What causes adoption fog?

Question

I wonder, if I am very open with my children, and if I help them to process their feelings whenever they need to (assuming they feel comfortable telling me about their feelings, which I hope they do), and if I make sure counseling is available all the time...will my children be able to avoid ever being in a "fog"? Or, is this another event in an adoptee's life that I need to accept that I have no influence on?

Answer 1

I'm just guessing, but I think it's a survival mechanism.  It's so scary and painful being abandoned that the brain shuts it away in a dark corner never to see the light of day.  It protects the adoptee from feelings that are too horrible, too painful, too difficult to deal with.

Answer 2

Lots of reasons I think, but one of them is invalidation.

You've been hanging here enough to see it happen in action. How many times does someone new come and post a question about being adopted, and have well-meaning but uneducated people start with:

-remember anyone can give birth, but a real parent is the one who..

-remember your real parents are the ones who loved you and took care of you

-your parents chose you and that makes you special

-your birthmother loved you enough to want you to have a better life

blah blah blah

Almost every time in my life I talked about adoption with someone who wasn't, that's the garbage I got.

If everyone around you tells you that your feelings are wrong, where else to find solace than in the pretty fog?

Answer 3

I think information is the most important tool when it comes to being an adoption parent.

Be open with your child, and try to work with them to answer every question which arises.

Answer 4

I've only heard the term "fog" used on one site.

I think what you're referring to is the "Great Sleep" that was coined by the author and adoptee, Betty Jean Lifton.  She covers it in a chapter in Lost & Found: The Adoption Experience, written in 1984.

The term really refers to closed adoption adoptees, so I'm not sure that it really applies to foster children, assuming that they already know their own story.

But as for what 'causes it'?  Lies, pretending, secrets, and misplaced indebtedness.

Answer 5

I think we just have to accept how our children feel....when they feel the way they do.....and do our best to be supportive, understanding and not take anything personally......

Answer 6

Lies, secrets, silence, invalidation, subtle messages from a-parents, subtle messages from strangers about adoption in general. (and - of course - there are the total non-subtle remarks - such as - 'I don't want you to talk about your adoption' - which I heard for my entire childhood.)

If adoption is not allowed to be openly talked about - it becomes 'wrong' and 'bad' - and children will equate that to them themselves being 'wrong' and 'bad' - no matter how much you try to gloss over with stories of 'chosen' and 'wanted'.

All of these things - in my opinion - can help make the fog thick.

Whether a child can eventually come out of it - when they are an adult - is dependent on so much.

I think - there will always be hard truths that an adoptee will eventually have to face (all adoptees have lost their mothers and family - for many and varied reasons - that alone is a hard thing to face) - I think it requires a-parents that allow that mental growth to happen - when it needs to happen - with support - with love - with understanding.

There are some things in an adoptees life that are a painful reality. They need to come to terms with those facts on their own terms.

I think you (as a PAP or AP) just have to be there - love them with all your heart - and let them know that they are free to feel however they wish to feel.

And tell them that you aren't going anywhere - that you won't leave them - no matter how they feel.

ETA: just saw Justine's answer above me - very GOOD points there also.

Answer 7

How wonderful of you to ask!  What I think caused it for me were all the messages, unmeant and unconscious, I received about how being adopted made me different, inferior, and at constant risk.  (I don't know how to explain it, l but once I learned I had been "given away" once I was sure it could happen again.)  If I wanted to be kept, I had to be perfect, to entertain everyone, to keep myself secret, to me and everyone else.    

Nobody ever told me this.  It just....was, like the air.  My adoptive parents did nothing, said nothing, EVER, to put this idea into my head because they didn't know it was there!  You know it exists.  You can look for the signs.  

I think I could have benefited as a young'un from more of the wonderful "sharing differences" discussions we had when I was older.  

I don't know whether you can prevent this, and I think it's very wise of you to accept that you may not be able to.  Being open and taking them to to counseling (not necessarily making it available--as my parents did this for me and I never, EVER went) are great ideas.

Answer 8

My fog was actually caused by bullying. I was called alot of names for being adopted and was often left out of certain things. I felt like a "freak". I just shut off all my feelings and ignored my Curiositys. I guess I just wanted to feel normal. My Parents have done a great job and have been very honest and open with me, but it was the name calling that got me down. Now that I am an adult, and have kids of my own, The feelings I used to have all came back to me. I decided to act on them, and I am so glad I did. I did feel loss, I felt it alot more when I learned that my bio mother had gone on to have loads more kids, and thats an issue I am still dealing with.

Comeing on here and talking with other people from the triad, has helped me alot. I appreciate everyone on here and I hope I can make some good friends.

Good question.

Answer 9

Every child is different.  Every family is different.  Therefore, although it will be different for everyone,  the "Adoption Fog" is created by a lack of adequate information, dialog, and real communication, and--most importantly--the adoptee with his/her OWN issues.  

BOTTOM LINE:  lack of information, lack of understanding.  Ask a 7 year-old what their adoption issue are...ask a 37 year-old adoptee what their adoption issues are...you'll get 2 completely different explanations.

But, we demand a lot of these adoptees!  As a 7 year-old child, I had no idea of the issues that I would face now at the ripe old age of 40+.  I believe that it was my aparent's DUTY to address these concerns, on an age-appropriate basis...a duty in which they failed dramatically.  

Were they waiting for me to ASK?  A crazy idea!  I never even asked about s*x...nor did any of my friends ask their bparents.  We did not know how our questions would be received!

My two adopted siblings were the only adoptees I knew.  The internet did not exist when I was young.  The local library was my only, highly-censored source of information...and my amom had to drive me there.   So, I had no real information about adoption issues.  I thought I was the only one who ever wanted to search.  I felt guilty for my feelings...that guilt...I think...is the source of the adoption fog.

Answer 10

i think the lies of adoption have come a long way, with open adoptions, etc.  but they are still there.

i have a good feeling about the kids you will parent, though.  you've done so much research and have come so far in your understanding.  

the fog comes from lies and trying to be an "adAptee".

Answer 11

my "fog" really started from beofore i even understood what adoption really meant.it was the psychological effects of separation,and then not knowing anything about my past.as no one knew much of my "roots" they could not really do anything to help me out of my depression.(as a child). i think how deep a person is,into the "fog" really depends on their past experiences.i am sure if i had known the story of my adoption,and knew the circumstances behind it,and was given more rights to know of things,then i feel i would not have been in that fog in the first place