Adoption: Our Journey Toward Mental Health
I have learned that this is a taboo subject. Admitting to mental health issues is like admitting to having leprosy. It is “contagious and incurable.” People don’t want to talk about it.
“Can we just clean it up, please?” The pain in her pleading was palpable. She wanted it all to go away, any evidence of her mistake to be neatly swept up into the broom tray and dumped in the trash. As her mother, my heart hurt for her — more than for the loss of my plate. Oh how I wished we could piece them all together again, but the broken shards remained.
I stood reflective of my own response to life. I don’t want others to see the mess scattered on the floor, and would love for it to just go away, or be swept up. “Hurry, before anyone sees!” But I fail. Broken, time and again, I am left repeatedly with the broom and tray in hand, mind racing, tears falling, hoping this time I can figure how to pick it all up.
The pleading with myself, professionals, and God goes on with minimal progress. It’s not going to be as easy as that. It seems that every day I stand over the pieces on the floor, sigh, sweep, dump, and try again, all the while hoping to figure it out so that next time I can stop it from happening again.
I have come to realize there is no quick-fix solution to our family’s emotional and mental health. Like it or not, the shards of our own lives, and the lives of my children before they came home, hide in the nooks and crannies, and poke us when we least expect it.
Step 1: Recognizing The Problem
“Do I need a Bandaid?” Sometimes she can’t articulate what she needs. “I don’t know. Do you think you need a Bandaid?” Looking intently at me and then her finger, she squeezes it, and watches a dollop of blood pool to the top. Shrugging her shoulders she replies in a haphazard way, “It’s bleeding.”
And that it is. I watch as she looks to me for direction. As her mother, I should know. “Well, why don’t we get you one then.” With some pep to her step, Naomi bolts in the direction of the First Aid cabinet that she’s already neatly organized.
What is the correct response to my child’s pain, and the evidence of injury? That is what stumps me most. I tend to minimize the fallout of tough situations. It seems that most things in life can be handled this way.
Perhaps it was my childhood that taught me this response. The day never had enough hours in it, my body never enough energy or resources to resolve the deep-seeded issues. So I stuffed them down, hoping to be able to survive whatever came next. That’s all I had time and energy for. It seemed to work.
And that is how I parented. “It’s not that bad!” “Where’s the blood?” as if that is the stark determiner for severity. Then came the denial. “I wouldn’t use a Band-aid even if my arm was falling off!” Okay, maybe a little steep, but you get the point.
Step 2: Learning to Face the Brokenness
Ashamed, embarrassed, afraid impending criticism we hide. Talking about it would only make it worse. In the midst of this denial, my children and I suffered. Without meaning to, I communicated the same destructive patterns I had learned. Don’t talk about it. We’ll pretend, put a smile on our faces, not make anyone feel uncomfortable, and it will all go away. Reality check — it didn’t.
Handling it in this way gave me an excuse not to handle it at all. “We won’t look at that, talk about that. It’s your story and no one else’s.” My words communicated shame. Some things are just too ugly to face, so it’s best if we glance every now and again, and then just look away.
Problem is, issues don’t get resolved when we close our eyes and ears to them. They don’t disappear. When we refuse to muster the regime to come alongside us, we stand alone to face it all.
And those shards? They lie in wait, hiding, ready to poke us when we least expect them to. We shove the mess away instead of cleaning it up, it grows, collects, and eventually spills over.
On Your Mark...
I think about when we took the first steps toward building a family. When we started conversation about adopting, people came out of the woodwork, people we had known for some time but never knew this intimate piece about them. It was neatly tucked away.
We pursued these relationships, though. Desperate for any information we could get our hands on, we engaged with the people who were willing to share with us. Oh, how we held onto to their every word!
Then we broached the topic of infertility. We asked our teacher’s union about expanding district health care coverage for treatment and were told, in hushed tone, “Well, this is really just your own personal problem, right? Is it fair to expect everyone else to pay for it?” We were devastated, embarrassed, alone.
10% of couples are affected by infertility. It was a silent club, though. Hardly anybody wanted to talk about it and no one was interested in advocating on their own behalf.
As we began navigating our way through this valley, again I felt the familiar pain of solitude, depleted of energy and sound reason. Barely hanging on. But people didn’t come out of the woodwork this time. They stayed hidden, crouched behind whatever battles they themselves were facing. I didn’t blame them. The shame is crippling.
Get Set...
Wading through this grief and loss, we moved forward with our plans to adopt. Hopeful with steps we were able to take to build our family, we kept both burners going at the same time. We went to doctor visits some days, and licensing classes on the others. It became a fine skill of juggling. Just trying to figure out which hat we were wearing each day became quite the task.
As we thought about the children we would adopt, we were hopeful. Being two pretty resourceful people we believed we could handle anything they threw at us. We had become quite adept at portraying ourselves as a healthy and put together couple, ready to take on the world. Loss, yep, been there, done that. Struggles, had them, dealt with them, moved on.
Little did they know of the silent storm that continued to brew below the surface. Wanting to maintain the facade, we never shared, and no one even dared to ask.
GO!
In time, we brought home our children, one by one, aloof to the reality of the brokenness that surrounds adoption. In classes, they tried to talk with us about it, about how the children would be dealing with grief and loss. But they shied away from talking about the deep-down battles that led us all to this graveyard of shattered dreams.
Birth families are dealing with issues too big for them to control. In pain and exhaustion, they turn toward adoption. Sometimes addiction and dependency push them into corners. Their decision to consider placing their child in another home is rooted in feelings of helplessness and despair of what is, coupled with a hope for what might be.
And just below the surface of calculated thought, mental health issues circulate and rear their heads in many forms, but we turn our eyes, often oblivious to the signs. At least there are couples waiting.
That we were. Broken ourselves, waiting to be made whole. A family. We were ready to bring home that baby, whoever he/she may be, whatever the situation they came from, because we wanted so desperately to be parents. Afraid to narrow our options, constantly aware of other people’s opinions when we did, we were “willing to consider” much of anything that came to us neatly packaged as an infant.
Step 3: Admitting Mental Health Issues
Little did we know that we would be faced with things far too big for us to handle alone. Anxiety, PTSD, Depression, ADHD, Bipolar — we had no idea what we were taking on. Judith Wurtman, Ph.D. eloquently details thoughts from her friend who explains mental illness as being The Non-Casserole Disease. And that it is. When we found ourselves in the middle of this mess, shards and splinters scattered across the tiled floor, we froze. We thought we were ready for this! In just a few years we came face to face with our frail human form.
I have learned that this is a taboo subject. Admitting to mental health issues is like admitting to having leprosy. It is “contagious and incurable.” People don’t want to talk about it. Lives are shattered because of it. We hide our struggles hoping the “emotions” will just blow over so we can move onto the next thing. “I’m not injured, coach. Don’t take me out!” as we limp down the court, barely able to function, let alone compete. We hope that others are too focused on the game to notice.
We have become adept at hiding the evidence of human mistake. Ashamed, embarrassed. I too just wanted it to go away. Maybe this will just blow over with time. But brokenness does not resolve itself. It’s messy, and is loaded with potential threat, more of it growing with each passing day.
It is with expressed consent that this story is being told. Lydia has read it, and given me permission to post. She wants to be known and understood, and hopes that it will help others who find themselves in similar circumstance.