97 [S5]: Sara-Jayne King
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Full show notes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/97
Episode Transcription by Fayelle Ewuakye. Find her on Twitter at @FayelleEwuakye
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You’re listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is episode 97, SJ. I’m your host Haley Radke. Today we are finishing up the Adoptees On Addiction series with Sara-Jayne King, author of Killing Karoline. SJ shares her story with us, including some vulnerable moments discussing secondary rejection, all the different ways addiction showed up in her life, and incredibly, she stuns me with a story I absolutely was not expecting. We wrap up with some recommended resources. And as always, links to everything we’ll be talking about today are over on adopteeson.com. Let’s listen in.
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Haley – I am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Sara-Jayne King, welcome SJ!
SJ – Thank you so much, it’s so great to be with you.
Haley - Yes, and we, I’ve really wanted to interview you for a long time and now we’re in the perfect series to get to chat about your story. So why don't you start out with that? Share a little bit of your story with us.
SJ - Yes, so it’s quite a strange story, although I know we’re gonna be speaking to,or lots of adoptees will be listening, so perhaps it won't be as strange when I sort of talk about the ins and outs of the story. But essentially I was born in South Africa in 1980 and people obviously know that in South Africa at that time, the country was under apartheid, which meant that obviously black and white people, well a number of very horrific laws were in place. But one of them was that black and white people couldn’t have relationships. My biological mother is from the UK and she had met a white South African while she was at university in the UK. She then returned to South Africa, where he had grown up. And they began living and working together in Johannesburg. Which is one of our biggest cities here in South Africa. And it was while she was working that she met my biological father, and she was actually working in the hotel that was owned by her boyfriend’s parents. There’s now this sort of love triangle going on, but a very illicit one. And it was only when she discovered that she was pregnant really that the trouble became sort of on the surface as opposed to where it had been previously, sort of very much a cloak and dagger relationship. They both risked being thrown in prison had they been discovered. My father probably worse, worse things could have happened to him. And so she had me, told everybody that she was expecting her first child and was delighted, thought that this was the child, wanted the child to be her boyfriend’s child, her now husband’s child. She married shortly after discovering she was pregnant, to her boyfriend at the time. And it was only when I was born that it became obvious about 3, 4 weeks after I was born that I couldn’t possibly be a white child. And I was, it was suddenly realized that actually I must have been a product of the relationship that she’d had with my biological father. And a plan had to be concocted to get this child, as she says, out of the country. Because she would have been threatened with, as I say, going to jail. And so after a night of sort of reprisals and admissions and confessions, she told her husband that she’d had this affair. His reaction was, you have to get rid of this child. You have to remember also the context of apartheid South Africa was that, and still sadly today is that racism is rife in this country. And it wasn’t purely just the government, it was, it filtered down into society to such an impact that it would have been absolutely horrific for anybody to have realized that my mother had had a sexual relationship, had had any relationship beside possibly employer/employee with my biological father. It just simply wasn’t done, it simply wasn’t allowed. And so eventually the decision was made to take me overseas to the UK. And have me adopted. And that’s what happened. And with the support of medical staff here, they concocted a story that I was suffering, still that I was a white child, that I was suffering from a disease. Which was essentially like a very bad type of jaundice, which they said explained my darkened skin. And they took me to the UK and took me to the Great Ormond Street Hospital which is one of the top children’s hospitals in the world I think, but certainly in the country, in the UK. And instead of seeking medical treatment there, they sought the help of social workers to place me for adoption.
Haley - Oh my goodness. That is a crazy story. And unbelievable.
SJ - Yeah.
Haley - So you were placed for adoption in the UK and then your biological mother went back to South Africa.
SJ - That’s right. so I was placed for adoption with the people that I call mom and dad. And at 7 weeks old. And my biological mother and her husband returned to South Africa and obviously they returned without a baby. They needed to explain where the baby was. And so they told this outrageous lie, this horrific lie, that the baby, baby Karoline, had died.
Haley - I can’t, oh my gosh. And that’s the title of your memoir, Killing Karoline.
SJ - Yeah.
Haley - Wow. Okay, so you find this out many, many years later. And looking back on that, what does that feel like to know that this is the plan that they had to come up with?
