Tag: Making Space

Being Trauma Informed

It doesn’t take long when one joins an adoption community to learn about trauma. Every adoptee has experienced trauma associated with having been adopted, whether they recognize that consciously or not. Being a part of such a community gives us a sense of support, nurturing, belonging and a sense of connection. This heals our sense of loneliness and isolation as well as impacting our culture and society.

Today I read an article in one of my sources of spiritual support, the LINK>Science of Mind Magazine. An assistant minister at a Centers for Spiritual Living location in Santa Clara California, the LINK>Rev Russ Legear wrote about Being Trauma Informed Is Being Inclusive. Recognizing that adoption will always have some degree of trauma attached becomes a place of inclusion for those who are part of such a community.

Having been separated from the mom who conceived and birthed us puts the adoptee into a survival response. So what is trauma ? It is the psychological aftermath of a negative experience which has either caused us an actual or even simply a perceived harm, injury or kind of violence. It may include an actual physical violation of our bodies or emotions (and simply being taken away from the woman in who’s womb we developed is that). Every adoptee experiences a loss of their power to choose as they are not old enough nor do they have the agency to make the choice that results in their becoming adopted.

Being traumatized stunts the emotions. The adoptee must create some way to cope, to protect themselves and to survive within a situation that is never natural. This affects the individuals ability to experience love, joy and it is difficult for them to entirely feel safe. Even an insensitive remark can make an adoptee feel powerless.

One of my own motivations in writing blogs each day is to build awareness in those who read these personal efforts that adoptees and their original mothers, often including their genetic fathers, carry this burden of of trauma to some degree. It is true that some may feel the sting of trauma more acutely than others but the effort is to help other people see that trauma was a valid experience for all adoptees (whether they would say that about themselves or not). That experience of trauma deserves to receive our respect. We can be aware that it has happened and have the courage to be open-hearted when it expresses itself in some behavior. By knowing that someone’s reaction has come out of the trauma allows us to be more heartfully open, compassionate, able to feel connected to what has been a truth whether it was our own personal truth or not. This attitude will help to restore power for the adoptee as we allow them the freedom to express their emotions related to adoption. We are more authentic and the adoptee is better able to find pathways to thrive, having been unburdened of the necessity of proving they have been traumatized by the process of being adopted.

Sharing the understanding that trauma has occurred creates s kind of unity, allowing us to transcend whatever seems to divide us. We have made space for the affected to experience some degree of healing and within ourselves to heal from misguided beliefs about the benign nature and “goodness” of adoption.

Using Detachment To Make Space

Adoption trauma refers to the shock and pain of being permanently and abruptly separated from biological family members and can affect both the birth parent and the child who is being adopted, given the circumstances of the separation. We now know that a child’s attachment to her mother starts in the womb, so even a child adopted at birth can experience severe attachment disruption later on in life. A friend was recently expounding on attachment and it seemed like some worthy thoughts to put in this blog.

She writes – Had a conversation recently with a loved one about loss, trauma, wounds, living in a bubble where the sense of belonging is not clear. When we lose loved ones, for example, due to death or breakups, when we are rejected, or misunderstandings separate you from people who are important to you – places where there is lack of warmth, lack of connection, a kind of coldness and cruelty that is hard to put in words and if you do put into words, you look weak – it is embarrassing, humiliating – further you go into the wound, building a fence around you made of loss, confusion, distorted or loss in sense of purpose, aloneness, pain, trauma, rejection, grief, loss of control. You can create narratives that preach positivity and strength but the heart is wounded, the heart has a stab pain, bleeding your life away, whispers in your inner ear of why you are not good enough – if only you were this or that..then maybe it would be alright. What can you do? A silent rage covers the wound, like a thin skin to help you function. A fight for your life that feel a fight in a dark room with no light in sight.

Then the idea “don’t be attached” sounds like more abuse, more alone, squeezing the heart tighter, as if trying to end what you are, your life. “Don’t be attached” feels like more of a stab. Abandoning yourself, your hopes. Hearing the word detachment can feel shattering. ..that as bad as you feel, now, don’t be attached.

Don’t be attached doesn’t mean withdraw from love, hope, from what you care or cared about. Particularly not withdrawing from the part of you that hurts. Not being attached is to draw closer to the hurt parts, abandoned parts, wounded parts. Not being attached is separating your self from the *story*, situations, to change the focus from the situation to the wounds to learn from them what you need to, to take time to transform into a newer version of yourself that has yet to be embraced and has navigated billions of hurts and disappointments, sometimes flat out rejections and absolute betrayals and abandonments, some that go very deep. The deep wound can cause even the lightest slights to feel exaggerated. We become sensitive to how the wind is blowing. We haven’t embraced our pain fully enough to heal. Everything that brings that pain to the surface or creates those feelings, it is a chance to embrace the wounded part, look at it, reason through, let others off the hook for a time, look at yourself, the wound, be alone with yourself, giving yourself time to heal. Otherwise, we might not sense when we are in relationships with people that abandon, hurt, reject – – because we haven’t yet developed a healthy one with the wounds we carry – using that as proof over and again that we are not worthy of more or pursue it, or even how…where.

Detachment is a short term method to make space to see yourself differently, to tend to your wounds properly, to love yourself rightly, to see things thorough and to come to terms once and for all – help yourself, gently, so we can evolve beyond the wounds.

**I do also consider there possibly being a radical process to detachment. A leap – as if off a cliff into a void, another world – where if you could do it – as if die to what you are – you would open to a world you had no idea is there, that you have only been seeing your thoughts and hardly reflecting anything at all but those thoughts – not reality. I imagine a Remembering, a rejoining with something exciting and pure. Personally, I find the idea and concept curious, the thought intriguing, and at times dwell on getting beyond idea and thoughts and wonder if there is another world..maybe a real world, reflected from a free conscience, a surprise, beyond *your* mind.

She ends it with this advice – Think about that then turn and say something silly and reveal your human flaws and personal prejudices. Even though your mind is there, inching in miles toward a leap.