The suicide rate of males aged 18 to 24 has trebled in the past 20 years. The suicide rate of teenage adolescent 14-19 year olds has risen by 600% over the last 25 years. Parental loss in childhood, particularly when it occurs in the first four years of life and involves the loss of both parents, leads to an increase in suicide behaviour. This increase appears to be independent of the subsequent childhood environment.
Not belongingAbandonmentHelplessnessHopelessnessFear of:FailureRejection by their familyAbuse in the family (such abuse being more common for children living with non-blood related parents).From the 1950's to the mid 1970's, tens of thousands of young single mothers were coerced into relinquishing their newborn babies for adoption by strangers. The first of this bumper crop of adoptees turned 15 just over 20 years ago; The last of them are still in the 15-24 year age group. Adopted children lose both parents early in life, even though this loss is not acknowledged by their adoptive parents and their community. Being adopted by substitute parents, no matter how good they are as parents, does not negate this loss.
Many adoptees feel that they don't belong in their adoptive families, or even that they don't belong in this world, since they didn't know anyone who looks like them. Separation from one's biological mother causes a "primal wound" and results in feelings of abandonment, loss, rejection and powerlessness.
Many adoptive parents have high expectations of the 'perfect' children they adopted (and of themselves as parents), and along with "absence of kinship" this may lead to abuse in the adoptive family. When there are both biological and adoptive children in the same family, the adopted children are more likely to suffer abuse.A Jesuit Priest, who works with homeless young people in St Kilda, said that of the 147 suicides of young people in the area over the past decade, 142 came from adoption related backgrounds. (Melbourne Age,30.6.93).We live in a society where children are treated like commodities, where people insist on their "right" to have children but give very little consideration to the rights, and/or welfare of those children. Adopted children have suffered more than most from being treated as possessions. For too long adoption has been used, not as a means of finding homes for children who have lost their parents, but as a means of procuring babies for childless couples who want to "have children".
We cannot afford to keep sweeping the problem under the carpet, pretending adoption, and the secrecy with which it has been surrounded, has not damaged countless children (and their mothers). Our children need help, otherwise more and more will end up deciding that life is not worth living.
References:The Australian 26/2/1994 (suicide trebled).Steven Greer, "Parental Loss and Attempted Suicide: A Further Report", British Journal of Psychiatry (1966), 112, pages 465-470.The Melbourne Age 30 June 1993, (142 of 147 suicides adoption related)Corinne Chilstrom, "Andrew, You Died Too Soon". (causes of suicidal behaviour, cites eminent suicidologist Edwin Shreidman's book, "Definition of Suicide").Nancy Verrier, The Primal Wound: Legacy of the Adopted Child".Marsh Riben, "Shedding Light on the Dark Side of Adoption" ('absence of kinship' may lead to more abuse in adoptive families)._________________________________________________________
Conclusion: Children in substitute care in early childhood were at particular risk for suicide death in adolescence and young adulthood. Child welfare interventions were insufficient to prevent excess deaths in children at risk.
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Psychological adjustment of adoptees in adulthood: Family environment and adoption-related correlates
Author: Levy-Shiff R. 1
Source:
International Journal of Behavioral Development, Volume 25, Number 2, 1 March 2001, pp. 97-104(8)
Publisher:
Psychology Press, part of the Taylor & Francis Groupnext article > View Table of ContentsAbstract:This longitudinal study explored psychological adjustment, evaluated in terms of self-concept and pathological symptomatology, in a nonclinical, community-based sample of adult adoptees and a matched control group of nonadoptees. Also explored was the role of adoption-related variables - age of placement of adoption, openness to adoption, and reunion with biological parents as well as family environment in predicting adjustment. Adoptees, as compared with nonadoptees, scored lower on self-concept but higher on pathological symptomatology. Likewise, they scored their families lower on all three dimensions of family environment - relationships, personal growth, and system maintenance. However, family environment variables were more predictive of adjustment in adoptees than in nonadoptees. Age of placement and openness to adoption were also associated with adoptees' adjustment.
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Adoptees and Psychological Issues
Advice columnist responds to question on why Adoptee, Dana Plato killed herself...
taken from queendom.com
Kasey Hamner answers:The following is my opinion only!
