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Post Adoption Depression (PADS)

Hang on a minute, you have this new family, the child you longed for, fought for, convinced social workers you were capable of looking after and then wham suddenly you feel as miserable as hell. Tired, fraught, stressed out, not sleeping, irritable, feeling worthless, guilty for not being on top of the world and like, well, a pretty crappy parent. First of all, don't worry you are not alone. According to the McCarthy survey Post Adoption Depression can affect more than 60% of all adoptions.

I am not writing as an expert on Post Adoption Depression, for that go and see your GP or other professional but I can tell you about my own experience.

For my first adoption I coped pretty well but since adopting Boy last year I have at times felt like I am going a little bit insane and apparently it's pretty normal. For us lots of things happened within the first six months of adopting Boy. Girl started school, Boy had an operation (4 days before Christmas), we all got ill, my colds and coughs lasted for 2-3 months as I was so run down, Girl's behaviour went through the roof and PAS were called in and confirmed our worst suspicions that yes Girl has Attachment Disorder. All this took it's toll on my mental health. 

As I see it we feel overwhelmed by the reality of bringing our little ones home, creating and nurturing bonds that do not yet exist, dealing with the grief of seperation that our little ones are feeling, coping with behaviours and difficulties that stem from adoption and learning how to parent in probably a totally different style to what we are used to from our own experiences and that of our friends.

It's not easy to totally relax and just go with the flow because our kids quite often cannot accept that sort of style of parenting, every day is 110% effort, every day can be mentally exhausting. For instance the sort of things that have been buzzing through my head are why is my son so happy and different today? is it because Girl has been out all day? have I not been giving him enough attention? how do I balance their needs so Boy can be this relaxed more of the time? because the thing with adoption is that our kids do feel more insecure than other kids and are definitely more needy (even though to our friends and family they seem like any other kids) and we constantly have to be thinking about approaches to help them feel secure. 

Talking to friends and family is hard. Dare you suggest you may be experiencing problems with your kids and you are treated as neurotic, over-zealous, after all kids are kids, kids are resilient, kids forget. My pet hate is someone saying 'oh but all kids do that...', now when people say it I just think to myself (tongue firmly in cheek) 'OK I know why my daughter has this incessant need to find a toilet every single place we go but why does your child do that?' I do agree that all kids can do some pretty odd things but my daughter does a lot of odd things most of the time not just one or two things every now and again. 

Sometimes I wish I weren't so clued up, maybe I would relax more but I stress and worry every single day and it is taking it's toll. I want both of my kids to be well adjusted, happy and most of all to feel secure and safe which according to my daughter's behaviour maybe they don't, yet (see, optimistic that's good right?).

So all of this worry and stress has resulted in me getting depressed, feeling like I couldn't cope with everyday stuff, constantly tired - even after just waking in the morning, crying at the drop of a hat, irritable, restless, anxious and panicky. The key thing was I recognised that I was frankly not myself, that what I was feeling was not right and went to see my GP. I was prescribed anti-depressants but decided that was not for me, I went to counselling and got an hhhmer (total waste of time somebody just saying hhmm to me, I want positive suggestions not silly noises!).

The best advice I can offer is do not be worried about admitting you need help to whoever will listen (OK not random people on buses or the checkout girl at Asda!). Once I had sought help from my GP and admitted to family and friends that I was not coping things got easier, more support was offered which was badly needed, even though I did get a lot of support anyway its harder to ask for help than to accept what is offered.

Talking to my PASW helps because she understands what I am talking about, she helps me differentiate what is normal behaviour and what is attachment disorder related. Writing this blog helps because it puts my thoughts in order. Talking to other adopters helps. Finding the humour in a situation helps (I can usually find a wee bit somewhere if I try hard enough but I really have to coax myself to do that).

I do feel there should be more help and recognition for PADS, maybe I am missing some vital help somewhere (or my GP is) but I am having to recognise why I feel so low and mostly work it out for myself. I have to tell myself I am not a crap mum if I don't get it right all the time and I am learning to relax. I have gone from seriously depressed all the time to mood swings which I guess is a little better.

