Working on a research proposal

Above are pictures from my favorite birthday... until now! Aren't my stepdaughters lovely? And, isn't my husband handsome? He designed the cake himself, just by looking at the picture. On that day, I couldn't believe that I had gone from being rootless to having such loving connections... Seemed almost too good to be true!

This is my birthday weekend (Dec. 10th) and I am working on a research proposal focusing on foster care alumni and attachment issues.

To understand more about the issues that I will be focusing on:
http://fostercareattachment.blogspot.com

A friend of mine, who is also an alumni of foster care, has a grant to study the health care of foster care alumni, and hopes to incorporate my ideas into his study (re: mental health issues), but I need to get the information to him quickly.

Knowing that this research might actually take place and benefit foster care alumni, by helping them to navigate intimate relationships after a lifetime of interrupted attachments is the best present that I could possibly receive!

Foster Care & Attachment Issues

I'm currently doing a lot of research on foster care and attachment issues:

http://fostercareattachment.blogspot.com/

Distancing Self From Relationships

In upcoming postings, I will continue to explore the issue of drugging foster children and the need for medical advocacy. However, in this posting, I want to address why survivors of foster care might seem to distance themselves from relationships.

I've been editing the second half of my book, and as I read through old journals of mine from college and graduate school, it seemed so obvious what my peers were trying to tell me.

The messages had a common theme:
-"Connect with us."
-"Take a risk and date me."
-"All men aren't bad or dangerous."
-"Slow down and let people love you."
-"Take a break from saving the world, and play a game of volleyball."

Time to mourn
One thing that I believe foster care survivors need is time to mourn. Even more than the initial loss experienced upon entry into the foster system, the denial of that loss and inability to mourn it can impede personal development.

As Joanne Bernstein wrote, "If in the face of trauma, mourning remains absent or delayed throughout childhood, it can interfere with normal adult life. Children who will not allow their emotions direct expression are in effect saying, This event hurt me so much that I can never again let anything touch me."

Walled off from pain - and from love
Remaining fearful of rejection and abandonment, those who cannot mourn as children often shy away from relationships as adults.

As long as the initial losses remain unprocessed, new attachments will be difficult to form and internalize. As Fynn noted, "The soul is imprisoned, protected. Nothing can get in to hurt it, but then it can’t get out either."

What's the cure? No magic bullet to be sure, but there are several factors which can help:

1.) Time plays an enormous factor. Time to be nurtured, time to heal, time to wait before taking big risks again.

2.) Emotional expression within a context of acceptance and a caring community is also very important. Learning to react to losses as they occur also helps survivors reconnect with their core emotions. (I found my 'second home' in my college dorm).

3.) Reaffirming personal identity is vital. Foster care survivors often disassociate from past trauma in order to survive. Much of their emotional energy is spent on adjusting to each new placement.

To quote from Heineman, "For children whose histories are littered with separation, loss and abandonment, time with a past, present and future is anything but linear. Many of these children have little sense of self through time.

Consider it from the point of view of the foster child:
1.) No time to mourn initial loss of family; the child (or teen) must adjust to foster care.

2.) At each placement is a new environment with different expectations. In a sense, at each new placement, the child is forced to prove themselves.

3.) By going from one placement to another, the child learns the tenuousness of relationships and the inevitability that people will fail them.

Risking intimate relationships
Once a foster alumni has aged out of foster care, adult relationships pose a tremendous risk. Paradoxically, what they fear most is also often what they need most. However, it is their choice as to whether or not to receive it.

Speaking from my personal experience, I had a bad dating experience in college - and reacted to it by not dating again for eight years. An overreaction? Yes, most certainly. (I was reacting less to the young man I dated, and more to earlier experiences with men in my life. The breakup was a trigger that forced me to reexamine them).

Yet, looking back, I don't regret the time I took to heal. Those eight years before I met my husband were among the most productive in my life. I needed that time:

- To reflect, and process through the events in my past.
- To immerse myself in a caring community, and spend carefree time with friends.
- To build positive memories of friendships with many "good" men.
- To finish college and graduate school, and start my career.

I believe that the time that it took me to be ready for a serious relationship was well-spent. I wouldn't be as stable as I am today without it.

Sources
Bernstein, Joanne. Books to help children cope with separation and loss, Vol. 2, p. 11-12.
Fynn. Mr. God, This is Anna. Ballantine Books; 1985.
Heineman, Toni and Diana Ehrensaft. Building a home within: Meeting the emotional needs of children and youth in foster care. Brookes Publishing, 2006.

Erikson & Foster Care

While I was at the Foster Care Alumni of America's May Summit, I mentioned the challenges inherent in trying to establish a movement by foster care alumni.

Specifically, we are asking people who have learned distrust, independence and isolation to trust, connect and commit. As foster alumni members discussed policies, strategies and best practices for FCAA, we had to learn to listen to one another with an attitude of openness.

