the intersection of adoption and substance use, with Eric Fawson, LCSW
Host: Brenda Zane, brenda@brendazane.com
Guest: Eric Fawson, LCSW, Primary Therapist, Elements Traverse
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about this episode:
Numerous studies show that adopted children are significantly more likely to develop substance use disorders. Is this true? If so, why? And how can parents of adopted children support and guide their children through or around those tendencies?
Today I’m speaking with Eric Fawson, LCSW. Eric has been practicing therapy for more than 15 years, focusing on attachment, trauma, and the substance misuse that often accompanies these issues. He has served as a Clinical Director and is currently a therapist at Elements Traverse. Eric was also adopted at birth and has worked with countless adoptees, making him particularly qualified to talk about the unique challenges facing adoptive parents.
episode resources:
TCA - Therapeutic Consulting Assoc.
IECA - Independent Educational Consultants Assoc.
BOOKS:
20 Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew (Sherrie Eldridge )
The Primal Wound (Nancy Newton Verrier)
Being Adopted (Amy Wilkerson Lcsw)
The Family of Adoption (Joyce Maguire Pavao)
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Today is a conversation that is long overdue and for all you families out there with adopted children, I apologize it's taken so long to get a specific episode created for you.
This is a topic that definitely deserves its own show, and I wanted to get an expert on who's not just book smart about it, but someone who has professional experience and lived experience. So when I met the unicorn, that is Eric Fawson, I was thrilled. And basically, I didn't even give him the option other than to join me for an episode.
And when I say lived experience, in addition to having this professional experience in mental health and substance use, he is also adopted himself. He has an adopted child and sadly, his brother passed away from an overdose. So when I say I found a unicorn, I am not kidding. Eric is a primary therapist at Elements Wilderness, which is where my son went.
00;02;19;09
Brenda
But he works with the 18 and over boys in their Traverse program. So that connection, it makes him feel like part of our family. And I want to be sure to say that if you are looking for a program, don't just assume that because something was a good fit for my son or for anyone for that matter, that it will be a good fit for your family's situation.
We worked with an educational consultant who very thoroughly assessed my son's situation and then surgically matched him with the right therapist at the right program. And I want to mention that because every person is different and having a guide to match you with the right program and the right person and therapist within that program is really critical. I'll put a link in the show notes to elements, of course, and I'm also going to put a link to the Therapeutic Educational Consultant Association to GCA, the Independent Educational Consultant Association, I, ACA and the online directory, all kinds of therapy dot com because between those three resources you should be able to create a really good short list of people to talk with and it will just save you a ton of time over going to Google. So those resources will all be in the show notes and those are at Brenda's income. Forget podcast. Okay. So back to Eric Fawson. This is a guy who grew up in Hawaii and embraces the spirit of ohana. He believes that growing up in the islands shaped his caring nature and the ease and ability that he has to connect with its clients.
He got his bachelor's degree and then he got his master's degree in clinical social work. But when he started working as a social worker with adoptive mothers in particular, he knew he had found his passion. Eric has five kids ranging from adults to high schoolers, so he is the real deal. And I can't wait for you to hear this important discussion.
00;04;23;09
Brenda
And even if you don't have adopted children, you are still going to get a lot out of this. So do whatever you do when you're listening to Hope Stream and enjoy this conversation with Eric. Awesome.
Eric, welcome to Hope Stream. I'm so excited to talk with you. I have an affinity in my heart for your company, obviously for Elements Wilderness, because I am pretty sure it did a pretty big job of saving my son's life. So I love that this is not a sponsored this is not a sponsored mention. I just truly love you guys.
So thanks for joining me today.
00;05;07;27
Eric
Absolutely. Thank you for having me. And I got to tell you, just that just puts a smile on my heart, Brenda, you know, just to hear that and I'm certain that the journey after Elements wasn't over with probably felt like forever in that moment, but also happen in a blink of an eye. And we just really appreciate your your willingness to to go through that process. So thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me today.
00;05;30;24
Brenda
Oh, of course. I'm excited for our conversation. And I think that whenever I can, I try to remind parents that even with my son, he was at Elements and he was in residential ran away from residential, you know, circled through out however many more treatment programs. And they all were successful because you can't look at just one slice in time.
00;05;55;17
Eric
Right.
Brenda
You're right. He was it elements for nine weeks. Nine weeks is not being right.
Eric
Right.
Brenda
Nine weeks is in the scheme of life. Nine weeks is nothing. At that time it felt like the entire world absolutely. However, that nine weeks built up a lot of tools for him that he can use now, you know, later in life. So I was sure to mention that because kids will come home and then they relapse and they go back to their old habits and they, you know, get in all kinds of trouble.
Brenda
And we think, oh, my gosh, that that didn't work. Yeah. And I always just like to remind people it did work for certain things. It might not have worked at that time to keep them forever and ever out of trouble or off substances. But there's definite learning and tools and skills that they get out of that.
00;06;52;22
Eric
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, you know, this may come up later in our discussion, but the challenge of actually asking or sending your loved one to treatment can be really difficult. I sometimes referred to it as healthy separation. Mm hmm. You know, one of the one of the things that I think can sometimes bring families to treatment is chaos.
