People think adoption is happy it is not. Adoption has become about the adoptive parents and their losses or altruism vs about the child and their losses. This is why we as adoptees suffer our entire life. No one, not one time has ever said to me, I am so sorry about the loss of your mother, father and family.
It's true. No one ever said that to me, even my adoptive parents. As an adoptee you are always made to feel you should be grateful that you were adopted. No one ever validates your loss.
Oh my days do you adoptees stay in this victim hood mindset? Noone says says sorry for a lost childhood lived through emotional or serial abuse, everyone letting them down but guess what as adults we have to forgive and get on with our lives
@@karlaparker7988 you have no compassion what so ever. And yes some people do say sorry to children that have endured abuse. It's mindsets like yours that perpetuates ignorance in this world. It's quite gross in fact
As a fellow adoptee, I AM so sorry about your losses, especially OUR loss of the chance of ever being "normal". People focus on abuse or things that HAPPENED, but the biggest loss we can face as kids growing up is the loss of the things that SHOULD have happened, that didn't. The things we missed out on, the things I want children to make sure they DON'T miss out on. No matter what family we ended up with, we're all now in the SAME family, and I love you as part of it.
I'm a transracial adoptee who was adopted as the only black child into a white Irish Catholic family. I learned to use piano as a therapist because there wasn't a big mental help infrastructure for transracial adoptees where I grew up. If it weren't for piano I would've been some sort of addict. This video is really helpful.
I often wonder what opportunities I could have found had I not abandoned my guitar lessons as a child. I loved, and still love, the guitar, but I experienced additional abandonment and abuse during those years, which led me away from the music of my dreams. I'm so grateful that you were fortunate enough to find the music as a therapy, and it is so true that the mental health supports are still limited for adoptees, and were nearly nil when I was a kid. And I agree, this video is very helpful.
Sunderland's 2008 video regarding adoptees being overrepresented in addictions and mental health issues was just as life changing for me as reading Nancy Verrier's book The Primal Wound. But this new video from 2019 ( I just now stumbled upon it) brings the adopted brain into even more specific view. Excellent resource not only for us adoptees, but for our loved ones, and society at large, to try to begin to understand the full meaning of the adoption/adaption experience. Thank you, Paul.
I too adopted knew and net birth parents only to be disappointed and gained by different sets of people who put in my life only to be promised at 18 almost perfection between these sets of people no guidance if so it lead me and out of dismay finding psychology literal flocks of sheep mindsets or manipulative forces surrounded ne constantly as I grew throught process nonetheless the outside feeling of not feeling or containing any element of childhood to hold onto that’s my hardest thing but god has brought me meaning of life through this field before therapist neuroscientist psych all were just failed paid bigger forms of paid terror to me as a child offered nothing only made the parents understand or happy. This is everywhere I conclude to say your comment sparked a hope for me that other people r out there though damn if any ppl can be honest or maybe it’s my sources I just find the same theory of this adopted process reworded I took ap in hs colllege I still am finding answers but funny thing I don’t hear stories from the adopted. They’re the ones so called traumatized and also not all adopted kids r traumatized one kid can go thru exact same everything as u to the t but come out untouchable to the forces of you. Interesting to me even sane exact things. But your comment brought so much hope I am now 25 still finding answers I deserve to ge selfish for once I relied on failed forces in my childhood n today I find reasoning for lice Thru these truths that I can know and understand the people rather than how I am so messed up.
Why are psychiatrists not taught this? I'm in my fifties and I've had a lifetime of pain not being able to get appropriate treatment for adoption trauma.
Same. Even I didn't realise how much it has impacted my life. My daughter thinks it's just 'the narrative' I've told myself. I know it to be embedded deeply in every cell.
There is a real thing called adoption fog and that’s not a good thing. I went to at least 5 different therapists in different states and all of them asked me if I wasn’t grateful for my adoption and seemed confused why I would think adoption could be anything but a blessing, it’s evil. I had such a deep sense of loss and rejection.
Sent this link to my adopted mother thinking it would be a catalyst for change. I sent a text the next day asking for her thoughts... She'd turned it off after 10mins and said that he didn't know what he was on about. I don't talk to them anymore, I just listen to Paul's words. Thanks mate.
Mine couldn’t make it past the first few minutes either, not because she disagreed, but because she couldn’t face my suffering. I was so hurt that she couldn’t donate an hour to what I lived for half a century.
Interesting talk. Paul Sunderland is a star and I love his humour. I was adopted twice, 1st time at 6 weeks old, only for a short time and given away quickly a year later. Adoption is not a natural process, being brought up by a childless couple to fit in and my own ideas dismissed was not enjoyable. They were also instructed by court order that my first name could not be changed, my natural father opposed my adoption in court, I was 18 months old. My adopting parents denied this although they were all present at the hearing. It didn't fit in with their narrative that I was unwanted and they chose me. They actually wanted me to believe that I had a shameful bad start in life and they were giving me a chance to better myself and I should be grateful. If they'd been honest and a bit more mature, things could have been better. I left and joined the army at 18, I'm 64 now.
You are not alone! I have just stumbled onto all of this from a class I am taking. I had NO IDEA that my troubles had one sngle thing to do with being adopted but...damn if he has not described me to a tee. It's intense. I am 54 years old and I am just coming to it now.
This is a masterpiece Paul, thank you from an adoptee adaptee. It can be hard for even my counselor to believe me when I talk about the devastating impact of relinquishment and how it affects adoptees.
@@CheetahSnowLeopard it is mind blowing that medically trained mental health facilitators do not understand this and are not 100% aware across the board. It’s part of the adoption racket in my opinion. Our social morality has been corrupted and our biological truths are being manipulated.
