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The Birds, The Bees and The Adoptee

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Of all the topics I have discussed and written about, privately with friends and strangers, sex and intimacy never fails to rate as the single biggest issue of adult-sized concern.  (Keep in mind, please, I am a nurse by profession, and worked at Victoria's Secret after having 4 kids and a boob-job... what can I say?  I like to talk, and I've got a lot of material to work with!)

People like to talk about sex because the truth is, we are sexual beings.  We are created through sex, we are gendered and identified as a sex, we are attracted to mate with the opposite sex, and we are easily confused and/or frustrated by any gap or glitch that alters the natural flow, form, function and design of "things".  More than "search and reunion", love, lust, and sex rule the minds of adults, especially those who were abused, adopted, abandoned and alone.  I think adults who were abandoned or abused as children have an exceptionally difficult time with sexual relationships because Trust and Companionship become huge issues in conflict.  We were not born to be isolated, solitary and confined creatures, so it makes perfect sense to worry about our own placement in love's food-chain.  No one wants to have a broken-heart, so how does a broken child heal the pain so love can be found and felt again?  I think going back to the basics helps.  Think back to life as a child:  How does love get displayed by adults?  Typically love (and hate) gets physically demonstrated, and verbally expressed.   We are taught by our parents how love acts, feels and gets displayed.  Imagine what that means for the child relinquished by his/her First Love, Mom.

One of my favorite lessons learned in Nursing School was Erikson's Stages of Development.  Once again, I refer to wikipedia's version of content, because I believe they did a stellar job providing an easy-to-read summation of a semester's worth of psycho-social growth and development 101.  Although the stages outlined apply to all humans, consider each stage and task through the eyes of the child whose mother has left him to the hands of a stranger.


Erikson's stages of psychosocial development

Infancy (Birth-12 Months)
  • Psychosocial Crisis: Trust vs. Mistrust

Developing trust is the first task of the ego, and it is never complete. The child will let its mother out of sight without anxiety and rage because she has become an inner certainty as well as an outer predictability. The balance of trust with mistrust depends largely on the quality of the maternal relationship.

  • Main question asked: Is my environment trustworthy or not?
  • Central Task: Receiving care
  • Positive Outcome: Trust in people and the environment
  • Ego Quality: Hope
  • Definition: Enduring belief that one can attain one's deep and essential wishes
  • Developmental Task: Social attachment; Maturation of sensory, perceptual, and motor functions; Primitive causality.
  • Significant Relations: Maternal parent

Erikson proposed that the concept of trust versus mistrust is present throughout an individual's entire life. Therefore if the concept is not addressed, taught and handled properly during infancy (when it is first introduced), an individual may be negatively affected and never fully immerse themselves in the world. For example, a person may hide themselves from the outside world and be unable to form healthy and long-lasting relationships with others, or even themselves. If an individual does not learn to trust themselves, others and the world they may lose the virtue of hope, which is directly linked to this concept. If a person loses their belief in hope they will struggle with overcoming hard times and failures in their lives, and may never fully recover from them. This would prevent them from learning and maturing into a fully-developed person if the concept of trust versus mistrust was improperly learned, understood and used in all aspects of their lives. 

Younger Years (1-3 Years)
  • Psychosocial Crisis: Autonomy vs. Shame & doubt

If denied independence, the child will turn against his/her urges to manipulate and discriminate. Shame develops with the child's self-consciousness. Doubt has to do with having a front and back -- a "behind" subject to its own rules. Left over doubt may become paranoia. The sense of autonomy fostered in the child and modified as life progresses serves the preservation in economic and political life of a sense of justice.

  • Main question asked: Do I need help from others or not?

This question becomes important with the child and toilet training and how the parents react to the child's newfound independence.

