Just wanted to remind you that I am still would love to post your PAD stories. I think they really help others going through it.
All the best during this Holiday Season!
~Elizabeth
Help during the dark days of adjustment.
Just wanted to remind you that I am still would love to post your PAD stories. I think they really help others going through it.
All the best during this Holiday Season!
~Elizabeth
I found THIS article quite interesting and relevant to PAD.
For those of us that have gone through PAD we know how much it can affect the mother-child bond. We also know how much the focus of adoption, in its early weeks, is all about creating that important bond. Speaking for myself, now that the PAD is over (thank God) and our bond is alive and well, I still worry about it. You see, in this article it speaks about how after the maternal depression is over, the mothers who suffered still view their kids as being more difficult or fussier than normal and less securely attached. Are these kids truly so, or is it just her outlook that still has not changed? Chicken or egg?
I think kids believe their parent’s view of them, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. This morning my daughter decided that playing hide and seek was the priority to getting out the door when our carpool had already arrived and then crying and stomping her little feet when her plastic bangles wouldn’t stay on her slim wrists as I tried to wrangle her boots and coat on to get her out the door. I thought to myself, Why is she being so difficult? She is my challenging child, as I tossed her bangles down the hall and handed her over to our ride.
Ah, but I better get a grip on this. This opinion of her has been formed from the start of our relationship. Though I can say I love her now and know deep in my being that this is the truth, I wonder if I have not yet let go enough of our tenuous start. My dream is for her to grow up and meet her highest potential in whatever her passions are. I want her to be a strong and creative woman, well rooted with empathy for her early childhood, and with fierceness to meet life full in the face unapologetically.
If this is my hope for her, then I better get this vision underway now. If I think she is difficult, I’m sure my little intuitive princess can feel this. She is so very good at reading me. My vision and opinion of her now better match my future hopes for her so that she can believe them too.
Bloody hell, motherhood is so deep. I heard an interview of an author recently that wrote a book about her aging mother. She said to the interviewer, “Show me a mother that thinks she has a great relationship with her daughter and I’ll show you a daughter in therapy.”
That was sort of meant as a joke to lighten the mood of this post. What do you make of all this?
In searching for poems or artwork to do with mother’s depression I came across this one written by Laren Hale. It really spoke to me so I thought I would share it with you.
Though she writes about PPD, I think this piece shows how closely related PAD and PPD are.
Whispers In the Wind
As her baby slept in the safety of his crib,
She wept.
As she listened to his cries,
Her mind raced,
Her skin tingled,
Her heart constricted.
As he played quietly on the floor,
Her breath caught
As words attempted
To escape.
Words that if uttered could
Change everything.
Words that would
Allay her fears and
Soothe her tears.
Every minute of every hour
She would breathe deeply and
Hope.
Hope to find the courage
To let those words be torn from her throat.
Hope that today would be the day
She would once again find herself.
Hour by Hour she clawed against time
Fighting for her very soul.
Struggling against the dark storm surrounding
Her new existence.
Where was her bright and bubbly?
Her soft and cuddly?
She finds herself abandoned instead
In the land of the
Unabashedly Clamorous Infant
Only pretending to sleep.
Then her day came.
Brimming with determined fervor,
She let all of her fears tumble away into
The Ears of her doctor.
Even with a long road ahead of her
She discovers the joy of her infant’s smile,
The peace in his drowsy rest,
The quiet happiness of his play.
No longer is she counting the seconds
Before his next nap. No, now she
Counts the seconds before they are
Reunited.
In due time even the thick fog in
Which she had been trapped fades away
As abruptly as a whisper in the wind.
She has survived.
Conquered fears, turned away tears,
Embraced the future of her years.
A simple message for all
Now resides deep within her heart.
There is hope.
There is strength.
Most importantly though
This newly survived Mother wants you to know
You are not alone.
did an article on PAD this month which you can read HERE.
