Day 14

I said I would talk about adoption today - it's the day before Mothers' Day. Occasionally, in Methodist settings, when I have called it Mothers' Day (with, or without the apostrophe) I have been corrected with: "It's Mothering Sunday", but they still give out posies to all the mothers in the service. As I said yesterday, consistency in religious people is hard to find.

So, it's Mothers' Day tomorrow and I am going to quote from a psychology paper. My masters degree in psychology will be finished in 6 months. Last year I wrote an assignment on how to assess potential adoptive parents. The paper I am quoting from was written by a psychologist who was adopted. So, here's the first quote I want to consider: "it has been well-established for a while now that adoptive parents ought to introduce their adopted children to other adoptees, .... It can be healing to be around others who can empathize and attune with your emotions and validate your trauma (Ford and Courtois, 2020)."

I can usually spot adopted people. There is something different about them. On Day 107 I told about my friend Katie bringing me a Get Well card. She walked up the road to my house and I watched her from the window as she drifted/glided up the road, her feet not touching the ground, her eyes focussed somewhere else, and if I hadn't already known, I would have realised then that she was adopted. I was never introduced to other adoptees because my parents didn't realise that "there might be deleterious effects to infant-mother separation (Bergman, 2019, 2014; Bugental et al., 2003; Cs´asz´ ar-Nagy and B´ okkon, 2018; Hofer, 2006; Schuder and Lyons-Ruth, 2004), that adopted people are overrepresented in mental healthcare settings (Dekker et al., 2017; Keyes et al., 2008; Seeman, 2020; Vinke, 2020), and this idea that adoption is “traumatic” (Robert, 2020; Stern, 2019)."

I remember being told by someone many years ago that I wasn't affected by my adoption, because it was so long ago, I was a baby, and I couldn't possibly remember it. I pointed out that I was there when it happened. Surprisingly, that shut him up.

But it is true about us being overrepresented, and yet the Methodist Church wants me to look at a list of counsellors, stick a pin in a name and they will pay for 12 sessions with someone who probably has no idea about this!

The DSM-V is the fifth edition (that's what the V stands for) of the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual" of the American Psychological Association. I have a copy of it - it makes for interesting reading. Several researchers are arguing for "the inclusion of a new diagnosis – Developmental Trauma Disorder – in the DSM-VI."

I think that's not a bad idea!

Anyway, moving on to my first (well, OK, only) adoptive friend. She wrote in her book about feeling cosmically dizzyingly adrift. I love that idea, because I identify with it. Someone in one of my churches said to me last year: "You like being different". I couldn't come up with a response - I was stunned. She wasn't denying my differentness as some have in recent weeks, but she was suggesting that I "Liked" it. That would be the equivalent of saying, "You like having green eyes". It's not something I planned!

And another thing my friend wrote in her book was a reference to her "charity status". An orphan; a foundling; an abandoned baby, taken in by a charitable family. Even though she was brought up in an intelligent, loving, family, she still felt like a charity case. I understand that so well. I was once told by a minister that I should feel grateful that I didn't grow up in a children's home.

But I grew up in a home where I didn't belong; I grew up in fear, constantly, of being abandoned - again. I had no security. And when they sent me off to school (my adopted mum never walked me to school), that felt like abandonment. All these kids and the scary adults (teachers). It was a traumatic childhood (12 sessions will never cover it). I have dealt with all the psychological stuff, but it's Mothers' Day tomorrow and the thoughts come back. I have a book by American psychologist, Nancy Verrier. I read it over 20 years ago. The book is called "Primal Wound" and it's about adoption. She tells the story of a woman she was counselling. This woman had been adopted as a baby, and she started to write about her feelings. She decided that to get in touch with her real self she would use her left hand, and, without thinking what she was doing, she wrote, "Dear mummy, please come and get me". I may have the details wrong, but I have never forgotten the words she wrote, because I understood - I'm left-handed anyway, so I live on that level. I always hoped to be rescued when I was growing up.

And so adoption! It's not just us who are cosmically adrift. There are others out there. Yesterday as I walked down to a coffee morning in the Beccles church I went to the Secondhand Bookshop to talk to Emily who owns the shop. She wasn't adopted, but was brought up by a single mother who told her repeatedly how having a baby had ruined her life. She is married and has a son, but I asked her how she was dealing with Mothers' Day.

And then I remembered that Emily is 35 years old and this is the 30th anniversary of the Dunblane Primary School massacre, when too many 5-year olds were killed - 5-year olds who would be 35 today. It was an interesting conversation!