SJ - I mean, it’s a difficult one in that, the minutiae of everything I learned about when I was much, much older. But I always knew that I was adopted. I couldn’t really hide it, I was adopted transracially. So there were, even if I hadn’t realized it myself, that it was strange that as a black child I was being raised by white parents, other people are, and I’m sure other transracial adoptees will agree with me on this. Other people are really quick to point out, where you can’t possibly, really be from this family. And so, it was, as I say, the minutiae of it, only came out later. I discovered a letter that my biological mother had written about a year after she’d relinquished me for adoption. And it’s funny, we talk about the terminology in adoption and it is hugely important. I think there’s vernacular around it, and I know that the politically correct term is relinquishment. But for me, she gave me up. That’s what happened. She had a choice, she could have raised me in the UK and she chose not to. She gave up. She gave up her baby for adoption and that’s the only way that I can see it. But I mean, I was giving a talk today about the book and it’s funny and people always want to know, well what were your feelings around her giving you up? And really, the feelings around her giving me up for adoption are certainly nowhere near as strong, as the secondary rejection that I experienced later, which we’ll talk about later I’m sure. But the actual act of giving me up in that moment as a 7 week old baby, I kind of, I feel that I have to reserve judgment in a way because I wasn’t in that situation and it was what it was. I didn't go to a horrific family, this is another thing about adoption is, often times when we share as adoptees, I think about our stories. And we speak about our pain, there is an assumption that therefore the families that we must have been adopted into must have been horrendous. Well my family wasn’t horrendous. Yes there were problems and I write about that in the book. But they weren’t bad people, they’re not bad people, but I just, the trauma that had happened to me and then my adoptive brother who was also adopted into my family, into our family, it was so great. And the existing trauma that already existed in the family, before we even came along, led to the problems. And it’s interesting, often I hear adoptive parents say yes, but perhaps you, you know, you should be grateful. We’ve all heard that one before. You should be grateful, you’re so lucky that you went to a family that loved you. Well I’m sure that 99% of adoptees go to families that love them. Probably even more than that. But that doesn’t stop there from being an enormous amount of pain surrounding adoption. So to answer your question, my thoughts around the lie that she told, there are days when I hate her for it. And I hate her with a hatred that is so raw, that I sometimes don't know what do do with myself. And then there are other days where I’m able to be a little bit more pragmatic about it and think, I wasn’t in her position, I don't know, you know, I can’t judge her for that. But yeah, as I said, it was the, the later, the secondary rejection that really put, was the nail in the coffin of how I feel about my biological mother and how I think I’ll probably feel about her until the day I die.
Haley – Well, why don't you tell us about that. When did you search, how did that come about?
SJ - So because, I'd always known about being adopted, I didn’t really have a great desperation, it’s not like I one day found out and so there was an impetus for me to suddenly discover who these people were. And also the story that I’d been told, was, and the letter that she had written, were all very much in a very sort of agreeable way and that as much as the situation surrounding my adoption and coming from apartheid South Africa and that being really the criminal in all of it, was and how it was presented to me, was that the baddie in the story, the villain in the story was apartheid South Africa. It wasn’t people, it was an institution. It was a political system that had done the damage. But that the older I got and the more that I began to fit pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together, began to realize that actually now that there were a few more villains in this story. But I, when I was about 19, I decided just before going to university, that I wanted to make contact with my biological mother and you know, it was one of those things, I didn’t want another mother. Which is always I think what people who people aren’t adopted always assume that you want to go back and you’re desperate to form a mother/daughter or mother/child relationship. And speaking to friends of mine who were also adopted, that’s never what it is. It's really just about answering those inherent questions of who am I, where did I come from. Where do I get my eyes from, whose smile do I have. Do my hands look like my grandparents. I mean, all these really small things but that add up to the one thing that we struggle with as adoptees and I think that is identity and particularly as a transracial adoptees as well. So I’d got in contact with her via the adoption agency. And in fact, she’d left, over the years, she left South Africa, she’d lived in Germany and Italy, she now lives in the United States. And all the time that she had moved, she sent messages to the adoption agency saying, this is my new address, if Sara-Jayne wants to get in contact, and all of this sort of thing. However when it came to actually getting in touch, she’d obviously, had a bit of a lapse of memory that she’d done this. Because the response that I got was absolutely devastating. And I'm sure that other adoptees will also relate to this. That she wanted nothing to do with me. She said, you were the worst mistake I ever made. Do not contact me again. And the blow was extraordinary because that’s not what I had been led to believe. By her own actions, that’s not how I’d been led to believe, that that was going to happen. In hindsight now, I mean, I was still very much in the fog at this stage, it should be said. I hadn’t come out of the fog at all. I still thought I should be very grateful for being adopted, I still felt that I should be very apologetic for even wanting to know about my biological family. Apologetic on both sides, from the point of view of my adoptive parents in terms of, how could you be so cruel, and also in terms of my biological other, which is, you know, you did a great thing for me, biological mother, and why would I ever want to have to go, enter into your life and cause upset? Well, that’s apparently what I did and she was very, very angry. It was very very difficult and it came a time where, I was going through my own stuff emotionally, drinking, drugs, eating disorders, self-harming, and I used her reaction to further my sort of, despair and my journey deeper into addiction.
