Guest blog from an adult who was adopted:

 
Imagine having a parent that doesn’t love you.Or maybe two.

Or maybe one that doesn’t know or care that you exist.

Imagine having parents that actively put you in harms way.

Can you do that?

Perhaps you can, perhaps that is your experience too- and I’m sorry if it is, because I know that it really hurts.

Now imagine that you have been removed from that parent (or parents) and put in a different home, you might be a baby and pre- verbal or you might be 10 with a pretty well formed life around you.

How are you doing now? Are you feeling alright with this or maybe a bit shaken or confused. If this isn’t your reality, its a pretty big leap to make. I’m not trying to be contentious or upsetting, I am inviting you into my world- I am adopted. My story is not unique. My story is pretty ‘tame’, but I would like you to step away from your assumptions and see things from over here. Just for a few minutes.

Not all biological families are happy.

Not all adoptive/ non bio/ foster/ families struggle.

I can’t imagine what it feels like to be loved by a parent- there, thats pretty huge.

What most people take for granted- the unconditional love of a parent, or parent figure- is totally alien to me. I cannot imagine a world where me and mum enjoy a chat and a coffee. I can’t fathom what it would be like to be emotionally ‘held’ and supported by a parent. It has never happened so I just don’t know.

The only thing I can compare it to is the idea of privilege- you know the thing that people have that they don’t know they have because its so taken for granted that their experience and world view is a more dominant one? It is generally taken for granted that children are loved by their parents (otherwise why would they have them right….) its generally taken for granted that those children love those parents right back in a satisfying loop of secure attachment and mutual dependence.

I have, literally NOT A CLUE what that is like. I envy it, I long for it, sometimes I get all self pitying and wallow for a while about it, but mostly I analyse it, because thats how I understand things, by picking them apart and putting them back together again- trying to understand from someone else’s point of view, and then my own (always in that order, by the way) and I think I get it- when someone says to me that they are going wedding outfit shopping with their mum, because she is their best friend and they trust her opinion completely- because mum has child’s best interests at heart- I think thats lovely, it makes me feel fuzzy and warm inside, and I don’t have to have felt it for myself to know that it sounds pretty great.

I don’t experience that happening the other way though- my formative years weren’t characterised by anyone empathising or trying to understand what it’s like to feel worthless, or unloveable or somehow defective. Maybe its a big ask? To try and empathise with the uncomfortable, the painful, the silenced.

People saw the symptoms of the above- the coping (or not) strategies, the walls I built, the behaviours that gave a voice to the feelings, but they didn’t want to get down beside me and know what it was like- they did want to do something, they wanted to fix me- to tell me that I was worth something, that I was chosen, not rejected, that I should be grateful for the life I was offered, that I should believe in myself.

To my mind, these are all pretty big asks- of anyone, let alone a child. Imagine being told that the grass is purple- but you know its green, its definitely green because you know what green is, you can describe at least 10 different shades of green and its real, you have felt green, worn green and smelt the green of the aforementioned grass when freshly cut. But no, the adult world tells you its purple- and it always has been, its impossible to believe and there is zero evidence for it, but you have to believe it because you are told its true. Its a ridiculous example, but thats how it feels, to me. If a child has a core belief about something- and we think its wrong- does that make us as adults right? or might it be more helpful to try and understand where they are coming from- to try and empathise with them?

I wish I had the words to explain how it really feels, the absence of something that has such a presence in our society- the assumption that everyone has had some love in their lives. Sometimes I feel only half human, like I’ve been put together with some really important but strangely intangible bits missing. It doesn’t mean that I am broken or damaged, it just means that I don’t necessarily feel what you do and I wouldn’t assume that you’re not different too…

I think the first step to building esteem is to try and understand the world from a child’s perspective, if they feel worthy enough that someone would take the time to try and ‘get’ them, its a strong message that they are deserving of being known, being heard and being accepted. As soon as we start to impose our reality and expectations onto them we are potentially losing something so valuable- them.

I’m hopeful that long term love and support can be somewhat restorative for a child’s sense of self worth, I’m hopeful that there are loads of parents out there (however they have come to their children) who do empathise with their children, living child centred lives and bringing up great little people. I know that there is lots of good work happening in regards to the recognition of the impact of trauma in attachment and that this is becoming much more widespread as a way of understanding some aspects of the lived reality of adoption.

This years National Adoption Week has the hashtag (hashtags!) #SupportAdoption. I think I do support adoption, if its in the best interests of the child. If the parents adopting are willing to understand the world from the point of view of their child. If adoption is not about ‘fixing’ ‘damaged’ children. If adoption is the best permanence solution for a child. If adoption can be understood as a lifelong commitment to putting someone else first.

The week long campaign is aiming to highlight the realities of the adoption process, the need for older children to be placed and some of the struggles faced by adoptive parents- this is my small contribution- a snapshot of my reality of being adopted.