Thank you so much for your thought-provoking question. I too, was sorry to hear about Dana Plato's death. The fact that she was also adopted of course sparked my curiosity as well. I will not dare to say that being adopted caused her to abuse drugs and alcohol, only Dana herself would be able to tell us that.
I will tell that you that many adoptees feel a nagging and ongoing 'disquieting loneliness', devastating feelings of rejection, fear of abandonment, and often lead troubled lives. It has been proven that many adoptees attempt to find comfort outside themselves, wherever possible. For instance, they often turn to food at an early age, then turn to alcohol and/or drugs.
Other common traits of adoptees are depression, shoplifting, relationship difficulties, and identity problems. Depression is pretty self-explanatory. The adoptee may feel hopeless. They may feel sad for no apparent reason. Their life may be going great, but for some reason, they can't be happy about it. Many adoptees that I have spoken to say something like, "I don't know why I am so depressed all the time. I have a great job, my husband loves me, my children are well-adjusted, and I just can't let it in". Many adoptees, including Dana Plato, have problems with stealing and shoplifting.
I believe that many adoptees are reaching out for help and sometimes the only way for them to get attention is to break the law. Relationships are commonly a source of fear and pain for many adoptees. They often cannot handle the intimacy from as early as birth. For instance, they frequently have trouble bonding to their adoptive parents, and later have difficulty maintaining adult relationships with lovers. The identity problems that I am referring to are simple. Adoptees who have not yet reunited yet do not know who they look like or take after. When they see the resemblances that their adoptive family members have to each other, they feel different.
All of the above mentioned traits may lead adoptees to seek comfort in people, places, and things outside themselves. The bottom line is that they don't want to feel the pain that they may or may not even know they have. Denial is a big part of being adopted. Many adoptees will tell me that they don't mind being adopted and that they never wonder about their 'real' parents. I believe that this is humanly impossible. At one time or another in an adoptees life, I believe that they will eventually have the desire to find those that resemble them and, most importantly, to find out the circumstances of their relinquishment.Remember that everybody has a different personality and emotional life.
I have heard from many adoptees who do no agree with my position. They claim that they will never be curious about their heritage and do not feel that being adopted has affected their life in any way. My response to this is if an adoptee is not curious about the people that gave them life, then something is wrong. It does not matter whether they were raised in a happy or unhappy home, being given up by the, "people who are supposed to love you the most" has to have an effect on you.
The most important thing to remember is that the pain of being adopted never really goes away entirely. Also, trying to find comfort in outside things is futile. Healing is an inside job. No person, place or thing can take the pain away. I recommend that adoptees who are in pain seek counseling and the fellowship of a support group. Nobody understands what it is like being adopted unless you are adopted yourself. I also encourage adoptees to search for their relatives. It is a way of taking their power back. They were powerless as infants, but as adults they have the power to choose.
They can choose to search and then once reunited they can choose to have a relationship. We all have a choice. We must never forget that.Thank you for your question, I hope my response has satisfied your curiosity.
Kasey Hamner
This question was answered by by Kasey Hamner.
Kasey Hamner has a Bachelor of Art degree in Psychology, a Masters of Science degree in Counseling, a Pupil Personnel Services Credential authorizing her services as a School Psychologist, and is a Licensed Educational Psychologist. She specializes in adoption related issues including search and reunion, abandonment, self-esteem, substance abuse, depression, and relationship difficulties. Also amongst her specialties are children's issues including adoption, abandonment, ADD, special education and so on. Her approach is eclectic and is adapted to suit the individual's needs. For more information, you can visit her
compact information page on Queendom.com
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Statistics on the Effects of Adoption(copied from http://www.adoptioncrossroads.org/ginni.html)Appendix AResearch and Studies on Adoptees
The results are in; the great human experiment failed! The effects are hardly noticeable with some, but extremely so with others. Moreover, for those whom the system was supposedly designed to benefit, the children, were failed the most. Many adoptees do not realize that their difficulties, at least in part, stem from simply having been adopted.
