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Open Adoption Roundtable #1: What One Thing

As per a writing prompt by the Open Adoption Bloggers ring, we’re having a roundtable discussion about open adoption. The question this week:

Looking back to the time when you were thinking about open adoption but hadn’t yet lived it out, what one thing would you tell your past self about open adoption, if you could?

The obvious answer would be to tell my twenty-two year old, knees-shaking-scared self that I would be just fine and that placement was unnecessary. However, I don’t think that’s what this question is asking. Or, rather, I will go on with the idea that this question is asking me something more than just an opportunity for a complete rewriting of history. Instead, I will go along with the idea that I can only tell my twenty-two year old, knees-shaking-scared self just one thing about open adoption.

But what one thing?

Do I point out to myself that the agency with which I am dealing is unethical? How does that change anything or make it any easier? It doesn’t. Do I point out to myself that her parents will someday divorce? That doesn’t change the fact that they remain the one and only other family I could have/would have chosen to parent my daughter. What exactly, over the past six years now, as I had surgery and contacted the agency six years ago next month, is the thing that made all the difference? The thing that, known earlier, would have been of benefit?

I would have told my twenty-two year old, knees-shaking-scared self to get my doopa into therapy. Pronto. And, knowing my twenty-two year old, knees-shaking-scared self, I would have rolled my eyes at this twenty-six year old, confident but oh-so-boring version of myself and said, “Shrinks are for weak people. I’m strong.” You know, despite the shaking knees and such.

But I believe that if I had been offered counseling or, at the very least, been counseled/instructed to find counseling of my own either prior to placement or in that whirlwind of the immediate aftermath, things could have been very different. I don’t even mean that I would have chosen to parent. I mean that certain things would have been properly addressed much earlier on, thus saving not only myself some heartache but everyone from not-so-fun things like miscommunication and not knowing what to do next.

I do believe if I would have gotten counseling in that first post-placement year, things would have been different for me. Emotionally. Physically, even. Spiritually as well. Emotionally, I would have been able to accept my grief and begin to process it earlier than I did. Physically, after the birth of my firstborn son, I might not have had a panic attack as I was overwhelmed with the guilt that I didn’t nurse the Munchkin, thus ruining the nursing relationship with my son. Spiritually, I wouldn’t have been so mad at God for so long.

Relationship wise, if I had been in therapy, I think a lot of the burden would have been taken off of my Husband’s shoulders in those first two years. He bared it gracefully, of course, as he always does… but it shouldn’t have been his burden to carry me for that long. I think, as well, that the relationship between myself and D would have been much more even and stable. In those first two years and even that first full year when I started therapy, I didn’t react as well as I should have (or do now). I sometimes took the news of things and reacted much more strongly than a situation really called for due to the pent up and unaddressed emotions that I had no idea what to do with or why they even existed. I said hurtful things. And though I always apologized (and was always forgiven), I hate that I said some of those things. I hate that I wasn’t able to properly react to situations, that I wasn’t able to treat them as I would have wanted to be treated.

Since starting therapy in those months since my first son was born, my life has changed. The fact that my anxiety disorder was addressed, treated chemically for awhile and then continuously treated with the proper techniques has changed my life in so many ways. The me of five years ago couldn’t have spoken at the National Adoption Conference. (First off, I would have only had glowing things to say if I could have opened my mouth to say them. Oh, denial.) I am stronger. I am more confident. And, yes, time and age do that as well. But being able to have a proper outlet for my fear, my anxiety, my worry, my anger, my sadness and even my joy has allowed me to properly nourish the relationships I have with other people, both inside and outside of adoption.

And so, yes, if I had to tell my twenty-two year old, knees-shaking-scared self one thing, it would be to find my therapist (because she’s so darn fabulous) immediately. She, herself, hasn’t changed my life. She has taught me, myself, how to change my life. And because of that, those around me are treated to a better, more whole me. I can’t imagine who I would be (or where I would be) if certain things wouldn’t have been addressed or my anxiety wouldn’t have been treated.

I am a better person today because I knew that I needed that help.

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