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onebillionstarsff · 3 years

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if you think c!dream deserves torture, you don’t know what torture is

alrighty, it’s time for me to do annoyingly in-depth lore analysis again because i have seen way too many people on my dash and twitter timeline saying that c!dream deserves to be tortured.

i don’t really think people have a comprehensive, reality-based understanding of what torture actually is, what it can do, and the motivations behind it. i, unfortunately, do: i’ve done extensive professional-level study on torture, so i’m going to do my best to put out some knowledge into our little dsmp-related world.

obvious content warnings for references to torture and to violence below the cut (nothing too graphic, though; i know this isn’t an academic forum or government work)

all of this is /rp /dsmp

i’ll also list some sources at the very bottom if you want to learn more

alright then, let’s start: what is torture, anyway?

there are two types of definitions, general and legal. i’ll reference both, but the message they carry is essentially the same, so i’ll just paraphrase the united nations definition that’s party to (read: supported/enforced by) 170 countries:

torture is any act that intentionally causes SEVERE harm to someone, physical OR mental, for the purposes of extracting information or punishment for failure to do so, with explicit consent from an acting public authority.

i’ll break down those components in the context of the dsmp in a second, but i first want to make it very clear what torture ISN’T. torture is not manipulation, it is not "trauma” in the way trauma is broadly conceived, it is not even direct physical abuse. you can suffer abuse from, say, a parent or a partner, and that abuse is about a power dynamic, where one person is being forcibly subordinated to the other. torture, on the other hand, is not necessarily about power, and it’s definitely not ONLY about power dynamics; torture, by its very definition, has to be intensely and officially coercive, and it has to be SEVERE. there are not degrees of torture, like there are degrees of abuse: being deprived of sleep for days or even weeks at a time is just as psychologically impactful as losing a limb or being waterboarded (simulated drowning- a common torture method that the us has been known to employ).

this is my first major issue with the way some viewers of the dsmp approach this whole debacle. i constantly hear c!tommy’s manipulation by c!dream cited as a perfect justification for c!dream’s torture. what c!tommy, and others on the server- particularly the kids- went through is horrible, and intensely traumatic. i will never deny them that, especially as a survivor of abuse myself, but torture is not just another form of trauma. that’s a very important distinction that we, as viewers, have to draw: torture is considerably worse because it is sanctioned, it is coercive, and its explicit goal is not just to cause pain or make someone feel powerless (common goals of abusers), but instead to shatter someone.

in more specific terms, the mental goal of torture is to completely unmake someone’s conception of the world, how they interact with it, and their basic sense of identity. if you read accounts or speak with survivors of torture, it is frequently mentioned that their very way of processing everything in life was destroyed by pain and had to be rebuilt, completely different, after escape. by destroying one’s individuality, will, and their most integral of processing abilities, you destroy their grasp on the world; and, to put it lightly, such a breaking event is awful enough that, in an effort to make it stop and regain some sense of normalcy, the victim will tell their persecutors what they want to hear. it’s the reason why confessions obtained through torture are notoriously not admissible in courts of law. this goes far beyond abuse or manipulation, and i need everyone to understand that.

now, let’s get to c!dream’s situation. did he do awful things? yes, undoubtedly. i’m a c!dream apologist, but his manipulation of c!tommy and c!tubbo was very fucked up. beyond that, his notable “crimes” that others on the server aren’t also guilty of committing (e.g., murder, theft, arson, to name a few common ones) really just consist of especially massive destruction of property (people leave c!techno and c!phil out of this equation, much to my chagrin, but i won’t get into it here). punishment for his actions is understandable, and is typically what justice systems aim to do. but, even if we completely ignore the inherent inhumanity of pandora (HOOO BOY that’s a lot to ignore but i digress), c!dream is not being punished, he’s being tortured.

going by the definition i used, let’s break it down:

c!sam knows what c!quackity is doing to c!dream, allows it, and even encourages it. as the warden, he is the person in an official, authority position giving their consent.

c!quackity is, by his own admission, doing what he is to get information out of c!dream. it’s not a confession in this context, but very specific piece of knowledge, with the promise of death also hanging right above it.

list of extreme psychological abuse: long-term solitary confinement (torture if it’s more than 22 hours. c!dream has been in solitary confinement for more than 60 days now), deprivation of the passage of time, general verbal abuse, incredibly limited social contact (people start to fray without basic interaction after a while).

list of extreme physical abuse (god where do i start): prolonged starvation, malnourishment when he isn’t being starved (you will die without protein intake); use of Warden’s Will Breaker pickaxe (it can hack through obsidian, so i think that’s all i need to say), shears (can be used to do things like pull nails, break limb’s bones, amputate toes/fingers/a whole arm in c!ponk’s case), and an OP axe (a sharp blade capable of slicing easily through wood with brute force, and bone is significantly easier to crush than wood).

