159 Adoptee Remembrance Day
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/159
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This show is listener supported. You can join us and help our show grow to support more adoptees by going to adopteeson.com/partner.
You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is episode 159, Adoptee Remembrance Day. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Today is a special episode where we are going to learn about an upcoming day that I think will become critically important to the adoptee community. We are talking about ways to commemorate the first annual Adoptee Remembrance Day. You can find links to everything we'll be talking about today over on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Pamela Karanova. Welcome.
Pamela Karanova: Hey Haley, thank you so much for having me today. I'm excited to be here.
Haley Radke: Aw, I've loved our conversations. We've shared a few. [00:01:00] I'll link to those in the show notes so people can hear from you. We've talked about your personal story. We've talked about how you launched Adoptees Connect, which is so amazing and I'm so honored to be a part of that. And today we are coming to a more somber occasion and we are gonna be talking about Adoptee Remembrance Day. Can you tell us what that is?
Pamela Karanova: Yes, absolutely. Adoptee Remembrance Day is going to be a day that we set aside, October 30th of this year, and hopefully every year moving forward, that's gonna serve several purposes. This day is gonna be a reflection of raising public awareness of a lot of different dynamics to the adoptee experience, but one of them is crimes against adoptees by adoptive parents, and this is something that happens more frequently than people realize. I think the adoptee community is definitely tuned into that a little more, and it's also something that the media does not recognize. So we're gonna be focused on these crimes against adoptees by adoptive parents, [00:02:00] as well as publicly mourning and honoring the lives of our brothers and sisters who we've lost to suicide, and that's a very touchy and deep topic for so many of us. And we really want them to not be forgotten and we wanna raise awareness on the topic of adoptee suicide, which is very prevalent in the adoptee community. I know many people already know, but for those that don't, adoptees are four times more likely to attempt suicide and than non adopted individuals. And we are also wanting to shine a light on the topic that there are countless international adoptees who are living without citizenship and they have been deported due to mistakes made by their adoptive parents and adoption agencies, attorneys, and whatnot. And this happening to them is beyond devastating and we need to really shine a light on this because it's something that is destroying lives and adoptees are ending their life because of the trauma that this is [00:03:00] inflicting on them. Not to mention all of the trauma they already experienced by being removed from their homeland and being in a country where they don't resemble people, and we're gonna shine a light on that topic with this day.
And then another topic that we really wanna focus on is the whole concept of adoptee loss. I know from my personal experience and networking with adoptees all over the place, one of the biggest components to my experience and so many others is the loss that we all feel. And honestly, for so many years of my life, I didn't even know what was wrong with me, but I felt like something was deeply wrong with me that I was just so sad all the time. Finally, I ended up going through a lot of therapy and recovery dynamics, and I ended up figuring out a lot of what I was experiencing was the grief and loss process that nobody ever told me I could feel. I really think that is a huge dynamic for adoptees everywhere, all the way down to their childhoods that they should [00:04:00] be able to process the grief and loss from as early of age as possible. And some people might say, what grief and what loss? And I would say, the loss of everything that we lose when we are adopted into a new family. That’s two biological families, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, our medical history, our lineage, and for many of the adoptees that are international, their homelands, their culture. So there is a lot that we should be given a right to grieve about. And I felt like my whole life that it was taken from me until I started grieving in my forties. It's a pretty big ordeal to hold all that in your whole life. And so this day is really a reflection for adoptees everywhere to really share their voice and find anywhere in them to be able to grasp how they're feeling and share it publicly if they have the strength to do that. Because people need to start seeing and learning and realizing [00:05:00] how we feel. So those are the main topics or some of them that we wanna focus on with Adoptee Remembrance Day.
