Secrets in adoption: Dealing with betrayal of lies by omission

Lorraine, not quite incognito

Sunday's New York Times had an essay called "Great Betrayals," about the victims of long held lies in their families. The psychiatrist who wrote the essay, Anna Fels, tells of a friend whose husband had hid a huge credit card debt, and even after divulging the secret, he continued to lie about the amount and refuse to divulge how the money was spent. The wife was left to puzzle it out for herself. "The disclosure wreaked financial and emotional havoc on their family," writes Fels.

She then discusses how clients of hers dealing with the revelation of "new, pivotal information" were often left to deal with the emotional jolt on their own. Society is likely to forgive the miscreant who kept the secret, but the victim gets little support. Writers have the option of making sense of the secret they were not in on through writing, but others don't. As Fels notes:

"But for the people who have been lied to, something more pervasive and disturbing occurs. They castigate themselves about why they didn’t suspect what was going on. The emotions they feel, while seemingly more benign than those of the perpetrator, may in the long run be more corrosive: humiliation, embarrassment, a sense of having been naïve or blind, alienation from those who knew the truth all along and, worst of all, bitterness.

"Insidiously, the new information disrupts their sense of their own past, undermining the veracity of their personal history. Like a computer file corrupted by a virus, their life narrative has been invaded. Memories are now suspect: what was really going on that day? Why did the spouse suddenly buy a second phone 'for work' several years ago? Did a friend know the truth even as they vacationed together? Compulsively going over past events in light of their recently acquired (and unwelcome) knowledge, such patients struggle to integrate the new version of reality. For many people, this discrediting of their experience is hard to accept. It’s as if they are constantly reviewing their past lives on a dual screen: the life they experienced on one side and the new 'true' version on the other. But putting a story together about this kind of disjunctive past can be arduous."

LATE DISCOVERY ADOPTEES AND DONOR CHILDREN
Late discovery adoptees (LDAs) leapt to mind right away, because their confusion and anger over finding out they were adopted does all the things that Fels mentions: undermines the truth of their personal history. Makes them question this or that comment by a family member, a comment that always struck them as a little odd. Why did Aunt Gloria wonder who was getting the family jewelry, when I am the only daughter? Is that what Grandma meant when she said something to Mom about "one of her own"? What else have I been lied to about?

Children born of "donor" sperm or donor eggs (neither are not donated, but purchased instead) are also likely to grow up with the truth of their origins shrouded from them. While telling them may be difficult, knowing the reality of their biological origins can only help them understand themselves, their lives, and why they may not copy or mimic their parents in psychological traits and physical characteristics that would seem natural. Adolescence is hard enough without the extra burden of a sense that "something isn't right" about one's parents. "The effects of family secrets on parent-to parent and parent-to-child relationship are destructive," write Annette Baran and Reuben Pannor write in Lethal Secrets. "Nowhere in the psychological literature is there any evidence to justify secrets, nor are there any studies that indicate the value of secrets. There is a great deal of evidence to the contrary." That is quite the understatement.

First mothers who keep the secret of an earlier child from their spouses, and later, their children, perpetrate a similar situation. I'm venturing that along with the shame that these mothers incorporated into their persona over the years, an innate awareness of how this revelation will affect others is obviously the reason that so many birth mothers and fathers have a near impossible time fessing up when the phone rings, the letter arrives, and it's time to fess up. They can't face the reaction their secret will incur. They can't face admitting to the secret child, not only because of the fact of the child, but because they have kept up this lie of omission for so long. I clearly remember the exact scene when I told my mother about my daughter, a secret I'd kept for eight years--the upscale restaurant I'd taken her to for lunch, how she sat on the banquette side of the table, what we ordered, how I waited until the drinks arrived, how suddenly she couldn't eat when the sauteed filet of sole appeared. I also had to admit that the time I insisted I had mononucleosis I was actually out of work waiting out my pregnancy. The restaurant is long gone, but I still think about that moment when I'm back in Dearborn and drive past its location. It wasn't easy fessing up; it never is.

