325 [Healing Series] Narcissism in Adoptive Parents with Katy Perkins, LICSW-S

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/325

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.

You are listening to Adoptees On the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. This is a special episode in our healing series where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee. Today we are joined by Katy Perkins to talk about a hot topic in our community, narcissism in adoptive parents.

We discuss what it would've looked like to grow up in a family with a narcissistic parent, or one with narcissistic tendencies, the impact it could have had on us as kids and now into [00:01:00] adulthood. I was fascinated by everything Katy had to share in this conversation, and I hope it is helpful for you.

Before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to sign up for my podcast newsletter, which you can find at adopteeson.com/newsletter. We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.

I am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On Katy Perkins. Hi Katy.

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: Hi Haley. I'm really excited to be here.

Haley Radke: You are on the main feed. You've been on the Patreon feed. A lot of people don't know, but you've been around. Because you're such,

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: but it's the big time.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah. You really made it now. No not too many people get to be behind the paywall, but I'm so excited to talk to you today and we're doing a healing [00:02:00] series episode today.

But if you don't mind, would you just share just a teeny bit of your story with us and what led you to become a therapist?

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: Yeah, sure. So on the adoption side, my parents adopted me through the Gladney Center and it was a closed adoption, same race domestic infant the eighties standard I think for a lot of people.

And they had a brochure about the Texas reunion registry and I had been like counting the days for as many years as I can remember to register. So I registered immediately once I turned 18 and I reunited with my birth mom really quickly, and that's the phrase that she preferred was birth mother. As a therapist I always use the term that my clients prefer. We had to go through the ridiculous processes that Texas puts forward, like an hour of mandated counseling. What are you gonna get done in an hour to prepare for reunion? I get the idea behind it now as a professional, but I just [00:03:00] don't like the idea of mandated anything for anyone who hasn't committed an actual crime. So there's that. That's a conversation for another day. But yeah, so I was reunited when I was about 18 or 19, and so it's been a really long time with both sides of my birth family. And I would say originally my parents didn't really, they would have said they were supportive of me having my information and meeting my family, and they did.

But if you had a longer sit down about the policies and closed adoptions and versus sharing information, they really weren't in agreement with that at the time, that was my gosh, how many years ago now? So I have dragged them into the modern times with me. My whole family's very supportive.

I'd say in the last 15 years or so, they've really, they've stepped up a lot more, like my parents have gone to the Texas [00:04:00] capitol with me to lobby legislators to restore access to original birth certificates for adoptees. My birth mom is deceased now, but she wrote letters to legislators with me.

I would take dictation basically from her. So my family's come a long way from how things used to be that it was just truly a lack of education. They truly didn't know any better because that was not what was presented to them when they were adopting. In fact someone, I don't know. I hesitate to say the agency, 'cause I don't really know where the request came from, but someone affiliated with some kind of update to closed records, had contacted them and asked them to reach out to their legislators in the, I think mid eighties.

I've been doing this for longer than I look, and I think my dad had written a letter to support closed records at that time. But now if you asked him, he would be like, oh, I don't, I don't believe any of that anymore. That was [00:05:00] then, this is now. And they've all really come around. So I got involved with some nonprofits really quickly, like text care and American Adoption Congress.

And Adoption Knowledge Affiliates or AKA. And so I was doing that a really long time before I ever became a social worker. I started my master's in social work in two, I graduated in 2006 and I, so I knew before I even started all of that I. At least a significant portion of my work would be with adoptees.

At that time I was specializing in community and administrative practice, so I did a lot of projects that, that I would affiliate with the volunteer work I was already doing, like I got a student group together to lobby for OBC access in I think 2005 and there were a lot of things like that, and most of my papers were about adoption.

There was also the fact that I could drum up something I'd already written [00:06:00] and expand upon it 'cause I'd already done the work earlier. So I knew at that time I would've told you, I don't wanna do therapy. I never wanna be a therapist. That sounds boring. That doesn't sound like me. I wanna do activism. I wanna be a lobbyist. I want to do management and nonprofit leadership, and I was really focused on that at that time. And I ended up going into work in rape crisis centers for a number of years doing primary prevention of sexual violence, which isn't just outreach, it's more like we're trying to prevent attitudes that contribute to sexual violence in the community.

So it's, it was more about social justice and anti-oppression work and equality and equity. I worked a lot with high school students and did a ton of education and outreach and public speaking and training around that, and I started to make connections. So I was still volunteering in adoption advocacy at that time, but I was really starting to make connections [00:07:00] between that work and the sexual violence prevention work.

And after some years I saw that there really wasn't much room for advancement in the work that I was doing. Even though I loved my work. It was really hard. I also provided response in the emergency room when there was a survivor presenting for a rape kit. So we all did a little bit of everything really hard, but I loved it.

I was very passionate about it. But then I started to realize in that area that was probably gonna be it for me for some years, and I couldn't financially and family wise continue that work. So I went more into the medical side of things. I worked in a hospital and then a number of years in hospice where I got my clinical licensure and I thought, I in, I'm in a, a medical setting. I may as well get that license. And actually, Dr. Melanie Chung Sherman hired me to see just a couple of people in her [00:08:00] practice and Krista Woods did as well. So I had three or four clients. So I just dabbled to see can I do this? Do I dislike it as much as I thought I would? Because if I like it, I can do it forever. It's job security. There's always gonna be people that need help. And it turned out I really liked it and I was, not to toot my own horn to so much, but I was pretty good at it. So I stuck with it, and initially adoptees were my primary focus for a long time. Really, I specialize in some other issues now, including eating disorders, sexual and domestic violence, recovery, oppression and discrimination, sociopolitical stress. I do have some DNA discoveries clients, people that found out, for example, their dad was not their biological father, so to speak. Lots of family secrets and also high control groups.

So I do see a number of other issues, but I really feel like adoptees are still my people [00:09:00] and it's really my life's work.

Haley Radke: I've seen you and followed you as an expert in this space for years now, and I've been to some of the presentations that you've done, and I view you as an expert in what we're gonna talk about today, which is narcissism in adoptive parents and the impact that can have on adopted people.

And you've told me some things behind the scenes on air, on Patreon.

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: Nothing identifying of course.

Haley Radke: No. And in your presentations that I find so fascinating, and I know listeners are gonna be like glued to the earbuds. So let's get into it. And one of the first things I wanna say is. In culture right now. I think there's this accusation thrown where people are like, oh yeah, a narcissist and that we're just like armchair diagnosing narcissism [00:10:00] everywhere, and we're not necessarily clinically diagnosing our adoptive parents with narcissism. We're working around that.

So what are your thoughts on this? Let's give a little intro here.

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: So I think it's important to understand some of the context of that. I totally agree. We toss that word around a lot, narcissism, narcissist, et cetera. And you can have a bundle of narcissistic traits without actually having a clinically diagnosable personality disorder of narcissism.

And so in that regard, it doesn't necessarily matter if it's diagnosable or not. It could be that. You just lean on the narcissistic side. We all carry some traits, some narcissistic traits. It's a totally normal thing, and so we don't have to be that afraid of it. We all have those traits, is what I'm saying.

But it's, it's like a spectrum, as with a number of other diagnoses, a spectrum of severity. So there's [00:11:00] people that really struggle with it. There's people who might be more in the area of what we would say, malignant narcissism. That's getting more into the area of like psychopathy, psychopaths.

And so not everyone is at that level of narcissism, but that doesn't mean it's any less damaging to people and you can, it can be treated, narcissism is treatable. There are people who specialize in that treatment out there. I am not one of them, but the person really has to want it. They've really gotta wanna change.

There's frequently also some medication involved, so therapy and medication, not always, of course, but frequently and the problem with that is that people that are more strongly narcissistic don't usually feel like they're the ones who need to change. Or they, they think that people around them need to change because they're the ones who are right.

But I can say from professional experience, I've definitely [00:12:00] worked with a couple of people whose loved ones had told them like, this is not good. You're, this is how it's affecting us. It's very narcissistic the way you're behaving. I don't know what all that means, but if you, for example, wanna stay with the family, you've gotta work on this some.

And there are some measurement tools out there, and I have worked with at least a couple of people who were like, I don't really I don't necessarily think I need to change, but I trust my family and this is what they're telling me. So obviously it's hurting people whether I understand why or not, and I'd like to change that.

And you just need that kernel to start with. But like I said, a lot of folks don't have that kernel but that's why there's specialists.

Haley Radke: Can we pause there and just talk about

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: Yeah.

Haley Radke: What does it look like to grow up with parents, one or both who are narcissists or have narcissistic tendencies?

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: It can show up in a whole lot of different ways and often when you're [00:13:00] talking about a personality disorder, it shows up in all the domains of life. So you would see it at home, at work in different ways, of course, with friends or other areas. To the kid though, if you're growing up in that kind of a setting, so there's a go-to phrase that I use that if a narcissist tells you to set yourself on fire you do it, they're gonna tell you it's not warm enough and kids can't live up to any of that. So if you're dealing with a person who's more narcissistic in nature and they have expectations, certain expectations that kids will, for example, behave a certain way, talk to them a certain way, the family will run in a particular way.

We all, not just the kids, ultimately can't live up to all of those standards and it can really ingrain, we're not even throwing in the adoption element quite yet, but if you are, it can really ingrain these notions of I'm not [00:14:00] good enough or nothing I ever do is good enough or I can't be good enough.

The people pleasing is very strong with folks who grew up in a setting like this really feeling. I see a high degree of enmeshment in these families adoptees who feel afraid to make their own decisions that go against what their parents might want. And I can go into more detail about what it, what I see in therapy, but one of the points about that is, when I have a new client and they say my parents were narcissists, I do usually start off by asking, do you know if they were ever diagnosed by a professional? Because it ends up being relevant later because sometimes they'll use the fact that they weren't diagnosed to dismiss their own concerns or their own pain.

So we can open a door to a conversation that like, it actually doesn't matter what the diagnosis is, it's not okay for someone to treat you that way. And it has the impact it has even if the person, quote unquote, can't help it. [00:15:00] Just like we say that the motivation behind the adoption doesn't change the effects that it has, it affects people the way it affects people.

Regardless, it doesn't in this context always matter if there's a diagnosis. The behaviors have the impact they have. It makes people doubt themselves, think less of themselves. It's abuse, it's abusive behavior. Abusive behavior isn't always reportable, but it is abusive.

Haley Radke: When someone with narcissistic tendencies adopts and doesn't have that underlying understanding that we are not blank slates and has this picture of what they want their family to be like, appear to be like, those kinds of things. What would the impact on the adopted person be like? What would you see there in that kind of a situation? Or what have you seen?

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: Yeah. And I [00:16:00] really started to specialize more in adoptees who came from narcissistic family systems through my work with adopted youth.

And I did that for, it was at least a few years, but I ended up having to stop because in my practice at the time I was living in Texas, in North Texas, and some of these things change regionally, but I always got a lot of contacts from families that were pretty narcissistic in nature, wanting me to quote unquote fix their kid.

So they would say things like, I want you to fix their adoption trauma, or, they're not connecting with us. They're not attaching to me, and they really need to do that. So it became very parent focused like a finger wag. This is what I want you to do for my kid. And subtly I started using different methods to deal with that, I have a number of youth guidelines that say, we treat youth in a youth focused, adoptee centric [00:17:00] manner. We will be working with your child on the issues that they, and we feel are the biggest issues happening in their lives, which might not match. We will definitely mix in some of the things that you're worried about, but they may not be the primary focus.

Some things that I noticed were parents who were worried about the wrong thing. So they'd be putting emphasis on say, my child hasn't cleaned their room in three months, and they're not being polite to the neighbors. We're trying to work on their politeness, and they're not getting a's anymore, they're getting C's, and that's unacceptable.

Whereas from my perspective, I'm trying to keep your kid alive. Your child is suicidal. You believed they had no history of self-harm or suicidality. They're telling me they've had that for years. You don't know that because they don't feel safe going to you to talk about it because you tell them to focus on their grades.

It's not helpful to the [00:18:00] parents to be feeling down and I know I hate to, not always or not all, and we shouldn't have to, but not all adoptive parents are like this. These are the families who would come to find me and that part would happen a lot where the kids had a lot more going on than the parents believed, and they would express great surprise about what was going on with their youth and just shock and I can't believe it.

I would see a lot of situations where the parents and I would have a really good parent check-in. I'd give them a lot of guidance. A lot of this is what your kid's gonna need soon. And so a red flag would be like a pretty systematic disregard for the instructions or the advice, and you don't have to take the instructions or advice of your mental health provider.

But if it's a systematic, frequently occurring thing, we might not be the right fit. Maybe you need someone else that can help you with these issues, and that's [00:19:00] fine. Sometimes we're just not the right fit, but it would be chronic. I would hear things like the food was locked up. After dinner the kitchen would be locked up. There's no more food. The kitchen is closed. You can't have anything, which is problematic when I'm working with youth who are struggling with the beginnings of eating disorders or disordered eating behaviors. And sometimes the adopted youth would have to eat separately from the non-ad adopted kids, or they would get different food.

Their adoption status was often weaponized against them. So if they're upset about something and having an argument with their parents, they might hear things like, that's just your adoption trauma talking. I've had a number of clients whose adoptive parents would call them expletives, like an adopted piece of expletive.

And this is all verbal abuse. Adoptive families are just as likely to abuse their kids as anybody else's, and [00:20:00] children can also similarly be removed for if there's, severe enough abuse in the home. But they're less likely to be removed because of there are a lot of myths and internalized beliefs we have about adoptive parents.

Like they're wonderful people, they've saved this child, I'm sure they're doing a great job. It's probably no big deal. So when the youth is growing up in that environment, and those are the attitudes they encounter from the world around them, they start to believe, no one's gonna believe me, rightfully and in order for them to force your, in order for you to force your brain into a mold for you to survive something that is messed up abusive, but you've gotta get through it every day. You've gotta find a way to make it make sense. And so usually they will start telling themselves, I'm probably making a big deal out of it anyway.

No one believes me, so it must be me. I'm making a big deal about this. It's not that big of a deal. Maybe I don't [00:21:00] understand what's happening. Maybe they didn't mean it. And then systematically that gets rebutted because the parents continue to minimize, dismiss, things like that now, and I could go on and on about that, but if you grow up in that kind of a setting, and now you are, let's say you're, in college or on your own for the first time, and I see a shift that happens.

I've also had a number of young adult adoptees who were like at the beginning of their college years, or they just moved out and they've got a job. Things can really go crazy inside because it's the first time they haven't been around their family 24 hours a day and sometimes they don't know what to do with themselves.

And that's when I start hearing the questions of what's my purpose? I don't have a purpose. Who am I? And a lot of once you're out of the daily control of the narcissistic people, sometimes they will do things like blowing up your phone. I've had clients whose parents would wait to call them until they [00:22:00] knew they were in therapy and they would call over and over.

So we've had to do things like hide the phone so they can't hear it, put it in a box. Lots of work around boundary setting in that phase of life also, a lot of people, their parents are still paying for some things because they. This is their first time on their own. They can't cover all of their costs quite yet, and those purse strings can be fraught, really fraught.

So that's another red flag I look for. A lot of adoptees will reach out and in the first conversation when we start talking about like insurance or private pay, what are you gonna be comfortable with? I can hear their voice change when they start talking about the fact that say they're mom's gonna pay for it, or their adoptive parents are gonna pay for it because then they know when you've had a session, they know the practice name when they get billed for it.

I've had parents say to their kids, or I mean their adult children, [00:23:00] oh, what are you talking about with your therapist? I've noticed that things seem different between us. Maybe I can meet with her and just, give her my take on things. And I usually tell my clients that's, I'm not gonna be doing that.

That's not safe for you. And I'm specifically here to help create a safe environment where you can really be yourself. And that is not what happens, from what you've shared with me. That's just not what happens when you're with your parents, and I don't need other stories. That's not how therapy works.

I have unconditional positive regard for my client. You're my number one priority, not how everybody else in your family thinks you should be living. Now they have their opinions and you and I can work together on. How do you field their questions? How do you deal with it if your mom says, I want to come to your session and you don't want her there, do we need to role play setting those boundaries?

Yeah there's more about that. Another thing that I, that's a big red flag [00:24:00] is when adoptive parents call to try to make appointments for their adult children.

Haley Radke: No. Okay.

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: Yes. And I will tell you, it doesn't happen with any other issue, at least in my practice. They never do that with any other issue. People don't call me and say, my son is suicidal and I think that he should see you for depression. That never happens unless they're calling about an adoptee and they'll usually say, my son or my daughter, I really think they need to see you because of their adoption trauma. And it's funny, I look back on like when I first started this work and I wouldn't have known that was a red flag, but I would've known that the practice, the policy is to say, that I'd be happy to see them, but they need to call me directly.

I would do that with any issue, but all these years later, that's all I need to know almost. So it also tells me like what's coming. If the adoptee does contact me, that, okay, we're gonna need to talk [00:25:00] about the fact that this happened. And so usually I will tell the person, the best thing you can do for your son or your daughter is to get some support for yourself. And I don't do therapy with adoptive parents, but if you would like to make a consult appointment, which is, one to three sessions, it's usually around problem solving or giving you direction. We can do that. I'd be happy to meet with you about that.

But they'll have to contact me directly if they decide that they're ready to make an appointment. Now, of course, we're talking about people who are not in a guardianship situation or declared incompetent or anything like that. I'm talking about fully independent adults who can make their own decisions and phone calls and have to consent to these kinds of things.

But when I get adoptees whose parents are like that. They will tell me things like they've had a lot of diagnoses. They don't know what they all are, and no one's ever really explained them to them. Since they were a kid. Their parents had them in therapy [00:26:00] with all these different therapies, but the therapists were talking to the parents all the time.

The kid didn't have, when I was a kid, I didn't have input on which therapist I would see, and they would say these things to me, which weren't helpful or good. There's all, now I know there's all these things going on in the background that I know are coming when I meet with folks like this.

So I guess one point to make here would be a lot of people will say oh, that's just how I grew up. Or, oh, that's just how my parents are, and nine times out of 10, that's not what it is. What's happening is the person telling themselves that so they're, like I said earlier, you've gotta find a way in your brain to make it make sense so you can live through it.

That's one of the things you say to yourself is that's just how my family is. That's just how my parents are, when in reality it's abusive. And that's usually a big initial conversation [00:27:00] of you've told me all these things have happened in your family and all these ways that you were treated.

Have you ever thought of that as abusive? Have you ever put the a word to it? How does it feel to try that on? And that initially can be a really big shift for people like. People will say they were hit, they were spanked, like far past the point where it was appropriate, or they were forced to sleep outside sometimes or different things, and they knew it wasn't okay they knew it was wrong. They knew their parents weren't supposed to do that. But once you put the a word on it, it can really shift the dynamics. You were forced to live that way and there wasn't anyone advocating for you and you don't have to hold those feelings for them anymore. If you can't do that right now, or you are allowed to be angry about it, it doesn't mean you'll be angry forever, but you are [00:28:00] allowed to let yourself feel that because in families like that, frequently you're not really allowed to get angry.

If you get angry, that could be risky to you, whether emotionally, psychologically, physically, so anger is usually a high risk feeling. And so just learning to feel the anger is important because a lot of times you can't get to the healing, the true more healing phases until you allow yourself to just feel what you feel.

And separately from adoption and attachment trauma, that's for all therapy. We're here to try to help you feel all of your feelings, not just the ones that seem quote unquote productive. When somebody says to me that's not a productive feeling. There's a lot of stuff to dig out there. It happens more than you might think.

Okay, so is the point of feelings to be productive, what's the point of feelings? Are feelings voluntary? What happens if you feel that feeling? What if to be productive is just to feel it, because it's a part of being a human [00:29:00] and you're allowed to feel freely and think freely, which a side note working with those families or those youth and then later adults was how I got more into working with people who have left high control groups or, really high demand religious groups 'cause a lot of times the families that would contact me were. In those kinds of groups, or the adoptee grew up that way, they're not anymore. And so there's a multiple layered issue of trauma going on where you're subservient to your parents, you're subservient to God. God will punish you if you go against your parents.

We could go on and on about that, but anything that restricts your thought you're right to think freely. Your freedom to think whatever you want and feel what you feel is generally not a great thing. To put it super broadly.

Haley Radke: Well [00:30:00] said. Yes. So another thing that I've heard in our community, I'm gonna say it's anecdotal 'cause I haven't, seen the study, but it is that narcissistic people are drawn to adopt, and that's why we have this higher prevalence.