Haley Radke: Thank you. I think it's so important to spend some time acknowledging those things. And it's interesting, some of the things you were describing, it's almost like this is a moment to normalize the disenfranchised grief that so many of us have experienced. And I also notice a couple of the other things that are mentioned on some of your resources when we're talking about this day: the overrepresentation of adoptees in treatment facilities and incarcerated individuals, adoption disruptions, and rehoming. And I really appreciate that you have taken this day to really acknowledge all of those different things, and even the piece where you said that it’s not really talked about in the media or acknowledged that this is a [00:06:00] thing. This isn't funny, but I joke around with my co-host of my Adoptees Off Script podcast that's for Patreon supporters, we joke about this because we both have an adoptee Google alert. And I don't know if you have one of those set up, but they drag media articles for the word “adoptee” and then they get sent to you. And I can't even tell you how many of those articles are about animals and how many are just completely positive, happy adoption stories. And it's rare to see anything reported about even what you were talking about crimes against adoptees by adoptive parents, which I'm assuming you're meaning abuse, those kinds of things, and-
Pamela Karanova: And murder. And murder. Yeah. And murder. And that's definitely one of the ones that people don't want to talk about, but yeah, it happens all the time and it's pretty prevalent. If people wanted to look online, they could find story after story of that happening. So definitely [00:07:00] I wanna shine a light on that and I want everybody to. As well as adoptees being overrepresented in the prisons and jails and treatment facilities and mental health facilities. 'Cause there's no help for them, even though they're in those places, we know as being adoptees that there's so many root issues that come with the adoptee experience. I'm not a therapist or a psychologist or anything, but I've done enough research to know that the root issues that adoptees experience can manifest in so many ways through your childhood and your whole entire life that they do impact every area and they can impact every area. Of course it's different for every adoptee, but we definitely have to start shining a light on this because National Adoption Awareness month is November. It's coming up, it's right around the corner. But how about we pause and reflect before we celebrate everything about adoption and really reflect on the truth and the transparency behind adoptions today? If we can do that and really be transparent and really try to process what processing grief and loss looks like for [00:08:00] each of us, I think that little by little adoptees are gonna start coming out into the light at a younger age than 40 years old to start processing grief and loss.
Haley Radke: So another thing that you mentioned to me is that adoptees, some of us are talking about these things, but this day is for everyone. It's not just for adoptees to pause and acknowledge Adoptee Remembrance Day, but you want it to be for everyone. Can you talk about that?
Pamela Karanova: Yes, absolutely. I was pretty set on that from the beginning because I just feel like the more people involved the better. But the adoptee community, most of us that are living that experience, are in a position where we can acknowledge some of the difficulties that we have and acknowledge some of the grief and loss. But it seems like a lot of people that are not adopted are not able to fully grasp that because they're not in our shoes, and that's totally understandable. But we invite them to [00:09:00] support any adopted person that they may or may not even know. They might be an adoptive parent or a birth parent, or an aunt of an adoptee or an uncle of adoptee, grandparents of an adoptee, or a birth mother, birth father that has lost an adoptee. This day is for everyone to really reflect that adoptees lose on this day and reflect on all the other topics that we talked about on this day, and to really step into a new light that there might be more to the adoption experience than what we've always known our whole lives. And yes, we want everyone to get involved. There's a lot of ways to get involved and we can talk about that in a minute. But yeah, this day is for everyone.
Haley Radke: Okay. Let's talk about the color yellow. I see you have chosen yellow, and I wanna know why. What led you to that color?
Pamela Karanova: Doing research, I felt like I really had to pick a color and I did some research and found out that yellow is a symbol of remembrance and that was very fitting for the [00:10:00] day. And there wasn't a better color that I thought based on some other colors with different things. I had to really navigate what we wanted to call this day and remembrance was definitely in there. And so that's why I picked yellow, because it's a symbol of remembrance.
Haley Radke: Now you mentioned there's lots of different ways to get involved, so let's spend some time talking about that and what are some of the different ideas that you've had about ways to observe Adoptee Remembrance Day.
Pamela Karanova: Our website has a complete list, but for me to share a few, I would say one of them is to wear yellow.
Haley Radke: I ordered my shirts. Did I tell you that?
