I recently read the Primal Wound (Nancy Verrier), and it meant absolutely nothing to me?

Question

I'm an adult adoptee, basically I had a positive adoption experience, won't go into details, but my parents were always open and honest, etc, gave me all info about my birthparents, etc.
Basically, so many other adoptees tell me that I'm 'repressing' negative feelings or anger, I've been told to read Primal Wound by just about every adoptee I've met, lol.
It just didn't strike a chord with me. Your experiences?

Answer 1

Everyone reacts to life experiences differently. You may just be one of the lucky ones who came out of adoption unscathed. Some have found that it wasn't until they hit certain milestones or encountered a certain life changing event that their adoption issues came to the surface. For me it was the birth of my second child, for others it might be a life threatening illness or marriage, still others will never feel anything one way or the other about their adoption experience. We all cope with life differently. Some have better coping skills than others and are more able to roll with the punches. Neither is a good or a bad thing, it is simply who you are. Be thankful that you are one of the ones who is secure and confident.

Answer 2

I am a lot like Marsha. I was absolutely pro-adoption even into my 40s. If I had read The Primal Wound before then, I doubt it would have struck a chord with me. I wasn't emotionally ready to "hear" it. For me, personally, I had a desperate need to believe that adoption was responsible for all the positives in my life. I attributed the negatives to anything and everything else.

I am not suggesting this is the case with you. I am just saying this is how it was for me. Though I wish someone had opened my eyes sooner, I have come to realize that just wasn't possible. I didn't realize until my eyes were open how incredibly repressed I had been. Believe me, I was very angry at the time that I hadn't been made aware - I felt like a fool!

Eventually I accepted the old adage: "When the student is ready, the teacher will come."

Ms. Verrier's theory has since been proven by perinatal neurological researchers (infant mental health & brain development). Despite even the best adoptive environment, the memory of the loss lives in our bodies and minds. If our adoptive parents acknowledge this loss, we can then process it. Perhaps this is what happened with you. If so, you are among the truly fortunate.

Have you read B.J. Lifton's "Journey of the Adopted Self" and did you have the same reaction? I'm very interested.

And thank you for posting this question!

Answer 3

When I finally read 'Primal Wound' it did have an astounding affect on me - but I only found it maybe 3 years ago - when I started to seek out books on adoptee issues - and search and reunion. I wanted to read and learn about everything - to do with the time I was adopted - to do with what my mother might have been going through - to find out if other adoptees ever felt those enquiry feelings as well.

I was ready to learn. Before then - I wasn't.

I agree with Andraya - and many others here - my feelings about my adoptee life have also changed and morphed many times over the years.

I had many issues in my teen years - but wasn't allowed to speak about them - or ask too many questions - as it 'upset' my a-mum. Feelings were made to be squashed down deep.

In my 20's, I had my first child, and the hormones involved with my pregnancy stirred the searching need in me. I started my search - but stopped again - when I realised that my life was too busy to take on the emotions that searching and reunion involve. I placed it all on the back-burner - hoping that
1. my mother would come looking for me (thinking that would make it easier)
2. maybe it would all just go away!!!

Ten years later, I had a bit of a break-down - nothing major - but knew that I couldn't keep ignoring stuff that was in my heart - I knew that I'd been running away from something - so I opened the searching files onces more.

It was then that I searched out the literature and others that affirmed my feelings. I also saw a therapist for a little while - who also affirmed my feelings - and told me that what I felt - under my circumstances - was completely 'normal'!!

I am happy that you don't feel strong and negative emotions about your own adoptee experience. I wouldn't wish these feelings on my worst enemy.
I just hope you don't belittle other adoptees for having negative feelings. (not that I think this question has - but I'm just putting it out there) So many - non adopted - tell us how we should feel. And really it's hard enough for us to even work out HOW we feel - when so many people keep telling us how they think we should feel.
It took me 38 years to come to terms with how I feel today. And still those feelings may again morph down the track.
But I know that now I am being more truthful to myself than I have ever been in those 38 years.
I have a very loving a-family. I love them dearly.
But really - that doesn't matter.
I'm part of a bigger picture - with many parts making up the whole.
And I have every right - as does every adoptee - to search and to find out how they really do feel - based on what they have found themselves - not on what others tell them.

Thank you for asking this question. This stuff needs to be discussed openly and truthfully.

Answer 4

It did strike a chord with me and I felt it was very on target for how I feel/felt. But, we're not all the same. If you don't feel the same as I do, then you don't. I don't think either of us are wrong or right or good or bad, we're just different. The reason a lot of adoptees will tell you that you're repressing feelings or anger is because a lot of us repressed ours before we finally broke down and dealt with our pain. We used to be the happy adoptees telling everyone how wonderful adoption was. Not all of us, mind you, some have felt the pain and dealt with it all along, but a lot of us didnt. So, when we see others who are where we were years ago, we do stop to wonder if they are really happy or if they're repressing like we did. When someone tells you that, its not coming from a "you're stupid and wrong, read this and see that we're right!" attitude, but more of a "I wish someone had helped me deal with this sooner, so I'm going to try to tell this person like I wish someone had told me" place. Its hard to balance wanting to help someone, and respecting their feelings. No one has the right to tell anyone else how they do or should feel though. If you really and truly are a happy adoptee who has no pain or grief over your adoption then thats great. I'm happy for you, and I don't mean that sarcastically.
I hope that you can respect where we are coming from though (not that you haven't, unless I missed something, but others act this way a lot) and don't tell adoptees that have had bad experiences or who have had good experiences but still feel pain and grief that we are bad or wrong either. We're just different.

Answer 5

Well, I am there to tell you, not everyone experiences anything in life the 100% same exact way.

