172 [Healing Series] Estrangement Part 1
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/172
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, 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 talking about estrangement. Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Pam Cordano. Welcome.
Pam Cordano, MFT: Thank you. Hi.
Haley Radke: One of our all -time favorite therapists, and I love bringing you on to talk about cheery subjects. We talk about anger and all kinds of hard things and today we're going to talk about estrangement. Hey, don't you love being that cheery person to come and tell us about estrangement?
Pam Cordano, MFT: Oh gosh. It's a big topic.
Haley Radke: It is a big topic. It is. [00:01:00]
Pam Cordano, MFT: No way to make it simple.
Haley Radke: No, it's so true. It's so painful and I'm joking about it and I'll probably joke about it later and laugh about it because it's awkward, it's painful. We both have experiences with this and so it's personal. There's lots of feelings and we're just going to do our best.
Pam Cordano, MFT: So all we can do is do our best with a messy, complicated topic.
Haley Radke: I have heard from lots of us, lots of adoptees, that they are estranged. And today we're specifically focusing on estrangement from our adoptive families. Can you talk a little bit about that? I know you're in the community. I know you've heard from tons of us, myself included. You've been on the other end of that phone call.
Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah, it's a big topic and I think that when adoptees come out of the fog and they start to become disillusioned with what's happened to them and what their own adoptions have cost them as far as [00:02:00] losing their lineage, losing their birth family, losing a culture, a country, the terms of the adoption, things they might not have been told, lies, coverups, whatever. And just to learn more about the adoption industry itself and corruption and things like that. I think that's a place where the relationship with their adoptive family can feel more unsolid and in danger than it's ever felt before. At least, it can be very stressful for their relationship with their adoptive family. But often what I hear about is much more than the word stressful. It's feeling disgusted or betrayed. These are strong words, I shouldn’t even say them, but feelings of disgust with their adoptive families or feeling betrayed by them, enraged with them. Just really needing to embark on their own journey of finding out who their first family is and possibly visiting a country that they might have been born in or been from but they've never been to before. Or just really going out and [00:03:00] embarking on this self-discovery journey to find the truth and to get grounded for the first time in a new way in who they really are and always have been, at some level. And that can just really throw a lot of chaos into their relationship with their adoptive family. So that's a point. And then of course there's a reunion where we find our birth parents and the stress and strain that can put into the relationship with our adoptive families. And it just seems like it can get very complicated and dangerous for the relationship.
Haley Radke: I've heard those things too. Those are big pain points for people and the first one you expressed, so coming out of the fog and we're learning to look at our adoption, like the real impact it's had on us and looking at it from a point of grief and loss and trauma and all those things.
Pam Cordano, MFT: Anger.
Haley Radke: Anger, yes. And then imagine expressing that to the people [00:04:00] that adopted you and thought they were doing the right thing and probably had no idea of all these external factors. We're talking to adult adoptees here from a broad range of ages. You know adoption's history. People would say things have improved. I don't know if I agree with that or not, but years and years ago adoptive parents had no idea. Maybe adoptive parents today have maybe a little bit of a better idea of ethical issues in adoption. Maybe they don't. That's a debate for another day. But imagine expressing those feelings to the people who participated in this industry.
Pam Cordano, MFT: Right. And in some ways, it can be easier to focus on the factual pieces like “What made you want to do it this way?” or “Why didn't you ask these questions?” These pieces of the story that we might talk with our adoptive parents about. But I think that the really hard thing is the underneath stuff that we don't even have [00:05:00] language for about what it has been like for us to lose our lineage and to not be with them. Most of us, all of us have a profound feeling in ourselves of being unwanted and there being something wrong with us and trying to say that to people who did everything that they could to make us feel the opposite. This rude awakening that's so deep in our own systems, and I'm sure in a way in the systems of our adopted parents too. How do we even navigate the feelings? We come out of the fog and things start to get shaky. Like how do we even navigate that with people who aren't adopted? Who could possibly understand what it's like? And so even when everyone has the best of intentions, it just puts this barrier in place. I think trying to work this out with our–I'm gonna say this: “parents.” This is part of the estrangement, right? That [00:06:00] there's a point where we can put quotes around parents. Well, which parents? And suddenly what was just a given is now a question. Are these my parents? Are these my “parents”? Are these people that I can disentangle myself from? Do I have a real parent somewhere else? Am I going to get better care and love from them? Are they going to get it more than my adoption parents do because they went through a loss with me? And wouldn't that be amazing if we could join there and my whole being could be understood and received and I could finally settle down and relax a bit and feel safe. That's like the wish, the dream. But how are we supposed to find that when everything's gone into upheaval?