Because people don't care!!!! I can't stand those videos where White couples are shown crying about a birth mother who's changed her mind or a baby that was a scam! LET people raise their own children!!! You aren't guaranteed a child! THere are tens of thousands of children in foster care, adopt one of those!!! People just want what they want, they could care less about the children already born!!
Infants only a few days old can record long term memories. “Infants do not think but they do process emotions and long term memories are stored as affective schemas” (Geansbauer, 2002). An infant separated from its first mother will record a memory of that event. Memories of this nature are called preverbal memory representations and they have a unique quality that must be understood by adoptive parents. “Infant memories are recalled in adulthood the same way they were recorded at the time they occurred. It is difficult, possibly impossible, for children to map newly acquired verbal skills on to existing preverbal memory representations” (Richardson, R., & Hayne, H. 2007). An older adoptee who recalls an emotional memory will experience it the same way it was felt as an infant. Adoptees can have troubling memories that they cannot identify in words. This means that they cannot understand what they are feeling and without a vocabulary they cannot even ask for help. This leads to a cognitive /emotional disconnection. “Children fail to translate their preverbal memories into language”(Simcock, Hayne, 2002).
In the past years I've made some healthy progress in adapting a new language to my beliefs about who I am and what my worth is. I find it interesting that as a child I often immersed myself in words, as if I might find something in a book or sentence that could illuminate my feelings. It's important to me now to use helpful (I pause because I want to use the word "correct" in place of helpful, yet helpful is more, well, helpful) language not only to express my feelings of adoption and abandonment, but even in my thoughts and meditations. I've found words and concepts that refer to Primal Wound healing to be most beneficial. This video gives credence to the healing process, and your comment amplifies my understanding of the importance of a language of identity.
@@teamtwe It will manifest in relationships, attachments, as poor choices divorce a pattern of poor choices in mates or an avoidance of relationships. The memory will feel like anxiety or fear when recalled. The solution is to create experiences that contradict the memory's expectations
Kudos, you are getting there. However, there are some major issues with your conceptualization, and in my opinion this stems from the fact that you are not adopted and have not conducted proper research into various aspects of adoption: - "Severance" instead of Relinquishment - As an adopted person, I find the term Relinquishment offensive, as it denotes that the child was voluntarily given up. This is generally not the case, and the current situation in the UK, where 12K are forcefully adopted each year proves this. - Bring Identity Theory into it - Stop saying Interesting and fascinating - alternatives "I feel that knowing more about this aspect of adopted people's experience will be helpful for them" - we are not here for "your interest" - Without addressing the political and social, assertions are weakened. - This is an emotional disorder us adopted carry, not developmental as such. You alluded to this later. Studies show our overall development is largely par with general pop, I would emphasize the emotional and take the word developmental out of the equation. - Acknowledge the sense of injustice we carry, and the ways this can lead to adaptive coping. - Adoption triad terminology, ask the adopted person what THEIR preferred terminology is. Your use of the OLD triad terminology is just that, outdated. - Tribe: the same as Identity theory, focus more on WHY adopted feel like the odd one Dr Toni Sanfilippo, an adopted person.
As a transracial, transnational adoptee, I have to push back against the statement that adoption itself is not trauma. Transracial ,Transnational Adoption is absolutely trauma. We as TRAs/TNAs experience racial & cultural erasure and are forced to survive growing up in hostile, colonialist, racist environments. Transracial Transnational adoption is a tool of genocide rooted in the historical violent, colonialist strategies leveraged against Indigenous & Black communities. TRA/TNA is forced assimilation & intergenerational trauma.
The second video that I see with Paul Sunderland and I'm speechless again. Simply incredible and eye opening. I recognized this shallow breathing within myself especially at night. Have been tested on sleep apnoea which was negativ, now I know where it comes from. I can highly recommend EFT Tapping. I was so impressed that I became a practitioner myself. It's such an easy, amazing and calming tool to use. I started over a year ago (without having the info on adopt.) while having intense anxiety and panic attacks. Anxiety is still shows up especially when it comes to leaving the comfort zone.Thank you for sharing this video with the world. I could listen to him for hours. I love how passionate he is about his work.
I cried and she felt inadequate. She thought I would have opportunities, so she gave me to an agency. I was placed at 4weeks. My life has been terribly difficult. I always make self destructive choices. I will never be ok. It’s always a struggle. It will never be over. I just wanted a hug and will never get one.😢as an infant, learning to soothe ourselves from birth…. It’s probably one of the worst things you can put someone through. Lying in the dark screaming… and no one comes. And the person you are screaming for will never be coming back. It creates an awful foundation. Abandonment on the bottom doesn’t make for a solid structure. I will forever be broken.
"I just wanted a hug and will never get one" is where I would have hugged you in person. To tell you you're not forever broken, because I was adopted 4 weeks sooner than you were, and I'm not broken forever. I'm bent and f-ed up, but not broken. If I was broken I wouldn't be 40, I'd have 'followed through' when I was 14, but I didn't. If there's hope for me there's hope for you. When you scream into that darkness today, understand there's millions of us just like you, we're all screaming into the darkness, and we're all there for each other.
I feel I'm processing so much at the moment. Researching primal wounds and having some real validation and understanding has been both soothing and traumatic for me personally. I started an inner healing course following two long term relationships that were psychologically abusive, and in this healing accepted my Co dependencies as the reasons for entering such relationships. Through these healing meditations I have tapped into limbic memories from the separation at adoption. It was these memories that led me here, acknowledging what's going on for me by people like Paul. I've gone through and am still working with addictions in my life and have experienced alot of the issues discussed here that effect relinquished people. So far to be honest I've done all this work by myself just not feeling like I have issues that matter in a general sense. I was inspired by reading the other comments to share this stuff here. I am 45 years old and still don't feel I've found an authentic self completely. I feel the need to work on this stuff for my children's well being as much as my own.
