As an adult adoptee, you may be grappling with big, existential questions about where you come from and who you are. Perhaps a recent event—such as a death or a reunion—has caused you to reconsider your relationships. Or maybe you’ve always struggled with the lingering sense that you don’t belong or are somehow unworthy of love. If you’re embarking upon a transitional period of your life, like having a child, you may have noticed new questions coming up about where you come from.
Maybe you’ve developed negative self-talk or a harsh inner critic as a result of the inner conflict you feel. Confusion surrounding your identity may have led to an onset of anxiety or depression, which can include intense feelings of fear and hopelessness. Or maybe you consistently feel misunderstood and as though you don’t have a place in this world.
It’s understandable if your experiences with your identity have kept you from forging connections that feel safe, healthy, and fulfilling. Perhaps you have a hard time maintaining intimate relationships or struggle with issues of abandonment and insecurity. You may not fully trust or feel nurtured by others because you have a hard time believing you’re worthy. And it’s possible you are aware of the attachment trauma you endured as an infant or young child.
No matter your age or background, your sense of self is tremendously impacted by your roots. And if you’re adopted, you are likely to spend ample time and energy imagining who your birth family is and where you come from.
All you want is to make sense of your identity and your origins so that you can move forward with your life.
FORTUNATELY, WE CAN PAIR YOU WITH AN ADOPTION COMPETENT THERAPIST WHO WILL HELP YOU UNDERSTAND, NORMALIZE, AND PROCESS YOUR EXPERIENCE.
If you’re looking for post-adoption counseling and community as an adoptee, you are not alone. Even the most successful adoption stories involve emotional wounds. That’s why it’s important to find neutral, third-party support from someone who can offer healing perspective.
No matter the circumstances, adoption stories are grief stories. After all, the connection to your roots has been compromised or lost altogether, and you may feel as though you’ve been in a fog all these years trying to understand what exactly you’ve been mourning. As you grow into adulthood, you are likely to grapple with many uncomfortable feelings and realizations that cause you to feel sad, angry, and isolated—all common symptoms of grief and loss.
But it’s important to remember that adoption is not just a temporary experience; it’s an experience that lasts a lifetime. And just as every parent goes on a different journey when it comes to raising children, every adoptee has a different story.
You may have grown up with adoptive parents who supported your curiosity about your family of origin, or perhaps you were raised in an adoptive family that discouraged you from asking questions about where you came from. Not to mention, the grief and trauma you experienced upon being separated from your birth parents probably took place before you could talk or name emotions, making it even harder to put your feelings into words.
Far beyond any cognitive awareness, the trauma felt by a newborn or infant separated from their biological parents is stored deep within the body’s cells. This trauma often manifests throughout childhood and into adulthood as depression, anxiety, and other mental health hurdles. In therapy, you can finally process these pre-verbal experiences to find a greater sense of peace.
Our team has adoption-competent therapists on staff who are trained to validate your trauma and range of emotions without judgment or expectation. We understand the unique trauma you face, and we want to help you process it. Together, we can tackle even the scariest truths to relieve you of your pain.
At Mental Health Counseling Source, therapy is an opportunity to express your deepest emotions, fears, dreams, and hopes. Your insights are the pathway to a new understanding of your pain, your experiences, and the hopes you have for the future.
We want therapy to be a joyful, enlightening exploration where you are free to express yourself in a way that feels right to you. Talk therapy can help you uncover a new perspective.
Our approach draws from both trauma-informed and solution-focused methods to help clients understand how unconscious thinking patterns and behaviors contribute to emotional distress. This element of psychoeducation will help you to understand the role of attachment injury in adoption and allow you to begin processing pre-verbal emotions.
By learning more about your early experiences and identifying how adoption has impacted your life, you can better understand the thoughts, feelings, and triggers keeping you caught in a cycle of isolation and shame. We can also identify creative outlets for exploring the unknown aspects of your past and honoring feelings of loss.
The insights you gain through therapy will allow you to live in accordance with your most profound strengths and deepest values. You will also learn skills for managing stress, strengthening communication, and developing your bonds. Your adoption story is an essential aspect of who you are, and counseling can pave the way to a new self-understanding.
At Mental Health Counseling Source, some of our therapists are adoptees themselves or have come from families who have been shaped by adoption. We know from personal and professional experience that you can establish a sense of worthiness and belonging, and we are specially trained to work with this unique form of trauma.
With the support we offer in post-adoption counseling, you will learn to manage your emotions and start to feel whole again.
Oftentimes, the root cause of your struggle is something that may not even be a conscious memory. Therapy can help you get to the core of the issue and heal the parts that are broken as a result of adoption. Our time together won’t be spent talking in circles about your challenges but rather following a customized therapeutic plan that promotes your healing and progress. We will incorporate calming techniques and nonverbal approaches as needed.
Reunion is more than just the moment you meet your birth family—it is the beginning of a new thread being weaved between two families. A lot of tension has built up to this moment, and the reunion probably challenged your expectations and emotions in some way. What’s more, the emotional hurdles you’ve had (and continue to have) are likely related to your adoption story.
Navigating any part of a reunion can have its ups and downs, and we are here to support you wherever you are on your journey.
Having an open dialogue about your adoption experience from the get-go is great, but it will never negate the underlying feelings of abandonment you experienced as an infant. Even if you were adopted at birth, you spent nine months building a physical and emotional attachment to your biological mother. A sudden rupture in that relationship is deeply challenging for an infant, especially without the ability to fully understand or express emotions.
Post-adoption therapy that is both individualized and trauma-informed can help you unlock the unconscious pre-verbal emotions that you may not even know you needed to express, and this process can be extremely liberating.
STILL HAVE QUESTIONS?
Our administrative assistant can answer your questions and match you with the best therapist for your needs.
If you have any billing, scheduling or log-in questions or any other inquiry, contact us here.
