SERIES: Seven Core Issues in Adoption and Permanency – Grief

I was terrified that this decision would leave me completely broken and emotionally incapacitated for the rest of my life. I did not want those fears to become reality. After relinquishment, I found a new sense of focus and determination, and I tried to make meaning of the monumental decision I had made. Anytime someone would ask me how I was doing, the only response that came to mind was, “it’s a rollercoaster.” I repeated that phrase so often because it was the only way I could begin to describe the instability I felt. Early on, it was impossible to sleep. I experienced intrusive thoughts and anxiety – feelings that were entirely unfamiliar to me. Yet despite the intensity of these experiences, no one ever spoke to me about grief, and I did not yet have the language to understand what I was going through.

Life in those early days, weeks, and months felt as though the rollercoaster was only descending. Over time, there were moments of relief – an occasional good day, then even a good week. After a couple of years, I began to feel that I was doing well and experiencing success in my personal life. However, without warning, something seemingly unrelated to adoption would occur, and I would find myself once again on that downward slope. These emotional shifts felt unpredictable and disorienting, reinforcing the sense that I lacked control over my own internal world. Even though I could logically recognize that others might have experienced similar pain, I deeply believed that no one could truly understand what I was feeling. For many years, I did not meet another woman who had relinquished a child. I carried my experience in isolation. There was no one to say, “I see you. I know what it’s like.” This profound loneliness and lack of validation ultimately fueled my decision to pursue social work, as I wanted to better understand both my own experience and the experiences of others navigating complex loss.

Mothers who relinquish a child often wrestle with profound loss without permission to grieve. Their grief frequently does not align with widely recognized stage-based models, such as the five stages of grief proposed by Kubler-Ross. These models suggest a progression toward resolution, yet my experience – and the experiences of many others – reflect something far less linear and far less socially acknowledged. During grad school, I learned extensively about stage-based grief, and while this framework helped me begin to name certain aspects of my experience, it never fully resonated. It did not account for the silence surrounding my loss or the absence of social acknowledgment. I still did not feel permission to speak openly about my relinquishment. I feared being misunderstood, and I anticipated responses such as, “How could you do that? I would never do that.” These anticipated judgments reinforced my silence and deepened my sense of isolation.

It was not until after graduate school, while working for an adoption agency, that I encountered a framework that more accurately reflected my lived experience. I remember sitting in a training and hearing, for the first time, the concept of disenfranchised grief, developed by Kenneth Doka. Disenfranchised grief refers to grief that is not or cannot be openly acknowledged, socially sanctioned, or publicly mourned. It occurs when a loss, a relationship, or an individual’s right to mourn is invalidated by social norms, cultural narratives, or institutional practices. In these contexts, individuals receive implicit or explicit messages that their grief is inappropriate, excessive, or undeserved, often because the loss does not fit dominant expectations of what constitutes a legitimate loss. As a result, grief is internalized rather than expressed, increasing the risk of shame, isolation, and prolonged emotional distress. Disenfranchised grief does not reflect the absence of loss or attachment; rather, it reflects an absence of permission to grieve.

Sitting in that room, I experienced a profound sense of recognition. For the first time, I had language that not only described my experience but validated it. I began to understand that what I had been carrying for years was, in fact, grief – real, significant, and worthy of acknowledgment. The “rollercoaster” described by Roszia and Maxon was not simply emotional dysregulation; it was shaped and intensified by my lack of social acknowledgment and permission to grieve. There was hope in knowing that what I had experienced was grief work, even if it was something that I signed my name to. For the first time, I could hold both truths at once: that I made a decision, and that I also experienced a profound and lasting loss.