Dear Annie: I come from a long history of family dysfunction. Child abuse, toxicity and abandonment are all I ever knew growing up. I developed severe complex PTSD and borderline personality disorder coming into my preteen years. I remember the blame was solely on me for my severe depression, suicide attempts and deep-seated suffering from my adoptive parents.
I moved out at age 17. The abuse continued despite my removal from their household, well into my late 20s. At that time, I cut off all contact with my abusers. I removed myself entirely from the family dynamic. (I have been in intensive therapy and medicated for years.)
My question is: How do I forgive my adoptive parents for manipulating me to place my infant fraternal twins with them when I was only 19 years old? Once they had my babies, they excluded me from the family and forced my hand into placing my children up for adoption with them.
How do I forgive them for the horrific abuse I sustained as a child in their home? How do I process the grief, which grips my heart and soul, I have for losing the opportunity to raise my son and daughter? They are 16 years young, and I do not even know them. Lastly, how do I ever forgive or come to terms with the fact that the people who were supposed to be my protectors, who were supposed to love me unconditionally, who chose to adopt me, failed me more than my biological parents ever could have? Do I have any rights as an adopted child? I’m forever tormented by my nightmare childhood, but even more so, I relive my grief daily as a mother who lost her children to her abusers. — One Sad Little Girl Who Is Middle-Aged
Dear Sad Little Girl Who Is Middle-Aged: Yes, you do have rights as an adult to sue your parents for abuse, but even if you win, you are not likely to get what you want. I doubt if they have a lot of money, and you would wind up being intertwined in their lives in ways that would do the opposite of helping you with the healing process.
My advice is to continue working with your therapist to process ways to cope with your abusive childhood, and focus on trying to establish a relationship with your twin children. They are becoming old enough for you to reach out to them directly. (c) Annie Lane @ Creators.com
None of this makes sense.
She left home at seventeen, but her adoptive family continued to abuse her for the next ten years? Even though she was an adult, and she no longer lived at home? Perhaps she means that she was still affected by their toxicity?
But then, she says that she finally but them out of her life in her late twenties. But she doesn’t even know her kids, whose family she was a part of until they turned ten years old, or thereabouts? Maybe she means she doesn’t really know them? (How well can any of us really know anyone? Hmm.)
They are 16 years young, and I do not even know them.
It reads as though she hasn’t seen or interacted with them since they were babies, but… okay.
She also says that after her adoptive parents stole her twins, they excluded her from the family. And yet they still managed to keep abusing her—and remotely, at that—for the next ten years? Well, now, did they exclude her or not?
I relive my grief daily as a mother who lost her children to her abusers.
Yeah, they’re abusers! And yet the letter writer has never done anything (like speaking to a lawyer or contacting CPS) to protect her kids, or try to get visitation, or try to reverse the adoption, and so on, and so forth? Furthermore, the sixteen-year-olds are still presumably being abused since they’re minors, but the letter writer is too caught up in her own pathos to be worried about them? They’re her children!
And she developed borderline personality disorder as a preteen? The C-PTSD I believe, but BPD? I suppose it’s possible, but it seems a little young. Also, the letter writer isn’t exhibiting any borderline traits in this letter. She referenced abandonment, but she also referenced being in intensive therapy for years. She implies that she has a long-standing relationship with a therapist, which is uncommon for someone with BPD for many reasons. (They tend to sabotage their relationships AND sabotage their therapy, which equates to the double-sabotage of the therapeutic relationship.)
Annie Lane’s advice is idiotic. I’ll make a better attempt than she did.
My question is: How do I forgive my adoptive parents for manipulating me to place my infant fraternal twins with them when I was only 19 years old?
You don’t. It’s unforgivable. Your adoptive parents don’t deserve to be forgiven, and they don’t deserve to be trusted.
How do I forgive them for the horrific abuse I sustained as a child in their home?
You don’t. It’s unforgivable. Your only burden is to take care of yourself. Keep working on that.
How do I process the grief, which grips my heart and soul, I have for losing the opportunity to raise my son and daughter?
