181 [Healing Series] Is Loyalty a Trauma Response?
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/181
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. Before we get started, I want to let you know how much it means to me that you're showing up here to listen to adoptee voices. I remember when I was first in reunion with my dad, and we hit the inevitable rocky patch after the honeymoon period faded, I felt so alone. I believed that I was absolutely unlovable because my first mother had ghosted me after a few months into our reunion just a decade prior. For me, creating this podcast has been a tremendous labor of love so that other adoptees like me who were feeling alone, struggling in reunion, or coming out of the fog would have connection, so we wouldn't feel like we were crazy. The wildest part of all of this is that it succeeded. Adoptees On [00:01:00] has become our show to connect and share what the adoptee experience is really like and I'm asking you today to support the podcast and make it sustainable for me to continue doing this work. I'm Haley, the host and creator of the show–our community's show–and I'm also a wife and mom of two little boys, who are trying their very best to stay quiet as I record this.
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This is a special episode in our Healing Series where I interview therapists who are adoptees themselves so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee. Today we are talking about estrangement through the Internal Family Systems model, Part 2. [00:03:00]
So if you haven't listened to last week's episode, Episode 180, I would encourage you to go back and download that before listening to this. We're diving in a little further into the idea that loyalty is a trauma response. I want to give you a content warning: We do mention and discuss suicide in this episode. Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Marta Sierra. Welcome, Marta.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Hi, Haley.
Haley Radke: Okay, we had a really challenging conversation about estrangement last week, and we're going to keep on going. One of the things you mentioned that I wrote down as soon as you said it because I thought, Oh my goodness, this is so profound: “We are loyal to others before ourselves.” I've also heard you say that loyalty can actually be a trauma response. So I really need help unpacking that. [00:04:00]
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yeah. That's my perception of loyalty at this point because the level at which we can be loyal to abusive caregivers–and that's outside of adoption as well. I've worked with estrangement with many clients over the years, and not all of them were adoptees. So this can be applied to any relationship with an abusive caregiver. But really, we're talking about the fawn response, which is a newer thing that we're talking about when we're talking about fight, flight, or freeze, or fawn is the fourth response. And so I just pulled up a little Psychology Today article to give a little simple encapsulation of what that is. So the fawn response involves immediately moving to try to please a person to avoid any conflict. This is often a response developed in childhood trauma where a parent or a significant authority figure is the abuser. [00:05:00] Children go into fawn-like response to attempt to avoid the abuse, which may be verbal, physical, or sexual, by being a pleaser. In other words, they preemptively attempt to appease the abuser by agreeing, answering what they know the parent wants to hear or by ignoring their personal feelings and desires, and do anything and everything to prevent the abuse. So some key signs that the fawn response is in use are: When you look to others for how you feel in a relationship or situation. It is difficult to identify your feelings even when you are alone. You often feel like you have no identity. You are constantly trying to please the people in your life. At the first sign of conflict, your first instinct is to appease the angry person. You ignore your own beliefs, thoughts, and truths and accept those of the people around you. You may [00:06:00] experience unusual emotional responses when issues do not involve people of importance in your life. This could include emotional outbursts at strangers or sudden sadness throughout the day. You feel self-anger and guilt some or most of the time. Saying no to those around you is a challenge. You are overwhelmed at times but take on more if asked. You lack boundaries and are often taken advantage of in relationships, and you are uncomfortable or threatened when asked to give an opinion
Haley Radke: What do I say? Hashtag relatable?
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Hashtag Are you adopted?
Haley Radke: Okay. So fawning, I haven't heard that term before. That is really wild. I can't believe you just read that list.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yeah.
Haley Radke: No kidding. Hashtag adopted. Whoa.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: So this is really complicated because [00:07:00] society views… Well, we know, right? We know the narrative about adoption in society, which is that we are blessed and we should be grateful, right? And so part of that narrative is that our obedience and loyalty to our adopters is viewed as noble, and it's comforting really. It's comforting to the other people because it confirms that narrative that we are fine and that no trauma occurred. Look, they're fine, right? They're doing all of these things. They're taking care of their family. Who would do that if it wasn't a good situation? Well, someone having a trauma response would do a lot of things that externally look like those have to come from a loving place versus… Yeah, it's fear-based, really. And sometimes things can be really “good” and really “moral” [00:08:00] and yet can still cause us a tremendous amount of internal damage. And unfortunately, adoptees get really good at hiding that damage, even from ourselves. So that's conscious or unconscious. That can look like someone that's overextending for an abusive adopter that's aware and knows that it's hurting them but can't really get out of the pattern, and that also might be someone that swears up and down that they're totally happy to have that person move into their home and take care of them 24 hours a day. And maybe three years in, that person has a heart attack or something. It will show up. There is damage being done when we are centering other people in front of us.