Like, the chaos is no longer manageable. Like we have crossed that threshold, and that can look like a many things. And we all need we need some space. You know, it's got to that point where we've tried everything at home. We've tried outpatient, we tried intensive, we tried family work, you know, we've moved somebody into our house, you know, to help us out.
And for whatever reason, we just need that healthy separation so we can take a big breath, gather some tools, work on ourselves, work on what's inside of our control, which is us, and then come back together slowly. So.
00;07;50;09
Brenda
Yeah, for sure. Why don't you just give us some context for who you are, a little bit about your background, and then we're going to dove into all things adoption, which I'm so glad to have you, because I don't really know anything about it. You know, if that's not your experience, it's just like, well, I don't I don't know.
Eric
Right.
Brenda
So tell us a little bit about you and how you came to be doing what you're doing. And then we'll get into that.
00;08;13;12
Eric
Yeah, well, since we're talking about adoption, I'll just make it known. I am I'm adopted. I'm an adoptee. I'm also an adoptive parent. I have five children. And one of my children is adopted. I was born in Iowa, adopted right shortly after birth. I have a younger brother who has since passed away, who was also adopted, but we moved to Hawaii pretty quickly and I grew up in Hawaii and loved it.
Everybody asked, What's it like growing up in Hawaii? And it's everything you think it would be.
00;08;41;11
Brenda
Okay. Wait, I am trying to just wrap my brain around Iowa to Hawaii. Right?
Eric
What exactly? That. Exactly that. You know. And so I grew up in Hawaii, had just a wonderful childhood, fast forwarding, quite quickly. I tried college at a young age, actually graduated high school and I 17 and tried college short thereafter. And it didn't stick. It wasn't a journey for me at that point. I tried it again later, and it really wasn't until the fourth time that I tried college, which was I was 27 years old.
I was definitely a late bloomer and I was like, okay, now I'm ready. But the difference was I had purpose, I had intention. I knew what I wanted. I was highly influenced by a good friend who was a licensed clinical social worker and doing mental health therapy and working with the specific population. And we were really good friends and I came home one day and I had two children and they just bought a home and I owned a business and I, I said to my wife, I said, I think I'm going back to school.
00;09;39;11 - 00;10;00;19
Eric
And she said, okay. And two weeks later I was enrolled, finished my undergraduate, went straight on to graduate school and got hired in a residential program for adolescent, specifically for adolescent girls as a therapist. And one of my assignments was, you're going to run the adoption group. Now, what's interesting about that is they didn't know that I was adopted.
Oh, know. Right. They just I just happened to be filling in for the person that was no longer there. They happened to run the adoption group. So I remember the first group therapy session. I gathered about 12 adolescent girls that were all adopted. We went to the group therapy room and I walked out of there 90 minutes later going, I had no idea what I'm talking about.
I've no idea what I'm doing to help these young adoptees. This is a very specific area of treatment. And so at that point, I really set my career towards learning more about this, which simultaneously caused me to have to go through my own journey around being adopted as well, and then later becoming an adoptive parent. Like my childhood was, like I said in Hawaii, carefree, fancy free.
00;10;46;13 - 00;11;03;09
Eric
My parents were really great. They were consistent with the rules and they held me accountable and they equally rewarded me and they love me. And I have this big family that loves me and both my mom's side and my dad's side. So I just felt very welcome. The idea of being adopted when I grew up, it was like, okay, I'm adopted.
I didn't know that it was really that different. And occasionally even my friends would say, you know, if we got into one of those teasing moments between friends, you know, you're saying something bad about you, but everyone said to go, Yeah, but you're adopted and and your parents that love me and I didn't even faze me like, yeah, I'm adopted.
Eric
So what.
00;11;21;25 - 00;11;23;13
Brenda
What does that have to do with it?
Eric
Exactly. And I think this is actually maybe an important piece because sometimes even working with adopted clients, this is their also their response like I've never thought about it. So what, that I'm adopted. I don't know how that has to play in it. Maybe the last thing about my background that might be interesting to the audience and and maybe another discussion down the road of possibly I'm also an adopt in reunion and what that means is I have reached out and I've made contact with my biological roots.
So I'm in reunion with my birth mother that's been going on for about five or six years now. And with my two biological half sisters, I'm not in reunion with my birth father, but not for lack of attempt. I've been doing therapy since 2005 and have been working, as you mentioned, in an outdoor wilderness setting a little over a decade now, you know, and specifically elements.
And I watched your birth. I primarily work with young adults, but I also work with adolescents in their families as well.
00;12;23;12 - 00;12;29;16
Brenda
Awesome. So in especially with the young adults, usually 18 to what, 25 or six or so.
Eric
Yeah. In our program, 25 year, our average is about 19, 20 years old.
Brenda
Yeah. And so those, those kiddos have to be willing to go. I mean, I know sometimes there's pressure, we'll call it strong pressure from resources to go.
Eric
Okay. Agreed.