@Lenka Železná hi, I just wanted to say thankyou for your heartfelt reply to my comment. I was very touched and resonated with your poetic description of feeling as a birch whose roots growing through crevices have shaped its trunk of rock. I resonate with all you have expressed and right now would love to talk with my mum and dad to just receive and have them understand the validation I kind of crave and did as a baby for the relinquishment. I reunited with my birth mother around 8 years ago and this has been wonderful and positive in many ways. I get to have a relationship with and see my genes and tribe, it answered many things for me, yet the trauma will always be there for us both. Since writing my post I've been reading Nancy verrier's book primal wound. It is very good, I'm still processing so much and actually feel guilt for validating my own relinquished trauma of primal wound. I feel nothing but love for all around me and what I've been given, good life, opportunities etc, yet I struggle still to fully give that to myself. Maybe I will seek some mentoring therapy to help, but I'm trying to handle this and myself all with care and love. Forever borrowed is so fitting, and although always supportive and encouraging of my reunion i feel resentment from my adoptive mother regarding the close bond I share with my blood, she has expressed this once and then gaslit and made excuses for her comments when I expressed how they had hurt me. I get frustrated with the fact I'm trying to work on my shit and yet I and my adopted brother are expected to fix hers. Then I feel cold and guilty for feeling this as she is so loving and supportive in so many ways. Wow I'm expressing alot here.... Anyway I thankyou for all your words Lenka, they really meant alot to me. Kind regards, Richard.
Paul I think you're wonderful & would love to be in touch with you. I have one main concern... most of the children were NOT abandoned, they were taken ie abducted. True they feel abandoned but that doesn't mean they were. I agree with getting the terminology correct and am thrilled to hear you speak, but this one word keeps many mother/parents from the counselling rooms - to hear that one's baby was abandoned rather than the truth of it being abducted is just too much. There are many infants who are abandoned, but most are/were not. I find it interesting that the struggles mothers/parents have are almost exactly the same as our children taken for adoption, yet the majority of us (in Australia) were aged late teens to early/mid 20's.
Exactly. Many birth mums coerced under pressure. There is an entire industry in the USA, financially benefitting from convincing teen girls and young women that their baby is better off in a wealthy 2 parent home.
love him, but at around 42:00 mentions consulting with GP regarding anti-depressants. The most recent metastudies are showing that people fare better without medications; provided that the person has adequate supports. Medication may be helpful in the short term, (which is the length of time of clinical trials), but as a first and only line of treatment, outcomes are worse.
Infants only a few days old can record long term memories. “Infants do not think but they do process emotions and long term memories are stored as affective schemas” (Geansbauer, 2002). An infant separated from its first mother will record a memory of that event. Memories of this nature are called preverbal memory representations and they have a unique quality that must be understood by adoptive parents. “Infant memories are recalled in adulthood the same way they were recorded at the time they occurred. It is difficult, possibly impossible, for children to map newly acquired verbal skills on to existing preverbal memory representations” (Richardson, R., & Hayne, H. 2007). An older adoptee who recalls an emotional memory will experience it the same way it was felt as an infant. Adoptees can have troubling memories that they cannot identify in words. This means that they cannot understand what they are feeling and without a vocabulary they cannot even ask for help. This leads to a cognitive /emotional disconnection. “Children fail to translate their preverbal memories into language”(Simcock, Hayne, 2002).
Yes! My ears perked up when I heard him say that too. It seems he's implying "considering" anti-depressants, which I can understand from my own experiences and research. If there are any options for the person to have a support system and plan that includes meds, as well as therapy and peer support that is ideal. The limitations of meds alone are well documented, and the longevity of any recovery seems to depend more on the adequate supports you refer to than anything that medication can offer.
Watch his earlier lecture its called adoption and addiction. Its the same lecture as this but when it was fresh, and is much more focused and present by Paul
Thanks so much for this talk. I thought it was insightful and empathetic. Loved the parts about what happens when the adoptee transcends the drama the Limbic system is used to. As a TA, I didn’t start healing until I learned to practice Shamata and tonglen meditation. I didn’t know how to heal on a non-verbal level. Not surprisingly, I’m an artist who uses art to heal and express and regulate since I was a child. Talk therapy has not helped me as much as non-verbal practices. I just started emdr and like the lessened intensity of traumatic thoughts and sensations of being a TA and other non-related trauma.
As a transracial adoptee adopted at 4 and multiple suicide attempts. I had a really overwhelming sense of loss and didn’t know why, and when I asked if it could be from being adopted it is very much like gaslighting to hear from everyone that I should be grateful, this is like telling someone that lost their parents and or family in a car wreck and greiving the loss that they should be more grateful for being alive in the midst of that loss, that would not be helpful and would not validate that person, now take a child who trusts his adoptive parents and they say the same thing, don’t get educated on the relinquishment trauma, it’s not helpful to the adoptee and the adoptive parents.
This is possibly the most fascinating video I have ever watched. I wonder how many adoptees are autistic? There is a massive overlap in some of the traits you talk about.
Not true. He mentions several things which can be done. Somatic therapy, EMDR, deep breathing, body awareness and body work, EFT, requesting and gaining understanding from one’s intimate partner. All of these things can help the person find/experience the world to be a safer place.