Haley Radke: I just had Dr. Chaitra Wirta-Leiker on the podcast, and she was talking about internalized oppression and coming out of the fog [00:09:00] and how she doesn't really like that term. But we were comparing the two, and I think that's also linked to what you're saying right now, how, for lack of a better term, for people who are in the fog it can be unsafe for them, like for their very selves, to admit there's something going on or to even observe that there's something going on that is in conflict with this dominant narrative.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yes. And trauma responses often unfortunately create additional trauma or additional re-wounding, right? Which looks like this piece that I know on the Estrangement Series people have been talking about, right? Which is going back for more, going back for more, just this pattern that repeats. And the more triggering it is, the more we want it to be different. And so our system is just trying harder and harder, and [00:10:00] we feel like there must be a way, right? If we're in the story of "I'm broken, that's why this feels bad," then we can't see that we're just repeating this pattern and the wound is getting more and more infected. I can't speak enough to the level of suffering that can result when we're in this internal conflict about estrangement. Again, that is whether you are in the very beginning of putting up your very first boundaries up through to you have made this decision and you have tried to cut ties. The distress is very similar. It's really hard to have this big push/pull inside of us. But my opinion from my experience personally and professionally is that being in our adoptive families can be its own traumatic experience, and that's in addition to the separation [00:11:00] trauma. Separation trauma is the result of being separated from our first mothers. That is traumatic. We know this. When a baby is taken from its mother, there's a trauma that happens. I'm saying that this is on top of that because it's not, thankfully, it's not all situations, right? But this is a reality. This is a reality of many adoptees' experience, that the experience of being a member of their adoptive family was traumatic. And then you add racial trauma on top of that for transracial adoptees. And I do believe that being raised in racial isolation is abuse. That's another belief that some may find radical. That's my truth. I know it to be others' truth. The impact of being raised in whiteness as a person of color, the impact on identity, the impact on self-worth, the literal [00:12:00] impact on our safety, physical, emotional, psychological and very real safety is so deep. It's so heavy. It's so… I just... I can't... There aren't enough words for me to talk about the gravity of this. Intention becomes irrelevant when we're talking about these layers of trauma. I know some people say, Oh, people didn't know. There are so many parts of us that want to remedy this somehow and make excuses for the perpetrating parties. And my example of that is that you can still go to jail for involuntary manslaughter because a life was lost and somebody needs to be held accountable. And so irrelevant of intention, if you feel personally traumatized by something [00:13:00] and you need to hold people accountable for that and make decisions to protect yourself, then that is your right as a person. That's your right as a human being to do that. And nobody else outside of you needs to agree that that is what occurred. And I would be remiss to not mention the also layers of sexualization and victimization of BIPOC bodies, especially in light of recent violent events. I think protectors that can get activated when we're talking about this level of trauma, this level of labeling abuse in adoptive family systems can want to qualify. Was it really that bad? Did you really need to do that? Really? What happened to you? Did they put their hands on you? Like, all of this comparison about the severity of trauma. It's not necessarily even just about the two [00:14:00] adopters that raised you. It's about these family systems. And again, for transracial adoptees this means being put in a very unsafe situation. And people in BIPOC bodies have a higher likelihood of being victimized, not just within the family system, but within these communities where we're vulnerable and predators know that we're vulnerable. They know that, and there can be a preying on this innate loyalty to others over self. There's an innate sense that we will follow the rules, that we will be obedient, that we will put ourselves second, and in that we can put ourselves in some really dangerous situations
Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. I know that especially in the last couple years where the racial tensions in the US… I'm in Canada, but I have eyes really raised high and that's been happening up here as [00:15:00] well. And I feel like there's been a responsibility put on people of color to educate everyone around them. And so then, looking at an adoptee who's a transracial adoptee adopted into a white family and they have this innate sense of "I have to be loyal." But then, you're also a person of color and maybe it's my job also to educate my family and try and un-racist them or whatever, I don't know. I don't even know how you could possibly navigate that. That feels impossible.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yeah, I see adoptees put so much emotional labor into this and I think the cost can be really high. And, I can't emphasize enough, Haley, our protectors are going to do their best to protect us all the time. You may find yourself putting a lot of energy into this, [00:16:00] and I don't want there to be judgment about that. There's no moral meaning to being blended with a protective part of you or what your system is doing to help you survive every day, day to day. This is a both/and situation, and we can only do so much healing when the trauma is still happening. So if for you, personally, the relationship feels like the trauma, then we have to move out of it in order to really get the space to do the healing that we need to. An example would be working with someone experiencing domestic violence. You can't do deep trauma therapy work with someone that's still in a literal unsafe situation. So if we put that lens on it, if your personal experience of your adoptive family system has been traumatic, then there's only one path to your healing. [00:17:00] Again, whether that's boundaries or cutting ties, but it is to put yourself first, probably for the first time, really, in this radical way to really put yourself first. And that we are not owned by anyone but ourselves. We're not property. The door unlocks from the inside. That's what I wish to disseminate to all the adoptees. You are not locked in. If you are unsafe, you can go. It's okay to choose you.
