Adoption and The Adoptee's Reality

Three integral parts make up the dynamic adoption triad, the natural mother, the natural child, and the adoptive parents. Throughout time adoption has been presumed great for all parties involved, and from a superficial perspective it has. On the surface adoption is viewed as beneficial for the natural mother who may not be, or feel, she's in a position in her life to take adequate care of the child by providing the child with a stable & safe growing environment. For the very same reason(s) it is presumed the natural child is in a much better position in life as a result and is often viewed that he/she ought to be grateful for being relinquished and had the opportunity to be in a more suitable growing environment with an adoptive family. The final part, the adoptive family, is always viewed to be in a favorable position in that they finally gained the addition of a child to complete their desired family, or they even played the roll of savior to a potential wayward child. All this holds true to a certain extent, however, this extent ends as soon as someone asks a question very few inquire, "How does the adopted individual feel about being relinquished?"

Beginning in the 1990's individuals such as Nancy Verrier, author of The Primal Wound; Betty Jean Lifton, Phd. who authored several books including, Journey Of The Adopted Self; and another notable author and Phd. is David Brodzinsky who assisted with The Life Long Journey to Self, who have come forward assertively conducting unbiased research on adopted individuals. In addition to researching literature of this nature I've been intrigued by Carl Jung's view of the duality of the psyche, in particular the anima/ animus and conscious/ unconscious, I've also had the opportunity and experience of chatting with countless adoptees regarding their adoption experience while learning their perspective.

Through my personal experience as an adoptee, beyond my wildest imagination, I've been able to relate extensively to the many adoptees I've encountered. Consistent with the referenced books above I've also personally discovered that adoptees appear to be attached to a couple of psychological manifestations on some measure of the adoptee psychological & behavioral spectrum: 1) Issues surrounding abandonment, rejection, trust, boundaries, control, identity, self-worth, not being understood, belonging, and feeling whole; and 2) Behavioral Characteristics exhibited as a result of the previous include either hyper-vigilance or rebelliousness, along with anxiousness, promiscuity, withdrawn, fantasy, testing boundaries (for a sense of validation), difficulty forming relationships, rejecting others for seemingly no reason, and emotional attunement to name a handful .

Diving beneath the presumed facade the adoptee's mysterious internal duality persists as an age-old argument deliberates relentlessly within the adoptee mind. Is it nature or nurture that composes him/her? Adoptees ponder relentlessly whether their true "self" derives from their nature, the traits and characteristics they are born with; or from nurture as a result of the adoptive environment they are enveloped within. Traditionally the concept of nature or nurture is viewed as if it's one transitioning into the other, or if one has more influence than the other. I feel these perspectives are the wrong approach. I sense with the adoptee world it's nature and nurture continually working symbiotically with one another.

Adoptees often claim they don't feel whole, and even with the best possible adoptive growing environment that was hopefully provided for the adoptee, they still long to see through the hazy cloud of their true past lingering elusively around them that seemingly offers a sense of deep connection. This elusive mystery the adoptee longs for I believe I can offer a possible explanation.

Every person, in my mind, is a balance of both nature and nurture. Both elements make up every individual and work seamlessly to develop an individual. At this time I envision the Chinese symbol of yin and yang, and that every person has their own yin and yang, or balance of self, consisting of their own nature and nurture.

Well, the advantage that typical people experience that adoptees are deprived of is that non-adoptees are able to see and learn their biological nature in action from their parents and other genetic family. While the non-adoptees are nurturing and developing/ thriving within their natural environment they are also learning and governed by the family's biological nature. Although every family's biological nature is different and unique to them selves this is the element of true balance of nature and nurture an adoptee is deprived of and most likely will never come to have the opportunity to appreciate. It is the adoptee's elusive biological nature the adoptee subconsciously chases. It is the adoptee's biological nurture that eludes the adoptee consciously.

The biological nature contained within the adoptee's genetic code can not be fully fostered by the adoptive parents despite how compassionate and supportive they are, or how hard they try despite how badly the adoptee wishes this could happen. Adoption, although genuinely intended to provide a better life, or better nurturing environment, in its raw form, in the scheme of nature itself, is an unnatural act and from the unnatural act the adoptee is presumed to resiliently bounce back. I agree that the adoptee is resilient but this experience isn't something they bounce back from, the separation is a "splitting" from their natural biological connection in which they grow away from, meaning they are not intended to return to grow and thrive from their point of origin. Again, the issue isn't so much about the resiliency of adoptees bouncing back, but more so, that they are torn away from their natural connection in which they aren't intended to return, leaving them with a mysterious unexplainable feeling of not feeling whole. More specifically, the unexplainable feeling of not feeling whole not only stays with the adoptee it is actually the desire to feel whole, or complete. (identity)

Technically speaking, adoptees don't bounce back they are forced to grow in a different direction without a biological connection, away from their true biological nature. Therefore it can be said that when they are separated their nature and nurture are divided as they are forced to enter to live in their new adoptive world now consisting of nurture and unnatural. Their new balance is no longer the black and white of yin and yang representing a true balance of nature and nurture but is now say a white and green yin & yang representing an off kilter version of what the natural self is intended to be as it's being shaped by a biological force that is unnatural and foreign to the adopted child.