Tonight I feel pretty good, earlier today I felt unfathomably low but I think that's probably part and parcel of my depression.

We Survived Easter Sunday!

At 7am I was rudely awaken by Girl nose to nose with me, big grin on her face "Mommy, mommy I have a surprise for you!" Boy was on the bed behind me playfully bashing the top of my head bellowing "mommeeeeee, mommeeeee, mommEEEEEEEEEEE". An Easter egg was rapidly pushed into my face before I slipped back into slumber "It's an Easter Egg Mummy" my girl helpfully tells me. I managed to thank the kids, eyes half closed before Boy suddenly realises I have chocolate. A meltdown quickly ensues and I slink off for a bath whilst hubster deals with it, I'm not ready for the world yet.
At 8.30am it is quickly decided that both Boy and Girl are bubbling over with excitement and a little stir-crazy after a day in and that if we stay in the house for another day we might not actually survive the day without turning to Gin so a heated debated ensues between the hubster and I on what we can actually do for the day. We eventually agree on a castle that has some sort of event on featuring Knights, right up girl's street.
So off we go, we get to close to the (small) castle and the traffic is immense, seems that the castle decided it would be a good idea to offer cut price tickets to their little event on Groupon. My stomach flips a little, crowds are Girl's worst enemy but we cannot turn round (even if we wanted to the street was one-way and everyone was going to the castle), Girl is excited about seeing Knights.
The hastily packed picnic includes Easter Eggs and previously I might have rationed the chocolate a little more but it feels so mean even though I do know that sugar and Girl are a potent mix. Very slowly Girl eats her sandwiches minus the crusts and asks for her chocolate egg. I pass it over with some trepidation and wait. Nothing.
On the way home the hubster pulls up at the reservoir for an impromptu ice-cream. I wait. Nothing.
We get home put the Wii on with a set time limit (to avoid the inevitable but-oh's), we ask her to turn the Wii off. I wait. Nothing. We have dinner, Girl finishes dinner and skips off to put her pajamas on with no prompting.
I have to say Girl never ceases to surprise me, this sort of day would normally be a struggle behaviour wise, too much excitement, sugar, crowds but she behaved pretty well throughout. The only clue we got that she might be a bit anxious was some strange noises and whispering to herself in the back of the car. A day to celebrate. Hoorah!

Get Support, Make Friends

I can't tell you enough how important it has been to us to make friends with and talk to other adopters. I know some adopters are of the view that they want their children's lives to be as normal as possible and not centred around the fact that they are adopted but personally for us having friends to turn to who know what we have been through and what we are going through right now is invaluable.

As well as being support for us Girl has a wide group of friends who are adopted and I personally think this normalises adoption for her, she is not the odd one out or different, she is one of many.

Forums

You can find support from many different places, computer geek that I am (I was a web programmer before I was a mommy) I personally made friends with a number of people I got chatting to on the Adoption UK forums way back when we were starting out on our adoption journey and a small group of us went through our adoptions at roughly the same time. Strangely (or not) the same small group of friends have since gone through a second adoption within a few months of each other. It gives us a very unique and special bond. Some of those friends live fairly close, certainly within driving distance so we meet up as often as we can with the kids in tow for a coffee, a natter and sometimes to stop a mental breakdown! We keep in touch via Facebook all the time.

Blogs

You can find other adopters on blogs, read what they are going through and subscribe to their posts, leave comments, you may find yourself leaving a few posts with one particular blogger.

Post Adoption Support

Your local authority/adoption agency probably offers meet-ups, toddler groups, seminars, a great opportunity to meet local adopters and of course if you are having difficulties you can request support from a Post Adoption Social Worker (PASW).

Ask Your Social Worker

My social worker has phoned up a few times to ask us to talk to and meet with both potential adopters and local adopters. You can ask your social worker if there are local adopters who would be willing to meet for coffee and a chat.

Prep Course

Potential adopters are invited onto a preparation group, swap e-mail addresses/phone numbers with the other adopters.

