I’ve never not known that I was adopted; it might be the fact that it would have been impossible to hide given my brown skin, and my adoptive family’s pale skin. For the most part, my family never shied away from conversation about the implications of being an international adoptee. We did all the right things. I went to SILC on Saturdays (the School for Indian Language and Culture) with all the other Indian kids and their Indian parents; we kept in contact with other Indian adoptees, and to this day, two of my oldest friends are twins from my orphanage; I was even lucky enough to return to India during my senior year of high school.
All of this being said, I thought I was pretty well adjusted. I could articulate my feelings about being adopted clearly, and I had made peace with the perpetual unanswered questions that come with being adopted. There was just one catch—my physical body didn’t agree.
Only a few months ago, I experienced tremors similar to a prolonged anxiety attack for a week. I was tested for diabetes, seizures, and what felt like every rare tropical disease under the sun. Funnily enough, this medical scare delayed this very article for quite a bit. Doctors tried several medications, with none truly getting rid of these symptoms, only easing the shaking or calming my own panic.
After a while, my doctors came to a diagnosis: psychogenic tremors. This is really just a fancy way to say “tremors caused by the psyche.” I was frustrated, this didn’t seem like much of a diagnosis; or at least, not one I couldn’t have figured out myself. On top of that, I felt psychologically fine.
Life was going great. I was working my first job out of college, and worked with people who trusted me and gave me amazing opportunities. I was in a healthy relationship with a man that I adore. How could this happen to me, and why would it happen now, when things were finally falling into place?
I found myself wishing it was something else. I wanted a quick fix, where I could pop a pill and be done with it (this is terrible medical advice, do not take it). The only “fix” I had was going to be some intensive therapy.
Somewhat reluctantly, somewhat excitedly, I made an appointment with my local behavioral health services. I have no doubt that it was God’s great design that the only therapist available specialized in intensive trauma therapy, specifically Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, which is often used to target PTSD. Through this therapy, I’ve come to realize that a lot of the reasoning behind these physical symptoms were a result of things I hadn’t really considered; namely, the year of my life that is pretty much unaccounted for while I was a baby.
We now know that early childhood trauma can have a profound effect on the child’s psychological development, oftentimes even more than trauma experiences later in childhood or as an adult. You can imagine that the trauma of leaving your first attachment (the birth family) for an unfamiliar place (the orphanage) only to be taken across the ocean to people that don’t even look like you (the adoption), may be difficult for a baby to process, to say the least. And, since there is usually no memory of these events, like in my case, it may take a long time for this trauma to surface.
This physical and psychological experience upended what I thought about myself, and my adoption. I had never truly considered it a “trauma,” so to speak— it was just a thing that happened, and one that brought immense good to my life. But an event can have amazing repercussions, while still having profound consequences.
As I embarked and continue to work through the deeply held beliefs about myself that I hold because of my adoption, I’ve found that my adoption is one of these things. It is not black and white, but gray.
And as I process my experience through the lens of scripture, this couldn’t be more intuitive. We live amongst a deep brokenness, a creation groaning to be reunited with its Creator. God’s design is for families to be together, in service to Him. However, hope is not lost—He has returned to redeem what has been lost. Where I go wrong is in forgetting how difficult redemption is. Redemption for humanity came at a great price, and with great pain. It is because of this pain that all of us are able to be adopted into God’s family, the greatest gift we could ask for.
I count it as joy that I get to experience a taste of what being adopted into God’s family in heaven will be like through my own adoption experience. And yet, I can’t physically afford to neglect the price of redemption. So, as I expect will be the case for the rest of my Christian life, I am learning to hold the good and the bad in both hands, with faith that the price Jesus paid is more than enough for me.
Sitara Roden. Sitara is a recent graduate of Wheaton College and currently serves a dual role Promotions Strategist at the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center and as Managing Editor of The Exchange by Ed Stetzer. Read more of Sitara’s reflections on adoption here.