“This book should be a wakeup call to all adoptive parents and professionals about the urgent issues adoptees and their parents face.”
Nancy Newton Verrier, attachment therapist and author
The Primal Wound and Coming Home to Self
A Marin County, California father embarks on a journey to understand what led his seventeen-year-old daughter, Casey, to take her life. He travels back to her abandonment at birth and adoption from a Polish orphanage. His search leads to a condition known as attachment disorder, an affliction common among children who have been abandoned, neglected or abused. It explained everything. The Girl Behind The Door integrates a tragic personal adoption story with information from the experts to teach other families what the Brookses learned too late.
Who should read it?
Anyone with a connection to the adoption “triad.”
Anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide.
Anyone who cried through the movie Philomena.
Anyone who knows us and wants to read our story.
Available now on Amazon in print and Kindle version. Soon to be released on the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble online, Sony Reader Store, Kobo and more.
Written By John Brooks
The Girl Behind The Door: A Memoir By John Brooks was originally published @ Parenting and Attachment and has been syndicated with permission.
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Maybe it’s me but I find this book to be insulting to those who have been abandoned,such as myself and others.Not every child that is abandoned experiances Attachment Disorder and I had been fully abandoned and the foster care system itself abandons you,yet I did not have this or any kind of disorder as a child and as an adult.It is misleading to suggest and label abandoned children as warnings that we are going to be disruptive in their homes because we had been abandoned.
The only message I see this book bringing is that people should not adopt us or bring us into their homes.Foster/former fosters are trying to rid the stigma and labels that are placed on us and this message on how it “is a wake up call,to all adoptive parents and professionals” does not help us.
Yes,I was abandoned, I don’t need an alarming message announced to the public that they need to be “warned” just show us love and kindness and that is all that is needed to “cure” us.
I wanted to add that I do understand that this book has a personal story attached to it and have deep compassion for the author’s experiance,I just think he shouldn’t of written Attachment Disorder as a warning message,it is hurtful to those who have been abandoned and have not experianced that.
Hi Heather – I understand that this can be a very raw subject for some people. I certainly never intended this to warn people away from adoption, but rather to convey an understanding of the adoptee experience. Of course not every adoptee has had the same experience and I make that pretty clear. I don’t know whether you’ve read the book or not, but I can tell you that the feedback I’ve gotten from within and outside the adoption community has been very positive. But then everyone’s different. As for me, as I say in the book, I consider myself the luckiest guy in the world to have been casey’s dad.
Hi Mr.Brooks,
Thank you for replying back.I wanted to throw out some thoughts to you 1- the foster care system has a policy across the board that you can not hug us-( this policy is in effect to protect staff and foster/adoptive parents)and 2- The states move a child from home to home because they don’t want the child to get too close in case they have to go back to their bio family..
My quiestion to you is this a Detachment Disorder that has been created by the state or is this a child who doesn’t hug because they have been told they can not? Most times the child that doesn’t hug is following the rules that have been set in place by agencies.We would like to be hugged but we don’t want to get in trouble for doing so.This isn’t a detachment issue it’s a state issue.
Mr. Brooks,
You are right. This article does not say much about the specific terminology used in the book and it would be hard to have that without the book. But the message that comes across from the review that Nancy Newton Verrier did, is that there is a label being attached to adoptees and foster youth that all have an attachment disorder. This label is one of many negative facts that are often communicated about the outcomes of a child being removed from their biological family.
Even though they are intended to raise awareness and advocacy, they also indirectly stigmatize the children, as they get older and emancipate into adult life. When you say that you received feedback from those inside and outside of the adoption community, did you get feedback from many of those that had emancipated into adult life after having failed adoptions or not event getting adopted at all?
You are right Danny,Nancy’s words are very damaging to the the foster care community and will prevent us from being adopted or people wanting us to live in their homes. I would like that “wake up call” message to be removed and re-worded.The labeling of us needs to stop and therapist and doctors have a responsibities to say the truth and not to make a blanket statement,many people look up to them and what an expert says as truth.
Hi Danny – With respect, if you haven’t read the book I think you might consider doing so, as you get the complete context rather than excerpts. There is certainly nothing intentional in the story or in the reviews that I would read as intentionally stigmatizing orphaned children. If anything, these comments are meant to help others guide these children as best they can to a better quality of life. I don’t know what you mean by the term “emancipated into adult life.” I make it clear that not all adoptees have attachment issues, but I’ve found that many do in varying degrees.
Despite Casey’s tragic death, I feel unbelievably lucky to have been her dad. Some people have referred to her adoption as a “failed” adoption. I reject that; it wasn’t. I heard from other adoptive parents coping with difficult behavioral issues in their children, but I NEVER heard any buyer’s remorse; quite the opposite. Bottom line, this is my experience written from my heart.
Thanks so much for your very thought provoking remarks!
John
Dear Ms.Nancy Newton Verrier,
I am a former foster child of sixteen years in the the system,abandoned and never adopted.I do not and never had a Detachment Disorder and find your “wake up call” to be a warning of us.This very damaging message to our community and will prevent and have people afraid to adopt us or have us in their homes. I would like to know if it can removed and reworded.
We all have the same goals and that is to see that a child is adopted and has a loving home.Alarming people of a disorder that doesn’t exist in every child that is abandoned or lives in foster care doesn’t help us.
John,
You’re missing the point. Like you said, I can’t obviously comment on your book since I have not read it, so I was not attacking your book or saying that the BOOK was stigmatizing. This article is the representation of your book and my comment was directed towards that. It was clearly noted in the first sentence that I was referring to Ms. Verrier’s label.
Where you are missing the point, is the fact that even though labels, such as attachment disorder, are not always meant to do harm, they simply do quite a bit of harm and adoption/foster youth advocates must understand that. The only comment that was expressed towards you is how many of the positive reviews were from those that had been adopted and did not have a positive experience.
I am not asking that you sugar coat your books by any means. All I am asking is that you and Ms. Verrier understand the significant impact that labels, such as attachment disorder have. Again, like you say, I have not read your book and don’t know how you expressed these labels or even if you used labels, at all.
All I know is that even though you may not realize it from your personal point of view, the sentiments behind the following phrase must be communicated responsibly. Even though they are meant for awareness and to create a sense of urgency behind advocacy, they also place a HUGE stigma on those that are in foster care.
“His search leads to a condition known as attachment disorder, an affliction common among children who have been abandoned, neglected or abused.”