Haley - Well I wrote down this line from your book, “the disgrace of being reviled by one’s own mother, that was too much.” And when I read that, I was like, oh my gosh. Like, I have secondary rejection as well, but I had a brief relationship with my mother, so we were in contact for about 4 months before she cut off contact. So my timeline was a little bit expanded. Because you had this letter from her that you were, she sounded lovely and wanted to know you and you know, explain some of those things. And then when you reached out, just to hear those harsh, harsh words. I can’t imagine.
SJ – And I’ve never had an interaction with anybody before or since, that was as cold. You know, and I’m a journalist by profession. And so I speak to and interview and speak to a lot of people. And I’ve never, and of course this was personal. But I’ve never had an interaction that was as cold, as detached, as, I felt, cruel at the time. I mean this letter, and I still, I sort of memorized passages of this letter that she wrote back. And you know, her explanation was, is the pain that you are feeling now, worth the fact that I now have to go back into that time. And I thought, what an extraordinary thing to say. You may have told this unforgivable lie that your baby had died. But you know, you know that your baby hadn’t died. So you must surely have been expecting it. And that was the thing that kept going round and round in my head. You must have been expecting it. You must have been expecting it. Or expecting me. And it would seem that she wasn’t, I think, whilst the baby died, the lie very much lived on and I think she perhaps internalized that. And I think if you tell yourself something for long enough and with enough ferocity then, it can become true in one’s mind perhaps.
Haley - Yeah, yeah. I think that’s true, I think that’s true for a lot of people, a lot of buried shame. And you just kind of do what you can to survive it I guess. Not excusing the behavior, but yeah.
SJ - Sure.
Haley – So can you tell us a little bit about your personal life then? You said you were involved in some activities that were risky and drugs and alcohol and then this happened. Can you take us to that and talk a little bit about that.
SJ - I’d always felt like there was something missing. And obviously there was something, a huge something that was missing and that was my identity and my family and who the hell was I. And so, from a very young age, I started to try and we talk about in recovery, filling the hole in the soul. And that’s what I was trying to do and I was trying to do it with food, I was trying to do it with inappropriate relationships, inappropriate attachments, I mean my attachment disorder is off the scale I think. And also, with drugs and alcohol, and that’s despite the fact that I grew up in a household where my adoptive brother was also an alcoholic and an addict. And his biological mother had been a chronic alcoholic also. And as far as we knew about his past, you could trace back and back and back. So for a long time, I swore off drugs and alcohol because I knew what was happening, I could see what was happening in our family with my brother. But my drug of choice I suppose as it was, from the age from about 12, was eating disorders and self-harming. And that would range from anorexia, bulimia, compulsive eating, bingeing, purging, anything to change how I felt. I would eat to change how I felt. I would not eat to change how I felt. I would over exercise to change how I felt. I would eat compulsively, I would binge, I would purge, anything to not feel this inferiority and to anything not to feel like me. The me that I felt had been such a mistake. Then when I got to university and interestingly this sort of coincided with the secondary rejection. Suddenly, I had more freedom than I’d had before. And I began drinking and using drugs quite heavily. Again, the eating disorder was the thing that really took me down and took me into my, the pit of my worst. And I was also dealing with undiagnosed bipolar borderline personality at this time. So to add that to a dual diagnosis, although it hadn’t been diagnosed, I was, yeah I was troubled. I was so, so terribly unhappy. Interestingly, all this time, at that point, still wasn’t out of the fog, still didn't know, still couldn’t pinpoint the source of the misery. And in fact, it was only, I eventually ended up, I moved around a lot. I did, we call them in recovery, geographicals. I moved because I wanted to go to places where I wasn’t. But unfortunately, the problem with moving, is that you always take yourself with you. And so I kept following me around. And I eventually ended up living in Dubai for a while. And that really for me, was where things just went really, really bad. And to such an extent that I found, I found it necessary to book myself into a clinic, into a rehab, a rehabilitation center, and it just so happened that the rehab that I booked myself into, was in South Africa.
Haley - And you, you share some of this in your memoir. But do you wanna talk a little bit about that? And how adoption issues kind of you know, looking back we kind of know this is underlying for a lot of adoptees that struggle with addiction issues. But in the moment, did you know that? How did you come to realize that?
