[Phenyx]

Attachment Disorder? Could that possibly explain the living hell I've been through all my life? But which abandonment did it come from? I've known my adoption story for as long as I can remember and it always made me feel like I was some sort of object that got passed around from womb to hospital to foster care to adoptive parents who probably should never have been allowed to adopt children in the first place. But I'm skipping ahead.

I'm 37 now but I was born in Los Angeles to a young unwed co-ed as a result of her having gotten drunk at a party. From what little non-identifying information I've been able to squeeze out of LA county, her decision to give me up wasn't an easy one and I was placed in foster care a week after I was born while she made up her mind. She decided to give me up.

I stayed in the foster home for 5 weeks and, at 6 weeks, I was adopted by the people who call themselves my parents. I'm told that the summer before I turned 2, my parents went on vacation to Hawaii for 2 months and left me with a stranger. When they they left I'm told I screamed and cried for days. When they returened and the babysitter left, I'm told I again screamed and cried for days.

6 months later, they adopted my little brother. My mother tells me I asked her at one point, "when can we take him back?"

In elementary school, I was bullied horrifically, not just by one or two kids but by all of them. I was like the little omega monkey that all the other monkeys torment and terrorize. My parents never protected me: whenever I told them what was going on I was told "you have to fight your own battles". I was sexually and physically harrassed, physically assaulted, verbally abused almost ever day between 2nd and 5th grade but no batter how bad it got, I was told to fight my own battles.

One day, 10-15 of these kids chased me home in a mob screaming that they were going to kill me. I was literally running for my life. My parents claim I never told them about this. I don't remember if I did or not, but it probably wouldn't have done any good.

I spent a great deal of high school passively contemplating suicide because I had almost no friends. I tried to talk to my Mom but she was addicted to some stupid radio shrink named Tony Grant and would only talk to me during commercials. Not only that but she was verbally, emotionally and psychologically abusive. I remember when I was little, whenever we went into a store with breakable items she'd always tell me that if I broke anything she'd walk away and pretend she didn't know me. It wasn't until a few days ago that I realized this was a threat of abandonment.

When I went away to college, they decided that my first month away from home was a good time for them to take a month-long trip to Europe. I spent my college years, and many years following binge-drinking way too much alcohol and sleeping with way too many men. I fell in love at the drop of a hat. Looking back, I find it amazing as all get out that I never developed a more serious addiction problem. I dropped out of college with only 3 semesters to go before graduation.

Like my birth mother, I too became pregnant in my early 20's. Thank the goddess I had the sense to realize at the time that I was way too messed up to handle parenthood. Because of my experiences with my adoptive parents the idea of giving up a child to adoption was horrifying and terrifying. If my own parents were approved by an adoption agency how could I trust that my baby would go to decent parents? I hated myself for having the abortion but it was far more palatable to me to entrust my child to a god and goddess I loved and revered rather than to abandon my baby to the same system that had abandoned me to my parents. A great deal of my rage over the years has been focused on the agency that allowed those people to take me home.

My fist marriage was horribly abusive but whenever I wanted to come home, my mother told me I couldn't because she "didn't want to get in the middle" yet she welcomed my [then] husband to come to their home every time we had a fight. 3 weeks before my wedding to this horrible man, I had a near-fatal allergic reaction to penicillin. Were my parents there visiting me in the hospital? No, they were in Europe...again.

Finally, 5 years ago I met my current husband and my tenure in hell finally ended. This wonderful man has provided the first stable, loving and safe environment I've ever known and within that environment I've finally been able to heal. He's a very nurturing man and he instinctively understood that in many ways, I needed to be reparented. He gave me healthy boundaries, loves me unconditionally and no matter how hard I tried to destroy the relationship, he wouldn't leave me. Finally I'd found someone whose will was stronger than mine and in that realization I finally felt safe enough to start letting my guard down. When I finally realized he wasn't going to abandon me no matter what I did, the healing process began.

We married in 2001 and we now have a beautiful 2 year-old daughter with whom I've been able to form a healthy, strong secure attachment. She has been so healing for me. With my current husband's unconditional love and support I've also been able to form healthy attachments to and friendships with other people for the first time in my life. I even returned to school and just last week finished my Bachelor's degree. I'm still healing myself and I've recently begun trying to set healthy boundaries with both my parents. But I know I'll never be able to trust them.

My first question is how to heal the relationship with my older child. He's 10 and he was born during my first horrific marriage and I know I was way too messed up at that time to give him the safety and security he needed and now he's showing almost all the signs of RAD himself (he's been diagnosed with ADHD but now I wonder). I feel horrible about what he went through as a toddler and young child but I'm trying hard to love and forgive myself regardless.

My second question involves those people who think themselves my parents. My mother's abuse and my father's neglect continue to this day. Both of them are passive-aggressive and refuse to take any responsibility whatsoever for the crap that they put me through and they continue their attempts to manipulate me into thinking that everything that's ever happened to me was my fault for being "different". I don't want my kids to be hurt and I don't trust my parents to not pull the same crap on them. Am I justified in cutting off all contact with these people to protect myself and my children from harm?

[Richard Justin]

Phenyx-
THe story of your early life is heart-wrenching. How wonderful that you have found a person who gives you love, security, and support. I hope those gifts remain yours for the rest of your life.

I hope you will consider getting professional help to help you and your son heal your relationship. If you can find a counselor or therapist that both you and your son are comfortable with, great strides are possible in dealing with his growing anger or frustration. At 10 years old, he's an angry child. But any time now puberty will begin and could compound his problems. Start working with him right away, and see it through for as long as it takes. Your commitment to him as he struggles with his feelings will become a positive memory for him to take into adulthood. It may not be possible to resolve all his issues, but he can learn coping skills and he can learn to see you as a key support person in his life.

Regarding your parents... In my opinion, the issue is not whether you continue to have contact with them or not. The issue is finding healing for yourself for all the suffering you endured. If you can find emotional and psychological healing, with it will come the strength to deal with your parents. The decision about the type of relationship you want to have with them should come as part of the closure that healing will bring. Your decision should be one that helps close the books on the past, not one that becomes just another chapter of the struggle.

I guess I should explain that I am an adoptive father of siblings who came to our home at ages nine and six as foster children. We adopted them three years later. They were also victims of abuse and neglect. We spent many years in counseling with them so that we could learn how to help them and they could learn to deal with their past and move on in life. It wasn't quick and it wasn't easy, and results were mixed, but now in their mid thirties they are still family and are appreciative of all the efforts we all made during their youth.

I am also a birth father and needed years of counseling to over-come the character flaws of deceit and cowardice, and to resolve the feelings of guilt for abandoning the woman I loved because of my fear of facing an unplanned pregnancy. (We, too, were college students.) So my recommendations of counseling are based on the positive experiences I had for myself and for my children. By the way, I'm in reunion with my son for four years now, and that has completed my personal healing.

I wish you and your husband much joy and happiness, as well as the strength and commitment to successfully deal with all that is before you.

Rich

[Dr. Art]

It would be best for you to talk with a competant licensed mental health professional who has experience in these issues. You can find someone on the list of Registered Clinicians at ATTACh

good luck