26 Mike - Host of The Rambler and Korean Adoptee

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/26

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Haley Radke: You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is Season Two, episode 6: Mike, I'm your host, Haley Radke.

Today, I get to welcome Mike McDonald to the show. Mike tells us about his experiences as a Korean adoptee, his work with the Teen Adoptee Mentorship Program, and why he did DNA testing before he got married.

We wrap up with some recommended podcasts for you and, as always, links to all of the things we'll be talking about today are on the website (adopteeson.com). Let's listen in.

I'm pleased to welcome Mike McDonald to Adoptees On. Thanks for agreeing to share with us, Mike.

Mike McDonald: Thank you for having me on. I'm very excited to be here.

Haley Radke: This is a double pleasure, because you are a fellow podcaster and I listened to some of your shows, so it's kind of fun to chat with you. And I get to see your face. Our listeners don't, but this is fun!

Mike McDonald: Yes, thank you. And you as well. I also enjoy your podcast, so this is exciting for me too. And it's, yeah, it's weird, because yeah—usually it's a disembodied voice. I'm sure you're feeling the same way about seeing my face.

Haley Radke: Yes, you have your photo on your cover art, though, so at least I knew what you looked like.

Mike McDonald: That's true.

Haley Radke: And I think some people, when they see my picture for the first time, they think, Oh, that's not what I pictured in my head.

Mike McDonald: But I follow you on Twitter… Your Twitter picture is you!

Haley Radke: It is, it's…true story. Okay. Well that's enough about us. I just wanna hear your story. Can you tell us a little bit about your adoption journey, where you were born and all that?

Mike McDonald: Sure. So I am a Korean adoptee, which usually means I'm born in Korea. I was born in Masan, Korea, which is very, very south. I've never been there, but it's been told to me that it's a fairly large city in Korea.

And I was adopted through Holt International Children's Services, which is (I believe) the oldest international children's adoption organization in the world. It was kind of the first one started by (I'm gonna forget his name now)…Harry and Bertha Holt. After the Korean War, they saw a documentary about all these Korean War orphans, and they thought they had something they had to do something about it, basically.

So they traveled to Korea, and they started this organization. They, themselves, adopted a bunch of Korean children, and it all kind of stemmed from there. So I was adopted in 1985, which was the peak year for Korean adoptions, for some reason? I'm not sure why.

But in 1985, the most Korean adoptions out of that country happened, and I was one of the first ones to be adopted in that year (because I was born in January and then I was adopted in April). Actually, very recently was my Airplane Day (when I actually immigrated to the United States and landed in JFK).

Haley Radke: Airplane Day? Instead of Gotcha Day?

Mike McDonald: Yes, that's what some people call it. Some people say Gotcha Day.

Haley Radke: Okay, I haven't heard that before.

Mike McDonald: We did the Airplane Day for a long time before Gotcha Day was popularized, I guess? Because most of the international adoptees have arrived by plane.

Haley Radke: Right, right.

Mike McDonald: I was adopted by the McDonald family to New Jersey, so they picked me up at JFK International Airport in New York, brought me back to New Jersey (where I grew up in Union, New Jersey for a few years). So I was around four or five, and then we moved to Hillsborough, which is a very—at the time, it was very rural.

I think it was like slowly becoming a suburb, about 40 miles outside of New York City in central Jersey. But at the time, they had bought a house in a part of Hillsborough that used to be a sheep farm. (And apparently sheep farming was very popular in the area, as was dairy farming, until it became very suburbanized).

Weirdly, Hillsborough, New Jersey was a large landmass as far as area and township. I think it was like 52 square miles, which was really big (for some reason). So it was, it had a lot of people. My high school was probably like 400 kids per class…so maybe 1600 kids total in the high school.

So, it was pretty big and it was surprisingly diverse by the time we got to middle school and high school. There were like five different elementary schools that kinda merged into one middle school and one high school. And it was like… We, our family (like me and my sister), we're both Korean adoptees. But we were not the only Korean adoptees in town.

So it was interesting for us, because it's not something— Aside from the time of year, once a year, where we went to Holt Camp together, we never talked about adoption with each other and we really still don't. And we never really talked about it with the other Korean adoptees in town, either.

There were two other ones that I know of (I think my sister said there was another one that she knew of, but I don't recall). But they were also like (one of them is still), I consider one of my best friends, but it's something we never talk about, to this day.

Haley Radke: You never talk about adoption with him.

Mike McDonald: With her.

Haley Radke: Oh, with her, sorry.

Mike McDonald: Yeah, they're sisters. Yeah, Shannon and Meghan. Actually so, Meghan, I've had on my show (on The Rambler). And so she is more interested in talking about it than Shannon, who's actually—she's my age and she's one of my best friends. So we almost neer talk about…

Haley Radke: Okay. So, Shannon's the friend, but Meghan is the one—like she's a friend, too. But she's the one you talked to?

Mike McDonald: The younger sister. Yeah. Yeah.

Haley Radke: Interesting. Okay, so let me stop you there. What is Holt Camp? What is that?

Mike McDonald: So Holt Camp when… It is a camp, I don’t know—I'm pretty sure it still exists. I'm almost positive. But Holt Camp used to be (when I first started going), a Korean heritage camp for Korean adoptees who were adopted through Holt International.

Since then, I believe it has expanded. Actually it expanded while I was there to include all other international adoptees that were adopted through Holt. And then I think they even expanded past Holt and just any international adoptees, but it's still… When I left, it was still very mainly Korean-focused, because I think that's what they knew and that's what the program was built around.

And so it was very familiar. And so they still did Taekwondo, and fan dancing, and how to make kimchi and bulgogi, and Korean language classes. Even though there were, like Russian adoptees, and Guatemalan adoptees, and Colombian adoptees, and Vietnamese adoptees there, it was… I think they just didn't, the people who were in charge of programming, didn't know any better, so that's just what they kept in place.

I don't know if it's changed since then. I'm sure it has. I don't even think they have it in New Jersey anymore. I think it's since moved to Pennsylvania on the East Coast? But they also had a location for an Oregon camp and a Nebraska camp by the time I left. And I went there from the ages of 9 to 15, and then I was a camp counselor there when I was 18.

So it's like one week every summer and it's a week (each camp), and it's like a sleepaway camp. So your parents will drop you off on Sunday and pick you up the following Saturday. And it was, like, pretty intense.

Haley Radke: So it's like, totally immersed in Korean culture.

Mike McDonald: Mmm, I mean, not really. There were plenty of other activities...

Haley Radke: Okay. So it's like summer camp with a sprinkling of like…

Mike McDonald: With a sprinkling of Korean stuff. And adoption stuff.

Haley Radke: Okay. Okay. And so what kind of adopt… sorry, what kind of adoption stuff?

Mike McDonald: Oh boy. So I think it changes over the course of time, right? So when you're a kid, I think more of the Korean stuff is sprinkled in there, because it's very light, like cooking, or fan dancing, or Taekwondo (like that kind of stuff).

Or learning how to count to ten in Korean, like it's very light. But then by the time you're a teenager, I think that's when they start talking about adoption, and how you're feeling, and how it's affected your life. And you know, it's a good safe space, because everybody's adopted there (including the camp counselors).

I think the only non-adoptee at the time, there was the camp nurse who was an adoptive mother to one of the counselors (one of my counselors, specifically). But it was like one week that we could talk about this stuff before we went back to, you know, quote “the real world.” And we basically, because there weren't any mentorship programs that were like throughout the year, or perpetual that we went to.

So it was like one time a year we get that out of our system, and then maybe you'd have a pen pal that you could talk to, or somebody that you can run up the landline phone bill from your parents with. But other than that, like you had to wait a whole year to…and bottle it up to talk about that stuff again.

Haley Radke: So you didn't really talk about it too much with your adoptive parents or your sister?

Mike McDonald: Not so much. I mean, it's not that they were closed off to it; they were very open. I mean, when I was 12, I asked to see my adoption file and they were like, “Oh yeah, it's right here. Take a look, go through it however much you want.”

And that was, like, pretty interesting. There wasn't much in it. There was my baby photo, and the medical file, and maybe one other sheet of paper with some kind of contract or legal binding, whatever. But there wasn't much in there. My sister did the same thing, after she came back from Holt one year, probably around the same age (like 12 or 13). And looked through her file, which was— There was, like, weirdly more papers in hers.

We learned a little bit more about her family history that I'm not gonna get into, but it was just very interesting. But they were very helpful, my parents, in trying to integrate Korean culture into our lives more than I think the adoption kind of side of it. I'm not like… That sounds bad, but I'm not trying to blame them, or anything. I just don't think there were that many resources.

And so you know, when I was a kid, like Power Rangers was really popular. (I guess Power Rangers is popular now again, or maybe it never left popularity.) But when I was a kid, Power Rangers was really popular. And so I was like, “Oh, I want to go take karate.” Because you know, the Power Rangers knew karate, I guess, in my head.

But my parents instead enrolled me in Taekwondo classes, which is Korean. And at first I was like, Well, this isn't karate. But then I was like, Oh, I can learn how to count in Korean and I'm learning like… There was a big Korean flag there and the master of the school is Korean. And I was like, Oh, this is actually really cool.

And so I think that was their way of trying to push me in that direction, indirectly. So they, you know, they did the best with what they could, I think, at the time.

Haley Radke: Absolutely. And I didn't mean to be like, “Oh, they didn’t talk to you about adoption?”

Mike McDonald: Oh, no, no, no…

Haley Radke: But no adoptive parents were, at our age— like they just weren't. They weren't taught that, right? So I think it's so cool that you had access to some part of the culture. I've never heard of these heritage camps. This is so interesting.

Mike McDonald: Oh yeah.

Haley Radke: My next question I often ask is, did you ever think of searching for your biological family?

Mike McDonald: When I was a kid, I used to think about it a lot. Like, I think most adoptees when they're very young, and I think most adult adoptees… I don't know why we talked about this a little bit at one of the forums I just led, but a lot of adoptees, I feel like, focus on the birth mother, the biological mother a lot.

And so when I was younger, maybe up through like third or fourth grade, (so is that like 9 or 10?), I feel like I thought a lot about the birth mother, my birth mother. And I would have these like weird, false memories. I think they were just, you know, there were these chimerical illusions about who my biological mother could have been or… And I was like, Oh, I remember this happening (which is ridiculous, because I was three months old when I came to the States). So it just, it makes zero sense. And I was…

My story is that I was born in a hospital and I was abandoned at the hospital. So literally, none of this would've happened. Like, it doesn't make any sense, in retrospect. As I got older, I think being a male, I started thinking more about my biological father and being like, Oh, what kind of traits do I share with him?

Do I look like him? Do I have the same mannerisms? What kind of… Is he into sports? What kind of sports does he like? Is he athletic? What does he do for his job? And what are his interests and hobbies? And those are the kinds of things that I would think about a lot. And so when I got into college, those kinds of questions started getting a little bit more intense.

I got to Rutgers. I went to Rutgers University in New Jersey (which was like 20 minutes away from where I grew up), but it felt very far away, because it was much more city-like where it was (compared to where I lived). And you know, the dorm had a T1 Internet connection compared to my, you know, 56k modem dial-up back home with AOL 1.0 on it and Windows 98.

And I know I'm speaking (like this is dating myself), but this, to put it into context, it's basically like going from like dial-up Internet to like Fios Internet (fiber optic internet), when I got to the dorm. So I was like, Oh my God, I have this great Internet connection. I could do things so fast now. I can search for my biological parents and it should take zero time, because of the magic of the internet.

And then I was like, Oh, and I can take 20 credits this semester (because that's a good idea for a college freshman). So I ended up doing all my time on schoolwork, and extracurricular activities, and almost none of my time searching. So I opened a search, but I didn't end up actually doing anything with it. So that kind of fell through the cracks, just because I was trying to focus more on academics and surviving college and all the things that go with that.

And so I didn't really do it again until I graduated college in 2007 and I went to Korea for the first time. I joined this organization in New York called Also-Known-As, which is an international adoptee organization that networks international adoptees in New York, which… I basically took the train in like three times a week to go hang out with everybody there.

And I'm still involved, but basically they were like, “Hey, there's this opportunity. We wanna send you on this trip called the Overseas Koreans Foundation.” (Like home tour, basically, for Koreans who've gone overseas, as evidenced by the name.) And it’s free. They'll pay for your airfare and hotel and kind of tour you around and you talk about adoption topics and you'll represent the organization.

And then following that week is the gathering of international Korean adoptees hosted by the International Korean Adoptee Association, which is all these different organizations (like Also-Known-As in New York), except, you know, there's one in the West Coast, there's one in Boston, there's one in Philly, there's a bunch in Europe, and there's one in Korea (or now there's probably a few in Korea)...

But they basically all come together and they rotate from Korea to Europe and America every year. So that year was in Korea. I got to go back. And the founder of Also-Known-As, who's a very dear friend of mine, Hollee McGinnis, actually went with me and helped me organize a trip to go to Holt's offices in Korea and review my file and kind of find out how I could do a birth search again.

So we go to the office and they basically opened the file and they're like, “Oh, we usually don't show the adoptees everything that's in your file.” Like they were weirdly honest with me, because they were like, “You don't seem crazy.” And I was like, “I kind of wanna take offense to that,” but I was also kinda like, “Oh, thank you. I'm happy I'm not a crazy person.” But I'm sure there are people… And I can't blame adoptees at all for, you know, being emotional about their history and their lives and wanting to find out answers.

And it gets very personal, obviously, because it is, it's about you and your life and you don't want to have to relinquish control over that information to anybody else, especially just some faceless agency that has control over these files that tell you who you are. But they decided to show me a lot, and that's where I found out I was born in this hospital in Masan. I was named after the hospital, so my name is not even my birth name (which is Kyung Hee) . It is not like a given name to me by my biological family. It is the name of the private hospital that I was born in. So you know, when I tell Koreans my Korean name, they're like, “Oh, he's a very famous doctor.” I'm like, “Cool.” But that's all that is to me, because she, like, had me and then just left.

And so it's weird because (and this is where the fun mystery part starts, right?) is that she, they have the time when she was admitted, like to the minute. They're like, “Here's the date and the time she came in here. So we know your birthday is your birthday. Here's her name,” (which was, I believe, redacted as I'm trying to recall this). “And then we have the time that she left the hospital, but we don't have any other information.”

And the hospital had—There was a fire at the hospital and so they lost all the records. And so at the time I accepted that as, Oh, that's really too bad. I guess there's nothing else I could do. What do you do about a hospital fire, right?

Especially a private hospital, before there were digitized records, because it's ‘85, so I guess that's the only copy. What am I gonna do? Masan is supposed to be a big city. I'm sure that there were plenty of births that day (or whatever), so there's almost like no leads or no information. So I kind of called it quits after that and figured out, emotionally, like where I am and who I am.

And as I got older, I've kind of just become much more comfortable with being like me being me. And kind of living in the skin that I'm in. And I have enough confidence in myself and self-esteem that I'm like, I don't need that history. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with who I am.

And I used to, when I was much younger and before this happened, I would judge older international adoptees (and I guess all adoptees) who were not curious about opening up a biological search, or the birth search, or trying to find out more information.

And I remember particularly this one guy, Corey, Well, I looked up to, he was like a cool guy. He was very athletic. He seemed very smart. And I would ask him, and I was like, “Well, do you have any…” (same question you're asking, right?) “Did you ever do a birth search? And what was that like?”

And he was just like, “No, I don't have any interest in doing any of that. Like I am who I am.” And I was like, “What are you talking about? That doesn't make any sense. Like, how could you not wanna know? About your history and blah, blah, blah…” And after that happened and that door kind of closed, even though I had no control over it, I was like, Oh yeah, well, you know… I got to about his age, (which was probably 28 at the time), and I was like, I see where he is coming from now. I totally understand.

If he had no control over that, or whatever, and he has enough confidence to be who he is, like that's a cool thing, too. Later when I start doing my podcast and talking with all these other adoptees, I find out they're getting very similar stories. And they're not born in Masan, Seoul at Kyunghee Hospital.

And, but there was also, like, a fire that burned all their records, or a flood that washed away all the records, or they were unrecoverable. And now I'm kinda like, There could not have been this many fires and floods in Korea. That doesn't make any sense. And I'm like, Is there just some kind of conspiracy or convenient answer that these social workers are told to give if an adoptee gets too curious about their history?

And so I haven't explored any further than that yet, but. It's something that's constantly on my mind. Like, Oh, should I go back and confront the agency about this? Or should I try to be like really nice to them and go open a search again and be like, “Hey look, I just would like to see if there's any more answers out there.” Or maybe I should hire a private investigator.

And I'm like, I don't know. What's the right answer? What's gonna come out of that? But that's kinda where I'm at now with the birth search.

Haley Radke: Well, thanks for sharing that. I know you know Katie Naftzger, you've had her on your show and we just did an episode together about deciding, “Okay, I'm…” You know, you come to the end of your search and you don't find anything and how do you find a resolution to that?

And so… I think that would be really helpful to go back and listen to, if you haven't heard that episode. But yeah, just having… Oh my gosh, this, sorry, this, like, conspiracy thing, it is blowing my mind. Yeah, not all the hospitals could have burned down in Korea.

Mike McDonald: Yeah, exactly.

Haley Radke: Whoa…

Can you talk a little bit about the Korean adoption program, like it sounds extensive and there's these world gatherings, all these different… How many Korean adoptees are there, do you know? (Ballpark-ish.)

Mike McDonald:So the ballpark figure, the last one that I had heard, and I'm not sure of, you know, the veracity of this number, or if it's been updated, but the last figure that I heard is that there have been 200,000 internationally adopted Koreans.

And so it's a large, it's a fairly large number. It's pretty extensive and they're all over the world. So you know, the United States, most of 'em came to the U.S. There's plenty in Canada. There are plenty in Europe. There are plenty all over the place. At the time, you know, up through about ‘88 is when it was really, really big, and they still do about…

Again, the last figures I've heard are probably about 1200-2000 adoptions a year. I'm not sure. I know they've been trying to kind of slow the amount of international adoptions from Korea and focus more on domestic adoptions. But as far as I'm aware, they've been having a really hard time with that, because there's a large stigma on single mothers, there's a large stigma on children born out of wedlock, there's even still a large stigma of adoptees in the country.

And so through ‘88, it was kind of like an open secret that Korea sent all these kids abroad. That it was just a very convenient way for people not to be stigmatized if they were unwed mothers, or if there was some situation where they had a child and they would've been looked down on for that. So they sent the kid away to be adopted and kind of hoped for the best, whatever their circumstances were.

But in ‘88, the Olympics were happening in Seoul and I think it was like NBC (it was one of the news organizations, basically) came out and was like, you know, “One of the main businesses in Korea is exporting babies.” And so it became this since ‘88, this giant like national shame that one of their biggest exports in Korea was children.

You know, I'm certainly not trying to take credit for this language. This language is not mine, but this is one of the popular narratives about that. So that's kind of when they started looking at how they could tackle this issue and kind of reverse all these stigmas and focus more on domestic adoptions in Korea.

I think it's been very slow going. I think most of the society (while it's rapidly changing), when I was in Korea—I lived in Korea for about two years after college…. You know, most of the time if you keep your mouth shut and wear the latest Korean fashion type stuff, nobody will look twice at you. If you have an iPod in and just walk around the city of Seoul, and are hanging out with your friends, and you're not like being too loud, they won't think twice. But as soon as they ask you a question in Korean, or you get into a taxi cab and you don't speak Korean, or you speak Korean with an accent, they're like, “What's up?”

They don't know where you come from, or what your story is, or why you can't speak Korean. That's the biggest thing, it's like, “Why can't you speak Korean?” And then, you know, in a Korean adoptee's case like, “Oh, I'm adopted.” Or you try to skirt around that question as much as possible, and then you come around to it, and you're like, “Oh, I'm adopted.”

All of a sudden they get this like really pained look on their face and they're very sympathetic. They're like, “Oh, I'm so sorry.” And “Oh, what can I do for you?” And all this stuff, and I may have taken advantage of that a couple of times, and gotten some free taxi cab rides. But it's like this whole national thing. It's like they feel so bad for you. “Oh, you must have had such a horrible life.”

And they… It's pity, is what it is. Pity. They pity you because you grew up as this ostracized thing. And it's so bizarre that adoptees are so stigmatized in the country, because it's almost always a storyline in every Korean drama. There's always this switched at birth or adoptee storyline, or something that has to be in every Korean drama. And it's always, obviously, very dramatic and it's a main thing over there. So they have this weird relationship with adoption in Korea.

Haley Radke: Oh, that's… That sounds so bizarre to me that there's such shame for them, “exporting babies as a product,” quote unquote. And yet, “Oh, I'm so sorry you were adopted and you don't know Korean.”

“Well, if you don't want us to be adopted out, why aren't you keeping us?”

Mike McDonald: Exactly.

Haley Radke: Interesting.

Mike McDonald: Yeah, it's very interesting, still, because the statistics that I've seen was that the birth rate in Korea (just like the global birth rate), has been steadily dropping. But the amount of adoptions (international adoptions) has remained steady. So even though the birth rate's been dropping, the amount of adoptions has continued. So the gap continues to widen. It's really weird.

Haley Radke: But, and that number, like 200,000 (or whatever it is now), I mean, that's a huge amount of their population. You know, are they lacking young people?

Mike McDonald: No, I don't think they're lacking young people, but there is a lot to be, a lot left to be desired in terms of support for single and unwed mothers in Korea (in terms of social services and all that). So it's something that they could be pouring more money into, as a country.

I mean, they're a top 10 economy in the world. They're not, certainly not in the same position they were after the Korean War, when they were recovering from, you know, one of the biggest wars of last century. You know, it's been a long time since that's happened, and Korea could probably be doing a bit more in terms of…

Haley Radke: Well, and there's… I mean, there's something to be said, like in my head, you know, There's all these GI babies and the shame of that. And then, now that's not really happening...

I don't know. There's so many factors. I just… Well, thank you. Thanks for talking about that. I know that's totally an aside to your story, but I know that you're really familiar with it.

Mike McDonald: Puts it a little bit into context, I guess.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever thought about DNA testing? Is that something that, like in Korea, do they test DNA? Are they on Ancestry? I don't know.

Mike McDonald: So I'm not sure where they stand as a nation on Ancestry. You know, my wife and I did 23andMe.

Haley Radke: Oh, okay.

Mike McDonald: So we did that, because my wife is also a Korean adoptee. So we met through that organization in New York (Also-Known-As), in like 2005, I wanna say? (I should know this. It's 2005. I'm gonna be… Yeah, it's 2005.)

So we met then. And we were friends for a very long time, but you know, there's always this question with adoptees, right? Oh, could we be related? So we got the test to make sure we were not related. And for sure, we're not. We’re not even like fifth to sixth cousins or whatever, you know. Did you do 23andMe?

Haley Radke: No, but I'm just like… I'm sorry, I never thought of that. Wow.

Mike McDonald: Yeah, so we wanted to make sure we were not related in any way, shape, or form. So we don't even come up on each other's DNA list, which we're pretty pumped about.

Haley Radke: This was before you started dating or like mid-dating or…?

Mike McDonald: It was before we got married, because I was taking Korean language classes at the time. And I introduced my Korean teacher to my wife (this is such an awkward story). I introduced my wife to my Korean teacher, and she was like, “Oh, it's so nice to meet you. You two look so much alike.”

And we were like, “Uh, what? No. No, we don't. We don’t look anything alike. Why would you say something like that?” And then she was like… (I don't know if this is true. She's literally the only person I've heard this from.) She was like, “Oh no, it's… I'm so sorry. That's just something that we say to be nice. Like you look like a good couple together.”

And I'm like, “Why would that be a compliment, ever, somewhere that you look alike?” I was like, “Especially to adoptees. Oh God.” So we were like, “Before we get married, we have to get a DNA test to make sure that we are not related.” And we're like, “If this happens, let's just never see each other again. Let's just call it, and just go our separate ways, and never speak of this to anybody.”

But luckily, that didn't happen. But it is something like we're— Oh, that's another thing that's (and I'm going off track and I'm rambling, which is a thing, which is a theme of the show for me, but not for yours).

But it is, that's another like weird storyline and dramas and movies about adoptees. Have you noticed that? Especially like international adoptees for some reason, and they're like, “Oh, I'm in love with you. You're my brother.” “I'm in love with you, my sister, but we're adopted, so it's okay.” And I'm like, Why is that okay? That's not okay. What is happening? What???

Haley Radke: The only movie I'm bringing to mine is Clueless, when she like falls in love with her stepbrother, I'm like…

Mike McDonald: That bothered me so much. And they're like, “But they’re step brother and sister.” And I'm like, “What? But that's, like… No. No.” That ending bothers me so much to this day. I hate it. I hate that movie because of that.

Haley Radke: Oh, so funny. I would love to ask you a little bit about your work with, Also-Known-As. So you work with teen mentorship. Can you talk a little bit about what you do? And then also maybe comment on what are some of the issues that you see coming up with adoptees?

Mike McDonald: Also-Known-As, like I said earlier, is an organization dedicated towards networking and championing international adoptees. And making sure that they have the resources of community, basically, at their behest.

Because there's a ton of adopt— I mean, New York, obviously, one of the largest cities in the world. And with the statistic of 200,000 Korean adoptees (that's not including all these other international adoptee communities out there), there's bound to be a bunch in New York, right?

So Hollee McGinnis started the organization in 1996, kinda to network all these adoptees together. And one of the premier programs is the Youth Mentorship Program, which I was brought into when I was 18 (when I had just got to college). Because I actually—When I was a camp counselor at Holt Camp, I had a friend who had just started getting involved in the adoptee community at the age of 21 (which to me, I was like, “Man, you're getting in really late to the game.”). Because I had been involved since I was like nine.

So I was like, “Oh…” Like it's always interesting to meet the people who are getting involved at an older age. All those things that I had years to kind of explore as issues, she was experiencing them, like, all at once, at 21. And so she knew that I lived very close, and it's very easy to get into New York from New Brunswick by train, and so she kind of reached out to me for help for a lot of the things she was going through at the time.

And she was like, you know, “I'm also involved in this organization. I'm getting involved with A-K-A in New York with their Youth Mentorship Program. Do you think you'd want to be a youth mentor there as well?” And I was like, “Sure, whatever. I'll come help you out, or whatever,” (not thinking it was gonna be anything serious).

But it was awesome, because these kids who, at the time, were up to 12 or 13 years old (and they start when they're like 7). They have this opportunity in the Tri-State area to come to New York, and on a monthly basis meet with each other and these adopted mentors, basically. And it was amazing to me, because you know, I grew up with that once a year resource (like I said), where you had to get it all out in one week every year. And throughout the year you—unless you talked about it with your siblings or if you had a really good relationship with your parents, you didn't talk about that kind of stuff.

And so it's not like every single mentorship event is focused on, “Let's talk about this part about adoption…” especially with the Youth Program. You know, we go bowling, and we eat pizza, or we go to the ice rink, or we play laser tag. It's like a lot of fun, because it's a safe space. If those kids have questions or whatever, there's people there throughout the year that they can trust to talk about those issues with.

If they don't want to talk about them with their parents, or they're not comfortable talking about it with their school friends, they can come to us. And it also provides them with a very positive adult adoptee role model for them to kinda look up to. You're like, “Yes, there are many successful adult adoptees who are investment bankers or doing all kinds of jobs in New York. They're actors, they're just normal people.” And it provides them with a very positive image to grow up to, which is awesome.

Once they started hitting that older age of 12 or 13, and they actually needed to talk about those issues a little bit more… Some of the very topical issues of very generic things like bullying (like school bullying, which is a serious issue, obviously), but it doesn't necessarily touch on the adoption portion. Once they hit 12 or 13, they start asking more adoption-related questions. And so from there, we founded the Teen Mentorship Program.

And so at the time, I was a Teen Mentor and starting in about 2005, I was the Youth Mentorship co-director, as well. And then in 2007, I moved away. I lived in Korea for a couple years and then traveled a little bit. I moved back to New York in 2015, where I resumed the A-K-A Youth Mentorship Program as the director.

Basically, I wanted to come and do the Teen Program and the Youth Program, but they had switched the programs there on the same date, so I couldn't do both at the same time. So they were like, “Which one do you wanna work with?” And I was like, “Oh, I'd love to direct the Teen Program or the Youth Program again.”

They're like, “We really need you to work with the teens.” So I was like, “Okay.” So it’s fine either way. I really wanted to do both, but I was like, “It's impossible. Unfortunately, I can't be in two places at once.” But I was ecstatic to take over the Teen Mentorship Program and help direct that again, too. So I've been doing that for the past two years. The kids are fantastic and they— It's awesome, because we'll do a little bit more mature events than with the Youth Program.

We'll do a lot of joint events with them, but in terms of— We have an adoption forum (where we could talk about whatever they want to talk about related to adoption). And they're a little bit more involved, in terms of gathering their identity in a positive way. And if they have any issues or anything, they can certainly bring those up with us and ask us questions about what we would do in certain situations, and we'll give them as honest an answer we can (as appropriate). So it's a really fantastic program.

I'm really excited to be a part of it. Unfortunately, I think I might be moving away this year, so I'm relinquishing the program until I move back to New York again. But it's a really fantastic program and both of them are great. So, I highly recommend anybody in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut area to come and join.

Haley Radke: Do you see any issues with transracial or international adoptees that are different from domestic adoptees?

Mike McDonald: So, that's a great question. But I'm not super familiar with the issues of domestic adoptees. All my work…

Haley Radke: You don't know what my issues are? [laughs]

Mike McDonald: You should explain this to me so I can compare. [laughs]

All my work and experience has been in international adoption and that community. So actually the domestic adoption thing is totally new for me in terms of kind of discovering that. And even domestic transracial adoptees, I started interviewing them a lot on my show as well. And it's so interesting to hear a lot of their stories and things they deal with and how they compare and contrast with my experience as an international transracial adoptee.

So, it's super interesting. I'm not, again, I'm not sure what the differences would be between…

Haley Radke: No problem. That's totally fair.

Mike McDonald: It sounds like, I think the— From what I've read on, you know, Twitter and social media, you know, I follow all these different adoptee blogs and news and stuff, and it sounds like issues with getting files, history, birth certificates; all that kind of stuff is constantly an issue for all of us. And of course, there are plenty of legal obstacles that you have to try to re-legislate or get around or make your legislators aware of so they understand the issues.

I'm sure you're familiar with the Adoptee Rights Campaign and their work in terms of international adoption in the United States and the issues surrounding getting citizenship in this country, because their parents didn't do it (for whatever reason). I don't think that domestic adoptees have that issue, but I'm sure there are plenty of other similar types of legislative issues that come out of adoption, as a community in general. That there are problems with the systems in our respective countries that could be fixed with regards to access to history, I'm sure. So we were asking about 23andMe. 23andMe just got FDA (in the United States) approval to release a bunch of genetic information with regards to markers of Parkinson's and all these other kinds of diseases and stuff like that.

And those are the kinds of questions that (and answers that) we need as adoptees in terms of, you know, this is basic medical health information, that if anytime you go to the doctor, they're like, “Do you have any family history of heart disease, or cancer, or these things?”

And it's always like, “I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I'm adopted. I have no idea.” And it's frustrating. So it… There are plenty of sides to the debate about submitting your DNA to a corporation and what that means. But for me… And then this is, it's a personal decision for everybody, right?

Nobody's making you submit spit to 23andMe or AncestryDNA, but for me it was like not just, I wanna make sure I'm not related to my wife, but I also would like that medical history, as well. So if there are markers for these things, how can I prepare my health plan throughout my life? And what should I be on the lookout for? And how should I control my diet, or should I exercise more?

And those kinds of simple things, without having to go drive myself crazy about I need to prepare for everything. Because you can drive yourself nuts doing that, and those are basic questions that I think adoptees should have access to.

Haley Radke: Yeah. No, I totally agree. Okay. I have one more question before you before we go on to recommended resources.

I'm gonna dig one more time into transracial or international adoptee. So you mentioned that the middle school and high school that you went to were more racially diverse. Can you talk a little bit about that? I'm assuming (I don't know if this is right or not), that your adoptive parents are Caucasian?

Mike McDonald: Yes, they are as white as snow. [laughs]

Haley Radke: So can you just talk about that? Just growing up in a white household and....

Mike McDonald: So yeah, it was interesting... You know, New Jersey's a very interesting place. It certainly has a reputation of its own, but for what it's worth Hillsborough was a surprisingly diverse place for,, you know, a location that used to be pig, lamb, and dairy farms.

So, we had plenty of Black students, Latino students, Indian students, everybody…like, Asian students. So it was a very mixed class. It was still very, you know, white-dominated and very Roman Catholic. Like I grew up Roman Catholic, so it wasn't like— For me it was like, all my friends were Roman Catholic.

It was weird to find a Protestant, or a Muslim, or anything else. Later, when I go abroad or across the United States, they're… My wife is like, “Oh man, Catholicism is weird...” And I was like, “What are you talking about? We grew up that way.” But like even one of my friends who I just reconnected with from high school (she was Indian and she practiced Hinduism growing up) and she was like, “No, it was like, really, really uncomfortably Roman Catholic in Hillsborough.”

And I was like, “Really? That's what you felt like? Discriminated-against-wise?” And she was like, “Yes. I mean, like there were other Indians in the school, but they weren't always practicing Hindus. And this is like a whole— Like Catholicism was a whole— It was oppressively Catholic.” And we went to a public school, like a public high school.

There were other Catholic schools around, but it was like, you know, that was the main thing there. But it was very racially diverse, weirdly so for that kind of area in central Jersey. So I felt very comfortable, racially, in the school. I guess my mother (for some reason), she started working in the school system when I was in elementary school.

And as I moved up through middle school and high school, she also got jobs at the middle school and high school. And so when we were in high school, I guess you were in the hallway (and it's like again, a really big school). And I'd be walking—(this is kind of a funny story. This is not as serious). But my friend Rob, I was walking with my friend Rob through the high school and we saw my mom.

And she wanted to ask me a question about something we were doing later that day. And I was like, “You know, I have no idea. I don't know what my plans are later. Whatever, I'll talk to you later.” And Rob was like, “Mike, do you even know that woman?” I was like, “Yeah, Rob. She's my mom.” And he was like, “But she's white.”

And I was like, “You know what's really weird? So is my dad.” And he was like, his mind just exploded and he couldn't… For three days, I swear he couldn't figure it out. And three days later, he was like, “Wait, are you adopted?” I was like, “Rob, my name is Mike McDonald. Like, how do you not, how did you not get this earlier? You've been over my house. Like I don't understand.”

But you know, that's the kind of environment. It was just like, it was almost so diverse, that my adoption and my ethnicity almost never came up as that kind of issue. The only time it came up was like— they were weirdly, both times in history class (in different grades). And once was for (I don't know why), but this guidance came down about the teachers filling out surveys about what the primary language spoken in the household was of their students.

But they were not to ask the students what the primary language in the household was. They were just supposed to look at them and decide on the spot, and my teacher was livid about that guidance, for obvious reasons. But she was like, “What am I supposed to put for Mike McDonald, based on this guidance? What language am I supposed to assume that Michael McDonald speaks at home as his primary language, by looking at him? And then what are they gonna think, when they look at the form? So this guidance makes no sense and I refuse to fill it out.” And I'm like, “Well, that's the right answer and this is ridiculous.”

And then in my second history class later, my teacher was like joking around about the diversity of the class and he was like, “Oh man, you guys would be so screwed if you got like some substitute teacher who is, weirdly, like a white supremacist (which would never happen). He'd be like, ‘Oh, look at this class roster, like Akosh and Jariza, and Yaritza and all these names.’ He's ‘Oh, finally! A good white name: Mike McDonald.’ And then he looks up and he’s like, ‘Oh my God, what is happening?’”

So they were like, the diversity in the school was like, good natured when I went there. It was very humorous, how diverse our school was, like at a lot of times. We didn't have a lot of (as far as I can recall), like any racial issues surrounding anything in the school.

I may have been oblivious to it. Things may have changed, I have no idea. But in Hillsborough at the time, it was, you know (I'm not sure that idyllic is the word), but it was racially okay. I mean, I certainly had my share of bullying and that kind of stuff, but I think that was due to my size.

Because I was very— I was like 90 pounds until I was a junior in high school. So I was very small and easy to pick on, but I don't think it was racially motivated. And certainly the adoption thing never (for me) was an issue with my friends in high school. Everybody was kind of very accepting of it. It was just like a part of the diverse canvas of the school.

Haley Radke: That's so awesome. And it really sounds like your parents made a big effort to keep you included, like with the camps and things, and all that they knew to do at the time. So that's great. That's great.

Okay, is there anything else you wanna say to us before we move to recommended resources?

Mike McDonald: No. Is there any other question that you want to ask me before we move to recommended resources?

Haley Radke: I have like 50 more questions for you, but I can't. I can’t. You'll have to come back another time. You can do a second guest spot at some point.

Mike McDonald: Whatever you need.

Haley Radke: Okay. Okay. Well, in honor of you being a podcaster, I decided I should re-recommend one of the podcasts I've already recommended, that's called Out of the Fog. And a specific episode of that is episode four, called “Mine Don't Swim,” which is about infertility.

Mike McDonald: Oh yeah.

Haley Radke: Couple seconds to get the joke. Yeah. It's about infertility adoption loss. If you haven't listened to Out of the Fog before, they just have a few episodes, because it's an incredibly well produced show.

It's only half an hour, but you can think of it like a This American Life kind of style. Lots of music. They make it at a radio station in Quebec (in Canada). I was so moved by this episode. I just… There were a couple different gems that stuck out to me and I don't wanna spoil them, I just want you to go and listen to that. It's a deep thinking episode, I guess. And yeah. And the other ones are great too. But this one is called “Mine Don't Swim.” And when it starts out, they're talking to this man who is talking about infertility and how he had to get tested and all the things that he and his wife were doing to have a baby.

And I thought, Oh no, don't tell me that my favorite show is like switching over to, “Let's help you adopt,” 'cause that's not my game. I'm sure you can tell by what I've talked about before, but it's not. So don't let those first couple minutes trigger you. Anyway, beautifully done. I love that show.

It's called Out of the Fog, and their website is outofthefog.news (or https://adoptee.substack.com/)and they're on Twitter @thefogradio. Okay!

Mike McDonald: Yes. I will have to listen to that one for sure. I follow them on Twitter, but I haven't yet had time in my podcast listening schedule to filter them in, but I will definitely check that out, for sure.

Haley Radke: Well, I'm having an easier time keeping up with yours now that it's not quite as frequent because, oh my goodness... I don't know how you had time to do a show every single week and you work full time and…oh my gosh.

Mike McDonald: Yeah I don't know how I had time, either. And that was one of the main things from a lot of my listeners, they're like, “I'm almost caught up. I have like 30 more episodes to go.” And I was like, “Oh my God.” I was like, “You have more than a day of listening to me?” I was like, I better slow it down. This is crazy. I’m like, I'm driving myself crazy, putting 'em out and I'm sure you're…

Haley Radke: And we can't keep up. Yep.

Mike McDonald: Yeah. So I'm like, I'll slow it down.

Haley Radke: Okay. Alright. So… Yeah, there. That's my bonus recommendation. So, your podcast is called The Rambler. And do you wanna tell us a little bit about that before we go into your recommendation?

Mike McDonald: Sure. So, my show is called The Rambler. You can follow me on Twitter @TheRamblerADHD, or you can like me on Facebook at facebook.com/therambleradhd.

ADHD is not in the official title. I don't officially have ADHD. It's just the show is very free flowing. It's certainly not as professionally put together or as deep as Adoptees On, or my recommendation, Adapted, or The Fog. It is less like NPR and a little bit more like WTF with Marc Maron, where I have a guest on, one-on-one (very much like this show).

But, you know, maybe my guest wants to talk about how much they love their dog for 10 minutes and I'll totally leave that in. And it's a little bit unfiltered. There are some episodes that are a little bit more…what's the word I'm looking for?

Haley Radke: Well, I know you have the explicit rating on your…

Mike McDonald: Yeah. Yeah. Some can be a little bit more explicit or R-rated in terms of language and content than others. And, you know, and so that's kind of indicative of the filter of my show, which is to say there is barely any filter. You know, I have some guests that—I find all the guests to be incredibly interesting. All the stories are so unique which is why…

And also, I have a ton of episodes out there for some reason, 'cause I'm a crazy person. So it's very hard for me to recommend a specific episode for you guys to listen to, unfortunately. So, just listen to all of them. But there are some out there that are more explicit than others and, you know, there are certain themes that people wanna talk about, but the focus of the show is always on international or transracial adoptees.

And so that's why I'm very unfamiliar, unfortunately, with domestic adoption. But I figured that can, you know, that's your niche and that's other people's niches. So this is…

Haley Radke: Well, if you're in your space, it’s good. That's good.

Mike McDonald: Yeah, exactly. There's, and there's room for everybody.

Haley Radke: That's right.

Mike McDonald: And so this is where I will segue into my recommendation Adapted, which is Kaomi Goetz’s podcast. And that's a little bit also, much more professional NPR-style than mine. But she does it from Korea, and I think it's part of her Fulbright scholarship over there, where she interviews Korean adoptees, specifically living in Korea.

And it's a very limited series. And so if you are interested in exploring more of that territory, that specific territory and their experiences over there, it's very interesting. I'm gonna recommend episode eight, Kim Craig. She's a multiracial Korean adoptee who actually never got her citizenship to the United States.

And so she's been living in Korea, but she is unable to return to the United States, because she doesn't have her citizenship and she has to go through all these hoops. It's crazy. She has her daughters that are there, that are, (I believe) U.S. citizens. And so one is going to college in the States, but she can't even go visit her.

So that girl has to come back and forth and stuff like that. It's totally insane. The whole thing with international adoptees that don't have citizenship is this crazy loophole. It is insane, with adoptees not just getting their citizenship once they're adopted to the United States, or their respective birth countries.

So that's an episode that I will definitely recommend to you guys to listen to, in terms of Kaomi's podcast, which is fantastic.

Haley Radke: Thank you. That is awesome. I'll definitely listen to that episode. That's a huge issue that’s really disturbing. Okay, last thing: Twitter. We're Twitter friends. Tell me what to follow.

Mike McDonald: Okay. Well, if you want to follow my hashtag, specifically (and I think other adoptees are kind of piling on this). I do the hashtag #adopteevoices for all the guests on my show, whenever I publicize their episode. I also highlight other adoptee voices that I find on Twitter that I think are important to highlight.

I mean, like so much of the adoption conversation (especially a few years ago, it's definitely grown since then), was very much out of the adoptive parents' point of view. And as adoptees, you and I and a lot of the audience know that's only one part of the triad. (No offense to parents, or their awesome organizations and work that they're doing), but adoptees also have a voice and experience, and it's important to get those stories out there.

So that is what the hashtag #adopteevoices is all about. And I encourage any adoptees out there (including you) who wanna share the stories, and journeys, and community of adoptees and the strength that we bring, and the stories that we have to the table to use that hashtag whenever they tweet out or put it on Facebook, or whatever.

We have our own voices and people will need to hear it. It's important to the community. It's important in informing things like policy, and access to birth certificates or medical records, or what the experiences growing up were like. So, that's kind of what that hashtag is all about and people should definitely check that out.

Haley Radke: Thank you so much, Mike. It's been such a pleasure talking with you, and thanks for sharing your story and also teaching us a little bit more about what you do with the Mentorship Program and more about the Korean adoption program. Because, wow… I learned a lot from you tonight. Thank you.

Mike McDonald: Thank you so much for having me on and allowing me the space to share my story a little bit. This is— It's so weird being on this side of the microphone, on Skype and the interview, so…

Haley Radke: It's so fun.

Mike McDonald: It is fun.

Haley Radke: It's so much less stress.

Mike McDonald: I don't know if it is. I'm much more comfortable asking the questions. It's totally cool.

Haley Radke: Oh good.

Mike McDonald: Keep doing what you're doing. It's great. It's so fantastic.

Haley Radke: Oh, thank you so much. You, too.

Mike's been giving back so much to his adoptee community. I'm really thankful for his leadership and service in this area. You can send him a note on Twitter to thank him for sharing with us @TheRamblerADHD.

I want to thank all of you who are supporting me on Patreon. You're making it possible for me to continue producing this podcast for you. The secret Facebook group is growing and now includes some of our adoptee therapists that have been featured on the Healing Series. They're off therapist duty in there, but it's been amazing to be connected and discuss some of the episodes together.

If you'd like to support Adoptees On as a monthly patron, I would be so honored and pleased to thank you with an invitation to the Facebook group. So you can visit adopteeson.com/partner for more details.

I just have one more thing to ask. Would you share this episode with a friend? Maybe you know an international or transracial adoptee who would really benefit from hearing Mike's story, and also from listening to his podcast, The Rambler. And remember, some people really struggle to even listen to a podcast, so it can help them if you would walk them through how to download and subscribe to the show. You can be a podcast evangelist.

Thanks for listening. Let's talk again, next Friday.

25 [Healing Series] Anger

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/25

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Haley Radke: You’re listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and 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.

I had an episode ready, scheduled to go up this Friday, and I just finished recording this. It is one of the best interviews I've ever had. I immediately thought, ‘this is so important. I have to get it up right away.’ I had so many light bulb moments. I just wanna say, maybe this is not the best episode to listen to on your commute, on your way into work. Rather, do it on your way home, or when you have some quiet space to yourself to think. I hope you have as many takeaways as I did. I don't want to waste any more of your time, let's get to it. It's so important, so good. I'm so thankful for all the information that was shared, and we're gonna tackle a really great subject that I think a lot of you are gonna identify with. Let's listen in.

Pamela Cordano is a fellow adoptee and psychotherapist who specializes in helping you to discover meaning in your life. Welcome back to Adoptees On, Pamela.

Pamela Cordano: Thank you. I'm so happy to be with you today.

Haley Radke: I'm so glad to be speaking with you. We are tackling a big one today: anger. And I bet everyone listening has at some point in their life been told, “You sound kind of like an angry adoptee.” So, that's kind of triggering for me, and probably for a lot of the people that are listening. So would you start out by just talking a little bit about what anger is and why adoptees get accused of being angry all the time?

Pamela Cordano: Oh my gosh, yes. This is a huge subject and I actually am excited to be talking about it even though it's so big, because it's one of my favorite subjects, actually. And I definitely grew up very angry, so anger's been something I've had to look at a lot over the 52 years I've been alive. So what I say to clients about how to define anger is: anger simply means ‘I don't like this’. There's a lot for us adoptees to not like about what's happened to us or how the culture is with adoption, or how the system is, or contact with our adoptive families and biological families, and how we feel inside about ourselves. There's plenty for us not to like, so there's plenty for us to be angry about.

Haley Radke: Definitely, I mean, I'm an angry adoptee, too.

Pamela Cordano: Hello, angry adoptee! So anger and fear are closely linked, and I would then say that there's also a lot for us to be afraid of as adoptees.

So, if you think about a bear in the woods who has cubs –this is a bear who's keeping her cubs, by the way, sorry, that's a little angry thing to say– but if someone comes and threatens her cubs, she doesn't like it, right? And she's afraid that her cubs are gonna get hurt. So she growls and gets fierce and her anger is saying, “I don't like this.” And she's also afraid.

So fear and anger are closely linked, and in fact anger is often considered to be a secondary emotion that follows a primary emotion. And the primary emotion could be fear, or it could be shame and humiliation. It could be sadness. Some people really are afraid of getting sad or despairing because they can sink into a pit and feel like they can't come out again, and anger at least, is more bolstering and can make us feel like we have some power. So anger is often thought of as a secondary emotion. So anger means ‘I don't like this’, and anger and fear are closely linked. And, like I said, there's a lot for us adoptees to be afraid of, and to not like.

One of the things about adoptees and anger is that– I believe in the primal wound, and I believe that when we're born, our brains are not formed yet. And when we change mothers, families, environments, that it's a trauma to our developing brains, and that we go into the fight/flight/freeze mode in our brains, and that's very, very stressful for us.

And so, rather than just basking in a nice nap or nursing with our mother, or whatever happy, content, safe babies do, we're in a trauma already making this adjustment. So our brains are not developing the same way that a baby-who-feels-safe's brain is developing, and the stress just has gotten going right away.

So our bodies are emitting stress hormones, and there are new ways our brains are being wired because of this stress, and it's just like the beginning of our brain development is done– I mean, I feel this on the inside of me. I don't know if you can relate to this, but I feel like deep, deep down in me, there's a chaos and a fight/flight thing just ready to happen very easily, and I look at my friends who are from intact families, who are not adopted, and some of them have later traumas and I know what their traumas are like, but there's something in me that feels like it's just from the very beginning. And I don't say that because I know it, I say that because I feel it.

Haley Radke: I think one of the ways that shows up for me is that I startle so easily and it's a big reaction. That's really interesting.

Pamela Cordano: Yep, me too. Yep. And a lot of adoptees have sleep problems. At one time, a teacher said to us –it was like a development class– that when babies don't feel safe, they have a really hard time sleeping the way that safe babies sleep.

So a lot of adoptees have sleep problems. And I just think that this primal beginning lack of safety is with us through our lives, I just happen to believe that. I don't need people to agree with me, but that's what I believe, and it's the basis of where some of this anger comes from –or maybe a lot of the anger comes from– in us, living in a state of biological, neurological fear, and it being very easy for us not to like how things are going, or things not to feel right to us with what's happening.

Haley Radke: I'm just, like, nodding along and thinking, ‘Yes, you're describing me right now.’

Pamela Cordano: Yeah, it's really sad, isn't it? I mean, can I read a quote to you by a doctor named Bessel van der Kolk?

Haley Radke: Oh, absolutely.

Pamela Cordano: I'm not sure if you've heard of him or not. Okay, here's a quote about trauma. And this is about a quote about anybody, it's not directed toward adoptees.

“Trauma is much more than a story about the past that explains why people are frightened, angry, or out of control. Trauma is re-experienced in the present, not as a story, but as profoundly disturbing physical sensations and emotions that may not be consciously associated with memories of past trauma. Terror, rage and helplessness are manifested as bodily reactions, like a pounding heart, nausea, gut-wrenching sensations, and characteristic body movements that signify collapse, rigidity, or rage. The challenge in recovering from trauma is to learn to tolerate feeling what you feel and knowing what you know about being overwhelmed. There are many ways to achieve this, but all involve establishing a sense of safety, and the regulation of physiological arousal.”

So that's a big quote, but I think what I'm trying to say is that I really believe that the deepest basis for anger in us has to do with our trauma.

Haley Radke: Okay. So to address the anger, then, we're going back –cuz you said it was a secondary emotion, also– then we're going back one level, so there's that sadness, fear, shame, and those are things that are coming from the trauma.

Pamela Cordano: Yeah, that's actually living in us in a neurological and biological kind of way.

Haley Radke: Let's talk a little bit more about anger. So you defined it as, ‘I don't like this.’

Pamela Cordano: Right. And so it's a powerful, necessary– We need anger. Animals need anger. Humans need anger. We need to be able to draw lines and express ourselves when we don't like something, when something's scaring us and we don't like it. So it has a very healthy component to it, and it preserves us, and it defines us.

So I just want to name a few polarities of anger. There's connected anger, where, let's say an adoptee is talking to their adoptive parents about their experience and what they're frustrated about. And if the adoptive parents can make space for what's being said, for their child, the adoptee might feel connected in the conversation and connected in the anger they're experiencing.

But there's also disconnected anger, and I grew up being angry in a very disconnected way. Like I would just rage at my mother and I would just, you know, say, “You're not my real mother,” you know, “The courts decided this, my number came up when your number came up,” and “This is BS and I can't stand it.”

And she would just be crying and be feeling helpless. But we weren't connected. You know, there was not a conversation happening, it was one-sided, I'm raging, she's collapsing, and then, you know, 10 minutes later I'm feeling terribly guilty and, you know, whatever happens. But so there's connected versus disconnected anger and connected anger can be a very satisfying and healing experience.

And hopefully if people see therapists or have supportive partners or friends, when they express what they're angry about, they feel connected with. And they don't feel like they're saying something and they're just being stared at, like they're an alien or they've committed blasphemy or something.

Haley Radke: I think that's a part of what was so healing for me when I was in the room with other adoptees, because we can be angry about the same thing and just like you said, you feel connected,

Pamela Cordano: So it actually settles us down, if we talk to other adoptees who understand about something that really makes us angry, or we have a take on something that isn't going to fly, culturally, very easily, and someone can hear us, it really settles our nervous system down so it's healing. And so as far as a practical thing, finding people that we can share our anger with, who can stay connected to us and make space for us and care for our experience is a very healing thing.

Haley Radke: So the disconnected anger is what we often get because we will talk about something that we're upset about, and then people are like, “Well, you can't feel that way. You should be happy.”

Pamela Cordano: Right. And so we get judged or blamed or pathologized, for our experience. And then we're angry in a disconnected way and the response to us actually harms us. And that makes me mad.

Haley Radke: Me too! Okay, is there any other kinds of anger you want to talk about?

Pamela Cordano: Yeah, there are others, too. This is sort of saying the same thing, but there's grounded anger versus ungrounded anger. So there's anger where we feel like we have our feet on the ground, we know who we wanna talk to about whatever, and we know what we wanna say and we have room for the other person to have their own experience. We have room for the conversation to be maybe a little difficult. That's grounded anger.

Ungrounded anger is kind of when we're flying off the handle, and that's more like the disconnected anger. So that's just another way I was describing a healthy kind of anger, grounded, versus a more unhealthy kind of anger, ungrounded. By unhealthy, I really mean: there's nothing wrong with the charge of the frustration and the rage or whatever we feel, but if we're gonna express it in a way when we're not balanced, and we get a bad response, it's gonna hurt us, you know. We're gonna be hurting ourselves in getting the bad response or bringing it to somebody who's not really capable of caring for our experience. So it's a bit dangerous when we're ungrounded and we take it somewhere unsafe.

And then there's integrated anger, where we know what we're mad about, we know why we're mad about it, we also have other emotions, we have our sadness, we have grief, we have fear. Whatever we're feeling angry about is integrated in a larger way into us, versus when people express anger in a sideways kind of way. Like, one sideways way of expressing anger is addiction. So rather than being straight with anger: smoking, drinking, eating, shopping, gambling, whatever. Another way of doing sideways anger is being passive aggressive or indirect with what really is being brought to the table. So, does that make sense? Sideways anger?

Haley Radke: Yes, guilty.

Pamela Cordano: Yeah, of course, I'm sure. I mean, many of us have anger so big it's hard to keep it all. It's a daunting challenge to be connected, grounded, integrated.

And then the other one I wanted to talk about is there's anger that comes from our internal child that can be very chaotic and overwhelming, and we can feel overwhelmed when we feel it, it's like a tantrum, almost, where there's not even words sometimes, it's just this physiological rage that, that something feels so terrible. Versus anger that comes from our inner adult, where we might know we have that huge charge, but we also know we have choices about how we manage it.

Haley Radke: That is so interesting because in reunion, that came up for me, the inner child rage. Which I bet is common.

Pamela Cordano: Yeah. I think that's one of the hardest things about reunion is that the adult ‘us’ is in reunion –if we're lucky enough to be able to make a reunion– and then we're bringing along this hurt, disconnected child who hasn't been heard or seen or understood, and hasn't had her or his say yet, you know? And doesn't even know if there's room for the say to happen. So it's like two of us are going into the reunion, the young one and the older one. And it's very, very complicated. Parenting ourselves while we're in reunion is an overwhelming challenge.

Haley Radke: Oh, it's all so fun. Okay.

Pamela Cordano: Yeah. And then the last one I was gonna say, is that there's also a social justice kind of anger, and this is really coming from the adult. Often. It's not always coming from the adult, but often the people who are the most effective at social justice, who wanna go and change laws and petition and fight the system. It's a very useful kind of anger, the push to change things that are unfair and that are discriminatory. It's a very important and useful kind of anger in society for justice and equality. But that works best when it's coming from the inner adult and not the inner child. It's the most effective.

Haley Radke: That's so helpful. Thank you, Pamela. I wanna start with that societal concept of adoption and how we can be so angry at that.

Pamela Cordano: There's a quote by Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor, and he says, “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.” And I feel like, ‘Thank you.’ Like, my anger at the societal concept of adoption is huge. I just feel like I'm furious about it, and the idea that it's so hard to shift the cultural perspective, and to just get blamed or knocked down when we try. It's so hard.

Haley Radke: So I would say that the societal concept of adoption is this happy fairytale thing where these “poor, poor babies” who don't have a home get scooped up by loving homes and sheltered and are happy forever, and it's the best thing ever. That's what I think society thinks of as adoption.

Pamela Cordano: Yep. Yep. It's almost like we should be getting all these congratulations cards. You know, “Congratulations, you were adopted.”

Haley Radke: “You should be so grateful. How could you be unhappy that this happened to you? It's awesome. Like, where would you be if your parents hadn't adopted you?”

Pamela Cordano: Yep. I don't think I mentioned this in our last conversation, but I got a letter from one of my mom's friends when I was, like, seven, and it said, “Dear Pam, you're so lucky to have been blessed twice so early in life. First by a mother who loved you enough to give you up for adoption, and second by parents who loved you enough to take you in as their own.” And I just remember being completely confused.

Haley Radke: I mean, what? Oh my gosh. I'm sorry. I feel like I want to throw up right now. That is– oh my gosh. “I loved you so much, I don't wanna keep you.” Oh my goodness. Ugh.

Pamela Cordano: Yes. Yeah.

Haley Radke: And how old did you say you were, seven, when you got that?

Pamela Cordano: Yeah, and it was on this really pretty paper with, like, a moon and a little bunny rabbit, and it was like it was supposed to be this letter I was so, I don't know, lucky to get? Like, maybe I was blessed three times, cuz I got that letter.

Haley Radke: So, yeah, so probably a lot of us have this anger at this concept, and we hear it from all sorts of people who have nothing to do with us, had nothing to do with adoption even. How do we deal with that?

Pamela Cordano: Well, can I read you a quote about this that is a bit edgy? Because this is the anger day. So I saw this in the Huffington Post, and you might have seen it, but it was written by Mirah Riben, and it's a quote by somebody named Desiree Smolin. She said, “An abducted child is expected to retain fond memories of and long for reunification with their ‘real’ families of birth, and reject the abductor raising them, while adoptees are expected to bond unquestioningly to non-related strangers, and in some cases are expected or encouraged to abandon any thoughts or talk of seeking out their roots.”

And I just felt like, ‘Wow, someone said that.’ And furthermore, what she was saying was that to the child, it's really kind of the same. So this is a really provocative thing to say. And I have friends who have adopted babies and I would never wanna hurt them, and this is the bind we get into. I don't wanna hurt anybody I love, and yet my truth is probably hurtful to the culture, to the society's view of adoption. Well, what do we do about that? I mean, you're asking me the question, “What do we do?” and I'm asking you. I'm saying it's very difficult, because I don't wanna– it’s kind-of like I walk around with a zipper, zipping my mouth shut, because if I say what I truly think about adoption, I'm gonna hurt people. And so then I have to circle my anger in on myself or, I don't know, eat Ben and Jerry's or something, because I don't know how to make room for it.

Haley Radke: I mean, I think that's so true for so many of us that we've been invalidated so many times that it's too scary even to say anything negative about adoption in front of anyone that's not adopted– even happy adoptees, right?

Pamela Cordano: I know. And I understand there's a variety of experiences. And my goal is really more for inclusion of all the voices. I feel really clear about mine, deep down inside.

I have a new friend named Kathy, and we were having dinner together and we were talking about adoption. She's not adopted, and she's Italian, and I'm married to a guy who's Italian. And she said, “Oh, I get it! I know why you're married to an Italian.” She said, “Italians never give up their babies. They find a cousin or an aunt, or someone from another village, because the baby's precious. The baby's a nephew, the baby's a niece, the baby's a grandchild. The baby's a great nephew. You know, we Italians don't give up our babies.” And I don't know that's, like, empirically true, but I just loved her saying that to me like she culturally got it. Like, I was a baby that didn't wanna be given up. I wanted my biological family, whoever they were, to have that passionate, you know, “She's mine, she's ours, she belongs to us. We'll do anything for her, to keep her. No one's taking her.” So it was very refreshing to hear my Italian friend’s take.

Haley Radke: That's so nice. And unusual.

Pamela Cordano: Yeah!

Haley Radke: So I don't know, I'm just thinking, like, what's the antidote of this one? Is it the social justice anger? Like, we have to be pretty strong to be out there. I feel like my podcast is that sort of expression of social justice anger, but there's lots of people in my family don't know about this, you know, so I'm like, ‘Well, I'm not quite brave enough to be really out there.’

Pamela Cordano: I think it probably is. I think the Flip the Script movement is really powerful. I think what you're doing, helping people's voices get out there so that the collective can hear it. Even the collective of adoptees with different experiences can try on new ways of thinking, and maybe for some people that feel like– I felt like my life was happy and my adoption was fine until I was about 21. And then I went through, you know, a process and realized actually it was entirely different than I thought it was. Not that everyone has to do that, but I think you're right. I think it's the social justice, and the writing and expressing oneself and putting ideas out there. But ideally from a grounded and connected place. Like we're not trying to make enemies– I'm saying “we”. I'm not trying to make enemies, but I want to continue to try to make more and more room for myself, inside myself and in the world.

Haley Radke: No, and I think that's a really good point from the grounded perspective, because I see Twitter fights quite a bit from adoptees that are angry and they're trying to get the truth across, but you know, it has to come across in a certain way for anyone else to hear it. And when we're just shouting, that's not getting heard. So I really appreciate that thought.

Okay, so another kind of anger that a lot of us have is just anger at the money-making business of adoption and the agencies that are preying on mothers in crisis, and see that infant and see dollar signs. So let's talk a little bit about that kind of anger.

Pamela Cordano: Oh, it's just such a terrible– The system is so corrupt, it's so upsetting. And I think that in a way, this is where the first topic and the second topic are connected because I think each of us has our own strengths and the things we're comfortable doing and less comfortable doing. Some people are really good on the political front. You know, they're good with legal language, they're good with gathering people together or communicating in such a way that it's influential. And other people are better at speaking about their own experience and putting it out there in memoirs or in articles or in blogs or podcasts.

I just think we each have our different talents and our different inclinations about how to engage with this. But I think many of us just live with anger at this. I live with this all the time. I'm angry at this all the time. There's never a moment I'm not angry at this.

Haley Radke: I just got to sit in front of two different birth mothers who told me their stories and told me what the agencies had done to them, to essentially trick them to relinquish. I mean, that's the simplest way to say it, but some of the things they were saying, I was like, ‘You cannot be serious. This did not happen to you.’ And their children that were relinquished, we're talking about a six year old and a two year old. This is happening right now in this decade. I'm not talking 60’s Scoop. This is right now.

Pamela Cordano: Yep. It's just, it's hard even to find words about how horrific it is.

Haley Radke: Oh, I was so mad. If the person that took their baby from them was in the room, I mean, I would probably be in jail right now. I was –I still am– like, I'm just furious just thinking about it, and I want to find a way to make an impact in that area now. It's so real to me. I knew what was happening, but to hear, to see those women right in front of me and I can touch them and hold their hand–

Pamela Cordano: Yeah. So when you're even speaking about this, Haley, like, what I feel in my body is I feel, like, a column that comes from like the bottom of my abdomen, all the way up my chest to my throat. I feel a column of energy. And the good thing about anger is it's energizing and it's moving, it's heat, it's life, it's energy.

So that's where you're feeling called to do something about this. And that's where, you know, before anger comes out of the body, when it's just in our bodies as an experience, it's not yet in the camp of connected or disconnected, grounded or ungrounded, the adult part of us, the child part of us.

And that's where we get to make decisions about what do we do with this energy and this fury and this rising. What do we want to do with it? And what do we feel called to do? And that's where our adult selves need to come in and make some decisions with our younger parts, like, ‘What do we do? How do we do this? How do we be most impactful? How do we be most responsible and effective with this so that we make the maximum benefit of this anger, this righteous indignation?’

So, I'm Caucasian and I'm a 5’10” redhead, and my adoptive mother was a 4’10” Jewish woman, dark brown hair. We looked nothing alike. And I always got the question of, “Well, where did you get your red hair?” or whatever. And that was hard enough. And when I think about international adoption and some of the things that go on with corruption abroad, too, it's just so upsetting to me. I've been to Ethiopia three times, for reasons unrelated to adoption, and to see babies being flown out, it's just hard, you know? It's just painful for me. And again, that's where there could be some adoptees from Ethiopia listening to this and saying, “Hey, I'm happy. I'm fine. I'm glad I was adopted.” And I understand there's a multitude of experiences, but for me– I guess this is more the sad subject, not the anger. I feel sad when I see a decision being made for these babies. That just really upsets me.

Haley Radke: No kidding.

Okay. We've looked at kind of like those broad scope of things that a lot of us are angry at, and then there's, like, a person standing in front of us or tweeting to us saying, “Well, why aren’t you grateful?” What does that bring up in us?

Pamela Cordano: Or even people who say to me, “I wish I were adopted because my mother was–” whatever. As if it's something– I think this is a common thing that I'll just speak for myself and assume that many people will relate to this, but I have such a deep, profound experience of not being seen for the whole of me, and only being seen for maybe the outer two, three inches of me that, and I'm just used to living this way, and it's part of what makes me strong and capable, and it's also part of what makes me feel really lonely and alone and isolated, is that the whole of me isn't understood on a cultural level, and that people can have such a profound misunderstanding of what adoption can be like– or is like for me. And so the pressure to adjust to the outside, whether it's to fit into the family that's adopted you, or to comply with the new family so that they don't also abandon you, since you know in your bones that you're abandonable. Or to just fit in with society when you're kind-of this “bastard child”. That there's, like we talked about last time, something’s wrong with you, that you were given up by your family– or at least a child can feel that way. The pressure to comply inside of me was so huge, and what I did is I went the other way and I became the rebellious adoptee. Because I couldn't handle the pressure to comply. And I think that we tend to do one or the other.

Haley Radke: I'm the compliant adoptee. That's what I was.

Pamela Cordano: With your podcast!

Haley Radke: Well, I used to be compliant. Not anymore.

Pamela Cordano: So I guess I just want to say that the pressure to comply, which then can flip into rebel, from not being seen by others and being misunderstood in these overt ways like that we should be grateful or we're lucky or whatever– I experienced it as a huge force that I feel really angry about also. And I guess what to do about that, is to just keep learning about how to take that middle road of having the choice of, ‘this is when I wanna comply here because of this, and I don't wanna comply here because of that’. And having that inner adult in charge of the decisions, not just being, you know, the tail wagging the dog kind of a thing, where it's more of a reaction to comply or a reaction to rebel. It's more of a choice, a grounded choice with time and with healing, to comply or rebel or do neither.

Haley Radke: Right. Moving inward, from friends or acquaintances or even strangers who are telling us these things, to feeling angry towards adoptive parents, first parents. Let's talk about that a little bit.

Pamela Cordano: Well, there's just so much to say, right? I mean, there's so much to be angry about, right? There's a million stories about what people are angry at their adoptive parents for, their biological parents, or biological extended families.

Haley Radke: What I really struggle with is feeling angry that my adoptive parents adopted me. Yet, I was adopted in the early 80s –‘83, I was born– and it was just totally normal. They didn't know that, like, “the system”– They were infertile and this was just kind of a normal thing. So I feel guilty for feeling angry about that, because they didn't know any better. And then I feel angry at my birth mother's parents –-my maternal grandparents– for making her give me up and feeling like I was disposable enough or inconvenient enough that they couldn't support her to raise me. But again, it was early 80s, it was just on the edge of maybe teen pregnancy becoming somewhat accessible, like, it's still early. But those are the things that I feel angry about, and guilty because I'm like, ‘I'm not allowed to be angry at that. They didn't know any better.’

Pamela Cordano: I think that what I could be helpful with here is what to do about this kind of thing, because anybody could have a long list of things they’re angry at their adoptive parents about, and their biological parents. Me too, of course.

What's important is that if we, inside ourselves, negate our anger right away with that adult loving perspective of, ‘Well, they didn't know better’, which may be true, or is true. Or that ‘They did their best’ or whatever the forgiving, kind, compassionate response is, we're negating our own anger right away. So our anger never gets a chance to just have its own say.

So what's really important to do –and this could either be done in a with a therapist or could be done in a journal, or it could be done talking to yourself in your car, or in your room, or in your closet or wherever– is making a defined space for your anger about a specific issue and just letting it happen, letting it exist on its own, and not coming in with a ‘But they did their best.’ ‘But they didn't know better.’ ‘But what we know now, they didn't know then’ type of a thing. Because otherwise the inner adopted child never has a chance to be heard in their anger.

And we're probably the most powerful– we're the pioneers inside of ourselves leading the way about trying to unravel all of this jumble of trauma, fear, and anger and sadness inside of us. So the ‘this, but that’ negates it right away. And then we're in a bind: we can't feel this because of that, or we can't feel that because of this. And we're just stuck in a bind.

One activity would be, for example, to have a journal where, let's say you're right-handed –this is a little cliche, but it's effective– if you're right-handed, then with your left hand, write from the child adoptee perspective: “I'm so mad, I can't believe they bought me. Like, do they not care about me at all? They changed my name, they participated in this–” Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And just let it have its whole say. And then with the dominant hand –let's say it's your right hand– then respond, just listening to yourself like, “Gosh, I hear how angry you are. Everything you're angry about is so legitimate. You deserve to have your say. You deserve to express yourself. You deserve to finally be listened to.” An internal space being made for your anger, and leaving this whole other adult, compassionate, can-see-both-sides part out of it completely. It's not gonna be helpful. It just gets in the way. It can come back later, you know, because you and me, we're compassionate, reasonable people. And that's where, Haley, have you ever heard of the expression called spiritual bypassing?

Haley Radke: Yes. But would you explain that please?

Pamela Cordano: Yeah, so spiritual bypassing: it doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with religion, but it's a way of taking the high road before the low road has been fully explored. And that's where I think we adoptees can make ourselves sick, like, literally sick. Like, stuffed with feelings and trauma that really never gets worked out. So we have to be with ourselves not to take the high road until it's really, really, really time to take the high road. And I think I mentioned Nelson Mandela in our last conversation, but recently I was reading this book by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and they were talking about Nelson Mandela being imprisoned unfairly for 27 years.

And one of them, I think the archbishop, said that it's great, in a way, that he was imprisoned for 27 years. Because it gave him 27 years to transform himself into an authentically mature, grounded person who could help heal the country, and run the country, and heal the division in the country. And that he had to go through, like, a transformation, really.

And so we can't jump to the high road just because it's nicer and it's more comfortable and it's more adult and people like it better. We have to really go through the guts of our own trauma and let it have space and be with ourselves in it, and connect to the world from that place as much as we can –even if it's only one or two people– before we go to the high road. The high road will come with time, naturally. We don't have to bypass the hard part to get there too early, or else we really hurt ourselves in the process.

Haley Radke: Oh my goodness. I feel like I'm having therapy with you here. Okay.

Pamela Cordano: Me too.

Haley Radke: Oh my gosh, that is so big. Oh my gosh, that's so– I'm gonna start crying again. That's so perfectly– Like, I've never heard that before. I've never heard that before. And that is so important for us to hear. When we are told to be grateful, we just feel like we gotta be at the other side right away, like we have to be on the high road. Oh my gosh.

Pamela Cordano: Right, and it fuels our anger because we're not really fully there. We may be 10% there.

Haley Radke: Well, that's a big light bulb moment.

Pamela Cordano: Okay, good. Good. Yeah, spiritual bypassing is a real problem. And it makes me really angry that there's even a pressure, that we have a pressure on us to spiritually bypass our true lived experience. Or biologically bypass or academically bypass or whatever bypass.

Haley Radke: I really have to spend some time thinking about this. That is so powerful. And do you have any other thoughts on this section?

Pamela Cordano: Two things. One is that, I wrote down a note that it's so hard being treated as an extension of somebody else's dream. A lot of adoptees talk and write about this, not being a person in one’s own right, with the beginning of one’s life story and lived-out life story, but being an extension of somebody else's dream, that makes me really angry.

And also [inaudible] called Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, and her name is Jeanette Winterson. And I read an excerpt from one of her books and she was saying that once she had a reunion with her biological family, she realized that she's not fully, really in either family. Like she's really her own person in a way. And that she didn't really belong fully in either place, and that was herself saying that, not society.

I found that really powerful and it gave me a sense of permission that I don't have to pick, and I don't have to fit into my biological family fully. I can really be my own person with my own distinct history, and that's honoring all that I've been through. I can't just sort of slip in as if I'm, you know, the ugly duckling, and the geese, and I'm suddenly a goose or whatever. So, I really liked that and I feel less angry when I think about how I get to chart my own course.

I have an adopted client who says she's a child of the universe. And I think there's a lot of freedom in that way of thinking, like the outside then has less power to be something to comply with.

Haley Radke: Coming around to our last point here: anger with ourselves. What I'm guessing you're gonna talk about is there's that root in shame: ‘What was wrong with us, specifically, that we got given away?’

Pamela Cordano: Yeah. There's that. And then, you know, as time goes on, something that I've gotten angry at myself about a lot is my own standards for myself. Like when I as a child and as a teenager, and even a young adult, buying into the cultural narrative that adoption is sort of just a good thing and it's no big deal. ‘Why am I so triggerable’, you know? And ‘Why do things get in the way of my progress that don't seem to get in the way for other people?’ And ‘Why do my insides not match the outsides of other people?’ And like, ‘What's wrong? Why can't I do it well enough?’ Sort of like the basis of, ‘What's wrong with me? What's my fatal flaw that caused all of this in the first place?’ morphs into this older version of, like, ‘Why can't I do things the way I want to?’ or ‘Why can't I do things well enough?’

Trauma can actually present a lot like ADHD or ADD, with or without the H. I certainly operate that way, like my attention can feel split in a hundred different directions and it can be hard for me to focus. But I don't actually believe I have ADHD, I believe I'm just a bit fragmented and a bit traumatized. I'm saying “a bit”, I don't know why I'm saying “a bit”. I'm traumatized. And so I do have trouble with things that other people don't seem to, or that I have thought, ‘Why should I have trouble with this? Why am I not more competent?’ Or ‘Why am I not able to follow through on this better?’ And then, becoming a parent, oh my gosh. I mean, all of this trauma, my history, even though I did not want it to, leaked into aspects of my parenting. And we have a very transparent household, so my kids are adults now and they understand about my history and they have an ability to look into themselves and see where they think they were affected by my trauma and my husband's different kind of trauma.

It's just really hard, you know, to make mistakes parenting or to not be that perfect parent that does everything right and, you know, keeps the babies and does it all right. And I can get really angry at myself there. I find parenting very challenging and I think things are pretty good, actually, in my house, but it takes more work than I could have ever imagined to be a good enough parent. For me.

Haley Radke: Well, and there's so many adoptees that just repeat the same cycle: adoptees that become first parents that relinquish.

Pamela Cordano: Statistically, right, there's a very high incidence of abortions and relinquishments by people who are adopted. As a therapist, it makes sense to me that we tend to repeat unconsciously what's happened to us and act it out. And that's one of the reasons why becoming more conscious of our pain, which includes our anger, is so important cuz the more we take care of inside of ourselves with our anger and our hurt and our fear and our anxiety and our despair and grief, the less we act out. Whether it's with society, or with our own children, or with partners.

And that's one of the things that drives me to heal, is I felt so much harm from my experience. I don't wanna be harmful to others if I can help it, and I have been harmful to others, and I'm just– I was gonna say I'm a slow learner, but that's just self-deprecating, you know, cultural talk.

It's like, ‘No, I'm actually not a slow learner at all. I've actually worked my ass off to heal as much as I can over 52 years.’ As long as I can remember, I've been trying to learn how to regulate myself and not blow up or cut people off, or do whatever angry things I have done.

Haley Radke: And I think for me my anger has been more like simmering in the background and just now in the last couple years it's really coming out more and more. And so I'm really realizing that there's definitely some things I need to address. Because I don't want this to eat me up inside. I don't wanna have that sideways anger.

Pamela Cordano: Right. That same guy, Bessel van der Kolk, that I read that quote from, he says that emotion is meant to be acted on biologically, like in our species or even among animals. So when we're angry, our body is organized to take action towards something, to address the anger, whether it's a fight, or drawing a line, or whatever we have to do. And when we don't feel we can act on our anger, when we feel like we have to keep it inside, we pay a terrible price because all of our stress hormones and our muscle tension and our heart rate and everything is organizing toward anger. But we're shutting the door on any action and then we're curling in on ourselves, and I honestly feel like it makes us sick to do that.

Same with sadness, same with grief, which is related to sadness. We actually have to find ways to uncurl these things and bring them out so that we don't pay the price physiologically and psychologically.

Haley Radke: Well, that's a pretty good call to action. What are the next steps for someone who is identifying with the things that we're saying here? “Okay, Pamela, I'm ready. What's my next step?”

Pamela Cordano: Well, I don't know that I could have done a fraction of what I've done without the help of a really good therapist. But I think that trying on the idea that we have a younger part of us –it's like arrested development– that got stuck in different places, even on the baby level. That we might not be at all conscious of, but our nervous system knows, and the alarm bells go off. That we need to make space for the younger parts of us who have been either stuck or silenced or immobilized, to find expression and mobility and connection to others.

And that unwinding of our feelings and our experiences is what's healing. We need to connect with ourselves and with others, including those parts of us, even if they're not sophisticated and they don't have that adult, compassionate, and reasonable quality to them. They don't have to, that'll come later. That can get integrated later, but we need to make space for our truest, deepest experiences, even if we feel like we're being outrageous. Actually, sometimes those are the most fun. If we can find someone who can be with us, those are kind of fun to unravel because it's a relief, you know, to let some of these things out that are being held in, and we finally get to be a bit of a troublemaker with select trusted people.

Haley Radke: Well, and I kind of found it funny that you said it was cliche to write with your non-dominant hand as a child. I was like, ‘What? I've never heard that before. It's amazing. I'm totally gonna do that!’

Pamela Cordano: Yeah, it's kind of nice. What's really cool about that is because, you know, we have our two brain hemispheres and if we're right-handed, our right hemisphere crosses over to the left side of our body and our left hemisphere crosses to the right side. So our emotions are in our right hemispheres– I mean, that's simplified. But basically, when we write with our non-dominant hand, we have more access to our emotional writing, and our dominant hand has more access to the logic and the ‘distinguishing this from that’, the linear thinking. So it's useful to write the emotional stuff from our non-dominant hand, even biologically it's useful.

Haley Radke: Well, thank you so much. There's, like, 30 amazing takeaways in here, so many. Thank you. Is there anything else that you want to say to us before we wrap up?

Pamela Cordano: I'm just really so appreciative, Haley, that you have this podcast. I just feel like it's such a gift to people, for us to have a platform to share experiences and thoughts and healing and to resonate with each other. I think that it's very powerful, and I'm grateful, so thank you.

Haley Radke: Aw, thank you. Thank you. I'm so, so thankful for how you've prepared for this today. It is gonna help a lot of people.

Pamela Cordano: I hope so.

Haley Radke: I know it. I can tell you right now, it's gonna help a lot of people. Where can we connect with you online?

Pamela Cordano: So online my website is www.pamelacordanomft.com,

Haley Radke: and you're on Twitter and I think your new handle is @meaningpilgrim. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us.

[Transcriber’s note: In the time since this episode was released, Pamela Cordano has taken down her website and social media accounts, and is available only via email: pcordano (at) comcast (dot) net. This information was fact-checked with Pamela Cordano on May 12, 2023, and may change in the future.]

Pamela Cordano: Thanks, Haley, have a great night.

Haley Radke: Wasn't that incredible? Pamela, thank you. I don't know how else to say thank you so, so much for what you shared with us and for being so candid. I know this is going to be so helpful to so many of us, myself included. I feel like I had a free therapy session with you and now I can just replay it whenever I need to have some of those reminders.

I want to invite you guys to join my secret Facebook group. It is such an awesome place where we can discuss issues like this. We have had some really interesting conversations happening. I don't want to divulge anything, because everything we share in there is confidential, of course, but it's been so amazing to watch everyone in the group come around and support each other, and share their different stories and feelings and experiences. It's this really beautiful thing to watch.

And speaking of that, I just got back from the Indiana Adoptee Network Conference, which was amazing. Thank you, Pam Kroskie, for organizing that. And for your board, your helpers, oh my goodness, what an incredible experience. I did some live recordings from there, I have so much great stuff to share with you guys and not enough time, so that's gonna be coming up shortly. I have an interview with a fellow podcaster coming up. So many awesome things coming your way, please make sure you're subscribed. And iTunes is now called Apple Podcasts, so when you are looking for the show, you can find it in Apple Podcasts, and of course, anywhere you find podcasts, even on YouTube.

I would just love it, I would be so honored if you would share this show with someone. I was able to tell so many people about my podcast at the adoptee conference, and so many of them hadn't heard of it yet. So guys, please don't assume that your friends, your adoptee network, knows about the show. There's so many people who don't even know what a podcast is, so if you could tell one person, that would be the biggest favor to me, thank you. Tell one person, tell them your favorite episode, grab their phone, subscribe them to it. I literally did that at the conference, that was the best. Sherrie Eldridge let me subscribe her to my podcast, so that was so fun.

Anyway, I'm so glad to be back with you. If you want to join that secret Facebook group, go to Adopteeson.com/partner. I talked with so many of you at the conference, I'm just– I have no words. I was so honored. So many of you came in and told me how much you love my show, and how much it's meant to you, and how it's changed your life. I mean, come on, how amazing that I can do this for you? I'm so, so honored, so grateful. I just loved meeting you all. I wish there was another conference this weekend, but my husband probably wouldn't appreciate that. Anyway, thank you again for listening, so thankful for your support, and let's talk again next Friday.

23 Keith - Late Discovery at Age 33

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/23

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Haley Radke: You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is Season Two, episode 5: Keith.

I'm your host, Haley Radke. Today, I get to welcome Keith Sciarillo to share his story with us. Keith is a late discovery adoptee and he'll tell us all about who accidentally told him he was adopted, and why his mother wanted to keep it a secret forever.

We wrap up with some recommended resources for you. And as always, links to all of the things we'll be talking about today are on our website, adopteeson.com. All right, let's listen in.

I'm pleased to welcome Keith Sciarillo to the show today. Welcome, Keith.

Keith Sciarillo: Hi, Haley. Thanks for having me.

Haley Radke: Oh, it's my honor. I'm so excited to get to hear your story. Would you please just start with sharing that with us?

Keith Sciarillo: I was born in New York City in 1979. Both of my birth parents were… At the time, they were drug addicts. The woman that gave birth to me also suffered with mental illness for a big part of her life, as well.

And also she was—I'll try to word this properly, her occupation, quote unquote, was “in the service industry” (you know, service meaning herself). But my biological parents were actually in a seven to eight year actual relationship though (you know, while everything else was going on). I was in the hospital for a month after I was born, and then right away I went to my family (my adopted family).

The adoption didn’t go through right away. It took about four years to actually go through, so I was four years old when I was technically adopted. I grew up in a family of six of us, whereas I was the only adopted one. My adopted parents have five biological kids.

Well, they actually had four biological kids, then they adopted me. Then they had another one after they got me. I guess for the first seven or eight years, I grew up in Staten Island, New York, (which is kind of like the suburbs, you know?).

I guess I should mention that my parents got divorced when I was about five years old (my adoptive parents). I didn't see my adoptive father till I was 21 after that. You know, I basically kind of grew up without him. My mom was kind of, “six of us on our own” for a while. And so that was something I was kind of dealing with, you know, for a good part of my life already.

Yeah, we lived in Staten Island for a little while. Then we moved to Brooklyn, New York, and I lived there till I was about 13, 14 years old. Then I moved to New Jersey (south Jersey) for, I was about 23. After that, I moved down to the Washington D.C. area where I basically settled down with my own little family.

I guess here's where I could mention that I actually didn't find out I was adopted till I was about 33 years old (which was about five years ago). I had already established my own little life and then come to find out I was adopted.

I guess a lot of stuff I was already dealing with throughout life (with, you know, my father and stuff like that). And then my mom, being the way she is—the way she was. I mean, our relationship is kind of better now. I don't know, maybe she was really stressed out raising six of us, but, you know, it was kind of… You know, I don't know. It was kind of a weird situation.

Well, basically the way I found out at my daughter's first birthday party. And a cousin of ours was over the house, helping us get ready for the party. I was sitting down eating dinner, my wife and him and my daughter. He said, “Oh yeah, I heard…” He said, “I just found out about you a few years ago.” I was like, “What do you mean, ‘found out about me’?” He's like, “That you were adopted.” I was like, “No way.” I was like….

And I have my birth certificate, right? I had my short form birth certificate, which doesn't have that much information on it. It only has the name, the hospital, the date. So I was like, “No, look.” I was like, “My parents' names are my birth certificate. How can I be adopted?” And this is way before I knew about what birth certificates actually mean, especially for us adoptees.

I asked a bunch of people in my family about it, if it was true or not, and people just kind of… Nobody really gives a straight answer. They don't really say yes or no. They just—they'll laugh it off or they'd be like, “What do you think?” (you know, that kind of thing). I guess I put it in the back of my mind for a number of years. Yeah, then about five and a half years ago, it kind of resurfaced in my mind. I decided to actually look into it.

I was like, Oh, that adoption thing that somebody told me about. Okay. So, being that I was born in New York, I found some resources that I had to go through, to just to even figure it out. Because nobody would tell me (even my mom). Like nobody would just tell me, “Yes. You were adopted.”

Haley Radke: What did she say when you asked her?

Keith Sciarillo: She didn't really say yes or no. She was just like, “At this point in my life, it doesn't matter how people come into families” (or something like that). But I still didn't take that as a yes or no answer. It would've been a lot easier if she just said, “Yes, you were.”

I basically ten times over, verified it. First what I did, was I got my long form birth certificate. So on the long form certificate (what I learned in New York), is that I had an extra set of numbers on there. And I also had the letter “S” in front of my main birth certificate number (which means like substitute, or something like that).

And then I also looked at the file date. I was like, Okay, I was born in 1979, but it was filed in 1983. Of course, you know that means my adoption was finalized in 1983. So that was one way I verified it. Another way was, I basically emailed the courthouse. I asked them if there were any records of a Keith Sciarillo being adopted?

And it was weird, because it took about three or four months for them to actually reply. But their answer was “Yes.” Basically just, “Yes, we do have a record of…,” but they couldn't give me any more information, of course.

But actually, here's a pretty miraculous thing in my story, I think, where everything kind of opened up. Another thing I did was I registered with the New York State Adoption Registry. And for people that know about these registries, you know, they're put into place so people connect with their biological families, but a good percentage of the time, they don't work.

I mean, people don't even know about them. It's very flawed. It's a very flawed system. I mean, obviously, we had open records. (You know, birth certificates.) That's what works. But I did register with them.

They said it should take about six months to get back some of my non-identifying information. So I was like, “Okay. That's fine.” But what happened was, I actually got a reply back two weeks later and they said, “Oh, by the way, someone else is registered to connect with me.” I was like, “Okay.” From the little bit of research I did, I was like, Okay, yeah. I know a lot of times the birth moms will look for the child. Okay. So it's probably her.

But what ended up happening was it was actually my biological father who had registered with them. So that was kind of just surprising in itself. So, you know, we connected. After we connected, our first conversation was like a two hour conversation. And you know, he told me a bunch of stuff.

He gave me my biological mother's name, you know. With that piece of information, I definitely, you know, I sought her out right away. I was able to find a phone number for her. So I called that number. A man answered the phone. It was actually her husband of 25 years, so I talked to him for a little bit.

I told him, I said, you know, “Ana…” I said, I might be one of her children. He's just like, “Oh, that's possible. She had many children.” I said, “Okay.” You know, we hung up the phone, but something was telling me to call him back. So I called him back that night and he's like, “Yeah...” He said he was so shocked to hear from me.

I was like, “Okay…” And so he's like, “By the way, you know your grandmother, your grandfather, your uncle, your aunt, one of your sisters—they all wanna talk to you.” I was like, “Okay.” Next thing I know, I'm talking to my grandparents, you know? And then an aunt and uncle. Next thing I know, I have like 50 extra friends on Facebook, just from new biological relatives.

Haley Radke: You said you talked to your birth mother's husband, but she…

Keith Sciarillo: Yeah. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention she actually passed three years before I found her.

Haley Radke: I'm sorry.

Keith Sciarillo: Yeah. It was like—I mean, honestly, when I first found that out, I think I did get a little choked up for a minute, but then all the information started coming to me, too. So I was like, No time for that.

Like, just my mind was just like “...,” (you could tell even how I am now). I'm just like… Like all the information is in my head, and I could let it out pretty easily. So, I don't really retain stuff. That's probably why I don't let things get to me too much, because I'm constantly taking stuff in and letting it out. I was having a conversation with one of my aunts and she told me, she's like, “Yeah…” She's like, “You know your mother, Ana, she had 10 of you.” I was like, “Okay. Okay. Really?”

Yeah. And actually I did remember that my biological father also told me that I have a full-blooded biological brother. She had six children before us, so actually there's only eight of us. You know, we were all given up for adoption, actually. So, you know, we all went to different families, except for two of them. We went to the same family.

Haley Radke: Oh my goodness. I'm just kind of in shock. That sounds like an overwhelming reunion. So many people and so much information all at once. How far between you finding out you were adopted to a reunion? What's the time span there?

Keith Sciarillo: I think I met my biological father probably about…I'd say about a month and a half.

Haley Radke: Wow.

Keith Sciarillo: You know, like I said, he gave me all the information I needed to connect with the other side. Actually, the reunion with my birth father was really great. It was just me, him, and my wife, actually.

We went to a restaurant close to me, out in Maryland. He lives in North Carolina now, so... You know, we all came from New York. Now we're a little bit further south. That's what happened with him. It was good. And then with my maternal side, a couple cousins set it up so I could go to the house and meet, you know, some relatives over there. That was in New Jersey.

So it was me, my wife, my two kids. We went up there to Jersey, we walked in the house and there's probably about 20 or 30 people there. And I'm related to, like, all of them. So, you know what I'm saying? Like they all kind of live in the area, I guess. A couple uncles, my grandparents were there... They're still alive to this day, actually.

Haley Radke: So can you go back to that moment where you're in the house with like 30 family members? How did that feel? Did you feel like you fit in? Tell us a little bit about that.

Keith Sciarillo: Yeah, I think I actually did and I think a good sign of that was the fact that I was acting really goofy and silly, like most of the time. And it usually takes a while for me to get like that with people. You know, like usually I'm not…

It's funny, because a lot of people probably think I'm really serious when they first meet me. Until I'll say something really crazy, and if I see that they laughed or something, they thought it was funny, I'll just be a goofball the rest of the time. So that's kind of how I was with them the whole time. It was pretty interesting, like when someone would say, “Oh, you look like such and such,” or “You look like….” You know, “You remind me of such…” and all that.

Basically, before I found them, you know… (my biological mother died. Also two of my uncles had already passed away before I found them). I've seen pictures of them, and they're all showing me—They're like, “Yeah, you know, you look like this one, that one.” And I do.

So, you know, there's been a lot of loss even before the reunion happened. I mean, I say, like, lost opportunities to meet people that I probably could have met if I would've found out I was adopted five years earlier.

That's kind of like the gist of basically on their side. And I'm still connected to many of them till this day. Actually, one of my uncles that I met a couple times, he passed away like two years ago. And actually there at the funeral too, there were a whole bunch more cousins and a few more uncles that I still hadn't met yet.

Haley Radke: So when you think of your meeting your bio family and your interactions you've had with them, and then looking back to your childhood with your adoptive family—did you fit in with your adoptive family? Did you ever have any, like feelings, I'm different, or anything like that?

Keith Sciarillo: As far as family goes, I'll always say I fit in with them. Because I am their family. Like, you know, they were family. They never, you know, I was never treated any differently, you know what I'm saying? I never, like— They never gave it away that I was adopted. You know what I mean? But yeah, when I think back, yeah, I do look different than them.

I mean, I am different than them. I mean, as much as I love them (and I mean, you know, we all know we're different from each other)... Actually, I think they're all different from each other, to be honest. Like all six of us, like we're all alike, we're all different.

Haley Radke: Oh yeah. People have different personalities and characteristics, for sure. For sure.

Keith Sciarillo: Yeah. Yeah. Like, but yeah, but I gotta say, I actually feel like I was different than a lot of people in general, because I—(and maybe that's also because I didn't really have anything to mirror the way I was, you know?).

When I did find that I was adopted, when I did start connecting with blood family, I think I did kind of go back to my childhood and I did start to realize things, you know? My energy and yeah, I'm definitely shorter than my brothers, you know? My sisters are all kind of like about my height and my brothers are almost 6’, about 6’. I'm about 5’6”.

Like my one brother had blonde hair, blue eyes growing up, and I'm darker and I have these greenish, crazy greenish-yellowish-grayish eyes (weird color eyes). Because my biological mother and biological father had– They both have, my biological father has blue eyes and my biological mother had hazel eyes.

So that's where that came from. A big compliment that people used to give me growing up was like, they said, my eyes were nice. Right? I was like, “Okay.” But I never, I didn't think much of it, because I mean, I didn't think about where it came from. There's so much that I learned, just from my bloodline, from my family history.

Like my grandfather on my mother's side is a World War II vet, so that's something I was like, “Oh, that's very cool.” You know what I'm saying? “That's a part of my blood.” It kind of does something for you. It's like you think, Oh wow, you know, like part of my actual history. Whereas, honestly growing up in my family that I grew up in, my grandfather was in the Navy and everything like that. But I don't know too much about his real history (or honestly, I don't know too much about our family history, really).

Maybe it just really wasn't talked about much. Maybe it wasn't talked about much with me, I don't know… You know what I mean? But then my biological family, there's so much rich history. Besides my grandfather being a World War II vet, my grandparents on my father's side were Holocaust survivors. Like that, that blew me away. I learned a lot about that, too.

Haley Radke: I think in reunion, we’re so curious about everything, everything. I think that a lot of those questions get answered that a lot of other families, you kind of think, Oh, your grandparents will be around forever. And you know, you don't kind of dig into that history.

But when you're in reunion, you just want everything. And I think maybe that's why some of us dig for those kinds of gems, and it kind of feels like you get rooted when you know those things. Yeah. That's so cool. That's really interesting history. I love that you have that for yourself now.

Keith Sciarillo: Yeah.

Haley Radke: I kind of wanna go back just a sec. Can we go back and just talk about, so you find out you're adopted and you've confirmed it yourself. What do you do when you go back to your adoptive family with this? And like, did you go to your mom and say, “Um…I have this amended birth certificate”?

Keith Sciarillo: Oh, well, I, yeah, I gotta tell you, it was really, really interesting how I broke the news to her. That I knew my wife was about to take a trip to the Philippines to visit her family, right? It was gonna be like a two or three week trip. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna take two or three weeks off of work and just take the kids to see family. That was my plan.

I was like—it was in the summertime. It was like right in the beginning of summer, around August, actually. So I already had this plan to visit my mom. I was gonna visit both of my brothers, visit my sister. You know, when I got that letter in the mail from the New York Registry saying that someone else is registered, that basically verified everything that I was adopted.

So I had this paper in my hand. And I think my mom had called me, because I was about to see her in two days, anyway. So she was asking me what kind of cereal I wanted for my kids. Right? I was like, “Okay.” And you know, on my mind is like, you know, these things are on my mind right now. So I'm like, I got really quiet on her. And I’ve got to say, like out of all the people in my life (and I know she's not like my blood mom or anything like that), but she kinda knows me better than anybody.

I mean, I hate to admit it, because we do clash a lot of times. But she knows me better than anybody, so she knew something was wrong. I just blurted it out and said it. I think my voice cracked (I think. I don't know). I was like, “I know I'm adopted.” Right? I was like, “I know I'm adopted. I figured it out.”

I don't think she really quite knew that I knew until I said, “Yeah, I know I'm half Puerto Rican and half...” It just said half Puerto Rican and half American on the registry. Because I grew up in an Italian Jewish family, and then I kind of learned that I'm a whole other race, too. So that's a whole other thing I was kind of learning about as well. I was like, “Yeah, I know I’m half Puerto Rican.”

I think when I said that, she kind of knew that I knew. She was pretty upset, actually. She was saying something about like, wanting to call New York and ask how this could happen. Like, 'cause I was never supposed to know. Like, I really was never supposed to know. I've been told that.

Haley Radke: Why do you think she didn't want to tell you?

Keith Sciarillo: What she always said was that she didn't want me to feel different. I mean, in some ways I kind of did. You know, I did look different and I was a little different anyway. But like I said, I was never really treated differently, per se. You know what I'm saying? Like, I was never singled out as different. They did a pretty good job of hiding it. To that extent.

Haley Radke: So you're what's considered a late discovery adoptee, because you found out when you're an adult. Can you tell us a little bit about that adoptee community and what would be different for a late discovery adoptee versus someone like myself?

I don't even know when I first knew, because my parents just told me, you know? From when I was a baby, obviously, because I don't have a moment where they sat me down. Like I just always knew.

Keith Sciarillo: One thing I think I noticed about late discovery adoptees, is that I think a lot of us always had an idea in our mind that that was a possibility. But it's not something that was really at the surface of it, because (for example), when people ask me, they say, “You know, you looked a little bit different and everything. How come you didn't know you were adopted?” And I just kinda say, “If nobody ever mentioned it, how would you ever know? How would you know you were adopted if nobody ever told you were adopted?”

The way everything happened with me…, you know what I'm saying? It's like, you know, I’ve been thinking about it. I did the birth certificate thing, and then I did the registry thing. And I basically got my answer with the registry, but I got more than that. I got an actual reunion out of it. Because I know a lot of people find out— You know, they'll go through their parents' belongings, or their parents will die and someone at the funeral will tell them, or, you know, they'll be in the attic, they'll find the papers... But that never happened with me.

Haley Radke: But still, to just have this cousin, kinda offhandedly say, “Oh I just found out about you a couple years ago.”

Like, “What do you mean?” To have other people know and you didn't? Like…

Keith Sciarillo: Like a lot of people knew. Actually, I think most people in my life (besides like some family friends) knew, but most of the relatives knew. Something funny happened, actually. Once I found out I was adopted, right? In my mind, I wanted to tell everybody that I was related to, because I was thinking… I was like, you know, If they ever need a kidney, I'm not gonna be able to help them. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like that kind of thing. I was worried about that.

So I called one of my cousins up. I told her, I said, “Yeah, you know, just a few days ago I found out I was adopted.” And I kind of said that to her, too. I was like, “So if you ever need a kidney, I can't help you.” Like, just kinda laughing like that.

“Oh…,” she's like, you know, she's like, “No. We knew.” Like they all knew, but actually they assumed that I knew as well.

Haley Radke: And your siblings?

Keith Sciarillo: I mean, they all knew, except for… I mean, a couple of 'em said they didn't know. I don't know. Just hard to believe that. But the ones that really did know, they said it was like my mom, you know… Out of everybody, I really do feel my mom should've been the one to tell me, anyway. You know?

I don't put any burden on anybody else for it. I think it was her job to tell me, like even my father, think about it. I really didn't have a good relationship with him. I didn't see him for years. He definitely didn't want to tell me.

Haley Radke: Oh, yeah. I agree. I mean, I wasn't implying that I thought they should have told you. I'm just–we're kind of joking about this, but to me this sounds so painful, because like everyone knows these things but you? That's not fair. I just…

Keith Sciarillo: Believe it or not, I think I roll with the punches in life, like with a lot of stuff that happens (even the adoption stuff). But I think what I've done—I've been finding positive outlets trying to deal with it. You know, I never started drinking, or doing drugs, or like taking pills, or anything like that (when all this stuff happened).

You know, what I did start doing was I did start trying to be—(I mean, I always thought I was a pretty good father, anyway). But I was like, Aw, man, I come from this situation. My kids will never know anything like that. So I'm gonna be the best dad I can be. (Even though I thought I kind of was already).

Then I started getting involved with a lot of adoption stuff. I started connecting with a lot of people in the adoption community, started getting involved with a few little things here or there, but I never really got too deep in anything. You know, I did talk about my adoption story a lot on Facebook online, and I think I connected with a lot of people that way.

And I saw this little chocolate thing I was doing. It was kind of keeping me busy and keeping my mind off stuff. I'd stay up till two or three in the morning, even though I had work the next day. I’d just make chocolates and I'd sell them. And it's funny, because actually some of my—most of my customers were other people in the adoption community. And they were just like, supporting it, you know?

I'm like, I would get back, I would make chocolates for different, you know, open records organizations. I made chocolates for a couple of them (like a foster care organization). Actually, I've always been seeking opportunities to get involved in, but it's been hard for me to really like, go full force with anything. Because I, you know, I do work a lot. I do have my little family already and I'm just always so busy.

But like, also recently I became a CASA (a Court Appointed Special Advocate for foster children). So I went through the training for that and everything, but I haven't been able to actually take on an actual case yet. I'll say this, one thing I learned–I mean, I could talk pretty openly about this, I'd say. I don't know if it has anything to do with what happened to me when I was in the womb, you know? I don't know if it has anything to do with like, you know, drugs or anything like that, or anything to do with some of the things I've read on being adopted.

I did talk to a couple therapists here or there (actually, I talked to a psychologist, a psychiatrist one time as well). I was like, you know, “I have this mental illness in my bloodline. Let me see if there's anything to that.” You know, everybody verified, they said, “No.” I guess I dodged a bullet, like as far as, you know, schizophrenia goes, or anything like that.

But they said, “Yeah, ADHD,” you know, “That's your thing.” You know what I mean? Like they said (and you can probably tell just talking from talking to me)... But, you know, I mean, everybody said, “You have this ADHD thing.” Okay. They said, “Do you want to take some medicine for it?” So, actually I did try that. I did try to take Adderall for like a couple months, and I didn't like how it made me feel, because it made me slow down.

I kind of like how I'm energetic and all that stuff. But I guess what I'm kind of getting into is like, it's the distraction part of it (kind of like what just happened in our conversation). Like, you know, I get super focused on something and I know I'd be great at it. But then, Oh, I see something else that I could probably try, and then I'll go for that. Like, that happens a lot in my downtime. Because as far as having a job (knowing that I have to go to work every day), I've been at the same company for over 14 years.

Like, you know what I'm saying? So I know I'm highly capable of maintaining something. I can maintain a relationship, I can maintain a job. I mean, I've had the same phone number for 14 years. I don't think I have that issue where I kind of jump around to different things as far as things that I know are essential to survival, or essential to life.

But when it comes to finding outlets and stuff like that, I think I need to keep busy. And I think I do need to find things to be involved in, or else I'm gonna do other stuff that may be destructive, like I may overeat. I know I'm capable of doing that.

I've had a tendency over the years (and I kind of don't do it anymore), but like, I'd have a friend from high school (who I haven't seen in like six or seven years), and I’d feel the need to just call them up and stay in contact with them. Even though I kind of know they probably don't wanna be bothered.

I don't know if that's part of my thing, being an adopted person as well. It's like, I can meet somebody and be like their best friend, like I've known them for years, but once they give me a hint (like once someone gives me a straight out hint) that they don't wanna be bothered, I'll never talk to them again in my life. And I'll be fine with that.

I've always kind of been like that and I never have any hard feelings about it. You know, that's kind of like how I am. And I think that's why I've been able to roll with the punches in reunion as well. Because you know, people do come and go, even without even realizing it. You know, we're all just busy with life anyway? Even with my siblings, my…

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Actually, I think it's a really good time to mention— I told you there's eight of us. We were all given up for adoption, right? Through a chain of events, through a domino effect, through I guess a lot of late nights, you know, researching and searching, I ended up finding all of them. Not on my own though. Not like, not on my own. I would never claim that.

Okay. I'll just go down the list real quick. There's one sister, she kind of grew up around the family, so they kind of knew who she was already. So, you know, there's one down. The Adoption Registry, I called them back up and I said, “Yeah, I know I connected with my biological father,” but I said, “I wanna give my biological mother's name, just in case anybody that's related to her is also registered.”

So I told them her name and her first name was Ana. They said, “How do you spell it?” I said, “A-n-a, it's just one N.” They said, “Oh,” they said, “We have an Ana, without last name, with two Ns.” I said, “No, no, no, it's one N.” And figured out there was a sister of mine that was also registered. The registry hit twice for me, which is very crazy.

Haley Radke: That's really unusual.

Keith Sciarillo: Yeah, very unusual, like with these registries (if you know anything about them). So like, you know, I connected with her and then she's like, “I talked to this sister.” She's like, “By the way, I found one of our other sisters.” Like, “Okay, that's cool.” And they’re like, “Yeah, this sister, she grew up with one of our brothers.” And, “Okay, awesome.” So, “Okay, that's four of us down.”

You know, I just did more research. I looked in the– There's this book in New York where you could basically (it was a birth index that you could look at), look for people's names and stuff. They've closed it, but that's helped me a lot in my search. So I basically figured out a couple of the other brothers' birthdays, and through that information I was able to see, able to track both of them down (eventually).

Haley Radke: Do you have relationships with all of these people?

Keith Sciarillo: No, no. Actually I don't talk to any of them right now, because actually two of my brothers, they both died in the early thirties. One was— He had died because of diabetes-related stuff.

So that…you know, and then there was another brother who also had diabetes. They said something happened with his medicine. I don't know exactly what, but he had a bad batch or something and he died that way. So, you know, diabetes is something that I'm very familiar with, now, that's in my bloodline. So I've been kind of careful with that over the past few years (now that I know about it).

Haley Radke: So you stopped making chocolates?

Keith Sciarillo: Well, you know, it's funny, because I… No, actually I did kind of stop making chocolates anyway, just because it's time consuming and all that stuff.

But I know it's funny, because I knew about all this information, but then I was making chocolate. But yeah.... Miraculously, like, I'm perfectly healthy. There's nothing that I know of that's really wrong with me. So my biological father, he's healthy. His line of work, he has to lift heavy stuff. So I'm like, Okay, I hope in like 20 years, I'm still, I'm that strong too, you know?

Haley Radke: And you're still in a relationship with him?

Keith Sciarillo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely, we talk all the time. Yeah. We've seen each other a bunch of times. I’ve visited him, he's visited me. Yeah, he's actually been great.

It's been great. And actually, it's funny, I was just talking to him the other day and you know, we were kinda laughing about it. I said, “Yeah,” I said, “We're more like brothers. Like more of a brother relationship,” you know? That's how it is. Like, you know, we're adults; not really a father-son... I could say he would've been a great father if I knew him growing up, but it's a good relationship, though.

Haley Radke: That’s good. Is there anything else that you kind of wanna talk about before we do our recommended resources?

Keith Sciarillo: I mean, I just hope that more people would not be afraid to share their stories, whether it's just posting on their Facebook or Twitters. Or you know, talking to people, going to support groups, or even talking to somebody one-on-one, because it's good to let this stuff out. Because I have heard of people getting sick from holding stuff in.

I mean, I just say, look at me. You know, I mean, I'm seemingly like, you know, happy most of the time. I smile a lot. I mean, I say it's because I let stuff out a lot. I don't really hold stuff in and, you know, it's kind of been like a blessing and a curse at the same time. Because I do talk a lot about stuff.

If anything, I just do it so other people won't be scared to. I mean, we all have our own stories. We all have our own situations. We all have different feelings. I know we all feel different ways about “a-word" (about adoption).

I'll just use a quick little reference that came to mind. Like, I'll say it's like a tornado, right? Like this tornado's coming out, this tornado's coming at you. And you know, you see all these words like “secrets,” “lies,” “deception.”

But then when you speak your truth and you speak with compassion and caring, you have good intentions towards others, it diminishes that tornado. Those things, you know, they don't have as much power. I guess I'll just say it like that.

Haley Radke: That's beautiful. And I know that you started your own adoptee support group in your area. I'd love to do that at some point too, but mine's just online instead.

Keith Sciarillo: Yeah, no, I'm actually part of a few online groups, which have been great. The in-person group has been great as well. It's been pretty easy to do. If everybody has any questions, I can let them know. Just like, you know, local libraries usually have rooms you could get that you don't have to pay for. All you need to do is supply some snacks and get some people to show up and, you know, you're good to go.

Haley Radke: Well, those are great tips. Okay, let's do our recommended resources, and mine is actually kind of a good fit for tonight. I follow Gregory Luce on Twitter. He is an adoptee rights lawyer. He's just started a new website and organization called adopteerightslaw.com, and he's tweeting @adopteelaw. It's so cool.

He just made up this Google map that you can click on that's original birth certificate access for all the states. And so it shows which states have access and which states don't. He's tweeting all these little interesting tidbits about different states and their, whatever, archaic rules (I guess I would say).

You know how in some states, you are required to do as many as 30 hours of counseling before you can access your records (things like that). Just really interesting things that I never knew. He's tweeting about that and he's updating his website, and he is just a new voice in the adoptee community that I really encourage everyone to follow.

I really look forward to what he's gonna be doing on his website. And he mentions on there, he's like, “I'm not trying to duplicate other work that's been done, just come alongside and supplement.” That's something I really would love everybody to follow. And he's got a Facebook page as well, so I'll link to all of those in the show notes.

And you brought a couple of blogs for us, Keith. Why don't you tell us about those?

Keith Sciarillo: Okay, sure. So yeah, the first one is, No Apologies for Being Me. It's actually run by one of my friends, Lynn Grubb. She's been really great. She's been… Well, she's been in a couple of books. And if you check on her blog, you'll see all of her information on there.

And then the other one is A Story with No Beginning: A Late Discovery Adoption Journey, by another friend of mine, Kevin Gladish. I hope he'll forgive me if I said his name wrong. But yeah, so, something I very much related to (being a late discovery adoptee as well).

Haley Radke: Yeah, that's great. I've been researching late discovery adoptees for a while and I'm not finding very much. So I'm really glad that you brought us Kevin's blog, in particular.

Thank you, Keith. Where can we find you online?

Keith Sciarillo: My name is Keith Sciarillo. I'm on Facebook. My last name is spelled S-c-i-a-r-i-l-l-o. Yeah, that's basically me on Facebook.

Haley Radke: Okay, awesome. I will link to your Facebook on our show notes.

Thank you so much for sharing with us tonight. I really think it'll be so valuable for our listeners to hear your story and some of your ups and downs. So thanks so much, Keith.

Keith Sciarillo: You're welcome. Thanks again for having me.

Haley Radke: Keith has made even more connections with his biological family than we even had time to discuss. His biological father has a teenage adopted son that Keith shares a birthday with. Wild.

If you wanna see some photos of Keith's chocolates, you can look up Jasijay Fine Chocolates (which is named after his kids). And they're on Facebook or Etsy.

I've got a new invitation for you. I've been telling you for a while about my secret Adoptees On Facebook group, which has turned out to be an incredibly supportive place. And I have another awesome thank you gift for partners of the show at the next reward level up, which is access to an unedited podcast feed. And the first episode of that special podcast will be out very soon.

Now is the perfect time to join, so you won't miss out on any of those bonus episodes. Adopteeson.com/partner is where you can access those rewards. I keep forgetting to share with you that Amy was the winner of the three recommended resources for doing my listener survey. I hope you're enjoying your reading, Amy!

Thanks to everyone who filled that survey out for me and to Anne Heffron, Liz Story, and Mary Anna King for generously furnishing copies of their books for that giveaway. Amy, Anne, Liz and Mary Anna are all a part of that secret Facebook group, which you can access @adopteeson.com/partner and watch for that unedited bonus podcast, coming out soon.

Would you do me a favor today? I would really appreciate it if you would share this episode of the podcast with just one person. Maybe a friend that likes chocolate? You could share a box of chocolates and listen to Keith's story together. Thanks for spreading the podcast love.

Next week, we've got an episode of the Healing Series for you, and we're gonna talk about how to tell your adoptive parents you are searching for your biological family.

Thanks for listening. Let's talk again, next Friday.

22 [Healing Series] When You Don't Find Answers with Katie Jae Naftzger, LICSW

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/22

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Haley Radke: You are listening to adoptees on the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and 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 discuss what to do when you search and you don't find any answers.

Let's listen in.

Katie Naftzger is an experienced psychotherapist who works with adoptees through the lifecycle, adoptive parents, and families. Welcome to Adoptees On, Katie.

Katie Jae Naftzger: Thank you so much.

Haley Radke: I would love it if you would just spend a couple minutes introducing yourself to us.

Katie Jae Naftzger: Well, I am a Korean adoptee. I've been a psychotherapist for almost 20 years. I was someone who didn't necessarily consciously think about my birth parents throughout my childhood, and it was really the first, they called it the first international gathering of Korean adoptees, which was in the year 2000, that I was sort of interested in going to, which was in Korea and there were like 400 Koreans who went to that. And it really felt like it made sense to at least initiate a search at that point. And so I was just starting grad school, I think. And so I basically made the decision to initiate something and they didn't come up with much at that point, and so it was a pretty short process. But I actually initiated a second search a little bit later or several years later, which I can also talk about.

Haley Radke: What I know of your story is that you actually haven't really found anything and that's one reason I really wanted you to talk with us today because there's a lot of adoptees, especially international, but not even completely international, some domestic as well, that have searched and just come to roadblocks. And can't find the answers that they're looking for. They've done DNA testing, they've hired searchers, the works. They've done everything that they can think of, and it just looks like they're not gonna find anything. So can you just tell us a little bit more about that part of your story and what do you do to reconcile that in your own mind? Like maybe I'm not gonna find the answers that I really want. Katie Jae Naftzger: It was a really interesting trajectory to that point, cause I, I do think I have gotten to that point where I feel content with what happened or didn't happen. And so fast forward several years later, I became interested in writing a book. It's a different book than the one that I'm, I actually wrote, but back then it was a book about a young adult being a young adult adoptee. And so I approached Betty Jean Lifton, who is now passed away, but she was in the Cambridge area, so I did approach her given that she had written two books and I wanted to get her advice on how to write the book or just pick her brain a little bit about what the experience was like for her. And when I met with her, it was interesting. She really hammered home that I need to search, which is also interesting because I had already searched and I did tell her that, but somehow that didn't really change anything. She still just kept talking about how I needed to search again, and that I needed to do it because I was a therapist and I needed to do it because I needed to get my, get my hands dirty if I was gonna understand the search experience and if I was gonna work with a lot of people who have either searched and found or searched and haven't found that I needed to have as much experience in that area as possible.

I took her seriously and I started doing some research and literally a week later there was something that came up on one of the feeds on a service trip in Korea over Thanksgiving. It was the week of Thanksgiving, and I just jumped on that. And so that became the catalyst for me putting in the paperwork again and just wondering if I was going to come up with something because the hard thing about international adoption, and this may be true in domestic adoption too, is that sometimes they don't tell you everything the first time. Sometimes there are things in the file that you didn't know were there. Sometimes they make sort of fabricate things that you thought were true, that aren't true.

Just because I didn't get any information before didn't necessarily mean that I wasn't going to get information the second time. So I made this journey to Korea. Actually, my adoptive mom and I went together and it was a tour. And I hadn't found anything by the time the tour happened, I think I might have had a kind of a hope that something would've come up, that they would've taken my request seriously.

And I had heard that they take requests seriously, especially if you are coming to Korea, so that can sometimes help your case a little bit for them to prioritize you. But anyway, they didn't come up with anything. And so I went on this tour and really, most people on the tour were meeting their birth family and so initially I just felt completely alienated, maybe even more lost than I was before the trip. And I was wondering whether this was even a good idea. My daughter was very young at the time, she was three years old. And I just was thinking, I left my family for this, and why, how is this gonna be good for me?

How is this gonna help me? And we were on the same floor. Our room, our bedroom was on the same floor as the infant care unit in the adoption agency which was Dylan Adoption, which is not, was not my agency. But anyway, that was the agency sponsoring the tour. And it just so happened my flight was late and so I came in really late and I went straight to bed. But throughout the night, I could hear all of this crying from the infant care unit, which was a few doors down, and I literally almost heard it also because I was jet lagged almost the whole night. There was almost no time where there wasn't someone in that infant care unit crying.

And it was really intense and it happened actually almost the whole week that I heard this crying. And I became aware of this urge that I had and and the urge was for me to run in there and say, they're not gonna choose you if you cry, like shh. They're not gonna choose you if you cry. And that alone really helped me to just really understand how embedded these issues are.

I was doing fairly well, I was doing fine in, family, career, blah, blah, all that stuff. And just to realize that was so embedded inside of me was pretty raw actually. And I guess also pretty helpful to me as a person, but also as a therapist.

Haley Radke: That's so interesting, Katie. And it, you say that and my heart just breaks a little bit because you said in your intro that you didn't ever think of searching or, but that's to come to that realization that yeah, there's still this piece that's kind of broken, like hurting,

Katie Jae Naftzger: Yeah. I think it's hurting and then it's also I guess, I was also realizing how much of a survival issue adoptees can feel like they're in the middle of it. It's not just a story of abandonment, or relinquishment, it's also a survival story. And so when we as adoptees don't wanna feel vulnerable, or don't want to express vulnerability, or don't wanna cry or don't wanna show certain things, it's not just because we're embarrassed or shy or reserved. It's because deep down we also feel like this could be a risk, that this could be a risk for our life in some way. Yeah so that happened and then we actually had two meetings with birth mothers in Korea and during the first meeting, again, a lot of people were meeting their birth mothers.

And I wasn't, and my mother was also, I don't know, she was very emotional about the whole thing as well. One, during that meeting, one of the moms asked me directly. I just, I think that we had just forged a connection somehow. She asked me directly, what's the hardest part about being adopted? She asked through a translator. So it wasn't a quick interaction, but, and I just completely broke down, which I can never tell when that's gonna happen. Exactly. And so I, I just got really upset and said, not knowing any information, that I don't know anything. Then there was all this, there was all this chatter back and forth that, which I couldn't understand because it was in Korean.

And they're talking to the translator. The translator are talking back and I'm thinking, what's going on? And then the translator explained to us those of us on the tour, they're saying, why wouldn't she know that's wrong? They're really upset about it. She deserves to know her story. She deserves to know what happened to her.

There was something about that moment where at that moment I could let go my need to search that. There is something about being heard by mothers who are also birth mothers, even if it wasn't my mother. And there was something about having a witness to that. And the power of the group, you know that there were a group of them, one of them actually put their baby on the table in a in a hold, in a kind of crib kind of thing. One had their hundredth day birthday party for their baby, and they were all there because they were trying to make a decision about whether or not to relinquish their child. And so they were there in the kind of remainder of the days that they were pregnant and making these decisions with the support of one another.

So there was something about that really for me and once I felt like I had that witness and once I heard them say she, why is she, why does she have to go through that? She doesn't deserve that. I really just was able to let go and it also affected my work. I also now say, look, you don't deserve that. You deserve to know the answers. You deserve to know who you came from. You deserve to know why, what happened and there is something really validating about that. And it's so interesting how we often don't say that, and I'm not sure why, but we don't often just say, look, you didn't deserve to go through that, and you shouldn't, that should, that's not fair. That's not just.

Haley Radke: What a powerful moment. What can you tell us about creating that moment for ourselves? Like maybe we're not maybe the ones I'm really thinking of, a lot of them are baby scoop era and there's closed records and they're just, all the doors are shut and so they don't get a chance to go on a tour like that possibly but what are some ways that they can create some of those moments for themselves to really come to that place of healing and feeling understood.

Katie Jae Naftzger: I think it's really hard to feel empowered alone, and there is something about the power of group and so that that's one thought is that, if you can do it in a group of people who also understand and if you can talk to people who are in a group who also understand, that was really part of the power for me.

