Burnout as an adoptee advocate
I had a great coaching session today and one of the suggestions was to share with you all about my recent experiences of burnout. While my instinct has been to hide away and wait until I feel ‘better’ and able to stand in front of you all as my ‘normal’ self, my coach suggested that it may be helpful for some of you to hear what’s been going on for me to see if you can relate to any of it.
Burnout as an adoptee advocate
In a way it’s amazing I haven’t experienced burnout before now. I am a working mother of two young children who have needed me even more since lockdown. How To Be Adopted is my passion and I worked out I am spending between 40-80 hours a month on it as a social enterprise. Don’t get me wrong, I love it! There is nothing like the feeling of helping another adoptee feel understood and connected to their community.
However, just before our last webinar, The Long-Term Impacts Of Adoption, with the wonderful Gilli Bruce, I was experiencing physical symptoms of overwhelm in the form of shortness of breath and shaking. I wanted the webinar to go well. (Let’s be honest, I wanted it to go perfectly.) I didn’t want to let anyone down who had paid a donation to attend. Truth be told, my tech/Zoom skills are good but not great and I was worried something would go wrong. Happily, help appeared in the form of an angel volunteer (who wishes to stay anonymous) who ran all the tech for us that day. So, after all that worrying, everything was ‘alright on the night’.
Mum guilt and parenting as an adoptee
In terms of the hours I’m spending on How To Be Adopted, one could argue that’s 40-80 hours that I’m not spending with my children; helping them read, making them pancakes or even cleaning the house (lol). In normal times, I don’t have any guilt about these things as my husband does 50/50 of the ‘family load’ and I believe that I/we mostly strike the right balance between parenting and having my/our own interests. However, as my reserves get lower, the mum guilt creeps in. Parenting as adoptee is not easy and it’s something that many people reach out to me to discuss.
I spoke to my GP who referred me to a counselling service. However, on the first Zoom call (after one minute) they said they would need to terminate the call as they were not Ofsted registered. Another blow - that I know many of you have experienced - which added to my feelings of frustration.
Finding out I have ADHD
I’m on the waiting list of a diagnosis, but all the signs are pointing in that direction. I impulsively take on way too many projects and then get overwhelmed and procrastinate. I go right up to the deadline for projects which stresses out the people I work with. (Apologies to everyone who has been waiting since last autumn for Gilli’s PDF! I just want it to be ‘perfect’ before I send it but I’m sure you’d rather just have the damn thing.)
I’ve needed some time to process all of this and reflect on the way my relationships and behaviours have been influenced over the last 40+ years. I’ve found it incredibly helpful to meet other adoptees who also have ADHD and I know that despite the challenges it is a superpower. However, there is a knock-on effect of trying to have a career, a relationship and be a parent and friend with this additional challenge.
Effect on my husband as the partner of an adoptee
This brings me to the impact on partners of adoptees and in particular adoptee rights advocates. I’ve blogged before about the impact of all this on my partner and it got to the stage where he, quite rightly, asked me to pause things as I was clearly struggling. He also suggested that maybe we could have a nice relaxing family weekend without the mention of the novel I’m reading that introduced a lazy adoption plotline 2/3rds of the way through, or the latest Twitter back-and-forth with Nicky Campbell!
The futility of campaigning for change in adoptionland
Some days it feels like it’s all a little futile and that the powers that be don’t actually want things to change. They are paying lip service to adoptees and CEP. Seeing steering groups only filled with the ‘right’ adoptees who say the right things in the right way is box ticking. Seeing national leaders take selfies of themselves with adoptees and post them (without permission) and yet not taking a single thing that the adoptees suggested on board or feeding back to them about actions they had taken off the back of ‘listening’ to them. Let’s not even go there with the Care Review and the Unmarried Mothers Inquiry – which I still have fingers crossed we will get an apology and concrete changes, although hearing a government minister wrongly say that adoptees have enough support and can go to their GP like everyone else was infuriating.
It really does feel like we are banging our heads against a brick wall sometimes. And, to be frank, I have a life to live. I only have one wild and precious life. Do I want to devote it to the thankless task of changing an industry that doesn’t want to change? I’m essentially fighting the entire Conservative government who are openly pro-adoption and openly anti poor people – who represent the higher end of the numbers of mothers currently losing their children to adoption. Existential crisis alert! I recently read a book that challenged me to live an unremarkable life, as it’s said that is the route to happiness.
Seeing national leaders celebrating adoption at Downing Street last National Adoption Week was probably where this malaise started. Time and again we have asked them to present the full story. ‘Celebrate’ if you must, but please acknowledge the lifelong loss and trauma as well. Parading younger adoptees in front of the camera while excluding older adoptees who have spent time learning about their trauma, their coping mechanisms, and the effect of adoption on their relationships throughout their lifetime is not cool.
Comparison syndrome with other adoptee advocates
Comparison is a one-way ticket to dissatisfaction, and logically I know that. I’ve been in therapy for years and taken dozens of self-development workshops, I know this stuff! But when reserves are low it’s easy to fall into the trap of looking at what others are doing and how much funding they’ve managed to achieve.
In reality, what I’ve achieved it beyond brilliant and I’ve managed it with a young family and a job. A senior bod at PAC-UK recently said, “What you do has galvanised adopted people in a really beneficial way.”
Other organisations getting hundreds of thousands in funding to improve adoptee support
Of course, objectively this is a great thing and will help many adoptees. But I do feel that it’s partly due to my hard work, networking, campaigning and galvanising over a number of years that has led to this level of national understanding for the need for additional support. So it’s disheartening to see huge funding for what is essentially How To Be Adopted’s ideas going to a non-adoptee led organisation.
What’s next for How To Be Adopted
The next blog will be more upbeat, as I share with you my top achievements over the last 4.5 years (since 2017 when I began) as I think it’s important for me to recognise that. It will also be a chance to highlight some gems that you may not have seen/read.
I’ll be taking some time to think about where my skills will be best used as it’s clear I can no longer try to be all things to all people and to solve all of the problems with adoptee support, or lack thereof, in the UK, particularly with no funding behind me. Big thanks to the amazing Gilli Bruce, Lara Leon and my fab support network of adoptees – you know who you are! As well as the organisations who have reached out to see how they can help namely PAC-UK and Adopt London North.
The main thing I would urge you to do off the back of this blog post is to sign up to the How To Be Adopted monthly email as this will be the way we’ll be communicating for a while as we scale back the social media. You are also welcome to join the HTBA membership programme and help us shape the future of the service – thanks to our wonderful founding members for your support!
Of course, if you have any brainwaves re resourcing, funding, etc please send them over to hello@howtobeadopted.com or comment below
Claire x
Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash
