over it

After therapy last week, my youngest came out of her session and declared she had something to tell us on the way home. She was pretty amped up and the therapist was hovering and making sure that we scheduled a parent only session as soon as possible.

In the end it turned out that she has decided that her birth mother is never going to come back and take her away. She told us that since she has never received any birthday or Christmas gifts from her birth mother that she must not care about her. (My kids have always been very hyper focused on gifts. We have been working on it, but they still see care as gifts received. A subject for another post.)

She went on to tell us that at every holiday throughout the year, she imagined that her birth mother would arrive and take her back to live with her. She told us that at first she looked forward to it, but as time went by she was afraid it would happen. She said she did not want to leave us. She is still afraid that she will be too much for us and that we will leave her, though.

Honestly, this is the most we have ever hoped for to come out of her therapy. It has been such a long time coming. She is finally expressing her feelings about her abandonment. She says she is “over it” and that she has worked through all the stages of grief and is all done thinking about it. Obviously, we know this is not true. If anything, it is just the beginning for her to actually deal with these feelings that have plagued her entire existence.

All of her anxiety, self harm, suicidal ideation, fear, and hurt stem from the original trauma. In order to heal, she needs to face it and work through those feelings. However, no matter how hard she works or how much time passes, she will probably always have self doubt about her true worth.

Adoption is not “another option” for those who cannot conceive on their own. These kids hurt in ways most of us can never imagine. No matter how much you wished for your adopted child; they will still deal with feeling worthless. Open adoptions can help with these feelings, but the feelings still seem to lurk in the back of their minds. You can wish, hope, help and love your adopted children, but you cannot erase their past hurts. In the end, it is something that they must work through on their own.