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Of adoptive parents. What Say you about that?

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: Okay, so in full disclosure, I'm not aware of any research that says that. So I'm basing this only on my own experience in the field and the many colleagues I keep in contact with who work around the same issues and people and i'll start by saying, there is research that shows us that believe it or not, that there is a higher prevalence of people in positions of leadership in like America's largest corporations who have, who are more narcissistic or maybe even psychopaths. So we already know that's a thing. [00:31:00] I did dig up the research once.

I don't have it handy in my brain at the moment, but it does exist. They did go look for it. So my belief is that adoption is very similar in that those, so those kinds of leadership positions appeal to certain personality types. So you have to be comfortable with certain things that a lot of people aren't comfortable with, like being the front, facing the face of something, a brand, a company, a team, what have you.

Being interviewed, people saying yes to you all the time. People telling you how smart you are and what a wonderful person you are. You're doing such a great job getting paid lots of money. Having to make huge decisions where you might not have to or really can't think about how it's gonna affect certain people in order to get the really macro level work done.

And so it appeals to folks like that. I think adoption is similar where, like I said earlier, it's not all adoptive parents who are very narcissistic, but those who are naturally attracted to it because of a [00:32:00] number of factors. There's the savioristic aspect. People are telling you what a wonderful person you are. You've rescued this child. People tell the adoptees like, oh, you're so lucky, and your parents did so good by you and they gave you everything. Gosh, you would've been so much worse off. If parents hear that's gonna appeal to them too. Being able to use others' experiences as a platform for your own experience.

I see a lot of folks like that blogging, doing YouTube series about that's their only really experience with the issue that they're speaking from, and there's nothing wrong with personal experience. I don't mean to imply that, but if you're gonna be speaking to such a large audience, I think we have a bigger responsibility to about what we're talking about.

So it, it appeals to people because they want their ego stroked. They are able to have, in terms of a power dynamic, there's a one up one down between them and the child. You should think highly [00:33:00] of me. You should basically worship me. You should be grateful. So I think it's very attractive to people like that, even when there are some folks that aren't like that in that position.

Haley Radke: I'm curious about this idea of having your child comply for the sake of appearances, and when you were listing off that list of they don't clean their room, they haven't cleaned their room for three months, their grades are low, like these are observable things from the outside. And so can you speak to that a little bit about, for an adult adoptee who might have had that sort of situation? What we might, if we're still telling ourselves it's me in adulthood?

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: Yeah.

Haley Radke: What might we be seeing behavior wise in ourselves that we could maybe attribute?

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: All of that is performative in [00:34:00] nature. And I'll also back up, something I forgot to say earlier was that in these family systems we often see where essentially the family needs the adoptee to be the person with the problem for the family to continue functioning around this issue.

So it's very similar to addiction in that there's a person with a problem and we rotate around it. But in, in that dynamic, the parents are getting attention. And something that would happen a lot with my youth clients is I would get parents who would I often say, I'll do anything for my kid except for the thing you want me to do. Except for the one thing you told me would be the most helpful. That's the thing I won't do. So whether that's a higher level of care, having shelf stable snacks available anywhere the kid might be so they can eat if they're hungry, not locking down the kitchen, speaking to the kid in a different way, or reading a book or what have you.

They will have these conversations where they say they're gonna do the [00:35:00] thing and then it wouldn't happen and the kid just keeps coming back and then we get attached and when the kid starts to get better. Sometimes they would pull them out because this isn't working. We need to try something else. We were expecting this to be different or be different faster.

And now there's another disrupted attachment for the youth. And really it's the system seeking equilibrium. And I'm gonna link that to the performance. But

Haley Radke: is this connected to Munchausen Sometimes.

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: It's all it's a Venn diagram, right? There's definitely people in that overlapping spot. I haven't worked with someone yet that I felt like that was what was going on, but I can see how it could be connected for folks who were doing that.

But every system seeks equilibrium, so I made that connection to addiction in an addictive family system, when one person changes everybody's roles get all wacky.

So that's why in treatment, they will often tell all [00:36:00] families. Now your loved one's in treatment and theoretically they're gonna get a lot better, but once they get better, not, it's not that everything's fixed, because now you might not know how to interact with this person anymore. You know how to deal with them when they were using.

When they're sober, they're a completely different person and your whole family's gotta reorganize itself to work with that. And it's not easy. It can be really hard. So just like with any family system. When the adoptee starts to get better, that would mean the parents have to start doing things differently.

So one of the things that I started doing to screen families was to say, before I will consider taking your child on, I need, I had a laundry list of things. Any recent discharge documentation and instructions for aftercare, if they've been in a higher level of care. Any records you might have your hands on from previous therapists, any diagnoses that they've been given, if they have an IEP, I need to see a [00:37:00] copy of it.

I need you to fill out a form that's your version of what's going on with your child, and I need your kid to fill out a form of what they feel is going on with them. I need to do a face-to-face consult and there's a booking fee because I had a lot of people who would book and then not show, I need all these things, and by the way, you have to be willing to do therapy for both, the parent or parents.

And I need to know, I have to have an ROI in place for that therapist. And I need to know you have a, an appointment scheduled so you don't have to get in to see them before you see me, but I need to know you've got something on the calendar. So they're gonna have to confirm that with me. And every once in a while.

People would go through the whole thing. If they would go through the whole thing. They lasted a decent amount of time. They were making decent efforts for their kids, but mostly they, or they would make it through all of that, do the face-to-face, and then say they don't need it anymore because they're reaching out during a [00:38:00] crisis.

And when the crisis moment has passed, everything's back to normal. We don't need any help. And that's the perfect time to do the deeper work when there's not a crisis. So I've digressed.

Haley Radke: I think my last thing before we wrap up is, as you were talking about that I was like, oh, this is the estrangement situation.

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: Yes. Yeah.

Haley Radke: We're working on ourselves, we're, figuring out how this impacted us and how to build our boundaries and all these things, and they can't hack that.

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: Yeah I've had a lot of clients who were estranged to some degree with their adopted family. I've seen a lot of articles circulating recently with professionals and family members talking about how estrangement happens too fast. They're doing it willy-nilly. Why won't they let me back into their life? And I just, I have to take that with a grain of salt. I am sure [00:39:00] there's people out there who maybe cut off contact earlier, or they could have gotten some more help and they might have been able to work something out, a communication system that works for them.

But as far as the people that I've worked with, the estrangement was a really long time coming. They've tried literally everything and it's the same thing over and over, and they just can't take it anymore. And who can blame them. Now some people don't have to estrange completely. Some people just need help working on their boundaries.

Like sometimes it can save a relationship to not see each other so much. So if your family is like insisting, you come over every weekend. We spend seven days with overnights together at Christmas. We, we always have these traditions and we need to talk every day on the phone. And you're just at your wit's end.

You don't have to do it that way. Now coming to that conclusion is a whole psychological project, but you're allowed to make changes to [00:40:00] protect yourself. And clients once said to me, it feels like punishment. It feels like I'm punishing my family, they did so much for me. And that kind of logic path in your head.

It's not punishment. It might feel that way because you're not used to being protected and taking care of yourself and advocating for yourself and having the space and the boundaries you need, but it's self-protection and self-defense. It's not punishment, and you are allowed to take steps to protect yourself if you're experiencing routine manipulation, abuse, what have you. Or maybe you just need to take a break. There's no rules. So it's not like you decide I'm gonna talk to them, or I'm never gonna talk to them again. And I think a lot of adoptees get caught up in that black and white thinking, pick a side, whose family are you in? It all goes together, but it doesn't have to be that way. It could just be that if your parents wanna talk to you every [00:41:00] week, maybe you are only available to talk to them once a month. If they want you to visit every weekend or every month, maybe you're just not available to do that this month, and you don't have to always explain all of the details.

So your time and your space is important, and you are allowed to manage this relationship for the sake of your own wellness and safety rather than for the sake of the relationship itself. So you are just as worthy of taking care of yourself as anybody else. Your needs are just as important.

Haley Radke: Thank you.

Any last things you wanna tell us about narcissism in the adoptive family before we do our wrap up.

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: Sure. I just, I think it's more common than people realize and you just don't have to play along for the rest of your [00:42:00] life. You are your own person, and it is a lot of work to recover from narcissistic abuse or emotional neglect.

It is a lot of work just like it is for someone who's leaving a relationship that was experiencing narcissistic abuse. The adoption adds more complicating factors, but you don't have to live like that forever. I like to think of myself as a realist. I don't ever wanna oversell what I can bring to the table, or, therapy's gonna solve everything.

You're gonna feel better, I promise. That's just not me. I can't promise you're gonna feel that much better. I think it's more realistic to say that you can feel better, you might not be a million bucks. I don't know. I don't know what the future holds. I don't think there's an end point for healing where now I'm done.

This is a lifelong experience, so it continues to come up at different points during our lives. I [00:43:00] think it's more realistic to say, these episodes or whatever you wanna call it, the times when you're really overwhelmed and it feels really strong can get fewer and further apart and less severe, and you can get better at taking care of yourself when you're struggling with these things.

You can have better boundaries with the folks that I don't know you're being subjected to, because for some people it's really important to stay connected even when it's difficult. So then the question becomes what can we do to try to manage this in a way that you can live with?

That maintains a connection you want and I mean my clients, I think there has usually been some kind of a way to do that. But if that's not for you and you've already tried all of that, and I do think continuing to go back to that at some point can be seen as a kind of self-harm. If you, if we keep putting ourselves in this situation where we know by now that we're gonna [00:44:00] be hurt and we're doing it for the benefit of the other person, then that's my view is that it can become a form of self-harm.

And so if that's what's happening, it's time to talk about how you can care for yourself better. Because sometimes no one else is gonna do it and you've gotta have a reason to go on other than your parents in this regard.

Haley Radke: Thank you. Okay. So I know you're booked and busy, but you do have a wait list.

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: I do.

Haley Radke: Where can folks find you and connect with you if they wanna learn more from you or have the possibility to work with you?

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: You can get me in a number of ways. You can go through the website, the clinic website, which is findselfcounseling.com. You can call or text the office number, which is also on the website. That's 9 7 2 8 9 5 8 3 7 6. Or you can email admin [00:45:00] or director@findselfcounseling.com. I would say right now the wait list is such that I probably could take new clients in another month and a half I think, but it always depends, if somebody kind of graduates or they decide they wanna work on a different issue and they're working with someone else, openings happen all the time.

I do also have an adoptee processing group, and it's a virtual group that's open to folks in I'm licensed in nine states, so it's a little bit all over the place and we usually meet on a Monday evening once or twice a month, except for the summertime. So if you're interested in that instead of doing therapy or as an adjunct, that's usually an option. I just have to meet with people in advance to make sure the group is the right place for them.

Haley Radke: Amazing. And you had a recommended resource that you wanted to share too?

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: I do. I recommend Adoption Mosaic, and they've been around for quite a while now. They have a whole lot of great resources [00:46:00] on their website.

They also have I wanna say their monthly virtual meetups or meetings and trainings where they have adoptees or allies talk about different issues. And I really think that they have a really well-rounded number of topics. And they also have I think a book list. And they do consults, especially for adoptive parents if you wanna get some support.

They do have someone that does consults specifically for that, and they also have a support group for adoptees who are in any kind of estrangement family situation, or even if you're just considering it. So that is another really good option that they have.

Haley Radke: Totally love what Astrid is doing over there at Adoption Mosaic, so co-sign for me.

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Thank you so much, Katy, for sharing with us today. I really appreciate it.

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: You're so welcome.

Haley Radke: I know it's gonna be helpful to a lot of people.

Katy Perkins, LCSW-S: Yeah, hopefully.

Haley Radke: I can't remember now how [00:47:00] many people have told me. I think one or both of my adoptive parents was a narcissist. And when that started coming out I was like, alright, are we just all falling into this trap of, labeling everyone and, but the deeper I investigated, the more I learned from Katy and several other adoptee therapists, I was like, huh, maybe there is something to this. And when I tell you I was locked in when Katy was telling me these things in our recording and I was scribbling notes for myself and I had several insights.

I was like, so I trust that this will have been helpful for you. I am so grateful for all the [00:48:00] experts that share their wisdom here, we have had so many healing series episodes over the past 10 years, and I know that other therapists will go and listen to Healing Series episodes to also help them in their own practice, and I feel like this one might be one of those.

It's just really cool to have this as a resource for people. I remember when I started the Healing Series. I really wanted more adoptees to be able to access therapy, but like I didn't have the money to give them, the resources to pay for therapy. And I was trying so hard to build up a list of therapists that you guys could access if you had the means and if you didn't I always wanted them to share helpful tips of some kind so you could [00:49:00] implement and, try and give you something that would be helpful if you didn't have supports going in your own life. And I hope that for folks who've listened for any length of time that hearing folks' stories, hearing from adoptee therapists who get it, that you just realize I'm not alone.

I have a community out there, and maybe there's someone that has a very aligned experience with my own that I can connect with to like process through these things. I don't know, I just think it's really cool the community that we've all been building through all these years of podcasting. So I'm so thrilled to get this out in my 10th year with Katy. I, like I said, when I was introducing her, I've learned from her for many years and she is one of those like [00:50:00] pillar scholars in our community and our clinicians, and. It's just an honor to be able to bring her to you here. She has done a couple of Ask and Adoptee Therapists with us on Patreon, which are so good. So if you're not over there, it's a good spot to be to listen to those episodes. Okay, friends, thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again soon.

324 Diana

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/324

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.

You are listening to Adoptees On the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. On today's episode, we are welcoming Diana to the show to share her story of being adopted from Russia at age two. Diana unpacks how early separation institutional care and adoption shaped her mental health and sense of identity.

This episode has mentions of childhood sexual assault, suicidal ideation, and disordered eating. Please take care when deciding to listen. Before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to sign up for my podcast newsletter, which you can find at adopteeson.com/newsletter. [00:01:00] We wrap up with some recommended resources, and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in. I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On Diana. Welcome, Diana.

Diana: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Haley Radke: Oh, my pleasure. I can't wait to hear your story, if you don't mind sharing with us.

Diana: Sure. To begin, I'm going to start reading from an exerpt from my adoptive mom. This is basically the announcement of me joining the family July, 1997. What do you know? Christmas in the summertime. You usually hear from us in December, but we just couldn't wait that long to share our news with you. Last year, we told you about the addition to our family, which had four legs, the kitten Princess. Now we have a two-legged [00:02:00] addition to our family. This is all real, by the way, at the beginning of June.

The adoptive parents traveled to Russia to adopt a 2-year-old little girl. Her name is my American name. She has blonde hair and blue eyes, so she's a definite contrast to adoptive sisters, dark hair and eyes. She's a typical 2-year-old in many ways and others. She's very advanced. We always wanted and expected to have a second child, but didn't seem to be able to.

One day the adoptive mom said, wouldn't it be nice if I gave birth to a three or 4-year-old? That way adoptive sister said she'd be closer in age. Then the adoptive dad said it doesn't usually work that way. And anyway, what if it's a boy? I hadn't thought about that possibility. So we investigated adopting a three to 4-year-old girl in the United States.

If you wanna child under the age of five, you may as well be asking for a newborn. One lady told us we'd have a six to eight year wait. [00:03:00] Another asked if we take a slightly handicapped child, then asked. Then when we asked for a definition, they said, needing glasses or missing a limb, it was hard for us to put needing glasses and missing a arm or leg in the same category.

Also, in America, the birth mothers retain more rights than foreign countries. We also did not wanna run the risk of a birth father coming out of the woodwork after a child has been settled into our family. So for all these reasons one year ago, we started inquiring about foreign adoption. For six months, she was made available for Russian families to adopt.

Then foreigners, within a few months from now, US Immigration will have determined that she's a US citizen. Now she's a legal alien, but she's still ours in its permanent, which is all we wanted.

Haley Radke: Oh my God. She really said the quiet part right out loud and just wrote it all down. Who did this letter get sent to?

Diana: All the friends and family. It's [00:04:00] funny, when I first read that, I was completely taken aback. I was barely out of the fog when I first read that letter, but the ick I got from it was just unimaginable. And my therapist, who at the time was an eating disorder therapist, she even read it and was this is way out of pocket here. Like we can try to like work through some of these things, but. All right.

Haley Radke: That is shocking. It's, it's not I have heard of some of these things, like people's photo albums being captioned or like baby announcement or something, but like the full detail, including the birth parent, fears and all that. Wow. That's a treasure you got there. Amazing.

Diana: Thank you. That was just a little part of it. I didn't read the whole thing. [00:05:00]

Haley Radke: Wow. Okay. So you were just two when you made your way to America.

Diana: Right? Yeah, so I was two and a half. But before all that, my paperwork. I'm gonna go by what my official paperwork says.

So I was taken from my apartment where my mom lived and put in a hospital because of the quote, social situation of the home, which I'm thinking is poverty. And then I was in the hospital for pneumonia. And it also said I was like permanently hungry, and then no one ever came back for me. So I was put in the orphanage after that, where I probably got fed and got better in that way, but I still had some consequences from rickets, from being [00:06:00] malnourished.

So they decided to come to Russia with another family. My adoptive parents are Christian, and I think that family was Mormon anyway, so it was I guess adoption tourism is like a term I've been hearing a lot lately, so they adopted me. The other family adopted a little boy and they took us sightseeing for a little bit and then just brought us back.

Haley Radke: Do you mean the adoption tourism thing like they came to Russia to the orphanage, but they weren't necessarily, they didn't necessarily know which child they were going to take home.

Diana: Oh, okay. Maybe I misunderstood the concept.

Haley Radke: Were they already know that you were it, they picked the girl and you looked cute in a picture and that was the. [00:07:00]

Diana: Okay. Maybe. Maybe that's what happened. I'm actually not 100% sure.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Diana: But I'm sure they had pictures or something like that.

Haley Radke: Yeah, I've just, I've heard orphanage stories where families go and then literally select the, the child that is most agreeable to them. Yeah, that's what I understood as like adoption tourism. So it, all of it's problematic. But anyway, carry on. So they did actually go to Russia anyway?

Diana: Yes, they did. Yep. It's just funny because they're the type of people that wouldn't step foot out of their state if they didn't have to. But okay, so after that my adoptive mom was probably on leave, for a couple weeks I was sent to babysitters.

Like I, I feel like I really didn't have a whole lot of time to adjust [00:08:00] because it was, I was pretty much jumping from like place to place a lot of the time. When I was five, I was also a victim of child on child sexual assault, which is like having that at such a young age, it really confused me inside about who I could talk to or who was safe, because she also told me, of course, like you can't tell anyone. It's a secret. So me being five, I was like, oh, I have this big secret. So that kinda winded its way into the under underbelly of my life. But I would say elementary school, I really felt the outta place aspect. Like looking around in my classroom, I just had this feeling like these kids belonged.

They are supposed to be here. They're actually doing the work in class. I'm just being like, pushed along. That's how it [00:09:00] felt anyway. I was terrified of my teachers. I was terrified of anyone bigger or older than me or any type of.

Haley Radke: Just like an authority figure.

Diana: Yeah. Authority figure. And when I hit nine, this thought just popped outta nowhere, but I was really starting to think huh, I should just kill myself.

That sounds like such a good idea. And I don't know where that even came from 'cause I didn't. Like I wasn't really exposed to that kind of thing growing up in a Christian household and pretty much being like, oh, everything is fine. Everything is great. Jesus loves you. So that thought just was in the back of my mind for a while, and then I didn't act on it at all. But when I was 12, I decided, oh, I haven't acted on that thought. I'm like, maybe that was just me being really [00:10:00] childish, like maybe that was just a really childish thing of me to think, because I don't know how that worked, but that's how my brain worked at that point. And then also, of course, growing up, you're gonna have friends that move away.

So those always felt extremely painful, like reliving, being separated and really not having a great way to contact them. I could call them or write them letters, but that was about the extent of it. So that was also like things I had to work through within myself. And when I hit middle school, my, my mental health was just like on a, like decline, like this whole time.

So when I hit middle school, I was really depressed. But that's also something people say oh, you're like a teenager, you'll. That's just how teenagers are. [00:11:00] So I had really good friends for a couple years, and then I started this really bad habit of pretty much destroying my relationships by either becoming jealous or just acting weird or mean just I knew they would abandon me, and it was like a self-fulfilling prophecy of they'll abandon me because of this reason and not because of me, just as how I really am. Like that kind of thing. So there were two other Russian adoptees that I knew of in high school. And they both were able to keep their name.