“It’s a common assumption that new adoptive parents are nothing but overjoyed because the long struggle to have a child is finally over. Well, not so fast. A host of emotions—feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, confusion—often compete with happiness. The result is a little-discussed but common downside shared by many of these parents: depression. “There are so many paradoxical messages thrown at them: ‘You’re a saint. You’ve saved a child. This child is so lucky to have been adopted,’” says Karen Foli, PhD, assistant professor at the Purdue University School of Nursing in West Lafayette, Indiana, and coauthor of the book The Post-Adoption Blues: Overcoming the Unforeseen Challenges of Adoption. “But if you complain or admit to struggling, the reaction is ‘Just be grateful.’ And the adoptive parent can shut down or experience guilt for having these feelings.”
For some parents, says Foli, an adoptive parent herself, the joy of adopting coincides with lingering grief over a lengthy battle with infertility. What’s more, conspicuous physical differences between adopted children and their parents or siblings may elicit unwelcome attention from strangers that can intrude upon the bonding experience. Unsolicited input from friends and family—well meaning or not—can also reinforce feelings of inadequacy for newly adoptive parents, who may feel insecure and overwhelmed, particularly if their child has experienced trauma or neglect. “ READ MORE
Myth: PAD is shameful and should be hidden. It should never be admitted and absolutely never spoken about. PAD reflects poorly upon the adoptive mother.
Truth: illness and emotional stress are never shameful. PAD is nothing that a mother asks for nor deserves. Topics deemed shameful only serve to keep the problem in the dark and isolate the women experiencing them making them less likely to reach out for help.
Myth: PAD means that you are a terrible mother and don’t love your child.
Truth: PAD is very stressful and fuelled by high levels of guilt. When this guilt is bottled up it turns to anger. These emotions start to come between you both blocking out the fledgling bond and the growing love. The truth is the love is there but PAD may be eclipsing your experience of it.
Myth: PAD means that you are a terrible mother and/or were made infertile for a reason.
Truth: This is what is playing on audio loop in your head and likely you are listening to it. Know this, you did not ask for PAD and the guilt you are feeling is keeping you in it. You are a struggling mother going through a difficult time, plain and simple. There are ways to help yourself out, but first you need to know you are not responsible for bringing this into your life. Easier said than done, but don’t buy into the guilt.
Myth: PAD proves that adoption is unnatural and foreign.
Truth: Really? Do I have to address this? If this were true then all mothers with postpartum depression are also unnatural mothers and shouldn’t have children either. Furthermore, all children not being raised by their biological parents, be it from divorce or other, are also living unnatural lives. Give me a break. All PAD proves is that the transition and bonding of an adopted child and new mother is complex and sadly it has lacked much support and understanding. That is all.
Myth: PAD is not like postpartum depression because PPD is affected by imbalanced hormones from pregnancy.
Truth: PAD is enormously stressful. No there are no pregnancy hormones in your system. But stress, especially in high levels for prolonged periods of time, affects all your body systems. Yes even your hormones, throwing them out of whack. Your life is upside down with the arrival of a newly adopted child, and your physical body becomes out of balance from the stress of it all.
Not Attached
November 16, 2009 in comments | Tags: attachment | by Elizabeth | Leave a comment
A comment by a reader, in part…
“Yesterday I got my first compliment from an acquaintance on my mothering skills and it sounded really genuine. She said I was calm and “non-hovering” unlike many first time moms. I thanked her, but my first thought was “well, that’s because I’m not that attached to her”.
I can so relate. My beautiful Mermaid Princess (her name for herself), used to fall down a lot. In front of me. On purpose. A complete klutz. It would infuriate me. How can she be so uncoordinated? Is she trying to drive me nuts?
Now I can see, without the veil of my PAD, that she was raining opportunities down on me, to step up and be her mother. Set her on her feet and kiss her boo-boos. I do so now. But not back then in the early days. She gave me so many chances to step up, and finally, eventually, I started to wake up to the amazing child in my life. But not initially.
She would trip at the park and I would bark at her to stand up. I was over it. I was not attached. But she was. She needed me to attach to her. She never lost the vision of us. I gradually woke up to it. She was the wise one until I could do it.
Amazing Grace. How I thank the Universe for her now.