don’t talk about my foster care experiences that you may have seen were bad in real life. Very few know I was a foster kid. Heck, you might take your kid in to see me and wouldn’t know my foster care experiences. I’m just a normal person in real life.

However, that doesn’t mean I don’t struggle. I still struggle. I still attend therapy to cope with my experiences so many of which were negative. I still have nightmares and triggers. I’m not cured. My trauma is with me for life. I’ve learned how to cope and can wake up without it being the first thing on my mind. I know myself well enough to know when I’m triggered. I’ve learned how to put on a fake smile to hide my pain.

So please remember this, stop putting former foster youth and adoptees in a box and pitting them against each other. You want to believe all of the negative perspectives from former foster youth and adoptees are only online and the ones who had positive good experiences aren’t online but out there enjoying life. No, all of them are just living their life.

There are many adoptees and former foster youth who aren’t online and they’re struggling in real life. Many former foster youth in real life are trying to heal and many are fighting for a better system. Your own foster or adopted child might be struggling right now. You might not know because you want to believe they don’t hurt. All of the good adoptees and former foster youth are out living life and the negative ones are online in your mind. This is simply not true. You just want to believe it’s true.

Also, please stop putting individual experiences in the negative or positive box. If a former foster youth or adoptee says their experiences were negative or positive – that’s their right – it is their lived experience. You don’t get the right to define someone else’s experience.

If anything we all need to listen to the difficult, uncomfortable bad stories, more than the good. The bad story is what may have gotten you a child to raise in the first place. The bad stories are much more common than you want to believe. Sadly, the overwhelming evidence is that the bad stuff is way too common.

Validating The Hurt

The adoption group that I have been a part of for 3 years and has now closed to new content was often criticized for allowing the negative feelings and experiences of adoptees to be the primary and supported voice. It has been a space where an adoptee’s hurt is validated and not instantly turned into, “but what about your (adoptive parent’s) sacrifice?” that is found in most adoption oriented groups. In that regard, it was very unique.

When I first arrived there, because of how I grew up with two parents who were both adoptees, I considered adoption a normal situation and the outcomes to be nothing but good. I quickly got slammed and was totally set back by the responses but I stayed with it and I read books recommended there and I found books on my own and read those to and I learned the truth that adoption is a best the “second choice” and that keeping families intact – children with the parents who conceived them – was always going to be the best choice for everyone involved. The adoption industry doesn’t like that point of view but realize that their revenues depend on separating children from their parents. It really is that simple – follow the money – and the truth reveals itself.

Here is one adoptee’s voice –

I don’t know my mother and it kills me. Some days more than others. Pregnancy – all 80+ weeks plus a miscarriage – triggered me like nothing I’ve ever experienced. The first three months of their lives nearly killed me and my marriage.

I walk around not knowing who I am. I walk around knowing i was not loved in any healthy definition of that word. I walk around knowing I was not enough to redeem my adoptive parent’s wounds. I walk around living culture shock. I walk around knowing I don’t have a strong attachment to my parents.

You are asking me to tell you why the quality of the air I breathe is different from your air. It’s gonna take you some time to understand my air is fundamentally different.

In many ways, I do believe this is how my own mother felt. When she tried to re-connect with the woman who gave birth to her, my mom said – As a mother, I would want to know what became of my child. She wasn’t hoping for very much but she was driven by an emotional need to try. Her mother had already died by the time my mom was communicating with the Tennessee Dept of Children’s Services and learning that reality devastated her.

Christmas will arrive very soon, here is the perspective of another adoptee, Anne Heffron –

I’ve been thinking about the comment a parent wrote here after reading my post about adoptees walking a tightrope, and, in order to answer, I decided to take on an authority I don’t have, and to speak universally when really I’m just speaking from my own experience. I thought about not replying because any answer I might give won’t be enough—it will be one paint splotch on a bare wall, but at least it will be a start, so here goes.

She compares the trauma of motherloss, the primal wound that Nancy Verrier writes about, to a car accident that has embedded jagged pieces of glass inside our bodies. Heffron asks, What if these pieces cut our muscles, internal organs and brain, causing messages of distress to travel from the vagus nerve both from the organs to the brain and from the brain to the organs? What if no one can see these glass fragments because no doctor has the right machine, the right kind of x-ray to find them? What if they are things that have to naturally work their way out of the body with the help of time and space and nutritional support and exercise and therapy and other friends who are adopted? What if this process takes decades? What if this process takes a lifetime?

