[banjo]

What I find interesting about this theory that EVERYONE over looks is the fact that the author suggests that the "wound" could apply to child and babies that are NOT adopted.

IE babies whose mother dies at birth, babies in incubators for weeks, children - for whatever reason - separated from their mothers in the first weeks, months, years etc of their lives.

I know of examples of this - next time you hear about someone who is NOT adopted but has similar issues listed in the PM ask a few questions about their first few years.

A friend told me about her brother who was a prem baby - spent at least 6 weeks in an incubator followed by the mother having a sick older sibling who was hospitalised - this was back in the 50's - and the baby did not get much of a chance to bond with his mum. She think's he's never really bonded with his mother and has MANY of the "problems" outlined in the PW...

I'm not a PW theory convert but I think more research is needed - and not just in adoptees.

I'm also soooo pleased when adoptees say that it's a load of rubbish and does not apply to them - as a birthmother - those comments give me strength that I have nto inflicted some sort of terrible trauma on my child lol Banjo.

[dl]

Missy M posted the following on the thread "New Thread" http://forums.adoption.com/showthrea...569#post391569 that does relate to what you are mentioning, IMO.

originally posted by Missy M
I will say I simply do not remember what I experienced in the womb! The smell I remember longing for was the smell I experienced long after being born, years after birth. I grew to recognize my Moms voice in time but I didn't know it before birth, nor did I know what a *voice* was, hers or otherwise. It was all noise. Its the things you experience after birth that form bonds. Mom fed me with her breast and I grew to love and expect comfort from her and her breast, BUT had she started feeidng me milk from Daddys sock, and it satisfied my hunger I could have learned to love Daddys sock. I didn't know her breast was a good thing, I learned to equate it with food. I didn't bond to her because I remembered her heartbeat, I bonded because she cared for me. I as a nurse worked with preemie's and we'd rotate every other day to prevent the babies from bonding with us. It was not my heartbeat they heard in utero, it wasn't my smell, it was simply me caring for them. The parents visited daily and they showed no more excitement at having mom present than they did at the X-ray tech.

I think the fact that the nurses rotated to prevent the child bonding to them is interesting. I wonder if the problems that some have ~ whether adopted or not ~ is not so much that they didn't bond with bmother, but that they didn't bond with ANYONE? I was in six different care situations in the first 13 months and bonded well at the two homes I was in for the longest. I also bonded well with my aparents. Perhaps if I had been deprived of bonding with anyone during the first 13 months it may have affected me differently.

I was very glad to read your words "I'm also soooo pleased when adoptees say that it's a load of rubbish and does not apply to them - as a birthmother - those comments give me strength that I have nto inflicted some sort of terrible trauma on my child lol Banjo." I have read other posts by bmothers that felt awful to think they had inflicted all this damage on their child.

[StarryNight™]

I knew I should have used another word then "rethink" maybe analyze more closely would have been better. What I was getting at was it stopped and made me go WHOA for a min. I can assure you that my husband and I will still be adopting, and most certainly are we not going to be swayed with the misdirected intentions of the author. I had typed out this long post last night debating her logic of this book. However, when I went to post it ... the forums stated I was not logged in. Dang internet explorer.

[ChristiBender]

I am an adult adoptee... 40 years old and emotionally well balanced, now. I had some trouble in my teens and twenties... but don't most of us to some extent? We grow up, do our therapy, learn to love ourselves and get on with life.

I read this book when I was starting my final search (final because it was successful) and the book was horrible. All I could think was "Gawd... how over the top can this be?". That is how I would explain it... OVER THE TOP. She might have some good points and they might apply to a lot of people - adopted and not adopted... but they are SO far over the top it is nuts.

When I got done reading the book I thought, "My.. now I have an excuse for every crazy thing I do... every stupid thought... every helpless and pitiful behavior". This book really makes adoptees out to be the biggest victims. I don't think I was a victim. I was given a chance at a life that my birthmother thought would be better than what she could have offered me. I did have options that she couldn't have offered me. I took them.

I am not saying that her points were pointless... just WAY out of proportion. I mean the picture she paints is that of a person who can barely function... who certainly couldn't be organized and together enough to get through college or hold a steady job... who wouldn't have any idea how to be a parent... and who would be basically incapable of being balanced, healthy and self sufficient. Personally I think the lessons and trials and tribulations that were presented to me BECAUSE of my adoption have made me a deeper, more caring, more responsible, more appreciative person. And, to me, I am only a victim when I put myself in that role... not because I was doomed to it by being placed for adoption.

I have read that this book made sense to some people. I am glad it has done some good, but I hold firm to my belief that what we make of ourselves is our own responsibility and everyone has their baggage....and no one's baggage is greater or less than anyone else's... just different.

