59 Caitríona - I'm Still Grieving Her

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/59

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This show is listener supported.

You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is Season 4, Episode 1, Caitríona. I'm your host, Haley Radke.

Welcome to Season 4. I am thrilled to be taking you on a journey of looking deep into the theme of relationships. You and I will be exploring what our relationships look like as adopted people. Many of us struggle to connect with others because we don't even truly know ourselves.

Join me as we learn from incredible adoptees in each episode of Season 4. Some have figured it all out and some are floundering, but [00:01:00] we have got every topic covered, and I promise you will feel like you're not alone in navigating this messy world of relationships.

I am ridiculously happy to share today's episode with you. You may have read Caitríona Palmer's bestselling memoir, An Affair with My Mother. Maybe you even cried your way through it like I did. Caitríona shares with us today what building a relationship with her mother was like, the heartbreak of being kept a secret, and the high cost she has paid for sharing her story publicly.

We wrap up with recommended resources, including an exciting announcement that you definitely wanna stick around for. All of the things we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Caitríona Palmer. Welcome Caitríona.

Caitríona Palmer: Thank you, Haley. [00:02:00] It's such a privilege to be here.

Haley Radke: Well, I have been fan-girling a little bit. I'm not ashamed to admit it because I love your book and when I found out you actually listened to the podcast, I just about died.

Caitríona Palmer: Well, thank you. I mean, really, it's such a thrill for me, and you do so much for so many of us. So thank you.

Haley Radke: That's so kind. Well, I'd love it if you would start the way we always do. Would you share some of your story with us?

Caitríona Palmer: Absolutely. Well, um, it begins in Ireland in Dublin in 1972, when I was born.

My mother was an unmarried Irish mother, which in those days meant that there was really no possibility of her keeping me. But unlike many mothers of her generation who were forced to go away to mother and baby homes or to Magdalene laundries, my mother, because she was independent and working, was able to pay her way out of that situation and have me privately. [00:03:00]

So basically she, through the aid of a Catholic charity, was hidden in a suburban house in Dublin throughout the duration of her pregnancy and then gave birth to me in April, 1972. We spent, I think, just a day together in a Dublin hospital before I was taken by car across Dublin City.

I should mention that the car stopped so I could be briefly baptized in a cathedral in Dublin. And then I was ferried across to a baby home called Temple Hill, where I was there for another six weeks before I was adopted and given to my parents, Liam and Mary. I grew up in a very happy home in north Dublin. I had an older brother and an older sister, and I was defiantly happy.

I would tell people [00:04:00] early on in our conversations that I was adopted and I was almost proud of it but, in my mind, it had no impact on my life whatsoever. Adoption didn't change me. It didn't make me who I was. I was almost evangelical in that respect. But I was constantly shadowed by this sort of persistent ache, this missing piece of me, which I could never quite understand. But that I refused to confront, I guess.

But that all then came to a head in my mid-twenties when I decided to search for my mother. When I was 26, I moved to Bosnia, which was at that time reeling from the wake of the conflict that had torn the former Yugoslavia apart. I was working for a non-profit that had the very grim task of exhuming [00:05:00] mass graves and looking for missing persons.

I was very young. I was very enthralled by this work, but obviously very disturbed by it. But something strange happened in Bosnia where I was day in and day out dealing with the relatives of the Srebrenica missing, which was this horrendous massacre that had occurred in, in July, 1995. I would reflect on the fact that it wasn't even the corpses that were bothering me, it was these families of the missing who were completely torn asunder and desperate to know the identities of their loved ones.

And something happened in that time for me, where obviously there's no comparison to my situation and my missing mother in relation to the Srebrenica victims, but I realized, in this almost sort of light bulb moment, that I needed [00:06:00] to search for my missing DNA, that there was something profoundly missing in my life.

And that was the moment, in 1999, early in that year, that I decided that I would search for my mother. It completely took me by surprise. I had never expected to go down that route. I had, so I had said earlier when people asked me, you know, are you gonna search one day? I would say, absolutely not. You know, I don't need to. I'm very happy.

But that really did change. So that was the year that I embarked upon looking for my birth mother, who I found relatively quickly, which is quite surprising given the constraints of the Irish adoption system, which is obviously very closed and very structured against the rights of adoptees and their mothers.

But I found her quickly through the agency that had first brokered the adoption, which was called St. Patrick's Guild. [00:07:00] I flew back from Bosnia to Dublin, where I was interviewed by a very stern nun who was questioning me, almost like a criminal investigation as to why I wanted to search.