One of the ways I talk about adoption is that it's an experience with no words, no witnesses, and no documentation. And so part of the first challenge is just being able to find the words to describe the experience because it's actually really hard to capture the experience in words.

It's sort of an abstract thing that a lot of people say that's just human, that's just about being human. No one wants to be abandoned or whatnot. But it is so much more than that and that is where I start with my clients, let's just try to find the words together for what you're going through and what you're describing without even trying to fix it or help or change it or, do anything with those at right away, but just to find the words. And then I, let's say as a therapist, I become that witness. I am that witness to their scariest fears and their, the things that they feel are intimate and that they feel a lot of maybe shame or kind of despair about. And then the third piece is the documentation that, one positive of social media is that people can choose to express their experience in ways that last like the books and like podcasts and like other kinds of writing and films and documentaries, and so I think that really is the next step. And then I think the final step is possibly trying to help other people who are going through things that you know that you can understand.

Haley Radke: Once you've come to this place of peace. What do you say to someone like me who keeps probing and thinking like, are you sure you don't wanna find are you gonna not gonna have another trip to back to Korea? Like, how can you just stop looking? I don't understand that, because I've found my biological parents, which is, I'm very fortunate that my search was easy. But yeah, what do you say to someone like me who keeps probing those things?

Katie Jae Naftzger: It's, I think there, there might be, a style difference too, that, everyone has their own just way of trying to come to terms with these things, and I think there are people who will go to the ends of the earth to, to possibly find what they need to find, even though the odds are still low.

I guess I also know that older Korean adoptees, I, and I'll put myself in that category in the sense that it seems like a lot of Korean adoptees in their twenties and let's say early thirties, have had a lot more luck. And so for me, there's always a cost to searching. I was away from my family. It was extremely expensive. It takes a lot of time. There's a lot of turmoil and it's really far away. So if it was a domestic adoption, I might feel a little differently that I can just continue. And in a way that makes it more complicated because there's not a clear boundary about that, that I can't be just putting my life on hold and traveling back and forth to Korea.

And I think also the other part of people's personality is that I'm not gonna go on TV and you know, put my name all over the Korean papers and get a detective and all that stuff. I'm just not, that's not, I'm not gonna do that especially because I know the odds are so low.

Haley Radke: Korea has quite an established program and there's a lot of adoptees now from some of the really a lot poorer countries that there is no, there's just no way, like even if you traveled there, what would you find?

Katie Jae Naftzger: It really is like trying to find a needle in the haystack. And I think that was true for Chinese adoption too, that it's still extremely difficult and maybe even more difficult because they have even like less documentation and evidence than witnesses and all that stuff. And then the film Somewhere Between happened which was a wonderful film and it was really exciting to have that be become so mainstream, that it was so popular, but it also skewed the idea of the search a little bit. And I do think it opened things up for Chinese adoptees who had been able to close that door, that look, there's no chance. And then they see Somewhere Between, and now they're really in a lot of anguish because they still know that there's barely any chance.

And so how much of their emotional psychic energy are they going to spend? How much of their money are they gonna spend? And time? And these are also, at least let's say my clients, they're also emotionally vulnerable anyway. And so they're always trying to balance, how do you take care of yourself and also leave yourself open to that at the same time.

Haley Radke: And I think that's such a good thought to end on. You gave us those few different steps that we can do. But yeah, just coming to that place, where am I gonna keep looking or I'm gonna, just gonna close this door forever or for right now. Katie, thank you so much for sharing a part of your story with us and for those wise words. Where can we find you online?

Katie Jae Naftzger: My website is adoptiontherapyma.com.

Haley Radke: And I will link to your social media accounts on our show notes as well. And you have a new book that's coming out that's called Parenting In the Eye of the Storm: The Adoptive Parents Guide to Navigating the Teen Years. And this book is for adoptive parents, but I'm finding a lot of insights for adoptees as well to read it. Yeah, check out Katie's book. You can find info about that on her website and it's also on Amazon. So thank you again for your time. It was so nice to introduce you to our listeners.

Katie Jae Naftzger: Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity.

Haley Radke: Whether or not you're in the position of coming to a dead end with search, I think those four steps that Katie laid out for us could really be helpful for coming to terms with a lot of adoption issues. First, find the words, find someone to be a witness to our story, document our story in a tangible way, and finally help someone else along the same journey.

Friends, I feel like this is a lot of what we are doing here together on this podcast. Adoptee On has been getting some tremendous support from our Patreon supporters. So a big thank you to all of you. You know who you are and if you wanna join them and become a partner of the show, you can access our secret Facebook group, which has some really lovely adoptees in it.

They are incredibly understanding and supportive. AdopteesOn.com/partner is where you can sign up now. Today, would you tell one friend about this podcast? Do you know someone who has had a really difficult time searching? Maybe they'd be interested in hearing Katie discuss how to find that sense of peace.

Thanks for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.

21 Anne - Adoption Trauma Leaves a Wake

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/21

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Haley Radke: You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is Season Two, episode 4, and I'm your host, Haley Radke.

I get to welcome Anne Heffron, author of You Don't Look Adopted, to the show. And I want to let you know we touch on some extremely sensitive topics, including suicide and sexual assaults.

We actually joke around quite a bit, but you know our hearts are for adoptees and for healing. In fact, last week's special Healing episode is all about adoptee suicide. So if you want to learn a bit more about that topic, you can find it on our website, adopteeson.com, or in your podcast app.

Anne goes deep into all kinds of things in her story today, including failures that she attributes to adoption trauma, things she's working on to find healing, what “write or die" means to her. And we find a way to laugh a lot.

We wrap up with some recommended resources, and as always, links to everything we'll talk about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Anne is a part of our Adoptees On secret Facebook group, so stick around until the end of the show to hear how you can access that.

Alright, let's listen in. I am pleased to introduce to you Anne Heffron. Welcome to Adoptees On, Anne.

Anne Heffron: Oh, Haley, thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Haley Radke: Me, too, I'm so ooh-la…. (See, I have no words). I'm so excited to talk to you and get to share your story with everyone. I'm excited.

Anne Heffron: You, too. You know what, I hike and I listen to your podcast when I hike. And I was devastated when you took a break. I thought that was a terrible idea.

Haley Radke:It was a terrible idea. But we're back now, so it's okay.

Anne Heffron: Yeah, don’t do... I don't vote for the break.

Haley Radke: Well, we can talk about self-care at some point in this episode.

Anne Heffron: Oh yeah, after. After you finish it.

Haley Radke: After I finish recording? Okay. Wow, I'm so glad…

You don't know this yet, because we are recording just before the first episode goes out, but… Well, you know, I plugged your book, but what I said was, “Hey, it's my #1 fan's book.”

Anne Heffron: I am your #1 fan. If anyone's bigger than me, they'd have to be a stalker. And that's not a fan anymore, that's illegal.

Haley Radke: Okay, well then I…

Anne Heffron: Your show changed my life. I mean, how can I not be a fan?

Haley Radke: I'm gonna have to cut this all out. Stop it. [laughs]

Anne Heffron: It's gonna be super short.

Haley Radke: Oh, dear. Okay, okay. Well, thank you for gushing. I love you, too. Your book was amazing. I already gushed about it before, but please, why don't you start and just share a little bit of your story with us?

Anne Heffron: I was born in New York City in 1964, and I was adopted 10 weeks later. I grew up knowing I was adopted, but it wasn't something that we really talked about in my house. I had a brother who was adopted when I was... (I was ‘64, he was ‘60. He was two…). We adopted him two years later, and now I think he was a drug baby.

He was very difficult. My mom couldn't hold him. And he still suffers. And then we adopted my second brother when he was two. His father was African American. We lived in a white town. My brother (when he came), his name was Terry, but my parents gave him the name Sam. He changed the name himself when he was in first grade.

But when Sam came to us, he didn't speak. And you know? There was no mention of trauma. No mention of where he had come from, nothing. So it wasn't until I started going seriously off track when I dropped out of college for the first time, and that's when I had the idea of looking for my birth mother.

I found a search agency in Boston. It was Susan Dark (I don't remember names, and I still remember her name). And I think it took me 15 years after first getting Susan Dark’s number, and actually doing the whole process. And when my daughter was a little girl, I got a letter with identifying information. And I got a photograph of my birth mother and she looks like me, and it was such a good feeling.

And then I did everything wrong, from that point on. I called her. She said I had the wrong person. It was like she'd been waiting by the phone. She said I had the wrong person, it wasn't her. And she gave me a whole story about how it was her cousin (or something). And I was thrown off, so I just asked her if she could write it down and send it to me.

And so she did, and then she asked me not to contact her again. And a while later, I did get a letter and it was the same story. When my daughter was little, I wrote to her one more time and I said, “I don't think you're telling me the truth. I think you're my birth mother.” And she did write back and say, “You're right, but please leave me alone.”

And I let years pass. And then I told a friend of mine about it, and she said, “Well, why don't you contact her again?” And I said, “I can't.” And she said, “Well…” Well, it's a long story, but I ended up at Borders bookstore. I looked her up. I hadn't even Googled her name or anything, and I found out where she worked. And I emailed her at work and I said— (because I had found out she had two sons)....

And I said, “I want to know, if you won't talk to me, I want to know your son's information, because I want to talk to them.” And she wrote back, she was really upset (you know, this is on Blackberry, you know, in a bookstore). And she said, “This was closed.” So I said, “I'll tell you what, I'll leave your sons alone if you tell me their story.”

And she wrote back and said, “I was date raped. You are my birth daughter. Please stop.” And I did. And it felt so good. Like I, even the… You know, rape sounds so ugly, but it made sense to me and I thought, Okay, I know. Just the knowledge felt really good. (Gosh, this story gets so long. I mean, it's like this forever process, right? Of ugh…)

I mean, I took this autobiography class and I thought I was gonna be better than everybody in the class. And I wrote my stuff, and I read it out loud to the class. And the teacher said what I'd heard 20 years later in graduate school, which is, “You have great dialogue, but you stay on the surface.” And I started bawling, because I realized I had to write about both mothers. And I never went back to that class, because I wasn't just crying. (I mean, there was snot coming outta my nose, you know, it was like big crying.)

And I went home and I Googled her, and her death certificate came up (or her death announcement). And it was recent, but it said that she had two sons and a daughter. So then I just went, I just said, I don't care what people think of me or if she gets mad, and I called her work. And she wrote a book. And so I called the person that she had written the book with (because they worked together).

And I said who I was and I said, “I want to contact her daughter.” And she said, “Well, I really don't want to be talking to you, but I know that this is her daughter's name. I'm not sure of her last name. I think it's the same, but I know she works at this magazine.” So I looked up, and I found her right away.

And so I emailed her. And I got an email back when I was on the treadmill at the chiropractor’s and it said, “You know, this is overwhelming for me. My mother died not too long ago, but I'm gonna forward this to my brother.” (And I forgot to say that the daughter, her name's Anna. And my name's Anne, and that's just a coincidence.)

And she's a writer, and I've read her stuff and her voice is so familiar, so similar. (It's also familiar.) And her brother stepped up to the plate. He came–-I was living in Palo Alto at the time, and he came to my house. And it was probably one of the three greatest moments in my life, to have this big man…

And we went and had lunch, and my daughter and my husband (at the time), and my half-brother, we and my half-brother, we went to a Chinese foot massage place. And we all lay in a row and we got massages, and we just sat around and watched TV. We had similar gestures. It was really wonderful. It was complicated—he has another brother who had no interest in meeting me.

And Anna…I did everything wrong. I mean, every time I would correspond with her, I would say the wrong thing. And she was not kind. But when I was in New York writing my book, we actually got together. And she has a daughter out of wedlock, and she invited me to her first birthday party. When I walked to the boat, I went to New Jersey, and I went to her daughter's first birthday party.

And I started getting a migraine on the way there, and I called my friend and I said, “Who do I say I am?” Right? “Because I don't know if she told her friends.” And my friend said, “You say you're Anne.” I was like, “Okay, I could do that.” But I look so much like her mom, that her friends who were there were thrown off. And it was nice to be there, but she doesn't talk to me anymore and I'm not sure...

Well, you know, I think it's: reunion is complicated. And the brother doesn't talk to me (and I'm not sure if he's ignoring me or…), but the fact that I got to meet them was tremendous. So when I was in New York writing my book, I did find my birth father, which I thought would be impossible because nobody would give me any information.

Not a thing. And what was wonderful was his wife said that I'm not family, so that he can't talk to me. But his brother has stepped up to the plate, and his brother flew me to Montana, recently. And they made space for me in their family. And he had read my book three times. And the last day, he sat me down and he said, “I want you to hear something.”

And I said, “Okay.” And he said, “I love you, and I'll never leave.” I’m a little shut down. My heart is shut down, so I hear it, but I still don't really believe it. So I have to… My brain, you know, I have to keep telling my brain, He loves you and he'll never leave. This is a real person. I actually find myself a little bit, now, wanting to push him away. So I called him two nights ago to connect, because I think it's a skill I have to… I think I'm so afraid that I don't even let myself feel.

Oh, one last thing—When I was in Montana… I always sat on the fringe of my family. Like my family would sit around the kitchen table and I would sit on the chair on the side, right? I'm not a—If you said, “Hey, do you wanna go get coffee?” I'd be like, “Uh…You mean sit around and talk?” (Actually with you, I'd probably love to do it.)

But with this family (so it was my uncle, and his son, and his son’s children, and my uncle's wife) and I sat down. They said, “Well, we have to tell you something.” And I said, “Okay...” And they said, “We're really smart, but we're gonna talk about pooping and farting.” I said, Oh my God. That's how I am! And the dialogue, it was like music.

I think in my family, I'm a little rough and a little loud, and so I didn't quite fit in. And in that family, it was seamless. And I have a lot of feelings about that, because it's Ahhh, I've already have my life, right? I'm 52, and so I can't just say, Well, this is my new life, right? I mean, I have my family. I'm trying to learn to be bigger. I mean, as an adoptee, I'm not supposed to take up a lot of space in my life, but I'm trying to learn that it's okay to be big. And it's okay to have two, (like however many) families.

I don't know how it's for you, Haley, but it's hard.

Haley Radke: It's extremely hard. This is the first experience I've had with adding another family. My adoptive parents have stayed married, my husband's parents have stayed married… I understand, families of divorce, then you've got, you know, the two sets and then they multiply and it kind of spreads out that way. And that's the only thing I could think to sort of compare it to, except it's another whole set of complete strangers (at first). You know? It's very bizarre.

Anne Heffron: But it is. Yeah, it is bizarre and it's also… I mean, on my birthday, everybody called me. Right? And so it was just…

I'm actually going to this (he's a chiropractor, but he is not really a chiropractor. I don't know what he is)... He works with a lot of the Sharks (the hockey players, not the fish). He works with Sharks and adopted people. But I went to him and I said, “I need you to work on my brain.” Right? “There's something, it's my brain and my stomach.” Right? Like, “I'm trying to…I have good things that are happening and I'm not changing. I'm still as upset as always.” And I said, “I can feel it, now that I've slowed down more, I can feel that my brain is doing…”

I'll be fine, and then all of a sudden, I will be in the worst mood, or so sad. And I didn't catch what my brain said, but it was something. And then my stomach gets sick (and my stomach's been sick my whole life). And so he did some research and he found this protocol (and the Sharks call his hippie [censored] and they'll call him for an appointment and he'll say, “What do you want?” And then they'll say, “Oh dude, I just want the hippie [censored]”).

Because it was for me, it was for the trauma. And it's applied kinesiology and it's working with the nervous system. Because I could feel it; it's my nervous system. Something happens, the chemicals flood my body, right? Like I'll think my uncle will write, and I'll be so happy. And then something will go ding!, and then all of a sudden I'll be not… I'll be in that same place where it makes me want to overeat or spend money—anything to get out of that situation.

Haley Radke: My dad and his wife were just here this weekend (my bio dad), and they were here and it was amazing and so wonderful. And then the next day, I am totally depressed.

Anne Heffron: Yeah. Isn't that awful?

Haley Radke: It's like this just withdrawal and, yeah. Yeah. I understand what you're saying.

Anne Heffron: Yeah. How did you deal with it? Like how did you…?

Haley Radke: Well, I wish I hadn't drank all the wine with them. I don't know. I have an appointment with my psychologist? I don't know. I don't deal with it.

Anne Heffron: I mean, I'm older than you are, so I think I've been feeling it for so long that it's actually wearing down my body. And so I can't, I don't manage it so well anymore.

And when my mom died (five years ago), that's when I started falling apart. And by falling apart, I mean my brain actually stopped working. I went to a doctor, I thought maybe it was hormones. And she made me get an MRI; she was afraid I had a brain tumor.

And I truly think it's adoption. I truly think that when my mom died, it was like, All my life, I've been getting in trouble and then my mom rescues me, right? And now she's dead and she can't rescue me. And no one can rescue me, but I'm still getting in trouble.

And I realized just recently, I wanna be rescued the right way. Like I wanna keep giving (especially my mom) the chance to… It's like we got rescued when we were adopted, right? But it wasn't right. No matter how loving our parents are, it wasn't the energetic track that we were born to. So there's that sense of Something's a little wrong. And I think part of my brain was like, Okay, get in financial distress, or drop out of college, and then she'll come rescue you and this time, you'll feel… If you write and say you need money, and she'll send you money. You'll feel rescued.

And I've been doing it for 52 years, and I mean, I can't believe that I can't be rescued. I still grieve that, you know? I grieve that adopted children (babies) had to have that feeling of… I was thinking about when my daughter was born (she was a little jaundiced and they put her on a light bed next to my bed). And she didn't cry when she was born and she was really mellow, but she started to cry when she was in the bed. And I looked over at her and I could– If I reached out, I could just touch her with my fingertip and she stopped crying.

And I've been thinking about that moment a lot, because I feel like when I touched her with my fingertip, I sealed her skin (like she was safe in the world). My contact, my energy is the same as her energy. And so she was separate, but she felt that energy. Because my skin doesn't feel sealed. Do you know what I mean?

I used to date a lot, because I just want to be hugged (like I wanted someone pressed up against me). But sometimes I don't like to be touched at all and I feel like a burn victim. And I feel like— (actually, the chiropractor that works on me, he was severely burned. And his skin is a project for him.) And I was thinking, I wish adopted babies came home with protocol for, “This is How You Take Care of Their Skin.” Right? Because we are not going to have the same kind of energetic seal that we need, because no matter how much they love us, it's not the planet we came from. Right?

But there must be ways—I believe... Our brains are plastic. You know? We're survivors, Like, surely…just rock us more! I want to go to Japan, because I'm sure they have something where they have a hug machine. (I actually looked it up. They do make this thing that hugs you, but I want it to be like the womb. A hug machine where you can just go in there and get rocked, and hugged, and come back out.).

Haley Radke: Sounds like you've got your next business idea. You are so funny. Okay, but let's go back. Let's just talk about… Like you're talking about lots of feelings and things. That's really, really wonderful.

Can you outline some specific things that you've dealt with that you can attribute to adoption trauma and what that looks like for you?

Anne Heffron: I got fired. I was a teacher for 17 years and I was at a new school, so I wasn't really familiar with the rules. But when my mother died, I was going through a divorce, and my daughter didn't get into a school she really wanted to get into. And I had to leave her at home, and I was afraid that… I was afraid. I had left her alone, and I didn't like that I had left her alone.

And I went into the class. It was at college. And one of the students was talking. I threw a pen at him. And I didn't just throw a pen, I said the f-word, and I started crying. I mean, and I watched myself have a breakdown. And I feel like my whole adopted self has been trying to hold itself together. And by “hold itself together,” I mean, deal with almost constant depression and be really confused by that (because I don't think I'm a depressed person).

Like I'm this really funny— (I'm not, I mean, I'm not saying I'm funny). I mean…

Haley Radke: But you are.

Anne Heffron: Yeah, but I am. And so the depression confuses me and it's constant, but I always just think, What is that? And anger. I'll get really angry out of nowhere. And confused. When my best friend growing up read my book, she said, “Oh, my brother said, ‘Oh, I thought she was a space cadet, but she was adopted.’” And it's that I think my brain is just always trying really basic questions: Where is she? Why did this happen? Where am I? Who am I?

