Why Adoption is Traumatizing Even At Birth

Hi Everyone! In this video, I describe three theories as to why so many of my teenage clients were adopted at birth.

My favorite books to learn more about adoption trauma and raising teenagers:

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Welcome! I am a licensed psychotherapist and adolescent expert. While some things I share may apply to all ages, most of my videos are about adolescent mental health. Keep in mind these are very brief videos only skimming the top of complex issues.
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The information available on and through this channel is presented in summary form as a supplement to, and NOT a substitute for, the knowledge, skill, and judgment of qualified psychiatrists, psychologists, physicians and health care professionals.
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I am licensed in California (Lic. 92416) and Texas (Lic. 203939).
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[fluffysox]

It’s a wound that never heals. I just met my birth family over the summer, and I’ve never felt more alienated. My parents had other children who they kept, but I was the throw away. There are no photos of me in their homes, and no room left for any. It just reminds me that I am an outsider in the places that I was supposed to belong. And I always will be. What’s done is done and there’s no going back.

[SandyTheDesertFox]

As someone with a friend who is adopted i appreciate this video. Adopted people should be allowed more space to feel and understand their emotions instead of being dismissed as ungrateful or bad kids...

[Jessica-Jasmine-Green]

Remember, we also need to grieve the loss of our identity, name, and ethnic heritage

[TheCatnipCinema]

I overheard a conversation of a colleague saying they want to adopt, because children do not need a father and all the child needs is love and to be saved. I ended that shit immediately!! I said there's no being saved, and if you adopt a child with the expectation they will be grateful and that you're saving them, you'll be royally disappointed. Another colleague said "that's just your experience. That doesn't define everyone's experience." Well what about my four adopted siblings?? What about all the adoption statistics? What about the 40% suicide rate? Made me livid.

[sophietrethewey]

As an adopted at birth child this is absolutely correct for me anyway. Thank you for sharing. Most people tell us how we ''should'' feel, which is wrong.

[jenmatthews]

Any time you separate a baby from it's mother, it causes trauma.

[yorkshirecoastadventures]

I'm an adoptee who has struggled mentaly all my life. I wish I'd heard your words 30 years ago.

[Tally]

I'm 42 and still trying to heal from my adoption & family trauma. I'd like to write a book, but not sure if I can. I was abandoned by my birth mother as an infant. She was on drugs, didn't want a child in the first place, and then left me to be raised by her parents - my birth mother actively estranged herself from me for my entire life. I was kept away from all of my paternal family. My maternal grandparents legally adopted. No one ever addressed how I might be feeling about the experience. Everything about my life was swept under the rug and ignored... I, like many other adoptees, was expected to be grateful for my chance at a better life. I always knew I was adopted, but I don't remember when I was actually told. My existence was like a giant game of make-believe... I referred to my birth mother my sister, and my uncle as my brother... and later two half-siblings came along that were referred to as my niece and nephew. Adoption IS trauma! I spent a great deal of my teen years wishing that I had never been born. Wish me luck with my memoir.... I'm gonna need it!

[brianjames]

As an adoptee, I appreciate your attempts to try to understand us. Keep reading.

[Jessica-Jasmine-Green]

I was taken from my mother at birth and never even held by her. I had three weeks of hospital stay, where I had no consistent primary caregiver, then handed to my adopters. It's hell.

[pinupgirl]

I was adopted at birth and have severe fear of abandonment issues 💔😢

[Matt-jonz]

every therapist i’ve had over the last 15 years has neglected to acknowledge my adoption as a source of my internal distress and feelings of emptiness. I finished reading adoption healing by joe soll yesterday and it opened my eyes to the significant amount of trauma left in my life from the adoption. i can now say i am on my path to true healing. good luck fellow adoptees if y’all need anything comment below

[NICOLHAWKINS]

It's a whole 'nother ball game when your adoptive parents lie to you and gaslight you about being adopted.

[silvercavs]

As excited & happy as adoptive parents are to, finally, become parents, let’s not forget that they could very well be full of other unprocessed feelings. Couples who found themselves grappling with infertility, may have deep, unconscious feelings of shame, disappointment, even resentment at having to get someone else’s baby. The adoptive mother also did not have 9 months of hormonal/ neurological preparation to welcome & bond strongly with an infant. Many adopted babies cry & cry, are inconsolable, making it so difficult for eager new adoptive parents to bond. At 6 days old, as part of the adoption process, my parents took me to a pediatrician, who, seeing me screaming & writhing in abject misery, declared “wow. This one has a temper!” Can you imagine how that colored my parents view of their new baby?? All these and other emotional factors affect the connection between the baby & it’s new parents. It’s truly a wonder that any of us survived…….