And that was a very difficult moment for me where I was trying to prove my worth to this nun that I was able to do this and that this was my right. Clearly she thought it was. After that interview, I was placed on a waiting list, and my mother was found very soon after that. She was delighted and thrilled to hear that I was alive and that I wanted to meet with her. She was overjoyed. She expressed regret over what had happened.

She had said she'd been waiting for this moment since she had last seen me, but there was a catch [00:08:00] that I wasn't aware of. And the catch was that she had never told anyone about me. So neither the man that she had married, who was not my father, but another man she'd married many years after I was born. She had not told their children; she had not told her friends.

So I was a secret, which completely threw me. You know, I had expected that she would be dead. That was the worst-case scenario or that she wouldn't want to meet me. But never in a million years did I ever think that I would be a secret, but I decided I could deal with that, that that was something that we would get through.

So we had this lovely period before we met in person where I was living in Bosnia, she was in Dublin, and we would send letters back to each other via fax because it was so long ago.

Haley Radke: This was through the intermediary, right?

Caitríona Palmer: Through a social worker at the agency. [00:09:00] I write about it in my book, but one of the most profound moments in my life was standing in this very chilly office in Bosnia, where I worked, in the city of Tuzla in eastern Bosnia and watching that first letter from her unfurl out of the fax machine and seeing her script, her handwriting coming out very slowly, which to me was that first resonance of biology, seeing something tangible that belonged to her. I still get goosebumps even when I think about it now and trying not to rip the paper out of the fax machine, you know, wanting desperately to read what was on it, but trying to be patient to let it come all the way out.

So that was a lovely period, really, where we were able to get to know each other a little bit before our first meeting, which took place in December of 1999. [00:10:00] I opened my memoir, An Affair with My Mother, with that first meeting because I wanted to portray the reality.

If you had been in the room that day, you would've seen us embracing. And my mother, who I call Sarah, crying tears of joy and it looked like such a happy scene. But for me, I was completely numb. I was, I think in retrospect, just in shock and I shut down. I mean, I was outwardly very happy to see her, but I was completely unaware of the enormity of what that moment would be like.

And it improved after a few additional meetings, but that first meeting I'll always remember as being completely extraordinary on so many levels and, and not really a pleasant one. And I'm sure you can relate and so many people listening in. [00:11:00]

Haley Radke: Yeah, definitely. It is such a shock, right?

It's surreal to be in the same room as someone with your biology for the first time as an adult. It's kind of nuts. And this happened prior to you having children as well?

Caitríona Palmer: It did. And I remember very vividly when Sarah first saw me, she reached for me and held me. And in that moment, and then subsequently when I had my own children, I realized that the last time, obviously, she had seen me, I was a tiny newborn baby.

And it was as though she was enveloping me again. You know, she literally gripped me and held me and wouldn't let go. There was such sadness and pain in that embrace. And I often now, as a mother, when I'm holding my children, I think of her all the time in that sense, just the terrible loss and the inability to regain that loss in that [00:12:00] first embrace.

So that really was the beginning of what I later termed our “affair” because I went into that first meeting with Sarah thinking, this has been a shock for her. I'm back in her life, but in time, you know, surely in a couple of weeks, at the very most a couple of months, she will tell everyone. And being the good little adoptee that I am, I really wanted to give her time and space.

And so I very much made it clear to her that she could take as much time as she needed, and I would emphasize that all the time. I didn't know then that it would be, you know, a year, five years, 10 years, 15 years. But I didn't want to lose her. And so we embarked upon this secret clandestine affair where we literally met in hotels across Dublin City. [00:13:00]

We would initially broker a secret assignation through the social worker who would let us each know some days we were available and we would show up. I was living outside of Ireland at the time, but I would fly in and I would show up at a hotel bearing flowers initially and gifts for her. And we would meet and have a lovely tea time or a drink in a bar, and then we would leave.

And after a period of time, I realized that it was impossible for her to explain these extravagant gifts that I was bringing her back home. So I stopped bringing them after a while. I also realized that she had very young children at the time, so it must have been difficult for her to actually get out of the house.

The logistics of coming to see me must have been daunting for her. But I never asked her what they were. We had ground rules, unspoken ground rules of these meetings. [00:14:00] Um, and they were both addictive because I really wanted to see her and to know as much about her as I could and about my own beginnings, but they were also deeply punishing.

I would leave feeling exhausted and wrung out and totally sort of scraped of all of my emotions, just bled dry in a way. And, you know, we had no support really. After a while, it was just the two of us. So it was very difficult to know how to navigate that relationship and the weight of the secret of this. My secret existence really hung heavily upon us.

