Tag: Emotional Experience

Victim Redefined

“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.”
~ Nora Ephron

I get these crazy, fun, inspirational messages most days from “The Universe.” I know some of my friends do too and many people out there I don’t know. I’m clearing out my email inbox and these messages usually pile up and then I read and delete them. The Note for September 19th came like an inspiration for my writing here – What if the word victim could be redefined into something closer to hero? Recognizing that the path some tread spares others from the same?

This is precisely what adoption activists are trying to do, especially adult adoptees who are making quite a noise these days. Also from The Universe as a P.S. From where each goes, others learn. Theirs is a vision that is greater than the decades long paradigm.

From LINK>The Society for Personality and Social Psychology – The notion “I know how you feel, I’ve been there too” is a common way to express that we understand another person’s feelings. In fact, having had the same experience as someone else is often seen as necessary to fully appreciate another person’s emotional experience. However, is this true? Is it actually helpful to “have been there too” in order to understand fully how someone else feels?

Most people believe the answer is yes. Adult adoptee activists answer yes too. Most of the survey participants (80%) responded that shared experience promotes accuracy in understanding other people’s emotional states. If perceivers can manage their own emotions and stop themselves from (re-)experiencing their own distress, shared life experiences can be helpful for recognizing another person’s emotions. Sharing an experience with another person brings us closer and can spark the beginning of what might later develop into a meaningful relationship. However, such meaningful relationships emerge slowly. 

Adoption-Competent Therapy

Given an awareness that separation of a child from the mother inflicts deep, often unconscious, wounds – what is a method to achieve some kind of healing regarding an event that won’t change ?

I find it interesting that my mom, an adoptee, believed she had been stolen til the day she died.  There was some basis in her belief, as she did know that she was a Georgia Tann baby and that many of the children that Tann placed were not legitimately available for adoption.

I also believe that it may have been a very deep seated memory at a pre-verbal time in her infant life from having just seen her mom (she had been placed in an orphanage ONLY for temporary care while her mom tried to get on her feet) and then given to a complete stranger who took her by train from Memphis TN to Nogales AZ.  One can see how without words to explain her experience, the feeling of having been STOLEN dominated her belief about the “inappropriate” (my mom’s word for it to the state of TN when she tried to get her adoption file released to her) way she had been separated from a mother who never intended to give her up.  Such a sad story.

For today’s adoptees that wish to find some relief from their own wounds there is the possibility of therapeutic intervention.  If choosing to go that route, it is important to locate a practitioner competent in adoption related trauma.

All adopted children — of all ages — are at risk for changes in their brain’s chemistry and structure. These alterations don’t just go away with time and, if not effectively treated, can become increasingly problematic as a child grows older.

An adopted child knows they are different and some of their behaviors are not acceptable. This can shatter any self-esteem they may be trying to hang on to.  Deep down in this child’s very core is a deep black pit of shame and grief.

Adoptees are over-represented nationally in the mental/behavioral health field. That means that the percentage of adoptees seeking mental/behavioral health services is much higher than the percentage in the general population.  If you are going to seek therapy, educate yourself on what makes a therapist adoption competent.  You don’t want to go down the general diagnosis pathway that leads to a medication intervention and never acknowledges the core problem.