Being The Louder Voice

Jo Adamson-Parker - 28 Apr 18

NinjaMam has been kicking off a bit this week, in between drinking tea and eating cake that is – that’s what I’ve done this week. I rarely get ‘me time’. I very rarely get childfree time where I don’t have twelvety billion things to do or places to be, meetings to get to. This week I had two days when I could pretty much do what I wanted, so I did and I felt giddy with the freedom!

As parents what is your free time? I sometimes have days, especially when both boys are at home, when I can’t even go to the toilet. I certainly can’t go on my own and if I do manage to escape and seek refuge, one of them will find me, demand the answer to ‘a very important question’ or want a cuddle. WHEN I’M ON THE TOILET!!! One of my friends yesterday confessed to sometimes resorting to hiding in the loo with a packet of biscuits and the door locked to get five minutes peace from her two. Yes, she knows it’s grim, no we don’t eat in toilets but sometimes you just need that space.

I hate going to the dentist. I did a runner from a waiting room once because I’d worked myself up so much but since having the boys I relish a session in the chair. I’ve even looked forward to a root canal before because it meant an hour when no one needed me, no one could get to me, I was laid down with my eyes shut, even if I was drugged to the limit and still in considerable pain, it was ‘me time’. That’s bad isn’t it, when a root canal is ‘me time’.

So, this week I’ve been out for lunch twice – TWICE! Yes, I shall say it again, TWICE! And I feel a certain level of calm and peace, which really, I probably shouldn’t be feeling considering I’m about to take a month away from my business and do something really surreal with my time but more on that later.  My zen like state could also have a lot to do with my ‘me time’ spent at my hypnotherapists yesterday.

I know that we’re British, so we don’t talk about mental health, depression, anxiety, all those things that if you admit to having it’s often seen as a weakness or ‘there’s something wrong with you and you’re unstable’. I can say that because I’ve been there, I’ve lost friends by being honest about my mental health but I think I’ve now gotten to a stage in my life where I don’t want to be silent about things that matter. I don’t want to have strong beliefs and opinions and keep quiet about them and actually what is there to hide if I’m not ashamed of it. It’s ok to say you’ve faced this, it’s ok to want to talk about it and it’s ok to ask for help. I know that now.

I’ve got a period of about four or five years in my life that I have very little recollection of. For some of that time I have absolutely no memory at all. I was working, I was functioning, I’ve never been into drug taking and when I drink I always remember everything I’ve done (that’s handy!!) so it certainly wasn’t that. It was depression. I have big blank holes in my story and it used to scare me, but I’m used to it now. At the time I didn’t talk about it, I tried to deal with it on my own and then turned to the ‘wrong people’ for support. People who very quickly judged and disappeared.

Depression, it’s messy isn’t it, why would they want to be around that?  Why would people want to invite that into their lives if it’s not directly affecting them? The night times were the worse for me and I went through weeks at a time not sleeping so it’s no wonder I cracked really. But no one was there to say ‘we can help, we’ve got this’. And I’m not saying that like it’s a sob story, it’s just what it is. It’s just the truth and I think if it happened now it would be very different. Hopefully now people are more aware of mental health, it’s talked about much more and I know now that I have a really good support network.

But it wasn’t really until I was going through the adoption approval process that I started to appreciate what I’d been though and that I’d come out the other side, that it hadn’t been my fault and it certainly wasn’t a weakness.

These days I’m very open and honest, I think that what I went through made me stronger but just because you ‘feel better’ doesn’t mean it goes away. When we first adopted Bubba, I went through quite a bad patch of Post Adoption Depression. Yes, that really is a thing. I felt stupid and dramatic, but it exists and you’re not really told about it. You’re not warned that adopters can go through it. I’d gone from running a successful business, working long hours and really doing what I wanted with my time to watching Teletubbies and playing with cars for twelve hours a day. Yes, I might have gotten the child I’d always wanted but I’d also lost something too and I didn’t appreciate that at the time.

I’d never heard of Post Adoption Depression and thought I was being a bit pathetic and should just get on with it. What was my problem? As a new adopter you should cut yourself some slack and appreciate you’ve gone through a massive life change. It’s ok to feel happy but also, it’s also ok to feel a bit lost.

Back then we were lucky I think to have an amazing social worker and to her I don’t think we were a target to be met or a statistic. She viewed us as people and then as a family and that we needed to look after ourselves too and not just this small creature we’d welcomed into our lives. I think we mattered then, to her I think adoption is very different now though.

And here’s my point, yes, I do go off on tangents, but I like it so stay with me! When you adopt a child, they’re supposed to come with a Life Story Book and a Later Life Letter. The book is what it says, it reflects their story up to meeting you – their birth, birth family, photo’s, foster carers, milestones etc. It’s important.

The Later Life Letter is supposed to be a letter written by the child’s social worker for them to read when they’re older. It’s a huge deal, it explains in an impartial way why they were removed from their birth family, why they were put up for adoption, why they are with you – this is vitally important to a child taken into care. It’s part of their story.

We had Squeak placed with us over two years ago and I’m still chasing Social Services for both of these. Two years. When Bubba came to us we had them within a few months, he has no gaps in his story, we can explain everything to him and he has the written proof. My fear is that Squeak will have gaps, like me he will have massive holes in his story. I was an adult when that happened to me and it’s still disconcerting. How would he feel growing up never knowing certain things about his birth family? About his early months? Not knowing really important things like what his birth mother was like, what time he was born, where he was born. It’s not on is it.

This week I had another kick off. I got sent an attempt at a Life Story Book that frankly was offensive. It was full of misinformation, insensitive language and what could be worse…an overdose of clip art!! Jesus the clip art and clichés! I didn’t get an explanation, I didn’t get an apology. Nothing. Two years ago, this wouldn’t have happened, but adoption has changed so much and sadly I don’t think it’s for the better – don’t even get me started on Post Adoption Support, that’s a blog to come!

But why do we have to fight for what our children are entitled to – their history.  I’m not giving up, I will be the voice getting louder and louder until it’s acknowledged that ignoring something isn’t good enough.

Jo Adamson-Parker

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