As an Adoptee, one of the most important experiences you can have is “Coming out of the FOG”. This is the Turning Point in your Adoption Experience where you become Aware of the deeper implications of Adoption, how it has shaped and impacted your life, and opens you up to the possibilities of how you can live your life differently from this new perspective.
The FOG is an acronym for Fear, Obligation and Guilt. In this article I will break down each of these and give a few examples of how they might play out in your life.
FEAR
Most Adoptees live in aspects of Fear. The biggest ones being Rejection, Abandonment and Trust. As a young child these can be felt on a variety of levels, from general anxiety about already being rejected and abandoned, to direct thoughts about being moved to another home or given to different people.
As adults, this tends play out in relationships with others such as friendships or romantic partnerships where you feel you are “waiting for the other shoe to drop”, or keeping relationships at a certain level of detachment, for fear of being hurt by someone you love and care about. It can also hinder your ability to allow Love into your heart, including love for yourself.
Living in Fear is associated with the trauma experience by Adoptees, and has an impact on the body and mind including but not limited to: Anxiety, Depression, C-PTSD, OCD, physical ailments such as high blood pressure, digestive issues, and respiratory issues – ie asthma.
When you live in Fear, your mind is always searching for the “source” so it can eliminate it. But since the source is your Adoption Experience, and potentially you associate your Biological Parents as the source of the Fear (consciously or unconsciously), you are looking for something that isn’t readily available and therefore keeps you living in Fear.
OBLIGATION
Society has deemed that Adoptees are supposed to be Grateful for being adopted. This is what is billed to adoptive parents; that they are “saving” this child from a “bad life”, so the Adoptee is obligated to the adoptive parents for the “better life” they are providing.
Another obligation is that the Adoptee is supposed to fill the shoes of a “Biological child that will never be”. There is added pressure and expectation on the Adoptee to make the adopted parents “look good” and deem them as good parents in the eyes of society.
If the Adoptee demonstrates behavior issues, emotional challenges or outbursts, health problems or in general anything that isn’t near perfect, then they are failing in their “Obligation” to their adopted parents.
These expectation can be overtly expressed or covertly expressed by adoptive parents, or both. It is a heavy burden placed on a child who is traumatized and living a very different experience than a biological, kept child.
GUILT
Guilt is the tool used to keep the Adoptee living in Fear and Obligation. Guilt is created by Society and the adopted parents to “remind” the Adoptee of their place, and for many Adoptees, we accept the way things are when we are children.
You become Indoctrinated into the Fear and Obligation, so you believe what you are told. You blindly follow and allow others to make decisions for you until those decisions become ingrained into your subconscious and you live on Auto-Pilot from those decisions, not even knowing why or how you do what you do, think what you think, feel what you feel.
It become the very fabric of your life experience, and will continue to be the silent “driver” of your thoughts, feelings and behaviors…Until…
Whatever and however that change happened, you are now Coming out of the FOG. You are beginning to REALLY see how Adoption has impacted your life. You are seeing Fear, Obligation, and Guilt from a different perspective, and it may be very confusing, disorienting, and makes you feel completely unbalanced.
You might even feel upset that you can’t “Go Back to the FOG”…
Coming out of the FOG can be painful for some people. It causes you to re-evaluate your relationships, especially the relationship you have with yourself, and the one you have with your adoptive parents. You begin to see people’s behaviors in a different light, including your own.
Coming out of the FOG brings you to a different level of AWARENESS about Adoption, YOUR Adoption Experience, and lifts the veil that was keeping you from seeing things from YOUR point of view.
Your world as you knew it has Changed… but now, you may not know WHAT to do, think or feel. You may be asking yourself: How do I cope with this newfound perspective?
This is to be expected, as your "world view" has changed. Be kind and gentle with yourself, and keep an eye out for my next blog.
I’ll be addressing more about coming out of the FOG throughout April, so look for the next blog: 5 Biggest Challenges Adoptees Face when Coming Out of the FOG.