So whenever I told people that I was also adopted from Russia, they really didn't believe me because of my name, number one. And then they would say I didn't have an accent. And then thirdly, a lot of the [00:12:00] times they would say I looked like my adoptive mom, which also talking about that I did have really blonde hair growing up.

So she would dye her hair like this super light blonde to try to match me and. Also like due to my rickets and stuff like that, I have an extremely short stature. I'm five one and my teeth were really messed up, that kind of thing. So that's why I do believe that paperwork, but my adoptive mom was also super short.

So basically that's all that they saw us being like short and blonde, and that was it. But while the rest of the family, the adoptive family were, I would say very Italian, I know Italians can also look very different, but they had the brown eyes, brown hair, like long and [00:13:00] curly brown hair, so that kind of thing.

Haley Radke: Can I pause you there? It sounds like through childhood and middle school, like there, there was a lot of pain going on for you internally and at the time, did you know where that pain was coming from, or you were just existing in it. And.

Diana: I had an idea about it, but when I tell you I was so deep into the fog that I would have never admitted it on my life.

I would've just been like, oh, that's just my personality. That's just how I am right now. Yeah I probably wouldn't have even accepted it at that time either. If someone were to just be like, oh yeah, this is like, all true. If I was in high school or middle school and I stumbled upon adoptee Facebook [00:14:00] pages, I would've been like the adoptee that was like.

Okay. You guys are crazy. I don't know what's wrong with you, but I'm fine. Even though clear clearly.

Haley Radke: Fair enough. Most of us grew up that way. Like not to speak for all adoptees, but it's like you're told this is normal, this is what should be happening, get over it kind of thing.

The idea that you were trying to convince the other adoptees that no, you indeed too were adopted is also a little bit telling for me. It's something was prompting you.

Diana: I also remember asking a friend, my best friend at the time, if it was a big deal that I was adopted and I think I was asking for her point of view.

Because for me, I was like, this is my deepest darkest secret. This is what I tell people, like who are my [00:15:00] only best friends. Like especially in elementary school, that kind of thing. And she's no, not really. I'm like, oh, okay. I must be making a big deal out of this. Alright, I'm just gonna fast forward.

I went away to college and that. That really opened my eyes to how my mental health was never really addressed, which I know I probably should have spoken up, but really I didn't have the voice to. My anxiety was so bad. Also my depression, but my anxiety was so bad. I could go days without talking to people at college, and I just like moved from spot to spot, like I was like in a board game and I had no other like free will happening or anything. So that's when I dove headfirst into an eating disorder. And [00:16:00] it was the craziest, I think it was like six years of my life I spent, so I lost a good portion of my twenties to the eating disorder and basically what I found was, number one, a sense of community online, because there was a giant eating disorder community that I made some friends on. I was able to stuff down my anxiety with the food and then I would purge it and then, so that would also be like releasing my anxiety and just that whole process was like, I guess a self cure for like my anxiety because it would just numb me out so much, which I've also, I've said this before to a couple people, like I've never been addicted to drugs or alcohol, but the eating disorder [00:17:00] feels like something that would be really close for me to compare it because of all the crazy things.

Like I say, it made me do, but I don't know. I don't feel like I was in myself when I was on that.

Haley Radke: Of course.

Diana: Yeah. Oh, so much stuff, but, so when, I guess it was my sixth year or whatever, I finally drained my bank account that had, that I was using for all the food. It was actually my college tuition account.

So I decided then I would, try to end it, but that obviously didn't work. So I had to admit to everyone like, what happened and like I am not doing well and that there were so many years of just going in and out of treatment centers [00:18:00] and. I just really remember, I don't know what brought this up either.

When I was at a residential treatment facility for the eating disorder, they asked me if I had any like type of trauma in my life and for some reason I told them like, yeah, like being separated from like my mom and like my country and all this stuff is like super traumatizing. And they like cut me off.

We were on the phone, they just cut me off. They were like, oh, okay. Okay. So I guess that wasn't really what they were looking for 'cause I wasn't put on the trauma track for that. So I was like, that was another thing that was like, oh, maybe. I'm still just like making this stuff up in my head. Maybe it's not like actually a real problem.

Haley Radke: And so this would've been just like six or seven years ago?

Diana: Yeah. Yeah.

Haley Radke: [00:19:00] Because, the stats are that we're overrepresented in like residential treatment centers for addictions. I don't know what it is for eating disorders. I know we have a higher incidence, but it's disappointing that they didn't even acknowledge adoption was a trauma even just a few short years ago.

Diana: Yeah. Yeah, that, I don't know. That was just another point on their side of being like, we're the ones that. Write the narrative, for now. So we're gonna decide what's trauma, what's not, and what deserves treatment.

Haley Radke: 'Cause you had, and you're, you had it sounds like a starvation as a young child.

Diana: Right? Yeah. So also I'm glad you pointed that out. When I finally read my records, I talked to my adoptive mom about it and I was like do you think [00:20:00] this like eating disorder could also be from that, like being malnourished or starved or anything? And she's no, you don't. You wouldn't remember that you were a baby.

And I was like. Okay. I don't know what I don't know. I'm like, I like told her it's, I'm like, I eat and I feel like I'm never going to eat again. Is that normal? And she's I don't know what that's from. That's not anything.

Haley Radke: But this will, this is really making me upset because. Yeah, like I, I, 20 years ago went to some sessions about adopting internationally and they literally talked to us then about, or the state of orphanages and the things that children from orphanages may struggle with, and one of them is food, duh. Like this is so obvious. So to have your [00:21:00] trusted adults and experts in your life while you're an adult, tell you no in recent years.

Where we already know all this. This is really, it's frustrating. How do you feel like that too now looking back what are you talking about? None of you got this?

Diana: It's frustrating, but I feel so vindicated by my community, the adoptees and all the research coming out that. Like my whole passion right now is to spread the message of all of this, all the trauma, all the research to people like me who grew up in places like that where it's just in your head, you're a blank slate, like all of those really, not true things about adoption that I don't know if they're still being spread, to hopeful adopters, but it could, [00:22:00] yeah it kills adoptees. I'm just gonna say that so many adoptees end their lives because of, I can't say one thing or another, but probably because they were very alone feeling and no one probably took the time to listen to them and just saw 'em as who for who they are.

Haley Radke: And this, yes, and this higher incidence of eating disorders. And eating disorders are like it's not a good prognosis for, but I don't know, what is it? I don't One of the highest mortality rates of mental health issues.

Diana: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it might be the highest or it's one of the highest.

Haley Radke: Okay. Yes. Highest mortality rate of any mental illness. 10 to 15%. That's from AI when I just Googled it. So please fact check me if you're trying to cite [00:23:00] this. wow. Wow. Okay. Okay. I'm gonna be quiet now, but I just know that I am just like so frustrated for, seven years ago, Diana. These people should have known better.

Diana: Thank you. All right, it was winter, I guess I was still fully in my eating disorder. I had, I was on eating disorder Twitter now, so that's a great, oh, I'm just, I'm not gonna be sarcastic. No one really gets my sarcasm, but, so I had some friends on Twitter there. Okay. And I just happened to watch the movie Lion with Dev Patel because I was just going through his whole, whole list of movies because I love him as an actor and I was like, okay, I'm gonna watch Lion even though this is probably gonna be super triggering for me.

So I watched. I watched the whole thing. I was in awe [00:24:00] because I had never seen an adoptee just be written like that or look like that. And it wasn't even just him, it was also his brother who I was like, I can't remember his name right now, but I'm like, that's me. Like that guy looks exactly like me.

And like the adopters don't know what to do. And I'm just like, whoa. It's like I was like more than one person in this world had that experience. I'm like, there's no way. So I was like on a high from that and I started posting more stuff. I started looking up more adoption things, and I guess I asked people on Twitter, I'm like, do you guys know if there's like an adoption community anywhere and one girl was like, yeah, just Google it or just look it up. I'm sure there's one. And I did, and there was a big community on Twitter that I was [00:25:00] on for a little bit, and I still met like really great people there. And I actually met my therapist there too, so I still have her. She's great.

Haley Radke: Twitter's where I first found my adoptee community.

Diana: Yeah. So the first video that they guided me towards was the Paul Sunderland. Video. I think it was Adoption and Addiction, and that was the first research based video that I ever watched about adoption. And I just had tears streaming down because I was so in awe of someone saying all of this stuff out loud and being believed.

I just never in my life have felt that amazing being spoken about that way so that really inspired me to deep dive into the adoptee community. Also, at that time, I asked for all my paperwork to just look at everything, which was [00:26:00] always a battle. But, so the first round I got, I guess my paperwork from the orphanage and from what the hospital looked like during my time there and the story about how I was abandoned and that kind of thing. There are so many different things that I've heard. So on paper it says one thing, and then my adopters would always say another thing. They would say oh, she was 16, she was this, and this. Like you lived with a great aunt or something. And I'm reading these documents and there's nothing about any of that. So I'm like, I don't really believe you. So I, until I meet my mother or family and they can tell me the facts, I really don't believe the story part, I believe the medical [00:27:00] part just because I can see the ramifications of the rickets and stuff.

Haley Radke: I was just gonna ask, I guess I was just gonna say, I guess there's two possibilities. The staff at the orphanage could have told them, spun some story to them that they were repeating back to you, and that just was, I don't know what they did. Or of course they, they could have made it up to be more palatable to you somehow than the true story. I don't know. And then I guess you don't really know the circumstances of how you really became available for adoption. It sounds like there was the hospitalization and then he went to the orphanage, but were you taken away like a child protective services kind of situation, or [00:28:00] if your biological family just weren't able to care for you and they brought you there, or I guess you don't really know.

Diana: The way it was written, it sounded like someone from some sort of government agency was there and took me to the hospital. I think, but I'm just confused about some of the parts of them claiming they searched for my mother for six months, which I don't believe that at all. They said they went back to her apartment and she just disappeared. I'm like, I don't really know what to believe with any of that.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Diana: So in my personal life I was really gung ho for all of this. I would tell it was pretty much the first thing I would tell people now, just because I wanted to see their reaction because I had this awakening here and I wanted to see if [00:29:00] people in the real world also knew about this.

So I was greatly disappointed with most of the answers or responses I got. I got things like, oh, that was nice of them to adopt you. Or oh the typical oh, you're not actually Russian. Like that kind of thing.

Haley Radke: So when you say there was an awakening, meaning you, you connected the dots that, oh, adoption did have an impact on my life and this separation, and all those things.

And then people in real life were like, no, that's not a thing. So it's very frustrating. That's very frustrating place to be.

Diana: So I just tried to keep who I knew was safe, my friends, and like people adoptees online that I met close to me so I could still talk about these things with them.[00:30:00]

And then. I met my husband at college and that is a whole new chapter of my life. My wedding was I wanted a lot of it to have Russian, details and traditions, things like that. I wore a kokoshnik it's a headdress type thing. And I was styling it in my adoptive parents' house. And my adoptive mom is oh that's so pretty. Doesn't she look good? And then my adoptive dad just goes yeah. And then he goes back to writing whatever he was writing. And I'm just like, okay. I don't, I didn't know what he was doing at the time, but on my wedding day he gave me this 15 page letter about how I was chosen by God, God made it so they would be my [00:31:00] parents and then he was like explaining the fall of the USSR.

And why I needed to be adopted and there were just a lot of Bible quotes, but this basically gave me one of the biggest mental breakdowns I've ever had. Just I'm really glad my husband and a friend were there to keep me sane. That kind of sealed the deal of I think I'm just gonna be estranged from them. I think I'm just not gonna talk to them after this. So I really wanted my original documents. That was something I've been asking for a while at that point. And their answer was always like, no, you're gonna lose it. Or they would be like, why do you even want this stuff? And it's I was thinking because I'm, I don't plan on seeing you guys ever again.

I just want my stuff so we can be done. And they wanted me to have this elaborate answer like, oh, I'm looking [00:32:00] for my mom. I'm looking for X, Y, and Z. And that really wasn't the truth. At that time. So it took a while for me to get that stuff from them. My husband was mostly in contact and he said, we're gonna have to file a police report if I don't get this stuff. At this point.

Haley Radke: What was it like to have your adoptive father say essentially using God as the reason you were separated and had an orphanage experience and had malnutrition and those kind of things. Like you said, you had a mental breakdown. Can you say what that meant to you?

Diana: I'm not gonna say I was surprised by any of that, but just the fact that he took so much time to write it out and he thought these were great reasons, but [00:33:00] that was his always his go-to is whatever happens is because God wants it to happen that way. He like people like this, like you can't really have a discussion with them because they're single-minded about what they believe. They don't want to even think about how there might be other things going on. It's not because of God. It's just, I don't really know how to explain it either, but it just felt like a slap in the face and that he can't really do any deeper digging.

Haley Radke: Has this impacted your, you grew up in Christianity. Has this impacted, your desire to have any kind of faith life at all?

Diana: Yeah I really don't agree with, I guess the whole of religion or the Abrahamic religions. I'm really into [00:34:00] thinking about my ancestors or even praying to them and being like, please, if you're out there, let me know. I'll learn Russian sentences and be like, please, I'm still here. Please save me. I don't know.

But it's still the estrangement. All of this is a huge freedom. My husband is great. He doesn't pressure me with anything, with getting back with them, and he's not super religious either.

So just being out of the scrutiny, being out of the religion, because growing up, I guess I didn't explain this. I definitely didn't feel like I could be myself around them. I was this tiny person that was just yes, no, school was good and they would be mad at me for not wanting to say anything else other than that. But yeah.

Haley Radke: I'm assuming that [00:35:00] you made a name change. Is that right?

Diana: Yeah, that's correct. I decided to go with, go for it right after my wedding because my adoptive mom found some sort of letter that I had signed my Russian name and she emails my husband saying, how dare she her mom just got knocked up and just left her and blah, blah blah.

And , how dare she, all the normal adoptive mom stuff. So I guess that really lit a fire under me and I was still on the fence, but I was like, no, I'm gonna do it because. I'm not gonna let them dictate anything I do anymore. So I changed my first name and my middle name because Diana, D-I-A-N-A is not inherently Russian like when you look at it.

So I wanted at least to have a name that looked Russian. So that's a, that's [00:36:00] another funny story. They were like, oh, we changed your name. 'cause we didn't want it to be different like Svetlana. And, now that I know what my name is, it's not inherently Russian. But that was one of the biggest pains and also anxiety inducing because the hoops you have to jump through.

I live in Pennsylvania, the rules are different for each state, apparently. So I had to put in two different newspapers I was getting it changed. I had to go to all the counties I lived in the past five years, so that was right after college. So I had to go to four different counties. On a single day off from work that I took off.

Oh man. Just so much stuff and money. And also you don't have someone who can guide you with this stuff because the people at my courthouse, they didn't know what they're doing half the time. I guarantee you, every step I took in this process, [00:37:00] something was wrong and I had to redo it because of they just didn't do it right, file it right. They just didn't find that my name was on a mortgage, so I had to go back and see the judge again. That was fun. So after I got my name changed. You have to go through all the documents you want changed, like your social security card. I pull up there and they're like, oh, you're not a US citizen, question mark.

And I'm like, I have a social security card. How am I not a US citizen? So I had to come back the next day and bring like I, guess I should have brought everything anyway, but I had my citizenship document because thankfully I got all my originals. My final step, no, not my final step.

One of my final steps was getting my Freedom of Information Act, because I was trying to get my alien report from my adoption, [00:38:00] and I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not great with that kind of stuff. So the first time I filled it out, it was wrong, and that's when I heard of an adoptee lawyer slash rights activist who works with slash for adoptees pro bono.

He's amazing. Greg Luce, he helped me refile everything so I could get my FOIA, and I got all my, I got all my records. There was nothing in there that was super surprising. My records actually had more about my doctors than it did me, so that was. Whatever. But the final hurdle I guess I had to overcome was getting my citizenship paper updated with my new name. So thankfully, again, Greg helped me out with that. It was $505, which is an [00:39:00] exorbitant amount for a piece of paper, you're updating your name, but it had to be done because. I'm glad I got everything done. I think it was two years ago now, because now with the state of the US it's a mess.

They're reporting that people who are trying to get their Freedom of Information Act FOIA, they're coming back like 80% redacted. You're getting no information anymore, getting your citizenship certificate back in the mail. I think mine took six or seven months, so I had no citizenship paperwork, which was kind of stress inducing but now it's taking even longer. So it's just a mess. And I really feel for the adoptees who really don't have any guidance in any of this. And it's terrifying. And we really do need people like Greg and Adoptees United who can show us the [00:40:00] way, because it's kinda like uncharted territory. We don't have the government on our side adoption agencies. Like all we have is Greg.

Haley Radke: Yeah. And he, he's told me before too, that. There's a lot of immigration lawyers who should know this part of the law, but they don't. So he is definitely a unicorn.

Diana: Yeah, for sure.

Haley Radke: That's pretty amazing.

And then I know we're wrapping up, but you also have taken your passion for adoptees and advocacy and your leading an Adoptees Connect group.

Diana: Yeah, that's correct. Myself and Fai are meeting in Pittsburgh every month. I actually heard their episode on Adoptees Crossing Lines, and they said there's no really, not really any groups in Pittsburgh.

And so I just was able to reach [00:41:00] out and say, hey, if you're still interested, we could maybe start this up. And this month is our one year anniversary of meeting adoptees, and it's just amazing seeing all the different faces and all the different stories. I had no idea that there would be so many baby scoop adoptees coming and sharing their experiences because I don't, I feel like we don't hear from them a whole lot.

I don't know if that's true, but I definitely didn't hear a lot from them. But yeah, it's really meaningful work. If I could just help one adoptee see that they're not alone and that they matter, their voice matters. I just really want them to understand that we're here for them no matter what stage they're in, like in the fog, outta the fog, whatever they wanna be considered.

Haley Radke: How are you doing? Are you in recovery and you have a therapist and how's that going for [00:42:00] you?

Diana: Yeah, I have a great therapist. She is an adoptee. Lina, she's from Columbia, which for me, it was really important to find an intercountry, a adopted person, therapist, just so they could, we could talk about the different immigration and legal issues that we might have. So she's amazing. I've been recovered from my eating disorder. It'll be I think seven years this August. So that's really great for me. I'm on medication. That definitely helps. I should have been on it a long time ago, but here's the Wellbutrin and Lexapro.

Haley Radke: Congratulations Diana, that's a big deal. And that's a lot of hard work.

Diana: Thank you.

Haley Radke: Evidence of very hard, deep work that you've done. Okay, we'll make sure to link [00:43:00] to the Lion movie Paul Sunderland's video Fai's episode of Adoptee's Crossing Lines. And of course Greg and Adoptee Rights Law and Adoptees United, I have something to recommend that's a little bit unusual, so if you allow me a little nerd moment.

One of my favorite academic journals, Adoption and Culture. This is a very pretty, pretty cover put out this special issue. It's volume 13, issue 2 20 25. It just came out Winter 2025, which is basically when we're recording and it's a special issue. The Natal Mother in Adoption and this whole journal is focused on birth first mothers Valerie Jay [00:44:00] Andrews, who is a Canadian birth mother and the executive director of Origins Canada, was a guest editor.

And I have a piece in this with my friend Sullivan Summer. There's an interview it's called, Now is the Time an interview with adoptee and podcaster Haley Radke, where we talk about my new podcast project On Adoption. So I was pretty honored to be asked to participate in this, and the research and other articles in this are really amazing.

Alice Diver has a piece in here. Of course, Valerie Andrews has a couple, I should say Dr. Valerie Andrews. And it's well worth getting. This is a paywall journal, folks, so if you're not an academic nerd, it is spendy, but you can also try and get some, get it through your library [00:45:00] so hopefully folks can read it that way.

Do you wanna tell us anything more about Greg and his organizations, Diana? 'Cause I know you're recommending him today.

Diana: I just wanna drop the Citizenship Clinic he runs, he's doing this free again he's been helping a lot of adoptees and he could definitely use any support that he can get from

anyone who cares about adoptees.

Haley Radke: Yes, I know when we're recording this, I know there's an event coming up and there's a fundraiser going on, so we will link to that info and if there's a future clinics or any of those things coming up, we'll definitely have that available. Thank you so much, Diana, for sharing with us.

Where can we connect with you online?

Diana: Adoptees Connect, PGH, so that's the Pittsburgh region. You can find me [00:46:00] there. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook, and you should be able to find our email if you have any questions.

Haley Radke: Thank you so much for sharing with us. What a pleasure.