Haley Radke: And then addressing that with the context of search and reunion. Adding that layer. From what I've seen, people wrote in to me and said, “Actually, I searched and reunited, but my adoptive parents were so mad. They're the ones that cut off contact.” And so I know that's not true for everyone, but [00:07:00] those feelings are so big. I think of that feeling of, “Well, now I'm really being replaced by my adopted child's first family.”
Pam Cordano, MFT: Right. And for us, we're like, “Boohoo, our whole life has been this.” Is this comparable pain? For adoptees it's often we feel like: Grow up and be parents. Be steady for us. Don't be children, be parents so we can finally get down to the truth of the pain we're in and find a way to try to start addressing it differently.
Haley Radke: In your experience, do you think we are actually having these conversations with our adoptive parents and it's leading to a strain and perhaps eventually to estrangement? Or are often these things, the unsaid things, that lead us to the path of estrangement? Because I tell you, I have had many conversations about this and I ask what was the breaking point? What was the thing? What was the [00:08:00] last thing? A few people have been like, “Oh, we had this big fight about such and such, but really it was all this buildup.” Or some people will just be like, “There was no big fight. That was it for me.” I don't know. What are your thoughts on that?
Pam Cordano, MFT: I think the same for me. I hear about big conflicts where finally there's a point in time where the heat comes out about everybody's upset about this or that, or “you never–” and “you always–.” And finally the stress and strain really just come out and shows itself in a way that feels irreparable. But normally, I think that there's just so much that isn't said or that's said in a twisted-up kind of way or in a partial kind of way. In a way that's how adoptees often grow up, not really saying the whole truth. And we're trying to stay safe and be loved. Even the adoptees I know who were the “angry adoptees” like I was and were rebellious and troublemakers. [00:09:00] We were also still making sure we had a place to sleep and food on the table. Maybe some of us get sent away to boarding school or something, but I didn't. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that so much is unsaid in the adoptee, in almost all cases that I know of, so that when things get so stressed and strained, whether it's because of reunion or whether it's because of some other event–like who knows? It could be anything–that often there isn't a practice inside of us adoptees or in our families of talking through things in a really thorough, grounded kind of way. So the explosions are much more like partial communications about things that are really important, but really charged. It’s just totally messy.
Haley Radke: So I asked on Instagram a few weeks ago when I started releasing episodes about the estrangement series. I asked listeners if they had ever considered estrangement from their adoptive parents. [00:10:00] And some of the answers were really heartbreaking to me and fascinating. I think we can learn a lot from them. One person said: “I've seriously considered it but I can't do it. Must be grateful. Face palm emoji.” Seriously considered it. So what would make people seriously consider it? We've talked about these relationship dynamics that are very hard and very painful, especially when we're finally exposing our true identity, I think.
Pam Cordano, MFT: What I hear from adoptees is that adoption feels like too much you, not enough me. Like the experience of being adopted itself: it's too much you and not enough me in the relationship. And even when adoptees are rebellious and angry, they're still organizing to this you. Their life is about rebelling from this you, or when they're being compliant and [00:11:00] grateful, they're very attentive to the you. And so when we grow up and we start getting healthier or the cost of being you-centered starts to weigh on us in different ways–we get sick or we have other kinds of problems that show up from being too you-centered in our lives– then pretty much we either get worse or we start to heal because there's a crisis there with however it's showing up. And so when people get a little healthier and they get more filled in with what's me? What do I need? There's an I in here that needs to feel seen and understood and respected and loved and cared for. When we try to bring more of our own true selves into the relationship with our adoptive parents and if it doesn't go well in various ways that's where we can feel like, “I can't do this. This is toxic for me. These people are toxic for me. I can't be comfortable in my skin when I'm around these people.” And that's what I [00:12:00] hear about a lot from adoptees with how they feel when they start to bring the range of their true selves into the relationship and where it's not received or the parents feel threatened or they're judging them in some way and not getting what's trying to be expressed. And then the adoptee can just feel like, “I'm better off without this.” Although that's just part of the picture because then there's a tremendous cost for us, also. This is opening up another related subject, but even when we leave painful or unhealthy relationships, especially with family members, it costs us a lot as adoptees. The leaving, the breaking, the ending has got its own whole host of problems that come from reliving that experience of a broken relationship. The cost of that is tremendous on us.