Fels notes that the victims of such lies are counseled to move on, to put it behind them, to focus on the future. Mercifully, my mother absorbed the news and she heartily backed my decision to go public and face the gossip sure to occur in her apartment building. However, my mother's sense of being out of the truth loop is not really on the same plane as that of a spouse who doesn't know about a first child, or an adoptee who doesn't know his true status. Fels cautions: "[I]t’s not so easy to move on when there’s no solid narrative ground to stand on. Perhaps this is why many patients conclude in their therapy that it’s not the actions or betrayal that they most resent, it’s the lies."

WHAT FIRST MOTHERS OWE OUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS

Still a classic

So many of us from the era of closed adoptions are still dealing with the secret, with the shame, as events and circumstances have moved into an era of greater openness. But the longer we keep these secrets locked in, the harder it will be to reveal them, the more difficult it will be for the people who have been lied to. When the lost child does return--and more and more are--the secret will make having a relationship more chancy, particularly if he or she is then expected to stay unknown to other family members, people to whom they are related by blood. Despite the personal difficulties some first mothers will face when revealing a secret child, despite what we may have been told in the dark ages of adoption decades ago, I firmly believe we have a responsibility to those children lost to adoption. Just by being born, we owe our lost-and-now-found children acknowledgment, at least one meeting, a truth-telling that reveals the son or daughter's whole story. The best of all possible worlds is to then have the openness and courage to allow them to know their sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, grandparents too, for these people are their family too. It is the only humane course of action.

Likewise, adoptive parents who have kept the truth of their child's origins from them owe them that reality--as soon as possible--however hard it might be to actually say the words. I remember consoling a woman in her thirties who found out she was adopted when she was divorcing. In an argument with her husband, she mentioned her "mother," and he shouted back: "She's not even your mother--YOU'RE ADOPTED!" Inexplicably, her family had told him she was adopted, and still kept the secret from her. Maybe they hoped he would tell her one day, and exonerate them from the responsibility; but this awful scene is how their passing the buck played out. All I could do was sympathize and give her a glass of wine. I have no idea if she was able to reconcile with her adoptive parents.

RECONCILING WITH REALITY
It's been noted that those kept children of first mothers who have the hardest time incorporating the lost- child-now-reunited into the family scheme are those who grew up thinking they were the eldest, or "first" child of their mothers, when they were not. Being first instills its own veneer of pride and responsibility, of specialness, and when suddenly they learn they are not the eldest, they feel somehow scammed. Their position in the family scheme has been downgraded to not firstborn, but second. They are not quite so special. Letting go of the secret earlier is always better than later, for then a son or daughter can be the first raised, and not feel usurped when a lost "first" child returns.

My hope is that more people find the courage to let go of their secrets and tell the person or people it will most affect. If any adoptive parents have children of any age they have not told about being adopted, don't wait another day. If any birth mothers and fathers are still hiding their secret, tell your spouse, tell your children, tell the relatives. If not now, when? The longer you wait, the harder it's going to be. --lorraine

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SOURCE 

Opinion: Great Betrayals

RELATED POSTS FROM FMF  

How shame keeps birth mothers from embracing reunion

Why did my mother keep me a secret? 

Confronting the shame upon admitting I gave up a child 

Speaking Out Makes A Difference!!!

RECOMMENDED READING
Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience Therapist and adopted herself, Betty Jean Lifton looked at adoption from all sides of the triangle: adoptee, birth mother, adoptive parents. Anyone involved closely in adoption will gain insight and understanding of the complex and confusing issues that adopted people confront. This book will be an enduring classic in the field for many years to come.
Order by clicking on title or jacket.

Lethal Secrets In the world of alternative means of conception, donor insemination is the most available and successful, but the child must always know the truth of his or her origins. Not only with such primal information help the individual understand himself, he needs to be provided with updated medical information every step of the way. There is no other moral way to bring such a child into the world, for without complete information, a parent--either the sperm or egg donor--creates an individual with a known deficit, starting with the lack of a medical history and moving to those missing psychological pieces which are the building blocks of an integrated personality.

The late Annette Baran and Rueben Pannor were both social workers were pioneers in the adoption reform movement, and with Arthur D. Sorosky, M.D., wrote The Adoption Triangle, the seminal study about the corrosive effect of sealed records.