What if the pain these pieces of glass cause the person to act in certain ways, ways that confuse those around them because, to the naked eye, nothing is wrong—the accident happened a long time ago and the person looks fine? What if the parents of this child they adopted believe their love can heal pain of which they can not see the source?

If a body is full of glass shards and the person cries out in pain and is told that everything is okay, that they are safe, loved, and if the person is asked why can’t they just accept the love and relax, then what happens?

The body gets tighter. The barriers between parent and child get thicker.

What if being relinquished and adopted is a body experience that takes time for the wounded person to sit with until the glass fragments finally, if they do at all (many people die with the glass still in their guts and hearts and minds), emerge?

This is what I think happened to me: when I was young, I felt the discomfort of the glass parts but I did not know they were there because I could not see inside my own guts and brain, and no one knew to tell me the story of my pain.

If they had been able to tell me the story of my pain, I might have fought them, hated them for speaking, for putting me in a forever prison of different than. Being different than your friends, particularly when you are young, is its own death sentence. So I don’t have an answer for you here. I don’t know what good all the information you have gathered about the side effects of relinquishment actually does when it comes right down to it. I mean, it’s not nothing, but, it’s clearly not enough.

My answer in brief is to be love but to know that when you decided to adopt, you entered a different universe. The rules you grew up with, rules for living, may well no longer work in this new life you now inhabit. For example, you just can’t hug a burned person the same way you do everyone else.

I think many people adopt babies for the same reason people adopt kittens: they want something soft to protect and love that will love them back. What if you think of an adoptee more like a porcupine? A porcupine doesn’t choose to have quills. It just has them, and this changes the way you can touch it. Hoping that one day the quills will disappear and soft fur will emerge is useless and harmful. What if adopting a child does not guarantee you will receive love back in the same measure you give it (or, I have to say, at all)? Would you still travel this road?

We like our stories to have happy endings, and we force most of our experiences through the funnel of “and then everything was okay,” and I’m here to tell you that I’m doing the best I can in this life with the body and mind I was given: one full of glass shards, and it’s a lot of work to try to keep up with those who weren’t in an accident. I know the ending is supposed to be happy, and so I’m trying. When you look at me with your lipid eyes, wondering why I don’t open to you, I won’t tell you it’s because I can’t. I won’t tell you it’s because I am in so much pain I can’t even process your questions. I won’t tell you because I know you won’t understand. I won’t tell you because maybe I don’t understand myself. I won’t tell you because you are asking a porcupine why it doesn’t purr, and this blindness makes me fear that either you or I are crazy, and this fear makes real communication feel impossible

Being Heard

This is particularly true for adopted persons. The narrative in adoptionland is such that adoptees often refer to it as the rainbows and unicorns version of reality. If one does very much reading about the lived experience of adoptees, a very different perspective emerges. That perspective has guided this blog from its inception.

In the fall of 2017, I began to learn the stories of my original grandparents. Both of my parents were adopted and died knowing next to nothing about their true origins. They and we as their children, only knew some basic facts. The Tennessee Children’s Home and Memphis TN factored into my mom’s adoption. Her original name was Frances Irene Moore and she only knew her parents were Mr and Mrs JC Moore. Not nearly enough for her to go on.

In the 1990s, my mom saw the resurgence of interest in the Georgia Tann story. Miss Tann was directly involved in prying my mom away from her mother. My mom also learned when her adoptive mother died that she had actually been born in Virginia. Because of Georgia Tann’s reputation and because my mom could not explain to her own self how she could have been born in Virginia but adopted before the age of 1 in Tennessee, my mom believed she had at best, in her words “been adopted inappropriately” (that to the state of Tennessee as she attempted to get the adoption file I now have possession of) and privately, to me as her oldest daughter – she believed she had been stolen from her parents by deception, then transported to Tennessee. Not the actual story but not that far off the truth.

My mom was troubled by her adoption. She did want to reconnect with her original mother. Sadly, even as the state of Tennessee refused to turn over her adoption file (she was almost a decade too early in asking and when it did become possible no one alerted her that she could have it), they told her that her mother had died some years before and that totally broke my mother’s heart. She quit creating a family history at Ancestry because it was based on the families of the adoptive parents and as she said to me – that’s just not real to me, I can’t finish it. I understand – while my experiences with my adoptive grandparents are cherished and precious to me – they no longer seem “real” to me either, because I do not carry their genes.