so, we have consent of authority, coercion for the sake of extracting information, and severe physical/mental abuse meant solely to cause extreme pain. c!dream is being tortured according to the proper, internationally-sanctioned definition of the term, and that is not okay in any circumstances whatsoever.

if you haven’t ever read survivors’ accounts (or the accounts of their victimizers), it’s difficult to understand just how uniquely despicable torture is, and the lifelong effects that remain after it’s over and done with. i honestly recommend you read some testimonials, because it absolutely changes the way you view authority and the world in general.

no one is deserving of this treatment, no matter what atrocities they may or may not have committed.

it’s a basic tenet of human rights, and i don’t think it should be a hard pill to swallow that it’s never excusable in any circumstance. so, defend c!tommy & co. and criticize c!dream’s actions all you want, but please never say that torture is alright. that statement has real consequences, and real moral implications. don’t be an asshole, and don’t be disrespectful to people who have survived it.

if you’re curious, look into these events:

The Argentine Dirty War

Chicago Police’s Jon Burge and his torture regime

Abu Ghraib prison

Extensive torture by Pinochet’s regime in Chile

Guatemalan Civil War

Ugandan policing in the 21st century (Human Rights Watch report here)

if you want some reading, i recommend the following. tumblr will probably nerf this post because of links, but oh well.

Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (very important work in the literature on torture)

John Conroy’s Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture

Levenson (e.d.) Torture: A Collection

#mine #text #jfc this ended up being LONG #sorry about that #long post #dream smp #dsmp #dsmp analysis #dsmp meta #prison arc #pandora's vault #dreamwastaken #dream #torture cw #abuse cw #c!sam critical #i doubt this will go anywhere lmao but it's nice to get my thoughts on (digital) paper

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courtingstars · 5 years

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Notes for The Vanishing Prince, Chapter 1

I can’t believe I just typed that title… I’M FINALLY POSTING THIS FIC. Anyway.

This story is going to be a little different from the first two in A Spark of Light. Because of that, I have some really important stuff I need to say first! I’ll start with those things, then go into my usual notes about culture and timelines and KnB canon, etc. So, THE REALLY IMPORTANT STUFF…

(Cut for a whole bunch of warnings and info about dissociation disorders, family dysfunction, Japanese culture, spooky stuff, and lots of other bits and pieces)

1. This is a story about a very misunderstood mental illness. It’s not going to be perfect, but I’ll do my best.

I’ve alluded to mental health issues in the first two stories, specifically that Furihata has anxiety, and Akashi has an undiagnosed dissociative disorder.

This story focuses a lot more on the latter, which is a deeply misunderstood and stigmatized mental health issue. I’ve tried to do as much research as I can on these disorders, and on how the human brain processes trauma—which is connected to dissociation, a survival mechanism. However, I do not have a dissociative disorder myself, so I want to emphasize that I’m not an expert, and this is not based on my personal experience. I did consult first person accounts, and used them as inspiration. But in the end, this is a fictional story based on the canon of Kuroko no Basuke, which is imperfect and can be misleading/confusing, when it comes this part of Akashi’s character. (I’ll try to explain why as I post more of the fic.)

Also, not all people who have more than one self state consider themselves to have a disorder… I’ve sometimes seen the term “multiple” used for this. In addition, some people want to keep their different self states separate, and live as they are. I chose to depict Akashi as having a disorder because of his arc in KnB canon—specifically, how Last Game ends. So like in canon, this series is about Akashi coming to terms with having a disorder and making the eventual decision to integrate his selves. (Some fans were disappointed with that aspect of Extra Game/Last Game in part because psychiatry sometimes pushes integration as the only valid treatment goal for dissociation, which it isn’t. But since I felt Akashi made that choice for himself in KnB, I went with his decision in my fics as well. For a thorough article about some of the issues surrounding the integration process, I highly recommend this site.)

So I’m going to do the best I can, to make Akashi’s portrayal nuanced and positive, and use current knowledge about dissociation. But I know it won’t be perfect, and I’m going to make mistakes. (Especially since the experiences of these disorders can vary a lot, so what is true for some people may be very different for others… Since I based it on canon, Akashi’s experience definitely diverges from what tends to be described as “typical.”) So I want to apologize for any issues in advance, and I’ll do my best to address and/or correct them. The fic also deconstructs some stereotypes and misconceptions. (Especially as they relate to Bokushi.) One of the reasons I wanted to write this story was because I wanted to explore Akashi’s experience in more depth, and try to fill in some things we don’t know about him. On that note…

2. This story will include depictions of family dysfunction, emotional neglect, and some (mostly implied) abuse.

I’ve talked before about my portrayal of Akashi’s family in this series. But I think it’s worth mentioning again that I’m writing about Akashi’s parents—and his extended family and caretakers—as flawed people, who made some very misguided decisions about how to raise a child. For the sake of spoilers, I won’t go into more details yet. But I wanted to make sure to give a heads-up that this story will go to a darker place than the previous two. (Which I tried to imply near the end of Storming the Castle.)

