Adoption Issues
Introduction
If you're currently facing questions and unresolved feelings toward an absence of birthparents or cultural history, it's important that you reconcile these emotions so that you can find acceptance within yourself and hold a deeper understanding of who you are and where you came from.
Adoption will create a range of emotions pertaining to your culture and the inability to understand what's happened between you and your birth family. These concerns are common for teenagers who feel different from the rest of kids or children who are stuck wondering why they were put up for adoption. The list of questions you have in regards to your birth parents might feel endless. There isn't anything wrong with this confusion and the best way to deal with it is by obtaining professional help. Counseling will help you understand how to discover your cultural identity and support the mixed feelings you might have toward family related circumstances.
When Adoption Issues become Unhealthy
Part of creating an identity happens during childhood and your current feelings could be the result of an inability to develop completely when you were an adolescent. You might be questioning who your birthparents are, your genetics and family history. You might be wondering whether or not you developed any behavior habits or conditions from your birth family. If you have been acting out toward this confusion it could be due to the fact that you simply don't know where you came from. Questioning an adoption and who you are will take a toll on other elements of your life such as your education and new potential relationships. By first understanding that you are not alone and that people care about your wellbeing, you'll find that there are ways to come to a closure and understand your childhood. Counseling helps you realize that the past does not define you – the decisions that you make now and how you respond to life is what ultimately identifies who you are.
How Adoption Issues Affect the Family
Adopting a child is a life altering event that can change the identities of the new parties just as much as the families involved. At times, adoptive parents need time to adjust to the role of being a mother or father. They may worry about living up to a maternal or parental standard for the child. For some it can be hard to trust maternal or paternal instinct if the adoption is the family's first baby. It's common that people worry about the child being happy with them as they grow older. Fortunately, these doubts will go away as the parent and child start bonding. It's a good thing that this worry occurs because it means that you care, although it can still be a stressful process as the child grows older and has more questions about their birth family. If you stress about whether or not you're going to live up to your child's standards, try to focus this nervous energy on getting to know them more and it will help to eliminate this fear.
If as the child, adoption issues continue to affect you as an adult and you feel that it is putting a burden on the relationships that you're in, the physiological scars have yet to heal. Although you are older you may still have some invalid expectations within relationships because of what you learned as a child. Although it isn't intentional, you might be recreating patterns of a behavior that you were exposed to which is why you distrust others or question relationships. If you have a fear of being rejected or abandoned, even within a safe environment, you can learn how to beat this feeling by resolving the questions you still have.
How Therapy can Help
Not being able to move past these circumstances means that you are making the right decision in approaching this issue so that you can find closure. Counseling is going to make you aware of who you are by guiding you throughout this journey and help you examine the past and present. You are in control of what is happening now and in the future. Growing into an adult you have the freedom to do and be whoever you choose. You can create a family of your own that functions much differently than the family that you grew up with. The therapist will help you get rid of any anger or grudges if you have them toward birth parents who you feel have abandoned you. There are many people who have the same contemplations and are also in need of closure. Therapy will help by clarifying feelings and releasing them from you so that you can come to an acceptance. You'll learn about the process of containment and how to find a resolution to these questions. The counselor integrates the experience and shows you that there is a way to create a bright future by building trusting relationships with people who care about you and the past, which has made you who you are today.
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