Six Weeks In...

I have wanted to update all of you for the last few weeks, but truthfully life has been crazy.  We have had our ups and downs and some joy and some tears.  This morning I woke up and a friend forwarded me a posting from another blog and I realized I just need to share it with you and not try to re-write what they so eloquently shared.  It is amazingly honest, revealing, and true.  I urge you to read the post about Rejection/Anger on this blog.  Whether you have adopted, plan to adopt, or know someone who is adopting this blog will speak to you. 

If you have adopted and have your child home you may feel like you are alone...YOU ARE NOT!  If you plan to adopt this will provide some insight about the issues these children face.  I echo what they wrote...not every child will go through this, and some will be worse...but go into adoption with your eyes open.  And if you are there as a support to someone who is adopting, PLEASE READ THIS!  These families need prayer and your understanding!! 

The family writing this blog amazes me with their willingness to take their experiences and attempt to help others.  They are handling their struggles with grace and love.  I have a lot to learn about that.  I have realized in our situation that I haven't been handling a lot of things correctly with Vika.  This week I earnestly apologized to her about that.  Thankfully I have a husband and dear friend willing to open my eyes and show me where I am failing.  Our road is not easy and there are days I think about it so much trying to 'figure it out' that I end up completely exhausted.  But I will not give up.  I was running this morning and listening to Matthew West's song Strong Enough...I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength, I don't have to be strong enough!!!


This is from the blog  http://morelovetogive.com/author/morelovetogive/
Rejection/Anger

13 Jul

Things are much different now

While doing our best to be honest about the difficulties we’ve faced in our first year of adoption, we are not trying to be prescriptive in what someone else will face.  We know some have had easier times than us and some have had much, much harder times.  Also, the timetable for the difficulties is vastly different.  Some have a longer honeymoon period and take longer to get to the issues, some face issues right away and battle for longer.  The important thing to know is that every kid is different, every parent is different, every situation is different.  While it’s impossible to be fully prepared, we hope this series of posts can open up some conversation when we do face these things.
Today we wanted to talk about Rejection/Anger.  We’ve talked about this a little bit at various points in our journey, but one of the most difficult things we experienced was rejection.  Most of our rejection occurred between one daughter in particular and Holly.  We’ve heard many stories where orphaned kids connect immediately with adoptive fathers.  Dad’s being leaders in the adoption process is much more common than it used to be.  I think God is raising up a new generation of Dads who desire to father well, and that includes pursuing orphans.  When a child is pursued by a Dad, a special bond occurs.  Most orphans are raised by women.  There aren’t many men in their lives in general, and most of their biological fathers were never in the picture.  In many cases the biological mother is the one who either abandoned or neglected these kids.  In some cases, the mother realizes her inability to provide and willingly leaves her child in the hands of caregivers.  At other times, governments intervene and remove children from inadequate care.  Either way, the children feel abandoned by mothers.  We found that many caregivers deeply love the children under their watch, and we also saw just as many who were both verbally and physically abusive to the kids.  So, most of the negative experiences (or impressions) orphans have are at the hand of women.
Let me say that I don’t think this perception is necessarily grounded in reality, it’s just perception.  In our case, one of our girls remembers her biological father and one does not.  Regardless, both of them remember him as a hero.  To them – he protected them, loved them, and cared for them.  One of our girls has said from the beginning that I physically look like their biological father – their hero.  So, when I came on the scene loving them and pursuing them, I may as well have been wearing a cape.    I treated them well, but the love and acceptance they gave me was far greater than what I had earned at that point.  I was the fulfillment of a fantasy to them.  The actual truth is their biological father is the only one who could’ve rescued them and instead chose to leave.  Like I said, their perceptions are not grounded in much reality.
Equally as unfair is the judgment and rejection they immediately projected onto Holly.  One girl was definitely worse than the other in this area.  We have one alpha female, absolute control freak, general manager of the universe daughter who immediately placed herself in competition with Holly for my attention/affection.  She saw her new “mama” as a threat to her control and kept her at a distance while over-attaching to me.  This started shortly after meeting the girls.  This is an example of how sin turns the way things are supposed to be into things they should never be.  Holly is the nurturing, caring, loving, affection-showing person in our family.  She was the one with most of what they lacked.  She was the who could really repair and redeem the damage that had been done, and our girls wanted nothing to do with her.  You can imagine the emotion that creates (we’ll talk more about that in the doubt/questioning post later).  It also placed pressure on me I was uncomfortable with.  The harder thing is that one of our daughters didn’t really have the same feelings, but since her sister did, she felt compelled to compete with her for me.  Mom’s attention was the consolation prize.
That the first rejection we faced, but that’s not the only type of rejection you have to deal with.  Orphans don’t come out of a culture of love, respect, and healthy fear.  They come out of manipulation, control, and survival.  Rules don’t mean anything if they don’t help you survive.  So, they pick and choose what they want to do, and they flat out reject much of what you ask of them.  They reject what you cook for them.  They reject what they wear.  They reject how you fix their hair.  They reject pretty much everything you ask of them.  A lot of these are related to the cultural things we talked about last time, and much of this rejection subsided – some of it quickly.  However, rebellion for rebellion’s sake was a constant.
We also found that a close cousin of rejection is anger.  When they would reject things, they would often get mad about them.  They would get mad at us.  We witnessed some impressive fits of rage.  It was almost as if James 1:15 was lived out before our eyes.  Anger would start with an unhealthy desire or reaction to rejection.  That desire would lead to a fit, the fit would turn into a physical outburst, the outburst would lead to destructive behavior, and we saw very easily how that could’ve led to serious injury.  We saw a small degree of anger escalate quickly to literal kicking, screaming, rocking, destroying things, scratching themselves, scratching other people and pulling out their hair. This chain reaction would happen without provocation from anyone or anything.  Once they got on the path, it was a slippery slope.  It was painful to watch, and it was hard to re-direct.
These are just snapshots of a few of the times we experience rejection and anger.  We’ve heard a lot of stories from other families who have adopted who have experienced many other variations of rejection and anger.  Until these kids have more experience at love, protection, and security than they’ve had at insecurity, control, and fear, they’re going to battle these demons.  It’s hard when your love, sacrifice, generosity, and gospel obedience is met with hostility, rejection, and fits of rage.  It’s not the reaction you planned for.  It’s not the reaction that makes any sense.  It’s just their reality for the time being.
This wasn’t something that happened everyday, though with one of our daughters it was almost daily for a few different seasons.  We heard before we adopted, and experienced the reality that the behavior of adopted kids gets much worse after they start to feel safe and secure.  We knew that, but after a couple of months of transition, watching the wheels fall off was confusing, tiresome, and emotional draining.  Nobody’s wired to enjoy being rejected day after day.  Nobody enjoys watching anger unleash it’s fury on a defenseless subject.  This is another one of the tough realities of helping orphans walk from dark to light.   It takes a while to even get to the depths of the darkness, and it takes a longer while to shine light on those dark places one at a time.
More to come…
The Bollingers