Brenda
But they're there, right? And they're there doing the work.
Eric
Yeah. At some point they come, they often come to a realization of yeah, this is, I needed something and maybe they don't love that. It's that, but they all come to an agreement and I really did need something. Yeah. And wilderness is just a really unique treatment environment. So.
00;13;06;28 - 00;13;29;25
Brenda
Yeah, so unique. We were talking before we recorded about holidays and all of the challenges that holidays can bring for, I'll call them complicated families and that so that just adds a whole nother level. When you've got multiple sets of parents, you've got your kids. Maybe they're in touch with their biological parents. I can just imagine that there's a lot of dynamics going on.
00;13;30;20 - 00;13;53;13
Eric
Yeah, being really transparent because I am connected with my my biological roots as well. So I referred to her as my birth mother. I actually just call her by her name, wonderful woman and I have wonderful sisters. I share a lot of my life with them now and about my children. And so, like, my daughters were just in a play recently and I took pictures.
Of course I could do that. And then I have to think about, okay, who do I send these to first? I understand this to my mom first, right? Not that anybody can actually get my phone and know who got it first. And they're not even people like that. But as an adoptee, that's kind of one of the things that I go through, that little bit of anxiety and just being.
And for me it's like, okay, you have to be aware of that. And like it's that's a challenge that comes up and kind of like what you said, like just managing a lot of extended family. And sometimes it could be it can be overwhelming.
00;14;24;07
Brenda
Yes, for sure. I can imagine that I get overwhelmed just with, you know, ex husband, husband step kids. You know, there's just there's a lot there.
00;14;35;01
Eric
Equally rewarding is to I want to say.
00;14;37;01
Brenda
Right, right. Yeah. You know, like I was saying, I don't know anything really about adoption. So I was doing some research, getting ready for this and I came across a study that said that individuals who've been adopted are almost twice as likely to develop a substance use disorder as those who are not. And I was like, really? Is that true?
I mean, that was really shocking to me. And so I would love it if you would just shed some light on that information.
00;15;07;05
Eric
Absolutely. And I think that adoptees tend to be at higher risk for for mental health issues and substance abuse being one of those. The statistics suggest that somewhere between 40 and 60% of clients in treatment are adopted. Now, I don't know that that necessarily correlates to being adopted. In fact, I would argue that it may not. There are probably some other factors to that adoption is expensive and families that typically are able to adopt generally have financial resources, which means they can also access treatment.
Right. Right. And that could be part of why we see a higher number of adoptees in treatment. I think we're able to also start with that question is that fundamentally the majority of us was human beings are wired to connect. And when you really talking about adoption, what you're actually really talking about is attachment. You're talking about the quality of attachment, attachment styles and how others connect and how they attach.
And adoption is is a rupture in a primary adoption attachment that happened early on for whatever reason. But I think that's an important piece. And so oftentimes that can bring with it anxiety around attachment or connecting, that can bring fear around attachment and connection. But what it doesn't change is it doesn't change that the brain is desiring connection, the brain wants to connect and it's driving.
And and so substance use could do a couple of things. One of them is it's a very socially acceptable behavior. Particularly as marijuana has become more legalized in across the country. It's a socially acceptable behavior. Well, what's more connected in some sort of a social activity and if you can be good at it, you know, it's even more rewarding.
00;17;09;02
Eric
You know, and so it's just becomes an attractive community. And what it's doing is it is feeding the need to be connected. Now, the challenge with part of that is that, unfortunately, substances are highly addictive, right? They're taking over function of brain chemistry, if you will. You know, dopamine receptors are getting confused and and then you go through those waves of withdrawal and craving more, and particularly depending on the type of substances that might be used.
And so you're at high risk of creating a substance use disorder simply for the fact that you're doing what the brain wants you to do, which is connect with others. And that's a that's a community to connect with. Right. I actually think adoptees can be at risk to other addictions as well, either for pornography in there as well.
00;17;59;17
Eric
Pornography coupled with masturbation is it's a highly rewarded behavior that the brain then interprets as a connection. The brain doesn't always necessarily know the difference between maybe a quality connection or a human human connection that the dopamine release feels very similar or feels the same right. I would say another thing that puts adoptees or even people that suffer from high levels of anxiety, it's who write like it's it's a way to deal with that attachment.
Anxiety kind of makes it go away for a while. You feel better for a while and again, because of the nature, the addictive nature of some substances, it then has that risk of becoming a disorder. I work with a lot of clients that Durga L and these are clients that may or may not be adopted. Oftentimes when they're dealing with an anxiety disorder, their goal is, I would like to be able to still use substances, but I would like to use it.
So it's not problematic for me. It's a big goal and I would say that some folks are probably going to be able to achieve that and some are not. And there's probably just so many factors throughout as well. And I would say that adoptees tend to be this is in my experience, adoptees tend to be more prone to codependency.
And so when we talk about addictive behaviors, I would even throw relationships in there as a potential addictive object, if you will, not only just substances, but but people can become that. Addiction screens can become that addiction because these things are ultimately fulfilling the need of what the brain is asking for, which is I want a connection because connection gives me a dopamine release.