So what do I get from it? If I am having a meltdown (usually because Girl is having a meltdown) and feel I cannot cope I have a close group of friends I can text, phone or facebook for instant support and reassurance that I am not a terrible mother! The knowledge base, ideas and advice I get from my circle of friends is immense, far more information than I could get by reading books and trawling the Internet, most of all I get friendship, understanding, empathy and none of the stupid comments that non-adopters can be guilty of making!

I Guess I Know Where I Stand!

Our PASW has insisted that the hubster and I spend more quality time together, book a hotel go away for the night, get some sleep and a lie-in. Husband is not so keen, he seems to think that every minute of every weekend should be spent with the kids, well that's very nice but I am not for one minute asking him to abandon the kids all weekend, just have one much needed night off every now and again, say twice a year. 


PASW also reckons that to insist we spend all weekend with the kids is not fair on me because I am with them all day every day and I need some TLC of course I nodded furiously in agreement with this. I love my kids but I love TLC too!


I have to say at this point that we are feeling the pinch, along with the rest of the country and the hubster declared after the PASW had left that if he had spare money he would rather use it to treat the kids than spend a night away with me. Well that's me told I guess! (I am pretty certain he didn't mean any offence by that, he just needs to take off his size nine wellies they are not a good fit for his mouth!)

Second Child Syndrome? Nope, Just One Stressed Out Mummy!

It was my son's birthday this week. We did not plan a party as he is only two, he wouldn't remember it and we have had such a stressful time lately it seemed just too much to think about but we did book a restaurant table for close family and bought a birthday cake.

For each birthday of my daughter we have made a scrapbook page, lots of photos with the cake as the focus. We are sitting in the restaurant and I realise we have only gone and forgotten the blinking cake. Holy Moly, it felt as though the world stopped on it axis for a moment. We are so busy keeping Girl in order that we have forgotten why we are there. The first thing that went though my mind was no birthday scrapbook page! Fortunately we are out with friends next week for the day, all adopted children and we will be taking the cake with us and luckily it will still be in date - just! We can always pretend later on that it was planned all along and hope he never reads this!

I do feel sometimes that he does come second best, last night Girl stayed at her grandparents for a sleepover and Boy has been like a different child, the child I see every day when Girl is at school, relaxed, happy and no screaming ab-dabs (my mum's name for his tantrums). 

Much as I do love spending time with Girl I cannot wait for the Easter holidays to be over just so we can go back to our normal routine and boy can get some much needed individual attention again.

If all else fails crack out the face paints!

For all her tomboyish behaviour my daughter loves nothing more than a bit of pampering and as a bonding session nothing beats it, from fun face painting to a pretty manicure the closeness of the activity, quality one-to-one time together, the sensory elements of skin to skin contact, massaging creams, sniffing and smelling and messing with the lotions and potions and well just the sheer fun of it is like the best therapy my daughter can get. 


Even at the tender age of five I have no objection to  sharing a bit of my make up when we go out, it's a shared activity, it makes my daughter genuinely happy and if a bit of very pale coloured eyeshadow and lip gloss can make my daughter smile then I am going to indulge to my hearts content!


I guess most girls like to choose bath bombs and soaps but for us it just means so much more and can make all the difference to a day, proper good therapy.

 

Heart-melting moments

It's not all bad, these are the moments that make everything worthwhile!

Micro-managing our kids

I was having a chuckle with my friend the other day about the fact her husband has this need to micro-manage every aspect of her son's life, instructing every little move, don't do that, do it like this, stop that now...

The conversation kind of hit home as actually I think that I could be guilty of exactly the same thing but in a very different way. Every single decision we make because of our daughter's difficulties have to have, it seems, a hundred different thought processes, even a decision like dinner can be complicated. Last night the kids were having dinner at their grandparents which should have been simple for us but the choice for us was do we quickly make something for ourselves now whilst they are out or eat after they have gone to bed. The preferred choice was after they had gone to bed as neither of us were particularly hungry at that moment but then we had to have the separate thought process of 'well if we wait till they have gone to bed what happens if Girl decides to have one of her meltdowns, it could be after 9pm until we eat...'  which was very possible after an afternoon at the grandparents and a pattern of meltdowns throughout the week. We decided to risk it and wait and prepared a dinner that could be cooked very quickly but this sort of micro-management is mentally exhausting, even trying to decide on a dinner we both fancied that could be coked quickly was a major conversation. As it happened Girl went to bed quietly so we enjoyed our dinner of steak and home-made chunky chips minus the anxiety.

