I think that at some point during the healing journey of search and reunion journey the issue of abandonment finds a way to wiggle it’s way into conversations. I think that this issue is that many adoptees feel as if they were left by their birth parents, that there may have been something shameful about their past and in turn feel shameful about themselves. Another thought is that adoptees may feel they do not have permission to grieve the loss they feel from not growing up with their biological families and sadly get stuck in their anger and sadness.

The thing is that even if the people around the adoptee say all the right things their feelings of abandonment can be very strong. Some adoptees may feel that since their birth mothers abandoned them, others in their lives will also abandon them. As a result, some adoptees may not expect much from other relationships. I felt the fear of rejection, and had trouble making commitments. I would avoid intimacy or for that matter intimate relationships. It might even be taken to the level that the abandonment issues lead to sabotaging the relationship as a way to protect themselves from being abandoned again. I think that many adoptees with this issue feel as if it is too much of a risk to be vulnerable. The fear that a person they are in a relationship with will leave them and on a conscious or subconscious level to be cautious as to how close they let themselves get to other people.

By avoiding intimacy it doesn’t put the adoptee in an uncomfortable situation and the vulnerability that an intimate relationship entails. In addition, in an intimate relationship feelings are share that some adoptees may not have shared with anyone. They might not even beware of them or suppressed them.

The opposite of this is that some adoptees will throw themselves into intimate relationships and be clingy by hanging on to the other person. This is sort of like pressuring the other person where they have no choice but to take a break or back way. These folks don’t even realize they are doing it.

I am in no way saying that all adoptees have issues with abandonment in their relationships. I think that by discussing this that it may help many understand that adoptees have an additional sensitivity to the issue. Grant you that there are other folks who are not adopted that have abandonment issues. However, when adoption is involved, for adoptees abandonment is not just painful but it can also feel like they are alienated. I do think that abandonment is the most common issue amongst adoptees even though in many of the cases the circumstances of the separation from our birth parents is not the true definition of abandonment we experience this emotionally as abandonment. I think that this is one of the issues that the emotional experience of abandonment will never leave us but rather it is how we deal with the issue. The other issues an adoptee may be dealing with such as trust, identity, low self esteem, and control may intensify the abandonment issue.