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That’s the absolute way of things. Loss takes up inside of everything sooner or later and eats right through it.
I’ve been on a book binge, partially due to some pregnancy complications and a Husband who understands my penchant for a good book. On the recommendations of some friends, I borrowed The Secret Life of Bees from the library. On page 55, the above quote stepped out from the book and smacked me in the face. Loss can take root within our beings like one of those weeds or vines that you don’t want in your flower beds and choke everything else out; the roses, the geraniums, the begonias.
Loss can be very overwhelming, no matter the type of loss. I have learned in my experiences that losses are sometimes strikingly similar and vastly different all at the same time. Sometimes the edges blur and sometimes they are sharp as a sword. While comparing can help us learn and properly empathize, it doesn’t always garner the expected results. However within the safe similarities to compare, the overwhelming nature of loss can be seen no matter the type of loss being discussed.
Looking at it from the birth parent perspective, it is so very easy to let the loss of a child to adoption, whether it was a personal decision or one of a coerced nature, overwhelm all of the areas of your life. Adoption is everywhere, including on the front of celebrity based magazines in the supermarket aisles. For a new birth mother, a birth father who is struggling to make sense of how he should appropriately grieve the loss or a mother trying to make sense of why her child was taken from her when she has proven her rank as an amazing mother, it can be downright paralyzing. Especially after a birth parent has gone on to have other parented children, the loss is constantly exacerbated by new milestones that are reached, sometimes daily, by those children.
So how do you make it through the weeds of loss? How do you get through the overgrowth to see the rays of sunlight again? I don’t have specific answers. My own period of “overwhelming overgrowth” has happened twice, once in the immediate aftermath of relinquishment and once after the birth of our son. To get back to the sunlight in that first experience, I found some outlets online, such as the forums, to discuss a few things with people, made some birth mother friends online and generally tried to make sense of my own life. At that point in time, still in the shade of my own denial, that was enough. However, after my son was born, I needed to seek out professional counseling to help me find my footing. I am not ashamed to say that and do not hesitate to recommend it to birth parents going through similar (or even different!) experiences with grief and loss.
In the end, making it through the loss is one of those personal things that book rules don’t always work for or necessarily help. Reaching out to others who have experienced similar loss can be a way to make it through such times. Always keeping in mind that you are not alone and that you are strong enough to not only cope with the loss but make something productive of your experience may help many get through the darkest of times.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed in your losses as a birth parent, please don’t hesitate to reach out for help. There are specific forums over at adoption.com that are generated towards our experiences, such as the general BirthParent Support or the more specific Depression & Therapy Support. There are even more birth mothers and fathers in the blogosphere, writing almost daily about their personal experiences with loss. Sometimes simply reading the words of others who have been in a similar pair of shoes can help give you the boost you need to make it through another day.
You are never alone. You can make it through this loss. Please reach out if you’re feeling as though the loss has taken over every last inch of your being.
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For more on loss, read:
1. Core Issues in Adoption: Loss.
2. The Pain of Adoption Loss by Jan Baker.
3. Hard Issues for Birth Parents: Healing and Recovery by Jan Baker.
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Photo Credit.
Is it normal that most days I can’t even begin to put words to or verbalize the loss in my life from the adoption of my son?
“Is it normal?” Oh, Tara, I think it fits well within the range of “normal,” especially considering that the range is so very wide. I’m always here if you need to talk.
As many times as I have tried to describe how the loss feels, words are inadequate to describe the breadth and depth of it all.
To address the wordlessness of the experience, art has been life-saving for me.
Art therapy is used with success in all trauma programs that I know of. There is just something about the physicality of using our hands/bodies in the act of creation, combined with visual imagery, that is healing.
You don’t have to be an “artist” or even consider yourself “creative” to do this. In fact, the more “primative” or “primal” this kind of work, the better.
Thanks Jenna. I wrote a blog post about it. My writing isn’t as good as yours, but it’s something.
Sometimes I don’t even let myself think of all the losses in my life from the adoption or how they have impacted my life. I have grieved and continue to grieve, but I worry that if I focus on the losses I will get “stuck”, you know?
I am not a “happy” birthmother and I’m not an “angry” birthmother, but it’s hard sometimes to find an even balance between the two ends of the spectrum.
Terri; Art. Well, huh. My two “outlets,” as it were, are writing (obviously) and music (voice). In my past endeavors in art (ala high school!), I found that I lose something from my brain to my hands. (I absolutely, 100% cannot draw. I used to cry in art class because I drew so poorly!)
But I wonder… if something like this wouldn’t be beneficial to me. And others.
Thank you, Terri, for planting that seed in my head!
What a great idea!