[james_daniels]

I’m crying watching this. My son was given up for adoption by my ex. I tried fighting to keep him and I hope he will always know that I wanted him. I spent so much money on lawyers just to be told my rights were being terminated. We planned to have a baby and then she decided she didn’t want a baby anymore and she’d be damned if I was going to get him. She’s also extremely mentally ill and can’t take care of a child so that’s the main point. I still wanted him though and I’m mentally sound to raise a child. Now the adoptive family isn’t letting me be in his life with an open adoption like my ex has because my ex doesn’t want me to be. Which is totally on the adoptive family not my ex. My ex has no rights to be making rules. I’m so upset and sad after this past year. All I wanted was to be a dad and had that ripped away from me. I worry about my son very much.

[flutterbydragonfly]

Thank you for this video. At 56 years old, I’m just realizing how my adoption, three days after birth, has affected me throughout my life.

I was given the book The Primal Wound recently after speaking with a friend about some of the issues I’ve been dealing with. She has several adopted children, and she understood what I was talking about.

As I was listening to your video, I began experiencing extremely strong feelings of uneasiness, and became nauseated to the point of nearly throwing up. I’m not sick, so I think this is some sort of a physical manifestation of pain that I’ve been holding down.

I’m just beginning this journey of understanding this and towards healing.

[MrRoberthafetz]

Infants only a few days old can record long term memories. “Infants do not think but they do process emotions and long term memories are stored as affective schemas” (Geansbauer, 2002). An infant separated from its first mother will record a memory of that event. Memories of this nature are called preverbal memory representations and they have a unique quality that must be understood by adoptive parents. “Infant memories are recalled in adulthood the same way they were recorded at the time they occurred. It is difficult, possibly impossible, for children to map newly acquired verbal skills on to existing preverbal memory representations” (Richardson, R., & Hayne, H. 2007). An older adoptee who recalls an emotional memory will experience it the same way it was felt as an infant. Adoptees can have troubling memories that they cannot identify in words. This means that they cannot understand what they are feeling and without a vocabulary they cannot even ask for help. This leads to a cognitive /emotional disconnection. “Children fail to translate their preverbal memories into language”(Simcock, Hayne, 2002).

[brianjames]

Also try to imagine that tomorrow you will wake up and all your family and connections have disappeared and you are not aloud to know anything about that for 18 years and no one will comfort you or suggest that anything is wrong with this and that it's wonderful. It may sound silly but try.

[barneytorres]

I am adopted, I am 54 years old and now struggling with my adoption. It started with the death of my Mom. I've know my biological mother from age 21. When my Mom died I turned to my biological mom and she told me I'm not your mother. Sooo painful. Now I hate her and she wants to continue to be in my life. She doesn't understand the pain I have and the feelings I have towards her.

[privateperson]

Absolutely spot on when u say " almost never is the adoption considered a contributing factor .." nor is it ever considered a contributing factor when adoptees SUICIDE !!! So much Ignorance around adoption, and head burying in sand by adults and society . Good for u for recognising this and researching !! Just because I was 10 days old at adoption does not mean it did not affect me. I hate it closed adoption with a passion, I hate the word, I hate saying the word I hate that it happened to me AND I was NOT abused by my adopters. That also is a misnomer. My adopters did not abuse me, they tried, they were not perfect but no parent is. What I wanted was family. I lost them and they lost me. I want to be best friends with MY sisters. Too late now. The closed adoption era - the baby scoop era - just horrific and disgusting. Babies are not kittens . Even Kittens get to stay with their mothers for a minimum of 6 to 8 weeks ! Babies were, and are, taken off their mothers at BIRTH and expected to not notice they are in the family of strangers. Do not pretend a child is YOURS, when in fact is is not, it is the child of another woman and man. Trading is babies is not moral or ethical - "I will do anything to have a baby" yeah right, but THINK ABT THE BABY not yourself - the baby is only a baby for a short time. I have gone through hell being closed adopted and would not wish it on my worst enemy - it is SILENTLY soul destroying.