I feel that and it's a simple reward system that's going on in there. And so I believe that's in part why adoptees might be more prone to substance use disorder diagnoses. Just probably some of the reasons behind that.
00;20;04;25
Brenda
That makes a ton of sense. Thanks for sort of walking through that. And what I'm wondering is do they know that they are wanting that attachment or is it just something that they're seeking? But they're not really aware? Like, are they inside saying, I need attachment, therefore I'm going to go use substances or I'm going to write? Or is it just sort of this I don't even know how to ask the right question?
00;20;31;02
Eric
Well, that's a great question. I think I understood it. Like, do they understand what might be the motivating factors behind this?
00;20;36;16
Brenda
That's a great way to say it.
00;20;38;09
Eric
And I think that it's probably really dependent on the individual having the years of experience that I work, that I've been doing this. I will have clients come in and they will completely understand, like I'm doing this because of this, you know, and particularly with adoption and attachment, like, yeah, I feel good, I feel connected and it's doing that for me.
I think the majority of clients probably need to have that education around that, and I would say that's even part of the treatment process for our clients is really helping to understand what's going on for them.
00;21;13;08
Brenda
Yeah, from the young person's point of view, maybe they don't know. And also maybe the parents don't really understand what truly could be going on. Do you recommend that parents who have adopted children sort of talk to them about these potentially higher risks for addiction or for substance use? Or is that is that like, well, don't don't go there?
I'm just trying to try to think, like, if there is such a higher risk, is that a conversation that they should be having?
00;21;48;05
Eric
They should, yeah. A little side note, I coach a high school mountain bike team here in Utah and we have a pit zone that we create with the canopy. And one of our sponsors a couple of years ago was a prevention coalition, and they help sponsor our our shelter and that every race we we put on these big almost like a curtain on the side of the canopy.
And it's got a bunch of statistics about the importance of talking to your children about alcohol and drug use. So in general, what I would say is that is for every parent, you ought to be taught, you ought to be having conversations. And these conversations you want to avoid shaming and even good intentions, you know, can come across as shaming.
We may not even know that we're coming across from a shaming perspective. So we just have to be really aware of how we have that conversation, but not be afraid to have that conversation, that's for sure. And so I think talking to children in a non threatening, scared straight type of approach, research has shown us that scared straight actually doesn't work.
It's very temporary, right? Behavioral. It's not relational. So maybe that's the better way to answer your question is when you're having these conversations come from a place, a relational place. I love you. I really care about you as a person. Right. And I want to be open and honest with you. I think that's always incredibly important, to be honest with you.
00;23;15;02
Eric
And then you have to consider their age development. So maybe even more specific, your question, if an adoptive parent or parents know that substance use or even addiction is part of the biological roots of their adoptee, that can be an appropriate conversation, but you really have to consider their developmental space. And a lot of times I think parents may have that conversation from a space of fear.
Maybe their child has already started to experiment and it's created a reaction in parents. And all of a sudden they are, oh, my gosh, we got to address this. You need to know this about your history. You're at risk. You know, and again, I think that's a really good intention just to consider where is that coming from? If that's coming from my own fear and my own anxiety, it's likely not going to be received the way you intended to be received, right?
00;24;13;18 - 00;24;14;11
Brenda
Yes.
00;24;14;11 - 00;24;18;10
Eric
And when they don't accept it, don't take it personally. Okay. I want you to know if they are listening. They may not act like they're listening, but they are listening. As a parent of former teenagers and to teenagers right now, I get the cold shoulder all the time. I get the whatever, dad, you know. But they are they are listening, okay? Even if they don't respond the way you want them to.
00;24;40;20
Brenda
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Okay, I hope to see you there. And now let's get back to the conversation in the community that I run for Moms, The Stream, we have a group specifically for adoptive families. And so these moms are in there. And I see the conversations and the questions. And one thing that I see often is, well, I adopted my my son or my daughter at birth.
00;26;55;01
Brenda
You know, we were there while mom was pregnant. We were at the birth like it was beautiful. Everything was great. There hasn't been any big trauma in my child's life. And yet we are really struggling in, you know, here she is, you know, misusing substances. And what's what's going on there?
00;27;16;08
Eric
It's a great question. And I don't know that we have done enough digging and research to really, really comprehend and understand. And I think there's a lot of variables to that as well. I'm adopted and my younger brother is adopted. We grew up in the same home with the same parents, and he experienced significantly more anxiety and mental health issues than I did.
But we both had really wonderful birth mothers, but the experience that we shared was we both were adopted, right, in that. That is a separation that has happened. And and I think that it just impacts I guess I'm sharing that with you because I understand that it does impact individuals differently. Can I tell a quick story?
00;28;02;00
Brenda
Absolutely.
00;28;03;07
Eric
I told you earlier that I'm in reunion with my with my biological mother. And, you know, it started out with letters and the text messages that one day we decide, you know, let's meet. And she lives in Tucson, Arizona, and I live in southern Utah. And so we my wife and I drove down. And it's a lot of anxiety, everything around that, as you might imagine.
