Tag: Sorrow

Unhappy Birthday

 

An adoptee may seem to be happy about preparations for a big birthday party and then inexplicably sabotage the event or go into a deep funk and not enjoy themselves.

In The Primal Wound, author and therapist, natural and adoptive mother, Nancy Newton Verrier, explains the phenomena which is more common that people not touched by adoption in their families might suspect.  She writes –

There seems to be a memory built into the psyche and cells,
an “anniversary” reaction (often also felt by the natural mother),
that sends many adoptees into despair around their birthdays.

For adoptees, birthdays commemorate an experience of loss and sorrow.

So adoptive parents and other siblings within the family unit need to be sensitive to what an adopted child may be feeling around the event of a birthday – even children who were adopted shortly after birth.

Ms Verrier goes on to note –

It simply is not possible to sever the tie with the natural mother
and replace her with another primary caregiver – no matter how
warm, caring and motivated she may be – without psychological
consequences for the child (and the mother).

Though an infant or child can attached to another caregiver,
the quality of that attachment will be different from that with the
natural mother and bonding with such a caregiver may be difficult
or even impossible for the adoptee.

It is entirely possible that even an adoptee that was adopted within the first three years of their life will not be conscious of this.  They may be as mystified as the adoptive parents about their reaction to their birthday celebration.

Unacknowledged Ghosts

Deborah Hempstead

In the book, It Didn’t Start With You by Mark Wolynn, he asks – Is there a person no one talks about ?

Deborah was run over and killed by a teenager driver, a member of the Doubleday publishing family, while crossing the road with her younger sister, Eleanor.  Her story does survive or else I wouldn’t know this but did the family talk about her ?

The death of my paternal grandmother Dolores’ oldest sister would have certainly left behind grieving parents.

My grandmother is born only about a year after that tragic event.  Then Dolores’ mother dies 3 mos after giving birth to her.  There is just the heavy sorrow in that family including in Eleanor, the middle child.  She would have been very young when this happened, perhaps pre-verbal and maybe didn’t receive very much comfort or attention due to the intensity of all that happened.  I don’t really know.  She is a sad person, never married, died alone of tuberculosis in a state hospital and cremated.

So, this “ghost” is a painful thing for everyone in the family but more conscious in Eleanor, more unconscious in Delores.

I wonder how Dolores dealt with all that grief, that sorrow ?

Did she reject her father ?  I don’t know.  He remarried.  Men of that era were not heavily involved in child care but it seems rather certain from stories and from her stepmother’s will that Josephine was not very fond of her step-daughters.  It is likely that, Raphael, Dolores’ father would have been in a terrible grief and depression for some time, if he ever truly got over those losses.

It is no surprise that I am fascinated by Deborah.  I was given the same name as the oldest daughter of my father, even though he never knew of his aunt’s existence.

The author as a young child.