The Story of My Life: The Harder Side of Adoption

I think so many times when people think of adoption, they get warm fuzzy feelings about it. Kind of like going to pick up a new puppy or family pet.  With adoption, you go and get a baby, bring the child home, then nurture and love that baby as your own.  You become a happy family and everything from that point on is just fine, right?

Sadly, no. So many times there are other difficulties that go along with adoption and many times, those difficulties take place at home behind closed doors where people outside of the family are unable to see the struggles. There may be glimpses of it in public places such as church or school, but what is seen there is really only the outward response to the issues and not really the root of the problem. It is said that babies that are separated from their birth mothers can sense the abandonment even if they are adopted when only a few days old.  There are pieces of this abandonment that can haunt the adoptee for the rest of their life. Sometimes this manifests itself in areas such as irrational thinking in certain situations which may cripple the adoptee in minor ways. It can be so subtle that they themselves may be unaware of where that type of thinking comes from. At other times, these behaviors can be more obvious and the adoptee will express outwardly the fact that they feel abandoned. They may not "attach" to the birth parents, feel loved or wanted, and always have an urgency to search for their "real parents".

Take the above mentioned factors and pair them with other unknown physical or mental histories in a child's background and the result can be a very difficult situation for the adoptive parents to have to navigate.  Sometimes when the parents find themselves in a hard place, they just give up and decide they are not capable of raising the child. The child is then given back to the system and once again abandoned, which in the end can only lead to more issues in that child's life. Other times, the parents struggle through, determined not to lose faith but still feeling hopeless at times.

Again, not every adoptee has a difficult journey.  My brother, Sam (as far as I know), and I have always been content with being adopted.  There has not been the struggle of being discontent and the constant desire of wanting something other than the family that we were in. I can say, I have had minor manifestations of abandonment issues, but through counseling in the last few years, I can now identify where those issues come from and in those situations I am now able to recognize the irrational thoughts and their root and deal with them accordingly.

That was not the case for my older brother, Nathan.  Even from a very young age, he acted out behaviorally what he was feeling inside.  He struggled with school and that struggle continued within our home.  I watched my parents time and time again try to figure out a way to deal with him, most times without success. I saw how people looked at my parents with a questioning eye and I could sense their judgement as to why my brother was "allowed" to behave the way he did. What those people did not realize was that despite my parents love and best efforts, my brother often said to them things such as "You aren't my real mom" or that he wanted to embark on a journey to find his "real parents". He acted whatever way he felt like and discipline seemed to make no difference. He constantly seemed to be searching for himself.

There is so much pain in this whole situation and even as I sit here writing about it, I can still feel it.  The pain from my brother, feeling the abandonment of his birth parents and the pain of my parents not being accepted in that role by their son. The pain of being a sister and daughter that had to watch all of this unfold.  It is all so very heavy. I would like to say that there was a happy ending to the story, but there isn't.

As he grew up into his teenage and beyond years, Nathan's behavior only became more erratic.  He was in a car accident and bumped his head, which only seemed to make worse the bi-polar tendencies that he had inherited from his birth father.  He tried to seek relief for his unhappiness though smoking, drinking and sex.  He could be very charming at times, which led people to believe he was a nice guy, when really he was very troubled and not really very nice at all.  He and I had always had a rocky relationship growing up, but that worsened the older he got.

When he was in his early 20's, he met a girl at work.  Within a week they eloped and 9 months later their daughter was born.  Even then, his erratic behavior continued.  His marriage became troubled and he got himself involved with a woman almost twice his age. He reached a point where he himself felt like he couldn't deal with it anymore, and the day before his daughter turned two, he took his own life.

I still remember that day.  The police knocking on our front door.  The psychologist for the police department had been a co-worker of my dad's at one point. When he had heard the news, he came along to help break it to my parents.  We all cried.  I threw up my dinner.

I had spoken with my brother earlier that day and he mentioned the fact that he had tried playing Russian Roulette with his gun the night before, but that the chamber had been empty.  I pleaded with him not to do anything like that. That we all loved him and would do whatever we could to help him. He had talked suicide before and even attempted a couple of times. He often talked a big talk for attention and I assumed this time was no different.  I did not in my wildest dreams imagine he was serious as he stood there talking with me and messing with all of the things in the trunk of his car.  It was only later on that I realized he really did have a plan.  That during the time he was talking with me and wrapping up the extension cord into a tight circle, that he was just getting it ready to use later as he would hang himself from the rafters of a gazebo in the park one block from our home.

I watched my parents grieve this child.  The one they loved so desperately who in turn had just hurt them so deeply in a way a parent should never be hurt.  They mourned the one who decided to escape all of his problems, while leaving everyone else to deal with all of the ones that his escape then created.  As a young, twenty-two year old,  I struggled too.  I found it very difficult to want to remember and celebrate the life of someone who caused so much hurt to me personally and who caused such pain to a mom and dad whom I loved dearly. It is a struggle that has continued through much of my life and I feel like I am only beginning to overcome now, twenty some years later.

As a result of this situation and seeing the hurt that he caused my parents growing up, I vowed that I would never intentionally do something that would hurt my parents. They had taken me in and loved me and cared for me as their own.  They deserved nothing but my love and respect.  They had been hurt enough.

I don't tell you this story to make you feel sorry for me or my family. I just want to raise awareness of the struggles that can accompany adoption. Struggles that many adoptive parents and families find hard to discuss.  My challenge to you is this, please when you see someone who has an adopted child who behaviorally isn't acting in a way that you feel is appropriate, instead of judging them or distancing yourself from them, encourage them.  Be supportive.  You don't know what they are going through at home and you don't know the internal struggles that the child itself is having to deal with on a daily basis. Your support and encouragement could be the one thing that helps bring them hope.