Who should decide if an adoptee is going to be emotionally scarred?
Same question that produced answers that obviously don't sit well with me, has suggested that having access to ones first relatives may be too emotionally scaring and should be avoided.
Who do you believe should be in charge of an adoptee's emotional scaring?
2009-05-26T06:11:21Z
I Didn't Say That: You are correct, I did surrender my daughter in fear of my family, but she is 36 years old now and no longer in need of that protection. So my question still remains who should be in charge of HER emotional scaring?
2009-05-26T07:41:22Z
No way Jose: I'm sorry you felt the need to delete your answer, I still don't see where the question has changed. My daughter is an adoptee, an adult adoptee, who feels she should be in charge of her own pain and scarring. Unless its because you didn't know I was one of those women and that's why you changed your answer. sorry for the confusion.
June Cleaver Would Be Appalled2009-05-26T13:35:24Z
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I think emotional scarring is a relative concept. Different people define it as different things, some have a higher tolerance than others. For some, like myself, the concept is so abstract that I cannot even say whether I am or am not emotionally scarred from events in my childhood.
I'll tentatively define emotional scarring things as things that upset us to the point where it has long-term effects on how we process and react to things.
Adoptees have little/no control over their adoptions (unless they were older, like me). They have little control over whether their adoptions are open until they're 18, at which point they do have control over whether to search. But that still won't un-do the years of not knowing. In these senses, I believe the parents (both biological and adoptive) have ownership in emotional scarring. Not 100%, but some.
The one thing adoptees of all ages have control over is how they choose to handle it. Things happen that are out of a person's control all the time - be it adoption or something else - and there's no choice in that, but the attitude one takes and what they do with it IS a choice.
The way I see it, a you've got two choices when dealing with trauma or damaging things: you can choose to accept it and move on while acknowledging it and dealing with how it effects you; or you can fight it and resent it and throw an internal pity-party, which I think just deepens the emotional scarring long after the actual event.
No one has the right to tell me what to think. I don't listen to people who tell me that I'm "drinking the kool aide" or "in denial" about my childhood or the adoption that childhood led to, just because I choose not to let it be a lens that I process the world through. I choose not to play the victim card or dwell on any "emotional scarring" I have; that doesn't mean I don't acknowledge the past, it just means that I don't choose my own actions based on those factors any more.
As an adult, the adoptee should have the right to contact any relatives as desired. Those emotional consequences are the adoptee's own decision, though I hope the adoptive parents would be supportive if it turns out to be painful. Adults make those choices about relationships with family on their own, though, whether or not it hurts.
For children, I support open adoption whenever possible. However, I also recognize that in some cases (especially abuse situations, or with a highly emotionally manipulative or inconsistent relative) it may be more than the child can handle to have contact at that time. I support the adoptive parents' decision not to have contact, as long as 1.) there is a genuine reason for the good of the CHILD and necessary for the child's emotional well-being, not that the adoptive parents are themselves uncomfortable, and 2.) the adoptive parents retain contact information so the child can make his/her own decision when he/she reaches adulthood.
Adult adoptees should be free to have contact as they like, and to choose what degree of emotional fallout they can accept. Children will need to have those decisions made by their parents, but it should ALWAYS be based on what they believe is best for the child's mental and emotional health, not the parents' own desires and insecurities.
I can't tell you how many people told me NOT to search because I would be "hurt." When I searched and FOUND I fully knew that the reunion might be emotionally difficult. I was ready for this. I also took a lot of time examining how it might affect "her." I was ready to handle whatever I found...even it was a grave. I appreciate the concern of others but I am certainly able to take care of myself. Adoption is a lifelong situation and every adoptee has to decide whether to search or not, it it THEIR choice, and it is an extremely personal choice.
I should -- when it comes to MY OWN scarring as an adoptee. I believe that pertains to the scars resulting from my surrender and adoption (which I had no control over) and any new (real or potential) scars.
Here's a little story: My little sister was adopted into our family when I was almost nine (no children between us) and our a-parents were very well into their 40s. There existed (ever) only two men who knew the identities of BOTH her natural mother and our a-parents. One of them died many, many years ago. The other is our a-fathers best friend (from childhood), a retired doctor who helped arrange the private adoption and he is 76 years old. He has, to this day, refused to give my sister the name of, or any other information regarding, her mother. He claims that "she was not a person you'd want to know" and "your life is better now and best not open that can of worms". HE has determined -- FOR my ADULT (28 years old) sister that she is still a child in need of protection from the 'bad influence' of her 'bad mother'.
AAAAARRRRRGGHHHHHHH!!! Pardon my for the 'screaming' but this is exactly what we're talking about here, right? My little sister (the only privately adopted one in our a-family) is rendered a perpetual child by the ONLY person who can connect the dots for her. And, he is not long for this world, I believe.
He believes it is his place to determine that she needs protection from any emotional scarring that may come out of knowing HER OWN MOTHER -- a woman he has not seen or spoken to (as far as we know) for 28 years.
Honestly... there are few things in this world that make me angrier than that situation. And, as the only privately adopted one in our a-family, she is also the only non-reunited adoptee in our a-family. *sigh*
The adoptee should be. No one can tell someone else to not be scarred from being adopted. However, that goes both ways as well. I am not an adoptee that was scarred in any way, and i have had plenty of people here tell me I am in denial,.