@@cingocia2760 Thanks for sharing this. I'll talk with Joe about it because I was entertaining the possibility of getting it as just a part of my treatment. This fellow seems to think it might be worthy trying, although he did qualify it to say EMDR works for one, isolated trauma, not for the several or many that happen in an adoptee's life as a consequence of being adopted. I suppose one would have to schedule a separate EMDR session for each different trauma. One would also need to ensure the therapist has worked with and been successful with treating trauma that transpired during the preverbal stage of the adoptee's life. (A good thing would be to seek out references and talk with the people.) At any rate, the presenter did list EMDR as part of a larger list whose various treatment approaches I made a list of for you. I'm so sorry if none of them seem to be promising or hopeful for you. I haven't tried all of them yet, and the ones I've tried have been rather half-hearted or not in any kind of prolonged manner to sustain progress. I do wish you every possible avenue of successful healing that you can find and I wish the same for all of us here. Please take care of yourself - you are special and valuable and you're worth it!
I adopted 3 kids and they have no trauma. My neighbor was adopted and she has a great life. She claims she has no trauma. Perhaps we are different because God is huge in our lives and we have a different mentality.
Please do more research. Regardless of what you may want to believe, as an adoptive mother, all those who have been adopted, have the trauma of having been removed from their birth mother. That initial separation has an impact that reverberates throughout life. There are vulnerabilities shared by all adoptees. In those most vulnerable, a distinct pattern of behaviors can be seen. Some have labeled this the "Adopted Child Syndrome." (Kirschner) Adopted 'children' are disproportionately represented with learning disabilities and organic brain syndrome. (Schecter and Genetic Behaviors) An average of 25 to 35% of the young people in residential treatment centers are adoptees. This is 17 times the norm. (Lifton, BIRCO--Pannor and Lawrence) Adoptees are more likely to have difficulties with drug and alcohol abuse, as well as, eating disorders, attention deficit disorder, infertility, suicide and untimely pregnancies. (Young, Bohman, Mitchell, Ostroff, Ansfield, Lifton and Schecter) ___ Look up the studies & read a few books on adoption - that look at it from the other side. It's not all pink & blue ribbons & bows for many adoptees: Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self by David M. Brodzinsky , Marshall D. Schecter, Robin Marantz Henig The Primal Wound & Coming Home to Self: The Adopted Child Grows Up by Nancy Newton Verrier Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew Paperback by Sherrie Eldridge Journey Of The Adopted Self: A Quest For Wholeness Paperback by Betty Jean Lifton
I thought the same until I hit my mid thirties and came out of the fog in a big way. I've been processing the trauma for three years now. Also, please don't speak for your children or any other adoptee; if your children do have negative feelings, your voice over theirs will keep them from telling you about it. Ask me how I know 🫠
@@sarahmorgan625 To begin with, everybody has trauma for one reason or another. So to think that adoptees have to have trauma is so negative. I was in fostercare and I don't crumble in self pity. In my family we count our blessings.
Mercy Rose - highly unlikely that your personal interactions are 100% free from any traumatic imprints and as attested - you are in rarified air if that is the case! Nonetheless you are here in the comments so presumably watched because there must have been some kind of concern that trauma had impacted someone close to you, maybe you didn't watch the entire presentation? That aside, did you realise you are speaking on behalf of others and have no idea what really goes on in their mind? You only know and see what they externally exhibit and this is, in turn coloured by what you want to observe. Please rewatch and note multiple references to fitting in and an impossible job description along with these not usually being spoken about. If you are this pedantic that God is great you most likely didn't agree with the bit where religiousity and fundamentalism is attributed with causing the most mental health disorders - however this was not refuted - perhaps you selectively watched parts of presentation? You can only change what you acknowledge and this takes an open and receptive mind. I have no idea how old the children you have in your care are, but please step off your pedestal.
Thank you! Being given the proper language to understand and then be able to repeat to others is priceless. Validation is priceless! If only I could find a therapist with adoption trauma experience near me.
People think adoption is happy it is not. Adoption has become about the adoptive parents and their losses or altruism vs about the child and their losses. This is why we as adoptees suffer our entire life. No one, not one time has ever said to me, I am so sorry about the loss of your mother, father and family.
Your comment is so true and perfectly worded
It's true. No one ever said that to me, even my adoptive parents. As an adoptee you are always made to feel you should be grateful that you were adopted. No one ever validates your loss.
Oh my days do you adoptees stay in this victim hood mindset? Noone says says sorry for a lost childhood lived through emotional or serial abuse, everyone letting them down but guess what as adults we have to forgive and get on with our lives
@@karlaparker7988 you have no compassion what so ever. And yes some people do say sorry to children that have endured abuse. It's mindsets like yours that perpetuates ignorance in this world. It's quite gross in fact
As a fellow adoptee, I AM so sorry about your losses, especially OUR loss of the chance of ever being "normal".
People focus on abuse or things that HAPPENED, but the biggest loss we can face as kids growing up is the loss of the things that SHOULD have happened, that didn't. The things we missed out on, the things I want children to make sure they DON'T miss out on.
No matter what family we ended up with, we're all now in the SAME family, and I love you as part of it.
I'm a transracial adoptee who was adopted as the only black child into a white Irish Catholic family. I learned to use piano as a therapist because there wasn't a big mental help infrastructure for transracial adoptees where I grew up. If it weren't for piano I would've been some sort of addict. This video is really helpful.
I often wonder what opportunities I could have found had I not abandoned my guitar lessons as a child. I loved, and still love, the guitar, but I experienced additional abandonment and abuse during those years, which led me away from the music of my dreams. I'm so grateful that you were fortunate enough to find the music as a therapy, and it is so true that the mental health supports are still limited for adoptees, and were nearly nil when I was a kid. And I agree, this video is very helpful.