For anyone who’s concerned that it might be too intense, I’m aiming to keep everything in this story to a solid PG-13 rating, at most. I’ll also provide content warnings for any intense scenes, so you can skip or skim them if you prefer.

That said, I intentionally avoided going with the darkest possible interpretations of Akashi’s family life. I don’t want this story to be overly disturbing, or make any of the characters out to be truly evil. But I did want to show that sometimes, caretakers make decisions they intend to be loving, but that cause real mental and emotional harm in the long term.

3. This story has paranormal elements. A LOT of paranormal elements.

On the note of getting darker, I should probably mention that this story will also have more spooky/paranormal stuff. While Storming the Castle took most of its inspiration from fairy tales, The Vanishing Prince includes some inspiration from ghost and horror stories, particularly Japanese ones. That being said, I didn’t want readers to have to stop the series early because it got too scary! So just like in StC, I’m aiming to keep the spooky parts to a PG rating, and to have a more “fantasy” tone overall, kind of along the lines of a Miyazaki movie. (As in no super gory descriptions, any past violence related to the paranormal will be implied instead of shown, nothing too creepy or viscerally gross, etc.)

Still, expect plenty of allusions and/or depictions of Japanese spiritualism, ghosts, youkai, Shinto beliefs, Buddhist beliefs, Japanese funeral rituals, graves, temples etc. There are also a few concepts borrowed from Western mysticism… That’s mostly Reo’s fault. Because, uh, tarot cards? Which is canon and I did not make that up.

As always, please note that I’m not an expert on Japanese culture! I try to make sure that what I include in my fics is as accurate as possible, but I’m not Japanese, so it’s better to assume that it includes at least some Western misconceptions and/or errors. (Plus there are probably about a million Westerners who know more about Japanese ghost stories than I do.)

4. This story includes some sexual tension, but it’s mild/implied.

One other thing I should mention… The characters’ sexuality is addressed more directly in this fic, so there are allusions to sexual tension. That said, because the characters are still teenagers, I’m going to keep it at a PG-13 level at most. (Basically, arousal is implied, no explicit mentions of body parts, etc.) You can see examples of this in Furihata’s scenes in Chapter One. I went with this approach for multiple reasons. But a big one is that I want people who were most comfortable with the ratings of previous fics in the series to be able to keep reading if they want to!

Okay, that’s it for the serious “here’s what you’re getting into” kind of stuff. Now for less important things…

Timeline of the Fic

This series takes place in the spring and summer after the Winter Cup in Kuroko no Basuke canon. The first three stories also takes place before Last Game, which happens in August. The Vanishing Prince starts right after Storming the Castle. Which means it’s set mostly near the end of July, partly during summer vacation in the Japanese school calendar. I wanted to mention this because this is a story about Oreshi and Bokushi, so establishing where it fits in the canon seems like important background info! And speaking of Bokushi…

Oreshi’s Point of View vs. Bokushi’s Point of View

So if you’ve already read the chapter, you know that this fic series finally has a third point of view! (YAY. I’M SO EXCITED.) Originally, I wasn’t sure if I was going to include Bokushi’s PoV… But once I started writing it, I was having way too much fun, so yes, it’s happening. XD

The one tricky thing is that both Oreshi and Bokushi like to use the same full name. (Which is not always the case with dissociation, by the way… It’s an interesting part of both of their characters, I think!) So I decided that for the scenes that are written in Oreshi’s point of view, Oreshi will continue to be called Akashi. And when a scene is in Bokushi’s point of view, Bokushi is referred to as Seijuurou. (I based this off of an aspect of his character that he’ll bring up later.)

So hopefully that wasn’t too confusing to read! Also, Oreshi and Bokushi will both refer to their other self as “my other self,” or sometimes “my brother.” (Which is a headcanon based off of that one line in KnB where Oreshi compares Bokushi to “a troublesome little brother.”)

Therapy and Dissociation Terms

This note is pretty serious again… This story will contain depictions of psychiatry and therapy. I’m not an expert on either of these things, and the culture around therapy in Japan is different than it is in Western countries. (I talked about that in some of my notes for Storming the Castle earlier.)

So while I’ll do my best to strike a balance between realism and fiction, this story is going to take some fictional license with the therapy process. The main reason is that I wanted Akashi’s situation in the story to seem unusual in certain ways, because the power he wields in terms of his family background is so unusual. Hopefully I conveyed that the psychiatrist in the story is choosing to go out of her way in Akashi’s case, and possibly making some exceptions that she wouldn’t make otherwise.

(That being said, from everything I could gather, parental permission is not strictly required by law for teenagers to receive therapy in Japan… Unlike where I live in America, where it is in a lot of states, though the specifics vary a lot.)

And on that note, I should mention one of the terms I used… When it comes to dissociation disorders, having more than one self state is often referred to as having “alters.” Not everyone uses this term. (I’ve seen some people say they dislike using it because it sounds clinical, for example.) On the recommended site I use for general information about dissociation disorders, they do use “alter.” So that’s why I used it too. (Also, the fic takes place in 2010, and I believe alter was standard back then as well.) But please keep in mind that some people might not use that particular term!

Oreshi and Bokushi’s Headspace, and Co-Consciousness

I also wanted to briefly bring up the “room” inside Akashi’s mind, where Oreshi and Bokushi talk… I based its appearance off of that scene near the end of the anime, where Oreshi confronts Bokushi inside their mind:

My headcanon is that Oreshi and Bokushi use this as a space where they can both communicate with each other. This is based on something common among people who have dissociation, sometimes called headspace, which you can learn about here. In my fic, Bokushi and/or Oreshi’s presence in this room represents that they’re conscious at the moment. Meaning that they’re aware of what’s going on in the world around them, even though the other self may be in control of their body. When two alters are conscious at the same time, it’s called being “co-conscious.” In KnB canon, it’s implied that Oreshi and Bokushi are co-conscious at least some (and possibly most, or all!) of the time. I’ll talk more about that later, and why I went with the interpretation of canon that I did.

Also, I wanted to quickly mention these lines in the chapter:

“[Akashi] didn’t recall losing track of events against his will. But there used to be many instances where he would let himself drift away, on one level or another. He would lose a few minutes of time, while his brother would talk in his place.”

This is based on one of the Teikou scenes when Midorima noticed that Akashi seemed to have “another Akashi inside him” that said things that were different from his usual personality. This happened before the scene where Bokushi took complete control. So I headcanon that before Oreshi ever let Bokushi fully switch places with him, he sometimes let Bokushi speak in his place, temporarily. I also headcanon that he started doing this while interacting with his dad. (There’s a part in the manga that implies that Oreshi had feelings of being “separate” before Teikou, too.) So that’s where that theory came from!

Fast Train References

Also, just a quick reminder that Akashi’s promise to show Furihata around Gion at night is from The Fast Train to Kyoto! (And I’m very excited that Kyoto is going to be a setting again. <3) Also in that fic, I introduced the Akashi family estate in Kyoto for the first time. In my headcanons, this is the area where his family originally lived centuries ago, and they acquired the mansion in Tokyo later. Furihata hasn’t visited the Kyoto estate yet, but he will. ;)

And that’s it for now! Wow, this was a looong post. ^^; Kudos to anyone who read the whole thing! And I really hope you all enjoyed this introduction to The Vanishing Prince. I’m so excited to be sharing it, finally. <3

(And unlike in Storming the Castle, I don’t feel nearly as bad for that cliffhanger in Chapter One… Because that’s exactly how it’s been in my head for three years, and Bokushi makes no apologies. //laughs)

#long post #really long post #good lord #kat writes fanfic #kat writes about basketball dorks #the vanishing prince #text post

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starsaboveyouadoption · 4 years

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light years

As you’ll come to know if you haven’t already, like any world of idiosyncrasies, the adoption community has its own jargon to navigate. One term you may not be as familiar with as others is the concept of “cocooning”. This is a widely used word within adoption to refer to a period of time immediately following your child moving home with you, whereby you make your child’s world as small as possible in the early days of forming an attachment, and is a vital process in the timeline of your child coming to feel safe and secure in their new family. This blog will take a look at what cocooning actually is (especially in practical terms), and some helpful tips for how to manage this space of time so that it has its best intended effect. Again, I can only talk of my own experience, and as a parent to a fairly young toddler, I didn’t experience some of the added complications that may arise with older children, but most of what I’ll write should be applicable to most age groups. On this note, even if something sounds geared to babies, chances are you would want to replicate the same principles for an older child, however strange this might seem, and sometimes especially so, given the more complex layers of emotions they (and you) may be going through.

So, “cocooning”…what am I talking about?

Cocooning is a term used to describe a timeframe of usually a few weeks once your child is home, immediately following introductions where you take certain measures to help your child settle with you. It will be something your social workers will discuss with you on preparing to take your child home, and certainly will be a point of conversation during review meetings in introductions. It is essentially about limiting your child’s exposure to, and involvement from, people outside of their immediate parent(s) – you – in the very early days for certain therapeutic reasons related to trauma and attachment associated with their move.

It serves a few purposes:

· It allows early bonding and attachment to start taking place between child and parent by providing physical and emotional space for your family unit. This is, in many people’s views, the work of months, years, and perhaps a lifetime, but the cocooning phase acts as a crucial kick starter and sets the template for the beginning of your life together.

· It allows your child to settle into their new home, to start feeling comfortable, safe and secure in their new environment.

· It provides crucial space for your child to begin to heal and recover from the trauma of separations from their birth and/or foster family, and for all parties, the intense emotional toll of transitions that came with introductions.

· It enables your child to understand their relationship to you and attach to you as their parents, as opposed to other adults who have been caregivers to them, but not fulfilling the parental role. For some older children, this may be particularly confusing given that they may have lived through several foster moves, and have conscious memory of time with their birth parents, not to mention all of their involvement with a whole team of social workers and outside professionals, without ever having parents of their own. This period of time helps to transmit the message that you are permanent, safe, and in a special relationship with them.

· It allows adequate time to put your foot on the brakes and allow your child to gradually, and appropriately attach to members of your wider family and friends network, without some of the pressure that may come with traditional expectations associated with the arrival of a birth child.

· It helps you as a family to find your routine and to put into practice everything you have learnt about your child to date, to care for them, and provide them with a sense of security.

· It helps highlight any potential issues that you may need support for as a family, and gives you the space you might need to work through some initial surmountable, but stressful challenges with professional help before you add the additional pressure of enmeshing wider family into your new life.

· For many children, young and older, it can help fill in the blanks of some of the care and stability they have missed

The cocooning period is also part of the period of time between your child moving home and being able to apply for their legal order. This period stretching beyond cocooning, will involve lots of review/settling in meetings with your social workers to provide a space to discuss how things are going. For us, this meant weekly meetings for the first 6 weeks, followed by fortnightly meetings and 2 formal reviews thereafter before our legal order came through (which happened comparatively quickly to most adopters for whom this period would stretch out further).

On a practical note, “cocooning” with your child will look something like this (of course with some exceptions depending on the advice you receive about your child):

· All main care done by the parents only – so personal care, washing, feeding, toileting, dressing, sleep etc

· Physical contact and affection limited to parents only – this will mean asking others not to pick up, hug, kiss, hold your child for the first few weeks

· Providing a solid, very consistent routine, emulating their foster routine as much as possible for the meantime, with no major changes in the first few weeks. As pedantic as this may sound (though I promise it makes sense when you’re living it), this might mean anything from keeping their toiletries, clothes, and smells the same (there’s an awful lot of washing powder chat on the adoption forums!!), through to ensuring their routine, clothes, comforts such as blankets and dummies etc, and toys/activities remain familiar to them for the first few weeks while adjusting.

· No or very limited introductions to wider friends and family, and no visitors to the home until they are settled. Typically, the recommended period for an under-2 may be about 2 weeks, whereas for older children, this could mean more. Thereafter, ensuring introductions are very gradual in line with your child’s needs and comfort level.

· Cocooning doesn’t have to mean staying inside the house like you’re on lockdown (ha!), but might mean local trips to low-key places such as parks, playgrounds, and local shops so they start to get used to the area. We were conscious that our hometown was geographically a long distance and a change from a rural to an urban environment for our Little Star, so had to be mindful of how busy/overwhelming it could potentially be.

· For older children, it is likely to mean a delayed start to their new school. For younger children, a limit on clubs or playgroups for now.

· By virtue of the above, this will necessarily mean your child not being babysat with friends and family in these early weeks. After cocooning, as part of our process, we had to nominate a few close family (grandparents) to be DBS checked during Stage 1, to be able to provide care other than us during the period before the legal order and were unable to leave Little Star with anyone else, including registered childcare providers. Remembering at this stage, that you will not have full parental responsibility (you share this with the state until the legal order and will be given papers outlining what you are/aren’t able to do during this period, which usually includes needing to seek permission for stays outside of the home for longer than a couple of days. It also includes other elements such as your level of permission to authorise medical treatment)

I’m sure it’s needless to say that as you’re reading this, you’re imagining cocooning as an intense time, and it certainly is! It’s a weird limbo between bringing your child home and really being able to ingratiate them into your daily lives, because of the added ingredient of separation trauma that you will be trying to mitigate with cocooning. This does mean that at your most emotionally vulnerable time, you can find yourself feeling a little isolated and unable to access some of the usual things that would help such as seeing family and friends, getting away, etc at a time of stress. I had a bit of a struggle in my first I’d say 4 weeks at home with Little Star and found myself getting very depressed and anxious. I’m grateful that this was relatively short-lived and passed, but hindsight is a wonderful thing, and there is so much I wish I’d remembered to do to take care of myself at such an important juncture of my life. For what it’s worth, here are some tips based on my reflections of that time (which by the way I feel the need to say is in equal measures beautiful at the same time as all the stress – I intend this blog to be a real view of adoption but I equally don’t wish it to scare people off!):

Cocooning Survival Tips

· Treat this time as if you have had a new-born. What’s a little strange in adoption is that both your own, and others’ reaction to you bringing a child home, is not always the same as if you had just come out of hospital having had a new-born baby. There is a sense of excitement but also sometimes inadvertently a sense of carrying on as “before”. Here you are with this enormous life change overnight and a child you are having to get to know on the spot, and sometimes because they are not a tiny little 6lb bundle, you can set yourself completely unrealistic expectations which are just not warranted. I’m the first person to say that I never wanted to be one of those parents who centres my entire life on one aspect of my identity as a parent, but it would be ridiculous not to acknowledge that my whole world (at that time) had been shaken upside down, and I can’t return to the exact “same” person I was pre-child. My perspective and priorities have necessarily had to change. I would encourage any new adopter to “think new-born” within cocooning. Would you expect yourself to socialise, be available for a barrage of visits, be putting on a full face of makeup every day, replying to messages and emails, if you’d walked out of the hospital a week ago and were recovering from a caesarean? I think not. We may not have the scars of child birth but we do have the scars of our child’s traumas and we are becoming new parents too, but you will likely learn that as adopters we don’t always get the same grace and validation that birth parents do in terms of what we are taking on. Certainly, give yourself permission to be selfish, recognise this huge adjustment for what it is, and if you need to go off the radar for a short time, go off the radar! The right people will understand and this all links back to the work you will have done during Stage 2 on really testing your support network.

· Allow yourself full permission to be as slobby as you need to be to focus on the most important things! Obviously a lot of it was just the sheer anxiety of having a baby in the house and largely being on my own in the house looking after them, and with time this got easier, but I can tell you, I didn’t take a lot of showers in those early days! I struggled to find time to eat, message people back, to keep people updated with the latest “news”, and I wasn’t always enjoying it. I wasn’t basking in some heavenly earth mother glow. I was stressed, down, anxious, and my memory seemed to dissolve overnight. I thankfully can tell you it all came back in a few weeks! But during that time, I was just headless chicken mode. I didn’t know Little Star well enough to know what they liked, didn’t like etc and it meant every day felt like a guessing game, so I just didn’t have any head space. If I ever did this again, I would now fully prepare for those first few weeks to be that way and plan accordingly!

· Some small little things really help with self-care. Having some alone time with your partner when you can (nap times, evenings etc) can help you reset and recharge and check in with each other about how you feel it’s going. For single adopters, your social worker is likely to encourage you to make especially strong use of your support network, even if it has to be remotely. Someone to lean on and talk to about how you’re honestly feeling (not what others expect you to feel) is so important. I thank the stars for my Mum who listened to me over so many texts about how I was feeling, sent flowers when I was bursting into tears in front of the highchair, and who heard me out when I wasn’t sleeping and was at my wit’s end trying to be perfect (but of course failing miserably!). These things will pull you through. Early nights will help you get as much sleep as possible, and some outside time will work wonders for clearing your head. PJ days are more than fine, and for me, I am an early bird admittedly, but getting up half hour before baby meant I could at least get a cup of tea into my system before starting the day.

· Structure really helps. You’ll of course want space for spontaneity but that’s probably not so much the order of the day at this point. I found the empty days really hard especially when my partner returned to work and thinking of the day as 4 blocks (AM/PM before/after naps) meant each chunk felt more achievable. Sometimes all I did was sit in Costa having what I called my little “pity-latte”(!) but it got me out, got me to feel I was having a treat, and it provided a focus for the morning. Now I look back and I truly don’t have to even think about how to pass my day – it’s gone in a blur, I enjoy it 9 times out of 10, and we get on fine, but time can slow when you’re in a bit of an enforced bubble. You’ll hopefully notice that feeling dissipate when you’re back out of the bubble and able to see family and friends (just being able to see my Mum and my brother in person made an enormous difference) but for now, do what you need to do to feel sane!