And actually, I think this is just three years ago now that I think about my age and everything. And so we met and we met at her home and then I met my, my, my half sisters and whatnot. And then we all went out to dinner that night and went to a restaurant. Went out to dinner, and I sit next to my wife.
And then we were talking about it and I just I just said said, listen, this is what I want to share with you right now. And I get a little pissed about being even teary eyed when I think about it, trying to hold on to this here for your audience. But I just said this feels normal. It just feels like every Sunday dinner, we just haven't done it in 50 years.
00;29;05;13
Brenda
Oh, my gosh.
00;29;06;09
Eric
I was 50 when I reunited with my natural roots and my point being is like the body remembers, the body knows, the body connects. There's always been this piece in there. So I think what I want to say is try not to ignore that this happened right. In some times with with families, they might ignore that the adoption actually happened.
They might be aware of it and acknowledge it, but might not recognize that it did. It actually is a real event that happened and adoptees are going to translate that event differently. I also think that with adoptees, there's knowledge out there that if they know they're adopted, they know that there's other connections out there, there's wonderment, there's curiosity, and that impacts attachment.
In the last ten years, we've kind of gone through this new thing called an open adoption. Prior to that, most adoptions were pretty close. There was very seldom or very rarely this open adoption. And for your audience, just in case, open adoption means that the adoptive family is sending updates and connected may maybe doing phone calls. There's variations of it but but they may even meet up and stuff.
And I've heard adolescent adoptees say to me in the past, both sides of it, like, yeah, I really enjoyed it, makes me feel connected and I feel really safe. And I've heard of adoptees say to me, it confuses who I'm supposed to connect and attach to. Who do I line myself with? Because if I aligned myself with my birth mother, that means I have to reject my adoptive parents.
00;30;33;02
Eric
If I myself and my adoptive parents, that means I have to reject my my my biological roots, my biological mother and adolescence. Think very black and white. They don't you know, they don't think in a linear fashion. So part of the education therapy might be helping them see that that's okay. And we also know that there are these anecdotal experiences out there where people were adopted.
They just didn't know. Nobody told them. Right. Their parents, for whatever reason, never told them. And they're in their twenties or their thirties. And and it comes out and and they respond with I've always wondered why I haven't been able to connect something has always felt different or off. And now this connects the dots for me, so it could be internally for them as well.
We talked about this. There's variations on what happened in prenatal care. What kind of stressors your exposure to drugs in utero can impact brain or maladies and brain growth and attachment processes and stuff like that. Adoptive families, it's really important that they understand and explore what brought them into adoption. So this is family systems work. This is really look at this.
00;31;42;05
Eric
And I told you earlier that I, I worked at an agency and I also worked with adoptive families. And now one of my roles was to interview families. And every adopt every family out of this adopted has probably gone through the whole study. I mean, the amount of work that you have to do to become an adoptive parent is very different than just through people having sex or getting impregnated somewhere and having a baby.
Right. It's way, way different. And you just get peel back your finances and everything looked and you got to go through all this interview processes. But part of that was like, I would ask what brought you to adoption? Right? And the goal behind that was to really help parents start the process. And not all parents are dealing with infertility.
Right. That's that's not the only reason. You know, there are parents out there that have children and also adopt. But infertility was often the most common and the response was often sometimes the response was, well, we need to be able to feel whole and the only way we can feel holds. We have a baby in our family. And my response was often like, that's a lot of pressure you're putting on this baby to make you feel whole.
00;32;48;19
Eric
And I think that if parents haven't done that work their own grief and loss as to possibly what brought us to adoption, I realize there again, there are other reasons that parents adopt. So this is going to apply across to everybody. But I think for fap families, if you haven't done your work to maybe grieve the loss of not being able to bear children on your own or or miscarriages or things of that nature.
And the other thing I think for family systems is often referred to as the crisis or test. You're here for just a second, Brenda. I think you'll probably get the answer, but when you first got married, what was the very next question your parents were asking?
00;33;22;29
Brenda
When are you going have a baby?
00;33;24;19
Eric
When are you going to have a baby? Right. So it becomes a family crisis or your friends are like social crisis or it becomes a religious crisis. You know, many folks are, you know, get married and multiply and replenish the Earth. Well, I can't have babies. Does God punishing me? Right. What's going on? So there's work that can also be done that in my work early on was trying to help parents at least start that as they were engaged in the adoption process.
I've worked with parents that have never even considered the fact that I need to grieve the loss of not having children. And that's also a parallel process that that sometimes the adoptee goes through as well. And so if everybody is really open and vulnerable and honest, the common emotion that adoptees and adoptive parents tend to feel is fear.
And that fear comes from a space of rejection. I'm afraid that my child is going to reject me. And for the child, I'm afraid that my parents are going to reject me. So they're running this parallel process and then we kind of get a chance to start working through that. Now, that also changed for the adolescent pre-adolescent. One of the hardest parts about being adoptive parent is when your adoptee starts hitting those those teenage years, you become way less important.
You you're lucky to make the top ten list of importance. It's about their friends. So that fear of rejection now moves socially for that.
