Adoptive Parents of Estranged Children Community Group
Did your adopted teen/adult child reject you and sever all family ties? Come and share heartaches and comfort with others in the same situation as we try to piece our families back together. We particularly welcome adoptees who were estranged from their adoptive families and want to share how they found their way back home.
I am thankful for this group. I have an ED (age 22). She is the youngest child of my DH and I. She followed 3 non-adopted sons. She was adopted at age 3 from Eastern Europe. She spent every moment of her life until she came to our family in an orphanage. You can just imagine the physical, mental, and emotional deprivation.
Severe deprivation and stimulation, poverty, malnutrition, lack of love and bonding, and probably FAS took its toll on a little child before she entered the doors of our home. Her future in her country was bleak had she stayed. Her learning in school was a challenge and she had learned at a young age to lie and manipulate. Only the strong survive in an orphanage. My DH and I had a challenge raising this child and there was much internal anger within her that she probably did not even understand. Her processing skills were weak and there was a time that I believed she would never make it on her own in the world.
All this being said we still saw what we thought were good things happening which we were thankful for. One positive was that she was a gifted singer and sang in many churches and worship teams. We struggled at home but never showed the true picture to the public in order to protect her. That was one of the most difficult parts after she left suddenly. Everyone (except family and extended family) saw a different girl. She got a long awaited bf before she left home and enabling by his father was put in motion. In the past 2 years she has seen approximately 7 different places to live and is now on bf #2. People seem to go just so far and then they start seeing truth and what she is really about.
We have had limited contact with our ED during this time although she lives nearby. She gave up the entire family including her 93 year old grandmother and nieces and nephews she never knew. She just walked away. I have reached out with cards and text and an occasional package including this past Christmas. It was and is usually met with silence. It has been a difficult two years with grieving over the loss of our ED and mostly for what will never be unless she repents and makes a decision to turn back to God and family. It took a while to come to terms that Dh and I did our best but it was not good enough for her. She has rewritten her history with us and only those who really know us know that she walked away from a wonderful home and family where she was treated like our own for 17 years.
Back to being thankful. I am thankful for the Lord and I am thankful for all the blessings each day. I have come to a place where I know that ONLY GOD can change our ED and I pray that one day, even if she has to go through some rough times, that she will see the truth and return to a family that always loved her Praying for the prodigal to return.
Severe deprivation and stimulation, poverty, malnutrition, lack of love and bonding, and probably FAS took its toll on a little child before she entered the doors of our home. Her future in her country was bleak had she stayed. Her learning in school was a challenge and she had learned at a young age to lie and manipulate. Only the strong survive in an orphanage. My DH and I had a challenge raising this child and there was much internal anger within her that she probably did not even understand. Her processing skills were weak and there was a time that I believed she would never make it on her own in the world.
All this being said we still saw what we thought were good things happening which we were thankful for. One positive was that she was a gifted singer and sang in many churches and worship teams. We struggled at home but never showed the true picture to the public in order to protect her. That was one of the most difficult parts after she left suddenly. Everyone (except family and extended family) saw a different girl. She got a long awaited bf before she left home and enabling by his father was put in motion. In the past 2 years she has seen approximately 7 different places to live and is now on bf #2. People seem to go just so far and then they start seeing truth and what she is really about.
We have had limited contact with our ED during this time although she lives nearby. She gave up the entire family including her 93 year old grandmother and nieces and nephews she never knew. She just walked away. I have reached out with cards and text and an occasional package including this past Christmas. It was and is usually met with silence. It has been a difficult two years with grieving over the loss of our ED and mostly for what will never be unless she repents and makes a decision to turn back to God and family. It took a while to come to terms that Dh and I did our best but it was not good enough for her. She has rewritten her history with us and only those who really know us know that she walked away from a wonderful home and family where she was treated like our own for 17 years.
Back to being thankful. I am thankful for the Lord and I am thankful for all the blessings each day. I have come to a place where I know that ONLY GOD can change our ED and I pray that one day, even if she has to go through some rough times, that she will see the truth and return to a family that always loved her Praying for the prodigal to return.
Two questions come to mind after reading your post. First, do we as adoptive parents expect to be appreciated, if not with genuine love and bonding, with appreciation at a minimum for having "rescued" them? Is this a misguided expectation? I know I did not instantly have a strong love and attachment to the teenager that walked through my front door one evening, but I did have an instant commitment to her and more so once the adoption was final. I wonder what thoughts she had towards me? (And I don't think she'll ever be able or willing to articulate that to me.). Did your daughter ever express or discuss her commitment to you as a parent or handful ness for the adoption? Mine had to privately meet with the judge and agree to be adopted by me and this was after a couple years together already.
Secondly, do you think our EK's don't think they can reconcile with us unless they do embrace God and our way of life also. Obviously, we want them back with The Lord first and foremost, but I would settle for kindness and respect for now and hope that in time there would be a return to the Father as well. Maybe they believe we would shun them or lecture them to death if their lifestyles are objectionable to our belief system?
Thanks again for sharing and let's see if some adoptive patents will contribute and help keep some discussion going. God Bless .
It took me a while to think about what you shared. I thought in our ED's growing up years that we had bonded. I can see now that it was not the case. I know the enemy and the enablers are a pawn in this sad scenario but I have come to realize if there had been real bonding that our ED would not have been able to do the evil that she has done to us (and the extended family) in the past two years. My husband and I would have loved to have seen our ED act respectfully and honor us as her parents. We would have accepted these actions as gratitude but look at what we received. This is the opposite of gratefulness.
Our ED did share our Christian faith and even participated in church and church music. She left so many beautiful ministries behind when she left home to be with the bf. Since she left home we have reached out to her over the past couple of years to let her know that we have nothing but love, forgiveness, and God's grace to show her. We have let her know that we would love to have peace with her. She is convinced in her mind that we are to blame. She would call our parenting too controlling when it was really protective and she would call our correction too critical when it was really parenting. My husband said we did our best but I guess our best was not good enough. I believe due to her mental problems that she really believes the lies that she has told so many times. She has rewritten history. Any one who knows us knows the truth. Her enablers (which keep changing) who do not know us believe her for a while until they start seeing things do not quite add up.
We pray that one day things will change and we may be able to have at least a peaceful relationship. I grieve for what could have been and is not. She is in God's hands. My prayer is that He will deal with her that she may one day come to see the light.
She just has no feeling for me. I wonder what all the love was when she lived with me. Yes,.. At 18 it seemed to expire.