The 12 step group I attended discussed the problems we all seemed to have in common. Eventually, I adapted them for use by adoptees in search. A quick reading will show that the most prominent "PROBLEM" of Brick Wall Survivors, rejection by birth family members and unanswerable questions, must be allocated to the "things I can not change" clause of the Serenity Prayer.

1. Even though we feel different from other people and guess at what "normal" is, we deny that there is a problem with adoption.

2. We become approval seekers and loose our own identity.

3. We become isolated and afraid of people, in general, and authority figures, in particular. Sometimes that fear is turned inside out and we then find ourselves challenging people and authority figures.

4. We are dependent personalities, terrified of abandonment, often forming relationships with unhealthy people yet going to great lengths to hold on to these relationships.

5. We engage in self-destructive behavior including, but not limited to: addictive behaviors, alcohol and drug abuse, running away physically and emotionally, denying our own health needs, and rescuing others at the expense of ourselves.

6. We feel guilt and shame for anything and everything: standing up for ourselves, desiring to know birth family, not loving as we "should", messing up our own and every one else's life...

7. We confuse love and pity, tending to "love" people we can pity and rescue. It may be more comfortable to focus on our rescuing than on ourselves and our own needs.

8. We have stuffed our feelings about adoption and have therefore lost the ability to feel at all. We feel neither the fears and doubts nor the joy and happiness which are a part of all life. This loss of access to our feelings is one of our basic denials.

9. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.

10. We are constantly aware of shadow persons in our lives, fantasy people who "could have been", "should have been", or "might be": a birth mother/father/sibling, or the person we ourselves may have become if we hadn't been adopted...

11. We become "victims" in our thought-life, constantly re-acting to people and events rather than initiating positive actions.