Haley Radke: Estrangement can seem from the outside, maybe, like an easy “quick fix.” [00:13:00] Right? Fine, that's it. I'm just ending it. But there is an intense cost, is what you're saying.
Pam Cordano, MFT: Totally. And it often comes after the adrenaline and the mobilization of “I'm outta here. I'm just drawing the line.” And calling your friends to say I drew the line. I'm done. I'm out. Yay. Good for you. I'm changing my name. Good for you. And by the way, I'm a fan of changing the name right now. I'm all about that. I'm very excited about that. I'm not knocking that at all. I'm just saying that there can be this mobilization of energy to save ourselves from this toxic situation where we don't exist enough in the relationship, but then that gets followed by a cost because–and that's not a reason not to do it–it's just to try to be thorough about the whole picture. I think that it takes a big toll on us. How could it not? Like we have the most profound experience of a broken set of relationships you could possibly have as a human being: to lose your lineage, to get separated away, [00:14:00] cut off from your lineage. So every cutoff from that point on, whether we're in first grade and we break up with a friendship or romantic breakups or whatever, they take a lot out of us adoptees because those breaks reverberate back to the beginning. And it's just like with grief, like when non-adoptees lose somebody, every grief after that brings back the first grief. That's just how we are as humans. They're all linked. They all link together.
Haley Radke: So I'm going to read another note that I got from an adoptee about this, and this is going to feel really strong. This is strong language. This is what people are really thinking on the inside and probably wouldn't say out loud. Okay.
“I wish I could leave them behind and never look back. I feel obligation only. I'm biding my time until they die, and that makes me feel overwhelming guilt. But I might be able to live my own life when they pass away.”
Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah, [00:15:00] I hear that. I hear that from so many adoptees. And this is so taboo. We're not supposed to say these things.
Haley Radke: Can I tell you, reading that out loud made me feel guilty. I'm tearing up. I know adoptive parents listen to this podcast and I'm like, “Oh my gosh, I don't wanna hurt anybody's feelings.”
Pam Cordano, MFT: Well, the thing about guilt like what you're saying now and what that person said in what you read–what's hard is that the adoptees who I hear say this are good people. They're good people, and they're just trying to find a way to be able to breathe in their skin and in their life. They're trying to find a way they can feel like they are more comfortable in their life and in their skin. Two things are in conflict. One thing is: I need to feel comfortable in my skin. I need to feel like I belong somehow to the life I'm [00:16:00] living in a way that is not so compromised that it's just choking me and suffocating me. But the point isn't to be mean to the adoptive parents and to kill them off or to not even care when they die. That's not the point. The point is the existence as an adoptee, with so much being underground and misunderstood or un-understood, the pain of that is so hard that to imagine a time when we don't have to suck ourselves into ourselves so tight that we're not even really there to interact with people. We're just longing for that relief. So it's these two things. We feel guilty for what we're saying, but we also know that there's like a liberation that comes from–. I hate talking about this publicly. I have and I will and I hate it just because of what you just said about how you felt reading that statement. But I had such relief when my adoptive parents died. It was eight years ago that they both died close together. I'm an only child and I felt like the [00:17:00] charade is over. I am now free. I don't have any adoptive parents. Like I could say, in a way, I'm not an adoptee, I'm a person. I still am because it still affected me and it's informed my life in every way. But I was free of it and I had this feeling as if I'd been swimming across this giant ocean for 40 something years and finally I got to shore. That's how I felt when they died. Because finally I felt like a real person, like the real me. Like I was a person that wasn't eclipsed by this adoption thing that I didn't even choose for myself or want. It was liberating. But that's more about me and my own internal suffering than, “Oh, my adoptive mom was so bad.” “My adoptive dad was so bad.” It is just less them. And so the problem is if we say something like this in a mixed crowd, we can look like we're just hating on our adoptive parents. And maybe we kind of are. But I [00:18:00] really think that the point is we need to feel comfortable inside and sometimes requires a full being away from through death or through estrangement to find, “Oh, this is just me here and this is what it feels like to be just me. Like I can breathe for a second. Wow.” And then we can learn from that freedom.