Pamela Karanova: Yay. I'm so glad. I ordered mine too. I ordered some coffee mugs and some other things too, to be able to spread the word, but yes. Yeah, I actually found yellow shoes the other day. I don't know if you saw them, but I was like, I gotta get these because they're gonna go perfect for the day. But wearing yellow and I wanna spark conversations of, wow, you got a lot of yellow on. I'm [00:11:00] gonna explain why. I've got a couple of the Adoptee Remembrance Day shirts coming as well, that I hope spark some conversations. I really encourage people to use hashtags that are #ard2020, #adopteeremembranceday, and #adopteesweremember. Those are the three hashtags that we're using for this event, and I really want everybody to try to use them so that we can share that on our Adoptees Connect page and on our Facebook page, and we can just go to the hashtag and find what everyone's doing. We're also gonna have a moment of silence at 12:00 PM Eastern Standard Time where everyone just pauses for four minutes. And that four minutes is basically a representation of adoptees being four times more likely to attempt suicide, and that's why I picked four. I will be at work that day and I will probably be in the corner with a box of Kleenex, and I already know that, I've already [00:12:00] pictured that, but I just feel like this needs to be done. So I just encourage everybody, wherever you are at that time, if you can just have a moment of silence for four minutes and allow yourself to feel whatever it is you're feeling and really cry it out if that's what you have to do. And, hopefully wherever you're at, if you're at work or if you're in your car, you have a few minutes to really honor that moment in remembrance of the adoptees that have passed away and all that you've lost in adoption. All that we have all lost in adoption. One of the things that I'm doing personally is my Adoptees Connect group here in Lexington, Kentucky, we're having a ceremonial bonfire, and that's gonna be something that I think is gonna be really fitting for our group. I prefer smaller, more intimate gatherings than big, huge things. And it's not really a public gathering because I just felt like for me personally in my group, we just wanted it to be more private. But if anybody wants to do something more public or go have their own thing, I totally encourage it. We're going to [00:13:00] have a candlelight vigil at 9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, and that's gonna be a thing of remembrance as well to all of the things that we named in the beginning. That is something that I encourage everybody to do in their communities, in their homes, wherever they're at 9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. Sorry, I think it's different for you. And then of course if people need to tweak it to their time zone or whatever of course, it's not like by the book, we just really want people to do something. We're gonna be having our candlelight vigil at the bonfire in real life in my backyard. We've got someone, Darren Zakin of Richmond, Kentucky. He's gonna come and sing a song he wrote called “My Home.” It's a tear jerker for sure, but it's an adoptee centric song. And I have another one of our attendees that's gonna sing another song. And so it's just gonna be a small little gathering. We ask that people tag the Facebook page and anything that they're sharing [00:14:00] online, and then what we can do from there is we can share it on the page. We really hope that this gets bigger every single year and that more people are made aware of this day and that it really should be acknowledged every day of the year. But if we can at least just get one day where it's really highlighted and it's like a fire where it just catches wind, all over. So if people can tag the Facebook page Adoptee Remembrance Day - October 30th, we would really be grateful for that. And let's see, do you want me to keep going? Because I have other ways people can get involved.
Haley Radke: I know you do. I know you do. You have so many ideas. I wanna pause you just because one of the things I really appreciate is that there's moments for remembrance and there's also moments of awareness. So you're doing both, right? Like the public acknowledgement and sharing and making sure we use the hashtags and all of those things. But I'm thinking of those quiet moments and I even wrote a piece for [00:15:00] you and as I was writing it, I was tearing up and you're talking about being in the corner with your box of Kleenex for those four minutes. I hear you. Just mentioning it, I just have so many feelings that come up, and that might seem silly to some people, like really? But it's true. I have so many feelings about adoptees that are hurting and just in order to acknowledge it and to think of those that we've lost, feelings bubble up right away. But when you were talking about the bonfire, it reminded me of something you wrote and one of the things you wanna do at the bonfire, the singing the songs and everything, that's really special. There was another thing that you mentioned, what was that?