I just have a few episodes left up until we celebrate the 10 years of Adoptees On, and it's been so lovely too get to reflect on all these past episodes, and I've talked to adoptees of like many different ages, and especially when I talk to someone who's a little bit younger, I just feel like there's so many more resources and people talking about these things now then when I was that age, and I feel [00:47:00] so deeply grateful that people are going to be able to process all of this stuff sooner than I ever did. It's really great to see the community grow in this way. And it was so nice to hear about Adoptees Connect groups still going on. I know that the official banner of adoptees Connect has shuttered in the past I think maybe it's almost been two years now. But there's still Adoptees Connect groups going on and local support groups that folks can access, and I'm thankful for all the leaders who faithfully figure out where to have the meetings, what we're gonna talk about welcoming in new people.

And that is a great gift to get to meet in person if you're able to I would encourage you to do that. Connect with people in real life. It is so helpful. [00:48:00] Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again soon

323 Lisa Olivera, MFT

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/323

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.

You are listening to Adoptees On the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. I am so honored to welcome back Lisa Olivera to explore her new book When the Ache Remains. Lisa shares how becoming a mother has brought up new layers of both loss and connection, and we both open up about recent painful relationship ruptures.

Before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to sign up for my podcast newsletter, which you can find at adopteeson.com/newsletter. We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the [00:01:00] website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in. I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On Lisa Olivera.

Hi Lisa.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Hi Haley. I'm so glad to be back. I can barely believe it's been four years since the last time. I don't know how that's possible.

Haley Radke: I know I was looking back 'cause I was like, oh, I gotta give folks the episode number. It's episode 203 and I was like 203. I'm well over past a hundred episodes and I thought this was, I thought it was two years ago.

Truly, and no, it's been four years. Four years. You have a daughter that's a whole four years old. You shared your story on that episode. I'm gonna point people to go back and listen if they're unfamiliar with your story. But for folks who might be new to you, do you mind just sharing a little bit of your adoptee story before we talk about your new work and adoptee things together?

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yeah, I'd be happy to. And yeah, [00:02:00] I shared a lot more in the last episode I was on, but I'll share that I was a foundling. I was found just outside of Muir Woods when I was a few hours old and adopted a few days later, and I had been with that family ever since. There was not a lot of talk about adoption growing up.

There was not a lot of conversation or capacity to hold my depth of grief and loss and feelings of not belonging and because that wasn't mirrored to me anywhere. I of course internalized it all as something being wrong with me, which I know is very common for adoptees. I had bouts of very severe depression and suicidality.

I was in and out of hospitals as a teenager. I struggled with that into my early twenties really, and I found my biological [00:03:00] family through ancestry.com in 2015, when I was 27, that gave me contact with my biological sister, brother, my first mother, my biological father. I discovered half siblings who still don't know I exist.

I'm still a secret to my biological father's family, and he lives about 25 minutes away from me. So that continues to be a tender place of my story. I've also had some severance after reunion with some family members, and my experience as a, an adoptee continues to be deeply complex, beautiful, painful, and one of the parts of me that I feel I'm in an ongoing relationship with that continues to deepen and widen and get harder and easier in all of the ways. [00:04:00] I guess that's the quickest, most general overview.

Haley Radke: I remember when I was trying to pick my major and I chose psychology 'cause I was like, I just, I need to understand humans, which LOL I'm trying to understand myself.

What drew you to becoming a therapist?

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Goodness. So many things. One of which was that I didn't realize until later was this sense of wanting to feel useful as a way of feeling like I'm worthy. That took a lot of humble recognition to realize and to unwind from, but there was a sense of. Being of service and being helpful and supporting other people will make me a worthy person.

So there was that thread. Then there was also a thread of really deeply caring [00:05:00] about people feeling the felt sense of being held and seen in my own experiences, having a sense of un-aloneness and accompaniment in pain and from what I've experienced, what has felt like a pretty wide capacity to meet people in the depths of who they are in ways that I felt could make me of service in this particular profession.

I've always been so curious about people. I've always loved connecting with people on a deep layer. I've always held a real sense of importance around wanting to support people in feeling seen and understood and known. Partially because I know the fracture of not having that in all of the places in our life that some people do, and I think my experiences as an adoptee was also a big [00:06:00] part of wanting to go into this work.

When I first started this work, I worked a lot with adoptees and their families. I worked with youth in foster care. I worked in a group home for female foster youth. So I feel like my foundations in this work started from a place of really sitting with the deep pain of feeling a lack of belonging, feeling a lack of safety in what it means to be a family and really wanting to make something of my own pain. I think that was part of what led me to this work.

Haley Radke: Make something of my own pain. That's sounds a lot like what I've been doing. I identify with that so much.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yeah. Yeah.

Haley Radke: Oh yeah. And how many of us are like working to support others in some kind of way, just to feel like useful, and worthy. I think those are the words you used. [00:07:00] I totally identify with that.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yeah. Yeah.

Haley Radke: So you, in addition to being a therapist, you're also a writer. We talked about your first book already enough, the last time you visited us here. And in an interview you did I heard you talk about writing as a child and that the only place you felt you had, to be honest was in your journaling time. Can you share more about that?

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yeah. I've always been a writer. I've always had a journal or a diary or a place that holds what I didn't know how to contain in myself.

What I didn't know how to say to another person what I wasn't sure a relationship could actually hold because relationship felt so fragile and scary in some ways for me as a child. And even though I had a sense of stability in my [00:08:00] family, I also had this constant churning of questioning around whether or not that was ever gonna get ripped away from me.

And whether or not that was actually something rooted and solid, I don't know if my nervous system ever knew that. And so writing became this relationship that I felt was rooted and solid for me. It became this holding place, this like nest I could land in with all of my stuff that I wasn't sure anyone else knew how to be with.

And. It also became a place where I could explore and imagine and tell stories and name things that I weren't sure were okay to name out loud. And so this, it became this refuge and this mirror and this place where I could put the stuff that I didn't know how to put anywhere else, that at times felt like it was just gonna seep out and overflow out of me like a [00:09:00] volcano erupting and writing continues to be that for me and a long part of my life was spent keeping my writing private. But I remember being in high school and having a live journal and like sharing my feelings and thoughts on live journal and connecting with people through my writing there. I remember having a blog and sharing in my journalism class I wrote a paper about being adopted and it was in the school newspaper.

And so writing has always been this thread of trying to connect to myself, to the world, to my story, to what it means to be a person. And it just has leaked out of me in these different ways, but it's always been the first place that I feel like I can go to say what I need to say without editing it for anyone else's comfort.

Haley Radke: When you [00:10:00] released your first book into the world, a portion of it is memoir and you share about the adoptee experience and in some of those things that we talked about in our last episode, and it does talk about the complexity of being an adoptee and the grief of that and those kinds of things. Did you get responses from fellow adoptees in feeling seen by those words?

Lisa Olivera, MFT: I've had so many adoptees reach out and share about my writing in that book that was specifically about my experience as an adoptee. I've also had adoptees reach out and share that my writing reaches something in them, even if it's not naming adoption or the experience of being adopted explicitly, because I think a lot of the writing that I do and share is about [00:11:00] themes of trying to belong, trying to feel connected, trying to unwind from deeply held narratives and ideas and felt sense, experiences of who we are and what it means to be here. And I also write a lot about holding the pain and the grief of being human as something that might not ever necessarily go away. And that is certainly deeply rooted to my experience as an adoptee and to I think it was Pam Cordano who explained it as like this Nothing Place.

Like I feel really connected to that and feel that there is this place inside that may not ever get penetrated fully by life that is so deeply protected. And I'm not sure anything will ever actually get past all of those layers of [00:12:00] protection because it's so strong. And yet it feels like my life's work to meet that grief and that fear and to find beauty and connection and aliveness where it is and to practice not hiding in that place as often as I used to.

So I think that even when I'm not writing specifically about my experience of being an adoptee, a lot of the themes that I write and share about are really drawn from that experience. And so I think adoptees can see and sniff that out and feel resonance with it, even if it's not named explicitly. Yeah, that's the felt sense that I get when I connect with other adoptees who have read my writing.

Haley Radke: And what about the general population? To your adoptee [00:13:00] specific writings, did you have feedback around that? What was the tone or do you remember any instances about that?

Lisa Olivera, MFT: There was an experience, which I think is a lifelong experience of people wanting to take my story and take what I've shared and again, turn it into this like before and after story.

Even when I try really hard to not write it that way, I think people are just programmed to want to see it as this simple arc of transformation or this simple storyline where there's a beginning, a middle, and an end, and oh, reunion happened, so it's happily ever after, or you've found acceptance in some ways, so it must mean that there's no more pain.

Like I think people really want to simplify what is complicated and to reduce what is complex. [00:14:00] And I think being an adoptee is a deeply complicated, complex experience that most people do not know how to hold. And so we are often tasked as adoptees to hold other people's simplifications of our story and our experience instead of other people being willing to sit with the nuance, the difficulty, the not so simple before and after experiences that we have, and I find that sometimes I get so used to people not being willing to understand the complexity that I can just like not want to do that labor and just let them hold their perception of what it means to me to be adopted or what it means to me to have found some healing, but also not found some healing.

And I try to find this balance between [00:15:00] sharing my experience openly and also not objectifying myself and sharing more than I think people can actually mirror to me, because that can really amplify a sense of aloneness when I share something. And people are only willing to receive a part of that. And I think adoptees are often tasked with leaving our wholeness to make other people feel comfortable and so I, I really try to find this balance of sharing openly and honestly, and also knowing that sharing too openly might actually feel really painful for me because it will be yet another experience of not being met in the truth of how I hold myself and my experience as an adoptee.

I think that's why connecting with other adoptees is so deeply healing because you don't have to hold that tension with them. They can just it's just there [00:16:00] and you can drop this sense of protection and permissing other people's unwillingness to sit in discomfort and these ways that we can be inadvertently tasked with managing.

Our story so that we don't share more than other people can hold, and then inadvertently reiterate this narrative that our experience is too complex for people.

Haley Radke: I love that you use that word objectifying because that is so it, and especially for yourself, like I can see as a foundling story, the redemption arc, and look at you now, like it's so easy for folks to pick up on that and reduce you to this trope really.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yeah. And [00:17:00] also it can cause people to assume that my story ended at some point or that my experience as adoptee ended instead of recognizing that actually like my experience as adoptee is going to, it's going to be with me the whole entire through line of my life. Like we don't stop being adoptees that's not something that happens.

And people want that to be what happens because they want to not have to sit with the difficulty of it, because that would cause them to reckon with their own inability to really see the humanity of us, which includes things that our collective doesn't quite know how to hold yet.

Haley Radke: Totally. That it's you're, that's totally accurate I think I love how you said that even for folks who are in [00:18:00] a place where they can annul their adoption or make it like it wasn't even for folks who have the happy fairytale reunion and get completely integrated back into a family of origin. Like even for those case, like you're still adopted, you still got separated as an infant or in childhood. There was still a severance. There's a still an overcoming that we gotta work through. I, it's just. This is forever.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yeah.

Haley Radke: So can we pivot and talk a little bit about what motherhood has looked like for you as an adopted person? And we touched on this last time, and you were so new I thought why is this lady having to try and sell her book right now? She should be home with her baby and not having to work. Now you're a few [00:19:00] years out. Motherhood as an adoptee for me, it changed me so much. I know it changes humans anyway, but specifically as an adoptee, do you have thoughts on that now that your little girl is sorry she's getting older.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: I know she's basically an old lady as a 4-year-old compared to what feels like forever ago as a newborn.

But yeah, I'm feeling, I feel like I'm still really living into the answers to that question and I think becoming a mother really uprooted so much of my locked away grief around separation, around not being able to look into the face of someone who looked like me around [00:20:00] just what I imagined my infant self going through as she was handed from stranger to stranger, and not understanding why she wasn't with her mother.

Like I think the wave of intense somatic grief that has been brought to the forefront since becoming a mother continues to unfold for me. And it's so interesting because I feel like when I look at my daughter, it's like our relationship is this place that holds both the grief and the healing that is available.

It's like in this one relationship, I can feel this depth of grief around my own separation and my own loss, and then at the same time, I can feel this gift of closeness, connection and mirroring that I get to have with her [00:21:00] like in the same two bodies. We together are holding what feels like the myriad of experiences of what it looks like to form healthy connection as an adoptee.

And I feel that with her so deeply. And I also have felt in very tangible ways, like some of my own fears of being deeply seen and known, actually coming up with her. And there were points where I remember like being really afraid to look into her eyes because I could just, I even get emotional thinking about it because I could feel like how much love was there and that was really scary to me.

To feel like how much love was possible in that specific biological way and how the amount of love that was possible with her [00:22:00] again, like really amplified what I actually lost. And so it's this sort of dichotomy of I feel like through getting to be her mom, I'm becoming more of myself and connecting to a sense of lineage and rootedness in a way that I didn't even know I didn't have in some sense. And then I'm also having to face and reckon with the things that I didn't know how to feel until this became possible right in front of my eyes, in my arms. And there's such a tenderness and such a beauty in getting to have this sort of opportunity to really meet these relational dynamics with presence and attunement and care, and to let them infuse my own healing so that I can then support her in being who she is in the world without needing her to be someone for my own sense of [00:23:00] okayness, which is often what I felt like I had to be as a child for my parents.

And so there's this, what feels like just this circular spiral of healing and grief and healing and grief and healing and grief. That is interwoven in my experience of being her mom. And I'll also just name that she's the most incredible kid and I feel so deeply lucky to get to love her. And that loving her so much is the greatest gift. And also it mirrors like this wound. It's gonna need lifelong tending.

Haley Radke: I identify with so much of what you shared. I remember the first time that I felt scared of the closeness with my son and I thought, oh my gosh, I gotta go make an appointment with my therapist [00:24:00] because my nature is to push away. Because reject first before you can be rejected.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Classic. And of course you can't do that to your baby. So I hear that. I also hear I didn't feel seen growing up. I felt very alone. I really did. I felt very alone growing up and I was just reminiscent. Talking about this with a friend and feeling this idea of like where people are like, oh, I really want my mom never felt that in my life.

And so when my kids need me, I'm like, great. I'm so glad I can be there for you. And I don't relate to that. 'cause I, who I needed was me. And that's who showed up for me was me. And so as a mom to make sure that I'm paying attention to them and showing up for them in a way that I didn't have certainly, and I'm on the next [00:25:00] age level up, Lisa, where I see the launch and I have to work and study myself to be prepared to, with joy, send them off into adulthood. And again, that feeling of le Yeah, your big size. That feeling of leaving me, it's whew. So on the edge I told Lisa off air, but my oldest son just passed me in height. And so even though he is 13, the, it's, the university looks closer than it did when he was four.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Oh my goodness. Yeah. I really feel the tenderness of slowly trying to re-pattern what's happening with my own child from what happened to me, and slowly letting my nervous system actually try to see and hold it as separate and as different and as actually [00:26:00] happening in a safe container with the person it's supposed to be happening with.

And I have to remind myself of that often. When I feel myself getting triggered or activated by her needs, or by her not having needs, even though I can see she needs something or by her expression or whatever it may be, I have to remind myself so often, like I'm an adult, she's a child. It's 2026, I'm her mother. She has me. I have to literally remind myself the facts of my relationship with her. So that my nervous system can settle into what's actually happening rather than responding from this core wound that I have, because that can get activated so easily and there can be a lot of shame around that getting activated as a parent when I don't want my stuff to leak into how I'm showing up for her.

[00:27:00] But of course it's going to 'cause I'm not a robot and I can't just shut myself off and detach from how my own history and attachment and connection is going to impact her because it will. And so I've been trying to allow that to just be what it is so that I can be with it rather than hide from it, which is sometimes what I want to do.

Haley Radke: It's such a good reminder too. I see Lisa with her therapist hat on here that, no, like genuinely, sometimes all I need to say to myself is I'm an adult and that's enough to be like, just chill me out in the moment. I need to be their nervous system. They can borrow my calm energy, like to regulate, for whatever high need situation is at hand.

But truly just that little pause like I'm an adult. Like that for me is what really helps me.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: So helpful [00:28:00] and creates like just enough room to be able to see what's actually happening in the room.

Haley Radke: Okay. I have so many different things I wanna talk to you about. So you have a brand new book out called When the Ache Remains.

It's a beautiful cover of these like ferns, unfurling. And I'll tell people a little bit more about your book during recommended resources, but you have this beautiful way of holding the both and, looking for joy even when things are hard and holding grief and accepting it in, and not trying to push past it.

You just have a way about you even as a person. It's this just feels like you, this feels all very you. Can you talk to us specifically as adoptees about allowing grief to be okay and present with us? Because I [00:29:00] think it's a big piece of our healing journey is just to allow it to just come alongside.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yeah. I think cultivating a relationship with grief has been the biggest ally for my own sense of healing and like accessing a sense of wholeness, even with this fracture that I think I'll always have, and especially as adoptees, I feel like allowing and really feeling and being with our grief is so subversive.

In a culture that tells us being adopted doesn't matter, and in a culture that tells us that it's beautiful and that it shouldn't feel painful, and that like we got the family we needed, and all these ways that every message around us tells us that grief isn't appropriate to feel because there wasn't a loss.[00:30:00]

And I think being willing to meet the grief that we experience is an acknowledgement of the loss and the loss that stays with us. The loss that changes shape over time. The loss that gets amplified during certain seasons and that gets quiet during others, but there's this loss that we carry that doesn't necessarily go away, and that specifically is what I was writing from when I wrote the title, When The Ache Remains.

Was this place in me that I know is always going to be here. I think I wrote something in the book that says like the only way to get rid of the wound of being an adoptee is to not be adopted. And that's not possible. Like it would have to change, like my whole story would have to be different for that wound to go away completely.

To get rid of it would be to get rid of my wholeness, which includes that important part of my experience of being alive [00:31:00] and learning to meet the grief of that with my own presence has been a way of reminding myself in my body that like what you experienced was and is real. Whether or not anyone else knows how to mirror or hold that for you, like your experience is real.

It's happened. It's happening. And allowing yourself to meet that grief with openness and with a sense of seeing it as compassion can offer just this anchor in what can feel like this, like dark sea of trying to navigate how to be with our experiences as adoptees in a world that doesn't always know how to throw us those anchors and the grieving process as an ongoing relationship rather than something to complete has been a real sense of like medicine [00:32:00] for me and is let me make my experiences become real when often I was told that they weren't real.

Haley Radke: Can you speak to the power of acknowledging those things to ourselves, like just giving something awareness, like even like naming a feeling or, and how that can impact the rest of our life versus what can seem easier, which is shoving everything down and not thinking about it. And I'm not even talking about oh, let's look through the things. Just like it's there. Just it's right there. And just acknowledging.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yeah. And I wanna name that. I think shoving it down and not wanting to look at it makes a lot of sense sometimes.

And there are plenty of times where my adoptee stuff is in a corner in the [00:33:00] closet underneath a pile of clothes, in a place where nobody is gonna get to it, including me. Like sometimes that's where it is because sometimes it feels like too much if I were to take it out. And so I think that's actually like a really wise strategy at times.

And I think, and I can speak for myself, that I've had the experience of everyone else shoving my experience as adoptee into the corner and saying it doesn't matter. And not wanting to look at it and not wanting it to be real, because to look at it would force them to confront their own feelings around it, their own grief around it, their own anger or sadness. And since they can't do that, they instead want me to pretend like it doesn't exist. And

Haley Radke: Their complicity. Complicity in the system.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yes, exactly. And so in that way, I think even the act of acknowledging, it's like saying, no [00:34:00] thank you to the system that continues to do so much harm. Saying no thank you to the people who try to gaslight us out of our experiences being real and deserving of being felt and held and witnessed.

And in that way, I think acknowledging whatever we're feeling is a way of reclaiming our power. It's a way of rooting into our sense of agency, which as an adoptee feels really important because there were so many ways that our voice and choice was not part of what happened to us. And so in that way too, I think it's not only about acknowledging so that we can feel what we're feeling, but also acknowledging as a way of reclaiming that we actually get a say in how we hold our own experiences, which to me is so important in a world that often doesn't want to hear our voices. It's can I hear my [00:35:00] own voice? Can I want to hear my own experience? Can I want to name my own experience? As a way of reclaiming that actually, this is my experience. It doesn't get to be yours just because you want to narrate it differently. I feel a lot of fire around this actually, which I don't often let myself access, so it actually feels good to name that with you.

Haley Radke: I feel like I live around a burning fire where I'm setting things on fire. On purpose. On purpose only for good.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yeah.