There are solutions?
I wasn't adopted and was emotionally abused and scapegoat of a narcissistic family I play the piano too and need it for therapy thanks for this !
You may be an addict and have no knowledge of it.
Trans-racial sucks.I play piano and guitar and am SOME SORT of addict whatever that's supposed to mean..
Sunderland's 2008 video regarding adoptees being overrepresented in addictions and mental health issues was just as life changing for me as reading Nancy Verrier's book The Primal Wound. But this new video from 2019 ( I just now stumbled upon it) brings the adopted brain into even more specific view. Excellent resource not only for us adoptees, but for our loved ones, and society at large, to try to begin to understand the full meaning of the adoption/adaption experience. Thank you, Paul.
.......💔💔💔💔
I too adopted knew and net birth parents only to be disappointed and gained by different sets of people who put in my life only to be promised at 18 almost perfection between these sets of people no guidance if so it lead me and out of dismay finding psychology literal flocks of sheep mindsets or manipulative forces surrounded ne constantly as I grew throught process nonetheless the outside feeling of not feeling or containing any element of childhood to hold onto that’s my hardest thing but god has brought me meaning of life through this field before therapist neuroscientist psych all were just failed paid bigger forms of paid terror to me as a child offered nothing only made the parents understand or happy. This is everywhere I conclude to say your comment sparked a hope for me that other people r out there though damn if any ppl can be honest or maybe it’s my sources I just find the same theory of this adopted process reworded I took ap in hs colllege I still am finding answers but funny thing I don’t hear stories from the adopted. They’re the ones so called traumatized and also not all adopted kids r traumatized one kid can go thru exact same everything as u to the t but come out untouchable to the forces of you. Interesting to me even sane exact things. But your comment brought so much hope I am now 25 still finding answers I deserve to ge selfish for once I relied on failed forces in my childhood n today I find reasoning for lice Thru these truths that I can know and understand the people rather than how I am so messed up.
ruclips.net/video/VOyuc0dGgCw/видео.html
Why are psychiatrists not taught this? I'm in my fifties and I've had a lifetime of pain not being able to get appropriate treatment for adoption trauma.
Same. Even I didn't realise how much it has impacted my life. My daughter thinks it's just 'the narrative' I've told myself. I know it to be embedded deeply in every cell.
There is a real thing called adoption fog and that’s not a good thing. I went to at least 5 different therapists in different states and all of them asked me if I wasn’t grateful for my adoption and seemed confused why I would think adoption could be anything but a blessing, it’s evil. I had such a deep sense of loss and rejection.
What is the appropriate treatment please?
I am so lost.
Me too, I wish I had known all this 30 years ago. 😢
Me too. ❤
Sent this link to my adopted mother thinking it would be a catalyst for change. I sent a text the next day asking for her thoughts... She'd turned it off after 10mins and said that he didn't know what he was on about. I don't talk to them anymore, I just listen to Paul's words. Thanks mate.
Oh I'm SO sorry, must of been really hurtful. I'm sure if I did the same, I'd get the same response. Thinking of you Xx
Mine couldn’t make it past the first few minutes either, not because she disagreed, but because she couldn’t face my suffering. I was so hurt that she couldn’t donate an hour to what I lived for half a century.
I did the same and got same response - i think some BMothers can't cope with the pain
ruclips.net/video/VOyuc0dGgCw/видео.html
I’m wondering how being adopted affects mothering when we have our own children. Let’s talk about that.
Interesting talk. Paul Sunderland is a star and I love his humour. I was adopted twice, 1st time at 6 weeks old, only for a short time and given away quickly a year later. Adoption is not a natural process, being brought up by a childless couple to fit in and my own ideas dismissed was not enjoyable. They were also instructed by court order that my first name could not be changed, my natural father opposed my adoption in court, I was 18 months old. My adopting parents denied this although they were all present at the hearing. It didn't fit in with their narrative that I was unwanted and they chose me. They actually wanted me to believe that I had a shameful bad start in life and they were giving me a chance to better myself and I should be grateful. If they'd been honest and a bit more mature, things could have been better. I left and joined the army at 18, I'm 64 now.
ruclips.net/video/VOyuc0dGgCw/видео.html
OMG YES! I cannot believe it’s taken me this long to find this. So much validation so much emotional affirmation
You are not alone! I have just stumbled onto all of this from a class I am taking. I had NO IDEA that my troubles had one sngle thing to do with being adopted but...damn if he has not described me to a tee. It's intense. I am 54 years old and I am just coming to it now.
@@maretomaski6324 it’s so obvious in hindsight it’s literally the most traumatic gaslighting we’ve created as a society.
1000 % agree ! I wish the entire world could hear this.
This is a masterpiece Paul, thank you from an adoptee adaptee. It can be hard for even my counselor to believe me when I talk about the devastating impact of relinquishment and how it affects adoptees.
@@CheetahSnowLeopard it is mind blowing that medically trained mental health facilitators do not understand this and are not 100% aware across the board. It’s part of the adoption racket in my opinion. Our social morality has been corrupted and our biological truths are being manipulated.
Why this doesn’t have a million views is beyond me!!!
Because people don't care!!!! I can't stand those videos where White couples are shown crying about a birth mother who's changed her mind or a baby that was a scam! LET people raise their own children!!! You aren't guaranteed a child! THere are tens of thousands of children in foster care, adopt one of those!!! People just want what they want, they could care less about the children already born!!
