For the second part of this short series, I am going to focus on my oldest. Now to remind everyone: she is 17 years old and has had no contact with her birth mom since she was 3 years old. She had no memories of her birth mother, did not know what she looked like, was at one point told that her birth mother was dead, and was told that her mother was on many illegal drugs when she gave birth to her.
We have given the girls pictures of their birth mother and they knew we have been in contact with her since the adoption went through. The girls went through a very tough reconciliation with what they had been told about their birth mother and what the reality is. We showed the girls their birth records and how the drug tests came back negative when they were born. We also had to explain that their birth mother has had more children in the meantime and that they do in fact all live together to this day. The girls have had to process a lot about their birth mother since living with us and it was all very, very disregulating.
Now before the visit our eldest was adamant that she never wanted to meet her birth mother. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with her and she just refused to talk about the subject, even in therapy. She is so angry about being left with their abusive grandparents. And rightfully so. However, we knew the best thing for the girls would be to meet her. That is what all the experts had told us and truthfully, I wanted to prove that we were not keeping her from them. I honestly did not know what my oldest would ultimately decide about meeting her when presented with the chance to do so. I firmly believe that she went through with it because her sister did it, which I am fine with that reason.
It pained me to watch her interacting with her birth mom. She was not acting like herself. Her mask was firmly on and she took on the role of emotional support for her birth mom. She held her when she cried and cried with her when not holding her. She over-shared as she does with most strangers, however, she did seem to be careful about getting too personal. No feelings were shared with her birth mom. Through the years she has detailed all the things she would say to her birth mother when given the chance. Absolutely none of them came out, but I expected that. In fact, she placated her birth mom and told her that all the bad things that happened to her were not their birth mom’s fault. I felt that was a bit of a 180 from her actual feelings.
During the meeting she also got up to use the bathroom like every 30 minutes, so about 4-5 times during the meet up. She then soiled herself on the way to the airport. It was about an hour’s drive and she peed herself not even halfway through the drive. The last six months she had no soiling event and since the meeting she has had three. She has also gotten worse about using toilet paper again. We expected there to be issues, so we were not surprised. Our oldest has been very touchy about it though and refuses to talk about the connection in therapy.
We got home late and first thing the next morning she tried to hand me a letter to mail. She announces that she has completely forgiven her birth mother for everything and is now completely over all her associated trauma. I mentally had to count to ten before I responded. I told her that I was glad that she was trying to deal with her feelings about her birth mother, but I reminded her that these things are not as simple as saying that you are over it. I encouraged her to use her therapist to work through these feelings once and for all.
Then two days later (one day before she would see her therapist), all hell broke loose. She regressed back to how she was when she moved in. I did not think it was physically possible since she has not acted that way since being put on an anti-psychotic medication and that was several years ago. She was reduced to an angry, bitter, oppositional, tantrum throwing, and physically violent teenager. It was absolutely staggering how far she regressed. Honestly, we were not only walking on eggshells as usual, but we put bubble wrap on top of the eggshells.
Yes, when your child assaults you then you should report it. In most situations that is the only way to get help. It is the first time that she has been physically violent since the med change years ago. She has not been physically violent since then. We did not report it because she is not really strong enough to do any actual damage. At least not to my husband, which is who she attacked. If I had been the victim, then there would have been more complications. We have also taken classes on restraining children, which has come in handy.
She went several weeks being angry at us and blaming us for everything going wrong in her life, which is typical behavior. Being angry at us for meeting her birth mother is fair. We could not prepare her or she would have been consumed with the meet up and unable to function in her daily life. She agrees that we did what we had to do because it was the only way to do it. We wish we could have done it differently, but we would have done it all over again if given the chance.
On the whole, it was good for our oldest. She had to admit that she was not over her original trauma. Maybe now she can actually work towards her trauma recovery. Only time will tell.
Mother of Trauma 
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