00;34;44;01
Brenda
Oh, yes, right, right.
00;34;46;01
Eric
And so that even goes back to your the question of, well, I don't want to experience fear and abandonment, so I'm going to go to the group that's going to accept me the most. And maybe that's, you know, my high school that was the kids hanging out of the deal with pink. And they were smoke and pot behind, you know, behind the ag building or whatever.
Right. And that's that that's a community that's pretty open and pretty accepting. And so I'm going to go where I'm at. I feel the least amount of rejection.
00;35;10;02
Brenda
So wow, that makes a lot of sense because that's what kids do when they enter those years. And if you have that layer of fear of rejection that all parents have, but then you have that extra layer from the adoptive standpoint that makes a ton of sense.
00;35;26;09
Eric
And fear of rejection causes just to do generally two things. Either we overly enmesh ourselves in the relationship and over enable. We don't want them to be mad at us or we back out and become harsher in our relationship approach and the children feel that and.
00;35;43;11
Brenda
Oh, totally, yeah. I was thinking when we were talking about the parents who are adopting and kind of what brought them to adoption and it obviously if everything was going great in my life as the biological mother, I probably wouldn't be looking at giving up my child for adoption. So I'm just wondering, is there a certain level of stress or anxiety or sadness or whatever on the biological mother's part that could be impacting that child?
No blame of theirs. But if mom is unhappy or stressed or, you know, dealing with her own substance use or all the things that might be happening to a mother who's deciding to give her child up for adoption, that like it could have an impact.
00;36;35;14
Eric
My opportunity when I was a social worker for birth mothers, there were many ways to approach this process. I think some of them were incredibly connected to the experience of being a birth mother and would name the child, even though they knew that perhaps the adoptive parents were going to change this child's name and they would buy clothes and they were quite connected to the experience and they think there were others, that it was differently traumatic for them.
And I'm just finding myself feeling emotional about this as I think about this because it is a really special place in my heart for both mothers, as you might imagine. Right. And so I'm just rethinking some of those experiences of what I got it, the pleasure and just the blessing of being a social worker for birth mothers. But I think by almost survival nature, some of those those mothers had to they had to create distance and separate themselves from the situation just to preserve themselves emotionally or mentally as well.
You know, and I don't think there's a wrong or right not a judgment on that. I just you know, I just think that I think I do believe that probably had an impact on the process.
00;37;46;25
Brenda
And oh, that makes total sense. Yeah, there there's there's so much emotion in pregnancy to begin with, let alone all of the factors that they might be dealing with and the decisions that they're having to make it just it's it feels overwhelming just to even think about it.
00;38;03;23
Eric
Or not having a family there to support.
That was their dream. I mean, I as a social worker for birth mothers, I, I, I was in the bathroom. I was the one in the bathroom with these mothers holding their hands at times. You know, that was a very honored experience, you know, for me.
00;38;18;06
Brenda
Yeah. Oh, wow. That's incredible. That also makes me think about and this always breaks my heart is what I see from our moms in this group is that they feel either just feeling this or if it's true, that they seem to get the brunt of the angst, of the anger, of all of the things with their kids. And, you know, I would think if that was me, I'd be like, well, wait a minute, I'm one to stop here.
Why are you why are you so angry at me? Maybe you can talk about that a little bit.
00;38;55;24
Eric
I think that's really great what you said, because I think that's that is the journey that a lot of talk to parents travel is in. And I think it's a it's an area to be really conscious as they want that appreciation and they want that recognition. If I don't get that recognition, that can also feel like rejection, like it took you out of a really potentially bad situation, you know, and now you're shipping out.
It's really what we're talking about is and I remember I remember a client many, many years ago and his mother brought this same thing up. She says, Eric Just every time I reach out to him, he and I try to give him my heart. He just stomps on it. And I don't know what to do with that. And he literally did.
He would just he would just she gave an inch. He would just just go after her. And it was it was really sad. I watched it in action in a in an in in-person family therapy sessions like, wow. So I put a lot of thought into this as well actually over the years. And I actually have seen and I've had clients reaffirm this, that I, I dump all of my stuff on you because I trust you.
00;40;07;15 - 00;40;22;10
Eric
It may not feel like that. And I've had a client say this. It's because I trust you. I know how you're going to react. I know how predictable you are. You may whether it's a you know, whether it's a function or dysfunctional reaction, I know how you're going to react. And so you're the place that I feel safe.
Like I've literally had, you know, 13 year old say, I go to school all day long and I imagine this is going to ring with some of those parents and some of those mothers. I go to school all day long and socially. There's so much expected of me and I'm trying to navigate and figure it out. It takes every bit of mental energy.
I have to survive school from 730 until 3:00. I need a place to release it. It becomes home. Yeah, yeah. And there probably is some projection around there about mother and birth mother going on in the background as well. And what I would want to say to this is try not to take it personally, even though it feels personal and it can be vile at times and incredibly difficult not to take it personal.