I agree!! I call it empty wound syndrome and many will do anything to fill iy
ruclips.net/video/VOyuc0dGgCw/видео.html
Infants only a few days old can record long term memories. “Infants do not think but they do process emotions and long term memories are stored as affective schemas” (Geansbauer, 2002). An infant separated from its first mother will record a memory of that event. Memories of this nature are called preverbal memory representations and they have a unique quality that must be understood by adoptive parents. “Infant memories are recalled in adulthood the same way they were recorded at the time they occurred. It is difficult, possibly impossible, for children to map newly acquired verbal skills on to existing preverbal memory representations” (Richardson, R., & Hayne, H. 2007). An older adoptee who recalls an emotional memory will experience it the same way it was felt as an infant. Adoptees can have troubling memories that they cannot identify in words. This means that they cannot understand what they are feeling and without a vocabulary they cannot even ask for help. This leads to a cognitive /emotional disconnection. “Children fail to translate their preverbal memories into language”(Simcock, Hayne, 2002).
In the past years I've made some healthy progress in adapting a new language to my beliefs about who I am and what my worth is. I find it interesting that as a child I often immersed myself in words, as if I might find something in a book or sentence that could illuminate my feelings. It's important to me now to use helpful (I pause because I want to use the word "correct" in place of helpful, yet helpful is more, well, helpful) language not only to express my feelings of adoption and abandonment, but even in my thoughts and meditations. I've found words and concepts that refer to Primal Wound healing to be most beneficial. This video gives credence to the healing process, and your comment amplifies my understanding of the importance of a language of identity.
@@KevinBarhydt express your adoption related emotions as an art form. That will reach into your emotions in a way words can't then talk about the art
Are there examples how this plays out in adulthood? When would a preverbal memory come up in real life. And how do we rewire the brain? Thank you.
@@teamtwe It will manifest in relationships, attachments, as poor choices divorce a pattern of poor choices in mates or an avoidance of relationships. The memory will feel like anxiety or fear when recalled. The solution is to create experiences that contradict the memory's expectations
@@MrRoberthafetz Thank you, kind Sir, for sharing your knowledge 🙏🙏🙏
Kudos, you are getting there. However, there are some major issues with your conceptualization, and in my opinion this stems from the fact that you are not adopted and have not conducted proper research into various aspects of adoption:
- "Severance" instead of Relinquishment - As an adopted person, I find the term Relinquishment offensive, as it denotes that the child was voluntarily given up. This is generally not the case, and the current situation in the UK, where 12K are forcefully adopted each year proves this.
- Bring Identity Theory into it
- Stop saying Interesting and fascinating - alternatives "I feel that knowing more about this aspect of adopted people's experience will be helpful for them" - we are not here for "your interest"
- Without addressing the political and social, assertions are weakened.
- This is an emotional disorder us adopted carry, not developmental as such. You alluded
to this later. Studies show our overall development is largely par with general pop, I would emphasize the emotional and take the word developmental out of the equation.
- Acknowledge the sense of injustice we carry, and the ways this can lead to adaptive coping.
- Adoption triad terminology, ask the adopted person what THEIR preferred terminology
is. Your use of the OLD triad terminology is just that, outdated.
- Tribe: the same as Identity theory, focus more on WHY adopted feel like the odd one
Dr Toni Sanfilippo, an adopted person.
ruclips.net/video/VOyuc0dGgCw/видео.html
There is a before and after his talk on addiction and adoption for me. It validated me at a core and fundamental level. Thank you so much, Paul.
As a transracial, transnational adoptee, I have to push back against the statement that adoption itself is not trauma. Transracial ,Transnational Adoption is absolutely trauma. We as TRAs/TNAs experience racial & cultural erasure and are forced to survive growing up in hostile, colonialist, racist environments. Transracial Transnational adoption is a tool of genocide rooted in the historical violent, colonialist strategies leveraged against Indigenous & Black communities. TRA/TNA is forced assimilation & intergenerational trauma.
The second video that I see with Paul Sunderland and I'm speechless again. Simply incredible and eye opening. I recognized this shallow breathing within myself especially at night. Have been tested on sleep apnoea which was negativ, now I know where it comes from. I can highly recommend EFT Tapping. I was so impressed that I became a practitioner myself. It's such an easy, amazing and calming tool to use. I started over a year ago (without having the info on adopt.) while having intense anxiety and panic attacks. Anxiety is still shows up especially when it comes to leaving the comfort zone.Thank you for sharing this video with the world. I could listen to him for hours. I love how passionate he is about his work.
ruclips.net/video/VOyuc0dGgCw/видео.html
I cried and she felt inadequate. She thought I would have opportunities, so she gave me to an agency. I was placed at 4weeks. My life has been terribly difficult. I always make self destructive choices. I will never be ok. It’s always a struggle. It will never be over. I just wanted a hug and will never get one.😢as an infant, learning to soothe ourselves from birth…. It’s probably one of the worst things you can put someone through. Lying in the dark screaming… and no one comes. And the person you are screaming for will never be coming back. It creates an awful foundation. Abandonment on the bottom doesn’t make for a solid structure. I will forever be broken.
No. Not forever . . . You have the power to recreate your life. Life is an endless possibilities.
"I just wanted a hug and will never get one" is where I would have hugged you in person. To tell you you're not forever broken, because I was adopted 4 weeks sooner than you were, and I'm not broken forever.
I'm bent and f-ed up, but not broken. If I was broken I wouldn't be 40, I'd have 'followed through' when I was 14, but I didn't.
If there's hope for me there's hope for you. When you scream into that darkness today, understand there's millions of us just like you, we're all screaming into the darkness, and we're all there for each other.
Blessings to you kind sir for sharing the living proof that we adoptees represent.
Complicated developmental trauma, PTSD, he nails it! I've seen it in clients for sure.