You keep in mind that it’s never too late to get to know them. You hope, you pray, you do whatever you can to support them from afar until you find a way to get to know them.
Lastly, how do I ever forgive or come to terms with the fact that the people who were supposed to be my protectors, who were supposed to love me unconditionally, who chose to adopt me, failed me more than my biological parents ever could have?
Trust me, plenty of us have experienced things that can’t be accepted in any sense. Sad, yet true. You’ve got to accept that it’s unacceptable.
Do I have any rights as an adopted child?
No, not really. But you’re an adult now, so how is that relevant? And you did somehow escape at seventeen, a year before you were legally old enough to move out, so there’s that.
I’m thinking this is a fake letter. I bet artificial intelligence wrote it.
Let’s see what else Annie Lane is up to!
Dear Annie: My husband and I have been married for 17 years and have five adopted children through foster care. We have gone through a lot of tough situations with the children during the last six years, which put a lot of pressure on our marriage, including financially. During that time, my husband lashed out at me frequently. He has said many times that he resents me because of the kids, although he was always in agreement with what we were doing and pursuing.
We’ve gone through four therapists because he always quits when he hears what he doesn’t want to hear. He even got to the point where he would only want to have sex with me without a kiss or hug or anything. Since we’ve begun to turn a corner on the troubles, he has said he is sorry many times and has been really working to get back to his old self and break habits. He’s actually been pretty good.
The problem is, for self-preservation, I shut him off a long time ago, and now I’m struggling to feel any type of emotional or physical connection to him. I hung in there through all the abuse, thinking he would turn it around, but now that he has, I don’t even care. Do I just need to give it more time or is this change in him just too little too late? — Too Late
Dear Too Late: What you need to do is give yourself more time to heal. Be compassionate with your reactions to your husband. You are mad, and it is understandable that you shut him out. Whenever people are enduring any type of abuse, they go into protection mode. Fight, flight or freeze. It sounds like you are still, understandably, in protection mode. The best way to determine if you want to stay in your marriage is to do work on yourself. I would suggest that you seek the help of a trained somatic therapist. It is a type of therapy that helps with people suffering from PTSD. After you work with your therapist, then you can make a better decision about your husband.
Um, no.
It sounds like the husband got caught up in the allure of being a paid foster parent. (Five kids!) He probably figured that he’d let his wife do most of the work. Easy income, am I right? As Dr. Phil McGraw would say, “How’s that working for ya?”
But he never admitted his motives, not even to his wife, who genuinely wanted to help the kids. And after he started getting stressed out, he punished his wife and continued not to admit that he never wanted to be a foster parent, because they were having money problems, so he needed those kids to stick around. What a prince.
During that time, my husband lashed out at me frequently. He has said many times that he resents me because of the kids, although he was always in agreement with what we were doing and pursuing.
Yeah. Dude had ulterior motives. He saw it as a get-rich-quick scheme. “Hello! We’ll take five foster kids today!”
During that time, my husband lashed out at me frequently.
I could maybe forgive that. Emphasis on maybe. But this?!
He would only want to have sex with me without a kiss or hug or anything.
As well as using his foster kids for their associated income, he was also treating his wife like his own personal prostitute. Nice.
I’m sorry, but if a man were to have sex with me like that, even once (much less repeatedly), then our relationship would be killed deader than dial-up internet.
Now, the husband is pretending that he never meant it. I think he’s wised up to his wife’s reluctance to continue helping him get off, so he’s trying to sweet-talk her. I’m not buying it. I hope she never has sex with him again. In fact, I hope he lives the rest of his miserable, worthless life in a state of involuntary celibacy. And impotence!
The problem is, for self-preservation, I shut him off a long time ago, and now I’m struggling to feel any type of emotional or physical connection to him.
It’s upsetting when people try to override their inner knowing. This woman knows that her husband is a user, but she’s trying (consciously!) to push that info out of her mind and accept him for who he is. Yucks.
And then we have Annie Lane, who believes that the letter writer’s husband gave her PTSD, but she (Annie Lane) still thinks that the letter writer should hang in there. Um. No.
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