SJ – I had no idea. Because I thought I was okay with my adoption. I thought it was fine, again I was so thick in that fog. And also, I was thick in whatever, and I think so many of us adoptees feel that. Is that even if you sense that there might be something or the thing that is troubling you might somehow be connected to your adoption, I think so many of us have learned to shut up. Don't say anything, for goodness sake, don't say anything about it. You’re gonna be seen as ungrateful. You might be rejected again, that’s the big thing. So even though I had this sense of, I don't know who I am. and the reason I don't know who I am is because I’m adopted, and nobody can help me and when I talk about adoption in my family, it’s dealt with in a way that makes me very uncomfortable. Something doesn’t make me comfortable about it. My parents, my mum and dad, are sort of hailed by everyone as these saviors. The typical kind of, transracial white savior syndrome. And I sort of would sit there in, around when friends and family would come round and they would talk about adoption. And they would talk about my parents in this light of, oh, you know, you’ve done such a wonderful thing taking in these children. And what I heard was, you’ve done such a wonderful thing taking in these unwanted black children. That’s what I heard. And I think to an extent, that’s what was being said. I don't think this was just a figment of my imagination. There was a very much a sense of, I grew up in a very privileged background, in a very privileged area. My parents were very educated, I went to very good schools, we lived in nice houses. All things that you know, two black children, one from god knows where, and the other from South Africa, couldn’t possibly, would never have had access to. And that somehow, again, my life with them would definitely have been bettered. Don't we hear that all the time? What if you’d stayed with your biological family, it would definitely would have been worse. Well we don't know that. We don't know that. And that’s one of the things I’ve learned coming out of the fog. But to go back to rehab and addiction, it was when I came out of, I touched on my adoption a little bit in rehab. But again it wasn’t, I didn’t know, I didn’t, I think I was possibly scared to delve too far into whether my adoption had anything to do with all the horrible things that I was feeling and horrible things I was doing to myself. And also I didn't know. The other thing about for me about being an adoptee, is that I wait for permission to do everything. I wait for permission for a feeling, I wait for permission for a behavior, because I don't know if that feeling or if that behavior is going to be rejected, so I never know. I’m getting better at it now, I’m 12, 13 years in recovery. And I’m also, you know, I do a lot of work around my adoption stuff. And I forgive myself a lot of stuff. And also, I put a lot of stuff back where it belongs. The shame, the guilt, the hurt, the trauma, the stuff, you know, my adoptive mom not being able to have kids. I don't take that on anymore, it’s got nothing to do with me, I put that right back where it belongs. The shame that my biological mother had having an affair with a black man in apartheid South Africa, of cheating on her partner, I’ve put all that back where it belongs. And my goodness it makes me walk a lot easier and sleep a lot better at night. But it was only when I came out of treatment that I had, somebody had sent me an email, from a rehabilitation, and I was back living in London. Somebody had sent me an email which was was from a rehab in the UK and they held talks every month at a library in central London. And one of the talks was, and I remember seeing it so clearly on this email, the link between adoption and addiction. And suddenly something clicked. And that was all it said, it was just that subject line, the link between adoption and addiction. And I thought, if I do anything, and I was still quite troubled at this time, I was clean, I was sober. But I was in very, very early recovery. And I was still very, very raw I think. And so I thought, if I do anything on this particular day, I must get to that lecture. And I remember it so clearly. There was a hall, a library lecture hall packed full of people. And we sat down and there was a guy who was an expert on this very topic. An expert on adoption and addiction. And he spoke my story. And within the first 5 minutes of him speaking, I was just bawling. And I looked around and other people were bawling. And other people were looking at him and nodding their heads and wiping the tears from their faces and reaching out and holding other people, holding the hands of strangers who were also relating to this. It was the most powerful thing. And there was a break halfway through, and being an addict, most of us all ran out to go and have a cigarette. And we were sort of standing around having a cigarette. And I couldn’t believe A, that I was meeting other adoptees, because I’d never had. There were three little girls at my school who were adopted but we never spoke about it. It was the unspoken thing. They were also transracially adopted. I’d never met other adoptees, I’d never met adult adoptees. I’d never met adult adoptees who were happily saying, I hate the fact I’m adopted. It destroyed my life. And they were saying it without apology. And something clicked. And that for me was when really, was when the work started around okay, you need to explore this link between your adoption, your feelings of rejection, your attachment issues, your abandonment issues, and the fact that you are constantly seeking a different state of self.
