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As part of the requirements to become an international adoption caseworker, I had to complete several certification steps and classes. One particularly eye-opening step involved having my own brain assessed. That’s right—before I could help children, I first had to hand over my gray matter for inspection like it was a used car being appraised. The test identified which brain chemicals were purring along nicely and which were sputtering like a lawnmower that hadn’t been started since last summer. I also underwent a deeply personal interview exploring the nature of my attachment to my mother. To say I was concerned would be a monumental understatement; “mild panic” might have been more accurate.
I already understood that some of my coping mechanisms were trauma responses rooted in a less-than-ideal childhood. I was also acutely aware that my mother had struggled with mental illness and that genetics likely played a role in her diagnosis. I crossed my fingers and hoped I had inherited only a milder version of her struggles, the way one might hope to inherit a relative’s dimples instead of their bunions.
Like many of the children I worked with, early emotional deprivation had affected my brain chemistry. While I hadn’t experienced the extreme neglect my clients had endured, the absence of consistent caregiving in my own life had left both physiological and psychological marks. In more ways than I had realized, I shared common ground with “my kids.” Not exactly the club I’d signed up to join, but here we were.
The assessment revealed a classic ADHD profile: low levels of norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin. Suddenly, my lifelong tendency to misplace keys, grocery lists, and entire afternoons made perfect sense. To my surprise, there were also suspected deficiencies in other areas—one closely linked to bipolar disorder, the very illness my mother had battled.
It did not bode well for me.