Making Friends

Today’s adoption related story –

My 10 yr old daughter (adopted last year from foster care, who has been with us for 2 years) just came home from her first time at church camp today and has been very emotional about all of the “best friends” she made that she will “never see again” (they’re from all over about a 300 mile radius and there’s a chance they’ll see each other at camp again next year but no guarantees). She tends to deem kids her “best friends” VERY quickly and then gets very upset when/if something goes wrong in the relationship or they move away or something. As I was reflecting on the situation tonight it struck me that this could very well be related to her trauma from being removed from her birth mom and being in multiple foster homes—anytime someone “leaves” her, she is devastated…which makes sense given her history.

Some thoughts –

My 14 year old went to a 3 day day camp and it took her two days to get out of the funk of never seeing these kids again.

From what I have been reading regarding trauma and it’s effects on future relationships, that sounds exactly what it is. To which someone else affirmed – Yep. Trauma response. Someone else suggested “family therapy.” Also an adoption competent therapist and/or trauma informed. Trauma impacts brain development and in many ways she might still be developing some skills that other 10 year olds are expected to have. Speech therapy is actually super helpful for working on these skills.

Another person noted – It is very common for kids to say this after an intense camp experience and for her it is tied up with her trauma too. It isn’t either/or. This is yes/and.

And this thought – Being sad you may not see your new friends again is normal. Strongly attaching in a short period of time and being completely devastated when the time ends, is not. This behavior may escalate once she reaches her teens and starts dating. Feeling like you have to do anything possible to keep from losing someone puts one in some pretty terrible situations.

Another adds – the dating part sounds so close to what I did as a teen. I had the hardest time leaving relationships, even if they were abusive. I was so afraid to be alone.

Yet another example – this can happen with changing grades/saying goodbye to teachers and friends as well. We talk a lot about how just because someone’s gone, it doesn’t mean they’re not connected to you; same with when someone dies.

There was also this wise perspective – The children we are parenting have always had bigger and more intense responses to these types of situations than their peers, which we recognize as a response to their big grief and loss. And yes, we’ve had amazing therapists and their responses are more typical now, much of the time, but not always and the trauma will always be with them. And we know to validate this sadness, grief, loss, etc. and validate all the people/situations they may be missing and sad about.

Poor Outcomes – A Sad Fact

Continuing building awareness regarding Foster Care as May is Awareness month.

Trigger warning

The following story mentions murder, substance use/addiction/overdose, suicide, homelessness, Child Protective Services cases that are open, trauma, illegal activity/selling drugs, sex work, mention of a higher power and spiritual crisis, the effects of poverty, and mention police.

Having been warned, here is today’s awareness builder.

It’s Foster Care Awareness month and I’m sitting here at 3:30 am, not able to sleep.

My friend, a girl I’ve known since 6th grade, was murdered in 2019. She was in group homes with me as well, two different placements. She dated my sister. I grew up with this girl. Today, the news covered the sentencing. I learned new details of what happened. It was disgusting, made me hate the world we live in, and made me so hopeless but furious. I’ll spare the details but it was inhumane, needless, and these two men are pathetic excuses for human beings. My friend was 22 when she passed, and she left behind a young daughter.

She did extra jobs for her employer and turned him into the department of labor after he refused to compensate her. That was his motive. It describes his crack-cocaine purchase right after the event. It was all about money. Money for drugs. But my friend was so desperate and had to work at this place and got caught up in this cycle trying to once again, rely on systems and was killed. I know the world is crazy and this could’ve happened to anyone but this specific case with the details.. I think not. I think this was a direct effect of how the systems chews youth up and spits them out. They have to rely and try to network with unsafe, sketchy people because they don’t know how else to make a living. It’s not like the department would help. Or care. Nobody who wants to do anything can and those who can’t won’t do anything.

I’m angry. I’m triggered.

I have three other friends from placement that were murdered. I have two friends that overdosed. I have two that committed suicide. I have one that died outside while homeless.

I’ve experienced so much grief and loss in my life, but I also know that these are the statistics for foster youth. Why do we have to be reduced to these statistics? When does it end? When does the world and our government figure that we’ve had enough?

This breaking code silence movement has done a lot for my mental health, targeted support groups help. Former foster youth are the only ones advocating and looking out for each other. I’m just so distraught tonight.

My friends all were amazing people, kind people. People who have seen the worst side of others but still worked hard to show up to life and make this world a better place for others, every last one of them.

I spent 11 years in the NYS Foster Care system. These youth from placement are all I know, I don’t even know anyone else aside from the internet that I haven’t met in care. I’m watching my friends die, I’m watching life kick them when they’re down, homeless, doing sex work out of necessity and desperation, stealing out of desperation, selling illegal items out of desperation, going to jail and prison, having open CPS cases with their own children when they’re just trying to move on with life and their own personal experiences, working for shady people because THEY HAVE TO. Everyone I was in care with, including myself live in poverty. I know I’ve had to network with shady people and take risks myself, you’re never growing up and are like “oh yeah I’m going to clean this mans house under the table that I don’t know and I could get attacked and all but nobody would care because I have nobody to call anyways and the police only made it worse the last time”

Because the resources aren’t there, the empathy isn’t there. The community isn’t there. Youth can so easily go back to what they know pre-system and actually pick up more behaviors in the system because THE SYSTEM DOESNT WORK. It’s failed so many of us.

Thank you for letting me vent, I’m mourning so much. I’m so scared to lose anyone else and I’m also fearful for my own future. They raised us to be stupid, to be nothing, to be institutionalized. They already reduced us to these statistics.