· If you are the person taking the main leave, and you have a partner, as long as they are able to take off to help with cocooning and transitions the better. People advised us of this at the beginning and I can really see how relevant it was in practice. The thing is, it is arguably a bit of a middle-class advantage to be able to take extended periods of time off work, and it won’t be possible for everyone financially and that’s okay – it’s just an ideal. My partner had frustratingly just started a new job, so whilst we had originally planned a 50/50 split with shared parental leave, we ended up with me taking the main leave and him having a fairly standard 2 weeks off, which included a week of introductions and I can say this felt nowhere near enough time. In an ideal world, I think we would have had about a month together, but it really is down to your circumstances. Do consider shared parental leave – in practice, I think with adoption having a more steady presence of both parents can make a huge difference (bizarrely we have come to benefit from us all being together during lockdown, though in sad circumstances). If this isn’t on the table, think about how a combination of parental leave, annual leave, and if an option for you, unpaid leave might work to give you that little bit longer.

· I felt so much pressure to be “on” all the time when Little Star first came home. I felt I had to be actively playing with them all day and attentive to them every single second otherwise I’d feel a huge wave of guilt and/or imposter syndrome, and that’s part of why I struggled to look after myself well enough in the early days. Every parenting blog I read seemed to suggest that all stay at home parents were literally doing nothing but sitting adoringly playing with their baby for hours on end, and I just couldn’t understand how anyone was up to that. It got exhausting. It didn’t take that long for me to work out that in reality, parents are people. We zone out, we get bored sometimes, and God forbid, sometimes we are just watching the clock for bedtime! But that doesn’t take away our wanting for our child, it just means we’re human. I’d have put much less pressure on myself in this regard. Don’t beat yourself up if you have lazy days, PJ days, days where you give them less than ideal food or they are subjected to a bit of TV – it may conversely be the thing that saves everyone’s sanity!

· Showing affection to your little one is a weird one. I know I certainly felt a bit strange about kissing/hugging them at the start. Being honest, it felt forced and a bit surreal. Now I think nothing of picking up my Little Star and squishing their face, and harassing them for cuddles, but back then, I felt odd about it. In any other circumstance being intimate with a child I’d just met would feel inappropriate. Somehow through it all, I managed to strike a bit of a balance. I put absolutely no pressure on myself to instantly feel love for them (more of that in other blogs), but I did try to make a conscious effort to find opportunities for touch that felt as natural as possible. A bit of rough and tumble, some light hearted chasing games and peekaboo, kisses and cuddles at times that felt natural such as bedtime, and as Little Star was used to a very particular soothing method, I had opportunities for lots of close proximity. I can’t liken it to skin-to-skin for new-borns as I don’t know enough about that, but I guess the principle is similar. Finding opportunities for touch and eye contact really helped us bond.

· I cannot state this one enough – utilise your social worker! Cocooning is in many ways an extension of introductions and your social worker will fully expect you to be struggling at times. Don’t be a martyr or feel you have to keep up a perfect image – it’s okay to call and say you’ve been having a rough time. Our social worker was brilliant and never made me feel judged or less than for how I felt. Oftentimes they will be able to make visits to you if you need some human contact outside of your bubble and a space for a vent – they should also be able to provide practical hints and tips as I guarantee you they will have heard it all before.

· Staring at the walls all day can really take its toll during cocooning. We spent a LOT of time in outdoors spaces like woodlands, parks, and farms just having long walks and enjoying some quiet family time with Little Star. It served the purpose of bonding, practice being out and about with a little one, and a chance for us to clear our heads. I’d highly recommend it.

· Accept help – if like me you’re useless at asking for and accepting help this can be a real challenge but do try to think about ways your support network can be there for you. People are happy to help and there may be small things that help make your life easier. They may not be able to see you physically but it could be things like video calls, dropping off meals/shopping, running errands for you, or if you already have other children, doing the odd school pick up to help out. Now’s the time to draw on that network you spoke about in your assessment.

· Finally, all of this comes at a huge caveat – nothing is more important in those early days than your mental health. So if that means that you need to “break the rules” and meet up with family a little earlier than planned, or take some time out while your partner picks up the slack one day, the benefits of that for your wellbeing entirely outweigh anything else. The emotion I most closely associate with becoming an adoptive parent in the first weeks is “shock” – you are trying to adapt at immense pace to this huge life-changing event. Don’t be afraid to reach out and put your head above water to breathe if you need to.

