Healing for Adults Who Grew Up in Adoption or Foster Care : Positive Strategies for Overcoming Emotional Challenges

Positive and practical, this guide is designed to offer a route to recovery from grief and loss after adoption or long-term foster care. Children growing up in adoptive families or foster care often have complicated feelings about the loss of their birth parents - feelings which become all the more complex as they gain independence and become young adults, and which can endure throughout their lives. Common life events such as entering new relationships, building a family or losing a loved one can give rise to difficult questions about their own childhood and identity. In this book, Renée Wolfs provides an accessible explanation of the feelings of loss and grief commonly experienced by adults who grew up in adoptive families or foster care, and how debilitating they can be. She provides grounded advice and strategies to aid recovery and provides the reader with a useful tool: The Circle of Connecting. The Circle provides strategies for healing from loss, spanning all seven elements of your life: your body, mind, heart, environment, past, present and future. This book is essential reading for older teens and adults who need help in addressing feelings of grief and loss, as well as those who support them including adoptive and foster parents, social workers, counsellors and therapists. HEALING FOR ADULTS who grew up in ADOPTION ORFOSTER CARE: Positive Strategies for Overcoming Emotional Challenges 5 Contents 9 Foreword 13 Acknowledgements 15 Introduction 17 Chapter 1. Coping with Loss 19 Processes of change 19 What is loss? 20 Social losses 21 Physical losses 22 Psychological losses 22 What is a mourning process? 23 What themes are involved in a mourning process? 25 Denial and disbelief; recognising the loss 25 Dealing with the pain, with the chaos of feelings and thoughts 26 Asking for support from those around you 26 Getting on with your life: fatigue, gloom 27 Saying farewell 28 Keeping memories alive 28 Who am I without the one or without what I’ve lost? 29 Giving meaning as the gate to a new chapter of life 29 Giving form to a new future 30 Postponed, accumulated and complicated grief 30 Postponed grief 30 Accumulated grief 32 Complicated grief 33 Trauma 33 Three factors that influence the mourning process 35 How intensely do you experience the loss? 35 How are you coping with the loss? 36 How much support are you getting from those around you? 38 Questions 39 Knowledge questions 39 Personal questions 40 Chapter 2. Mourning the Core Loss 41 Themes of loss in long-term foster placement and adoption 41 Children 43 Denial as a method of self-protection 43 Acute mourning after placement 45 Babies and toddlers 45 Primary school age 46 Existential insecurity in foster children 47 Episodic grief during primary school age 49 Adolescents (12–24 years old) 52 Denial as a method of self-protection 53 Episodic grief during adolescence 54 Adults 57 Denial as a method of self-protection 58 Episodic grief in adulthood 59 Life losses 61 Leaving home 62 Entering a lasting relationship 62 Having a baby 63 The death of a loved one 65 Abortion 66 Unfulfilled desire to have a baby 67 Factors that hinder the mourning process 68 Diminished stress regulation 68 Insufficient basic trust 69 Postponed, accumulated and complex grieving 70 Unprocessed traumatic experiences 71 The inability to achieve closure 72 Questions 73 Knowledge questions 73 Personal questions 74 Chapter 3. The Circle of Connecting 75 Coping with Loss 75 Seven connecting themes 75 The Circle of Connecting 77 The body and body awareness: reducing stress 78 Physical exercise, daylight and nourishment 78 Body awareness/mindfulness 80 Breathing/heart coherence 81 The mind: knowing your inner beliefs and thoughts 82 The heart: making room for pain 86 The surroundings: seeking support 88 The past: searching for pieces to the puzzle 90 Gathering information 91 Giving a DNA sample 92 Making contact 93 Researching your family history 94 Participating in a family constellation 96 Writing your life story 98 Keeping memories alive 99 The present: saying farewell and giving meaning 100 1. Give the pain a symbolic form 101 2. Think up a farewell ritual 101 3. Bring the ritual to a conclusion and direct yourself to the future 103 Giving meaning 104 The Future: connecting with your own life once more 104 Questions 106 Knowledge questions 106 Personal questions 108 Chapter 4. Contact with Your Birth Family 109 Mourning what is (not) 109 Contact during childhood 111 Foster children 112 Adopted children 117 The first (renewed) contact during adulthood 120 Common feelings of loss after the first contact 121 Confusion 122 Fear of rejection 124 Guilt 125 Anger 126 Sadness 128 Depression 130 Coping with rejection 131 Prepare yourself well 131 Express your anger 132 Try to determine the reason for the rejection 132 Look for other family members or people associated with the family 134 Make sure that you have sufficient support 134 Making sense of your experience 134 Looking back 135 Reflecting 135 Continued contact in adulthood 136 Feelings of loss 137 The Circle of Connecting 140 Questions 143 Knowledge questions 143 Personal questions 144 Appendix: Values 145 Bibliography 150 Further Reading 152 Endnotes 155 Index 158