I find Nancy Spoolstra’s recent posts on disruption very interesting. Sometimes I don’t know when to comment, as I am so wordy, or when to blog a response post instead. I’m fairly neutral on the issue, able to empathize with both sides.

As I was driving all day yesterday I was thinking long and hard about disruption as my perspective has greatly changed over the last twenty years while living with severely traumatized children.

Some children that I poured all that I had into never responded to my love, attention or attempts at finding resources and treatment for them. They never responded because they couldn’t do so. I’m ultimately very frustrated, bizarrely wondering at times why I ever tried.

I’d be lying if I said I never fantasized about disrupting.

I used to have a much different life with my only child decades ago. We traveled and had fun, our house was never destroyed, and I worked on advanced degrees, had a career, ate in restaurants, and had a very active social life.

But if my life was really all that, then why was I inexplicably drawn into the world of adopting older children which I felt was my specific calling. Truthfully I relish this challenge, and I thrive in this atmosphere, although I certainly have my down moments as it can be impossibly difficult at times.

My second sibling group adoption of four children in 1990 was comprised of a group who’d disrupted in their previous adoption. I walked in absolutely clueless, even though I prided myself on reading an entire section of books on social work and adoption from the UGA library. There’s no substitute for experience.

I’m nearly as dumbfounded now as I was back then. This very wild ride has been as convoluted and as confusing as ever due to the many unique aspects of each child. The seven siblings in one group that I adopted in 2000 also came from two disruptions; they’d supposed to have been adopted by an aunt who quickly became overwhelmed. Their foster parents also had intended to adopt them but didn’t follow through with their plans, divorcing soon afterwards.

I have a very challenging sibling group now that I’m not certain will respond to me in any positive manner anytime soon, even though they’ve been here for five long, tough years. They have one brother who is smart and adorable and the thought of him being stunted and frustrated in the foster care system is sometimes the only thought I can mange to hang on to in order to continue attempting to parent them each day.

I suppose that I should allow myself to grieve my previously carefree life, and then to buck up and keep trying even when I am so stymied, seemingly blocked at every turn and sometimes unable to see positive results. Certainly no one ever promised me that. That’s not necessarily the point of adoption is it?