Haley Radke: No, I appreciate you saying those things and also acknowledging that like it is safe sometimes to put those things away. Of course. I think that's really helpful.

And because I didn't mean it as a shaming way of for folks who shovel their stuff in their closet, never look at it because it's not always safe for us to do and I think we've, I've [00:36:00] talked about this in other episodes. I don't know how scientific this is, but I feel like when we have the capacity and when we are psychologically safe to do is the time when we see things in a different way and only when those things are true. And so our brain is doing a good job of protecting us and keeping us alive, and that's when we can come into further adoptee consciousness, in my opinion.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yeah.

Haley Radke: If you're comfortable about talking about this, you mentioned that there's been a rupture in your reunion, and I understand it's from different political stances, I'll say to shortcut. Are you comfortable talking about that?

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yeah I'll share what I'm comfortable sharing, which is that for a long time I thought that reunion was going to be this like solution or [00:37:00] answer to some of my grief and some of my sense of self and belonging as an adoptee. I thought that it was going to be this and it, I narrated it in a way as this like place where everything got fixed and healed.

And when I had a rupture from my sister who became deeply close to me through our experience of reunion. She was the first person I had ever connected with in my biological family. She was who I got matched with on ancestry.com. We were deeply close. We spent a lot of time together. We talked every day.

So it was a very close relationship and this rupture happened really suddenly and really quickly and without much say or sense of control in what was happening. And I have experienced it over the last two years as [00:38:00] a profound layer of grief that has gotten activated around even the people that we think see and know us, like sometimes they don't.

And sometimes when we think people are able to witness our full humanity, sometimes they can't. And there's such a deep pain in recognizing that sometimes we can put this sort of magical lens on when we talk about reunion, because that's what we want it to be. We want so deeply for it to be this experience of feeling fully seen and met and known for the first time.

And I know that I had this narrative, and so to have someone that I assumed really knew and saw me have this perception of me that felt so deeply off, really brought into question not only what it means to [00:39:00] be close to people, but also it's also caused me to explore like where do I still have walls up that I actually didn't know I had up.

And I think in this rupture with her that I won't go too deep into detail around I've been trying to explore my side and my experience of yeah, like what it has meant to be in connection with her and to have that go away when our connection had become this real anchor in my sense of security as an adoptee, and it has brought to light the need for me to really deepen into my sense of self outside of any relationship and my need to really hold the tenderness of what it means to let people in and what it means to practice trusting people even when we do it imperfectly and what it means [00:40:00] to be really open and honest about some of the hard parts of cultivating a deep relationship with someone and to also practice separating other people choosing to leave.

From this root story that I have of I'm not lovable and everyone's going to leave because that certainly got activated when this happened. This sense of I can't trust people. No one wants me around. I'm not good enough for people to stay. If I make any mistakes, someone's going to leave, which is a real story that I've had to work on for a long time.

This sense of I have to get it right all the time, or they're going to leave. And in my own therapy, that's something I've really been working through is like sometimes people leave, not because you're imperfect, but because they didn't know how to stay with what you were bringing. And sometimes it's not rooted to your sense of self and the story [00:41:00] that you carry about what it means to be attached or what it means for people to leave and.

Yeah, a lot of that has gotten tangled up and then unthreaded over the last two years and continues to be just a really tender place of acknowledging the messiness of reunion and then rupture and then severance and losing contact with people I thought I would have contact with my whole life, and really deeply trying to not let that further this old story of being alone in the world.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. I really, I identify with some of that having a friendship disillusion because of someone's assumptions about me and my character after having years and years of deep connection. [00:42:00] And so this feeling of feel like of being so unseen.

This might be a, a theme in my life, but so unseen and unknown and misunderstood after so what I thought was so much deep a connection was so profoundly confusing. And you and I know each other a little bit and I think for readers of your work, folks that are connected to human stuff on a regular basis, reading your thing for work and hearing your interviews and reading your books, and seeing how you show up on Instagram, like certainly that's public facing for people who hear me talk on Adoptees On or on Adoptees Off Script or wherever. All my different podcasts, Adoption Pop, like you get a sense of me and it's do all these strangers know me better than you? [00:43:00] What? I don't know.

It was it was world shifting to me to feel so misunderstood by a close person. I don't know like I like that you talked about coming back to trying to know yourself better and not relying on other people. That's not easy. That's not easy at all.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: No, it's it's like a real, real rooted pain. This sense of feeling misunderstood, especially when it's someone that you thought like really deeply knew you. And if you asked my husband, he would tell you. I have gone back and forth countless times over the last two years, like trying to understand, trying to figure it out, trying to understand how this happened.

Looking at it from every which way, looking at it from every perspective, like just trying to understand. And yeah, there is this reminder that sometimes you can't [00:44:00] understand because it just doesn't really make sense to you. And I have to trust that it makes sense to her for whatever reason that it doesn't make sense to me.

And holding that confusion and that shock in that like it has been life rattling and I feel a little timid talking about it publicly, and I think that's why I am like trying to share about it in a way that feels comfortable and rooted. But there has been a lot of uprooted confusion around the rupture and all of that has adapt, has touched on my adoptee stuff in a big way, in a really big way and has amplified this sense of what I think sometimes as an adoptee, there can be a felt sense of am I real? Do other people see me as real? Do other people see me as like a whole human? I think the fracture, I often refer to it as like this [00:45:00] fracture that I hold, that fracture can sometimes make me feel like I'm not even real in the world. And so when confusion happens, when something happens that disrupts what I thought I knew, it can make me go back to this place of am I missing something? Do I not have something people have? Am I like not fully? Like it's almost like it can sometimes feel like, have I like never come fully alive in my human form because some of these things can activate that sense of what I know about myself and what I know about relationship. And I feel like I'm going on a little bit of a tangent here, but there is this sense of, yeah, not always knowing how to be with the confusion and the feeling misunderstood.

Haley Radke: And when it comes from like a relationship where all you have is love and good intentions for the other person. And I feel like that's a piece of it too. [00:46:00] So it's I just want I love you and I want the best for both of us and together. And I'm from the other side of it, and so the like. I guess my birth mother will choose not to have contact with me, and so I have no power over that.

I have chosen to estrange for my adoptive parents, and so they have no power. So it's like there's always like one party that holds this power that, and so you're on the, it feels like powerless side of this particular situation. So I feel for you, Lisa, I really do.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Haley Radke: Your new book is just so lovely. It's like another like balm for the soul. Are you gonna read the audio book?

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yeah, i'm recording it next month. Yeah.

Haley Radke: Amazing. Okay. Okay, so we peeling behind the [00:47:00] curtain. We are recording this before your book is out into the world, but folks will be able to grab this and hear your words from your voice then. That sounds awesome. When they're hearing this. I love these, all these different parts. We talked before, like just, I mentioned the unfurling of these like fern leaves. Your words are so hopeful and gentle and the books really, it's helpful in this way of you talk about this, I don't know, I'll call it synthesizing healing as like a, it's a practice, it can be an action, but also this holding compassion for when we're just becoming aware and then having the bravery to look inward and I think you just do that in such a masterful way, just like you did with Already Enough and it's.

To prep for the interview. I had to read it fairly quickly. I tried my very best to [00:48:00] slow down. But it's another one of those books where you can go back and revisit. You have all these very practical exercises for folks to slow down and I just, I let, do you wanna tell us anything more about the book?

I just loved it. I love you, so of course I would. But the subtitle Lessons on Tending to the Unfixable and Finding Beauty Anyway, like how perfectly you is that?

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Thank you. I feel like I wrote this book for myself. I feel like I wrote it trying to imagine. People who needed it sitting next to me when I wrote it and imagining my hand, like reaching out to people who need a hand and offering them things that I have needed in my own experience of tending to my own wounds and my own aches and my own pains that continue to resurface and then get easier and then resurface and get easier.

I feel like this book is almost like a deepening [00:49:00] into Already Enough, like it feels like I wrote Already Enough. And then I like went deep into my own grief and was like, oh, there's a lot more here that I actually have to say about what it means to meet our humanity and what it means to allow our grief and to allow ourselves to accompany our own aches instead of push them away relentlessly.

And I really wanted this book to be something that was accessible and something people could flip to read a page or something people could read all the way through. I really just wanted it to feel like someone being accompanied as they meet the things that they hold in themselves. I feel like I could have dedicated it to adoptees because I think I wrote it a lot of it for my adoptee self, for the part of me that needs to hear that it's okay that some of these things are still really hard and that they might need my own care for a lifetime. [00:50:00] And yeah, it felt really relieving to write it and to let my, to let it be known that I'm not finished and we don't need to be finished with our stuff.

Haley Radke: Yes. That's so it, I know when I talk about we have the healing series and those things, like it feels and then, so then you should be healed. There should be this end point. And I love how you talk about it. It's just for a lifetime here are the things. Sometimes we're curling inward, sometimes we are doing more active things to, work through it's just such a beautiful visualization of what that can look like for through our lives as human. And you're, and I hope folks know about your newsletter too, because you write so much. There's so many things that you can take in of Lisa's perspective on the world and keeping us mindful and grounded and thoughtful.

I think I just, you have so many [00:51:00] lovely things for us to connect with, so thank you. What do you wanna recommend to us today?

Lisa Olivera, MFT: I think I picked The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller. Which is a book about grief, and it's a book that actually helped me a lot in understanding my own grief as an adoptee.

It's a book that frames grief, not just as something that happens in death, but as something that happens in a lot of stages of our life, and it talks a lot about grief as something that needs to be held with other people, which I think is something you do so beautifully with this podcast in a way, and with your community and yeah, his work around being with grief has been a real teacher for me. Yeah. So I'll recommend that.

Haley Radke: Thank you. We will link to that in the show notes and you mentioned Adoptees On in your book and I'm so grateful for that. Thank you.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Thank you.

Haley Radke: Where can folks connect with you and find your [00:52:00] work online?

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Yeah, my website is lisaolivera.com and that has links to my newsletter and to my Instagram, and those are the main places that I share, so that's a good hub for everything.

Haley Radke: Perfect. Thanks for letting us into your world for a little bit.

Lisa Olivera, MFT: Thank you. It's always such a gift to get to connect with you. Thank you.

Haley Radke: I feel the same.

Oh my goodness. Do you ever just find people that. I don't know Lisa that well, but every time I speak with her I'm just like, oh, I just love you. You're just like a kindred spirit to talk about Anne of Green Gables lingo. I just really learn a lot from her every time she speaks. If you're not following her on Instagram, it's just such a peaceful, I dunno if you can hear [00:53:00] Spencer snoring in the background, but she's so chill and relaxing and she just has this way of speaking so kindly, and I don't know about you, but my internal dialogue is often not kind. And so to have that voice like speak into my life in just like this really kind nourishing way is such a gift. And I think you'll find if you follow her on Instagram you read her books, you listen to her on other shows, you read her newsletter.

Like you will just get this influx of oh, it's just like these nice, warm, fuzzy feelings. And not in a superficial way either. Like in, I keep saying this word, nourishing like a, in a really nourishing way. And [00:54:00] strengthening yeah. Anyway, I'm a big fan of hers. Thank you so much for listening to adoptee voices and I also thank you to guests who are willing to come back and talk with me again.

What a gift to get to share these conversations with you. Thanks for listening, and we will talk again very soon.

322 Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/322

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AO E322 Monique Pangari

Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.

You are listening to Adoptees On the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. I'm so excited to introduce you to today's guest, Australian Adoptee and somatic psychotherapist, Monique Pangari. Monique shares about her experiences as a teen mom. What led her to search for her origins and how she discovered the man she believed was her father was actually not biologically related to her.

She also reflects on how her lived experience shapes her work, supporting adoptees, including the concept of personal sovereignty. Before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to [00:01:00] sign up for my podcast newsletter, which you can find at adopteeson.com/newsletter. We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com.

Let's listen in.

I am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Monique Pangari. Hello, Monique.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Hello, Haley. Such a gift. Such a pleasure to be here talking with you today.

Haley Radke: I am so excited to talk with you. It's a long time in the making. You've had some big life altering things happen. We've had rescheduling happen and we live on the opposite side of the world, but we're here now.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: That's right.

Haley Radke: And I spent the last couple days having your voice in my ears. From other shows that you've been on, and I was like, I'm so delighted to get to meet [00:02:00] you. So I'm excited for everyone to, to hear your story. Do you mind sharing that with us for a start?

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Okay, sure. As you just mentioned, on opposite sides of the world, so I live in Australia and I was adopted. I was born in 1972 here in Queensland and was adopted. Actually I was relinquished at birth and adopted six weeks later. So for those first six weeks I was in the hospital. And the rule at the time, is that babies that were to be adopted were to stay in the hospital for six weeks, whether there was a family available straight away or not for paperwork reasons.

So that's interesting information. It's good to know, you know what, what was happening at that time. And because. I guess we can trace so much back to those first weeks and what happened. That's such an important time. Yeah. So I was adopted into a [00:03:00] family with two older siblings. They were also adopted, so I had two brothers and I was the youngest and in fact I was adopted where in the same place that I live right now. So the hospital I was adopted in is literally a few kilometers away from where I currently live, but I was adopted into a family that moved about six hours north of here. Grew up in central Queensland in my family, and probably at about 18, oh, first off I had my first son at 17, which was probably the instigator.

I can't quite remember how much that was instigating things, but certainly by about 18, 19, 20. I started to get very curious and wanting to know where I came from and so I did reach out and gained some information. I think it was through Jigsaw back then, and [00:04:00] was able to get my original birth certificate, which had my birth mother's name on it.

And then through that process I was able to track down my birth mother. So I was 21 at that time. And I phoned her and she was living in Perth. So for people who don't know, Australia, Perth is on the other side of the country. It's a long way away. And we had a phone conversation that lasted over an hour. She was pleased to hear from me.

And then within about a week, I think she jumped on a plane and flew over to Queensland to meet me. And that was the beginning of the reunion and a whole lot of other things that played out from there. So

Haley Radke: I know your story has a lot of twists and turns.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: It does.

Haley Radke: Can we just pause on having your son at a young age?

How were you able to parent at [00:05:00] 17. A lot of us our story is, we're relinquished because of a teen pregnancy. That's my story. And I'm curious about that.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Interestingly, I did find out that my mother, my biological mother had me at 18 and I had my son at 17. Yeah, I was in a relationship with a man that was four years older than me. I was still at school. He was a police officer. So for my father, it's interesting 'cause I grew up was very strict parents. They were very strict and didn't really allow me to do much as the girl in the family. But I became interested in a guy when I was 16 and he was aboriginal. And he was my first kind of crush, I would say.

And when my father found out about that, obviously he was racist and I didn't know that. This is all [00:06:00] hindsight, going back and looking back and going, oh my God, I didn't know I was living in a family that was racist, but he behaved very horrendously and forbid me to see him again. So then, a month or so later, I, through a friend, I met this guy.

He was a police officer and he I wasn't overly interested in him, but my father gave full permission for me to go wherever I wanted with this guy. And so I did. And so we started hanging out a lot. I was rarely at home. It gave me the sense of freedom that I was wanting at such a young age, and then I eventually fell pregnant and that was a lot of shame for my adoptive parents and yeah I quit school. No, I had already left school actually before I found out I was pregnant and I got a job and I stayed in that job until my, until I was [00:07:00] probably about six, seven months. Yeah. And then I spent some time with the father, a couple of months before the birth.

I returned home to be at home and had my son. That was a traumatic experience in itself in some ways because of the way that I was treated by the hospital nurses who still had that leftover attitude of unmarried, an unmarried teenager having a child. So I've had to work through, yeah some of that.

So I was told a lot at that time. You've ruined your life. What have you done? And yet the decision for me as soon as I found out I was pregnant was I'm keeping this baby. So it just, it wasn't even a question for me. And of course at 17 you don't know what that means, but I was very determined, so I did and my parents became very supportive of helping me look after my son.

And so I was able to stay at home, but over time. It became [00:08:00] obsessive about my child and I felt I was, I felt like my mother was taking over the parenting role and I wanted to get out and to get away, and I knew even I hadn't finished year 12, I knew I needed to get an education so that I could leave.

And so I did a year at TAFE and I ended up getting an OP score of one, which is. Back then they had OP scores at the end of year 12, and this gave me an OP score of one, which was the top that you could get, which meant that I got straight into university to get into the course that I wanted to do, which was a joint degree in education and psychology.

And I picked that because it was 12 hours away from my parents. So I got into uni and off I went. I was 21 at that point. And I had already met my birth mother. My son was four, and I'd done that extra year at tafe. I was starting to get my head wrapped [00:09:00] around university studies and I decided I was gonna do it all by myself.

So off I went as a single mom and I started studying a joint degree by myself because I wanted him to be raised by me. It was, I still look back on that. I feel a bit teary thinking about that woman that made that choice, who was still a child really, in a lot of ways, it's probably the most deadly thing I've ever done in my life, really.

I feel really proud that I had the courage to say, this is my child and I will do this, and I was very grateful for the support that I had been given and I didn't see at the time the legacy of intergenerational trauma and the legacy of adoptive parents who had saviorism as their operational status quo.

And so when I had my son, they almost went into I [00:10:00] became less important to them and my son became very important to them. He was, they just revolved their life around him for many years, and it created a bit of a triangle where I had to really fight for him to see me as his mother.

And that dynamic plays out today. It just played out at Christmas time. Yeah, it's a really tricky triangulation that happened because I had him so young and I really needed their support and help, which I got and I was grateful for, but it came at a great cost. One of the best things about that is that I found out who I am under pressure and I did raise him and I raised him by myself and I got myself through uni and he had a great schooling and yeah, he's a school teacher now and living independently and doing well in his life.

Haley Radke: You did it. Good job, mama.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: I did it.

Haley Radke: You did it.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Thank you. Nobody's asked me that question before. Oh, that was a trip down memory lane.

Haley Radke: [00:11:00] It's one of those things where I have so much respect because I know like it's a crisis situation. And it was temporary.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Yes.

Haley Radke: And you did that.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: And it was temporary.

Haley Radke: Oh

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: yeah.

Haley Radke: Good for you.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Yeah. It took me 17 to 21 at 20, I guess I went back to school. So yeah, those first couple of years I just needed support and, 'cause I was so young to get things together, but then I did do it and that's it. It's a temporary situation that needs support.

Haley Radke: So another turn in the story is you also had a NPE experience finding out who you thought was your father was not your father, and that led you to have a, I'm gonna say a reunion, quote unquote, experience with a sister, and you had a lengthy relationship with them all to find out [00:12:00] actually we're not related. Can you talk about that?

Because I know you're not the only one that's had that experience and that, when I heard that part of your story, I was like, this is very upsetting. This is one of these. I don't know. I don't even know what to call it. I was gonna say traps in adoption when we don't have all the facts in front of us and this is something that can happen.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Yeah, just gonna take a deep breath. I can feel myself shaking a little bit. It doesn't matter how many times you go over these, this history, in your own head or share it with somebody else, it still brings up emotion, and I'm just noticing I'm sitting with that right now. So just wanting to name that.

Yeah. So I met my birth mother, as I said, at 21, and she, before she flew over to meet me, she didn't tell me she was doing this, but she reached out to who she said was my father. And at the [00:13:00] time he had just gone through a divorce. That he'd been in a long-term relationship and it was one year out of his divorce and he had two children.

So unbeknownst to me, he drove up from where I currently lived, Sunshine Coast to where I was living at the time. She flew over and was like, surprise, this is your father. And what was interesting to me is that when I was a teenager. We had, my brothers and I had found the paperwork hiding in mom's closet.

That was the paperwork from the government to say, we have a child available to be adopted. And my paperwork being a bit newer than my brother's paperwork had more details in it. And in my paperwork it said the mother has brown hair and brown eyes, and she works as a stenographer and the father has blonde hair, blue eyes, and works as a carpenter.[00:14:00]

So when I met this man that my mother said was my father in my early twenties, he did not have blonde hair and blue eyes, and he wasn't a carpenter. And so I met him and got to know him. I got to know his children and his daughter ended up moving close to me. And so we became very close and we would see each other regularly, and I did ask my mother at some point, why is this in the paperwork and this is not who he is. And she just really fobbed it off and didn't really answer that. So in getting to know my sister, she had a 21st birthday. I was then pregnant with my second son, so I was 29. So we had a long time of knowing each other and becoming really close, and she came out one day and said, look, I don't know if you know this, but your mum was dating another man at the time.