[MelsMom]

who feel that Primal Wound is saying that they are responsible for the hurts their children experienced from losing them, I must respectfully disagree. As a reunited adoptee/reunited birthmom I know for a fact what this society in 1955 and 1970 viewed single mothers as and how many of us, including my birthmother, were forced to surrender. That was the cause, not blaming the birthmom. I haven't met any birthmoms that didn't first choose to raise their kids. In both my mother's and my case, the fathers of our children failed mightily to step up to the plate.

The point is if you can recognize hurts, then you are empowered to heal them. I for one, didn't see Primal Wound as an excuse hatch to use for any bad behavior I felt like committing!

I equally adore my adoptive and birthmom (both deceased) and am happy (in kind of a sad way) that they were both in my life. I sometimes worry that I'm being 'discussed' on a higher plane!

[OpenMyRecords]

Well, it sounds like alot of people out there didn't like the book for whatever reason and didn't feel a connection to it. I had a good life with my adoptive parents, but still...feel a connection to many parts of the book.

Is there anyone here who does?

[PinkRibbon]

I finally read the book and all I can say is that we all (adopted or not) should have just stayed in the womb and not been born to avoid the trauma that being born causes(whether adopted or not). Yikes
On the serious side,I think she had some really valid points about some things, but took most of them from the sublime to the ridiculous. Two thumbs wayyyyy down.

[Opus]

"On the serious side,I think she had some really valid points about some things, but took most of them from the sublime to the ridiculous. Two thumbs wayyyyy down."

I finally finished the book also and I agree. I would have found her "theory" more acceptable if she hadn't tried to apply it to everything and everyone.

I have an adult cousin who was adopted who relates to very little of what was in the book. I do, however, respect anyone who found something valuable and related to their own life situation.

[dl]

As a reunited adoptee/reunited birthmom I know for a fact what this society in 1955 and 1970 viewed single mothers as and how many of us, including my birthmother, were forced to surrender. That was the cause, not blaming the birthmom. I haven't met any birthmoms that didn't first choose to raise their kids. In both my mother's and my case, the fathers of our children failed mightily to step up to the plate.

This may have been the experience of some bmothers, but many adoptees that have reunited or attempted to reunite have discovered that this was not the experience of their bmother ~ that relinquishment was a choice that bmother/bparents made.

In my own situation, my bparents were married and bmother had affairs. A boy was placed for adoption in 1949, 15 months before I was born and relinquished. The boy was a result of an affair. Her husband forgave her and they moved on with their lives. When she became pregnant, her husband believed he was the Father until the eighth month when she informed him that she had had another affair. He left her and when I was born, they were separated. After seeing me at the hospital, he was convinced I was his child (boy had been mixed race and the man she had thought might have fathered me was a different race ~ I am not mixed race) but did not want me raised in a broken home. He had been raised in a broken home and did not want that life for his child. The records state that bmother was "ambivalent" and they proceeded with the plan of adoption. In 1953, as a single woman as they had obtained a divorce, bmother again gave birth to a mixed race boy. She chose to keep this child. She later married and had two daughters. Based on my conversations with my half-siblings they have many more wounds from the life they led being kept , than I have from being relinquished and adopted. Two of them have specifically stated that they wish they had been adopted.

Did some bmothers/bfathers have no choice. Obviously. But many did have a choice and not all bfathers "failed mightily to step up to the plate". My bmother did not choose to parent her first two children. She used the same adoption agency both times. I'm sure it was not easy for her in 1953 as a single woman to keep a mixed race child but again, that was the choice she made. Unfortunately she basically abandoned the three children she kept and died at a young age.

Each story is unique and different IMO ~ whether a bparent, an adoptee or an aparent.

[antdano]

i thought it was an EXCELLENT book and it really explained alot, i guess everyone get differing feeling etc with adoption, but i think it addressed some important issues.

[MelsMom]

Originally posted by dl
This may have been the experience of some bmothers, but many adoptees that have reunited or attempted to reunite have discovered that this was not the experience of their bmother ~ that relinquishment was a choice that bmother/bparents made.

Based on my conversations with my half-siblings they have many more wounds from the life they led being kept , than I have from being relinquished and adopted. Two of them have specifically stated that they wish they had been adopted.

Did some bmothers/bfathers have no choice. Obviously. But many did have a choice and not all bfathers "failed mightily to step up to the plate". My bmother did not choose to parent her first two children. She used the same adoption agency both times. I'm sure it was not easy for her in 1953 as a single woman to keep a mixed race child but again, that was the choice she made. Unfortunately she basically abandoned the three children she kept and died at a young age.