I feel so spiritually bankrupt at this point, I feel like I’ve been abandoned by my higher power, and I’m always stuck thinking about how the world should be rather than how it is. It’s so much weight to carry, but I can’t be complacent about the trials we face as youth. I feel powerless and here it is, foster care awareness month and I feel like this is the only platform I can come to and express my sorrows without being silenced. Thank you for reading. I just needed to get it out to people who /do/ care.

Artificial Twinning

I didn’t know this was a thing – artificial twinning. Sadly, it often results in the family releasing the child to a second chance adoption (meaning the first effort has now failed). “Second Chance”… does this imply that EVERY adoption is basically just temporary and the first one is just your first “chance” at your “forever” home ?

As a Gemini, the idea of twins always fascinated me. My sister who was 13 mos younger than me was dressed like me for much of our youngest years. Eventually, she shot up and surpassed me in height and that attempt on the part of mother and grandmother ended. When my husband and I were utilizing reproductive technology to create our family, our first effort that produced a son came after a “vanishing twin” at the time my dad’s adoptive father died and I was 6 weeks along. With our second son, we definitely did not want twins because we felt that would be harmful for our older son. As it was, he was jealous and difficult in their younger years, but now they are the best of friends – thankfully.

Artificial or Virtual Twinning (as it is sometimes also called) is not a practice recommended by social workers. The conventional belief is that kids need their own spot in the birth order. Artificial or Virtual Twinning is having two siblings, that are not biological, within 9 months of one another. There are very valid reasons not to artificially twin. Reasons like sharing the first-born-ness [or whatever the birth-order], attachment-process being interrupted, being compared to one another like twins without the “benefits” of being twins, among other things.

Sometimes artificial twinning is done by adopting a child that is close in age to the child a family already has. Sometimes it’s done by adopting 2 children that are close in age, at the same time. The controversy about whether or not artificial twinning is a good idea rages on. The best recommendation is that families do not adopt 2 children at the same time, unless they are biologically related (in which case, unless they are naturally twins, it would not be what this blog is about).

Parents need time and resources to learn about their new child, help them adjust, and this is most easily done one at a time. Inevitable comparisons, and all the pitfalls of that, are inherent with raising artificial twins. Adopting a child with the purpose of creating a playmate for your child is never a good idea.

Finally, letting an adult adoptee who experienced this speak –

All my brother and I had as young children was each other. At six years old, our adoptive parents divorced over dad’s alcoholism, which had resulted in domestic violence. By all appearances only being able to conceive one much older bio son and then to adopt two babies so close in age was a desperate attempt to fix an already broken marriage.

My adoptive brother and I were as different as night and day in every way possible. Being forced to tell anyone who asked that we were twins but had different birth dates caused a lot of unnecessary gossip and confusion as we got older. I still have friends from Junior High who ask me on Facebook if we were really twins. There is no simple explanation as to why I wouldn’t have been telling the truth. Our identities were so closely meshed together that our individuality often got lost.

Tragically, after our parents divorced, my brother struggled for years with some serious mental health issues. Even as youngsters, I could see that he wasn’t and couldn’t totally bond to anyone in our family. The brother I had once thought I was close to has caused me a lot of shame and embarrassment with his repetitive bizarre behavior. I have felt those forbidden feelings of abandonment from a not so perfectly ideal adoption, as well as not being able to grieve over an absent adoptive father.

My birth siblings say I am just like my late birth mother in her mannerisms – right down to her laugh. My adoptive family could have certainly been a textbook case where nurture verses nature proved to be a fantasy. From my perspective, you fail as adoptive parents – if you try to mold us into that child you couldn’t have or somebody we are not.

Why Adoptees Wish They Had Been Aborted

This is not the first time and it probably will not be the last time. For those of us who are grateful we have a life (and I am one of those), it can be hard to read that adoptees way too often wish they had been aborted and not given up for adoption. It flies against every happily ever after story you may have ever heard about how wonderful it is to finally create your family thanks to a woman losing her child. It is not wonderful for that woman nor is it wonderful for that child.

Today, I read one such comment – “I literally would have rather been aborted than adopted. Fuck adoption. It did nothing good for me and only led to years of self hate.”

Another said to a mom who just gave a newborn up for adoption – “Your kept children will be 50 and still talking about the one you gave away.” This is probably true. When I found my dad’s genetic family, they said as much. They knew about him. Wanted to know him and said his mother NEVER got over giving him up.

One woman gave her daughter up for adoption 14 yrs ago. She admits it was the hardest thing that she had to ever had to do in her life. The story gets worse. Back then the agencies only offered a 5 year open adoption, not an 18 year one. Guess what ? the adoptive parents vanished without a trace after 8 years. This mother has’t seen or heard anything from them. She asserts – “I will find her one day.” Then admits that she has other offspring who are already “looking” for their lost sibling.

Fact is – whether they were family friends before your pregnancy or not, once they have your child, you are pretty much disposable. Sadly.

And the fact is, most friendships, or even family relationships, aren’t strong enough to stand up to the power imbalance of adoption. It’s like the sword of Damocles hanging over your head.

Yes, there is a decided power imbalance between a desperate pregnant soon to be mother with no access to resources and the people with the money (the adoptive parents, the adoption agencies, the lawyers, the social workers). The deck is stacked against you and you will need to face this directly, before you take that permanent step.

If you are lucky, someday your child will find you and like my own mom wanted to do, let you know that she survived and is okay. Worst case, your child will hate you for how her life turned out and wish she had been aborted instead.