Your role is to this is a very crucial part for parents to listen and to validate and not and not overreact, but not punish me does not mean to not have boundaries. But the timing of setting boundaries can be really important. That may not be the moment, but listening and validating becomes an incredible skill as well as even body position, like being willing to sit next to somebody.
00;41;35;07
Eric
If you can be in this really calm state, you be. If you can sit with somebody next to them, preferably next to them, and just listen and that may not even be put an end on that. Like oftentimes I'll do this at their advice, but disregulated, this is actually what we call dysregulation. They take the dysregulation dump and bring it home right.
And, you know, sometimes put in a touch like, I mean, and say, hey, can you mind if I just put my hand on your shoulder for a moment and use that as a regulating physical touch? But so to the parents part, and that's exhausting for parents. And this is why parents need parent support groups like yours and need their therapy because they're sponges and they're taking all this in and they need a place to go and process it.
Yeah, they need a place to be validated because that moment you want to be validated as a parent and that's not your moment.
00;42;23;23
Brenda
Right?
00;42;24;14
Eric
Not right now. Right. You know, your moment is later on. Either your therapy with your spouse or with a good friend or whatever. You might get that validation from them. You might get that, well, you know what, 25 years ago you adopted me and never said thank you. You might get that, you know, and you might not you don't know.
Right. And so and that that becomes part of that challenge. So that's a bigger answer than your specific question. But no, it's great.
00;42;50;25
Brenda
Yeah, that makes a ton those it makes a ton of sense and it is so hard and it just reminds me, you know, when your kids are two or three and you leave them with the grandparents or the babysitter, and you come back and they're like, Oh, they're amazing. They're so good. And they follow all the directions and they're and you're like, What?
00;43;10;18
Eric
Yeah, 100%. I'm certain. Your parents have heard when they go to the parent teacher conference, they're just wonderful in class. I love how and just incredibly confusing because that's not the child I'm experiencing at home.
00;43;25;24
Brenda
Right? It's so confusing. Oh, man. Well, when it when we're talking about all this, it makes me just think about the attachment and the and the wanting to belong and the acceptance and all that. And if you're parent of an adopted child and they're really struggling, is it a good idea to send them away to treatment? Because that feels like it could be very I mean, it's confusing.
It was horribly confusing for me. Like this feels so wrong to send my child out of my home for treatment. I would imagine that those feelings could be even more amplified in a adopted situation.
00;44;04;25
Eric
You're absolutely right.
00;44;05;28
Brenda
How does that work?
00;44;07;28
Eric
If treatment can happen locally, if you can get focused attachment, family systems and individual treatment and it can be in the home and it's safe and it hasn't crossed the thresholds yet or the tolerance levels of safety it's in the answer is that's what you want to do, right? That's what you want to do. That's the best possible thing that you can do.
However, as I mentioned, when safety gets crossed, if you can no longer keep them safe or in many cases you can no longer keep other members of your family safe, or you don't have access to the expertize that this particular area of treatment requires, then that's when you have to make that really difficult decision, right? Those for many parents, that's where the bottom line is for that.
That decision at some point needs to become part of the therapeutic process because what has been felt, this fear of rejection, this fear of abandonment has now become real.
They're feeling it more, even though you're not really abandoning you're not really rejected them. You may be sending them across the country somewhere to to get some help, but it feels like that and it needs to be acknowledged and because if not, it just gets ignored. It just festers. Right. We just ignore it. And the challenge in that area, Brenda, is that everybody wants to be validated.
00;45;38;28
Eric
And that's not necessarily the goal of processing that, because as parents, we're thinking with adult brain to go well, you need to understand that you were unsafe and you need to accept that you were you were doing this and doing that. And that becomes a power struggle, and that's really hard. And so I think it's a it's an experienced therapist that is able to help you walk and process that because it can't be ignored.
00;46;02;24
Brenda
So that's something that you want to engage with a therapist before you make the decision on an out of home placement. Is that what you're saying? Like, is that a conversation?
00;46;12;18
Eric
Yeah. If things in your family system are getting to the level where you're now exploring out of home placement, my hope is that you're already in therapy and that just as part of or you're some sort of supportive system. And that actually becomes part of that process where you're processing that with your therapist generally with most, you know, out of home programs there, there's, there's family systems work like there has to be if there's if there's not family systems worked and that's not the program for you.
So there has to be family systems work. So the therapist that now is clinically responsible for your child or you're young adult will also be able to help you, help you as a family navigate that discussion.
00;46;50;18
Brenda
And do you I'm imagining the answer is yes. But I just want to ask, do you need to make that whoever is going to be your child's therapist has a specialty in adoption, or is adoption something that gets covered? If you are a therapist no matter what? Like is this a specialty area?
00;47;11;07
Eric
I believe it to be more of a specialty area and know we I think one of the weaknesses that we have in in our mental health and in diagnosis is I don't think we really diagnose attachment well. We're we're still working on it. And and the DSM doesn't really allow for phenomenal diagnosis. And I wish it was a bit more on a spectrum because there are cases where you specifically need an adoption attachment, specific program and specifically trained therapists.