Each story is unique and different IMO ~ whether a bparent, an adoptee or an aparent.

I cut some of your post out to shorten this response. Regarding your comment that relinquishment was the choice of some birthmothers, that obviously is going to be true. I will say though, having been a member of Concerned United Birthparents and attending regular meetings for over five years, I literally met hundreds of fellow adoptees and birthmothers. For almost ALL the birthmothers I met, they didn't relinquish their children through their OWN choice, but through the CHOICE of their own parents (as in my situation as a teenager).

My birthparents were older, mom was 36 and father was 30. My birthmother tried to get my birthfather (who professed to love her) to do the right thing so that she could keep me. He was Greek with a domineering mother who was determined he would marry someone of HER choosing and she did not choose my mother. My mother fought off the adoption 'solution' as long as she could, and when my bfather didn't "step up to the plate," she surrendered me. That was not what she wanted.

In my case, I was underaged and under the control of my adoptive father and a stepmother who never actually adopted me. It was HER choice that I lost my child, not mine. My daughter's father managed to be conveniently 'out of town' at the time of her birth and I lost the battle to keep her.

I don't believe I made a comment that most birthfathers failed to do the right thing. Perhaps I misunderstood you? I will say that in most of the scenarios I heard over the years of CUB counseling was that most of the birthfathers in those womens' lives did NOT do the honorable thing and those moms did not want to surrender their children to adoption. Maybe that is because if someone is OK with having surrendered of their own choice, they don't feel the need to seek counseling and empathy from other birthmothers.

Now in your case, I would have to agree with you that your birthmother was very dysfunctional and you probably were better off adopted. Your situation is not very different from my adoptive sister's which she discovered only last year. Her father actually took her mother out of high school and married her. She got pregnant with my adoptive sis and her husband (!) forced her to give my sister up! She then had a child from an affair (while her husband was overseas in the Navy) and gave that boy up. Her husband came home (apparently not the wiser) and they proceeded to have two more daughters. He again tried to make her give up those kids but my sister's birthmother refused.

Supposedly, my sister's birthfather was an alcoholic and somewhat abusive. He had passed away though about 15 years ago. My sister found a mess of a birthmother (who tried immediately to cling to her), and two sisters who have been welfare queens and have had ten kids between them, all by different fathers! My sister is extremely grateful to have been given up, even though our adoptive home was not exactly a dream come true either. She was hoping mightily that her birthmother would have turned out to be more like mine. She was very disappointed that it didn't but she is still glad that she searched. She is happy that she was adopted, I am not happy that I was but accepted that life was unfair long ago!

I think everyone's story is different, some adoptions are good, some are bad. I don't think all birthfathers are losers, just mine and my daughter's. I did like Primal Wound but I think I stated in an earlier post that Birthbond helped me (and my mother and daughter) the most emotionally.

[Manisha]

i still have negative thoughts re: the book, but I have also given up on my search.....................my ** isn't interested and I won't push!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Manisha

[mtlover]

To re-engergize a highly debatable topic... I am currently reading the Primal Wound and find it very enlightening. I am a healthy person, able to put myself through college and hold a good job. I am in a long term relationship and I pay my taxes. I even served our beautiful country after college.

I am also a birthmother in a recent reunion with my daughter and am grateful for reading this book. No, I don't think she is necessarily as tramatized as this book might suggest, however, I as a well adjusted, healthy, self-reliant individual who does not consider herself a victim, can related in many ways to this theory. Therefore, it is possible that my daughter can as well and now I am able to know that so that we can work through things together if necessary.

There are many sides to adoption and just as every birth and every family is different, I also believe so is every adoption. There are definite common threads and somethings apply to some an not others. I am glad it was written and that I had the opportunity to read it.

Kimberly

[David Joel]

I have read the book and while I can see alot of my past behavior in it's pages the explanations are highly speculative pretty out there. You just can't blame anybody else for the person you are.
How can anyone know how adoption affected them when it is their only experience of life? We need to recognise the past but not to dwell on it because no one can change it.
I searched for meaning in life for many years and longed for my birthmother. Now I have all the purpose fufillment and meaning anyone could want and I found it in my creator, savior and King, Jesus Christ. I wrote a letter to my Birthmum and am waiting for a response but my sense of worth or well being doesn't depend on it.

[One of the fire]

I just started reading PW last night. I found it to be confusing. I could identify with some of the text but some just seemed to be excuses for bad behavior. I will finish the book and Im thinking of buying my A mom a copy. She and I talked about it a little today and she said "why didnt they tell me I was dealing with grieving babies? That kinda makes since." Ill post again after she reads it.

Lisa