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Looking back it all seemed so easy the first year. The honeymoon period, outbursts at six months post adoption and then at one year and then BOOM! You are a normal, well-adjusted family.
How did I get that stuck in my head. Me! The woman who has read everything that was to be read. Who has yahoo-grouped for hours on end, gleaning all the info I could on older child adoptions? How could I have been so naive?
It was a survival mechanism I now realize. All the hard times seemed more bearable if I could excuse them in some way with an “adoption issue” that will be settled in time. Sixteen months into our new life we visiting an adoption therapist for advice on a few things. He kept using this phrase,”relatively young adoption”. Wait…YOUNG ADOPTION? This has been my life, my daily work, my frustration and my glory. How can it still be in the “young” stage. Am I not a professional by now? Haven’t I earned my badges?
Another life lesson learned. Just like with my bio kids, parenting is a learn as you go calling. One that changes with each developmental change and as the kids grow into who they are. I think secretly I had been telling myself, once we get through the adjustment and work through the grief issues everything will be like it should be. In a way this is true. We are on track, the family as a whole is doing very well and my Ethiopian darlings are above and beyond what I had ever expected. Things are the way they should be. My expectations were not on target though.
Children who have been through poverty, relinquishment, living in an institution (no matter how nice a place it was) have been traumatized. Trauma doesn’t go away. It can be pushed deep down inside and come out in behavior, attachment or attitude issues. It can also be worked through with counseling, talking and being loved unconditionally. Trauma is still there though. It will not leave.
I have been incredibly blessed in that I have never lost a person close to be. My grandparents passed before I really knew them and my parents and brother are apart of my life everyday. What I have heard from others about grief and about losing a loved one is that when it hits you, it’s like it just happened again. It’s a raw pain. Whenever one of my girls gets in a bad place trauma hits them again and it is a fresh pain.
So what have Hubby and I learned with our latest couch session? We have to stop saying things like,”When is this going to be easier?” and “How long is this going to last?”. If you are new in your adoption journey, please don’t let my words discourage you. It is still true that the kids have a honeymoon period and then tend to act up around six months and twelve months. Just don’t expect that after twelve months, there will not be any more issues.
I just joined this blog, because I’m writing a fiction book for children about a caucasian American family who adopted a child from Ethiopia. I’ve never adopted, so please tell me what the acting up six months and twelve months later looks like. (Adopted child in my book was five when she joined the family.)
I have been adoptive mom for 7 years now and it took me this long to realize that it doesn’t end. EVER. My oldest turned 18 and just left. B/c he finally could. He was 11 when he came to live with us and they are smart good-looking boys with a ton of potential they never see. They seem to use as “parents” when it is in their interest, but we are just the wardens the rest of the time. They would walk through fire for the parents that neglected and abused them and they won’t wash thier hands to come to the dinner table for me. The issues come back with every phase in new ways. It seems like I have to keep explaining why my kids think and act so differently than I do. I always thought it would be over by now. I think that is greatest pain to watch them throw away opportunities and possiblities and I regret not treating them like special needs kids EVERY year. I believed that they needed to be normal that treating them as normal as possible would help them feel normal. However, they never felt normal – with or without case workers with or without treatment. They will always view themselves as abandonded. I still don’t feel I have earned my badges.