Even the everyday language we use has to be carefully thought out which is very difficult,  the words said in the heat of the moment 'I'm not listening...' can tip Girl over the edge. My husband uttered those fateful words last week and the minute they left his mouth I cringed then quickly ran upstairs and found something to do, out of the way, if he's daft enough to say it, he can deal with it! He was actually just trying to point out that we are fed up of the whinging and whining but Girl can see those words as personal, that we don't want to hear her at all, that we don't love her. He knows we have to request that she try asking in a nice, appropriate way but well neither of us are perfect! I did go back down after five minutes to offer support but actually running away was the best thing at this time, it gave me chance to quickly and calmly think of a diversion or solution.

In The News

Two very different stories took my attention yesterday. Firstly was the story published in the Daily Mail of a couple who had their baby taken by social services after they moved to France, this followed the removal of children from a previous relationship.

Daily Mail: British couple who moved to France to start new family have baby seized by social workers who tracked them from Norfolk

I couldn't possibly say whether social services were justified in any of their actions because not enough information is available to us as readers, we have to take what is told to us at face value, read between the lines that are carefully fed to us and form an opinion. Of course social services can't have a right to reply as they would be breaching confidentiality but here it is, another story of supposed baby-snatching by social services and an expectation of the general public to be up in arms over it. Well I am sorry, I think that more care should be taken before these stories are published. People have a very dim view of social services because every story published is a horror story, they sell papers, this to me sounds like one story too far, a desperate mother selling her story to win some hearts and a newspaper that loves sensationalist headlines. I'm not saying social services are always right but they certainly aren't always wrong.
The second story I read was by the BBC this touches me personally because of the delays we experienced with both of our adoptions but particularly our first adoption of Girl:

Ofsted: Adoption wait 'awfully long'

It doesn't really explain the implications of staying in foster care for longer than necessary but for us with Girl it had a massive impact, where she could have been moved on at about 13 months we had to wait almost a year until just before her second birthday, coming up to her terrible twos and with significant delays in speech was just to traumatic. I do however to a degree understand the need to check and re-check, taking on a child with special needs is not a decision to be taken lughtly, so many adoptions break down and that can have a much bigger impact on a child than having to stay in foster care for an extra few months.

I personally feel very strongly that more emphasis needs to be placed on post adoption support and family support. In turn if this was put in place the whole adoption process could justifiably be shortened a little.

As a new adopter you feel that it is a relief when social worker visits are over but actually in hindsight I wish we had been given more support, even when we felt we didn't need it.

When You Hit Rock Bottom The Only Way Is Up

It' that time when the dog is barking for a walk, the two year old needs his nappy changing, the tea is cooking, you realise you've left a vital ingredient from your shopping list, you're all tired from a weekend away, the phone is ringing and right at that crucial moment when you can't take any more stress your attachment disordered child decides it's the appropriate time to make her demands known and if they are not met or the desired level of attention achieved within her specific timescale (NOW MOMMY) the two year old on his ride-on gets forcefully slammed into a wall and then trampled on. Now tell me to keep my emotions in check and not to yell, I'm sorry, I hate myself for it but it isn't going to happen and here I am a few hours later beating myself up for not behaving like a robot.

I have discovered that the perfect adoptive parent does not exist, I talk to other parents and they tell me not to worry they have all slipped up at some point, all yelled and shouted, nobody is perfect, even our PASW tells us this. Yet I consistently worry about slipping up, for not being consistent, for showing my emotions at an inappropriate time, for shouting or yelling. The infuriating thing is, I would probably say that nine times out of ten nowadays we do get it right, we do effectively manage the behaviours and yet instead of celebrating that achievement I worry and stress about the one time I get it wrong.  

