TRAUMA ISN'T BOUND BY TIME

November is National Adoption Month, and instead of writing about the joys of adoption, of which there are plenty, I plan on speaking to some of the trauma entailed in the journey.  As time goes on, and I learn more, my awareness about this issue grows.

I serve on the board of Immerse AR, which used to primarily serve youth who had aged out of foster care without finding a forever family.  Our mission has shifted and evolved over the years spent doing the work and now seeks to address the multilayered issues that face these youth.  We have also gone "upstream" to help families who have adopted or are fostering to be healthy places where healing is taking place.  We have broadened our criteria to include runaway and trafficked youth, as well as serving pregnant mothers who wish to parent their children.

As we have done the work and engaged in the lives, clarity has begun to emerge.  We are battling trauma.  Usually, we are facing big T Trauma that leaves wounds at every level of a person.  When kids are abandoned or abused or even placed lovingly for adoption, there is trauma involved.  Losing a birth family for whatever reason is traumatic and leaves a mark.  When that is compounded with physical, verbal and/or sexual abuse or neglect, it means there is much to overcome, and that healing is not easily won.

This work is often slow-going and feels like 2 steps forward, 1 step back and then run a lap backwards and then crawl in the right direction a bit.  Our expectations for people who have experienced such trauma as children have morphed as we've begun to understand what true healing and overcoming requires.  It requires infinitely more than we initially thought.  We are not offering homes to fix homelessness, we are addressing the needs and attitudes that led to the homelessness that are rooted in the crises experienced over a lifetime.

I am someone who grew up in a rather charmed existence, and this has taken me a long time to comprehend.  I arrived into young adulthood without a major crisis to speak of, which I now recognize for the amazing rare gift that is.  But, I remember my first brush with trauma, and it shook my core and reorganized my identity.  I can still see the camp office wall that I was staring at when I got the news that my dad had cancer.  I could tell that the diagnosis was tragic, but I had no grid for tragedy, and it took me far longer than it should have to comprehend what was happening.

I ran through all the stages of grief and for the next two years lived many high highs and low lows in a battle that was ultimately lost here on earth for him and won for eternity.  It has been 17.5 years since I took that call, but my body and mind can go back immediately to those moments and memories.  I am forever marked and changed, and because of the strong foundation I had, I have been able to heal, though I will never be the same.

My trauma is so tiny compared to what so many kids in the foster care system have faced or are facing.  Abuse, neglect, and uncertainty as a way of life is severely damaging, and when we look at overcoming and healing, we have to understand that it will take an equal amount OR MORE healing to break into the damage that has been done.  The good must penetrate as deeply and as widely as the bad did.  There is no quick fix, just as none of the trauma happened quickly.

When I see my own adopted kids, who I have known since the 3rd day of their lives, I have to recognize that there were 35 weeks before that.  They experienced things that are embedded within them that aren't bound within a timeframe.  We have so much hope for their futures, but it has come though acknowledgement of their past and what that past means to us all.  It is far more complex than I imagined it would be, and it shapes all levels of our family.  We need more help.  We need more wisdom.  We have far more needs than we might have otherwise had if we had not walked down the road of adoption.

So as National Adoption Month speeds towards a close, I hope you'll take the time to consider the trauma that is involved in the loss (and the gaining) of a family.  It marks everyone it touches.  I'm so thankful to serve a God who is in the business of healing and hope.  When I am tempted to despair and doubt, he reminds me of his faithfulness and love.  And I hope to keep learning what healing looks like and doing the work it takes.

{Also - if you feel compelled to give to the work of Immerse, our needs have grown as our work has expanded!  We would feel honored to have you join us in this work.}