The title Journey of the Adopted Self, came out of my musing about why many adoptees say they feel alienated, unreal, unborn, and that they have no self.
Of course, like everyone, adoptees have a self, but it is an adopted self. If we were to draw it, we would have a collage of the trauma of motherloss, submerged under feelings of abandonment, unresolved grief, explosive rage, and powerlessness. Adoptees aren’t aware of this arsenal of emotions they carry within because they have of necessity split off their feelings in order to fit into their adoptive family. They have grown up as if blindfolded, not able to see anyone who reflects back their body image or genetic characteristics.
The journey that adoptees take is in quest of the real self that has eluded them. I define the real self as Karen Horney did, as the alive, unique , personal center of ourselves that wants to grow. When the real self is prevented from free, healthy growth because of abandoning its needs to others, one can become alienated from it.
Part 1, "The Self in Crisis," follows the vulnerable adopted child who must disavow his need to know about his origins and his grief over losing his mother. He forms an Artificial Self (the Good Adoptee) to comply with what the adoptive parents need him to be, or the Forbidden Self, (the Bad Adoptee) who acts out in anti-social and self destructive ways. In adolescence, many adoptees become stuck in the life cycle, as they do not have the concrete facts and information they need to form a coherent self. They ask: Who do I look like? What religion and nationality am I? Why was I given up? But there is no one to answer. Adult adoptees discover that the psychological defenses they devised as children faced with these mysteries do not work in adulthood. In fact, they may backfire as the adoptee struggles with problems around low self esteem, fear of intimacy, and the need for control.
Part II, "The Self In Search," follows adoptees on the slow, laborious process of awakening to much that has lain repressed in them and on the beginning of the search for the missing parts of their narrative. Adoptees alternate between feeling like a traitor to their adoptive parents, fear of rejection by the birth mother, and fear of annihilation. Between great expectations of who they will find and fear of disappointment.
I describe the regression adoptees undergo as they make their "pilgrimage to the womb." They become two people: the adult adoptee who returns, and the needy baby who was left behind, as they move toward two mothers: the fantasy ghost mother, frozen in time, and the actual mother, who has gone on without them in the real world.
Journey of the Adopted Self explores what happens when adoptees cross over into what I call The Ghost Kingdom, that Alternate Reality of what might have been. One meets ghosts that have gone on to their own destinies. A bewildering array of new characters materialize. The old reality no longer holds. For a while adoptees may feel more fragmented than before.
Formulating the life cycle of the adopted self took me into the trauma field. It helped me understand why it is so difficult for adoptees and birth mothers to make their way back to each other. .Both are overwhelmed by the unresolved grief that has traumatized them. No matter how positive the reunion, there is a psychological price paid by both parties. Not the least is what is known as "genetic sexual attraction," that riptide that some adoptees, birth parents, and siblings get caught up in. It can happen when family members have been separated for many years.
Part III, "The Self In Transformation" describes the shock adoptees feel when they realize that finding the birth mother or birth father does not render them whole. The high peaks of transformation still lie ahead. In order to scale them, adoptees have to find a way to heal the split in the divided self. They must weave a new self narrative out of the fragments of what was, what might have been, and what is. They must integrate their two selves: the regressed baby who was abandoned and the adult that baby has become. So, too, they must integrate the ghost mother and the actual birth mother into one composite woman. And integrate the adoptive mother, the one they once resisted, with the one they can now claim.
After reunion, no matter its outcome, most adoptees feel a sense of grounding and renewal. Some may go into therapy to understand what they are experiencing. Others join support groups where they can share their feelings. Some find self expression in writing, painting, or theater. Some find God.
One learns that reunion is not just one meeting, but a lifetime process. It may not be possible for the self to ever be completely whole, but adoptees feel a sense of wholeness after learning how they came into the world and after meeting birth family members who share their genes and ancestral history.