And my mom thinks that he [00:15:00] might be the father and or that it's worth, investigating. And I said, do you have a photo of him? And she showed me, and he was blonde hair and blue eyed, and he was a carpenter. And I went, oh, okay, there's more to this story. So I reached out to my birth mother and asked her some DNA evidence if she would, back then we didn't have all the DNA opportunities that we have now.

And it was gonna cost $2,000 to get a DNA test. So I asked her if she would go halves in that. Yeah. So I had a child, I was married, I had a mortgage, and I had a child on the way. It was not $2000 it was not something that we easily had. Anyway, that created a great deal of drama. She was not interested in doing that. It was very unhappy. Anyway, over a period of time, maybe about six months, she finally agreed to do that. And though I went to the doctors. I did the DNA test, waited several weeks. Finally it came back [00:16:00] and the lady at the doctor's surgery, the receptionist just read it out, just handed it to me.

She didn't make an appointment with the doctor. She just handed the results to me. I hopped in my car. I was driving home because doctor surgery was about five minutes from home. Opened it up while I was driving and read it. And freaked out. I got home, I can remember hitting probably the most depressive state.

I dunno if that's the most depressive state, knowing where my life has gone since then, but it was my first incredibly major depressive state. I felt wow, I've just spent 10 years thinking these people are my family. I had met not just my sister and my brother, but a grandmother who I thought was my grandmother and an aunt.

So I'd spent a lot of time getting to know these people and to find out that after 10 years, these people were not actually my family. It just created a huge feeling of who am I and who can I [00:17:00] trust? So it felt like a major betrayal, but I didn't have language for any of that back then. I just had no, no words for it.

And I do remember feeling suicidal and not that I made any attempts at that, but. I remember fantasizing about what I could do or would do, and of course, having a child on the way and having another child, I was never gonna act on that. But I do remember thinking about it and that led to me finding Jigsaw in Brisbane.

And I started going along to a meeting once a month. And I guess I started hearing other people's stories at that time and listening to other adoptees, starting to sharing their stories. I was hearing how they had support many of them, and I felt dreadfully alone. I felt like my husband was well ill-equipped to understand what the hell was going on with me.

My adoptive parents were not interested in any way, shape or form, and I was in my late twenties. I didn't have [00:18:00] friends that had any capacity to understand any of this, and I didn't have any capacity to word what was going on. I didn't have the language, but I know I went into a very dark place for a long time.

And then eventually I decided that I would look for my birth father 'cause I now had his name. And so I did what I did when I went looking for my birth mother, which is I went to the phone books and I looked for his name and I ended up finding my grandmother who was living in Sydney. And I found a couple of people I think, and then I got onto her and we had an hour long conversation over the phone where she filled me in on a lot more things that I, my birth mother had never told me that basically my father was around through the whole pregnancy. He financially supported her. He thought he was the father. She told him he was. That's why I was on, his details, were on my birth, identifying information.

And then when I contacted her at 21, she contacted this man who [00:19:00] she thought was father. And once they. Missed information in there. They got married 12 months after she reached out to him and they reached out to me. They married, and then they contacted him somewhere in there. Didn't tell me any of this.

Somewhere in those 10 years, they contacted him, met up with him, and told him, you are not the father. This other man is the father. So he had also had 10 years of thinking maybe he wasn't the father yet. He, his life was based on 21 years of thinking he was the father for this child he'd never met. So he opened me.

He agreed immediately to a DNA test, welcomed me with open arms and was probably the closest I'd ever felt to feeling a sense of just love and acceptance in my life. I'd never felt that before, and that was the first time I think I felt it and it was. It wasn't even big. He would just do things like introduce me to other [00:20:00] people as his daughter. And it was almost like the simplest thing, but to me it was the hugest thing in the world.

Haley Radke: I remember when my dad, my, for the first time, did that. It is, it's huge.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Yeah. And that got me into relationship with my two sisters. I had a sister living 15 minutes from where I lived that I didn't know about.

Because he also had two daughters and another sister that lived down in Northern New South Wales who I later became really close to and we shared a lot of time together.

Haley Radke: Do you maintain any connection to the first family that you thought was your family?

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: No. I, it's, it was very sad and I don't know if other adoptees who've been through this might relate. I have, I think I've read other people's experiences and thought, oh, that's what I did. But they kept trying to reach out to me, which was lovely of them, and I couldn't respond. I just look back now and think, [00:21:00] oh, that was so rude of me. And I kept feeling at the time I should respond. I should respond like they're good people, but I just couldn't.

So I was, now that I know about nervous systems and what happens, I was in collapse. I was in complete collapse. I couldn't bring myself to talk to them, to converse about any of it. I didn't have the words. I didn't have the language. I didn't know how to navigate any of it, and I had really no support. I really didn't have any support.

I don't know if Jigsaw had a counseling service back then, and I don't know why. If they did, why I didn't access it. I do remember trying to see a counselor at some point. It didn't last very long. It didn't. I didn't get into any kind of adoption stuff.

Haley Radke: Classic. Classic.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Are you able to like pinpoint I'm so glad you got connected into Jigsaw.

So this is a Australian organization that helps. Is it [00:22:00] all members of the constellation? Like I know they serve adoptees and first birth parents.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Oh, that's a good question. I know that they're funded specifically for forced adoption.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: That we have another organization here in Queensland called PASQ, which stands for Post-Adoption Support Queensland, and I worked with them for a period of time and they are funded for all areas of the triangle, but Jigsaw I know is specifically just funded for forced adoption.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: And definitely work with relinquishing parents, biological parents, and adoptees. Not, I don't dunno. That's a good question.

Haley Radke: Okay. Okay.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: It's one I need to find out.

Haley Radke: So you connected in with other adoptees at that time when you got connected into Jigsaw, and then when did you start like connecting all the dots for adoptee stuff.

And now, like [00:23:00] for the last several years, you've worked with adoptees as a psychotherapist and so a somatic psychotherapist. And so I know you, you come a long way from those days where you didn't even know anybody to. Can you talk about that path a little bit?

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Yeah. Let's just get a timeline. It really helps me to have a timeline.

I'm 54 now. I was in my early thirties when all that DNA stuff was happening, and my youngest son was born at 29. So trying to do the timeline here. So over the last 20 years, yeah, so my thirties then became I was parenting again. I did two master's degrees. At uni, we built a home, we built a life together my husband and I. And I was busy, like really busy. And so this adoption stuff was happening in the background of my life in a way. It wasn't something I talked about, it wasn't something anyone else really knew was going on. [00:24:00] What I did know I would do is if I went to parties or were with friends, I would drink too much and often end up crying, which would alert me.

It alerted me eventually to there's something. There's something here, which I knew all along. There's something here I really need to delve further, even after having all of the reunions and having the information out. I hadn't really been on any kind of healing journey at that point, but through my studies, I guess I started studying and training in, even though I'd done all my academic studies at uni, my master's degrees.

It wasn't really till I started doing my post grad training in expressive therapies, which was over five years, and it was a very deep dive into my own personal world using the modalities that we were learning. And I would say that was the beginning of me starting to wake up to the relationship with my adoptive family, starting to really see what [00:25:00] was happening.

I was also, working, I ended up leaving Education Queensland where I was working for a long time as a behavior management teacher. And went into work outside of the education department in agency work and started working in child protection, and it was when I was working in child protection, I started really looking at my own childhood and recognizing that I had lived through child sexual abuse.

I didn't have a name for it. I didn't know that's what it was until I started working in that field. So I did start to gather that. I had a lot to work on. Had a lot of personal stuff to sort through. And as I came out and shared this with the, with my adoptive family, because I was abused by a cousin in my adoptive family, specifically because I was adopted as he told me, that led to, a lot of family members being very upset.

People didn't believe me. And then my brother came out and said he was also abused by the same cousin. [00:26:00] He basically was drinking himself to death because it was so unacknowledged, unsupported through the family. So not only was adoption, it wasn't okay to go and find family members. It also wasn't okay to start to talk about what actually went on behind closed doors in our family.

And I also started to see that I grew up in a family where there was domestic violence, though. It was not uncommon for mom to turn up at the breakfast table with sunglasses on, for instance. So there was a lot for me to start to process, and I was becoming aware of these things in my thirties.

I would have periods where I would distance myself from my adoptive family, but I never felt that I could ever not have contact with my adoptive family. That felt like too terrifying, but I started to see how unhealthy it was. And then in my late thirties I decided [00:27:00] not decided, but I came out basically to my husband and that relationship ended and I moved away and moved down to Northern Rivers and yeah, started to live quite a different life.

So my forties were very much about finding myself coming out. Recovering from a divorce, which was devastating, like the levels of devastation at the end of that marriage was huge. I lost my best friend and at the same time I was starting to discover like an unlived life, like more of who I was. I was away from my adoptive family now. I was away from a life that I was really conditioned to lead and I was on my own two feet in a way, and I was single parenting my youngest son, my oldest son was old enough now that. He'd gone off to uni and so my forties was again starting to do more self work. I was very, my [00:28:00] forties, I spent a lot of time looking at attachment and adoption on attachment.

And I studied a lot around parent child attachment. I did years of study in that and then I, I did years of study in adult attachment and relationships. I became an adult relationship counselor and trained in emotion-focused therapy for couples and like I started creating my own training programs around attachment.

And yeah, it was a good solid decade of really starting to try to understand adoption. Attachment through an adoption lens. And what I found through all of those years is that nobody was talking about adoption, and I had to pull together the pieces. So I touched into healing portals over those 20 years different ways, mostly through my career.

A lot of understanding was developed, but I wouldn't say I really touched into a deeper healing. Until more recent years and probably what really kicked [00:29:00] that off was joining Flourish, which as you some of your listeners would know, we talked about probably on the show, was a year of coming together with 25 other adoptees online during COVID every week for two hours, and sharing writing prompts really.

It was probably hands down one of the most healing things I've done as an adopted person was finding adoptee community and having a whole year to unravel and to hear other people say, me too. Oh my God, that's my experience was so affirming and mind blowing really, and yeah, and that led to us maintaining a lot of good friendships that we still continue to have.

And has led to me then finding a voice around advocating for adopted people, because up until that point, I [00:30:00] still hadn't found a voice. I still found, every time I spoke about it, I will get into trouble. There's this sense, and even today, if I talk about adoption, I still feel like I'm gonna get into trouble for this, or I need to limit what I say.

It's gonna upset somebody. But I do it anyway because I don't believe in secrecy and wounds fester in the realm of secrecy. And I see other adoptee people, particularly in our Flourish group, that were like 20 years younger than me doing all this deep work. And I'm like, oh, I wish that was available to me 20 years ago.

I'd be further on in my journey, but I feel like I've come a long way just in the last five years, probably since Flourish. But yeah, it's a lifelong journey. And it's not over yet.

Haley Radke: No, not over yet. Can you tell me about the importance of sovereignty [00:31:00] to you? You've got it. Somatic sovereignty is your, one of your websites.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Right. Yes. I have a few websites and yeah, somatic sovereignty, the word came to me. I was playing around with words and it's almost like I've lived into, that word was just like, yes that's what I want. That, for my, for what I'm, for, what my work offers. But I feel like since I claimed that name for my website I've deepened more and more into what does this mean? What does it mean? And I just keep getting the layers just keep shedding for me around, around sovereignty and particularly, I think sovereignty for all women is incredibly important, but particularly for adopted people, because adoption itself is coveted in, or that's not the right word, but is shrouded is, it came out of a sense of saviorism and paternalism [00:32:00] and, saviorism being an act of often goodwill, wanting to support somebody but also get recognition for that. And I think many of us as adoptees could probably not have to look very far to see whether we had, whether we grew up in a family that wanted to save us, particularly in intercountry adoption, there's that can be shrouded in saviorism.

And then paternalism is slightly different, similar but slightly different. Paternalism is that sense of, again, wanting to support, but wanting to support somebody without them having a say. And so adoption is paternalism because as a baby you don't get a say, you don't get a say about whether your name is kept.

You have your whole identity is earased by giving you a new birth certificate. Yeah, the deeper I dive into paternalism and the way [00:33:00] that adoption is structured and created, it's about a whole heap of people saying, we know better and we are going to enact laws, for your benefit without you having a say.

And this has happened in indigenous communities across the world, and it certainly happens in adoption. I guess I've been deep diving into how does that play out then in somebody's life, if that's what you came into, how does that play out? And it certainly played out in my life in terms of the ways that my adoptive parents tried to take over, in a way, parenting my child 'cause they didn't see me as fit and thought they could do a better job in a lot of ways. But then, these outer complexes can turn into inner complexes. And so yeah, I continue today to look at how does paternalism impact me? What, where are the places where sometimes I look to [00:34:00] be, to have somebody guide me and as opposed to listening to my internal world.

And sovereignty to me is the opposite of paternalism. It is the capacity to turn inward. To listen deeply to the body, to your intuition, to your instincts, and to learn to trust them. And adoptees above so many others have been taught not to trust our instincts have been taught not to follow that deep, that inner voice.

And I guess I've always been someone that did do that, at 17 saying, I'm gonna have my child, I don't care what you say. 21 going, I'm moving as far away from this support as I possibly can so I can learn to stand on my own two feet. Those are the sovereign decisions that I don't know where they came from, but I'm so glad I had them.

But that doesn't mean that's continued throughout my life. Like I, I self-sabotage all the time. [00:35:00] Alcohol has been an issue in my life and for many years in my life. And what alcohol has done for me is it keeps me quiet. It keeps me not thinking. When I go through periods of not drinking, it's like I wake up and then I start to see what's really happening.

So there are ways, I know alcohol consumption is a big one for adoptees, but there are other ways that we keep ourselves quiet and silent and not listening to ourselves is one of them. So I guess personally, I'm on a big journey around sovereignty. I'm in my fifties now, so I'm also in my perimenopausal years, which is a time when a woman, my midlife years, it's a time when a woman really comes into her power.

And for the first few years, I think I just really fought this. I didn't want to change. I didn't want my body to change. I didn't wanna put on weight, I didn't wanna have brain fog. I didn't wanna have achy joints and exhaustion. And so I started listening to the medical model and I gave up my [00:36:00] sovereignty in many ways.

And then last year, because of the medical model, I ended up under the knife of the surgeon fighting for my life because a doctor had made a mistake and during a routine test and my lung collapsed. So I came out of that experience. That was the end of June last year, and I really started to go, okay.

It's time to start trusting yourself now. Start trusting your body and to start healing from within. So yeah, I'm living the path of sovereignty, going back in throughout my life and appreciating the places where it's showed up, acknowledging the places where I didn't listen to myself. And there's been many, and moving towards like really true, authentic sense of self.

Which I think is what one of the books that I found in my thirties was Journey of the Adopted Self [00:37:00] by Betty Jean Lifton, and it's old now, but I really love that book and it really started to shape that sense of what that book is on about is really a sense of self and how adoptees really struggled to know a sense of self.

Because of our lack of biological mirror mirroring. Because of our lack of lineage. Something I've, I haven't talked about today is in my, another reunion I had in my thirties was late thirties and again more recently was finding out about my Aboriginal heritage. And so there's a whole cultural lineage that I haven't had growing up that I'm still starting to find.

And because I, the people who, if my family generation that have the stories, many of them have died. So again, I have to come back to sovereignty. I have to come back to those places and trusting those things that happen that tell me my ancestors are close, that tell me that I have Aboriginal lineage because I feel it.

You [00:38:00] certainly feel it. I always have. It's always been with me. But as an adopted person, I question it over and over again because I didn't grow up with it. And it's very easy to hear the voices of people that say you're not black enough, or you didn't grow up with it, so therefore you're not.

And those are the places where I'm not being sovereign, where I'm listening to others' voices. They cloud things. And for adoptees, I think this is our struggle a lot of the time, is to get those other voices out of the way and to really listen and to really trust and really believe the experiences that we have, the truth that we know in our bones.

It doesn't need somebody else to validate it and to start to know it, speak it, and live it. I think, as I go further in my fifties I hope to embody more of who I truly, really am as a sovereign aboriginal woman.

Haley Radke: That's powerful stuff. And I know that you help guide [00:39:00] other people to finding that. And if folks are like vibing with you, they can check that out. I know you've got lots of stuff, lots of opportunities, even if we're far away to learn from you. So let's switch to do our recommended resources if that's okay.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Okay, sure.

Haley Radke: We're recording this just a little bit out from when it's airing, but hot off the press is this new article by Lynn Zubov.

I don't know if you've seen this. Lynn is a first mother and she's been conducting research on adoptees, first mothers and first fathers, and she's just published her results. In the Journal of Social Sciences, the article is called Long-Term Mental Health Effects of Mother [00:40:00] Child Separation Due to Adoption, and I'm gonna link to it. It's open source, so anyone can read this and read the data. And there's some caveats on her study, which let me just flip to the back here. There's some caveats based on how she found her sample and those kind of things. So I'll just flag that for folks. But it's very illuminating, especially about our risks, both adoptees and relinquishing parents, our suicide risks. And yeah. Have you seen this article, Monique?

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Yeah, I saw it last week. I think I, I came across it on Facebook and immediately we posted it for people to start to become aware of. But yeah, the statistics are very sobering.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah. So [00:41:00] this is important work and we have to support the people in our community that are doing these kinds of things for us. Like we've talked so many times on the show about who's doing the research on us and we need proof of these things. And so thank you Lynn for that. And of course I will link to the Flourish book that you, you mentioned gathering with the Flourish community for a year and there's a whole book about your experiences and the group that put that together was so kind to donate the proceeds to Adoptees On.

Amazingly and I'm sure we have a, I'm sure we have an episode about it too, that I'll

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Yes.

Haley Radke: I'll link for folks.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: I do you remember that.

Haley Radke: Yes.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Yes. What do you wanna recommend to us?

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Those are two fabulous resources. I have a list of things. Can I give three? [00:42:00]

Haley Radke: I guess. Only ' cause I like you so much.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Oh, that feeling's very mutual. Thank you. I would say the book, if you are looking for a book to get started, Adoption Unfiltered is, before we used to have The Primal Wound as the recommended book which is still great, but somewhat outdated a little bit now. And I think Adoption Unfiltered is the new version of the Primal Wound.

And it, and what I love about it so much is that it covers the stories of the triangle, so adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents. And it just, it's a great all rounder for everybody to read. So that would be a reading recommendation. I also have had great feedback around I have a, an ebook that I created that you can download off my website. It's free, it doesn't cost anything. And it was, I [00:43:00] created this during that time where I was trying to bring together the research on attachment and nervous system work together with adoption. Because I just felt like there's a big missing gap out there that nobody's talking about. And so I created this handbook and it's, you can download that for free off my website, healingadoptiontrauma.com.

And my third recommendation, and this is my big one, is I think the best resource we have is nature. I would say for adoptees spending time in nature for me has been one of the most healing things I can do. Just watching the seasons, interacting with trees, moss leaves, getting a sense that we are actually held by this mother earth and that, whilst I had two mothers, I didn't really receive [00:44:00] any of the nurturing mothering that I would've liked to have received.

When I really am in need in that of that, I'll go to nature and just lie on her. Feel her talk to her. Listen to her. Yeah. That's probably my biggest recommendation.

Haley Radke: We, we never talked about this, but I heard you share about sand trays in another episode.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Yes.

Haley Radke: And you have lots of photos of them on your Instagram account. Which we'll also link to in the show notes, but when you were talking in another interview about people putting their hands in the sand. And sometimes they might start to get weepy right away. I, it just, as you were describing it, I was like, oh, I would just love to put my [00:45:00] hands on some sand right now.

And for me I'm like, that's nature connected and anyway. If we had more time, we could talk more about

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Yes. That's a whole nother episode.

Haley Radke: You, yes. You got, you have to go to Monique's websites because she's an expert in all kinds of different modalities, and we've talked about so many different styles of therapy on this show over the years, and I love that you're a somatic psychotherapist. So these, all these embodied, healing activities. And I think that really helps us connect because we've had this severance from our mothers.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Yes.

Haley Radke: Which I think disconnects our like mind from our body and it's taken me years to build any sort of connection back and so

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Exactly.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Yes. Yeah. I would say the two [00:46:00] most profound modalities that I've studied, and I've studied a lot of different modalities, would be somatic experiencing trauma training. Is a three year trauma training and sand play therapy, which is, there is no three year training, it's just year after year after year after year training in sand play.

It's a depth modality and it's interesting. These two don't get talked about a whole lot in the world of adoption and I'm not overly sure why, but as you just said, healing, the disconnect between mind and body is probably the biggest wound that I feel like I'm still constantly learning to be with, like learning to be with my body, learning to be with the what's happening internally.

