Ambiguous Loss

What is ambiguous loss? Well, It is the grief or heartache that arises with losing someone and the confusion and uncertainty about that relationship.

For adoptees, it is difficult to find closure compared to other kinds of losses that happen in life but with ambiguous loss, it is near impossible to have closure when the loss is never ending.

Adoptees, but also foster youth who have started life with their biological families and then were unable to remain with their original family. This creates lots of losses such as separation from birth parents, siblings, culture, country of origin in some cases, language, family traditions, familiar surroundings and people, the unknowns to all of our questions and also our medical history for example.

Throughout my life, I’ve spent every spare moment thinking about my birth parents, why I was removed and what life would have been like if we were together. For me, it was a continuous thing that kept arising that I used to think about because it was something I could not get over due to the unknowns and the immense pain surrounding this topic. I always used to believe I was removed unnecessarily. Obviously, now I know my history and background and I understand why life events happened and why all seven of us children were removed from the family home throughout the years but back then when I was growing up I didn’t know all of this. All I knew was what was in front of me and that I had never spent much time with my birth mother and spent most of my time before arriving at my family in foster care.

In ambiguous loss there are two types:

1. When the birth parent is absent but psychologically present and when this occurs the birth parent overtakes things such as the adoptee's thoughts, emotions and behaviour which then influences the child.

2. When a parent is present but psychologically absent. This happens when the parent is not attuned to the child’s needs. This is usually due to the parents having complicated and serious problems of their own that they are battling that it’s difficult to care or even think about what another person (a child) needs. This then leads to neglect and abuse for the child.

Pain, heartache and loss was something that followed me throughout my life regardless of where I was. The person who was absent was special to me and growing up I missed and yearned for a connection no matter how small. That person was absent but my mind was always thinking about that particular person because as a child growing up I always knew I had a ‘mother’ out there somewhere.

For me this type of loss tended to resurface time and time again it wasn’t just a one-time thing. When it does appear, it’s really a hard thing to deal with and process through it. Also, it’s hard moving on at that young age but even older when that person who you think about is nowhere to be seen. Personally, I believe it’s hard mourning the loss of someone who is still alive and out there somewhere but you are not allowed to meet them yet.

Being able to meet my birth mother was something that I kept thinking about throughout the years. It was something that I had to do in order for me to be more calm and at peace with everything that has happened but also to learn about my past life which was very important to me because for the whole of my life I never knew wholly who I was, what happened to me and the family history that I felt I was living life floating in mid-air.

After reunion had happened with my birth mother and her family, three of my sisters and my birth father and his family contact was terminated little by little. During that time for 4 ½ years of no contact, there is the ambiguity of thinking about that someone important to me and actually having physical access to that person.

During the years that have passed since reunion initially started 7 ½ years ago, it’s all about learning to navigate all these complicated and heavy feelings but making sure that it doesn’t disrupt my everyday life, stop me from enjoying and doing the things that I like, not acting a certain way to please someone, pursuing my career, being happy and having relationships with others because sometimes when you are deeply involved in the loss, everything comes to a halt and all the time is spent on the pain and the loss which overtakes things and takes things out of context.

What I found hard all my life up until I was 18 was not having that ‘mother figure’ in my life and during that time she was absent but psychologically present but when I dived into reunion it was the other way round she was present physically but psychologically absent because my needs were not met and she did not interact with me in a manner that I was expecting. Sometimes, I think to myself when will I stop yearning for that mother's love but what I’ve come to realise now is that my birth mother is giving what she can. For me, it’s better a little and what she’s able to give compared to nothing at all and having zero contact which happened for a period of 4 ½ years and that is very hard. This then has a toll on you because then you start mourning loss again from another side and you have to start from scratch again. It’s understanding and coming to terms that what I want is very unlikely I will receive and not necessarily what my birth mother wants. At least I know what is realistic and I can learn to move on bit by bit no matter how hard it is.

At the beginning not having anyone from my birth family in my life physically was very hard but I realized that when they were in my life during reunion I was very unhappy, stressed out, frightened, agitated, reserved and distant to name a few feelings so it was not a good situation. It’s difficult having it both ways. Present day, I’m including them in my life but it’s finding out the right balance in a healthy manner but also what I’m comfortable doing in a stress-free way.

When experiencing ambiguous loss it is very overwhelming and confusing to experience because the future and the consequences are unknown and that can be scary. I remember whilst I was growing up and dealing with everyday life such as family, the stress of the school education system, exams, bullying, and the feeling of isolation etc and at this stage of my life it was impossible to move forward due to everything and being fully embedded in the loss and not knowing how it is going to affect, how will you deal with it but also what the future will hold. Lack of control of the situation can manifest in other things such as low self-esteem, guilt, hopelessness, anxiety, trust issues and a whole range of mental health problems for example.

It is important to know no matter how low one reaches it’s important to remain positive because sometime there will be light at the end of the tunnel. Do not give up! This is a process that takes time but also effort in understanding yourself as a person and finding the different ways in order to heal because everyone’s healing process looks different. You will get there in the end!

Danielle Bolduc