My dad simply ignored the fact he had been adopted. His attitude was, his mother gave him up and these kind people raised him and so, they were his parents and that was that. When my mom wanted to know more, he cautioned her against opening up a can of worms. She couldn’t talk to him about it anymore and so, she talked to me about it. Sometimes adoptees even silence other adoptees because they don’t want to touch the pain hidden in their own unconscious trauma.

Just a note that my favorite adoption related community has shutdown. I have often shared stories from there because I think it is very important to make the stories based on direct experience more widely known. While there will be no more “new” stories unless the group reactivates, there is an archive that I will be able to continue to access. Even so, it’s closure leaves a hole in my own life and I’m certain in many other lives as well. I think the administrators were simply worn out. I do understand.

Late Discoveries

This is not as uncommon as you might believe. There are people who believe that someone is their original parent all of their lives, and suddenly, usually because someone in their family has died, they learn the truth. Today’s story is one of those . . .

My grandmother just passed away a few days ago. Yesterday my mother (grandmother’s oldest of six kids) gets a call from one of the sisters who has been taking care of things (the mother is in Colorado, sister and grandmother are in Hawaii). The sister tells my mother that my grandmother was married to another man, prior to marrying the man who we all thought was my mother’s dad.

The first husband was my mother’s actual biological father. He abandoned my grandmother, leaving her with my mom and disappeared. So the ‘grandfather ‘ we always knew, offered to marry my grandmother and tell everyone that my mom was his oldest daughter. They got married and moved to Germany. They told everyone that my mom was his daughter. And this was my mom’s life.

Somehow my mom, lived into her 60’s without ever needing a copy of her birth certificate….honestly, which I am not sure how…but yeah. Now, she needs her birth certificate and asks her mother if she has it….her mom tells her that the hospital had burned down or flooded and all the records were destroyed….

Somehow after going back and forth, my mom managed to get a copy of her birth certificate…which had what she thought was the wrong name on it. It had my great grandmother’s last name on it, my grandmother’s ‘maiden’ name….which coincidentally turns out to be also the last name of her biological father. (Apparently grandmother married a step brother? Maybe. No actual biological relationship though….because his father was not my grandmother’s father and his mother was not her mother.) My mom has a fit and somehow manages to get her birth certificate changed to my grandfather’s last name….all because that is who she has always thought she was.

Now she is questioning everything. Apparently she is not who she thought she was. Her birth certificate should not have my grandfather’s name on it. She wants to know if she is LEGALLY married to my dad…they have been ‘married’ for over 50 years.

But of course – Yes, she is legally married to the woman’s dad because she legally used her legal name when filing for her marriage certificate. Officials do ask for information on the parents, but that is to streamline county record keeping and would not make the marriage certificate null and void. The mom answered those questions to the best of her ability with the knowledge she had, she did not commit fraud and her marriage is valid.

 It is shocking to hear something like this. It takes a while to adjust and get through the emotions that any person would feel when presented with such unexpected information. It is not unusual in these kinds of circumstances to find out after one’s mother has passed. In this case, the mom at the age of 70….this grandmother would have been 92, but she passed a few days before her birthday. It is life changing and learning this is like having the rug pulled out from a person.

The sister finding out was accidental. There are three sisters. The father told the second sister in 1984 after he had been drinking too much…and she told everyone but the mother and a third sister. The third sister found out and crying, very upset, told the mother. She only told her because the second sister was threatening to tell the mother but not a nice way. Sadly, the family is a bit horrible and not terribly close.

Messed Up Perspectives

“My door is open for your baby (even at 3 a.m. I’ll take your baby so this doesn’t have to be a choice)(and I won’t say your name) I will even go to a different state to save your baby. Just message me if you don’t want your baby…

I look at the news. I recently saw the negligence suffered by a 4-Month-old boy. The baby passed away from lack of nutrition and dehydration. They also found worms in his diaper… another baby was rescued from a plastic Walmart bag… many babies dying… one child’s death due to negligence is too much!

For anyone who has a baby or is pregnant with one who doesn’t want the baby because you are too far along to get an abortion… my door is always open! Before you decide that the only option is to throw your baby in the trash, don’t do it! Bring that baby to my door. I promise, no questions will be asked or judgments passed. I’ll give you my address and my family will welcome your baby with open arms.

Note: leave the birth notice sheet so I can register your baby as my baby

Also hospitals, police stations and firefighters are other options. Leave the baby in the right hands and get away. No charges will be filed. Strength is to ask for help. The strength is to put another one before yourself. There’s help.