  • Central Task: Imitation
  • Positive Outcome: Pride in self; Assertion of will in the face of danger
  • Ego Quality: Will
  • Definition: Determination to exercise free choice and self-control
  • Developmental Task: Locomotion; Fantasy play; Parallel Play; Language development; Self-control
  • Significant Relations: Parents  
Early Childhood (3-5 Years)
  • Psychosocial Crisis: Initiative vs. Guilt

Initiative adds to autonomy the quality of undertaking, planning, and attacking a task for the sake of being active and on the move. The child feels guilt over the goals contemplated and the acts initiated in exuberant enjoyment of new locomotive and mental powers. The castration complex occurring in this stage is due to the child's erotic fantasies. A residual conflict over initiative may be expressed as hysterical denial, which may cause the repression of the wish or the abrogation of the child's ego: paralysis and inhibition, or overcompensation and showing off. The Oedipal stage results not only in oppressive establishment of a moral sense restricting the horizon of the permissible, but also sets the direction towards the possible and the tangible which permits dreams of early childhood to be attached to goals of an active adult life. At this stage the child wants to begin and complete their own actions for a purpose.

  • Main question asked: How moral am I?
  • Central Task: Identification
  • Positive Outcome: Able to initiate activities and enjoy learning
  • Ego Quality: Purpose
  • Definition: Courage to imagine and pursue valued goals
  • Developmental Task: Sex-role identification; Early moral development; Self-esteem; Group play; Egocentrism
  • Significant Relations: Basic family

After this stage, one may use the whole repertoire of previous modalities, modes, and zones for industrious, identity-maintaining, intimate, legacy-producing, despair-countering purposes. 

Middle Childhood (6-10 Years)
  • Psychosocial Crisis: Industry vs. Inferiority

To bring a productive situation to completion is an aim which gradually supersedes the whims and wishes of play. The fundamentals of technology are developed. To lose the hope of such "industrious" association may pull the child back to the more isolated, less conscious familial rivalry of the oedipal time.

  • Main question asked: Am I good at what I do? How a child does at school becomes important in development
  • Central Task: Education
  • Positive Outcome: Acquire skills for and develop competence in work, enjoy achievement
  • Ego Quality: Competence
  • Definition: Free exercise of skill and intelligence in completion of tasks
  • Developmental Task: Friendship, skill learning, self-evaluation, team play things.
  • Significant Relations: School  
Adolescence (11-18 Years)
  • Psychosocial Crisis: Identity vs. Role Confusion

The adolescent is newly concerned with how they appear to others. Ego identity is the accrued confidence that the inner sameness and continuity prepared in the past are matched by the sameness and continuity of one's meaning for others, as evidenced in the promise of a career. The inability to settle on a school or occupational identity is disturbing.

  • Main question asked: What is my goal in life?

An identity crisis generally happens at this stage because of the changes in an individual. Those changes reflect both physical and cognitive maturation.

  • Central Task: Peer group, cliques
  • Positive Outcome: A strong group identity, ready to plan for the future
  • Ego Quality: Loyalty
  • Definition: Ability to freely pledge and sustain loyalty to others
  • Developmental Task: Physical maturation, emotional development, membership in peer group, sexual relationships
  • Significant Relations: Peer groups  
Early Adulthood (18-34 years)
  • Psychosocial Crisis: Intimacy vs. Isolation

Body and ego must be masters of organ modes and of the other nuclear conflicts in order to face the fear of ego loss in situations which call for self-abandon. The avoidance of these experiences leads to isolation and self-absorption. The counterpart of intimacy is distantiation, which is the readiness to isolate and destroy forces and people whose essence seems dangerous to one's own. Now true genitality can fully develop. The danger at this stage is isolation, which can lead to severe character problems.

  • Central Task: Caregiving
  • Positive Outcome: Form close relationships and share with others
  • Ego Quality: Love
  • Definition: Capacity for mutuality that transcends childhood dependency
  • Developmental Task: Stable relationships; Child bearing; Work etc.
  • Significant Relations: Marital partner, friends.

Erikson's listed criteria for "genital utopia" illustrate his insistence on the role of many modes and modalities in harmony:

  • mutuality of orgasm
  • with a loved partner
  • of opposite sex
  • with whom one is willing and able to share a trust, and
  • with whom one is willing and able to regulate the cycles of work, procreation, and recreation
  • so as to secure to the offspring all the stages of satisfactory development  
Middle Adulthood (35-60 Years)

Generativity is the concern of establishing and guiding the next generation. Simply having or wanting children doesn't achieve generativity. Socially-valued work and disciplines are also expressions of generativity.

