“Have you ever felt as though you are simply treading water, desperately trying to stay afloat, while hoping to escape a difficult life situation? Without positivism, how long can anyone remain adrift? What’s the alternative to sinking altogether?” Judith Land
Adoption is a redemptive act to save someone from misfortune that happens in this world.
When you are dealt a bad hand in life, it sometimes becomes difficult to keep your head above water. When the threat of abuse or neglect is high, we worry about being lost or abandoned, and long to be free from confinement, suffering, danger and evil. We dream of escaping from dangerous and distressing situations and long for the guiding hand of a trusted parent or guardian to lead us out of the darkness.
The hope and vision of all children is to have someone who cares, protects and shelters them from harm, but it’s a cold hard fact of life that the help and support they are desperately seeking isn’t always available. When they are forced into negative circumstances that are beyond their control the days pass slowly and mournfully with basset-hound eyes.
Imagine the disadvantaged little girl who spends eighteen years attempting to stay mentally buoyant as she sorrowfully drifts through life treading water, lamenting the fact that she was adopted, trying to remain positive and emotionally afloat after being separated from her biological mother through no fault of her own; a neglected “red-headed stepchild” mistreated worse than the other children in the family, without favor, unwanted, wrongly blamed, shunned, and bullied. She has no advantages. Much of what she was forced to endure would produce a degree of sadness and melancholy that would cause others to collapse and fall apart. It’s a terrible experience seeing someone feeling worse about themselves than they did before due to Abandonment Issues and because others brought judgement that depresses and discourages them.
Coming to grips with self-identity issues, understanding the emotional impacts of adoption, and facing up to the cold hard truth of the importance of bonding and attachment disorders leaves many adoptees with a feeling of hopelessly drifting through life, rudderless and without a paddle or a sail. Separation Anxiety Syndrome causes major distress and predictable problems functioning in social situations at work and school. The lessons that every adopted child needs to learn are that a ship will never sink unless water leaks inside the boat and all the negativity in the world can never bring you down unless you allow it inside you. Those who want to bring you down are already below you. The higher you go the further you can see.
We are all born into this world to find our purpose and fulfill our own aspirations, so don’t just settle for the version of yourself that you’ve been comfortable with all your life. Accept that growing means you’ll have to leave a lot of things in the past, no matter how hard and painful that may be. Know that it’s after we undergo struggles in life that we experience growth and become better people than we were yesterday.
Judith Land
Adoption Detective: Memoir of an Adopted Child 
Yes ❤