Abuse and Suicide Risk
According to Psych Central News, the risk of suicide attempts made later in life have much to do with the frequency and type of abuse that has taken place during childhood, and that risk is also influenced by the identity of the abuser.
sexual abuse by an immediate family member (such as a father, stepfather or brother) carried the greatest risk. Abuse perpetrated by an extended family member (uncle or cousin) carried an intermediate risk, while abuse by an unrelated individual (an acquaintance, romantic partner or stranger) carried a weaker risk.
http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/08/04/suicide-risk-among-abused-children/2685.html
The article continues to explain why certain types of abuse increase the risk of suicide ideation.
abuse by a father or stepfather is considered especially traumatic, possible because such abuse is more likely to occur in families with multiple problems and also because these families cannot provide safe and healing conditions following abuse.
Second, abuse by close family members may have long-term consequences on the development of health attachment patterns necessary for mental health.
I find this very interesting, since so many adoption specialists like to blame an adoptee's suicide mission a manifestation of bad genetics, linked to depression. After all, why else would an adopted/fostered child want to commit suicide, unless the birth parents, (or their equally messed-up families) had a history with depression or suicide?
<rolling eyes>
Since most of us adult adoptees don't have access to our birth records or family histories, I'm curious how others see the drive to commit suicide. Heredity or home environment, which is more likely to lead a person to the end of his/her rope?
Comments
Heredity or home environment...
Kerry wrote:
Since most of us adult adoptees don't have access to our birth records or family histories, I'm curious how others see the drive to commit suicide. Heredity or home environment, which is more likely to lead a person to the end of his/her rope?
I believe that depends on the diagnosis. For example, bipolar has a strong genetic link while PTSD has none. Both are significant risk factors in adolescent suicide. I would imagine a combination of both would be especially lethal.
Dad
A typical AP's perspective
I'm curious, is it possible for you, as an AP to accept not ALL adoptive families are safe healthy environments, and not ALL adoptees come from abusive drug whores?
I have the scars to prove my side of the story.
What kept me alive?
My belief that my mother did not birth a mistake. I was taken as one.
You see, there are many hidden truths in a house where abuse is taking place. This is a discussion for abused adoptees. Perhaps I need to clarifiy that for each post I make.
A Typical AP's perspective :)
Kerry wrote:
I'm curious, is it possible for you, as an AP to accept not ALL adoptive families are safe healthy environments, and not ALL adoptees come from drug whores?
Clever. Unless I've misjudged you, that was rather beneath you. I challenge you to post just one quote in context where I advance that position. You won't come even close.
On the contrary, the only blanket generalizations of adoption as "the perfect solution" are offered up as straw men, usually to pathologize adoptive parents. As proof, look no further than the subject heading of this post.
No, the only adoption as panacea being spewed forth 'round here seems to be coming from your own posts. I guess it gives you something to roll your eyes over.
Dad
P.S. I have learned some valuable insight in my time here. I also think I have something to contribute, although admittedly it probably won't win me any popularity contests.
If you think my presence here is counterproductive to this forum, say the word and I'm outta here.
Our place in this world
Dad,
After having spent some time on PPL now, it must have occured to you that many adoptees here have experienced abuse within their adoptive families. While that is not true for all adoptive families, it is certainly true for some and having dwelt around in various corners of cyberspace, I've come to the conclusion it is not all that uncommon either.
When starting PPL we decided to pay special attention to this aspect. There are enough places on the internet where adoptive parent's struggles with abused and neglected children is discussed, there are enough places where search and reunion is discussed, there is an abundance of places where the cost of adoption, or which agency to choose is discussed. There are also places where adoptees get banned when speaking up against adoption, or angrily speak of their experiences. So far this is the only website I know of, that pays so much attention to abuse within the adoptive family.
Just Google for adoption and apart from the fact that 60% is about dogs, you'll see the remainder of the internet is littered with fairy tales of loving forever families and Gods that interfere in children's lives so infertile couples can receive the children they wanted. PPL is a counter voice for those who experienced something totally oposite of the angelical picture that dominates in both media, industry paid adoption promotion and evangelical driven blogosphere.
Because of that, our discussions are biased towards the dark side of adoption, which doesn't equate being biased to adoptive families per se, though for many here there is not much trust in the construct of the adoptive family, for very understandable reasons.