Their new world and the rest of their life is composed of the 2 forces of nurture and unnatural where it is the true "natural self" adoptees subconsciously long to restore in order to feel whole again. Perhaps the ability to fit into such a broad range of social settings is also their subconscious longing to try and find their natural biological self to provide them a sense of wholeness and comfort from the natural connection that was stripped from them. In essence the adoptee spends the greatest and most influential part of their life living within the 'nurture' of learning another family's nature never knowing their true 'natural' half of existence, and in most cases never even grazing it.

It is also said the adoptee is affected on the cellular[1] level by adoption, perhaps it isn't exclusively the separation itself that results such a reverberating effect upon the adoptee's life. Perhaps in addition to the adoptee's bruised psyche it's the genetic composition in their cells that slowly grows frustrated over time because they are prevented from behaving in the manner of what's written in their genetic code as a result of following a different family's unique nature. And perhaps while the adoptee is young in life their cell's genetic frustration is minimal and the subconscious need to search is also minimal, then later in life as the cell's genetic frustration grows so doesn't the adoptee's subconscious and conscious desire to make a biological connection to relieve their dynamic frustration and seek out their natural wholeness.

[1] In regards to the adoptee being affected on the cellular level Primal Wound, Psychosomatic Response to loss P.44, Nancy Verrier.

Another argument often claimed by adoptees are those adoptees who don't feel they've been affected by adoption at all and feel as though they are well adjusted and quite content within life as well as their adoption situation. This may be true to a certain extent but the adoptee in this situation lives within a realm of stratospheric consciousness, being what they feel every one wants or expects them to be, also known as the vigilant adoptee.

I agree that every adoptee has not been affected by separation trauma[1] in the same capacity, I feel every adoptee, whether they've experienced the recognition[2] or not, has been affected on a unique level of the separation spectrum for a variety of reasons dictated by natural genetics and the chemistry within the adoptive family they are nurtured by.

Regardless of the individual personal belief there are three basic classifications of adoptees: 1) Those who have recognized that adoption has impacted their life; 2) Those adoptees who have not recognized that adoption has impacted their life; 3) Adoptees who feel great inner calamity and turmoil but have no idea what these strong feelings are attributed to.

Life for an adoptee prior to the recognition can be a seemingly alien place, often times leaving the adoptee with a sense of isolation and frustration while living with a deep feeling of not being understood. I speak from personal experience and directly from other adoptee's experience when I say that the pain of deep frustration and unresolved grief has resided within the adoptee so long, due to suppression acting as a true defense mechanism, the adoptee believes the feeling is normal. If an adoptee has been living with feelings of deep pain from the moment they were born, if not earlier, than why wouldn't they think it's normal? After all, how are adoptees supposed to know how it feels to be a non-adoptee and develop within the normal balance of nature and nurture with biological parents? This is why it can be said an adoptee will never be able to fathom how a non-adoptee feels and vice-versa.

It's this world of hidden pain, anxiety, and the elusive "self" that's suppressed within the subconscious, together they have all cast a profound impact causing a ripple effect upon adoptee's lives causing them to live in the stratospheric level (upper level) of consciousness whether they realize it or not. At the heart of the matter, when the adoptee consciously acknowledges this impact, that the pain stored away in the subconscious has formed a protective cloak preventing further pain entering while simultaneously preventing pain from escaping, they realize there is a big part of him/her that's masked. This acknowledgment will also reveal they aren't exclusively the person who they feel they've developed into and subsequent inward questions will surface. At this point it is almost definite that the adoptee will begin to become curious of their masked authentic self[3]. At first the obvious and ever daunting questions the adoptee has always fantasized about will come forth, "Who would I be?" or "What would my life be like had I not been relinquished?" The next question after the recognition is, "Who am I?" Meaning, the natural person they would be without the cloak of a built-in defense mechanism protecting and influencing the person they've become. Further, a small number of adoptees will attempt to ponder the far more perplexing and unfathomable, "What would I be like had I been adopted by an entirely different family?"

For the vigilant adoptee this presents a problematic internal controversy that although they've lived life being the perfect person by becoming the ideal individual who they feel everyone wants them to be the double edge sword is that the recognition also forces them to acknowledge their suppressed fear and as a result they believe they have a fault. Subsequently, their perceived fault is viewed as a defect by the individual adoptee that seemingly pronounces their sense of deep vulnerability. Even though this perceived vulnerability is nothing more than their natural characteristic(s) of the individual adoptees' true self it's a hidden and foreign side of their self, which that part is another source of fear the subconscious has been protecting the adoptee from while preventing further potential pain and anxiety. As a result, adoptees subconsciously fear that the people they have come to inadvertently please throughout their life, by becoming that "ideal individual" that fears letting anyone down even for the most innocuous reasons, will no longer be pleased with the adoptee once their hidden true self is revealed. This is an additional risk of potential rejection and abandonment an adoptee's subconscious won't allow them to simply make, due to the fact it already experienced the shock of rejection and abandonment prematurely in life. This also simultaneously caters to the adoptee's subconscious fear of being defective or not being good enough.

To sum, frustration slowly mounts as the adoptee wonders in fantastic awe about their authentic self who lies beneath the barrier of cloaked pain and turmoil, versus digging down and facing pain and angst while going against the grain of their life long vigilant self and risk displeasing the people who represent their fear of rejection and abandonment in efforts to reveal their authentic self.

[1] Separation Trauma, Primal Wound P. 181, Nancy Verrier

[2] Recognition- My term meaning when the adoptee realizes and begins to understand the gravity of the profound impact the separation from the natural mother had upon their life.

[3] Authentic Self, Coming Home To Self, Nancy Verrier