Rejection is a family issue

Today was a big day for my kiddo in family therapy. She has spent the last eight years learning about where her anxiety and depression stems from. It is obviously from her original trauma of parental abandonment. Now compound that with ten years with at least six more families falling through, she is afraid she is unloveable, that she is “too much”. All adopted kids go through this phase of testing their adoptive families, trying to prove that their new family is not going to be able to handle them at their worst and walk out on them. Well, she has had that happen at least seven times in her life. She has been testing us for eight years. It has been a long eight years.

One thing to know about adopted kids is that they have experienced at least one major rejection in their life. No matter what the circumstances might be, the child is going to take any parent leaving as a sign that they are the problem, that they are the reason for the family to fall apart. If they had been better, prettier, smarter, then maybe Dad would not have taken off, mom might not have ended up in jail or what have you. To the child, the reason they are not with a biological parent is the child’s fault. Even when they have been told that they were not the reason, a part of their mind holds this small doubt.

Now one thing you may not know about adopting is that you are going to have to deal with that feeling rejected by your adopted child. There are many ways you are going to feel rejected and unfortunately it is not anyone’s fault. There are a lot of feelings and pain that plays out in a family brought together through adoption. Your kiddo is going to have thought about their biological family so much over the years. Their entire poor self worth is because of these intrusive thoughts. They wonder what it would have been like to still be in their biological family and they are for the most part going to view this alternative reality with rose tinted glasses. The younger they were at the time of the separation, the more likely the thoughts have become more fantastical.

They are also going to compare you to every other family they know. No matter the fact that these families are biological families where they had natural growth together and you are cobbling together yours as you go. Adopted children tend to be delayed in skills and maturity due to the trauma they have experienced. This means you are going to parent them differently than their peers for better or worse depending on the issue and your child. They are also going to tell everyone about how your house runs and they are going to leave out anything that makes them look bad, like those lack of skills or emotional regulation struggles. The things that their peers are not usually struggling with will cause them to give skewed advice or thoughts to your child which will compound issues at home. Honestly, most of our family therapy has been coming up with things that both parents and children agree on, but once peers enter the chat then we become some crazy dictators in their stories. It is absolutely bizarre sometimes the things that pop up because of all the comparisons your children are constantly making. Now, add all the normal comparison stuff from kids like being envious of other kids’ toys, extra curriculars, vacations, clothes, hair care and it is a lot for any adolescent to go through when they are still trying to feel safe and secure in their home environment.

Between the fantasies and real life comparisons, your child is going to have a lot of things to become emotionally disregulated over. Even biological parents get told by their children that they wish they had different parents. But it really hurts as an adoptive parent to hear this. You put in so much extra work to not just adopt a child but to help them overcome all their obstacles, and they will just tell you they wish they were still with their bio parent.

Now, if you are a well researched and trained adoptive parent, you know that never being separated from their biological parent would have been the healthiest choice for their mental health. After living with your kid and seeing the hurt of that first trauma even years later, you wish that you could go back in time and fix it for them because you do not want your child to hurt any more. But you cannot. You are trying to help them pick up the broken pieces while being told that you are the reason for everything being so horrible. That if you never came into their life that their life would be perfect. That they would be happy if they never met you. All kids have their moments where they lash out at their parents in anger. I know I did. I even fantasized about having different parents, that my real biological parents were out there and would find me. I was raised by my biological parents, but I still dreamed.

Having your biological kids tell you they wish they had different parents hurts, but you know you most likely did the same thing in their shoes. Having an adopted kid tell you they wish they had different parents hurts, but it really hurts knowing they would hurt less if they were with different parents- their biological parents. It is an extremely difficult thing to navigate the worlds between biological and adoptive. My youngest is currently dealing with what it means to love both, even when one is currently hurting her from afar. She is having to define what family means: is it who you live with or is it who you care about? If you choose to be with one over the other does that mean you have to give up the other? These are all things she is having to navigate as she goes into adulthood. I wish I could answer these questions for her, but it is her journey to discover.

I love her. I am here. I support her. I will always love, support and be here for her. No matter how many times she rejects me.