May We All Just Start to See

I wandered into church among my younger siblings and my parents just like I did every single Sunday morning. We were a spectacle each week – our large family, my younger siblings from different countries, the chaos that often encircled us.

My siblings had just come home. We were still learning to create our own language between theirs and ours. Still working to build an “us” from them and the “us” that used to be.

While my parents and younger siblings were occupied elsewhere, some women from the church came up to me, giddy with excitement over the preciousness of my family. As they tended to do, they asked me how my parents were doing and how my new siblings were doing – wanting to know how the transition was unfolding for everyone involved. I gave them answers I knew they wanted to hear, rather than the complicated truth of the situation happening within the four walls of our home. I knew they would not understand the mixture of abundant joy and sorrow or the odd blend of gains and losses. And I wanted to protect my younger siblings from anyone’s misguided judgment.

This was just one of many times I was asked to be the spokesperson for my parents’ and siblings’ adjustments to adoption in our family. And yet, I was never asked about my own transition, about my own experience as a sibling of adoption.

At 16 years old, I never understood why no one else understood that adoption – the process of transitioning from a family of 6 to a family of eventually 14 – also affected me.

I could not understand why no one asked me how I was doing, recognizing that the little boys running around were my brothers, that the overwhelmed parents were my parents, that this was my permanent and forever family, and that we all lived in one home together. I wanted to scream from the rooftop that all of this change, all of this transition was happening to me too. Instead, I just answered the women’s questions at church and moved on, feeling entirely invisible.

I was struggling to make sense of all the new and all the change that seemed to seep into every tiny part of my life, and yet no one seemed to recognize that I had experienced any change at all.

I understood why my parents did not see it. They were overwhelmed, exhausted, just trying to survive, consumed with meeting my younger siblings’ needs. I felt invisible in my own family, but I knew why. The moment those three little boys entered our world, they became the center of it. My parents had no time for anything else, and I reassured myself that my new siblings needed my parents more than I did. I could take care of myself. I had never experienced any of the trauma my siblings had experienced. I was fine. But I actually wasn’t.

And the fact that it seemed no other person in my world saw that adoption changed all of my life? This reality left me feeling utterly invisible. I rationalized, telling myself that no one recognized the effects on me because I had such a unique experience. We adopted so many kids in so few years, there was such a large age gap, my siblings had difficult histories. No one saw me because no other family existed like mine.

And I also told myself that none of what I was experiencing was a big deal. I could handle the grief and loss, the invisibility, the extra responsibilities, all of the changes in my family because all of it was nothing compared to what my younger siblings had experienced prior to coming to us. I could and would be the martyr for my family even though no one put me in that position.

So I jumped in. Took on more responsibilities than I ever should have, stuffed all of my feelings deep down inside myself, and devoted myself to everyone else around me so that I could successfully ignore myself. And I did. I was a pro.

I did this ignoring, stuffing, invisible living in my family well until I became a post-adoption therapist. And then I met other children – other adoptive siblings – who were also living invisible lives no one else seemed to see. But I could not unsee what I saw. I watched children live the life I had lived, believing what I had believed, feeling what I had felt.

These siblings were different ages with different numbers of siblings with different histories in different families, and yet, the experiences were so similar. Over and over again, without fail, every family had at least one child in this role. I watched this pattern play out repeatedly, seeing all of it so clearly, and then I looked around me. And I realized that even though I saw what I saw, no one else was seeing it.

And then there I was – an adoptive sibling still invisible.

So I did the only thing I knew to do at the time. I shared my story. I shared my experiences and what I thought would have helped me.

But I did not want to stop there. I knew that my experience was only my experience. While there may be similarities in stories of siblings, if I only shared what I knew to be true for me, I would be missing all the complexities and nuances of the experiences in adoptive families. I knew if I wanted to truly help adoptive siblings and families, I need more than my own story.

So I went back to school for my doctorate degree, conducted research studies, and created interventions. I learned so much more about adoptive siblings and families than I ever could have known if I would have just shared my own story and generalized my own experience.

And it is such a privilege to share all of what I have learned with you. I have a unique lens, having lived the adoptive sibling experience, counseled clients with this experience, conducted research on this experience, and created therapeutic interventions for this experience.

But here today, I want to start at the very beginning.  

May we all just start to see.  

May we all see every member of adoptive and foster families for whom they are – individuals who affect and are affected by all of the experiences within their families.

May we all help every member of adoptive and foster families feel seen, heard, and valued.