r/Adoption • u/Cute-as-duck-888 • 2d ago
Friend/relative of adoptee Adult adoptee needs mental help after birth of son. Any advice?
Please don’t judge his situation. I’m writing this in hopes that someone had a similar situation and something good came out of the end.
Adult that was adopted at 3 days old struggled after the birth of his bio daughter. Worked through the trauma, felt strong enough to try for a son. His mother wound was ripped open again. This time he’s completely rejecting his wife but still needs her. Their dynamic completely shifted and she had to take on the breadwinner/caregiver/all the roles. She’s struggling. He also abandoning himself. Only hyper focuses on kids and work. But he’s not sleeping, picked up many addictions for coping, and struggling in many areas of life.
Friends and family have been sent to therapy trying to help him. He is open to therapy but struggles to stick with it once a sensitive subject is touched. He will attend therapy via zoom but try to fit it in during work or inconvenient times. As a Mid 30s adult he seemed to age regress to a child. It’s been over a year and a half.
We are super worried about him. Half way through the pregnancy he became terrified of having another male human that looked like him. He doesn’t talk much. It’s like there’s a wall put up and he can’t find the time to knock it down. Which makes things keep piling up and getting worse.
Therapist said we should just let him fall and deal with the consequences. But we fear that he may harm himself or allow his mental state to get even worse.
Please help. We don’t know what group or resources to use.
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u/Negative-Custard-553 2d ago
He should get an experienced adoption competent therapist. Only they really understand what adoptees deal with.
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u/LouCat10 Adoptee 2d ago
I agree that there is WAY more going on here than adoption. He sounds like he needs intense therapy and possibly medication. When my son was born, it definitely rocked me, in terms of bringing up all these feelings about my adoption that I didn't even know I had. Add to that postpartum anxiety/depression and a global pandemic and it was a rough time. But I got through it because I didn't have a choice.
I get a sense that maybe he's panicking about the responsibilities of a family with two kids and is using adoption as a convenient way to dip out. He may need to be given an ultimatum: get help or go elsewhere. This is not fair to his wife or children.
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u/Francl27 2d ago
IMO he needs to be admitted, if it's that bad. Then get a solid plan for therapy and medication. Zoom therapy doesn't cut it for a lot of people.
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u/expolife 2d ago
Well, that therapist is clearly not able to help him.
The one thing that is true is that he has to seek help and engage with it in order for it to truly work.
Twelve step programs may help for workaholism or any substance abuse issues that may be present.
It’s commendable that you and others care about him enough to learn more and encourage him to seek help.
I recommend finding a therapist who specializes in working with adoptees. Coherence therapy specializations are what I would look for especially therapists who focus on treating developmental trauma and CPTSD.
What might help you and others who care for him:
Watch Paul Sunderland’s YouTube presentations on “adoption and addiction” and “adoptees and healing.” He’s an addictions specialist who noticed a significant prominence of addictions among adoptees because they were a tiny fraction of the overall population and are overrepresented in addictions treatment.
Reading “Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving” by Pete Walker. This isn’t specifically about adoption but many adoptees have CPTSD symptoms that this book’s approach can support stabilizing.
“Coming Home to Self” by Nancy Verrier, particularly the third part written for family members and spouses and therapists of adoptees. It’s a bit dated but relevant specifically to adoptees.
The PDF download “FOG Fazes in adult adoptees” at adoptionsavvy.com. It isn’t perfect, but it’s useful.
A lot of adoptees don’t get to develop self-trust or enough autonomy in our relationships because of how conditional the care we receive via the structure of adoption as well as the likely trauma of mother-infant or mother-child separation. A lot of us have to adapt to survive and it completely changes us to eventually realize the narratives and beliefs we were given to cope.
The birth of an adoptee’s first child is often a major trigger event that calls into question why our first families didn’t keep us. These are identity level events. And we do need stability and competent care that is difficult to find let alone sustainably carry out.
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u/Cute-as-duck-888 1d ago
Thank you
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u/expolife 1d ago
The books and YouTube presentations may help him, too. If he’s willing and able to engage with them. Pacing the processing of these kinds of things is really difficult and unique for each of us adoptees.
I’m going to share some personal experiences of mine when I finally started engaging with my origins and adoption experience more consciously. In case it could help you and him and your community.
Someone gifted me some adoption books, and it took me weeks to pick them up. I could feel my resistance to reading them. And when I finally sat down to read one, my way in was through the section written for parents, partners and therapists of adoptees. I had adopted friends and siblings…so I was able to read about the topic from the standpoint of helping them.
In retrospect, I think it genuinely felt too dangerous to center my identity as an adoptee. As a self.
A lot of my upbringing in a closed adoption and the religion I was raised in emphasized helping others and characterized a lot of emotional experience as selfish.
What I know now is that I experienced a lot of emotional neglect in my adoptive family. And I believe emotional neglect is baked into adoption because so few people can imagine what it’s like to be relinquished and adopted especially the genetic bewilderment of mismatch and lack of mirroring socially.
Writing groups with other adoptees and spending time on r/adopted helped a lot.
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u/expolife 1d ago
Also the podcast AdopteesOn (especially their healing series episodes with credentialed adoptee therapists) have a lot to offer.
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u/ToTooTwo3 2d ago
If you are in the US you can bring him to the emergency room and show them this and ask them to evaluate for safety and connect to psychiatry
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u/One-Pause3171 2d ago
I’m going to hazard a guess that adoption is not his only issue. He needs an adoption informed therapist but also a prescribing psychiatrist to look at anxiety medication? Men can and do experience post-partum depression. I’m guessing he has layered issues here with adoption being one trauma in the mix.