Haley – How transformative, wow. Okay, who was the lecturer? Was that, sounds like Paul Sunderland.
SJ - Yes it was, it was! That’s exactly who it was!
Haley - That’s the video everybody keeps talking about!
SJ - That’s the video! I was in that lecture!
Haley - Oh my gosh.
SJ - I was in that lecture, yeah. I was in that lecture in London, in Kensington in London. Yeah.
Haley – Wow, okay I have goosebumps.
SJ - That’s exactly who it was, yep. And I was sitting there, on my own in early recovery, with this hall full of people. I must go and look at that, I must go and look at that video again. I have to say after going to that lecture, and remember I really was in very, very early recovery. I had less than a year clean and sober. It was, and I’m so glad, looking back now I was so glad that I went, because I am scared of how long the lights could have stayed off for. But it was really tough listening. He literally spoke my truth. And the thing that stood out for me was this. He said there is a preverbal communication to an unborn child, that when the parent is going to adopt or when a parent is adopting, biological parent, or even when the child is a babe in arms, still preverbal, there is a preverbal communication of, I am not good enough. How’s that? A preverbal communication of I am not good enough. And I wrote about this in the book and I wrote about this idea of, it’s one thing to not get on with your parents, it’s one thing to be distant from your siblings. But to be rejected by the one person on earth who is meant to love you, and who is meant to care for you, and who is meant to have as their very baseness, their very existence, the survival and the care and the love of, and I was her firstborn child as well. That, for that to not exist, is extraordinary. Yeah, it’s so funny, we’re talking about that lecture now, because yeah, it was powerful. And it was, I probably, in terms of looking back now, I probably had no business being there, being that early in recovery. Luckily I had quite a solid recovery so I think I went and spoke to my sponsor about it I think. And said, you know, I’ve been to this lecture and it was really difficult. But that’s the other thing with addiction and I would love for this for change. And I would hope that I would be a part of this, is that, when we go into recovery, and I got clean through a 12 step program. There is still so little known about adoption, so many people are not adoption experts, i.e., not adoptees. And so I would often share about my adoption experience and the reaction that I would get back, would be the stuff that I now look at in adoption groups and adoption forums and want to tear my hair out. So that was quite difficult. And I would love for there to be more adoptees in recovery. And I'm sure that you know, we will galvanize at some point and become a worldwide movement. But I'd love it be sooner because there is, there’s a lot of work that can be done, healing that can be done for adoptees who are working 12 step programs. And who aren’t in recovery.
Haley - And I’m picturing that room, the lecture now that you shared your side of the experience, ‘cause I, you know, you just, in the YouTube video you see Paul standing up at the front and you don't really see the room. But to know the impact that had, just one event, one or two hours, one day, and you said all of those people in that room, and how many people did those, do you represent? That have no idea around the world.
SJ - Absolutely. You know what was also interesting, Haley, was that when he, Paul gave time for Q&As, and I remember asking a question and being terrified. Again, early recovery, really like self-conscious, they'd force me to put on weight in rehab. So I was just not feeling my best. But I remember asking a question which I think was around, eating disorders and addiction and whatever. It was a bit specific, really. The people were asking questions, also didn't seem to know. It just seemed amazing that here was this man, who had the answer to so many of our problems. And the questions that were coming, were, it was almost like, imagine if the room was dark. And then suddenly a few light bulbs would just come on. That’s what it was like.
Haley – And then it’s a cascade of light.
SJ - Suddenly a room full of bright lights, and everyone just going, how on earth did we miss this? Yeah, yeah.
Haley - Powerful. So you said you have, 12 or 13 years now that you have been in recovery. And do you wanna talk a little bit about that? Have there been struggles? What’s helped you? What advice do you have for people? I’d love for you to share your wisdom on that.
SJ – Oh, I don't know about wisdom, but I mean, just experience that just comes with, you know, and for me, recovery is in terms of drugs and alcohol, I’ve been clean and sober from all drugs and alcohol and mind altering substances since August 17th, 2007. And that is, that had to happen. That I couldn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to live the life that I live now if I was still drinking and using. The eating disorder, admittedly, that’s been more difficult. That fluctuates, that has been one of my biggest struggles. And I'm sure that somewhere down, if I could sit in a room with Paul, again, which I would pay good money to do, I really would. It's so bizarre that I’m thinking back to this moment that it was so pivotal and like you say, that video does the round so much among the adoption community, adoptee community. If I could sit down I would ask him for more details around, specifically, eating disorders and addiction and women and female adoptees’ eating disorders and addiction. That has been more of a struggle, but again it’s a day at a time, I take it a day at a time. But my recovery was very much based in 12 step programs. And so religiously for the first sort of 5, 6, 7 years of my recovery, that’s what I did day in and day out, was go to meetings. And that’s not to say that there aren’t other ways to recover or to begin a journey to recovering from active addiction. But that is what worked for me. and writing. Writing helped me an enormous amount. I had to write a lot in treatment obviously, in 12 step programs, there is a program to work and actively doing the 12 steps requires a great deal of writing. And I'm a reluctant writer, it should be said. I’m not somebody who thinks, oh let me get out my journal and I start scribing away like Virginia Woolf, that’s not it at all. I am reluctant, but once I do, I find it very healing. And surrounding myself by like minded people and that’s been really interesting in terms of my recovery, my adoptee journey as well. Because while it seems, it was such a no brainer to me when I got into recovery, that I would need to surround myself by fellow addicts and fellow recovering addicts, I didn't quite see that the same connection with being adopted. Because I always. I didn't realize how many of us there were. And I think another reason for that is not everyone talks about it to people that they don't know where also adopted. For me, it’s because I didn't want to have to deal with, with bull**** really. I didn't want to have to deal with stupid answers or stupid questions and insensitive comments. So I stopped speaking about it, not publicly, but I just, it was something that I shared with people who needed to know. It certainly wasn’t a secret, but I didn’t want to get into discussions with people about it. Particularly not when I moved back to South Africa which was about 10 years, 11 years ago now. And people still hold very, very problematic views in South Africa around race, around apartheid and what happened in, during that time. And so it wasn’t that I’d, I didn’t really want to speak about it. But it’s a no brainer for me now. Now I’m out of the fog as it were. All I want to do is surround myself by adoptees, and hear other adoptees’ stories and be shored up by them and get support from fellow adoptees. It’s extraordinary, that coming out of the fog thing, has been one of the most powerful experiences of my life. Because again, it was like, suddenly, every day became, every day was like a day when I was in a room with Paul Sunderland. In terms of people were speaking my story. They were speaking what I had felt. When they would, if I was in an adoption forum group and somebody, an adoptive parent or somebody would say something that I just thought was hugely inappropriate, and somebody would immediately jump in and I’d think, that’s what I wanted to say! Ah, there are people that feel like me! and now, it’s just, it’s phenomenal and I’d love to be more of that around adoption and addiction. It would be lovely to go into meetings and to just have adoptees sharing. Maybe I should start something, adoptees, addict adoptees anonymous or something. There’s probably already a group out there.
Haley - Let’s look for it. Yeah, well when you were talking about just being with adoptees and they get it, I’m like oh my gosh, girl same, same for me. like I just feel like, you just don't have to explain 90%, right? You just already know, and the other 10 is just getting to know each other personally. And yeah, yeah. There’s great power in that.
SJ – And healing.
Haley - Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you, thanks for your thoughts on that and for sharing about the 12 step program and writing and I really wanna talk to you about that when we do our recommended resources. But I just wanna give you a couple minutes. ‘Cause you have an update since you published the book. And you were looking for your biological father. And hadn’t quite found him yet. What has happened since you published Killing Karoline?
SJ - What happened was, as you know I’m a journalist and radio presenter. And I have a radio show, here in South Africa. And a friend of mine who does another radio show, on the same station as me had said, when the book came out, in fact it was a few months after the book had came out. And he said, you haven’t been on my show, come on my show and talk about the book. So I said, okay, that’s cool. And in the book, I had changed names. Not all names, like my mom and dad I didn't change, because my dad’s dead, my adoptive father died when I was 21, so that wasn’t really a concern. My mom didn't mind, she was like, no that’s fine. She probably liked a little bit of the, I’m in a book. My best friends were not bothered either. They were cool about it. But in terms of my biological parents and my biological other extended biological family, I changed the name not to protect them because I don't think they are deserving of protection. But because it’s not relevant. What I didn’t want to happen was for people to read the book and to then go and perhaps you know, in this world of social media and google and things, be able to go online and find these people and perhaps get involved in something that I wouldn’t want, that was, as much as I’d written a memoir about, it was still private. It's still my private sort of family, as it were.
Haley – Wait, you didn’t want me going in, emailing your biological mom and telling her what I thought about her?
SJ – Well, this was before the book, now I’m like, want her email address? Just hit me up. It’s so funny you say that. Because the number of people who say, who particularly who’ve after they’ve read the book they said, God if I could hold of that woman. And I think, I have to say, and I know it’s probably not a very nice thing to say, but there is, I feel there is a great deal of support in that. Because I feel that I was, I do feel wronged by her. And I think she’s behaved appallingly. That said, would I want people to go and email her, no I wouldn’t. And so that was the reason I changed names in the book. It didn't matter. It didn’t matter what people’s names were. As much as, and I should just say again, as much as I think names are hugely important and this is one of my bugbears as an adoptee, is when adoptive parents change their children’s names, I just find it abhorrent and awful and unnecessary. But for the purposes of the book, it didn’t matter. So I was doing this interview with this friend of mine on his radio show and he said to me during a commercial break, why don't you give your dad’s real name? I know how desperate you are to find him. And I was. I was desperate. The momentum was happening with the book, it’s been hugely successful, across South Africa, across Africa. And it was gaining momentum. But there was, I still wasn’t happy. I was still, I was miserable actually. Because there was this man who I didn’t know. And people, I would do interviews and TV stuff and radio stuff and people would say, and what about your dad? And I would have to say, I’ve got no idea. And so I gave his real name during this interview. And black Twitter being what it is, galvanized. Thank God for black Twitter. Within 24 hours, or just over, somebody had sent me an email, which had a telephone number on. And they said, try this number, it could be your biological father. And I phoned and it was him. It was him, and I won't give the whole thing away because I want you to read more about it in the second book that’s coming out, she said shamelessly. But it was him and within a week, I’d flown up to Johannesburg where he lives, I live in Cape Town now. And we’d met and it was, without doubt, the best moment of my life. And now we have a relationship and now I have a dad and I have 2 brothers and a sister. Mohadi (sp?), Tabo (sp?), and Tabiso (sp?), and my dad and they, it is just wonderful. And I’m really, really, really blessed to have them in my life.
Haley - Oh that’s so beautiful. I have like, similar secondary rejection and then I have reunion with my biological father and it’s such a gift, especially for us who have had that-
SJ - That rejection is, ugh.
Haley – Yeah, so you know, there’s a nice piece and there’s a really ugly piece.
SJ - And how was your reunion with him? Was it wonderful?
Haley - Wonderful, then very challenging, and we worked really, really hard to make it wonderful and healthy and good.
SJ - Yeah, yeah. Totally relate.
Haley - Yep. Okay, well, can't wait for book #2. So let’s go on and do our recommended resources. And first, of course, I’m gonna recommend people check out your book, Killing Karoline. And if it’s okay with you, I have just a couple of sentences I wanna read here. This is just before you are checking yourself into rehab. And you write, “I realize I have inherited the worst parts of her. I disappear when things get tough. I’m a pretender, a fraud, a keeper of secrets, a liar. Like her, I do not want to take responsibility and I will do anything, it seems, to avoid the consequences of my own decisions. I have tried to run from something that will always follow me.” And your memoir’s so beautifully written. And for someone who calls herself a reluctant writer, I have a hard time believing that. Maybe just getting to the chair to sit down, maybe that’s the part, but I haven’t read a memoir that has quite as many intimate details as you share. There are moments that are just so heart wrenching and you don't gloss over any hard things. And so, I really appreciated reading your story and to hear more from you today was really special to me. So thank you, and I definitely do recommend SJ’s book, so go check that out, Killing Karoline, and Karoline with a K.
SJ – Yeah.
Haley - And what did you wanna recommend to us, SJ?
SJ - So the, speaking, we’ve been speaking about, sort of coming out of the fog a lot, and also the importance of sharing. And there is an adoption group on Facebook called Adoption Facing Realities. And it is, oh, it is, it has saved me from insanity at times. And it has given me, when there are moments, and I’m also, I’m a member of a lot of adoption forums. And in some of them I’m one of maybe a handful, one handful of adoptees. And particularly having written the book, people want to get in touch with me. Which is lovely, but people are also very angry. Because I speak very honestly in the book about adoption. And when I speak publicly, I speak very openly about my views on adoption. So a lot of times, I will get absolutely dragged in adoption groups. But I know, that in Adoption Facing Realities, I can go in there, and I can say whatever I like, and I have the support. And what’s so important about this group is that, priority, privilege is given to adoptees. And that is so rare. And that is so important too, and I know that a lot of groups don't understand why that’s important. And they will, they will, I think it will come with time, they’ll understand why adoptee voices must be given privilege in groups like this, regardless of what the group is. Adoptee voices must be given privilege. You can’t be in a situation, I think, where an adoptee is sharing their experience and a hopeful adoptive parent or an adoptive parent jumps in and says, yes but you’re being so negative. Or, but that’s just one experience, or you don't speak for everybody. Because, the damage, oh, the damage that that does, I think is profound. And I don't think it’s, I think it comes from a place of fear, I think it comes from a place of ignorance. I don't think it comes from a place of malice necessarily. Perhaps also a bit of guilt, but the fact is that, and the admins in Facing Realities are superb. They are, they speak from their own experience also, but they admit when they’re wrong, which I think is hugely important. Which in a lot of other groups, I don't have that. I mean, I don't have that. And yeah, there is, there also is encouragement in that group. A lot of times, hopeful adoptive parents or adoptive parents will jump in, and expect to, expect the group to be something it isn’t. And very often people in that group come down very hard on new members. But what’s wonderful, is when you come back or you see those members who stick around. And 3 months later they say, now I get it. Now I get why you came down so hard on me, it’s because x, y, and z. It’s because adoption isn’t about me, it’s about the adoptee. And I’ve just found it one of the most powerful resources. And almost to the extent that I want to keep it a secret. Not from other adoptees, never. But from, as much as I want APs and hopeful adoptive parents, and I mustn’t forget biological parents as well. But I like the fact that it creates a safe space, because my goodness me, do we need one as adoptees.
Haley – Yeah, and you know, groups like that, exactly for those, some of those reasons I have stayed out of. Because I feel like you say something in, that is, something about your personal experience, and then you just get shut down, or told you're negative or, you just, you must have had a bad experience. And it’s like, okay, well, you asked the question, how can we help your kid that’s struggling. We’re telling you honestly, I mean, you just don't wanna hear it. So I really appreciate that there are spaces like this for adoptive parents to come and hear honestly from adoptees. And good for you for sticking it out in something like that, because-
SJ - You know, it really is tough. There are a couple of adoption groups here in South Africa. And when I was writing the book, I didn’t even know that they existed and then I joined a few. Some I stuck with. Because I thought, I have every right to be here. And at the end of the last year, some really, some very negative stuff started happening. And I think also because I’m a quote, unquote, public figure in South Africa, it’s very easy for people to attack me. It’s very easy for them to dehumanize me, it’s Sara-Jayne King, and she’s you know, she’s not a real person. She’s just this person we hear on the radio or see on TV or she’s written this book. But the reality is, is that I am, this most fragile little ego. I’m an adoptee at the end of the day, and I’m an untreated adoptee, I’ve still got a lot of healing to do. And so when I have people, when people come at you in that way, and some of the most awful things are being said. And I ended up leaving the group, and it was something I swore I’d never do, because I believed I had a right to be in that group. But it became a balancing act of, is, which is more toxic, which is better for me, is it better for me to stay in this toxic environment? Or is it better for me to empower myself and leave and remain in groups like Facing Realities who are doing good work and important work with a semblance of knowing what they’re doing as well?
Haley – That’s wise, that’s very good. Okay, well, I want to let everyone know where they can connect with you online and where can they find your first book?
SJ – Okay, so you can connect with me online on all social media, that’s Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @thisissjking. So that’s across the gamut of social media. And also you can buy the book online for Kindle at Amazont or you can, Amazon, sorry, they’re not called Amazont. Amazon. Or you can order it from any, I think you can order it from Barnes and Noble. I think it will fly in from the states. Or Loot.co.za or Waterstones in the UK which is Waterstones.co.uk.
Haley - Wonderful, thank you so much for sharing with us today, SJ. I just had so much fun talking with you. And hearing you story.
SJ - Thank you so much and thank you so much for having me and thank you for doing what you do. Because it’s really important that somebody does and that we have a voice, so yay, yay for Adoptees On!
Haley - Yay, thank you!
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Haley - I hope you enjoyed this short series on Adoptees On Addiction. And I have some really exciting shows coming up for you including new Healing episodes, new guests, updates from past guests, it’s all coming up. And we’ve got lots and lots of good stuff in store for you in 2019. So make sure you’re subscribed to Adoptees On, wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And you can find links to everywhere you can download Adoptees On over at adopteeson.com/subscribe. And as always, I wanna say a big thank you to my monthly Patreon supporters, without which there would not be this show every week. So, thank you so much. If you wanna stand with our supporters, you can go to adopteeson.com/partners to sign up. And I would love to get to know you better in our secret Facebook group and there are some amazing things coming up in our Adoptees On Patreon exclusive podcast feed which you will get if you are a monthly supporter on Patreon. So, don't miss out on that. Head over again, adoptees.com/partner. Thanks so much for listening. Let’s talk again, next Friday.
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