Should I never have adopted? by P

Three months after a short but traumatic experience with adoption I had found a group challenging the systemic failures in children’s social care. It was rapidly gaining traction, and I joined a meeting arranged by the founder as I wanted to be involved in campaigning for much needed change. A lot of the most vocal members had a collection of impressive credentials between them, not least one person who had been awarded an MBE for their work in adoption.
Still reeling from our pre–Adoption Order disruption and filled with shame, I took one of their comments to heart. “Some people just shouldn’t adopt” they said. We had all shared a little about ourselves when we joined the meeting and, in my vulnerability, I questioned whether they were referring to me specifically. There were no real grounds for believing that this was aimed directly at me other than what I assume was a deep-seated question in my own mind. The idea that I should never have adopted felt unbearable because it would mean that I had failed the children we welcomed into our family before we had even met them.
Our assessing social workers had certainly not believed this to be the case and my husband and I felt that we had a lot to offer, not least an abundance of love.
Although not something I talked widely about outside of my close friendship circle, it felt important to be very open with our assessing social workers that I had experienced domestic violence and a binge eating disorder in my early twenties. I also continued to successfully manage anxiety and OCD through medication and therapy. Although this added a level of vulnerability that needed to be considered in matching, I also felt it could be a strength in parenting a child with a certain level of trauma as did those assessing us. To me therapy was a staple and as important as a weekly visit to the gym. It wasn’t something that I desperately needed anymore, just something that I used to ensure my emotional well-being continued to be a focus as much as my physical health. A healthy focus on mental health was something I could model as a parent. Now in my forties I was in a stable and loving marriage with a gentle, compassionate and family orientated man, we had been together for 11 years. I had forged a successful career and was highly regarded across the business that I worked in. I was thriving and felt ready to be a Mum. In fact, I felt strongly that adoption was the right option for us as we really wanted to provide a child or children with a home that would help them to heal and we didn’t have a strong urge to have our own birth family.
Our assessing social worker had noted in our Stage 2 report that I am an empath, something that I read with interest and didn’t disagree with. After being matched with siblings, a 5-year-old boy and his younger sister, I was certainly nervous that I would find our children’s early life experiences increasingly distressing; I imagined that as we bonded with them we would feel their pain deeply. However, I had not been prepared for being constantly triggered and frightened by our child.
We were told that there were no behavioural and emotional concerns regarding our son, and it was seen as a positive that my husband and I both regarded ourselves as quite sensitive people. Everyone involved in the match believed an empathetic and gentle approach to parenting would be most suitable given our children’s background.
We were blindsided when very early on child to parent violence from our son became the norm. I pride myself in being persistent and I exhausted myself chasing support, speaking to any professional who would listen and juggling the norms of parenthood alongside a constant fight to get our new family’s needs met. I was also more and more triggered as our sons’ threats and violence escalated. It made sense as he had lived in a home where domestic violence and addiction was prominent, but I had no idea that this would mean his behaviour mirrored that of my ex-partner which was extremely triggering. Looking back this may have been naive but our daughter had experienced the same household, and her trauma response was very different, she was compliant, charming and leant towards a freeze response when triggered, I felt equipped to support her. She was also able to bond with us.
It became clear that the foster parents had experienced similar behaviours from our son and chosen to withhold this information during introductions. We will never know what the social workers did and didn’t know. We were also not given any guidance on how to manage child to parent violence and complex attachment disorders. The therapeutic parenting style we had been trained in simply appeared to disempower us and escalate our son’s dysregulation.
Our social workers knew my background, they knew our son had begun threatening me and my husband daily and they knew that we had hidden the knives in our house after one concerning incident. I was visibly losing weight, and I had bruises and a nasty burn on my arm where I was constantly exhausted and distracted when carrying out daily tasks like cooking. Bizarrely the burn looked like a self-harm mark and looking back now I wonder if I was mirroring the birth family in some way. I have come to learn that this can occur in some adoptive families.
