Anger is not necessarily a negative thing, in itself. In fact, it can be utilized as a powerful force, fuel for change. Anger can incite movement, action, the serving of justice. That being said, Anger becomes dangerous when it is unleashed without direction - as violence - or allowed to fester inwardly, without expression - as depression.
Many adoptees are angry, many adoptees are depressed. I am not talking about statistics, although they are out there (see the research of Swedish KAD Tobias Hubinette). I am writing from personal experience and the accounts of others I have known.
Of the many adoptees I have known and encountered throughout my lifetime, I have not met a single one who has not felt some some sense of sadness, anger, or ambivalence about being adopted at one point or another in their lives. This shadow-side of adoption seems to appear during adolesence or young adulthood.
I can not claim to know all, and do not, but I can say with certainty that this is true, in my experience.
Why are some of us "angry"?
-Because, in many cases, our original identity was altered/erased.
Having an identity and knowledge about one's origins has to be one of the most fundamental elements to feeling a part of humanity. To erase someone's roots and identity and then to pretend they are something they are not, incites anger in many people. The problem lies perhaps not so much in adoption as in "playing pretend". Erasing someone's identity feels like a crime against humanity. And it causes anger.
-Because some of us were kidnapped.
I am hearing more and more personal accounts of (Korean) adoptees who have either found their birth families or have been found by their birth families, only to learn that they were kidnapped and brought to the orphanage without both parents' consent. This was typically done by a family member.
-Because for many of us, it felt like our entire family had died and everyone else was joyful and celebrating. What is recalled deep in our cells as a moment of loss for us is recalled only with happiness in adoptive parents. We remember the shadow-side of that happy day... And that shadow-side never quite goes away.
It would be considered absurd and perverse to expect a child who has lost her parents to death or divorce to smile and be joyful about coming into custody of her new guardians. Why is this viewed differently in the case of adoption?
When I look at very recent post-adoption pics, it is very interesting to compare the traumatized/pained/fearful/confused children's faces compared to the parents' faces. As children, we want to please our parents. If they are obviously pleased, we will want to mirror that pleasure and joy in their faces. It is not necessarily their fault that we don't grieve our losses, it is merely the nature of the situation.
We were traumatized and saddened at having lost familiar faces, smells, sights, sounds, and tastes in the matter of moments. But our parents were overjoyed at our homecoming. The two sets of emotions are incongruent. Our parents see our arrival in a happy light. We see it in penumbra and deep in our souls, will always continue to view it that way.
Judging by the lifelong childhood grief as experienced by my adoptive father at the loss of his mother in childhood, I can say that deep childhood grief and loss never competely go away. A loss is forever. My father expressed the following about having lost his mother in childhood - "I wanted to die." He was ten years old.
As a 9-month old adopted infant, I expressed my grief by staring blankly and emotionlessly for long periods of time, tearing out handfuls of my hair, incessant crying, and panicking when my mother left me in the car (to get me out on the other side).
I'm not saying that loss has to permeate our existence - I'm saying that loss is always a part of our make-up.
And loss and sadness, when denied and discounted outright, causes anger.
No one wants to see his child suffer. But it must be understood that sadness and loss are a part of adoption. Certainly not all of it, but it must be acknowledged. And the more it is allowed expression, the less of an issue it is likely to be.
Anyone claiming that drastic changes in a small child's life, such as those occuring in international adoption, could not possibly have an impact on her, need only witness the upheaval an adult experiences when trying to acclimate to a new culture and language in anothe country. Only recall that the child has limited means of expressing her inner upheaval.
(To be continued...)
