Adoption Anger

Let’s start with some terminology.

Wikipedia says: “Anger or wrath is an intense expression of emotion. It involves a strong uncomfortable and hostile response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat.[1] …Anger is seen as a supportive mechanism to show a person that something is wrong and requires changing. “

Wikipedia defines Adoption as: a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person’s biological or legal parent or parents, and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from the biological parent or parents.

From these definitions, we can surmise that adoption anger is the hurt or resentment arising from the state of being adopted or from the circumstances that complicate an adoptees quality of life.  To truly grasp how adoption anger affects adoptees let’s look at some real life examples. (The stories are true but the identifying information has been altered.)

It’s your adopted child’s, Susie, birthday party. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins are invited for a celebration.  Streamers in Susie’s favorite colors are strung across the dining room walls. Glitter blankets the surface of the table. On the buffet is a butter cream frosted red velvet layer cake from the best bakery in town. To make the birthday celebration even more perfect, you’ve purchased the computer game you’d told Susie was too expensive.  You can’t wait to see her face as she tears off the wrap. You’ve planned the perfect party for the precious child you waited so long to call your own. Except you hadn’t planned on your child waking up sullen and surly on this blessed day. At breakfast, Susie wouldn’t eat the mini rainbow birthday waffles. She even refused to laugh at your husband’s off key rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’.  When the guests arrived and greeted Susie with warm hugs, she stormed off to play with Fido in the yard. As your husband began to light the seven candles on the cake with his Bic lighter, Susie burst into tears and ran to her room. She could be heard howling: “I want to see my other mommy on my birthday too. Why isn’t she here?”

That’s adoption anger.

The holidays are approaching and Amanda has located her birth sister through a social media site.  Anxious to get to know her half-sibling, as well as her birth mother who live together locally, Amanda pushes for a meeting.  After some wrangling, they agree on a coffee shop at a nearby shopping mall. Amanda’s birth mom does not greet her with the enveloping hug she’d imagined, nor does she remove her sunglasses for the entire visit. What’s more, the birth sister does all the talking. Amanda comes away from the encounter with more questions than answers. Beginning on Christmas Eve, Amanda checks her phone for some kind of greeting from her new birth relatives. As Christmas Day closes out, Amanda hasn’t received a text, an email, or a phone call from either her birth mom or her sister.  Secretly she’d hope for at least that. In the days that follow, Amanda withdraws into herself, spends hours alone in her room, and naps all day. As New Year’s Eve approaches Amanda barely responds to her adoptive family. If spoken to, she provokes arguments. She avoids her friends, cancels dates with her boyfriend, and contemplates hurting herself.

That is adoption anger.

Sam has been having multiple health issues that his doctor has been unable to pinpoint. His wife encourages him to look into his adoption background.  After much badgering he contacts the agency that facilitated his adoption. Sam learns that the state in which he lives has not updated their adoption statutes; consequently, he does not have access to his original birth record. His only option is to pay a hefty fee and hire a post adoption social worker to contact his birth parents on his behalf. Sam learns that his birth father died years ago from a mysterious extended illness. Months pass without any word from his birth mother.  While Sam waits for DNA matching on an ancestry site, he undergoes exploratory surgery for his continued poor health. If his adoption had been facilitated in a different state, Sam could have had direct access to his birth family and their medical history. Sam believes that if he’d been allowed contact with his birth relatives earlier in life, his health outlook would be brighter. Sam has unresolved adoption anger.

My examples highlight how adoption anger manifests itself differently depending on an adoptee’s situation and age.  The nut of it is this: adoption anger is about feeling powerless in regards to having been placed for adoption. It is about the restricted access to information concerning family history and medical background.  It is about the wants and needs of an adoptee in terms of relationships and the subsequent inability to achieve those goals. Adoption anger is best addressed by a professional, someone adept in assisting the adoptee cope with the loss, rejection and belonging issues inherent in adoption. Improved communication between the adoption triad: the adoptive and birth families, and the adoptee is integral. Education about the divergent perspectives of each of these players is another necessary step in healing adoption anger.  

As an adult adoptee, I will offer that many of us spend an entire lifetime trying to determine why ‘adoption’ happened to us. The process of learning who we are, where we came from, and why we were adopted can consume our conscious and subconscious minds, thereby inhibiting appropriate social responses. If you are not a health care professional, knowing how to assist an adoptee struggling with issues of: identity, belonging, loss, anger, rejection can be daunting. Think of it this way: if you have both your legs, you cannot truly understand what it is like for an amputee to learn how to walk.  If you are on the outside of adoption, my best advice is first not to judge, and second not to assume that you can fully comprehend what an adoptee thinks or feels. Instead, be a good listener, be compassionate, and help them seek answers.

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