Haley Radke: I appreciate what you said just there, because I think now I'm seeing a much bigger spectrum of estrangement. It's like there's some people that choose it just so they can be themselves. And there's people that choose it because of obvious abuse and horrible behavior. And then in the middle, there's the people–I don't think I've released this interview yet but someone expressed to me that it's like his adoptive parents were really good people and really good about certain things. And then they were also really horrible about certain things. Like the “both.” And so it's okay to [00:19:00] see them as both, and it just wasn't safe to be in relationship with them anymore. So this is a huge spectrum.
Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah. My adoptive parents were not bad people. If I had been their biological child, I'm sure it would've been fine. But to not be their biological child, and then with all the complexity, my trauma, their unawareness. It was a kind of a disaster, a disaster inside of me.
Haley Radke: Let's go towards the middle of that spectrum. So yeah, your parents are good people, pretty fine, whatever, but there's things that they do that are just like eating away, I would say. So boundary crossing, things that looking back on it, you're like, “That's not great.” There's some things that are just eating away at you. How does somebody come to the point where they're like, “You know what, [00:20:00] I'm kind of done with this.” How do you come to that point? I think I've said this a couple times in this series too: I don't want to just advise everybody that they break up with their families. I'm not advocating for that either. I just want adoptees to feel like they're free to be themselves and they feel like they're in healthy relationships. Is that so much to ask?
Pam Cordano, MFT: Right. You and I want ourselves and all adoptees to feel like we have a say, that we have power in our choices, in our lives, and that we're people first, and we're adoptees second, meaning our duties–if we perceive we have duties as adoptees–those are second, or those are maybe 3,000 in the list. That we, ultimately, are people. We are humans, and we get to make choices like everybody else does. We're not servants, we're not second-class citizens. We may feel that way, but we're not. So how [00:21:00] far do we have to go? What does it take to free ourselves of feeling that other people are more important than we are? And I think that the pattern that tends to explode an adoptive family into estrangement has something to do with, well, from the adoptees I know, of them feeling like they just cannot make enough space for themselves, their authentic selves in the relationship somehow. Their needs, the depth of their feelings, their pain, the things they haven't liked, anger, all those things. If it's hard to make room for that in the adoptive families, there's jeopardy there.
Haley Radke: So another adoptee shared: “I chose estrangement because they would not respect my boundaries.” And I wonder if that's expressing what you just said there.
Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah. Because when we don't respect someone's boundaries, we're saying that my needs are more important than your needs. I'm more important than you. That's what we're saying. So it's healthy then [00:22:00] to say that this is not working for me. So either we change something or I’ve got to step back even further. And then we have another chance to change something or I step back even further, maybe to no contact if it comes to that, if it proves to be too impossible to be heard and respected.
Haley Radke: How do I know when it comes to that point? How do I know to choose me because we're not familiar with choosing me first.
Pam Cordano, MFT: Exactly. It can really help to have a therapist involved when getting to that point of trying to discern how much distance do I need? Is this relationship threatening? Might I need to get out of this entirely? Or am I not communicating as clearly as I could be? Or am I not honoring my own boundaries as well as I could be? Or am I not speaking my own needs as clearly as I could be? How much of it is that we haven't built those skills because maybe our families [00:23:00] weren't a place where we were building those skills? Or we weren't people who were building those skills for whatever reasons? And how much of that is that this is an unworkable situation here? It's impossible for me with these people to be respected or understood or seen or cared for the way I need to be. And it's too painful.
There's that expression with alcoholism. Like when do people stop drinking? It's when the worst day sober is better than the best day drinking. There's some way that the scale tilts; there's a tipping of the scale. So it's like using coffee for this math equation, but the best day being in relationship is worse than the worst day of being out of relationship. That's when the scale has tipped and then an adoptee is just going to say I cannot handle this anymore. I need out, forget it. Done.