Haley Radke: I think I wrote this question to you when we were preparing, and it was something to the effect of choosing safety of our identity over keeping relationships. And I think you really eloquently said that. I'm sure people will be rewinding–that sounds old-fashioned–to write down what [00:18:00] you just said to remind themselves that they have the power to do that. And we talked about this last time, that there's this great fear as well, and that, if you're thinking of leaving your adoptive family and becoming estranged, professional support is highly recommended because it is so challenging. And then, you're adding on this piece–this is not my experience because I'm white and I was adopted into a white family–but for transracial adoptees and their racial identity, that is a whole 'nother part of your person. And I've heard people use this language, and I think I agree with it. It's violent to not be able to live out your full identity as a person of color. Is that the right lingo to use?
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yes, I would agree with that, Haley, and that brings me to [00:19:00] another piece of my story that feels so essential to share, which, again, is how do our parts communicate with us? So there's two big pieces to why I knew, for me, it was the right decision to sever ties. One piece was the vomiting that I mentioned in the last episode and the way that my body was communicating with me. The other was my suicidal part, and I know I talked about suicidal parts way back in my IFS episode, but just to remind people, suicidal parts are not parts that hate us or that want us dead. They are parts that cannot see any other way around the level of pain in our system. I like to use the image of a glass with a waterline, like a red line maybe towards the top, and once the water surges too high, it triggers an alarm bell. I think of suicidality [00:20:00] as an alarm bell. It's not, again, that our parts want us dead. It's that they're ringing the alarm bell. They're saying, The pain is too high. We're underwater. We can't keep going like this. And so after I came back from Colombia, from living down there, I entered this really hard phase, and I found myself more consciously suicidal than I had ever been in my life. And I say consciously because what I learned as I got to know this suicidal part of me is that she has been with me the whole time. I have a lot of other really strong, beautiful, amazing protectors that have hidden her from me for most of my life. They were so scared of her. She has so much power inside of me that she was kind of [00:21:00] hidden from my view, and so I wouldn't have necessarily identified that way earlier in my life. But coming back to the US, being separated from my mom yet again, reintegrating into this majority white culture after living surrounded by my blood, by my culture, and then having to still try to keep up this relationship that was demanding that I abandon myself in order to exist, I just couldn't see a way to keep going. And it really came down to me or them. It came down to am I going to choose myself? Am I going to choose to live? Am I going to die for them or am I going to live for me? Because being a clinician, being skilled at [00:22:00] this work, having skills, having a beautiful life in my present moment, lots of support, the most amazing partner I could ever wish for in my life, all of these things, none of that was going to protect me from this pain, from this trauma. It was that big. And it got to a point where it shook me that I'm not safe from this. The very statistic of how many adoptees we lose, that part of me and my life mission is to watch that number go down over my lifetime, that I'm not immune. I'm not too good to become one of those numbers. This could happen to me, and I had to choose life, which meant choosing me. And for a transracial adoptee, white supremacy culture centers whiteness, which also means it centers white lives. So I have to believe, as a BIPOC [00:23:00] person, that my life does have enough value, that I can choose me over the other people, that that's a right as a person.
Haley Radke: Thank you so much for being willing to share that with us. I think it will be so validating for so many people to hear you say those words, and I don't want to say admit but share the thing that so many of us have kept down in secret. That's very powerful for you to share that with us.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Thanks, Haley. Yeah. I really just don't want any adoptees to feel alone with all of this. If I can name something that someone's feeling, that's everything.