All adoptees have effects from their adoption experience. The degree of the effects and symptomatic behaviors vary a great deal.There are vulnerabilities shared by all adoptees. In those most vulnerable, a distinct pattern of behaviors can be seen. Some have labeled this the "Adopted Child Syndrome." (Kirschner)Adopted 'children' are disproportionately represented with learning disabilities and organic brain syndrome. (Schecter and Genetic Behaviors)Mental health professionals are surprised at the alarmingly high number of their patients who are adopted.
Studies show an average of 25 to 35% of the young people in residential treatment centers are adoptees. This is 17 times the norm. (Lifton, BIRCO--Pannor and Lawrence)Adoptees are more likely to have difficulties with drug and alcohol abuse, as well as, eating disorders, attention deficit disorder, infertility, suicide and untimely pregnancies. (Young, Bohman, Mitchell, Ostroff, Ansfield, Lifton and Schecter)Adoptees are more likely to choose alternate lifestyles. (Ansfield and Lifton)Alarmingly high numbers of adoptees are sent to disciplinary/correctional schools or are locked out of their homes [adoptive]. (Anderson and Carlson)60 to 85% of the teens at Coldwater Canyon's Center For Personal Development, are adopted.
That is 30 to 40 times the norm. The center is a private acute-care psychiatric hospital/school in Southern California. (Ostroff)50 to 70% of the teens at The Haven in New Trier Township, Illinois, are adopted. That is 25 to 35 times the norm.
The Haven is a resource center for street kids. (Henderson)The secrecy in an adoptive family, and the denial that the adoptive family is different builds dysfunction into it. "... while social workers and insecure adoptive parents have structured a family relationship that is based on dishonesty, evasions and exploitation. To believe that good relationships will develop on such a foundation is psychologically unsound" (Lawrence). As John Bradshaw, the well-renowned therapist, says, "A family is only as sick as its secrets."Secrecy erects barriers to forming a healthy identity. Sealed records implicitly asks for an extreme form of denial. There is no school of psychotherapy which regards denial as a positive strategy in forming a sense of self and dealing with day-to-day realities. (Howard)Adoption is a psychological burden to the adoptee. The effect of this burden is known, but the origin is confused.
Secrecy plays a part in it, but Nancy Newton Verrier, Ph.D., sources the difficulties to the separation of the newborn from the mother. The Primal Wound is the most recent and revealing work done on the effects of adoption on the adopted. In the author's own words, "I believe that the connection established during the nine months in utero is a profound connection, and it is my hypothesis that the severing of that connection in the original separation of the adopted child from the birth mother causes a primal or narcissistic wound, which affects the adoptee's sense of Self and often manifests in a sense of loss, basic mistrust, anxiety and depression, emotional and/or behavioral problems, and difficulties in relationships with significant others (21)."
Verrier has been criticized for her work, but her response says it all, "The only people who can really judge this work, however, are those about whom it is written: the adoptees themselves. Only they, as they note their responses to what is written here, will really know in their deepest selves the validity of this work, the existence or nonexistence of the primal wound" (xvii).
Secrecy, denial, and the primal wound have all played a role in the effect adoption has on the adoptee, but there is still more. Having spent nearly eight years studying and working as a volunteer with over 1000 people affected by an adoption (nearly all adoptees and birthmothers); I have seen the effects of adoption.Humans have a basic need to feel they are individually whole, yet part of a whole. For the adopted this can be difficult.
Often adoptees feel they do not belong (Kirschner). It is very lonely and isolating to feel different from those you should feel the closest to, your family. Edin Lipinski, M.D., brings insight to these feelings:In an existential sense, the past is as important to adopted people as their future. It is the present that is most troublesome. Not knowing where they fit into the spectrum of happenings is a great problem for them.
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Adopted Canadians Face Many Hurdles
originally posted on Canadian Democratic Movment web site
www.canadiandemocraticmovement.caBy Michelle Edmunds
Who are my real parents? What is my ethnicity? Most people can answer these questions with little effort. But, if you are adopted and seek to discover who you are and where you come from, then it’s likely that you are wrestling with Ontario’s closed-adoption system, a system that locks away a person’s original identity and genetic past.