When I was in grad school for Psychology, I had this really amazing family therapy professor and I [00:24:00] just idealized him and I thought if anybody could help me and my adoptive parents it is him. And I convinced them to go with me to a family session, and we got in the room and my adoptive dad told this guy that the trouble in our relationship was a hundred percent my fault because as a baby I had rejected him. And the therapist spent three sessions trying to get through to my dad, just baby step by baby step. And it went nowhere, and the therapist fired us. That was when I knew I had to fire my parents. So I fired them for two years. I was a hundred percent out for two years. And then I had to change; I had to get grounded in: “Wow. That's him. It's not gonna change. That's the best he could give. And with all that help, that's the best he could give. Whoa, this is my life. This is real, right? I gotta get grounded there and cultivate some other ways of feeling connected in the world.” And then two years [00:25:00] later, I decided to go back in. I was picturing myself having a snorkeling suit and a helmet: Go back in!
Haley Radke: Okay. I want to put a pin in that because we are going to talk about that next time.
Pam Cordano, MFT: Okay.
Haley Radke: As we wrap this Part 1 up, we've talked about this overwhelming guilt. Oh my gosh, can we do this? Can we do this? I hope you can speak to this. I feel like if we are on purpose choosing and thinking through this, like we've expressed over our time together today. And we're really choosing it with an intent and purpose of taking care of ourselves. Can we alleviate some of that guilt? Because it's like: “Okay. I am putting myself first.” Because you've expressed this a couple [00:26:00] times: “Okay, that's it. Done.” And maybe for some of us, the decision is made in a split second like, “That's the last straw.” But I don't think it's that way for everyone. What are your thoughts on that as we wrap up this Part 1?
Pam Cordano, MFT: That's a really good question, Haley. Even with the adoptees I work with who are the most confident and grounded in their decision to permanently leave their relationship with the adoptive parents, families, that guilt does still linger. And they might get a call from an extended family member who tells them “Oh, your mother's in the hospital. She would really this, or she would really that.” There's still that cord connecting to this sense of it's complicated–and it's not, I don't think, just a sense of that adoptee obligation like we were saved so we have to then be grateful and devoted to the people who saved us. You know, that narrative. But also, there was some bonding. We were babies [00:27:00] and we were fed and cared for enough that we stayed alive. I talk in my book about call and response, like we called, they responded enough that we're still here. And so that in and of itself is a kind of bonding. We may say, “Oh no, I'm not bonded.” But no, there is a kind of bonding that happens when we're so young and little and we're asking for care. Even if our parents have mental health issues or are not good for us to be in relationship with, there's still enough that happened that we're alive. So it's in us in some way that it’s really hard to feel clean, to feel free and clean, really. So even the clearest people are still struggling with that.
Haley Radke: Okay. I had a big sigh because I was hoping you would give us a nice tidy answer, but fine.
Pam Cordano, MFT: No, but wait, I'll give a tiny, I do have a tiny answer. It's a hard answer, though, and I think that's going to make sense. If we do make that decision in a careful way over time and we feel like it's the right decision and we [00:28:00] still have those feelings of guilt, what we tend to want to do is like, “Ugh” and change the channel really fast, drop the guilt like a hot potato because it's so painful to feel that kind of guilt. But what we actually need to do is to lean into it because that guilt holds a lot of information for us about who we are, that we're loving people, we're caring people. We care even though we are making a decision to separate. We have hearts; we're loving people. And also that there may be a pattern that's been in place forever about being so over-responsible for the other person, for the you. But that pattern dominated us for so long. And the guilt, in a way, is also part of that too. Like it's so hard for me to put down the worry about you, to put down the anxiety I feel about what you’re feeling about my decision because I'm so you-focused. And the way to become not you-focused in part [00:29:00] is to get aware by leaning into it of how much that's dominated us and how yucky it feels. It's like going through the fire rather than trying to avoid the fire. Does that make sense? Do you get me?