Pamela Karanova: At the bonfire, we're gonna have the candlelight vigil at 9:00 PM. We're also each gonna have a chance to share spoken word or poetry. I'm gonna have something available for everybody to write on at that time, but everybody that might possibly be coming has been given notice that they can take as much time as they want to write something, but we're going to read them unless someone doesn't wanna [00:16:00] read them, they don't have to. But when we're done, we're gonna take turns placing our messages into the fire, and then, as the fire goes up, we're gonna be sending our messages to the heavens that something really changes in adoption and we start really highlighting these truths. And I totally understand what you're saying because I wrote a poem, I've already posted it online, called “It's Hard to Smile Today,” and it's a tribute to Adoptee Remembrance Day. And I literally bawled the whole time writing that and I have bawled anytime I read it, and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna bawl when I read it at the bonfire. We need to be bawling. We have a lot to bawl about. We have a lot to cry about, and I just really hope that people catch on to the reality and the real rawness that we all have to deal with every single day of our lives. And so I hope that people are able to come to a place of that transparent moment. And if you're not, I'm not a bawler in front of people. I'll just be honest. I get really weird bawling in front of people. Like I hold it in and [00:17:00] then I choke and oh my God, but this thing, there's no way to stop it because I'm like you. I welt up and immediately get emotional when I think of these topics. And one of the ones that gets me really emotional is international adoptees. Like I can't even barely say international adoptees without bawling. Like I'm starting to cry right now because I just feel so many different ways for their experience and it just totally breaks my heart. And this day is so much for them, as it is for every adoptee out there. So I'm gonna stop on that topic 'cause I get so emotional about that topic. Like I think of being a domestic adoptee and then I try to put myself in their shoes. I don't try to weigh out people's pain or people's trauma, but I just think being adoptees, if anybody's to understand a little bit of their experience and we can put ourselves in their shoes, we're the ones that can even comprehend a little bit as to what they feel like and it's still not enough. And that is a topic that [00:18:00] just makes me really angry and it makes me really emotional.
Haley Radke: I had Adoptees For Justice on the podcast earlier this year, July, and we shared an adoptee’s story, Anisa, who has been deported and I talked to their executive director and just the impact for adoptees, especially those who've lost citizenship. Not lost, never had citizenship in the first place and have been deported. And just the staggering statistics of those people who have died by suicide is really shocking. And yet not. Can you picture yourself, like you have no citizenship, you get deported back to this country where you have no connections. You probably don't know the language, you have no resources. It's really upsetting-
Pamela Karanova: Oh, yeah.
Haley Radke: Yes. Yeah.
Pamela Karanova: And I had a conference call as well with Megan and Emma from Adoptees for Justice yesterday, and I'm so thankful for them and Ed as well, for all they are doing for that whole community, but one of the awesome things that we're doing with Adoptees Remembrance Day is [00:19:00] they're coming on and co-signing with us, and they're gonna create a whole event of their own that obviously anybody can come and join. And we can talk more about that in a minute about other people coming together to pull this whole thing off. But they're amazing, and I totally stand for them and what they do, and it definitely needs to be brought to light in a more profound way. So hopefully this day will really highlight that area as well.
Haley Radke: So it sounds like there are so many different ways that we can observe Adoptee Remembrance Day. Whether you're a creative and you wanna do some spoken word performance, whether you're an activist and you are gonna use this to really light a fire and literally spread a message around the world, whether you are someone who just needs that few minutes to really mark the moment and process quietly on your own. Sounds like there's kind of something for everyone. [00:20:00]
Pamela Karanova: Yep. I agree. That’s exactly right. And if there isn't something that stands out to someone, then we really encourage you to create whatever does work for you. I think this thing is gonna be best when we open it wide up to everybody's ideas and everybody comes together to pull it off. So we are encouraging everybody to get involved and some people are more private than other people and some people might just wanna do something very private, which is totally okay. But yeah, hopefully we'll have something for everyone that is available for people to get involved. And we just spread the word.
Haley Radke: So I wanna just take a beat and go to your personal story. What I've seen from you over the last number of years now, you guys might not know, Pamela has been in adoptee land for a long time. I won't age you. For a very long time, and writing about adoption and blogging and collecting community together and in a [00:21:00] variety of ways, and I've seen you kind of transition and take pauses, short or long over the years, and lately what I have seen is you're just drawn to nature and hiking and searching out waterfalls and those kinds of things. And just to bring it back to Adoptee Remembrance Day, I noticed that some of the things that you've shared, you also have added nature in, or even some of the practices that other groups might use, you've noted these are some things we maybe shouldn't be doing to make sure we're honoring nature and not being detrimental in any way. But can you talk about those two things? I know they’re separate topics, but how you have explored nature as a self-care healing, why you've reached in that direction and why it's so important for you that a part of Adoptee Remembrance Day is honoring that [00:22:00] as well by not doing things that are detrimental to nature.