  • Main question asked: Will I ever accomplish anything useful?
  • Central Task: Creativity
  • Positive Outcome: Nurturing children or helping the next generation in other ways
  • Ego Quality: Care
  • Definition: Commitment to and concern for family and community
  • Developmental Task: Nurture close relationships; Management of career and household; Parenting
  • Significant Relations: Workplace - community & family....  
Later Adulthood (60 years-Death)
  • Psychosocial Crisis: Ego integrity vs. despair

Ego integrity is the ego's accumulated assurance of its capacity for order and meaning. Despair is signified by a fear of one's own death, as well as the loss of self-sufficiency, and of loved partners and friends. Healthy children, Erikson tells us, won't fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.

  • Central Task: Introspection
  • Positive Outcome: A sense of fulfillment about life; a sense of unity with self and others
  • Ego Quality: Wisdom
  • Definition: Detached yet active concern with life in the face of death
  • Developmental Task: Promote intellectual vigor; Redirect energy to new roles and activities; Develop a point of view about death
  • Significant Relations: Humankind ("My-kind'). 

To further my understanding of personal relationships, and the dynamics that bind and bond, I chose to read more about relationsip issues targeting the adoptee.  How does being adopted and or being abused affect our ability to be intimate?
A number of studies have found that, while adopted persons are similar to nonadopted persons in most ways, they often score lower on measures of self-esteem and self-confidence (Borders, Penny & Portnoy, 2000; Sharma, McGue & Benson, 1996). This result may reflect the fact that some adopted persons may view themselves as different, out-of-place, unwelcome, or rejected. Some of these feelings may result from the initial loss of birth parents and from growing up away from birth parents, siblings, and extended family members; some may also result from an ongoing feeling of being different from nonadopted people who do know about their genetic background and birth family and may be more secure about their own identity as a result.  

When an adopted person plans to get married or become a parent, the need for genetic information may become more important. Adopted persons have different questions about the child they will produce, such as what the child will look like, and if the child will inherit any genetic disorders that were unknown to the adopted person.

Adopted persons often lack genetic and medical history, as well as other family information. A routine visit to the doctor's office, where the adopted person is asked to supply medical history information, may make adopted persons acutely aware of how they differ from those who were not adopted. Those who find out only later in life that they were adopted as infants are sometimes put at risk by their long-held assumption of a family medical history that they later find is completely incorrect.

 (Impact of Adoption on Adopted Persons Factsheet for Families )

How does adoption, self-esteem, and secure safety issues translate itself into traditional relationship statistics?

By age 30, three-quarters of women in the U.S. have been married and about half have cohabited outside of marriage, according to a comprehensive new (2002) report on cohabitation, marriage, divorce, and remarriage released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  The study suggests that both cohabitations and marriages tend to last longer under certain conditions, such as:  a woman's age at the time cohabitation or marriage began; whether she was raised throughout childhood in an intact 2-parent family; whether religion plays an important role in her life; and whether she had a higher family income or lived in a community with high median family income, low male unemployment, and low poverty.http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/02news/div_mar_cohab.htm 

For first marriages, for example, marriages are less likely to break up, and more likely to succeed, if the wife grew up in a two-parent home, is Asian, was 20 years of age or over at marriage, did not have any children when she got married, is college-educated, has more income, or has any religious affiliation.  CDC Highlights

I could list statistical data relating to birth, abortion and suicide rates, but none of them relate to adoptees, as a defined population with demographic importance.  We are alone in mass-calculations.  We are a group of people that transcends race, creed, country and belief-system, but we are not seen as a singular important group worth further focused study and attention. (Go figure...) However, I did find the following information that raised both eyebrows:

The most scientific of studies on Intercountry Adoptees' Outcomes was conducted in Sweden. In spite of the adult adoptees in the study having been adopted to couples belonging to the Swedish elite, it was estimated that:
90 % of the adopters belong to the upper and middle classes. In spite of this,
6.6 % of the intercountry adoptees had a post-secondary education of 3 years or more compared to
20% of biological children of the adopters whom they grew up with as siblings.
60.2 % of the intercountry adoptees were employed compared to
77.1% among ethnic Swedes, and
50% of the former group belong to the lowest income category compared
28.6 % for the latter.
29.2% of the intercountry adoptees were either married or co-habitants compared to
56.2 % of the majority population.