Its called prevrbal trauma ruclips.net/video/VOyuc0dGgCw/видео.html
I feel I'm processing so much at the moment. Researching primal wounds and having some real validation and understanding has been both soothing and traumatic for me personally. I started an inner healing course following two long term relationships that were psychologically abusive, and in this healing accepted my Co dependencies as the reasons for entering such relationships. Through these healing meditations I have tapped into limbic memories from the separation at adoption. It was these memories that led me here, acknowledging what's going on for me by people like Paul. I've gone through and am still working with addictions in my life and have experienced alot of the issues discussed here that effect relinquished people. So far to be honest I've done all this work by myself just not feeling like I have issues that matter in a general sense. I was inspired by reading the other comments to share this stuff here. I am 45 years old and still don't feel I've found an authentic self completely. I feel the need to work on this stuff for my children's well being as much as my own.
@Lenka Železná hi, I just wanted to say thankyou for your heartfelt reply to my comment. I was very touched and resonated with your poetic description of feeling as a birch whose roots growing through crevices have shaped its trunk of rock. I resonate with all you have expressed and right now would love to talk with my mum and dad to just receive and have them understand the validation I kind of crave and did as a baby for the relinquishment. I reunited with my birth mother around 8 years ago and this has been wonderful and positive in many ways. I get to have a relationship with and see my genes and tribe, it answered many things for me, yet the trauma will always be there for us both. Since writing my post I've been reading Nancy verrier's book primal wound. It is very good, I'm still processing so much and actually feel guilt for validating my own relinquished trauma of primal wound. I feel nothing but love for all around me and what I've been given, good life, opportunities etc, yet I struggle still to fully give that to myself. Maybe I will seek some mentoring therapy to help, but I'm trying to handle this and myself all with care and love. Forever borrowed is so fitting, and although always supportive and encouraging of my reunion i feel resentment from my adoptive mother regarding the close bond I share with my blood, she has expressed this once and then gaslit and made excuses for her comments when I expressed how they had hurt me. I get frustrated with the fact I'm trying to work on my shit and yet I and my adopted brother are expected to fix hers. Then I feel cold and guilty for feeling this as she is so loving and supportive in so many ways. Wow I'm expressing alot here.... Anyway I thankyou for all your words Lenka, they really meant alot to me. Kind regards,
Richard.
ruclips.net/video/VOyuc0dGgCw/видео.html
Paul I think you're wonderful & would love to be in touch with you. I have one main concern... most of the children were NOT abandoned, they were taken ie abducted. True they feel abandoned but that doesn't mean they were. I agree with getting the terminology correct and am thrilled to hear you speak, but this one word keeps many mother/parents from the counselling rooms - to hear that one's baby was abandoned rather than the truth of it being abducted is just too much. There are many infants who are abandoned, but most are/were not. I find it interesting that the struggles mothers/parents have are almost exactly the same as our children taken for adoption, yet the majority of us (in Australia) were aged late teens to early/mid 20's.
Exactly. Many birth mums coerced under pressure. There is an entire industry in the USA, financially benefitting from convincing teen girls and young women that their baby is better off in a wealthy 2 parent home.
@@lynneak2681 Coercion has huge negative consequences. Very sad.
love him, but at around 42:00 mentions consulting with GP regarding anti-depressants. The most recent metastudies are showing that people fare better without medications; provided that the person has adequate supports. Medication may be helpful in the short term, (which is the length of time of clinical trials), but as a first and only line of treatment, outcomes are worse.
Infants only a few days old can record long term memories. “Infants do not think but they do process emotions and long term memories are stored as affective schemas” (Geansbauer, 2002). An infant separated from its first mother will record a memory of that event. Memories of this nature are called preverbal memory representations and they have a unique quality that must be understood by adoptive parents. “Infant memories are recalled in adulthood the same way they were recorded at the time they occurred. It is difficult, possibly impossible, for children to map newly acquired verbal skills on to existing preverbal memory representations” (Richardson, R., & Hayne, H. 2007). An older adoptee who recalls an emotional memory will experience it the same way it was felt as an infant. Adoptees can have troubling memories that they cannot identify in words. This means that they cannot understand what they are feeling and without a vocabulary they cannot even ask for help. This leads to a cognitive /emotional disconnection. “Children fail to translate their preverbal memories into language”(Simcock, Hayne, 2002).
Yes! My ears perked up when I heard him say that too. It seems he's implying "considering" anti-depressants, which I can understand from my own experiences and research. If there are any options for the person to have a support system and plan that includes meds, as well as therapy and peer support that is ideal. The limitations of meds alone are well documented, and the longevity of any recovery seems to depend more on the adequate supports you refer to than anything that medication can offer.
Thank you, Paul.
For me it wasn't the "adoption," it was the ABANDONMENT, LIFELONG, ABANDONMENT!!!!
ruclips.net/video/VOyuc0dGgCw/видео.html
Watch his earlier lecture its called adoption and addiction. Its the same lecture as this but when it was fresh, and is much more focused and present by Paul
Thanks so much for this talk. I thought it was insightful and empathetic. Loved the parts about what happens when the adoptee transcends the drama the Limbic system is used to.
As a TA, I didn’t start healing until I learned to practice Shamata and tonglen meditation. I didn’t know how to heal on a non-verbal level.
Not surprisingly, I’m an artist who uses art to heal and express and regulate since I was a child.
Talk therapy has not helped me as much as non-verbal practices. I just started emdr and like the lessened intensity of traumatic thoughts and sensations of being a TA and other non-related trauma.
ruclips.net/video/VOyuc0dGgCw/видео.html
The reference to self-soothing/early compulsive masturbation resonated.