It was a difficult transition from being the "Lone Ranger."

This applies also in the area of marriage. By making a 'lifetime commitment,' a former foster child who has learned not to trust is required to entrust their very soul to another person. A person who might betray them, abandon them or abuse them, as their parents did...

Erikson's '8 stages of man' has significant relevance to foster care:
Stage 1, Trust vs. Mistrust
Stage 2, Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
Stage 3, Initiative vs. Guilt
Stage 4, Industry vs. Inferiority
Stage 5, Identity vs. Role Confusion
Stage 6, Intimacy vs. Isolation
Stage 7, Generativity vs. Stagnation
Stage 8, Integrity vs. Despair

Regarding foster alumni, I am going to focus on the sixth stage: "intimacy vs. isolation." Several participants at the Seattle FCAA summit, including myself, agreed that this stage is particularly challenging.

Several of us mentioned that, after experiencing problems early in our marriage, the simplest option appeared to be, "Why not just leave?" Leaving is what we know; what we are familiar with; what we have experienced throughout our entire lives. So, why stick around?

One participant confided to me that on her ten-year anniversary, she told her husband, "I've finally decided that I'm in this for keeps." He was quite relieved to hear it. I have a similar story of my own.

Can marital intimacy be enjoyed by the former foster child?
Many barriers often impede this:

1.) Fear and confusion regarding physical intimacy. If the person has experienced abuse, particularly sexual abuse or rape, physical intimacy can be overshadowed by fear or a deep sense of shame.

Or, the person might try to face their fears by heading in the opposite direction: sexual addiction; using sex to "numb out" rather than to connect with another person.

2.) Fragile sense of self. Foster alumni are often plagued with a sense of self-doubt. We truly haven't had the freedom to make mistakes because the consequences for those mistakes were often blown out of proportion. What might be viewed as 'normal' teenage risk-taking for other teens often sent us reeling into a different foster placement.

In addition, moving around frequently makes it difficult to build a rock-solid identity. To please foster placement #5 might require different tactics than pleasing foster placements #2, 3 and 4. Staff or foster parents might perceive you differently, and you find your behavior changing as a result.

In foster care, adapting to each new placement is vital to survival. But, along the way, you might wonder, "Who am I, anyway?" And, as we know, dating someone else when you don't know who you are is fertile ground for codependence.

3.) No roots or safety net. Let's say a young woman ages out of foster care. She's confused about intimacy. She has a fragile sense of self-worth. The first guy she attracts turns out to be abusive. They enter into a codependent relationship. What then?

Will she leave? What if she has become emotionally or financially dependent on him? If she summons up the courage to leave him, where will she live? If she is isolated, who is there in her life to give her wise counsel and say, "Leave this jerk. You deserve better - whether you believe it or not."

Not her father, she doesn't have one. Not her brother, they were separated. If she is very lucky, she might have established a safety net of trustworthy friends. If not, she is on her own.

Foster alumni are at a disadvantage due to their lack of roots. If you were uprooted from living with your parents, separated from your siblings and shuttled from one placement to another, with whom can you share your stories?

Even now, listening to my husband and stepdaughters, I am amazed at the shared history between them. It is something that I have never had.

4.) Distrusting their partner. If you are a former foster child, must your partner win your trust over and over again? At what point will you stop testing him or her?

Perhaps the distrust comes from something your partner has done. You just found out that the love of your life is imperfect. What if his fallibility leads him to do something horrible - like betraying you?

Maybe you think this person must be crazy for loving you. Over the years in foster care and afterward, you've developed a sense of inferiority about yourself. Perhaps your low sense of self-worth manifests itself in body dysmorphia or eating disorders. Or, maybe you just dump the other person before they get the chance to disappoint you.

Intimacy versus Isolation for Foster Alumni
Foster children grow up feeling powerless. After aging out of foster care, independence offers us power. Think of what first comes to mind when you hear the word "emancipation." No one can hurt us anymore. No one can dump us anymore. We are on our own authority.

To entrust yourself to another person requires a leap of faith that the person will love you. It assumes the fact that you realize that you are loveable. To give that much power to another person, after a lifetime of rejection, is scary.

Remember the scene in the movie "Good Will Hunting" where Matt Damon sabotages his relationship with Minnie Dryver? Where might he have ended up if he hadn't chosen to take that rat-trap of a car and drive out to reconcile with her at the end?

Several of us at the summit could relate with Matt Damon's character. But most of us had one thing in common - we were married. We had taken the risk... and with that leap of faith, we found out that we did have (relational) wings.

Attachment patterns, once developed, tend to persist. Patterns only change if experiences change. One of my follow-up plans from the FCAA summit is collaborate with others to develop and lead presentations on this topic for teenagers and young adults aging out of foster care.