What is the psychological aftermath of losing one’s natural family and identity? For many adoptees, it can lead to severe mental anguish and confusion.
Reunited (Ontario) adoptee, Kim Adlard, knows that adoption affected her emotional well-being. “When I was a child, I would ask my adoptive father for information about my natural identity and family, and sometimes he would say he had information and other times he would say, ‘I may have information, I will tell you when you’re older.’” “Everything was surreal, she says, and I always felt disconnected from everyone.” She learned to lie and suppress her ‘real’ feelings, which led to self-hatred, then drove her to self-destructive behaviour. In 2004, she reunited with her natural family, and it was then, she says, that the self-healing began.
The Whitby Mental Health Centre in Ontario treats adoptees for various mental health problems. Clinical co-ordinator, Sandy Brown, says that adoptees represent a higher number of patients at The Centre than that of the general population. Brown wonders why medical information is not available to the adopted person. She says its’ frustrating, when adoptees can’t provide a genetic psychological or medical history, as many are diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar or depression – and it’s difficult to work with what little information they have.
In the last half-century in North America, sequestering information became the ‘norm’ in adoption. The belief was that if a family could provide a stable home and an abundance of love, that the adopted child would simply assimilate into the adoptive family’s identity and heritage – and that these attributes alone could trump any feelings of identity confusion or loss.
Subsequently, adoptees were seldom permitted to view their adoption as having a negative impact on their lives. Many were left to believe that adoption rescued them from a presumed dismal life and that adoption offered a chance at happiness and stability. What requires careful examination though, is not how prolifically a person adjusts to a closed-adoption, or how grateful an adoptee appears; rather why there is a system and law that presents children with a potential identity conundrum in the first place.
Donna Reid, a Social Worker with Central Toronto Youth Services (CTYS) has worked with adoptees aged 13-18 for seven years. The adopted youth she counsels are terrified of being abandoned emotionally. She says that the adoptees have low self-esteem, and are engaged in self-harm -- and will sabotage relationships as it gives [them] a sense of control. Many of the youth Reid treats are self-medicating with substance-use - this aids with not knowing who they are and the heightened feelings of not fitting-in anywhere in the world.
Reid often hears adoptees (especially the male adoptees) remark that they do not want to meet their natural mothers. Some adoptees view their mothers as “sexually promiscuous whores“ and will make comments such as, “If my mother had just kept her legs closed I wouldn’t be going through all this pain.”Wendy Rowney, a 36-year-old reunited adoptee, coped with the loss of her identity by separating her adoptive-self from her biological-self. It came in handy when asked as a schoolgirl to create a family tree, “I really wanted to share my ‘authentic’ ancestry, but couldn’t, so I just buried my feelings and accepted my adoptive family’s heritage as my own.” “After I reunited with my mother, feelings of sadness overcame me, as I realized then, how desperately I had always needed to know what my original identity and ethnicity had been.” Rowney always had the support of her adoptive parents around searching for her natural family. She says that although her parents would back whatever decision she made, she felt a tremendous sense of guilt and disloyalty toward her adoptive parents for merely considering a search for her natural mother.
Adoption worker, Ashleigh Martinflat, who works with Native Family and Child Services in Toronto, says that Ontario needs to “catch-up” with its adoption practices.Martinflat worked for the Ministry of Child and Family Development in British Columbia for five years, and says she has seen her share of adoptees who suicide and are dealing with addiction issues. The need to embrace one’s roots is paramount, and when pre-adoptive families showed up at the [BC ministry] wanting a child, she says that they were sent elsewhere if they expected a closed-adoption. “We would tell people that this child has its own identity – it’s own heritage, and that can’t be changed.”
The Adoption Disclosure Register (ADR) in Toronto, the government agency that reunites adoptees and natural families, can choose not to perform a search for an adoptee - the Registrar of the ADR may allege the adopted person capable of causing mental, physical, or emotional harm toward a natural parent.
The ADR will not provide an answer on how this outcome is determined. But it can, in one letter stating the risk of potential harm, leave the adoptee clinging to the thin vine of identity obscurity, pondering still, who they are, why were they left behind – and how much longer it will be before the government stops penalizing them for simply being born.