Haley Radke: It makes sense, but I'm a little bit irritated with you. Not going to lie. Because putting feelings away is a little bit nicer feeling than leaning into learning what the deeper feelings mean.
Pam Cordano, MFT: I know. You know what? I was an expert at putting feelings away and thinking I could get away with it and, well, I don't believe that anymore. With my most beloved clients, I'm really working hard with them to lean into those hard places. Not to be trapped there, imprisoned there, but to get free that way. To me it's like the quickest way out of it rather than unnecessary torture.
Haley Radke: Okay, well, I guess I appreciate the challenge you're [00:30:00] giving. I'll get to a place of appreciating the challenge. Thank you for your wisdom on this. It's not easy to hear. I'll tell you the truth, it's not easy to hear.
Pam Cordano, MFT: Did you ever hear the phrase: What you resist persists?
Haley Radke: Oh, geez, yes. I'm just going to double-down like that. Okay.
Pam Cordano, MFT: Oh gosh.
Haley Radke: How does it feel to be the bearer of bad news all the time, Pam?
Pam Cordano, MFT: Very familiar. Very familiar.
Haley Radke: Oh my gosh. Well, if we want to hear more wisdom from you and maybe some hard things that we need to hear…
Pam Cordano, MFT: It'll be a year before I'm on here again. Sorry. (Laughter)
Haley Radke: No. We'll hear from you next week and then we'll see. Where can we connect with you online? And please also tell us about your fabulous book. If I had more than two thumbs, I would give, like, however many stars to your book as well.
Pam Cordano, MFT: My website is pamcardano(dot)com [00:31:00]. You can email me at pcordano(at)comcast.net. Yeah, I published my book a little over a year and a month ago, and that's been fun. Yeah. So that's how you can connect me.
Haley Radke: And what's your book called?
Pam Cordano, MFT: Oh, it's called 10 Foundations for a Meaningful Life, No Matter What's Happened. And it's a lot about being adopted and trying to find ways of healing, but it's not just about adoption. But adoption is in there from page one.
Haley Radke: It's fantastic. And we got to do a Book Club with you over on the Adoptees On Patreon, which was also top-notch. But that's behind a paywall. This is free. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it even if I give you a hard time.
Pam Cordano, MFT: Yes. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here, thank you.
Haley Radke: I am so thankful for all of the therapists who have been willing to share their time with us on the show and their wisdom and expertise. I just [00:32:00] think it's a really huge gift to the adoptee community, and I am excited that I can provide these episodes to you. You can listen again and again. There's a whole library of podcasts. This is Episode 172. So there's hours and hours of Healing Series episodes that I hope will help you feel supported in some way.
I know therapy is just not accessible for everyone, and so this is just a part of the way that I hope to provide resources to the community that are accessible in as much as a podcast could be. Even that, I know, is a stretch there. I was just talking to someone the other day about this and it's like it's a free resource and yet not everybody has access to the internet or some digital device to listen on. So I understand that even that has limitations. I digress.
Thank you so much for being here. I want to say [00:33:00] thank you to my Patreon supporters, this collective of 200 people that support the show monthly and that pay for so many of the behind-the-scenes costs of running the show and producing this resource for you. And so I'm so thankful for you guys. You know who you are. I try not to name names because some people really want to keep their privacy. And I've had quite a few of them on the podcast and that's been really special to hear more of their stories in depth.
So if you want to keep Adoptees On going and growing and reaching more adoptees around the world, I would encourage you to go to adopteeson.com/partner. You can find out more details. There are some fun behind-the-scenes things that you can have access to, like a weekly podcast where me and a co-host talk about adoption and lots of other personal things that I probably wouldn't share on the show. That's available to every single Patreon supporter. And then there's different levels. [00:34:00] There's a private Facebook Group. There's other little things here and there that you can have access to, including our Book Club that's available to every Patreon supporter. The audio recording is up for our last two episodes already, and they were really fantastic and insightful. So I try really hard to make the main feed show awesome and also for the Patreon stuff. You can support the show out of your generous heart and also get some rewards, so it's like both/and.
Anyway, I couldn't make the show without you. Thank you so much for showing up for me in that way, and I will continue to show up for you. Next week we will have Part 2 with Pam Cordano on estrangement. Thank you for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.
