The Life Story Jigsaw
I consider myself a story teller. Every one of us, regardless of who we grow up with, ideally should have a good sense of self, which includes understanding our life story. These stories are like jigsaw puzzles. There are lots of different pieces that we can consider separately, but then need to be put together into a whole. Like jigsaws they can be challenging, frustrating, but bring a sense of satisfaction. Some children find them easier than others!
As children grow up they generally ask their parents more and more questions about their families and we, as parents, share more complex and perhaps difficult information with them as get bigger. We tend not to get anxious or worried about it as we know those stories as they are part of our background too. In fact, we often quite enjoy telling the stories more than the children enjoy listening to them! The jigsaw puzzle slowly comes together.
Children who don’t live with their birth families have two life stories of which to make sense. They have the 5000-piece jigsaw challenge! They have ‘your’ family story to understand; this is their day-to-day life, their ‘secure base’, their family. Then, they have their birth family story. That is usually harder for to tell because you haven’t lived it, you don’t know all the details, and you might well have your own feelings about it. You might be missing some of the pieces which stops you from starting. It can be tough. For you as parents, but also the children. Some parents find it easier than others. As their parents and life story workers our task is to support the child to bring all those parts together, to have a go at doing the jigsaw alongside them. This can help the children make sense of who they are, perhaps why they feel and behave the way they do.
It is so easy to think that by shielding our children from their often very difficult pasts we are helping and protecting them. I completely understand that, it is quite a normal reaction. But ultimately it doesn’t help them as part of their jigsaw is missing; there is a big hole. It is the children who haven’t been told much about their pasts who often need help. They frequently want to shelter their parents from their quest as they don’t want to upset them. Quite often it is the case that their parents haven’t said anything to their child because they equally don’t want to distress them! A cycle of protection and best intentions that can sadly end in a muddle that then needs untangling.
So, children who don’t live with both of their birth parents need to know their stories. They need to have a story teller in their lives. Someone who knows their story and is comfortable with it, even if they haven’t met birth family members. If a parent, they need to have had a time to reflect on their own emotions about their child’s past. I have found over the years that this in itself can be a painful process and one that often needs time before embarking on life story work or conversations. Sometimes those emotions are mixed up in parents’ own adoption journey.
A lot of the time I spend is not actually working directly with children, but supporting parents to reflect about how to tell tricky stories. I call these ‘life story conversations’. It is the reason I offer consultations with parents which can be anything from a ‘one off’ session to regular, or ‘as and when’ as the story telling unfolds. Training for groups can also be provided on the ‘how to’ of life story conversations. In fact, we try to get these conversations started very early on, even when a child is 2-3 years old. For children who come into local authority care before the age of 4 or 5 years old, my hope is that they will grow up always knowing their story. Their story teller adds more and more to their story as they get older. They will never remember a time when they were ‘told’ they were adopted or they have birth brothers and sisters. But, even for those who don’t know they are adopted there are ways to talk to them. It is never too late!
Sometime however, children, young people and young adults need more than just the story telling. They need help to make connections between who they are in the present and what happened in the past. This is particularly the case for children and young people whose story has affected their ‘sense of self’ (you can read about this in my first insight, “living in the shadow of shame”) and their behaviours. The behaviours could link to shame, attachment experiences and even brain injury caused by this or the effects of drugs and alcohol during pregnancy. I have seen young people make those links, go through lots of emotions, but emerge feeling relief; this is about what has happened to me, not ‘who I am’. This can be accomplished through direct work.
This makes me think of James (not his real name). James came to live with his adoptive Mum and Dad at the age of 5. He had been living with his foster parents for two years and before that his birth parents. There were lots of worries about drug, alcohol abuse and domestic violence. His birth mother had also drunk a lot of alcohol during her pregnancy with James. James had been brought up always knowing his life story. Indeed, he had a lovely life story book with photos of his birth parents and a younger birth brother who was also adopted. James knew the facts of his life story. But he exhibited some worrying behaviours and emotions. He was often very angry, rejecting of his Mum and Dad, increasingly absconding from home and school. There were concerns about his own misuse of alcohol. One day, without saying anything to his parents he sought out his birth parents and started to meet with them. James rejected everything he had been told about his life story.
James, his Mum and I started Therapeutic Life Story Work. It wasn’t all easy, but he was keen to see what was in his social work ‘file’. Over months, James began to make those connections. He met again with his former foster parents, and we visited the nursery manager who remembered James and his birth parents well. We considered the impact of neglect, of witnessing violence and what that did to his developing brain. James also learnt about the impact of alcohol on the developing brain during pregnancy. That brought anger but also an acceptance that some of his challenges were due to neuroscience not because he was a ‘bad person’. That realisation allowed Jame to be more open in learning ways to manage this. We spoke about all the challenges that his birth parents faced, how the domestic violence as not his birth mother’s ‘fault’ and how their drugs and alcohol misuse could be seen in a wider picture. With time, and hard work on James’ part, he started to put the pieces of the jigsaw together. We had our wobbles and muddles, but we got there. When we stopped the sessions James was closer to his Mum and Dad and no longer blamed them, or most importantly, himself. James still occasionally would see his birth parents and was realistic about what that entailed.