And it's the back brain, you know, it's the emotional brain, the brain that makes decisions, and I don't even know it's doing it. So I'm living like a child, but I have an adult body. So I think things that happen because I'm adopted—I think I dropped out of school a bunch of times. I'm very smart, but I didn't do well in high school. I was thinking about, even athletically. I didn't make teams because I would like, my body would shut down. You know, I'm a body worker and there's this muscle testing where you can see if food (or anything) is good for you by testing how your muscle responds. You know, if you held a candy bar and I tested it, probably your muscle would get weak.

I think adoption makes me weak. And so I'm trying to find, how can I reprogram my brain so that I can use adoption as opportunity instead of loss? And I think we need to change the stories, that the way it's presented isn't working. (And I know I'm going off topic right now, but all of a sudden I got excited).

Haley Radke: That's okay.

Ann Heffron: But I had this idea the other day because, you know, I learned that people who adopt get tax write-offs. And I was thinking, What if, when you get adopted, they put $1,000 in your bank account for when you're 18 and $1,000 in your bank account for when you're 50? As sort of a token of appreciation for your loss?

So then when you're 18, right, you just get some cash and they're like, “I'm so sorry for your loss.” Right? But you feel good. You're like, Oh my God, I have probably… (now it's $4,000). And when you're 50, it's… And also it'll cut down adoption suicide, because they'll be thinking about the money.

Right? They're like, you know… [laughs] I mean, I want some prizes for being adopted. I think we deserve stuff. All we get is just, we get the short end of the stick.

Haley Radke: I can’t get it together! Oh my gosh. [laughs] Okay, but like cash for therapy, right? Not like cash for your midlife convertible. I don’t know...

Anne Heffron: And adoption is so expensive. If I think about all the money I have spent because I'm adopted, on therapists who didn't know anything about adoption? So they were a complete waste of time...

Haley Radke: So tell me, okay, let's stop there.

What made you realize that all of these things that are happening in your life, what made you relate that back to being adopted?

Anne Heffron: I was lying in bed and this image came to me of what it must have…(and I wasn't actively thinking about adoption. I don't know why this happened). And I just got this image of what it must have felt like for me to be born and then to not go to my birth mother.

And as soon as I got the thought, I did what I usually do, which is say, Okay, push it away. Right? Don't… But instead, I said, Okay, feel it. Right? And I gave myself permission and it shocked me because I thought, Can you imagine? You have just gone through the most traumatic thing probably you'll go through as a human (being born) and the flesh of your flesh, the thing that made you disappears.

It blew my mind. And then I talked to the guy I was dating at the time (who's a healer). And he said, “You're 50 years old. Stop talking about adoption.” And then I lost it. That's when I decided, Okay, I'm only gonna talk about adoption.

Haley Radke: So this is like just the last couple years?

Anne Heffron: This year. It's been one year. It has been—Because you know what happened? I mean, crazy things are happening. The author of The Help (this wonderful book), I met her and she said to me, “Oh, if you ever need a place to write, you could have my apartment in New York.” And I said, “Oh, that's so nice. I don't think so. Right? Like, how could I…?”

And when that guy said that to me, I wrote to her. I'm like, “Okay.” And I ended up staying there for three months. And it happened to be blocks from where my birth mother—where I was born. Because she was at NYU when I was conceived, and Kitty's apartment is two blocks from NYU (a few blocks from…).

And in three months, I wrote my book and I just wanted to get it… I mean, I went through–-I've gone through two husbands. I've been bankrupt twice. It was like nothing was working. My brain wasn't working anymore. I couldn't stop crying. I didn't. I was, as I just thought, I think it's adoption. And in my book, I thought I was being so radical by suggesting adoption was trauma.

I was like, Okay, I'm gonna write this. And then I get home and I start reading more and I realize, Oh my gosh. So now I'm working on this other book that's killing me because it's so much harder.

Haley Radke: I'm just thinking back to what you said at the beginning about your autobiography class and how like “surface” and things? Because your book is not “surface, whatsoever.

Anne Heffron: So I went to school for writing. I have tried for 30 years, I tried to write. And I didn't know how to get underneath the surface, and the problem was I couldn't talk about adoption. And adoption was everything. I just didn't know it. And so I was trying to write the other books I'd been reading, but it wasn't until I let myself write the way I think. So my book is fragmented.

Right? There's errors in it. I didn't even… People are angry at me on Amazon, because the book (it’s a rough draft). But if I didn't self-publish it, I wasn't gonna. If I edited it, I would've edited it all out. I mean, I had to just get it… I'll never do it again, because it doesn't feel good to be an English teacher and have a book full of errors.

But that, I mean, I wrote one section about—I wore the same pair of underwear for a year when I was in high school because I was too afraid to ask my mom to buy me new underwear. And I really struggled about keeping that in, because I thought, I don't want people to know this. I just… But I thought, You know what? If you wanna show what it's like to be in the brain of an adoptee, right? This is important. Because parents won't think, “Oh, my kid doesn't have enough self-esteem to ask for new underwear.” It's not even in the realm of people's thoughts. Right?

But I want people to know: being an adoptee is so unpredictable. The guy I am dating, the other day, we were talking on the phone. He said, “Well, I'm gonna let you go.” And I said, “You know, can you say it a different way? Because…” [laughs] And you know, I can make it funny, right? But I'm learning that almost everything is a trigger for me.

And that is overwhelming. I mean, I don't have a job right now. I can't—I read that people are afraid to face their adoption, because their life will fall apart. And my life has fallen apart. And so I feel like I'm on this fast track right now that either I'm gonna end up homeless (and well, my worst fear is homelessness), or I'm gonna be this successful author, teacher...

And honestly, it's like neck and neck right now. It's happening so fast and so I'm trying to—I've decided I'm gonna have faith. And because I have to believe that there's a higher power, I have to believe that I'm not in control, that there's a higher purpose, because otherwise it's too scary.

But I think my brain, half of it is adopted. And so half of it kind of wants to destroy me, like half of it— I think when you're born and you get separated from your birth mother, part of who you were kind of dies. And the worst part of me, the hardest part to live with is the part that wants to finish that off, right? And just say, Okay, let's just stop. This is too hard.

And then there's the other half of me that's, you know, a totally normal person that wants to make the best of her life. But I have been fighting myself my whole life and I think that's why I've confused my family and my friends, because they see my positive attributes. They're like, “What is your problem?” Right? ”Like, why…?”

And I think I said in my book, “It's like I have my foot on the gas and the brake at the same time.” And so I'm trying to learn How do I get my foot off the brake? Why do I have to keep punishing myself? You know, I would just like to be able to be happy and to accept myself. And that's why I'm going to Mark Lucas (that chiropractor) and I go to a life coach (Katie Prevell). You know, I'm going to Lesli Johnson, to do EMDR in L.A. I'll meet with Joyce Pavao in Boston (she's a therapist). I mean, I think it's community. I think community will save me. You. Right?

I think for adoptees, it's because: when you feel different, you isolate. And so, you know, I'm used to it. I spend a lot of time alone and I like it, but I'm not sure that I do that to protect myself? Or if that's really what I like.

So this year has been about facing the adoption and I… Boy, I hope next year I have money in the bank and I feel good about myself. [laughs] And I'll buy you a present.

Haley Radke: Yeah, that's my goal is to get some presents,

Anne Heffron: Yeah. We all like presents!

Haley Radke: I mean (to be fair), the hat I'm wearing, Carrie made me. So…

Anne Heffron: Oh, okay. Now I feel guilty. Well, I'll send you my socks. [laughs] Is that the same as knitting it?

Haley Radke: Did you wear them for a year?

Anne Heffron: [laughs] No, but I'm going to now, and then I'll send them to you.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Anne Heffron: Wear them for a year…

Haley Radke: Well, and I can create my very own Anne out of a Petri dish. Right?

Anne Heffron: You can have her.

Haley Radke: Okay. I hope I get the happy one.

Anne Heffron: Yeah, me too.

Haley Radke: Okay. So it took until you're 50 to realize there's something going on with this adoption thing. What do you say to other adoptees who (I mean, if you've listened to the show before, we use that lingo) that they're still “in the fog”?

Anne Heffron: When I was in New York writing, someone that I'd gone to high school with contacted me. And he said, (We weren't friends in high school. I mean, we weren't not friends, but…) And he said, “You know, I don't tell anyone this, but I'm adopted.” And he said, “I don't…” And so he called me, and we talked, and he said, “It's not a big deal to me, but I saw what you're doing. And I just wanted to check in and, you know, I'm really happy with my family...”

And so this was in, I think, June. And since that time, (you know, he's a guy who was not interested in adoption). Since that time, he found out who his birth mother was, and a few weeks ago he drove to South or North Carolina and met her. And she wrote me a note saying that she's been thinking about him every day for 50 years. And she thanks me.

And to me, like someone who is “in the fog,” I don't believe it. I don't believe that adoption doesn't affect them. And I think anything that you hold in hurts you. And you know, even though this year has been super rough emotionally, I feel like I still go high to low. And my lows still get pretty low, but my highs are higher and they're purer.

It's not like a sugar high. It's like an, Oh my gosh. I really love myself high. And I feel like, for people who are “in the fog,” I just think it's saying they're not affected... I mean, if they're not affected, I don't know if… Maybe people aren't affected by adoption, and that would be awesome. So I don't wanna disqualify that, but I'm highly doubtful.

Haley Radke: In your book, you talk about deciding to “write or die.”

Anne Heffron: Yeah.

Haley Radke: And so what would you challenge us to do? What should we do with those unspoken words and feelings that some of us are storing up?

Anne Heffron: Oh, I love that. Do you know what changed for me, was I went to New York and I was gonna write the book. And I get there and I'm in this beautiful apartment. I mean, the most beautiful place I've ever stayed. I still can't believe that happened.

And I was there for two weeks and I was doing the same kind of writing I'd done my whole life. And then I had this writing thing on Martha's Vineyard, so I went to Martha's Vineyard and I was stuck. And I wrote something and then I felt terrible about what I wrote. It seemed so childish and needy.

And my friend who was checking in every day (every day, I would send him my writing), and I sent him that and he said, “Well, that's it. That's your voice.” And I thought, Oh my God. Because basically what (I think I put in my book), but I was talking about: I'm afraid I don't have a story. I'm afraid I don't have anything to say. I'm afraid I'll never love somebody.

I forget, but it was all the things I had—You know, I would use humor to cover up or like beautiful sentences. But I didn't know how just to state my raw feelings without trying to make them pretty, or funny, or even… I mean, it was another reason why I leave the typos in my book, because feelings aren't neat.

And I wanna show people it doesn't have to be right or good; you just want it to be true. And so what I learned was: I finally learned how to hear my own voice. And all I had to do was get really quiet, and then just write whatever I heard. And what had happened in the past was as soon as I started hearing it, I would doubt it. Right?

Because, you know, if I said, “I hate adoption” (or something), I would hear my mother's voice, right? “You can't hate adoption.” And so then I would cross it out. But because I had three months to write and I didn't have— I got myself out of my home situation. I mean, I got to hear myself. And so in these classes that I teach, I have people do exercises that maybe they haven't done before.

Because in school, we're taught, “What am I supposed to say?” Right? “What does the teacher want me to say? What am I supposed to say to get an A?” But especially for an adoptee, if you can listen to yourself? That's an adoptee's biggest problem, is that he or she doesn't feel heard or understood. And we ignore our own feelings because we agree with everybody around us, right? Oh, I must be mental, or there must be something wrong with me. Or Adoption can't be this bad, right? I'm just a baby.

But somehow I learned to trust that voice, and then the writing was so easy. (Not easy, like—I did throw up in New York.) For my Write or Die classes, I use this picture of me on the bathroom floor. It’s this beautiful hand-laid Italian marble floor (it wasn't a bad floor to lie on). But you know, one of my biggest fears was like, If I have so many feelings, what if I throw up? And then I threw up and I was like, Ah. Look at that! Right? I didn't die. And then I just went back and I wrote.

And sometimes it would just be a sentence. Sometimes I would have to walk around the table for hours. Because I realized that for me, being an adoptee is like being a Mexican jumping bean. You know how the Mexican jumping bean has that thing that makes it move around all the time? So I had this little thing in me, this little like black seed that was so uncomfortable my whole life, that I would move around trying to get away from that discomfort.

But it was me, so I could never move around enough. And in New York, I finally had to sit down with that thing and listen to it. And what it was saying was, I am in so much pain. But the miracle was, I was in the most beautiful place. I mean, it was the perfect gift because, you know, I was in the place where she wrote The Help. (You know, which the title is no small irony). And I wish for every adoptee, if I could do the same thing… You know, I think that writing is so essential. And it's taking the time to listen to yourself and to not dismiss anything.

You know, like eating's become easier for me because I used to—I overeat daily. I need to overeat (it's just what I need to do). And I used to judge myself, but now I'm like, Eh, I'm adopted. Right? I'm just, Of course I'm hungry. Right? Like I was born, and then they give me a bottle, and the wrong person's holding it. You know? Like I'm still looking for that first good meal. And so, like a big deal. And it's so much easier. You know, so it's not that I don't have the behavior, but I don't judge myself. Because I realized it's like I had little dental tools and I was just picking at my brain all the time, right? You're bad. You do this, you're bad.

And now this wonderful adoptee, Julie Maida. She has a blog called Next Life, NO Kids. And her latest blog post is about being adopted. But she told me to read this book, I think it's called How to Be a Badass? (transcript edit - You Are a Badass?) And so I read it and it said things that I'd heard a million times before, like “Use positive affirmations.” And usually I'm like, Ugh, positive affirmations…. But I did it. And I walked around saying, “You're wonderful. You’re wonderful.”

And my brain was like, “Ahhhh, I’m wonderful.” Like my brain felt like someone was buttering it. I couldn't believe it. It makes me feel good just to say it now: I'm wonderful. Instead of, Hey, when are you gonna get your act together? Right? Like the little dental tools. My brain is so tired of me beating it up. What if we're all just wonderful?

Haley Radke: I'm so glad for you that you're able to start doing those healing things for yourself. So you said that you're going to be going to see a couple different therapists.

Anne Heffron: I know! Everybody.

Haley Radke: You're seeing everybody. Everybody.

Anne Heffron: Well, you know, my daughter's 19 and I'm hyper aware of— You know, I think about my relationship with my mom. And I just don't wanna hurt her anymore than I have with my behaviors. And so I want my brain to be good, so that when I show up for her, I'm in a good space (because I haven't always been that way). It's very painful to think about, but she seems to— She's all right.

Haley Radke: Our time is quickly evaporating.

Anne Heffron: I appreciate you. Thank you.

Haley Radke: Is there anything else that you wanna touch on before we talk about our recommended resources?

Anne Heffron: The chiropractor that I work with? He talks about that in my brain (what it is) he calls it malware. That it's like when you stub your toe, you start to limp to protect the toe. And I think of that as adoption. It's like you're adopted and you have certain behaviors to cover up the pain.

But the brain compensates, right? So the brain gets used to the limp or the brain gets used to covering up adoptive feelings. And it's this sort of an energetic shutdown. And I do believe, like for adoptees, that if we can— I'm so excited about all this research about neuroplasticity and I do believe there's hope. Yeah. Amen.

Haley Radke: Yes. Yes, there is. There is definitely healing available to us. I love what you said about the brain before, right? Just calling it plastic that– It is. It is. There's definitely things that we can do to heal ourselves.

Anne Heffron: Yeah....

You wanna do the recommended resources?

Haley Radke: I do. And I better start, because…

Anne Heffron: I cut down my grocery list. I cut it down.

Haley Radke: Okay. I was gonna say, Anne has 20 things for us, so get your pens out.

Anne Heffron: Actually, I added something.

Haley Radke: Okay. So my recommended resource today is the website Dear Adoption, and that's run by Reshma McClintock. I connected with Reshma today and she sent me her three main goals for the site.

So the first one, she wants “to provide a platform for adoptees to share and find community within her community through the sharing of stories.” The second: “to educate and provide insight to adoptive parents, prospective adoptive parents, and anyone that's not an adoptee.” And third, “to propel the necessary changes that are needed within adoption.”

You know, those are really beautiful goals and they're similar to mine with my podcast. And yeah, I love the variety of things that are posted there, all different perspectives: from domestic adoptees, transracial, international... It's a big mix. And there's quite a collection up there now, so I definitely recommend going to check it out. (I'm assuming you have, since you have something posted there.)

Anne Heffron: Yeah. Well I couldn't believe the work that she's put into it and how smart she is. It's…yeah, it's a wonderful site.

Haley Radke: Hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm. Definitely. And you said that she's got a documentary coming out? She was born in India, I think…?

Anne Heffron: Yeah. It's about her going back and looking for her roots.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Wonderful. We'll have to watch out for that.

Anne Heffron: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Okay. That's it. I saved all my time for yours.

Anne Heffron: Oh, you did? I'll go fast.

Haley Radkey: I'm just teasing you. No, don't fast. Just do what you would like to say.

Anne Heffron: I was thinking about— Male adoptees seemed to talk less than female adoptees. So I was thinking for them (the men in the crowd). One of the first books that I read about adoption was by Tim Green and he's a football [player]. It was written in 1997 and it was called A Man and his Mother: An Adopted Son's Search.

And then the lead singer for Run-DMC, Darryl McDaniels, did a talk on The Moth called “Angel.” I've listened to it so many times and he also…. It's about him meeting Sarah McLaughlin (the singer). And they (on YouTube) have a video. They're both adopted. They have a video of them singing “Just Like Me,” which I've watched maybe a million times?

Lori Holden, a mom who has adopted. And she has a website (lavenderluz.com) and she wrote a book called The Open-Hearted Way to Adoption. (transcript edit - Open Hearted Way to Open Adoption.) She's a wonderful spirit in the adoption world. And one of the first people who I wrote to in the adoption world, his name's Adam Pertman, and he wrote a book called Adoption Nation. And the last one that I'll say is Joyce Maguire Pavao. She is a therapist in Boston and she wrote a book called The Family of Adoption.

What I have found in this adoption world is it's about community, and everyone that I've reached out to has talked to me. So those are—That's my list.

Haley Radke: Well, that's wonderful. I will put links to all of those in the show notes.

Anne Heffron: Oh, thank you.

Haley Radke: The adoptee community is really welcoming and we've had several guests before recommend just connecting with fellow adoptees, so you don't feel alone. And that's why it's so important to share our stories. Someone's going to hear your story, Anne, and they're gonna be like, Oh my gosh, my brain doesn't work, either.

Anne Heffron: She owes me money!

Haley Radke: So I shouldn't use your real name?

Anne Heffron: No!! Let's call me Alice.

Haley Radke: Okay. Alice, how can we connect with you online?

Anne Heffron: So I don't do Twitter, because I don't understand it. But I am on Facebook (under Anne Heffron) and my email address is anneheffron@gmail.com. And I have a blog. It's anneheffron.com

Haley Radke: And you have links on your website to find copies of your book. Right?

Anne Heffron: Right. And yeah, that's on Amazon and lulu.com.

Haley Radke: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. I so appreciate it.

Anne Heffron: You're such a wonderful interviewer. Thank you so much.

Haley Radke: I have a little update for you. Anne is now figuring out Twitter as well, so you can find her @anneheffron and I'll have links to all of her social media accounts and the recommended resources on the adopteeson.com website. Anne is one of my generous Patreon supporters, and she's a part of the secret Adoptees On Facebook group.

This private and safe space for adoptees is my way of thanking you for partnering up with Adoptees On. We've got a mix of past guests and listeners just like you, who are looking for that intimate and supportive community that Anne and I were talking about. Only myself and the other members will know you're a member and now is the perfect time to join us. Visit adopteeson.com/partner for the details.

Did you know March is a special month where podcasters from all over the world are asking their listeners to find someone who doesn't know what a podcast is? So, I wanna get in on that. Would you find someone today that doesn't even know what a podcast is? And why don't you recommend one or two of your favorite shows to them?

And when you share a podcast and you tell a friend about it, use the #trypod. That's T-R-Y-P-O-D to let the show know that you have recommended them and that other listeners can find it.

Thanks so much for listening. Let's talk again, next Friday.