It just continues to keep unraveling how deep that can go and there's lots of ways to do that. We can do that through touch and in turn, introspection, turning [00:47:00] in and following and noticing what's happening inside. And we can do that through movement and all sorts of ways. So yeah, the mind body split is particularly for those in adoption wound, and the other one is sand play therapy, and the reason I've been drawn for over 20 years to sand play therapy is that it profoundly reaches into the preverbal trauma. And I don't know, another modality that reaches so deeply into preverbal trauma than sand play therapy. It's. primarily a nonverbal modality, so you don't need to find words.

And as I feel like I've said numerous times, as I look back over my journey in my twenties and my thirties, I didn't have words to say what was going on. And I only found that in my late forties when I came into relationship with other adoptees. And so I have been doing sand play over those years.

It profoundly gives you a picture of what's happening on the [00:48:00] inside. On the outside, it's like having a dream that we have at nighttime in 3D, but it's showing us what our internal world looks like, so it takes our mind out of the way. Access is our limbic system where trauma is held and images appear that are very unexpected, that we don't expect to come.

In the protected space of the sand tray and the sand play therapeutic relationship. And over a series of those images and trays being created, we see a pattern, and I've been through this myself. We see a pattern of healing start to emerge. And I would say for me, that's where my sovereignty really started to kick in. That's where the word sovereignty came. I'm continuously going back to those trays and looking at them and more wisdom just keeps coming through and I continue to do my own trays every week as much as I can to allow my unconscious to speak to me. [00:49:00] Yeah, so that's a little bit about those, but you can read more and find out more on my socials and my website.

Haley Radke: Listen, I almost ordered a bag sand after listening to that. To one of those conversations about that. Perfect. Okay. We will let folks do their own digging into hearing more about that from you and where can we do that?

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: As you said, I have a couple of websites and then they're all under slight reconstruction at all times, so just know if there's things missing on there that's because it's under reconstruction. So I have one called healingadoptiontrauma.com. I haven't touched that one for a little while. And then I have another one I created a couple years ago called Somatic Sovereignty. So it's somatic-sovereignty.com. And the one that I've been working on since about December after my operation and coming into recovery, I've taken a sabbatical, had a [00:50:00] year off or it'll be a year coming up in June.

And the last three months of that year has been diving into a new iteration, which is more focusing on sand play somatics. And so my new website is called moniquepangari.com, which is my name.

Haley Radke: Perfect.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Yeah. So you'll see different iterations of me across those three different websites, but that's moniquepangari.com is my latest one.

Haley Radke: Okay. We will link to all of those things and your Instagram in the show notes so folks can find you. Thank you so much, Monique. What a delight to get to talk to you today.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: Thank you so much. I can't tell you what a privilege it's to be on your show, on this podcast that literally saved my life. I would say it was this podcast. That slowly started entering into my consciousness. I couldn't listen to one every day. I couldn't listen to one every week, but I would always keep coming back throughout my thirties and [00:51:00] forties listening to this podcast. I dunno, how long have you been going? Maybe not my thirties, but certainly my forties. Yeah.

Haley Radke: It's 10 years.

Monique Pangari, MEd, SEP: 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yes.

Haley Radke: Thank you.

I might repeat myself a little bit, but I'm feeling big feelings during every interview so far this year, and a huge piece of that is looking at my calendar and thinking, oh my goodness, it is coming up on a full 10 years of this podcast, and when I'm recording this, it is the 10th anniversary of coming up with the idea for Adoptees On, and it was March, 2016, I started brainstorming, [00:52:00] what podcasts do I like? What don't I like? How do I make sure I make a really good show that I would wanna listen to? And really, I wanted to hear from fellow adoptees their real true, unvarnished, no sugar coating stories, and that's how it started out. And when I had the idea for the healing series and to talk to therapists who were also adoptees, I don't even know where that idea came from, but I just think, thank goodness that I thought of that, or someone prompted me to start in on that. I don't even know, but I have learned so much from [00:53:00] every therapist that has been on the show. And what's so cool about having Monique on is to think that there are so many adoptee therapists in this world all over the globe, and even if we're just looking at our own little bubble, wherever we are.

There are other people doing the same work We are in all the countries. What a, I don't know. I don't know if I'm getting my point across, but I just felt grateful to know that it's not just, I'm not a therapist, it's not just me out here, podcasting, there's so many adoptee podcasts you can listen to now.

It's not just Monique out there therapizing. There's so many adoptee therapists. We could always use more. We could always [00:54:00] use more, but there's so many more folks who are really knowledgeable in this space. If you think about just. How far we've come in the last 10 years. Oh. I'm so proud of us. Good job adoptee community.

And I know it just keeps expanding. It just will keep expanding. Our voices will continue to get louder and to be heard. Perhaps we will gain that sovereignty that Monique was talking about with us today. Yeah, I'm just feeling super grateful today. I don't know if you know this, but I don't think I've shown this, but in my office where Spencer's snoring right now, I don't know if you can hear him, but I have a whole wall in front of me.

Part of it's covered with audio foam 'cause audio nerd forever. And the top half is full of [00:55:00] cards and photos from listeners who've sent their, good thoughts and kind words to my PO Box and I maxed out last year. And so I started on the wall, oops. To the left of me by my glasses collection.

And anyway, I'm feeling the gratitude, I'm feeling the love. I stayed up late to record this. And so I have, I don't know, those late night feelings and whenever I'm really tired, I just look up and think, oh yeah, that's who I'm doing it for. So if you ever sent me a note, you know it's up on my wall here and I can see it.

I thank you for listening. I, am feeling so grateful. And if you're curious about my other project On Adoption that the wheels are [00:56:00] still going, I'm still working on that. And you can always look for information about that on the On Adoption Instagram, if you sign up for my newsletter adopteeson.com/newsletter.

We have updates coming out there and i'm so proud of all that work that's happening over there. Okay. That's enough rambling. That's enough. Late night rambling. It's probably not late night when you're listening to this. You're probably out doing something productive, like walking your dog or going for a run or doing your dishes.

Good job. You. Thank you so much for listening to adoptee voices. Truly. I feel so grateful that you're here. Let's talk again soon.

321 David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/321

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.

You are listening to Adoptees On the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today's guest is Dr. David McCarty-Caplan., a researcher, consultant, and a Colombian born adoptee. After becoming a father himself, David began searching for his biological family, leading to a reunion with his mother and siblings in Colombia, an experience that deepened both his personal journey and his professional research.

We talk about his scholarship. Including how families and communities can better support adoptees in developing a stronger sense of belonging. Before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to sign up for my podcast [00:01:00] newsletter, which you can find at adoptees on.com/newsletter. We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased. To welcome to Adoptees On Dr. David McCarty-Caplan.. Welcome David.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Hi. I am so excited and honored to be a part of this. Thank you so much, Haley.

Haley Radke: I've spent the last week or so listening to interviews you've done and reading your research, and I'm so honored to get to speak to you. I'm very excited too.

So feelings mutual and I would love it if you would start off by sharing a bit of your story with us please.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: I was born in Bogota Colombia, 1981, and I was adopted at three weeks old by a American white Jewish family that at the time was [00:02:00] living in Michigan. I was taken from FANA, which was the orphanage I came from that I know a lot of your guests have actually come from as well.

But yeah, taken from FANA raised in Michigan for a period of time in Ann Arbor and then in Maryland, outside of DC for my young teen years. And yeah, life has been wild with regard to adoption. It's been such an amazing process to figure out how all of this fits in to the stories of our lives. I knew from the moment I was adopted that I was adopted.

It was never a question. I'm like five foot, five and brownish, and my dad is six two and white. So it was visibly very present. But also they shared it with me from a very young age that I was adopted. And that was a big part of my upbringing because when I grew up, there were actually about five or six other families in Ann Arbor that all adopted kids within a few years from my same [00:03:00] orphanage.

And so I had this kind of unique childhood of being raised in a community with a lot of white adoptive families, with Colombian adopted people. And so my early holidays were often spent with these families, and my earliest friends were from this group. And that was a huge thing for me to see other Colombian adoptees.

But oddly looking back on it now as a grownup, we never talked about adoption. It was just the silent elephant in the room always. And that's something I think about a lot. So I had adoptee community, but never really spoke about it. And I think that was a big part of my childhood, getting this reflection from people around me that adoption is something that needs to be kept quiet in some way, and that kind of followed me through my early years, especially in Jewish community, being raised in that community and feeling at times like I wasn't welcomed or I didn't fully belong, even though I really wanted to be part of that [00:04:00] community. And then I was raised up in that space and really fell in love with aspects of Jewish community and culture with regard to social justice and community support and the traditions and histories of it.

And that all informed kind of me getting into work related to social issues. I was a social worker at the beginning of my career in clinical practice working with emotionally disturbed youth and incarcerated populations. And I think that connects to adoption too, because I know so many of us get into helping professions, which is something I get so excited to talk about.

But yeah, I was just super fascinated by culture, identity development, and how systems do or do not support people as they're facing the challenges of very complex human lives. And after that, I ended up going to pursue my master's degree in social work and then went on to the PhD and started doing research.

And all [00:05:00] along the way, I was working in extremely challenging social context, but never adoption specifically up until about five years ago. I have two wonderful kids, Milo and Max, and when they were born, Milo is 12 now. When they were born, that's when I think things for me drastically shifted. Like my whole life turned upside down the moment I held my first child 'cause it was that moment, you have that. I had never had a biological relative and here I was holding my child and it's like a switch went off in my head about what that felt like. And it awoke in me a deep longing and curiosity that I've been, it's like the thread I've been pulling on ever since.

So I, I really feel like my adoption stuff has been coming out these past 12 years 'cause before that, I just told everyone I was fine. I told everyone I didn't need to know where my family was or who they were. [00:06:00] And the more I think about it now I just feel deeply that for me personally, that was a defense mechanism.

I was trying to protect myself against the grief. Now I know that for me personally. Processing that grief is actually my path to healing, and it's actually what's good for me and for my family and my children, for my next generation, for my bio family that I met a few years ago. So now I'm just trying to put all my effort into aligning these things where I came from, the work I do, trying to analyze systems and institutions that should be supportive of adoptive people of color more generally, and where they're needing to kick their game up.

And in so doing, hopefully building communities that really feel like they can be their full, complex, authentic selves without rejection.

Haley Radke: Can I ask you about this idea that you didn't really wanna search, you [00:07:00] didn't really wanna know, and you called it a defense mechanism?

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Did you ever have like thoughts come to the surface during those years about search or wondering?

And just outwardly, you said to people, no, I'm not interested. Or were you just genuinely you thought I'm not interested. You never really had surface things and now looking back you're like, oh, maybe I did have something bubbling under.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Oh, it was definitely both. It depended on the point in life that I was at. The first thing that popped to mind when you mentioned that is a couple years ago, I was looking through some old papers that my, my adoptive mom had for me from like my childhood. And one of the things I found was this like old notebook of things that I wrote when I was in second grade. You know those like big lined papers where you like, we're learning how to write words out and there's like a blank space.

You can feel it, it's

Haley Radke: wait, can I tell you I have a notebook like this? Where a teacher noted, like Haley doesn't leave [00:08:00] enough space between words, and they, the tip is like to put a finger space in between and literally put your finger in between writing. And so then from that point on, I have these giant gaping spaces in my said, I can picture exactly what you're talking about.

I love that.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah. So I can feel it and smell it, but I found this paper and it blew my mind 'cause I was probably seven or eight at the time. And it's, it's just a few lines and at the top of the lines there's a blank space where I was supposed to draw what I was writing about.

And in the drawing you can see. Some grownup figure, putting a crying baby either into or out of a bassinet and another group of grownups crying, right? That's the drawing. I'm not a hundred percent sure who the people are, but then in the lines it says, I was adopted from Colombia. I do not know who my mother is. I don't know if she's alive anymore. And that makes me cry just thinking about it [00:09:00] now. I was eight and that was what I was writing about. And the thing that trips me out the most about it was at the bottom of the page, there's a happy face sticker and a pen written line from my teacher, very well intentioned teacher who I still love to this day.

And what she wrote was, aren't you so lucky for having the family you have now? Like that's the message I got. I have evidence of it, which really is a lot to process. So yes, I think I was consciously trying to figure it out and was acting in ways to please others around me or to present in a way where I didn't have to feel like my sadness or grief was too much.

And then I think it just got to be part of me through so many years that then it became subconscious and I just thought I was fine. But there are telltale signs. Like even before I wanted to find my family, [00:10:00] when I would talk about adoption, I would weep. It would just come outta me and it's, I feel like that's my body telling me to go there. It's unprocessed love, unprocessed grief, and so I've really been trying to embrace the tears too, because I feel like I wasn't listening to them all the time.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. And I wanted to ask you about this 'cause I've heard you talk around this idea on a couple of other podcasts.

And I think I'm one of those people who absolutely have stigmatized adoptees for saying they're in the fog or they're not outta the fog yet, or, that language. And now we have the new adoptee consciousness model language we can use as well. But I don't know, like I, I don't know. I'd love for to hear your thoughts on that language.

Like we don't wanna be prescriptive over anyone's story or process. [00:11:00] And I also see yeah, a lot of people don't wanna think about it for a long time, and hopefully they die happy. Lucky you.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Boy, wouldn't that be great?

Haley Radke: So I'd love to hear your thoughts around that.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Oh man. I just remember being earlier in my path and receiving what felt like judgment from another adoptee that I was really trying to open up to, and it hurt.

To be told essentially that I wasn't far enough along yet, and I've said this before, I don't think that person was wrong, cause clearly I'm much farther now than I was before, but it was something about the tone or the language that really stung because I was all nerves out sharing what I was thinking.

So for me, now, I have that experience in my mind all the time when I talk about adoption because I just think it's so important. [00:12:00] We as adoptees that are speaking about adoption, welcome anyone in who's coming from an adoptee experience with a true honoring of where they are in the moment. That could be somewhere totally different than we are.

And what I would rather do is focus on owning my experience and my story as my individual experience and state as clearly as possible. I hope my story or our conversation or my experience, I hope it gets you thinking. I hope it invites you to have conversation with me about where you're coming from. I hope in the vulnerable way, I hope to present myself that it encourages you also to feel safe to share wherever you're at.

And if you don't want to talk but you wanna listen, that's cool. If you want to tell me everything about your life, that's cool. If you want to find your family [00:13:00] someday, let's go there. If you feel like that's not something you need at all. Cool. I just want you to feel like adoptees have your back.

Haley Radke: Yeah. It's a, it's lonely enough. It's lonely enough being adopted, that to pile on. And I totally admit. I've certainly used language like that in the past, and I try to be more open and aware of that damage that does now.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: And I think also the language, that's a key thing too though, to acknowledge when you make a mistake or when the language is limited.

Because so much of the language in this world and other worlds I've worked in is fraught with terms that are inadequate or things that change over time. So again, I think it's okay to use the language we have. And if it's received in a way that is a hurt or an ouch situation, like that's where I hope we have the grace to process with like kindness, that restorative justice piece is something I really am excited about in [00:14:00] building adoptee spaces is like how do we deal with the things that we do that might harm one another or hurt one another? 'cause we really are trying to support and build our community.

Right?

Haley Radke: Oh, definitely. Definitely. And as someone who's doing it publicly from a mic, and I'm not necessarily interacting one-on-one with all the folks that hear me say those things, you wanna hear the evolution of Haley can start at episode one.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Episode one, yeah. You're in that rough place. It's really hard to have have people observe you as you go through this process, as an adoptee. I was thinking about that today. Just how many eyes and ears have been listening to how you have processed things over years. And I just, I don't know. It's just a lot to have on your shoulders and I imagine that there are moments where you wanna take something back or change the way was something was said, but I don't know. I just am. I'm very impressed by [00:15:00] the way you hold space for people.

Haley Radke: Thank you. You know what I think about, I'm glad people can see my evolution over the years, and I remember I had a guest on pretty early on who was a blogger and she talked about how when she first started blogging, she was that like stereotypical happy adoption story stuff on her blog. And that's kinda what she put out in the world. And she said, she was like, I never wanna take that down so people can see the evolution and I've appreciated that. And anyway,

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Oh my gosh. Yeah. That, that's so valuable. I actually did, my first podcast was with an organization I work with and I love called Jewtina and it was a couple years before I decided to look for my family. I was deep in adoption processing in my mind, but I hadn't gotten to the bio family stuff. And that entire podcast is heartfelt and true.

And [00:16:00] also I talk about not wanting to find my family and how that doesn't matter to me. And I look back on it now and I'm like, I'm so glad that exists. I want that to be out there because human development, human change is important to note, especially for communities that have a history of having their stories be so uncomplex. Like we don't get enough depth to our stories, and so it's good to have these touch points over time.

Haley Radke: So can we go to that? You have your first child and something opens up in you, and when did you become aware that you actually wanted to find family? If you could. If it was possible.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: I think it was maybe the third minute that my child was born.

Haley Radke: Really?

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: At least the first thoughts of it. That's when it came to my mind. And then I was scared. I was like essentially scared for the next eight years to actually do the thing, but it was really, it was holding Milo. It was holding my [00:17:00] child and the first thought was, oh my God, I'm a dad.

Oh God, I'm in so much trouble. This is such a big thing. And then it was like this feeling of deep love and I'm like, wow, this is what this feels like. And I'd been thinking, I knew what love felt like, but I didn't until that for me.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: And then the next thought was, something must have been really wrong for my mom to give me up.

Right.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: That was the second thought. And the third thought was not mad at her. And then it was like this, the follow up was like. I wish I could ask her. I wish I could ask her what that was like.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Are you able to articulate, I'm sorry I'm poking at painful things here. You just tell me if you're ready to move on. I'm sorry.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Oh, I'm good.

Haley Radke: Okay. Are you able to [00:18:00] articulate. What the fear was in searching, like what does it mean if you're gonna be open to searching?

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah, I know the answer to that because many years later, after my first child was born, I'm in Colombia, I decided to go there. It was my second time there, and on this trip I was deciding to bring my kids to connect to my homeland and to have another touchpoint for myself and my wife. To be there when somewhat unexpectedly. We ended up finding my family, which is bananas.

Haley Radke: That,

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: and so it was, I had no preparation.

Haley Radke: Okay. That's a real skipping over like unexpected.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah. Oh,

Haley Radke: There's much, how did you unexpectedly find your family?

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Okay, so the short version is. I was planning to go to Colombia with my family. I was thinking [00:19:00] maybe I will look for my bio family. And then I got scared and I decided, nope, nevermind. I'm just gonna have it be a family trip for us to connect to the country. And then two weeks before we went, a dear friend of mine at Adoption Mosaic put me in touch with a searcher, an investigator Elena from Healing Puentes who is also connected to Adoption Mosaic and she basically put the word out there into the internet inter sphere to she had some information from me and basically the week before I went to Colombia, she found somebody that may have been a relation to me. I thought it was a cousin. It turns out it was one of my sisters and the day I was flying to Colombia, like I was in the airport getting on the plane to go to Colombia at 1:00 AM from LAX with my family.

And I'm walking onto the plane and I get an email from another one of my sisters saying, who are you? What [00:20:00] is going on? I heard you're looking for us. What's the deal? And so I wrote a quick email back, sent some pictures of the family, just I don't know if you're the person I'm looking for. I think we may be related.

I didn't say I'm coming to Colombia right now 'cause I didn't wanna freak her out. But I sent the email and I'm like hoping. I get off the plane six hours, seven hours, whatever it is, later, and there's four or five emails from my sister saying with like pictures of the family, like I found out I had five siblings the minute I landed in Colombia.

I found out what my mom looked like with pictures when I landed in the country and then the next week of being in Colombia, which was supposed to be just like vacation, turned into me hearing my mother's voice for the first time on a WhatsApp message and doing a DNA test and sending people to do a DNA test for her, and then waiting to see if it's really her, and then getting the confirmation that it was her, and then the next day I saw her [00:21:00] in person.

Like it was so bananas, the emotional upheaval of these days. And to answer your initial question, the night before I was gonna meet my mother, I was terrified. Like I'd just gotten the paperwork that it was her. And I remember saying to my wife the fear is, what if she doesn't want me? What if she doesn't want to talk to me?

What if she didn't want me in the first place? What if she's upset that I'm here? What if I cause her more problems? What if it goes poorly? What if? What if it's scary for me? I was just scared that she wouldn't want the connection that I was hoping to find, and it was almost too much, but I did it and I was wrong. And it was wonderful and heartbreaking. [00:22:00] I'm really proud I did it.