And there are others where I think some of this may adoptive informed and has some experience around that is is going to be appropriate and okay you know but I would want that would be the minimum for me and I don't even know what that is on scale. But I would want somebody to have experience in this area so they know how to help my family walk through this.
I would be hesitant to to have my child or my family engage in a program where this is an issue and they don't really specialize in it or have a really good understanding about it.
00;48;14;24
Brenda
Right. So you just really need to ask the question because it's not like there's a designation like you always see, you know, I'll see or I'll see, you'll see.
00;48;25;18
Eric
Yes.
00;48;26;00
Brenda
Like all the different letters. But there's not something that's going to tell you, oh, this person has a specialty and adoption. It's just a conversation that you would need to have and really dig into. What is your expertize in this area?
00;48;38;13
Eric
I think so, yeah. Yeah. There are certifications and trainings that people can get around this and add those to their credentials so that that is possible as well.
00;48;47;26
Brenda
What would be one thing that if you could say to a parent of a kiddo who is adopted, struggling right now with mental health or substance use, what would you what words would you leave them with from your very unique point of view?
00;49;07;25
Eric
First and foremost, as the parent is engage in a supportive community, do not for one moment believe that you have to travel this journey alone. Right? You need a community. You need people that are around you that can help validate the experience, talk you down off the ledge once in a while, that, you know, when things just feel so overwhelming that you're able to have somebody to go to engage in therapy, go to Al-Anon, you know, find your local support group, find an online support group.
So I just I just can't say enough about that because ultimately and Brendon, maybe you came to this realization as well. I don't know. I make an assumption. The one thing that you can control is you. Yes, right. You can put your child or your young adult and encourage them to go into treatment. You can't you can't control the outcomes.
Yeah. And that's what you're going to your support for. That's what you're going to the what ifs, the unknowns. Right. And they could be the best quality program for treating substance use or attachment or mental health disorders, depression or anxiety. You still may not get the outcomes that you're hoping for. So you have to go to you have to do your work around that to do your own self awareness work specifically to attachment.
One of the things that I like to do work with families is helping them actually understand their attachment style, right? How do they connect to others or what might be blocking their attachment style? So I think going to therapy and doing your work is really important. And what we have seen is that when it's just actually talking to a client about this the other day and they report it to me, you know, hard things and I'm really surprised to hear that my parents are in therapy.
00;50;56;05
Eric
Oh, yeah? What do you think about that? I think it's amazing. It blows my mind like like my dad was using emotional language. Right. And when you think about that, because it was really weird to see my dad do that. Right. And and I think that parents need a place to go to go and process and learn and and engage in that because you've got a lot of stuff going on and you may or may not or somewhere between have the experience and skill sets to work through that.
But it's so good to have a place to do that as well. Don't feel like you have to do this or fester in your stuff. And then I always say educate education is really, really, really important part of the process. Read books, go to conferences.
00;51;38;28
Brenda
Is there a book that you would recommend that parents read?
00;51;42;05
Eric
Or one of the ones that I often have parents read is called 20 Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew.
00;51;49;14
Brenda
Oh, that sounds juicy.
00;51;52;01
Eric
Yeah. And I think kids often kids read that as well and that's a really good and I like the family of adoption is also a really good one and being adopted is another really good book for for kids and parents to read it. When we go back to the earlier part of the discussion about parents questioning, but we adopted them at birth, we don't understand.
There's a there's a book called The Primal Wound, and it was written quite a while ago. But I think it still does a really phenomenal job in terms of understanding that initial break in the attachment. It's a hard book to read. I will I will put that wording out there. It's a difficult book to read.
00;52;32;24
Brenda
Yeah, great. Well, thanks for the warning on that. Yeah, thank you, Eric. This was so great. So enlightening for me. I feel like this is just one of those areas where I'm totally in the dark, among many other areas, but especially because I know this one is tricky for parents of teens and young adults who are struggling. And it's just great to get this information and insight.
So thank you for joining us.
00;52;58;08
Eric
Of course. Thank you for having me. My I hope that you learned with your time it elements the hope outside of my control. Right. Is that someone in your audience finds this conversation beneficial and helps them. And ultimately, my hope is that you have hope in this process. You don't want to lose that hope. Hang on to that.
Even in the most trouble, sometimes your family can be helped. We don't know necessarily what the outcomes are going to be. That's the piece is out of control, but there are resources out there to help your family sort of hang on to hope. And thank you for having me. I really appreciate this.
00;53;32;13
Brenda
Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. That is it for today. If you would like to get the show notes for this episode, you can go to Brenda Zane, Gqom Forward Slash Podcast. All of the episodes are listed there and you can also find curated playlists there. So that's very helpful. You might also want to download a free e-book I wrote.
It's called Hindsight Three Things I Wish I Knew When My Son Was Misusing Drugs. It'll give you some insight as to why your son or daughter might be doing what they are. And importantly, it gives you tips on how to cope and how to be more healthy through this rough time. You can grab that free from Brendazane.com/hindsight.
Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate it. And I hope that these episodes are helping you stay strong and be very, very good to yourself. And I will meet you right back here next week.