As a transracial adoptee adopted at 4 and multiple suicide attempts. I had a really overwhelming sense of loss and didn’t know why, and when I asked if it could be from being adopted it is very much like gaslighting to hear from everyone that I should be grateful, this is like telling someone that lost their parents and or family in a car wreck and greiving the loss that they should be more grateful for being alive in the midst of that loss, that would not be helpful and would not validate that person, now take a child who trusts his adoptive parents and they say the same thing, don’t get educated on the relinquishment trauma, it’s not helpful to the adoptee and the adoptive parents.
ruclips.net/video/VOyuc0dGgCw/видео.html
Great as always
Servono soluzioni!
This is possibly the most fascinating video I have ever watched. I wonder how many adoptees are autistic? There is a massive overlap in some of the traits you talk about.
ruclips.net/video/VOyuc0dGgCw/видео.html
Incredible, thank you.
Can you kindly start to provide research backing for your claims.
I would like to know who the speaker is. Paul Sunderland. Does anybody have a link to his bio? I cannot find it online.
What other terms do my fellow adoptees prefer? If we’re not adoptees then what can we call ourselves?
Legally trafficked children, perhaps??
It is a sentence. He doesn't give solutions
Not true. He mentions several things which can be done. Somatic therapy, EMDR, deep breathing, body awareness and body work, EFT, requesting and gaining understanding from one’s intimate partner. All of these things can help the person find/experience the world to be a safer place.
@@cherwynambuter7873 he is not an adopted
@@cherwynambuter7873 Joe Soll told that EMDR doesn't work with adoption trauma....
@@cingocia2760 Thanks for sharing this. I'll talk with Joe about it because I was entertaining the possibility of getting it as just a part of my treatment. This fellow seems to think it might be worthy trying, although he did qualify it to say EMDR works for one, isolated trauma, not for the several or many that happen in an adoptee's life as a consequence of being adopted. I suppose one would have to schedule a separate EMDR session for each different trauma. One would also need to ensure the therapist has worked with and been successful with treating trauma that transpired during the preverbal stage of the adoptee's life. (A good thing would be to seek out references and talk with the people.) At any rate, the presenter did list EMDR as part of a larger list whose various treatment approaches I made a list of for you. I'm so sorry if none of them seem to be promising or hopeful for you. I haven't tried all of them yet, and the ones I've tried have been rather half-hearted or not in any kind of prolonged manner to sustain progress. I do wish you every possible avenue of successful healing that you can find and I wish the same for all of us here. Please take care of yourself - you are special and valuable and you're worth it!
@@cherwynambuter7873 I feel me only a miserable....
I adopted 3 kids and they have no trauma. My neighbor was adopted and she has a great life. She claims she has no trauma. Perhaps we are different because God is huge in our lives and we have a different mentality.
Please do more research. Regardless of what you may want to believe, as an adoptive mother, all those who have been adopted, have the trauma of having been removed from their birth mother. That initial separation has an impact that reverberates throughout life.
There are vulnerabilities shared by all adoptees. In those most vulnerable, a distinct pattern of behaviors can be seen. Some have labeled this the "Adopted Child Syndrome." (Kirschner)
Adopted 'children' are disproportionately represented with learning disabilities and organic brain syndrome.
(Schecter and Genetic Behaviors)
An average of 25 to 35% of the young people in residential treatment centers are adoptees. This is 17 times the norm.
(Lifton, BIRCO--Pannor and Lawrence)
Adoptees are more likely to have difficulties with drug and alcohol abuse, as well as, eating disorders, attention deficit disorder, infertility, suicide and untimely pregnancies. (Young, Bohman, Mitchell, Ostroff, Ansfield, Lifton and Schecter)
___
Look up the studies & read a few books on adoption - that look at it from the other side. It's not all pink & blue ribbons & bows for many adoptees:
Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self by David M. Brodzinsky , Marshall D. Schecter, Robin Marantz Henig
The Primal Wound & Coming Home to Self: The Adopted Child Grows Up by Nancy Newton Verrier
Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew Paperback by Sherrie Eldridge
Journey Of The Adopted Self: A Quest For Wholeness Paperback by Betty Jean Lifton
Absolutely must be God.
I thought the same until I hit my mid thirties and came out of the fog in a big way. I've been processing the trauma for three years now.
Also, please don't speak for your children or any other adoptee; if your children do have negative feelings, your voice over theirs will keep them from telling you about it. Ask me how I know 🫠
@@sarahmorgan625 To begin with, everybody has trauma for one reason or another. So to think that adoptees have to have trauma is so negative. I was in fostercare and I don't crumble in self pity. In my family we count our blessings.
Mercy Rose - highly unlikely that your personal interactions are 100% free from any traumatic imprints and as attested - you are in rarified air if that is the case! Nonetheless you are here in the comments so presumably watched because there must have been some kind of concern that trauma had impacted someone close to you, maybe you didn't watch the entire presentation?
That aside, did you realise you are speaking on behalf of others and have no idea what really goes on in their mind? You only know and see what they externally exhibit and this is, in turn coloured by what you want to observe.
Please rewatch and note multiple references to fitting in and an impossible job description along with these not usually being spoken about.
If you are this pedantic that God is great you most likely didn't agree with the bit where religiousity and fundamentalism is attributed with causing the most mental health disorders - however this was not refuted - perhaps you selectively watched parts of presentation?
You can only change what you acknowledge and this takes an open and receptive mind.
I have no idea how old the children you have in your care are, but please step off your pedestal.
Thank you! Being given the proper language to understand and then be able to repeat to others is priceless. Validation is priceless!
If only I could find a therapist with adoption trauma experience near me.