[sheepish grin]
Who's to say my word-choice in a title does not suggest I am seeking an Atypical AP response to what I present for discussion-purposes. Thanks to the work I have been doing through PPL, I have learned there are almost as many AP's angry with the adoption industry as adoptees.
I am not the enemy... I just play both sides, reminding us all, contrary to popular published opinion, adoption may not be the best option for every child being born from young single mothers.
There are stories (of abusive situations) out there that have not be told... there are judgements being made that are not fair because they are not fully fact-based.
I do believe AP's have to have a higher level of responsibility to a child. Why? Unlike pregnancy, adoption is no accident. It's an intentional, deliberate parenting decision. Surely you can understand how much more hurtful abuse in these families can be to the child who was promised "something better".
Atypical vs A Typical
Kerry wrote:
Who's to say my word-choice in a title does not suggest I am seeking an Atypical AP response to what I present for discussion-purposes.
Oh, is that what your subject heading meant? An invitation for atypical responses? I totally missed that. And here I thought you were calling me a [space] typical AP. Silly me.
Dad
For the record...
I am seeking atypical comments from AP's... the kind that do not readily assume a diagnosis made by a doctor is the correct one, based on incomplete medical histories. Your comment regarding a bipolar diagnosis made for an adoptee proves to me your are typical in the assumption that the doctor is right, and the patient/client is wrong. They are right, we are wrong. It's the same old Us v. Them conflict, and quite frankly, it gets old.
Perhaps you have NO fears going to a doctor, because you have a family from which you can ask: "Did anyone have heart disease? Did any one have diabetes? Did anyone have mental illness?" Perhaps you don't know what it's like looking at the medical history form at a doctor's office and always writing "Do not know, I was adopted" in the family history section. Perhaps you don't know these things, but we do, because we are the ones who have to fill the blanks with all sorts of questions that relate to adoption.
Medical issues became very real to me when I was facing a cancer scare that rocked me to the core, so I take anything written by a doctor very seriously. And yes, I question everything.
Non-adopted people assume far too quickly that our problems can be easily diagnosed, just because a doctor says a certain finding looks typical. You know what? That bothers me, A LOT.
I also put my father through living hell
Kerry wrote:
My best friend in high school was later diagnosed bipolar, except back then they called it manic-depression. He was brilliant, positive, good looking, socially skilled, and a natural leader. He scored 1500+ on his SATs and got a full ride to the Naval Academy after graduation. He was everything I wanted to be.I am seeking atypical comments from AP's... the kind that do not readily assume a diagnosis made by a doctor is the correct one, based on incomplete medical histories. Your comment regarding a bipolar diagnosis made for an adoptee proves to me your are typical in the assumption that the doctor is right, and the patient/client is wrong. They are right, we are wrong. It's the same old Us v. Them conflict, and quite frankly, it gets old.
We lost close contact after high school, but I remember receiving the news of his premature discharge from the Navy for "medical reasons".
A few months later he showed up at my off campus apartment, begging for a place to stay. I could tell there was something wrong, but allowed him to stay the night anyway against the wishes of my roommates. At 3:00am I heard a loud noise and went to the kitchen to check it out. Joe had removed all the food and shelving from the refrigerator and was standing there, buck naked, trying to climb inside and close the refrigerator door behind him.
So began a four year long struggle with his illness. On his meds he felt like a zombie. Off his meds he felt much better - but was crazy as a loon, highly impulsive, and during his manic phases, completely out of control.
Up and down, spinning wildly between two extremes. The meds masked his illness but took part of his soul. There was no happy medium.
Before I changed majors (from psychology), I worked for a couple of years in an acute care mental health facility run by a large regional hospital. A "Psychiatric Assistant" is what they called me, and even though most of my fellow PAs were studying psychology in graduate school, they hired me for the job anyway. We had some clinical functions, but mostly, we knew why they hired strong young men for the job. As the only locked unit in our county, we got the worst emergency admissions.
By the way, Kerry, we used to love when the RNs in training came through for their psych rotation. Most of them were clueless at the beggining, but that's what their training was for. To give them a clue.
During my time there Joe was involuntarily admitted, twice. Joe finally ended his misery with the barrel of a gun to his mouth, I am told during one of his off-medication manic phases.