"Intercountry adoptees have less often children, and those who are parents are more often living without their children if they are males or as single parents if they are females, thus sadly mimicking their biological parents' behavior. Males have more often than females indicators of social maladjustment. Moreover, epidemiological studies show high levels of psychiatric illness, addiction, criminality and suicide compared to the control groups. The odds ratio:
3.2 - psychiatric hospital care
2.6 - in treatment for alcohol abuse
5.2 - drug abuse
2.6 - severe criminality leading to imprisonment stood
3.6 - suicide attempt .

Females have more often than males indicators of poor mental health. The most shocking finding is a record high odds ratio of 5.0 for suicide compared to ethnic Swedes, in an international perspective only comparable to the staggering suicide rates registered among indigenous people in North America and Oceania, which makes parallels to cultural genocide ghastly topical.

Adult adoptees in the above study were checked up in population registers and compared to equivalent control groups among ethnic Swedes. The results show that the group has substantial problems to establish themselves socio-economically in terms of level of education, labor market achievement and creating a family. [http://www.amfor.net/race.html]


To be fair, I have to admit I was really disappointed to discover no published statistics on the homosexual population as it relates to adopted adults.  Whether that's a simple matter of deeper digging, I'm not sure.  (Any one who knows where I can find statistical information, please add a comment or send an email so it can be added to this page.) Friends joke, calling me a Fag-Hag because I make it clear how much I want a gay-man-friend, but from a serious Nursing Perspective, I believe as a life-style, and health issue, sexuality deserves it's own study in growth and development, because it IS part of the adopted child's whole-health-history.  If homosexuality is indeed a heridtary trait, I believe each adopted child and adoptive parent should know such information about the child's parent's sexual preference, because it could eliminate much grief and moral concern for the child born with homosexual tendencies.  Imagine how many teens are getting hurt because of gay-bashing and religious rhetoric.  For the sake of Adoption Triad interest and integrity, and in terms of the dynamics of nature v. nurture, I believe each child born has the right to choose his/her own soul-mated, life-partner.   

Back at the ranch of ramblings... As humans, I believe, we are not much smarter than animals when it comes to learning.  What a person sees, hears, feels, tastes and smells is what I consider living examples of life-lessons, so what we learn, and how we react to certain situations can only come from our own parent's behaviors.  Behavior Modification therapy is an example of re-training life-learned associations, so it cannot be said enough times, what a parent does to his/her child is indeed the single-most critical influence on a child's behavior and future.  Cause and Effect Reasoning. Natural Consequences. Even dogs know how to associate pattern with behavior. [see Classic Conditioning].

In terms of love, romance and sexuality, if the language of Love is inconsistent, broken or lost, what sort of personal-relationship patterns can a person expect to experience?   First and foremost in ALL human conditions is Safety.  [See:  Maslow's hierarchy of needs]  Erikson illustrates this through the task-lesson each infant must learn for survival.  He puts it simple terms of Trust v. Mistrust.  "Is it SAFE to be with this person?"  Imagine how horrific that is for a child not knowing if mom, (the food source), is safe or not.  Since biology has made the female the life-source of each child, I believe kindness is the basis of all life-questions.  "Will this help or hurt me?" 

I have often asked myself, once Trust is lost, can it be regained?  Can I trust another person to accept me as I am, not change anything about me, and not fear punishment?  I've learned that question can only be answered with the following rhetorical question:  how determined am I to live as I want to live, and feel the love, happiness and inner peace I believe I deserve?  It's a highly personal question, because only we know what we want in our lives.  Face it, soul-searching is a neccesary evil to find our own true inner-peace and happiness.