Pamela Karanova: No, I totally don't mind sharing about that. I think my story might be similar to a lot of other adoptees. I've basically spent my whole entire life running a rat race of trying to find a home, and for me, home has been nature. I think I tried everything for, I would say 44 years. I've really been doing the nature thing probably anywhere from two to three years as far as hiking and finding waterfalls, but everything that I tried to fill that hole with, it never worked. So I decided to start hiking and it actually connected me to a time in my childhood where everything was really good. I think the best childhood memories that I have are out in nature and I grew up in the country in Iowa and a lot of times we were just let free to run out in the corn fields and the forest. And so as I started hiking this connection came back to me from my childhood that this was actually [00:23:00] probably the safest place that I know that I've ever been. So I get emotional talking about it. Ooh. But Kentucky happens to have over 700 waterfalls. And so as I was discovering myself and discovering the new chapters of my life going through the last, I don't know, I'd say 10 years, I discovered that love for hiking really connected me to my childhood. And then I'm like, wow, Kentucky has over 700 waterfalls. I wanna put it on my bucket list to see all of them. I know I probably won't see all of 'em, but it's a good goal to have to just always find someone new to run off to and have an adventure. And it's become my number one source of escape. A lot of times I go by myself and I really don't need people to go with me because I love just connecting with nature by myself. And sometimes I take people and even my Adoptees Connect group, we've gone before and that's a whole new thing of fun because it's awesome to share something you love with other people. I go a lot with my kids and that's been my number one [00:24:00] healing thing for my adoptee stuff. And after running so many years at the rat race, I woke up one day and realized that everything I was actually searching for was actually right inside myself. And so doing more soul searching within myself, of my likes and dislikes and what I love and what I don't love, and what I will stand for and what I won’t, has been a key to finding moments of happiness and making great memories and doing it. And one of the things that we did put on the website for the guidelines for Adoptee Remembrance Day is that we're hoping, because of this love for nature, and I know I'm not the only one that has it, is that we hope nobody will release balloons into the atmosphere because they have to come down somewhere and somebody has to clean them up, and that is an important part because I know that a lot of people love to release balloons for occasions, but we're asking very strongly to please don't release balloons. But we do have so many other ways to get involved that are all listed on the website. Hopefully that answers your question.
Haley Radke: Yeah. You have [00:25:00] so many different ideas. We could literally, we could go a long time listing them all up. And there's so many really creative things I really love, even floating yellow flowers and trying to make sure they're from nearer to you so they haven't been transported far away. I love the opportunities to write, to sing, to do those kinds of creative things that we mentioned earlier. And I feel like there are adoptees that I know their names. I really do know their individual names of adoptees who've died by suicide or adoptees who were murdered by their adoptive parents. I do know those names, and some of them have become famous in some way, but there's so many that we don't necessarily know their names. And so finding ways to tribute the anonymous lost adoptee, I think is really [00:26:00] special too. So thank you so much for sharing those things. We've talked about a lot of different ways we can acknowledge this day. And you mentioned there will be multiple different opportunities for events within the day. And there's gonna be details for that on your Facebook page for Adoptee Remembrance Day, a specific website for that, which we will link in the show notes. You have a Facebook event page for Adoptee Remembrance Day as well, which I really like the event page and I don't know about you, but I've had a few people say, Hey, can you share this as an event? 'Cause it reminds me, especially when there's a specific date and time for something. So can you tell us a little bit about the event page and your Facebook page and the other things we can find there?
