-Annie has a little pink stool that we use in the bathroom to brush teeth, sit on la toilet and wash hands. This stool has a hole in the middle to make for easy carrying and although it is almost as big as she is, Annie carries it around the house. Today I was doing dishes and she brought it in to help. I was folding laundry on the bed and she brought it in to try and climb onto the bed (we have a very high bed!!). Annie carries it from room to room (without being asked at all) and is figuring out ways to use it. It is neat to watch how her brain is working.
-Annie has now climbed to the top rung of her loft bed ladder by herself. This ladder is not a "children's" ladder per say and at the top, it is 6.5 feet off the ground. This child is not scared of heights but she can't figure yet, how to get down. Not a good scene for Mommy who likes her to figure her own way out of situations and I think Shawn's hair has become more grey over this one!!!! We may be taking the ladder off the bed and only putting in on when guests are coming!!
- I feel that I can share this now. On returning from China and the trauma that we dealt with there as well as the loss of my Mother-in-law (she died while we were flying back to Canada), I suffered from post-adoption depression. There is a staggering figure that 60% of AP's suffer from this but there is very little out there about it. Luckily, our agency was wonderful and set us up with some counselling and I felt comfortable talking to my Dr. about meds. Many people don't have these resources. A BC adoptive parent Elizabeth Elias has just written a memoir of her experiences with PA depression and I wanted to put it out there for others to see. The title is "Don't Call Me Mother" and it is available here . As a side note, I tried once to write about this on the "big Chinese adoption" yahoo list and the moderator wouldn't post my messages. I was in conversation with two other AP's at the time and their posts were blocked as well. Very interesting that this is a topic not many want to touch when sooooooo many suffer...
I am just glad that I was able to recognize and deal with it quickly as well as having a wonderful attachment therapist who took us on pro-bono because of all the trauma we had been through.
4 comments:
Thank you for having the courage to share. Seriously. If it weren't for postings like yours, I would be struggling much, much more. It's still not easy, but I think I'm doing better than I would have been otherwise, just from knowing how prevalent it is. Of course, I don't seem to have the time or energy to read up on real coping strategies, but that'll come soon, I'm sure.
I'm shocked and saddened to know that comments on this topic were blocked. With all that you went through it is no wonder you had this experience, but truly PA depression can happen under any circumstances. As a community I hope we can address this more openly and support each other through such dark times. your post helps. Thank you!
You had sooo much to deal with...it was truly a trauma. I am so glad that you were able to get the help you needed. I am sorry that our adoption community continues to only want to read about the tough stuff that also comes along with adding a child to a family.
It upsets me that so many sweep this type of stuff under the rug. I know I've told you this before, but you are not alone. I, too, really struggled once we arrived home. It took over a year to really feel happiness again.
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