Haley Radke: Is there anything else that you want to share with us as we talk about this piece of loyalty and identity and choosing yourself, all of those [00:24:00] themes that we've covered
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: An extension of that can be there's so much liberation in choosing us and in this freedom, again, to be fully ourselves, to be fully our authentic selves. I feel like I was living someone else's life. I don't feel like I was... There's all these pieces of it, right? Like reunion brought me back to life a little bit. My partnership brought me back to life a little bit. But this piece, severing the ties of these two relationships, it really allowed me to feel like I'm finally here. I feel like I'm fully alive, right? And a lot of adoptees talk about being half here or feeling like a ghost, or am I an alien? Or am I really here? And I think all of that is if we don't have internal permission to be here, to be alive, to give and receive love, that our experience [00:25:00] of life is going to be pretty painful, and it doesn't have to be.
Haley Radke: And when you said to give and receive love, I just thought as ourselves.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yes.
Haley Radke: As ourselves. Yeah.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yes. I know that you've talked about how a lot of adoptive parents can fear that reunion will be the cause of estrangement, of severing ties, and so I did want to speak to that a little bit, even if just from my own experience that I don't believe that it can ever just be one thing, right? That's just such an oversimplification of what's happened, which is really lifelong for us, right? That these decisions aren't made lightly, and also that, yeah, it's not the fault of that. There were so many things I had to accept and I had to release control over to do this, including releasing the narrative entirely that other people are going to perceive this decision, how they're going to perceive this decision. And I don't have control over that and the [00:26:00] narrative or how it looks, right? Which might be, Oh, she found her biological mother and that relationship is strong, and so now she's ending this other thing. That's not my truth. So if people are going to assume that, I can't control that. And what I want to say here is that, yeah, there's a correlation, not causation, meaning that did having a strong relationship with my mother give me strength to love myself, to put myself first? Yes, absolutely. But it's not the cause of it. It's not the why. And if anything, there was a bunch of fear there too, because my experience of a parent is fear-based and shame-based and terrifying. So I actually was really scared to tell her that I had done it because I was afraid of her reaction because I fear caregivers. [00:27:00] So that was its own piece and, actually, Pam was like, You need your mom through this process, so encouraged me to tell her, and of course, I had this really healing, beautiful, corrective experience of what a mom is, what a real mom is.
Haley Radke: I'm so glad you got to have that.
**Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC:**Thanks.
Haley Radke: Thank you so much for sharing, Marta.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: I have a part, I have a mama bear part that wants to make sure that the adoptees, because that's who I'm speaking to, don't hear: The only way to do this is to sever ties.. This is about individual safety and, again, what's safe for one person is not safe for the next person. So not everybody can do that for a million reasons. And so that's not the mandate, and that's not the only way to [00:28:00] reclaim parts of yourself and have a more healthy, balanced, fulfilled life. You have to do what's best for your system, and that's individual. But if you feel like you can't hear your parts, if you're listening to me thinking, I have no idea what my parts are saying. In that fawn response, one of the things was: I have trouble identifying feelings even when I'm alone. That's how pervasive the loyalty is. So if you feel like, I have no idea if I'm safe in this relationship or not, or what I think about anything you just said, that's when we need support. And so your role as leader of your system at that point is to advocate for yourself, which means getting help so you can hear your parts. And advocating like that is also a radical act of self-love.
Haley Radke: Beautiful. I love it. I know people are going to want to talk with you more and learn more about IFS. [00:29:00] How can they connect with you online?
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: My new email address is martasierralmhc (at) gmail (dot) com.
Haley Radke: Perfect. We'll have links to that and all your other episodes in the show notes. Thank you so much for sharing so much of yourself with us and your wisdom. I really appreciate it, Marta.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Thanks, Haley. My pleasure.
Haley Radke: We are wrapping up the Patreon membership sale. I know today is the last day. I will leave it up just a few extra days till May 6th in case you aren't catching this the day it released. But I'm so thankful for all of you who've joined this month. It's a huge gift to me and my family and to the plans, future plans, for the show and hiring [00:30:00] adoptees and lots of exciting things in the works. Hopefully, you will see that in the months to come. I am so thankful for every single person that listens to this show and values the adoptee voice. Thank you. And if signing up for Patreon is just super not on your radar, no worries. If you would share this episode with just one person, one adopted person that you know who would really benefit from hearing Marta's perspective, I know that would be a huge gift to them. So thank you so much for those of you that already do that, that you already post about the show and you tag me, and I can't always respond to all of them but I promise I read so many of your kind emails and where you share the show on Instagram and Facebook. I just really, really appreciate it. So thank you. Thank you so much. I'm so honored to be able to do this work for you. So the link for Patreon, again: adopteeson.com/partner.
Thank you so much for [00:31:00] listening. Let's talk again next Friday