Pamela Karanova: Yeah, absolutely. If they consider getting involved, one of the easiest ways to do it is to go to the event, which is actually on Facebook. Right now there’s only one event there. The Facebook page is [00:27:00] Adoptee Remembrance Day - October 30th. But if you go to the event, you can RSVP that you're gonna be attending the event, and you can also invite all your friends and family, and we really encourage everyone to do that because it's a great way to spread the word. A lot of times when you like an event on Facebook, it shows up in your newsfeed and it shows everybody on your friends list as well that you're going to this event. So that's a great way to advertise and get everybody else involved. The Facebook page itself, what we're hoping is that when people participate in this day, that they will tag the Facebook page and then from that we'll see those and we'll be able to share them to the page. And we'll actually also be able to share them on the Adoptees Connect social media as well. And they'll probably spread from there online all over the place, but we don't have Twitter or Instagram for Adoptee Remembrance Day because it's just way too much to keep up with. So Facebook is definitely the main page and main social media source for that day. So yeah, I would say use the [00:28:00] hashtags and make sure you RSVP to the event. We did just create quite a few promotional graphics that I uploaded to the page for people to use for their Facebook profile pictures, and they can share 'em on all their social media everywhere to highlight the day as well. So if anybody wants to help promote it, that's a great way to do it too.
Haley Radke: Nice, nice. I love it. Making it easy for us. And if we are not on Facebook, it's totally fine on Instagram or Twitter too. Just make sure you're using those hashtags when you're posting about it. It just means you're not gonna reshare it on a specific Adoptee Remembrance Day thing, right? So you're not monitoring. Okay. Awesome. Okay. I feel like we've talked about so many different things. Today, this is our recommended resource, you participating in Adoptee Remembrance Day. It's very important. I want to see it grow, just like you do, of course. And I really think that this is an [00:29:00] incredible way for us to teach people around us about the loss and trauma in adoption and also have that personal moment of reflection and giving ourselves an opportunity for some space for grief. Is there anything that you wanna make sure you tell us or anything else I missed asking you about that you wanna share about Adoptee Remembrance Day?
Pamela Karanova: I think the only thing that stands out to me is some people might be more comfortable doing something in person. Maybe you could have a Friday evening dinner or get together with a small group of friends, of course, being careful with the current situation, or maybe share something at your work with a few coworkers. And then there's other people that are going to want to participate in online things, which are gonna be available. But whatever your thing is, if it's not there for you, just maybe consider creating it yourself, whatever works for you. But exactly like you said, whatever you can do to get involved in that [00:30:00] day, we’re really excited for people to get involved. And that's everyone, not just adoptees.
Haley Radke: Thank you. Thank you. And I wanna thank you for your role in leading adoptees in various ways through Adoptees Connect, through your Facebook pages and blogging and creating Adoptee Remembrance Day. We are so blessed to have you in the community, and I thank you for your service to us and for your leadership in this way.
Pamela Karanova: Oh, thank you, Haley. It's honestly the biggest pleasure of my life. It takes purpose to the pain, so thank you. I appreciate it.
Haley Radke: All right I just wanna remind everyone, I'm gonna have links to all of these things in the show notes, but you can find more information about Adoptee Remembrance Day on the Facebook page in the event page. So just search Adoptee Remembrance Day on Facebook, and you'll find both of those things. And then we'll also link to the Adoptees Connect page. That has all of those [00:31:00] ideas that we only got to a few of them of ways you can acknowledge the day and then also has a list of other events that you can participate with online. Some of them are pretty cool, I think. So anyway, I love that and I just really thank you again. It's just been such a pleasure talking with you.
I am so thankful for Pamela Karanova. You guys know what a gem she is in the community and all the things that she has done for adoptees and she's just one of my heroes, truly. I'm so grateful she was able to share with us about this important day. And like I already said, I would encourage you to acknowledge this day in some way, even if you're listening well after it's passed, make sure you mark it on your calendar for next year. I'm sure this is something we'll be seeing for years to come. And I'm hopeful that it will raise awareness [00:32:00] about all of those adoptee issues that we mentioned before when we were talking with her. And I think there's so many adoptees doing such great work, especially looking ahead to November Adoption Awareness month. And I think this is a special way for us to acknowledge adoptee loss and take that moment of pause to really center ourselves before we decide what we're going to be doing in November. Whether you are out there on Twitter and debating the people who are drawing happy faces on their hand or if you choose to take a break from November, whatever is best for you. Not that you need to debate all the people with happy faces on their hands. There's nuance there. I totally get that. Just take good care of yourself and I hope to see a lot of you posting next week. And we'll have a special episode next week on the [00:33:00] actual Adoptee Remembrance Day, which will be a little bit different than most of our episodes, so I hope that it is a good tribute to the day. So thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.