People cope to situations differently.

Some people who have wonderful adoptions can identify with the Primal Wound to a tee. Some people who have had horrible adoptions may think the book is a fairy tale compared to them.

I think what you are experiencing from these friends is perhaps a tad bit of jealousy that they do not have the same comfort as you in your life about your adoption by trying to make you feel like you have to share the same feelings.

Just because "most" of your adoptee contacts have these feelings does NOT mean you HAVE to have these feelings...so don't buy into the repressing negative feelings and anger...you can't have what you can't feel, you know?

Go with your gut on this one...you're fine...just be a compassionate ear to those who experience those feelings, because they're just as valid as your lack of those feelings.

Answer 6

It's not my favorite, but it resonates with other adoptees a lot.

The first book I read and had more light-bulb moments than I could count was Lost & Found by Betty Jean Lifton. But some people tell me it is outdated. I read it in the late '80s.

Her newer book, Journey of the Adopted Self, has had the same effect on me. Profound. I will be forever grateful to Dr. Lifton for putting into words feelings I couldn't articulate.

It's my favorite book thus far.

Good luck.

Answer 7

I don't know how old you are, but it took me decades before I was able to come to terms and really look at my feelings about being adopted.
The problem was that I, too, have wonderful loving adopted parents and family that were always open and honest with me, and supportive of me in everything including my desire to know about my biological parents.
I felt way too much guilt of not being totally 100% appreciative of having them to be able to look at the negative aspects and feelings of being adopted.
I've never read the book you mention, but I can imagine that if I had in my younger years, I probably wouldn't have felt much either.

Answer 8

well i to am an adult adoptee and i have not heard of that book. now i will try and find it and read it. actually iwas told all my life i was adopted. didn't know till in my 40's i actually had family and all sisters included. but my parents were really losers and actually the mom didn't want me and dad well he was involved in drinking and stuff he didn't care much either. but they both died very young and i don't have a problem myself but now i want to read it anyhow take care.

Answer 9

I have yet to read this book. but i'm thinking it will have the same affect on me as the other two books i read. one is called 20 things adoptive kids wished their adoptive parents knew and 20 things adoptive kids wished they knew(something like that). I love these books!! both books were describing my feelings and i'm going like check,check,check. i so feel that way!!! i think i will read the primal wound. you are entiled to your feelings and it did not affect you then don't feel like u are weird. but i will tell you this adoption affects us all, in very different ways. i have a wonderful adoption but it does not mean that i do not go thru some of the feelings that these books describe. no one can tell you how to feel, so if you don't feel anything. then that is your business. but i for one will go and check this book out i completely forgot about it!!

Answer 10

Hi Momof2!,

It's good that you at least read the book even if it didn't offer any enlightenment to you personally, just so you will at least be aware of what many other adoptees are experiencing. My link below describes the book's position for those not familiar with Verrier's research. The core premise of the Primal Wound theory is that a child separated from his/her mother at the beginning of life, when still in the primal relationship to her, experiences what she calls the primal wound. This wound, occurring before the child has begun to separate his/her own identity from that of the mother, is experienced not only as a loss of the mother, but as a loss of the Self, that core-being of oneself which is the center of goodness and wholeness. The child may be left with a sense that part of oneself has disappeared, a feeling of incompleteness, a lack of wholeness. In addition to the genealogical sense of being cut off from one's roots, this incompleteness is often experienced in a physical sense of bodily incompleteness, a hurt from something missing. You might note the section on how separation trauma often manifests in one of two diametrically opposed behavioral patterns. Both ways serve to protect the self from hurt.

As you know, there are a wide range of emotions experienced by adoptees. Some have always believed themselves to be happy. Others have always believed themselves to be miserable. Most fall someplace inbetween. The thing they all have in common is that how much their adoptive parents loved them is independent of how they feel about adoption in general and specifically, how their subjective view of the adoption experience has affected their lives.

Some start at one place and arrive at another after various major life events, such as giving birth to their own children or the death of an adoptive parent. These triggers can awaken other feelings of which they were previously unaware. Just because you personally have not experienced them yet does not mean you never will, nor does it mean it's not real for others who identify their feelings and attempt to have them acknowledged.

Many other adoptees start off with the belief of being happy and later come to terms with exactly the emotions you listed in your question, sadness, anger, etc. By the way, it's alright to feel sad or angry sometimes. Those are normal feelings too, and nobody expects anyone to be happy all the time. Successful adoptions are not necessarily defined by being happy all the time. There is no "right" or "wrong" way to feel, and most adoptees will go through a range of emotions of varying degrees of intensity at different times of their lives.

If you identify your feelings as happy throughout your entire life, that's great. If every adoptee felt that happy about what they have been through, there would be no need for adoption counseling and support groups. In fact, it sounds like you are the dream child that most adoptive parents envisioned when they were told that adopting would be exactly as if they had given birth to the child, for both them & their adopted child. Social workers probably did believe that at the time when that idea first came out. Of course that was before any studies had been done on the long-term effects on a child from the trauma of separation from mother at birth and the permanent sealing of his identity. So the verdict is now in on the great adoption experiment of the baby scoop era, and the conclusion is that the child is definately affected. That's why adoption professionals no longer tell prospective parents that there will not ever be any adoption-related issues for the child if they are just loved enough. Instead, the adoptive parents are now made aware of the common effects of adoption on the child (which are no reflection on their parenting skills) and how to best deal with issues as they arise, expected changes in legislation, etc. all improvements for the common goal of better serving the adoptees.

I wish you continued peace. Just as your feelings are valid, others' feelings are equally valid. If you ever do experience loss or pain from adoption, help is available from others who do understand it.

julie j
another reunited adult adoptee