I have seen patients destroyed by misdiagnosis and the overuse of medication. I have seen competent psychiatrists who work wonders, and those who should never be allowed near a patient. And I have seen horrific behaviors by those who are accurately diagnosed, like Joe, who made the decision for themselves AMA to discontinue their medication.
In the beginning of last summer, I actually encouraged my son to discontinue his medication. He wanted to try, and I thought it deserved a shot. We secured permission from his psychiatrist.
What followed was by far the most difficult two months in my life as a father. He was fired from his job (twice) where he had performed admirably for more than 18 months. He wrapped his car around a utility pole while "ramping" in a farmer's field. He lost his first real girlfriend who walked out on him when she could no longer deal with his behavior, which only served as a yet another abandonment trigger. We had our share of police interventions, knives, locks and alarms on the doors inside our home, holes punched in new drywall, emergency room evaluations, etc.
I'm not yet able to share the worst of it here. I'm just not ready. I've probably shared too much already. I'm not a professional in the field. But I'm not exactly clueless, either. Nor do I accept a diagnosis or treatment plan out-of-hand just because an MD tells me to.
I also put my father through living hell a time or two in my life. In those moments more than any other, my dad stuck with me when too many fathers might have walked away. Had my father not shown me how to be a good dad through the worst of times, I'm embarrassed to say I don't think I would have done the same for my son.
This morning at 6:30am, my son called me to tell me he was being offered full-time employment (with bennies, thank god) after a 90 day probation period with his new employer. Life is good right now, but sometimes it's real hard to be a family.
Dad
The gift of sharing
I grew-up where everything had to be perfect, or else.
There was no room for mistakes, and weakness of any kind would not be tolerated.
Open-minded conversations did NOT exist in my world.
If I was told to jump, I asked "how high".
If I cried, "I'm hurt", I'd be told to get over it.
I tried many times in college to OD on drugs. The first time I tried, it was the first weekend Freshman year. I was rushed to the ER, where my heart stopped. For some reason God would not let me die, no matter how many times I tried taking "a little more".
My Aparents never asked, "What's wrong?" They simply assumed I had no sense of self-control, and that required discipline.
[I'm laughing now at how much "control" I exerted when they tried to speech me to death! Control, and not fighting back, was all I ever knew. I remember sitting there thinking, "Just once I want to lose control, and it not cost me this living hell..." Just once I wanted to feel a sense of freedom, the relief of letting go all that was kept and contained inside of me... just once I didn't want to feel pain. I learned, instead to to choke it down, and let it rot inside so no one else would see it. ]
Years later, I told them WHY I turned to drugs and alcohol in college. I tried to tell them it was my way of stopping my mind from remembering the things that were coming back to me at night. I was hoping they'd take me in and tell me, "It's OK... we're going to work through this so you can feel better about yourself."
I got no such answer. They assumed I was all better, and soon stopped talking to me. For years I was given the Silent Treatment. I was expected to apologize for upsetting them and their image of "perfect family". Like a fool, I did just like they wanted. I called them one Christmas, and invited them to spend the day with their two grandchildren. It took me another few years to realize, I'm not the crazy one with all the psychological problems, they are. I finally grew a spine and gave them the option to love me like a daughter, or leave me alone, like the stranger I have become. I waited months for a response. A year or so later I began to forgive myself. I still look back and feel sadness. Not for them... for myself.
Unless we, as adults, discuss these dark realities of family troubles, more kids are going to take dangerous turns to end the madness that contaminates so many lives.
Yes, in many cases, there is a genetic element to mental illness. [I was one of those RN's who looked at some in the psych-ward saying, "HOLY SHIT! How does this happen????" I also believe my Amother is mentally ill, as her father was a raging abusive alcoholic . That's the family secret no one could discuss, and it used to kill me, because when I needed a mommy, she was too busy putting all her pain on me.]
Because of my own experience, I can appreciate the genetic elements, but I also acknowledge the power family influence has on a child. In these cases, I can see how mental illness can start at "home". Where there is abuse, there is trauma. I was never with my first mother long enough to be abused. I was placed in care for almost a year before adopted by this couple.
For the fostered/adopted, there ARE abuse cases that CAN be prevented. We need to put an end to abusive parenting, and I believe there is a first simple step that keeps getting over-looked and ignored. The adoption industry owes it to children one simple response: "Never again will we tolerate abuse in a foster/adoptive home".
home environment... different view
I grew up in a home where I was not taught anything; there was never any time to spend with/on me as I was deemed a
nuisance. Two things I learned at the age of twelve: how to hook up my menstrual pad to the garter belt, and that the long hem of the top sheet goes to the top.... NOTHING more was ever attempted for my education in the home environment.