For those who want intimate love, but afraid to seek and keep it, perhaps the bigger question is:  HOW do I learn to Trust?  For some adults, that life-lesson needs to be re-taught and re-introduced as a new world language.  In some cases, that re-learning process will be especially hard and difficult because some wounded children self-medicate using drugs or alcohol.  As one who took care of post-surgical and cancer patients, being numb to pain is it's own reward.  There's no question, teaching an old beaten dog new tricks is no small task.

How can a person get jump-started and motivated to learn new ways and behaviors?  I thought it would be wise to offer a few examples of the types of websites available for the average joe and jane seeking sound advice for intimate relationship struggles.  I chose to include a random cross-section of approaches, styles and techniques various therapists use in clinical-practice.  I endorse only the concept of good, respectful advice offered by those educated in healthy living dynamics.  Progress in personal happiness is the aim; there is no simple, final cure, as life is a growing, changing process and we all must learn to adapt to those changing conditions.  It's been said many times, cautious baby-steps work best.  I like to think of it as limping back into life, but I know I'm dog-minded.   Am I an authority in intimate relationships?  Hell no.  In fact, I feel like I'm a huge failure when it comes to making those closest to me happy. I am only one of many who grew-up in a messed-up family where happy, healthy intimate relationships were NOT found at Home.  I learned by example, (and a major head injury) that life does offer second and even third or more chances.  In fact, I learned as long as I breathe and think, I have a fighting chance to prove myself wrong.  I love learning all people are not bad, selfish, greedy and corrupt.  I only thought they were.  Below are some sample-websites I thought were worth a second look.  If anyone finds a page that addresses the needs of a person with Trust Issues, please feel free to add a link and sentence, so others can benefit from internet interest.  My philsophy is simple:  anything positive and proactive, is worth a second reading.


  • Self-esteem is the core issue  in social and performance anxiety. It is important to consider the difference between a person who says, "I have lost three battles" from the one who says, "I am a loser".
  • Failure has more to do with one's self-concept than one's actual unsuccessful experiences.
  • The person who suffers from social or performance anxiety misinterprets unsuccessful experiences. Not winning, making mistakes, rejection, and failing at something are too often interpreted as a flaw, or an attack on the core of the person's being. Unresolved, uncomfortable emotions from the past are activated by "performance" challenges.
  • Do you think that great homerun hitters like Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Roger Maris, or Barry Bonds are remembered for their strikeouts? As great a basketball player as Michael Jordan is, he missed many more shots than he made. Surely Mick Jagger and Tina Turner missed a few notes in their time. Surely Bill Gates made a few mistakes.
  • Self-esteem is a sense of liking yourself, liking how you relate to others, feeling personally secure, and not having to prove your manhood or womanhood with external symbols.

Self-esteem Scale

The self-esteem scale below measures how highly you value yourself.

In the past three months indicate how much each of the statements represents the way you think or feel about yourself:

Very Much
Somewhat
Not Very Much
Never
I minimize my abilities
3
2
1
0
I expect others to fault my work
3
2
1
0
I wish I were someone else
3
2
1
0
I make demands on myself
that I would not make on others
3
2
1
0
When I succeed I don't think I deserve it
3
2
1
0
I like who I am
0
1
2
3
Under pressure I expect things to go wrong
3
2
1
0
I blame myself when things do not work
the way I expect
3
2
1
0

