hey everybody today we're going to talk
about mental health and adoption many of
you asked for this it's one of those
videos that was voted on on my new now
live stream if you haven't hopped over
there I'll put the link in the
description you should definitely check
them out but I'm gonna offer up five
tips on ways to better manage some of
the things that can come out of being
adopted in preparing for this video I
thought that I would read research
articles and figure out what the
relation was with adoption to mental
health and there's a lot of information
about that but what was more interesting
and more helpful to me it was actually
the blog post and the articles written
by those who were adopted and what they
wished those in their life either knew
or had done so today I'm gonna offer up
five of those things and hopefully if
you yourself have been adopted this
helps you better process through maybe
some of the things that you've struggled
with and better understand your
situation and the first is explaining
what adoption means and how it happened
and this is something that a lot of
people wish their parents had started to
do when they were really really young
when they first adopted them talking
about it
what adoption itself means why the
parents sought to adopt them in the
process they went through and did they
come and get them did they pick them up
at the hospital were they waiting for
them to be born I know this can sound
very trivial to parents and family out
there who are adopting children but it's
really important that they have a story
to tell and they understand how it
happened in this roles right into number
two and that is making sense of their
story this is really a fascinating thing
for me to read about because children if
you've ever been around children they
love to tell you a story even if it
partially doesn't make sense and they
jump around a lot if you've seen a child
after them being having a day where
they're Disneyland or they've been out
all day at the park they want to tell
you like hi so then I saw the Ducks and
there were so many ducks and they're so
excited and they want to tell you this
story and they'll tell that story over
and over and over the cool thing about
this is it's actually part of them
processing through their day children
learn and process through storytelling
and so part of what can heal those
who've been adopted is making sense of
their story and that's why it kind of
roll
number one because they encourage
parents to tell the adoption story to
even put it in a book and read it to
their child so that they understand the
whole story they can tell it to
themselves process through all that may
have been going on in their head or
maybe the memories they have or don't
have and they worry about it can help
them put it into a cohesive story so
they can tell it to themselves and help
process through it in that cool I
thought that was really cool the third
thing I want to talk about is shame
self-worth and identity and for those of
us who have been adopted this usually
presents itself as anger or defiance
this is when children lash out they
don't want to do what you tell them to
do the interesting thing is that when
we're infants our self-worth and
confidence are built by simply having
someone come when we cry and having our
needs met when we need them without even
be able to speak a parent comes and
changes our diaper or feeds us or comes
and gets us out of our crib and we've
woke in the morning all of those kind of
what we call simple tasks are really
important for us growing our own
self-worth and our confidence and often
when adoption is part of the story there
may have been a period of time when
those needs weren't met right away
because we were waiting for our adoptive
parents to get there or our mother who
our birth mother didn't attend to us
very well and so that is kind of why a
lot of us who've been adopted struggle
with self-worth and confidence and I'll
talk more about shame in a future video
with Alexa so stay tuned for that make
sure you're subscribed but in adults the
way that we can help heal this so if
we've been adopted and now we find
ourselves as an adult struggling with
our self-worth and our identity we can
look into our heritage and learn more
about and ask our adoptive parents where
we're from and learning about our story
and then maybe looking into it more so
that we have a better sense of who we
are and where we come from and all of
these tips and tools and things I'm
going to talk about are also closely
linked and that's why that one rolls
right into number four which is being
curious and having your curiosity about
your birth parents where they're from
what's happened be okay to talk about an
okay to explore and there are kind of
two components to this that are
important to note the first is if you
our a parent who's wanting to adopt a
child making sure that you are okay with
them being curious children are gonna
want to know where their birth parents
came from where they're originally from
and it's okay to be curious it takes
nothing away from you as the adoptive
parent and I think understanding that
and even expressing that and
communicating that to your child is so
incredibly helpful and then for those of
us who have been adopted looking into
support groups and knowing other
adoptees because having other people
who've been in similar situations or at
the same place we are in their process
of it can be so incredibly healing we
know in the Kinning community how
helpful it is to be reminded on the
daily that nothing's weird about us and
that we're not alone in our experience
and the fifth and final thing i want to
talk about is putting real words to an
infant's experience now this was one of
the most fascinating things that I've
read about recently and so thank you to
all of you who requested this video
because I love learning more and what I
learned is that ages zero to three only
and I'm gonna read my notes to make sure
that I don't forget anything the
sympathetic nervous system is developed
enough to be regulated what that means
is that our fight flight and freeze
response is the only thing that we can
really feel and experience and regulate
as an infant zero to three right and so
when we have those experiences that
fight flight or freeze we feel
completely dysregulated we have no
ability to self-soothe or to calm down
because all we can feel is fight flight
or freeze and that's why moms caretakers
whoever's gonna come to get us when we
cry are so vitally important because
we're not able to self-soothe em we need
other people to help make that happen
and so if we had traumatic events in our
infancy zero to three right where we had
that fight flight or freeze response and
we felt traumatized and no one came to
help us soothe ourselves and we were
left in this dysregulated state for a
long period of time we're going to have
to be able to process through that in
adulthood and so part of that and part
of processing it is putting explicit
language to that experience helping your
child or you as an adult helping your
self verbalize what you went through
this is so important because adoption is
hard for those of us who have been
adopted yes it can be great because
we're placed with a loving and wonderful
family and maybe taken out of an
unhealthy or unsafe environment but we
still have a lot to talk about and
process through and put words to and
that's why this fifth one I think is the
most important being able to put
language to such a traumatic experience
can be so incredibly healing and so I
would encourage any of you if you are
adopted yourself or if you're looking to
adopt please share this video I feel
there's so many misunderstandings and
miscommunications out there about
adoption and at the end of the day it's
really important that we work together
that we communicate about it that we
help our children tell their story that
we help ourselves put language to what
we maybe have been through because one
of the things that kept being reiterated
no matter what blog I was reading her
article or even research that I was
going through is that adoption is hard
and the more we talk about it and the
more we put language to the experience
the better it'll be for those who've
been adopted I hope you found this video
helpful there were so many requests for
this on my you now live stream so make
sure you give us a thumbs up if you
liked the video and leave in the
comments anything else that maybe I
forgot or something that was helpful for
you because as always we're a community
working together right towards the
healthy mind and a healthy body and if
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next time right