There were NO boundaries so I had to go until I hit one; pick myself up off the floor and wander around until I hit another one.
So you can imagine what I was like in public. This only played to the two headed monster's plan of presenting me as having something wrong with me.
Kerry said:
"In these cases, I can see how mental illness can start at "home". Where there is abuse, there is trauma."
And this is the reason why I do NOT take the hap-hazard diagnoses from every (on the job trained) therapist who has an agenda while using MY children or myself as gynie-pigs.
Kerry said:
"but I also acknowledge the power family influence has on a child." This is my point, too. There may be a biological bent toward some mental issues but the day to day influence of a family can blow it up; where living in a biological home may have made it a livable thing. The ABUSE will surely exacerbate the situation.
All my children did not arrive as full blown "whatever..." and I have seen them develop trauma based mannerisms. I now know of the abuse. Putting it all together, and the fact that adoption in itself is traumatizing; plus there being the separation anxiety and expectations on both sides (baby/child and AP) I can't imagine that the new family isn't a big influence on the child's mental health.
One Step Up From Bottom,
Teddy
Home environment.
In my personal case, I know that it was home environment but I didn't always knew that.
Few years ago, I was well-known in the psychiatric departmen. I was hospitalized about 5 times following suicide attempts. Nobody ever knew about the other 10 attempts. For every professionals, it was obvious that my depression was the result of heredity. At one point, I also had been diagnosed with bipolar. I took the lithiums for almost two years. Bipolar, it could only be hereditary.
There was one psy who believed that it was the home environement. I thought he was not interested in treating me because he always sent me to his students while he was treating other patients. Even after the third attempt that nearly killed me, he believed that my place was not at the hospital.
With "heredity", I could have stayed on all kinds of drugs for the rest of my life. But I didn't stay on the medication.
I urge every adoptees to not keep their anger and their feelings for themselves. If you don't feel understood in your environment, join an adoptee's group where youre feelings were not be invalidated.
The most important: I urge every adoptees who had been abused in their adoptive families to not keep the secret for themselves.
The danger of a wrong diagnosis
It should terrify people that wrong assumptions are being made regarding a fostered/adopted person's behavior.
Often times the medications given not only do NOT help, but they also cause side effects that include increased feelings of depression, which can in fact, lead to suicide. [The studies are out, there, you just have to pay to read the findings.]
<rolling eyes>
Feeling hopeless and helpless, and then being medicated because no one is willing to listen to the problems that are taking place at home... I think is very concerning.
Oddly enough, this topic of conversation came to my attention, years ago, when I received an email from a first mom I "met" through Adoption.con. She learned her child, who was adopted by a "good couple", was in an accident. That accident turned out to be a suicide, done on the Afather's birthday. Imagine being told the child you hoped to have a better life committed suicide. [Keep in mind, this adoptee went to many therapists, including a self-proclaimed authority on adoption issues.]
I believe any loving parent would agree, there is no greater grief or loss than the death of their own child.
We can take sides until the cows come home, but the truth is, there are lives being taken, and it cannot be denied that child placement does have something to do with that.
Suicide study
A 2005 Swedish study states:
Interracial
Where I live there are many ethnicities and races; my children are at the top of this hodgepodge of people... this is true because of their work ethics from home schooling and the fact that our group was out in the public and known. This is
NOT par for the course in America. We are/were different in terms of being accepted as different. BUT, moving out into
the world will present an entirely different challenge and I can see very clearly how this is similar to an Asian being adopted
into a Swedish home in Sweden.
The one thing I did right... hopefully, was to view our area of the U.S. and see how it could work being a different nationality
or color and still fit in. BUT, I did not go further in evaluating how the adult adoptee would favor in the whole country should
they choose to live elsewhere.
I'm very interested in what is said in this forum as it pertains to the happiness of my family... and I do see how some adoptees
turn to suicide because of these very things of not fitting in.
Here's another place that Holt is lacking when placing children: Just how has it been a positive experience or a negative
experience for the Holt adoptee? But I forget, they are not about the right thing being done... only getting it done.
One Step Up From Bottom,
Teddy