Expectations of joy and happiness fill the dreams of prospective adoptive parents. Most know that there may be some challenges, some know that there can be a 'honeymoon' period where it all feels new exciting and wonderful, a few know that the life change of adopting can bring about very real and serious stress and depression.
Post Adoption Depression (PAD) or post adoption blues are being acknowledge more often but not nearly enough. Not much unlike Post-Partum Depression (PPD) it can strike any parent and it can happen at any time after the adoption. Symptoms can range from mild to severe and have been compared closely to the symptoms of PPD. Symptoms like sadness, difficulty concentrating, hopelessness, feeling unlike yourself for long periods, feeling out of control and more are listed here on the Perinatal Mood Disorder Awareness website.
Parents who are experiencing PAD can often feel guilt about their feelings. They themselves along with friends, family and peers expect happiness not hopelessness when they begin to parent. Guilt and embarrassment make it hard for parents to speak out or receive help. Questions about whether they will be viewed as competent or if someone will remove the child who was "given" to them to parent can be overwhelming.
Slowly information about PAD and post adoption anxiety and stress is becoming more accessible to parents. Books like The Post Adoption Blues: overcoming the unseen challenges of adoption by Karen J Foli, Ph.D. and John R. Thompson, M.D. highlight the feelings that many adoptive parents experience and bring to the forefront how real PAD is for some families.
It can be a very lonely place. I know, I was there. I attended a fantastic support group with our local CAS for families awaiting adoption or foster to adopt placements. The overall feel was frustration over the process but joy surrounding their adoptions. So many families were grateful for the children in their lives. It is hard to say now, and so much harder to say when I felt so alone even among the women I had come to feel supported by, but I was not grateful. I was not joyful.
I was blind sided by the intensity of my resentment, anxiety and overwhelming hopelessness. I had struggled through post-partum blues with the birth of our first son 14 years ago and knew that I was at risk for feeling similar through an adoption. Knowing that post adoption depression could occur I was still unprepared. I was disgusted with myself. I had wanted to parent again, we had been thinking on adoption for many years and there I was wanting her not be in my life. Even now it is hard for me to admit it because it feels so selfish. I felt tremendous guilt that the care of this baby girl was placed on in our hands and I was not able to love her. She had joined our family after living with a amazing foster parents and I felt daily that she would have been better off had she been able to stay with them.
These were not passing feelings. Over the months the feelings grew. The guilt grew. I felt like I was walking in a cloud and somewhere out there was the real me who at one time loved parenting. When a year went by without improvement I hit my breaking point and spoke to my doctor. We worked out a plan and I began a low dose medication for anxiety. It was almost immediate where I was able to step out of that cloud. Seeing clearly what I had gone through the past year was all at once freeing, knowing that it was not something I was able to control and scary knowing that I did not want to go back there.
I openly talk about the experience I had with PAD because I know that it happened to me not because of me. I choose to share because I believe it is important to talk about the unthinkable.
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