This is a safe place for your baby.

Okay, so let’s break down what isn’t right about the thinking here.

First, this isn’t a way to promote yourself to adopt a baby.

Second, if you found a baby or a woman left her baby on your door step you have to call the police. You will get in trouble with the law if you don’t. Especially going to a different state with the baby that’s kidnapping.

Third, you will not adopt the baby. The baby will go into foster care and the police will investigate the situation. Not every baby was abandoned by their mom or mom doesn’t want her baby. Sometimes babies are kidnapped or mom is in danger. Sometimes they find dad to take the baby because he might not know he has a child.

Fourth, infanticide is very different. Women who kill their babies often have mental health issues and disassociate from their pregnancy. These women wouldn’t necessarily leave their babies at a fire station or your home.

Fifth, I see a lot of these posts focus on the person writing it, not the baby or mom. Safe haven laws don’t exist for people to adopt. Safe haven doesn’t mean no questions asked or adoption. It doesn’t mean no charges filed or the parents will not be found. Safe haven isn’t a way for a hopeful adoptive parent to adopt. Asking a woman to list your husband as the father or register her baby to you is fraud.

Responses to Reunion Trapped

This is a follow on blog to yesterday’s “Opportunistic Dependency” blog. Some responses to the young woman’s plight.

From one response – Do you know where she is located ? When she says these threats I would call the police or 911 to do a wellness check explain the situation and your concerns. If she is using it as leverage, she will hopefully not want that burden. If she is truthfully mentally not doing well, then you could really be helping her. Even if she is using it as leverage and has to get psychological help, maybe it could get her head in the right place.

While this answer seems harsh, I had to make a similar decision – to cut ties with a toxic sibling for my own mental health. Here’s what the commenter said – There is only so much your own mental health can take, and my view is that this seems to be all about her, not about you. She is your mother, not the other way around. Your relationship should be about you, or at the very least about both of you, not about what you have to offer her. Until she can get to a place where she can have that relationship with you… It’s on her. Disconnect for your own health. If you choose not to follow this advice, I totally understand. It took years of abuse/neglect for my siblings to come around to this way of thinking. Sending hugs. This is so hard. I get it.

I found this to be a direct and reasonable response –  She sounds like she is suffering from a serious addiction. This is not who she really is. That being said the burden isn’t yours to carry. She needs a professional to help her.

And maybe spending time with others facing similar challenges would be helpful, as this woman suggests – None of this is on you. She’s sick in addiction. And appears that abuse and manipulation are her tools. All I can recommend is an Alanon meeting and know that whatever she chooses to do to herself is her choice – not on you at all.

Another one shared – Similar to my story although she was older at 18 and is an alcoholic/depressive which she told me was my fault! I tried but like you she wasn’t actually interested in me…it’s tough and I do think of her but for my own sanity or what I have left its easier to have no relationship and it looks like I never will. Please don’t feel bad in anyway about saying no. Life is so difficult sometimes.

Another woman shared – It took me many years and thousands in therapy to understand that I am not my mothers mother. I had to get to the point where my mental health, family and self came before her. I’m so sorry that you are dealing with this. My mom was a teen mom too. She suffers from active addiction and I “raised” her my entire life. It is completely acceptable to cut toxic people from your life. It can be heartbreaking but at the end of the day you and your family (significant other, kids) need to come first. I personally learned how to compartmentalize the relationship and to politely but firmly say no. It’s hard when threats of suicide and self harm are thrown at you but you cannot be held responsible for her actions. She has a lot of issues that she needs to work out for herself.

And just one last sharing with perhaps a ray of hope –

Birth mom and recovered addict with an adopted daughter in reunion, Addicts are sick and many behave very differently to how they are sober. Not excusing her behavior. I never asked any one for a dime when I was an addict but that was mainly because I chose escorting to fund it, rather than stealing or bleeding family dry. I like to think that shows my character – that I’d rather choose a path harmful to myself than to others. Your mother has to answer for that, My advice would be keep your distance until she’s sober. Don’t close the door forever. She was so young and its tough. She may well be a sweetheart like you – when sober – but definitely don’t give her money and ignore the threats. Mostly anyone who’s going to kill themselves doesn’t barter it for money. I’d say it’s all hot air to manipulate. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide if you want the “addict mom” drama. But do hope she cleans up her act. It took me 12 years! But I’ve been sober now for 13. It can be done.