I know how crucial to an attachment disordered child consistency is, safety, security, boundaries but juggling such intense need and regimentation along with regular family life is stressful to say the least and the more stressful it becomes the more chaotic life becomes, even remembering to make sure you have your keys when you go out can become one thought too many. It seems every little detail of life has to be micro-managed and the regular everyday details can all become white noise.

So here I am today feeling like I have hit rock bottom, I have snapped at my child who in return decided to rip the beautiful mural from her wall. The mural I cannot afford to replace. My stress levels after a weekend away, followed by a meltdown, followed by a day out with friends, followed by another meltdown is at such a peak I can barely speak coherently, I get my words muddled up, I forget keys, forget to lock doors, lose my husbands debit card in the street, the list is endless of how ditsy I have become. 

However when you are at rock bottom there is no other place to go but up. With some support from good friends and a good strategy shared with the husband eventually Girl is in bed and all is at peace for another day so hooray to us.

If I could offer any advice to other adopters it would be this; get support and friendship.  Make friends with other adopters, attend post adoption support group's, toddler groups, trip's out and parties, however you do it doesn't matter, just know that there are other people.

Decide a strategy and stick to it, if you lose control, take a step back to breathe, if possible swap roles for a while.

Don't lose hope.

Signals

We have learnt to expect (and could probably guarantee if asked) that if we do anything too exciting with our daughter that the event will be sabotaged by very difficult behaviour either during or shortly after. By very difficult I do mean violent, uncontrollable aggressive behaviour. I am not talking about a little bit naughty because I am sure all kids can be a bit difficult when over-stimulated but Girl has no control or self-regulation, she has the emotional capacity of a two year old.

Girl enjoys but at the same time cannot cope with parties and theme parks. Her brain is wired to run on a high level of alert at all times and things such as large crowds, high noise levels, too much sugar can over-stimulate and send her into meltdown but like all kids she wants to do these things and who are we to deny her these childhood thrills? So we mentally prepare ourselves and run with it. Hot chocolates, ice-creams, sweets, a trip to the gift shop on the way home. Is she spoiled? I don't think so or I hope not, I like to think we are just normal parents, we fought hard for our girl and by golly (did I just say by-golly?) we dreamt of being able to do these things as a family and give our girl a happy fun-filled childhood and she truly does enjoy them.

This weekend we celebrated both my husband's and son's birthday's with a two-day trip to Legoland with a large group of close family. I have to say that we did have a lovely time and nothing that happened afterwards can take away from that time, it is still a good memory but the behaviour from Girl started to very, very slowly slide by the the second day. Not terrible or partcularly noticeable behaviour by anybodies standards including my own, just warning signals, a refusal to comply, cheekiness, a distorted voice here and there, demanding and petulant behaviour. Some of this sounds pretty normal and appropriate but with Girl I know that when we see all of the behaviours on the list - particularly 'the other voice' - that they are signals that her brain is starting to melt as generally she is a very nice little girl that displays age appropriate behaviours, certainly no angel but manageable most of the time.

The biggest warning signal for us is refusal to comply, this is because Girl is needing to feel some control over her life. The way we manage this is to ask of her as little as possible, keep instructions to a minimum, help with everyday tasks. She may refuse to brush her teeth, put her coat on, get dressed and so we have to try to coax, negotiate, assist as much as we can, which admittedly is not at all easy with a two year old that also has needs.

It's very easy (even for us as her parents) to forget that Girl is not being difficult for the sake of being difficult, that she is sending us signals. After all, she looks and sounds like any other child of her own age. You wouldn't be able to pick her out in a line-up and say 'yes that girl has a brain disorder because her brain was traumatised as a baby'.

However, knowing that it is going to happen does not make the behaviour any easier to deal with and no matter how much we brace the shock of a violent meltdown can actually feel like a body blow and this morning the meltdown that we were expecting arrived after a total refusal to get dressed.

I live in hope that one day we will do something really exciting for our daughter and she accept it and enjoy it with no anxiety. We all need to have some hope.