This match was toxic for me and my son. We were triggering each other’s trauma, and no one intervened. I was too deep into the belief that we had been fed during our training; that this was our forever family. What I really needed was to take a step back and consider that the match was a very poor one and intervention was needed for everyone’s wellbeing. None of our social workers seemed to do this either. I lived in hope that we would start to see improvements as our son settled more. Instead, things continued to escalate. Our son would need control over everything, he would try to manipulate and intimidate us to feel safe, and he would attack us and his sister.
As I was the one on adoption leave, this meant 3 hours at home on my own with our son after school each day before my husband returned from work. I was wracking my brains as to how to respond when feeling concerned for my and our daughter’s safety. Restraint did not feel like the right option for a 5-year-old who’d experienced physical abuse (despite finding out later on that this was used in the foster home) and we had been told to be physically present when our son dysregulated so that he did not feel abandoned and could co-regulate. However, every inch of me wanted to pick up our daughter and run when he was angry. This was an exhausting battle between heart and mind, and I was in constant survival mode.
We began attachment focussed therapy. The therapist believed that our son picked up on my anxiety, but this was not something I had control over, and she did not give any guidance on how I might manage this. In fact, despite desperately needing respite, she suggested that we wouldn’t be able to take any meaningful time out for some time while the children settled. There was little empathy toward myself and my husband. It felt largely as though we were being shamed for our very natural emotions in this situation. The therapist simply kept reiterating that our son’s behaviour was due to his past trauma. We were painfully aware of this, but it didn’t stop us from needing support to manage our own emotions and triggers as his behaviour was extreme and unexpected.
By the fourth month I began to experience “blocked care”. I feared being on my own with our son and I would openly tell our social worker that I didn’t like him which was heartbreaking to say out loud but felt incredibly important to share so that we might get the help we needed. Still, no one intervened with respite, meaningful expert support or suggestion of disruption. In fact, my understanding is that the children’s social worker was on holiday and off sick for the last month of our placement and we did not hear anything from her cover.
Intellectually it was clear that our son was attempting to recreate the family environment that he knew. One of chaos, anger and fear. We tried everything that was recommended to us to break this cycle but none of it was working, and I became disillusioned by the conflicting advice from the floundering professionals around us. We needed trauma experts, diagnoses and a clear, urgent plan of action.
Only when I sent a desperate email to the Regional Director of Social Services was a meeting called by our Adoption Team Manager. My husband had begun discussions with his therapist about the option of disruption. Although it felt surreal and unbearable it was the first time, we’d discussed it. By this point we were a week from the school holidays, and I had the prospect of 6/7 weeks with no respite. I was terrified and it was obvious. The Team Manager visited and was building a plan of action which she would take us through after the weekend. She however, made it clear that this would not align with our requests for urgent assessments, therapy for our son/whole family and respite.
I was constantly on edge waiting for the next attack and shamefully, I lost my temper with our son when he started to dysregulate that Sunday. I restrained him as the foster parents had done, swore at him and moved him out in the garden. I was horrified by my reaction and informed our Team Manager first thing the next morning. I had shocked myself and our son, enough was enough.
The decision was made to disrupt from our son. A few days later we were informed that the children were to remain together, and our children went into foster care. I miss our daughter every day and the feelings I have towards our son are incredibly complex. At the core of it all, he is the one who has been let down the most by everyone meant to take care of him in his short life so far including me.
I cannot tell you how much I wish I could stop looking to apportion blame for all of this. It serves no healthy purpose, just superficial relief from the unbearable notion that I failed our children and simply added to their trauma, abandonment and pain.
As I understand it the reason given by our social workers for the disruption was “for the children’s safety”. I wonder if by telling our social workers that I had lost my temper it allowed them to choose this option and absolve themselves of any responsibility.
My husband and I have just come back from our first time away since the disruption where I watched parents on holiday with their children and felt a deep-seated fear that I am not capable of being a successful parent. I felt shame, guilt, regret and immense sadness. I know my husband has the same emotions. I am 42 and time is against us. We are coming to terms with the fact that we will likely remain childless. It will take a lifetime to process these emotions, and we may never have an answer. Should we never have adopted?