So that’s cocooning, and let’s say that you’ve survived the experience intact, and are starting to introduce your child to friends and family. Knowing when the right time is will be a combination of your own instincts, your child’s comfort level, and your social worker’s views on appropriateness. I have a large family and because social workers knew this, I felt quite “monitored” in this regard, but it was all with good intent and after 2-3 weeks, it felt okay for us to start branching out. Here are some considerations to help this stage go smoothly…

· Understandably, most people in your network won’t be fully familiar with adoption processes, and the concept of cocooning is likely to be alien. It can help to provide friends and family with a heads up about what to expect which may seem out of the norm ahead of time. First4Adoption do a fantastic crib sheet for loved ones on how best to support a new adoptive child into the family:

https://www.first4adoption.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/how-family-and-friends-can-help.pdf

· Think about the best physical space to meet in. Usually it is best to opt for a neutral space like a park or a café – somewhere your loved ones can spend some time with your new arrival without too much pressure and where your child will not feel their space is being invaded, nor be confused about going to too many new houses, especially after having just gone through a transition between two houses in quick succession. For us, it actually felt best for Little Star to meet people at our home where they were comfortable, but you will know your child best. If you do have visitors at home, think about making visits short and not too intense with too many people at a time – we tended to introduce people in pairs so as not to overwhelm Little Star.

· If you are adopting an older child, it may be worth explaining to your family that this child may have some behaviours or understandings that are out of sync with how your family do things. It takes time for any child to know what the established “rules of the house” are in new settings, and many older children in the system will have experienced differing rules at their foster homes, or may have been removed at an older age from a birth family home where their home environment was far different. It is not uncommon for older adopted children who have experience of their birth homes to struggle with following “expected” social rules about noise, politeness, silly things like how to use cutlery, sharing etc, because this may not have been their experience in the harsher world they lived in. Setting everyone’s expectations at the start will avoid unnecessary awkwardness and embarrassment, and ensure your child is put at ease. Some babies/children will demonstrate behaviours younger than their developmental stage, due to the level of disruption they’ve had. Not least this may make you feel a little “odd one out” as a parent – hopefully you will have as supportive a family as I am so lucky to have but if you do feel there could be some misunderstandings, better to discuss them in advance.

· On the same vein, it’s worth giving people a heads up about affection. We had a few situations where people innocently went to pick Little Star up and give them a cuddle, and at the time I didn’t deal with it very well as I felt awkward about it and didn’t want to come across weirdly. If you have the conversation before meeting up, that way people know where they stand. The same goes for things like taking photos, sharing information or news about your child with other people and social media.

· Advice which worked really well for us was to start with people who you expect will have close relationships with your child, working outwards to wider family at a later date. You’ll want to pay special attention to meetings with key people such as Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles etc which all helps your child to differentiate that these are special people and not just another adult they are meeting. We had to expediate some things a little earlier than ideal as Little Star moved in with 6 weeks until Christmas, but somehow we found a way to make it work by thinking about the best order to do things in.

· For introductions, especially for babies, you will likely have made use of photo books for close family members for your child to familiarise with faces and names. These come in handy to reinforce key people again and again on the build up to real life meetings – we found this particularly helpful for Grandparents.

· If your child has a comforter like a blankie or a dummy, make sure they’re on hand when meeting new people. It may seem a small thing, but them having a little piece of familiarity with them can be very soothing

· If your circumstances mean that family helping with childcare will be a necessity in the near future, find small ways to build up to this. I ended up having a couple of times I had no choice but to ask Grandparents to babysit Little Star in the early days for short periods of time but ideally I would have waited longer. Ideally, it would take some months before you ask family to babysit, and certainly if this involves any over night stays, but of course it isn’t possible for everyone to wait this long, especially single adopters. We found good ways to build up were small things like watching them for half an hour while you grab a coffee or pop to the shop for a small chunk of me-time, or perhaps watching them while you attend an appointment. Unfortunately this is an area we’ve not been able to work on well as Lockdown was a spanner in the works so at present Little Star isn’t particularly used to being in others’ care almost a year in but we hope to resume working up to this as soon as we’re able.

· This may seem overly rigid, but try not to compromise too much on your little one’s routine to work round others in the early days. In the first few months, a sense of familiarity and predictability will be important for your child and even seemingly innocuous changes can be quite destabilising. Others will understand and it needn’t be forever, but this will pay in dividends later when you’ve created a solid foundation to start from.

· And finally, try to avoid overwhelm when you do branch out to doing meet ups. For me, meetups actually felt like a lifeline when I was feeling low and desperate for some familiar faces, but for many there may be a lot of pressure involved. People will naturally be excited to meet your child and this may result in slight pushiness or unannounced visits which are less than ideal. Keep the diary for the weeks following your arrival home clear as possible, limit visitors to what feels the right balance for you, and put expectations of “hosting” aside.

And we come to the end of another rambly blog! As always, I hope this was useful, and I’m looking forward now to opening up the blog to more general adoption topics now we have followed a broad timeline of the process from Stage One. We will talk about the legal order in other blogs, but for now, our next stop will be reflections on our first 100 days as adopters – some thoughts I put together some while back when I was thinking about what we’d learned so far at that stage of the journey.

Until then, take care and keep safe.

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