Haley Radke: Thank you for naming those things. And I think of your responsibilities like you're on a family vacation and your kids are there, and you're still having to do real life while your world is shaking, and that's really difficult.

It's that reminder that search, reunion processing, adoption, failing. That all happens while real life is still going. Real life's still going. The people sitting behind you on the plane don't realize. You're like, oh my God, if you can email me back for six hours, like no one else knows. You're going through that. It's heavy.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah, that reunion trip was so much to process and there's an added angle which like most people don't know, which is at the end of the week of being there with my family, I was then on a week long trip with the organization I mentioned that I work with called Jewtina, [00:23:00] which is all about the intersections of Latin and Jewish community and culture.

And part of the crazy part of my story is. I got called up by my dear friend who runs that organization and she was like, hey, we're thinking of doing these international trips and the first place we might wanna go to is Colombia. Are you interested? And I was like, I was literally just thinking about going with my family.

So that sealed the deal that I was gonna go was this additional professional experience. So I'm there with the day I met my mother was actually the day after my family flew home and I joined this group of international Jewish Latinos traveling to Colombia, and that's like real life. I was there. I was actually, I'd led a three hour session on adoption in Colombia with the group.

The day I found out my mom was my mom. I'm sitting on a bus going through Bogota with these 12 [00:24:00] new friends when I like get the text message with the fact that my mom is my mom, like the DNA test. And then I had to teach this class for three hours, just weeping. And everyone there is wait, you're telling me this happened like now?

Like right now? And I'm like. Yeah. Yeah. This happened. This is happening as I am teaching, as yeah. Life. But I had just had my family there, my kids, my, wife were holding me down. The people I was with on this trip were so warm and so loving, and so supportive. They celebrated me.

When I got home from meeting my mom that night, they were literally cheering for me. And it just helps so much when you know you're in the right community spaces to be going through hard stuff.

Haley Radke: Wow. Thank you for including us in the Inner circle to talk about that. Like I am, feel [00:25:00] honored. I also, it made me like excited for you to be the person doing research on adoptees. And I was like, okay. He knows the right questions to ask adoptees. And you wrote this whole white paper, we'll link to it. We'll talk about and recommended resources a little more. About Jewish adoptees who are adoptees of color and their experiences.

And as I was going through it, something I noted that I was like, oh, this is really interesting. I wanna hear you talk more about this 'cause I think this is really critical information, especially for adoptive parents of children of color adoptees who had opportunities to connect to their race or culture, had a higher sense of belonging. Can you talk about that, David?

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah. Yeah. That was one of many, I think, super valuable findings of the study. There [00:26:00] was another piece that also connected with that, which I think is super valuable, which is that also Jewish adoptees of color that know other adoptees of color have a greater sense of belonging.

Haley Radke: Oh, good.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: And so there's this beautiful piece about that. There's something really special. Let me back up and start from like the negative, like the really, the, like the real bad part about my study is I found that 75% of Jewish adoptees have no strong sense of belonging in their Jewish community, even though the Jewish community to a disproportionate degree adopts kids into their community, particularly kids of color. 75% of us don't feel a sense of belonging in those communal spaces, which is just heartbreaking. And that resonates. That's, that was my experience. I felt at times welcomed, but generally just a great sense of unease in the community as an adopted person of color.

But the beautiful piece is then statistically. Being able to [00:27:00] show that the things that change, that likelihood of belonging, increasing belonging, or decreasing belonging. There's some really beautiful things in there. Number one is knowing other adoptees. If you knew more adoptees, particularly adoptees of color, your sense of belonging grows in those spaces.

And then the second piece is, do you have touch points for your cultural heritage? Is the communal space you're in acknowledging your cultural identity? Is it giving you a space to see yourself in those arenas? And that also increases the sense of belonging. And I just love those findings because they just tell me that we a need each other.

We need to see each other. We need to be in communication with each other. And we need to be building things with each other. And also we need to have communities that value where we came from and the things that we lost, the grief that we've had to absorb. And if there's [00:28:00] an acknowledgement of who we are and where we come from, inevitably in my mind, that's like our grief is being seen, our identities are being seen.

We don't have to hide it and pretend that we're fine. Pretend that. I don't miss my homeland, that I ache when I can't connect to Latinos in the way I want to. If there's some piece that's allowing me to reconnect and pull back those lines of lineage that you've talked about in the past it's so beautiful.

And these are structural things that, not just Jewish communities, all communal spaces, Christian, Jewish, whatever schools organizations, institutions. Like if you can be celebrated and seen in your authentic wholeness. Then you'll feel welcomed and belonging in that space. At least you'll be more likely to.

Haley Radke: Do you think of like little David knowing all these other adoptees from your same orphanage? And like you guys didn't talk about it. Do you think I [00:29:00] get it, do my kids enjoy when I make them watch something and say, tell me what you thought about this adoption theme in it 'cause I'm recording about it for a podcast.

They, no, they don't enjoy that. We have kids around the same age. Oh, there's no, they're not that excited. But so looking back now as a parent, are there things you think that could have been helped, like to facilitate those conversations and friendship where it's just oh man, we just weren't that interested. I dunno.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: I think it's a mixture like kids, I've got kids now and I know there are times when I want to dig in on big questions and they're like meh. Like they're like just not feeling it for whatever reason, and that's okay. I don't think it should be pressured. I think the challenge that I see though, which was my own experience, was when I asked my parents about this many years later, like both with that community that I was raised in for a short period of time, and also the fact that we traveled to many Latin American countries but [00:30:00] never went to Colombia.

It feels weird to me that they made those choices of just, it's like we were close, we were proximal, but not actually in the thing that I needed to address. And with no judgment of my parents 'cause they were doing the best they could. They say that they were waiting for me to tell them that I wanted to dig in on these things.

And that is, I think, a very common experience for a lot of adoptees, particularly my generation. Your generation. And I also think that it's a fundamental disservice to the adoptees to expect the weight of that proactive approach to addressing adoption challenges should come from the child because there's this tension between relationships and authentic expression, and I think a lot of adoptees, myself included, all of the fear I had of talking about adoption and the grief [00:31:00] that I was experiencing, the way the society around me talked about adoption was like, oh, aren't you so grateful? Aren't you so lucky to have been adopted? My parents thought I was a happy go-lucky kid, and in many ways I was, because I think I was afraid to talk about the depth of my experience for fear that it might put into jeopardy my relationship with my parents or anyone else I loved.

And so if you're waiting for a kid to tell you they need to go do these things, but for the child to talk about these things in their mind might mean a risk or loss of the people that they're most terrified of losing. Now that they've already lost a family, they're not gonna tell you all the time that they want to go do these things.

And if they do. Good on those kids. Those are some brave ass kids, right? But it just, I don't think it should be expected to have the weight of that be the child's responsibility. I think the parents should [00:32:00] have touchpoints regularly where they bring it up and they say, take it or leave it. This is what's on my mind.

This is important to me because I care for and love you unconditionally. I wanna make sure you know that I am okay talking about this thing. And if a kid picks it up, great. And if they don't, also great. It's the parents' work to stay in that lane. You know what I mean?

Haley Radke: Oh yeah. And I totally agree, and I think it's one of those things where we get this messaging from our teachers. Good job. Aren't you so lucky in writing on your little assignment. And we get this messaging from our TV movies, and we get it from our parents, our adoptive parents, who by not talking about it. We can get the sense of it's not safe to talk about this.

They don't wanna talk about it. And kids are very perceptive. They're very perceptive. [00:33:00] And that's, those are the messages I got. Yeah.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah. And I think it's even more complex when you add in interracial issues in adoptive families 'cause. There's just added layers to being a person with darker skin tone, and it's harder, the darker your skin is to find places and spaces that are gonna be willing to talk to you about what it's like to be in a society that doesn't acknowledge the hardships that come with racial identity.

And then to, in your own family, have no mirroring no, no models of what that experience looks like, but to know it. To know it your whole life, that there's some something there that is different that is deserving of attention because it's hitting your heart like you can feel it. And I think a lot of white adoptive parents really struggle talking about race and identity in ways that can hold space for the [00:34:00] death of grief and identity challenges that adoptees experience. But I know they can do it 'cause I work with them on it. Like they can do it. They just have to be bold enough to sit in the discomfort of it for a while.

Haley Radke: Can you tell me after all your many in-depth interviews with fellow adoptees who had maybe a similar experience to what you did? How did that change you?

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: It just got me so excited. It's just, I was just so excited. I was looking for these people my whole life. Like my particular study was on Jewish adoptees because that's where I come from. But I just see it as like a big picture thing. I think a lot of adoptee communities are also overlapping with religious communities. And but for me, it was like I used to introduce myself in Jewish spaces as the only Colombian adoptee, Colombian adopted Jew you will ever meet. I used to say that as like a joke when I introduced myself, but I [00:35:00] was scared that it was true. And then I do this study and I found I had over a hundred people participate in this study and I interviewed over 30 of them, and it just felt like each interview I did was like finding, just like finding family. It felt like I've found people who I've been looking for, who may have been looking for me, every one of my interviews said that they'd never been asked about what it's like to be adopted and Jewish. Every single one. And I show up and I get to ask these questions like, what an honor to be able to find these people. Let them know they're not the only one to ask them what it's like. And so for me it just, it's fuel. It just made me wanna do more. So I'm very excited about next steps and building and [00:36:00] reconnecting, and hopefully creating futures for adoptees so that they don't have to feel like they're the only ones ever again.

Haley Radke: I relate to that so much so much. I remember my first interviews where folks had never shared their story before and it was like, oh my God, I feel like I'm like treading on holy ground here. And that feeling of I'm not alone. Like it's such a relief because you just I spent so much of my life feeling crazy. And I don't mean that in an ableist way. Like I genuinely thought there was something wrong with me. Like totally could not connect. And I'll tell you, meeting other adoptees like changed my life. Truly. Yeah,

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah. And now I have these connections and others like just finding adoptee spaces has been everything for me in the past five or so years.

Just having people you can call on your birthday when your birthday [00:37:00] feels, like when you just don't know why you're feeling funky on this day or that day. And like I've got people, I've got people with me that I can reach out to where I don't have to explain myself. And I hope that they can reach out to me and feel like they don't have to explain themselves and we can just vibe and yeah just be in space, in peaceful space with one another. 'Cause I'm gonna need it the rest of my life, so I gotta keep working on building this. Like we, you also are building this and it's just amazing to see what exists now in comparison to when I was a child. And it's just exciting to see where we're going.

Haley Radke: Before we do recommended resources, I have a couple last questions for you. One of which is, did you say that you are working with adoptive parents and how do you do that? I cannot. I can't. Is there hope there if i'm tired. I'm so tired. [00:38:00]

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah. Let me ask a clarifying question. Do you mean like it's too hard to work with the adoptive parents 'cause they don't get it sometimes? Is that kind of the vibe?

Haley Radke: I get a lot of email. I get a lot of dms even though my inbox is closed. Somehow they just keep coming in and it's the majority is like adoptive parents trying to ask for free labor from me to answer their questions, and I'm like, oh yeah, you know what? I have 320 plus episodes you can listen to. Yeah. Do the

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: work.

Haley Radke: I have pointed you to hundreds of books and documentaries and other. Why are you still asking me these questions? So anyway, thank you for doing that, David. Thank you for answering our questions. And is there any hope there? Because not the one's emailing me.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Okay. So there's hope and then there's definitely [00:39:00] places where I'm like, I don't have the energy, nor do I want to be in this conversation. So it's it's honestly, it's finding people that are really willing to dig into the self exploration that is needed. To support their adopted children.

And that's not everyone. It also as like a consultant in these spaces. Yeah, this is labor. So you should pay me for this, and that's important because it honors my time and my expertise, and it shows that you're not expecting things like that, that, that taking aspect of what adoptive parents often can look like or present as is frustrating. So there for me, it's yes, I know stuff about this. I really do believe in your ability to support your kids better. Let's dig in. But often the first place to dig in is actually inward. And [00:40:00] if they're not, honestly, I work in a lot of like anti-racist, like racial equity spaces.

A lot of it is deconstructing white supremacist culture, examining racial biases, examining the like tropes or narratives that they had around adoption before they got into this. And that tells you real quick who's ready to ride with you and who's not really ready. And so there's some testing that goes on in the early conversations to get a sense of is this a place where I'm actually willing to put my time and energy and do they hear me?

And sometimes I get really excited when the answer to that question is yes, because I know my parents have come a long way and they're trying their best and they're working real hard and they make mistakes, but they keep showing up. They keep trying and it's something I love so much about them, and that's what I hope other families will have as well.

That sense that you're gonna mess up. But it's about showing up [00:41:00] again and trying again without ego, without with humility. But it's real hard. It's a lot easier to counsel and support adoptees. That's all beautiful.

Haley Radke: Bless you for doing that hard work on behalf of those of us. Who choose not to.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Hey. And that's understandable. You do. You Haley.

Haley Radke: I am, I am. Okay. Last question. I love this idea that you were talking about and you have expertise in this, like seeing the systems and just the structural part of how systems support currently the structure of adoption. And when you think about that, this is a really big question.

I know we don't have that much time. When you think about that, what are the things that you see upstream that really need to change in order to support family preservation, adoptee rights, whatever you wanna talk about, just in terms of [00:42:00] systems, just give us a broad. High level.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Okay. That's a huge question. It's also like one of my favorite things to talk about, like I come from social work, so it's all about like person and environment systems analysis, like deconstructing systems of oppression. So this is always on my mind, right? The thing that I am working on most these days is looking at existing systems for people that have already been adopted.

And whether or not those systems are creating spaces that allow them to feel fully seen, heard, and valued. So I'm talking about schools, I'm talking about workplaces. I'm talking about community organizations and religious spaces, religious institutions or communities. And so for me, in those places, there are really important conversations that need to be had about policy like what are the rules that govern these spaces, and do they allow people to be their full, [00:43:00] authentic selves? I think it's really important to understand the narratives that influence these spaces, like the kind of unwritten social policies, like the things around aren't you so lucky? Aren't you so grateful?

Like hearing that all the time in school was really weird for me. And in Jewish spaces, like the idea that adoption is a mitzvah or a good deed, or in Christian spaces, that it's a benevolent act like you're doing God's will. Or in other religious spaces where the idea might be like, oh, you were chosen.

You were chosen by God to be taken into this new family. And these are systems of oppression in my mind for an adoptive person because all of those expectations, all the policies that don't allow us to dig in on identity or race, all the narratives that structure adoption, understanding around benevolence or gratitude or god's will silence us from being able to [00:44:00] express the hurt and the grief and the questions that we have being disconnected from our lands of origin, our ancestors, our racial community, our cultural community. So for me, it's like I love analyzing institutions and systems on policy levels, on education levels, on cultural levels, so that we can pull apart all these threads.

So that adoptee voices can feel like they can be safe enough to be shared. And then hopefully that's the first step, as we said, feeling like you can connect to your community, finding other people feeling like you're heard. That leads to greater sense of belonging.

Haley Radke: I love that. Good answer. I am assuming that folks who've heard our discussion do want to hear more of your research because you're just a really fascinating person and I can tell you're just so thoughtful.

And you have access to, people have [00:45:00] open source access to Shades of Belonging, which is your research. And I also watched you give a presentation on it along with a couple of subjects.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Oh, you did oh, that's so great.

Haley Radke: I did.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: That's so great. Thank you.

Haley Radke: We'll, yeah, we'll link to that in the show notes as well for folks because you know there's something through having the researcher walk you through their results and hear from some of the participants. I thought that was really special. So we'll make sure that's available for people. But thank you so much for doing that work. Like good for you. I'm just cheering you on.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Thank you. I think it's super, like that's something I also focus on a lot is I come from academia, but I don't want any research that I do to be disconnected from community or applied practical value.

So I don't want to, I do publish peer reviewed studies of course, yet that's, of course, that's what we're supposed to do. But like more than anything, the thing I loved about that video is it's [00:46:00] conversation about the findings and two of the people that participated in the study were part of the presentation. It's so accessible. It's so real and that's how I hope my research is in the future. I want it to be accessible. I want it to have practical value, and I don't want it to be overly complex or ivory towery, you know?

Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah. I think you hit the mark. So I hope we see more from you. David, what do you wanna recommend to us?

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: There's so many things. There's so much good stuff happening. Okay. So I am a huge fan of Gabor Mate. I am actually just now rereading his book, The Myth of Normal, which I think is just an outstanding piece of work for a variety of reasons, and I look at that work through the lens of adoption and it's amazing.

It talks so much about relationship versus authenticity. It talks a lot about the connections between childhood trauma and [00:47:00] mental health challenges and physical ailments for those that have struggled with big T or little T. Trauma over time. Talks a lot about parenting and parenthood. I just love that book because I feel like it's deeply felt and helps me so much understand where I come from in a way. So I love that piece. Other resources, your podcast is like, as I said, it changed my life. I think often about episodes that really mean something to me, and I often recommend that there's two episodes that I got a double shout out.

I hope it's not like overdoing it 'cause I'm on the podcast, but like the one about the seven attachment challenges that adoptees face. That was a life changer for me.

Haley Radke: Pam Cordano.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Honestly. Yes. And I'm a just a, I'm a huge fan of Pam Cordano. And then the other one, which I heard more recently was the one about The Nothing Place also with Pam Cordano. And the whole thing about how attachment theory is a theory that does not account for adoptee experience blew my mind. And that's a systems [00:48:00] level issue. If we have therapy that we're all supposed to go to, but the tools that therapy is using to address our needs is actually miscalibrated.

Then we're working with a systems deficit. So yes, those are two huge things. Adoption Mosaic. Another organization I work with is a huge resource. I absolutely adore that organization. I consult for them and I've been like a community member with them for a long time. Astrid Castro is also brilliant. And another adoptee from Colombia. Yeah, there's just a lot of good stuff out there.

Haley Radke: Totally. Thanks for shouting those out. I'm gonna name one more before you tell people where they can find you. You were on an episode of a podcast that I don't know if I've talked about very recently called Labor of Love.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yes. Oh my gosh. I can't believe I forgot that one. Yes. I love them.

Haley Radke: So their tagline is A podcast for Bipoc adoptees navigating parenthood, and you're, we'll link to your interview with them in the show [00:49:00] notes for folks. It's just, it made me fall in love with David. You just,

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: that's so sweet.

Haley Radke: Your kids are. Lucky to have you. Lucky. They should be grateful.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: They should be. No I mess up far more than the podcast would suggest.

Haley Radke: Oh same here. But we, I'm, I know that listeners will go have, check that out. It's a great podcast. Lots of good resources there. Okay. Where can we connect with you online and follow your work?

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Oh yeah. Okay. I would love if people wanted to visit shadesofbelonging.com. That's an emerging place where I will be putting out future research where my existing research already exists around Jewish adoption. But honestly, I feel like that's expanding.

It's expanding beyond just Jewish community, so just really anyone that's interested in exploring community and adoption, particularly transracial adoption. That's where you can find me shadesofbelonging.com. On Instagram, it's @shadesof belonging and yeah, also I work with Jewtina y Co.. I'm their [00:50:00] Director of Research and Evaluation, so people can find me there.

And I just am really excited to connect with anyone because I believe that our healing must be collective and must come through community. And so I think it's everything that you're doing as far as like how do we connect to each other is such valuable work. So if anyone who's listening to this wants to figure out ways to get involved or participate or just connect to other people thinking about these things, yeah, find me. 'Cause I would be excited to talk to you.

Haley Radke: Amazing. Thank you so much. Thanks for sharing with us today.

David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Thank you so much, Haley. This really oof. What a day. I'm just buzzing. Thank you.

Haley Radke: If you're listening, when this episode just released, July, 2026 is going to be my 10th anniversary of the show, and I keep reflecting, it's just like one of those years where you're like, think back and all of [00:51:00] the memorable people I've had on the show and just the honor of having these deep conversations and sharing them with y'all.

It's just. It's just been just the honor of my life, truly, and this conversation is going to just be up there with my, some of my favorites. I loved this conversation. I hope you did too. And folks that love adoptees like I do and really want to do research and serve and, get to the bottom of how we can fix things and help our peers and help younger adoptees like. Those are my people. So I feel grateful that I could share this conversation with David and with you, and I'm just feeling especially thankful for all the [00:52:00] guests who've been brave enough to share their stories with us here on Adoptees On.

Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again soon.