Sometimes I think even though adoption isn’t the same as going through nine months of pregnancy, it feels like it sure has some similarities but just in their own unique ways. One of my biggest ones lately has been worry and an awful lot of questions.
One of the things bothering me is the child abuse I endured in my own past. Some of you know about this and this isn’t coming as any surprise; others of you don’t and I’m not sure how you’ll take this. That abuse entails four years of sexual abuse from ages 4 to 8 with 30 years of physical and emotional abuse overlapping that. I keep reminding myself that it has been almost 4 1/2 years since the last of that abuse came to a halt in my life and since the only time that I needed inpatient care. I received counseling from the time I was 9-years-old until my very early 20’s and then again when I was 30.
From November 2004 until April of this year, I received probably the most intense “counseling” of my life, living with Karen as she counseled me on a literally daily basis but not only on the issues of the past abuse (when they came up) but also on issues such as how I handled my anger, the importance of forgiveness (including what that is and is not), how to appropriately handle relationships with guys, how to understand boundaries (something I had alot of trouble trying to comprehend) and live within them, how to begin to trust again, how to learn to allow others to reach out to me instead of secluding myself, how to handle my finances, and probably most important of all, how to lean and depend upon God, learning to let Him have the control in my life (that is one I’m not sure I’m going to ever be done learning).
My fear is that the abuse I was forced to live through will be looked at in a negative light by the state foster system and will be used to disqualify me as being able to care for an abused and/or neglected child. I want to look at it as something that will hopefully be an advantage instead; that because I have “been there” and learned skills to deal with it, that it will make it easier for me to understand where the child is coming from, what kinds of possible problems to expect so as not to be too surprised, and how to both deal with them and help the child in working through them.
Still, the fear remains and maybe will continue until I pass the homestudy, though I hope it won’t linger that long. Just as I guess some parents worry about the potential of their unborn baby having some kind of birth defect, I’m worried about the abuse in my past effecting this opportunity today. One of the things I wonder is how realistic that possibility is. Does anybody have any thoughts because I feel wide open right now?
I'm worried about that too, although my history is milder than yours sounds like. Don't know what to say, except hang in there, and we'll all get through this together.
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