Scoring

Healthy
Fair
Guarded
Unhealthy
Score
0-6
7-10
11-15
16+
  • http://www.runningempty.org/intimacy.html  We all want intimacy with another person - whether or not we admit it. And we're all afraid of being intimate - whether or not we admit it. Telling another person about our private thoughts and feeling exposes us to them. They could criticize us, tell others what they know about us, use their knowledge to control us or hurt us. The possible negatives seem immense. Nevertheless, we seek intimacy. It validates our existence, gives us a sense of completion.  We want someone to love us more as they know more about us, but we are afraid that they will love us less. We also are afraid that we will have to change (which we really don't want to do). 
  • http://www.designedthinking.com/Fear/Intimacy/intimacy.html:  We often hear the disheartening stories of people who have given up on ever falling in love again, who can't or won't open their hearts to those they have become close to. For them, being intimate means someone will get hurt. You can often hear it in their language with statements such as:  I'll never get married again, You can't trust women, All men are liars and cheats People are too weird; I'd rather be by myself  These types of generalizations are made when people have come to the conclusion that relationships equal pain, discomfort, or disappointment. If people seek intimacy while their fears and desires are in conflict, emotional discomfort will create distance from those with whom they want to be close. Some will become workaholics and other stay socially isolated. Life just feels safer that way. When we haven't let go of past painful memories, negative emotions take the upper hand. We try to avoid rejection and we fear exposing ourselves, while we grapple with issues of trust. But emotions have the ability to be remarkably resilient when we allow ourselves to let go of the past and allow healing to begin

  • Performance Anxiety  (http://www.coolnurse.com/performance_anxiety.htm)  is a common sexual problem in which anxiety about engaging in sexual activity becomes an overriding block to the spontaneous flow of sexual feelings and thoughts. For some reason it is more prevalent in men, however it can be overcome...[although some hinderances] can have biological causes, for most people with performance anxiety the problem is psychological.... 
  • http://www.drdicksexadvice.com/category/intimacy-concerns  I reject the concept of sex addiction, that is floating around in the popular culture these days.   I know this will rankle a bunch of you, but you need to get over it. Ya see, there ain't no such thing as a sex addiction. Period! That being said, I hasten to add that there are sexual compulsions, plenty of 'em. However, compulsions are not addictions and addictions, while they may involve irresistible impulses, are not the same thing as compulsions. Get it? Got it? Good! Check it out. With the help of my handy-dandy dictionary, a good place to start in all such discussions, I discovered these two very distinct definitions.  Addiction - a need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal. Broadly: persistent use of a substance known by the user to be harmful. A state of physiological and psychological dependence on a drug.  Compulsive - driven by an irresistible inner force to do something; i.e. a compulsive liar. See! Different words. Different meanings. Not a particularly complex notion to grasp, right? And listen, just because a bunch of pseudo-intelligent afternoon talks show hosts banter the two concepts about like they were interchangeable doesn't make it so. In fact, we do ourselves a huge disservice by jumbling these two very specific concepts. Because finding the proper intervention for either an addiction or a compulsive behavior will be as specific as the problem itself. One thing is for certain; misidentifying one of the things, as the other will surly complicate the problem solving. It's kinda like going to the doctor with a headache, and when the doc asks where it hurts, you point to your stomach. It simply won't do.
  • http://www.head-cleaners.com/perfsex.htmlIt's the pits when it hits   Anxiety about sexual performance is an awful pit to slip into -- and one that is, unfortunately, very common and politically correct in that it can happen to anyone, any gender, any age, any personality type, any IQ. It messes with one's sense of self esteem and self worth and can spread into other areas of performance, causing general and wide spread problems with confidence. Sexual performance anxiety can be caused by even a very brief simple event -- even in very stable, emotionally healthy individuals. The whole dilema is much like being in a very slippery-sided pit -- the speedier and more frantic you are, the slipperier you make your problem -- the calmer and slower you move in escaping, the more likely you are to escape. A good thing gone bad.   Anxiety is intended by Nature to be a system for warning us of dangers and threats. A twig snaps behind you and your mind goes into anxiousness mode -- your brain becomes hyper-alert for danger. Your hearing and vision become acute, your muscles prep for running or battle, your digestive tract and the complex thought parts of the brain shut down to standby mode. That's a good thing if a lion is about to attack. Unfortunately, because we are complex critters that do a lot of complex thinking, sometimes we can get anxious about something very complex (e.g., sexual failure and the social consequence of sexual failure in our sex-obsessed society) that is actually more likely to become a problem if our primative warning signals alert us that it might be a problem. This is a self-fullfilling fear. 

by Kerry on Saturday, 23 June 2007