Haley Radke: What did you talk about when you met up?

Caitríona Palmer: Well, like good Irish people, we always talked about the weather initially. [00:15:00] She wanted to know a lot about me. You know, in her mind I was living this adventurous, interesting life. And you know, I don't think I was at all. I was just living abroad and I had done interesting things with work, but she really wanted to know about me.

So we talked, we spoke a lot about my work and my dreams. We rarely talked about her. She was, that was really a no-go zone. We talked a little bit about her work. She worked as a teacher. We spoke a little bit about her children, but she was very careful about what she revealed. So I quickly learned early on what we could talk about and what we couldn't.

Sometimes we broached the past, but I learned again quickly that that was a topic that she didn't really want to go near. And that became a major issue for me where I desperately wanted to ask about my beginnings. [00:16:00] You know, who my father was. I wanted that story, but I was too afraid to ask her.

So it took a long time before I worked up the courage. She, of course, initially, very initially gave me the bare outlines, but I really wanted to know more. So the meetings were warm and loving, but frustrating. I would leave feeling as though I knew very little about her, about my own story, but I felt that with time and with patience and with, you know, grace on my part, then surely she would open up.

But she never really did, which is such a pity really, because, you know, she's such a lovely person and she clearly had such love for me and such regret. [00:17:00] That I almost, in a way, felt like the parent in the room or in the relationship. I was constantly reassuring her and tending to her needs, always putting myself or my own needs last, which I think has a lot to do with my psychology as an adoptee.

I know that's certainly a trait, but I think I really lived and breathed that. I was a people-pleaser. I still am a little, not as much, but I really, you know, worked hard to put everyone else before my own needs. You know, out of fear, I think, out of fear of losing people. And I was desperate not to lose her.

Haley Radke: Can you talk a little bit about when you started sharing this story in a more public light? [00:18:00] Because didn't you write a little bit before your memoir, maybe some pieces or did you do any interviews before you published your memoir?

Caitríona Palmer: I did. Which I never expected to, because it's, obviously, it’s my story, but it's also her story. And because of the weight of the secret, I did not want to scare her or betray her.

But because I am a journalist, I was fascinated by our story and I wanted to investigate it, and I kept that very much within my own mind. I was careful not to even say it out loud to my husband or to my friends. But there were a few moments in Irish public life that, particularly in relation to Philomena, [00:19:00] obviously it's a name synonymous with that extraordinary story of Philomena Lee who kept her son a secret for 50 years, when I felt compelled to write something. So I did a couple of pieces about my story and asked Sarah's express permission, could I write about it?

And that's where the name Sarah evolved. I mean, that is not her name, but I use that name to disguise her identity because I felt I had this place, I guess, in Irish journalism, a voice where I could talk about it. So there were a couple of very small pieces that went out. And then all of a sudden I was writing a book, which was never meant to happen, particularly memoir. It's a really messy, messy business. [00:20:00] It was a famous Irish writer, Nuala O’Faolain, who once said that memoir leaves blood on the tracks.

So I was very aware of that, but I began to realize that the only way that I could perhaps shed light on Sarah's plight and that of tens of thousands of Irish women who had been treated abominably by not just the Irish church, but the Irish state and society, that there was this well-oiled system orchestrated to basically contain these women, to send them away, to take them out of sight and to take their children away.

I just felt that I should write about that and to do it through my own story and that of Sarah's, and I approached her to run this idea by her. You know, we met in a hotel, one of our usual hotels, and I told her, I thought [00:21:00] about writing a book and she thought it was a great idea and we struck a deal that I would write a book, but I would keep her identity secret, which was a very brave thing for her to agree to. She didn't hesitate and that was a gift to me. And so I began this really extraordinary adventure of investigating my life and telling her story, which led to the book.

Haley Radke: And so you did indeed ask her about your origins and you went there.

Caitríona Palmer: Yeah. Oh boy, I did. And that was really tough. Even then, you know, it was really tough. In a way I sort of created this persona for myself as a journalist. I used my tape recorder as a shield. [00:22:00] I felt that it put some distance between us. And we met, uh, I was living in the United States by that point, but I came home for a week in October in 2013, and I sat with her. And in retrospect, it's the most time we've ever spent together.

So we met for four days in a row in north Dublin, close to where I grew up, for about three hours a day. For those four consecutive days, I interviewed her and it was heart wrenching and wonderful because we really got it out on the table and every day I would have to literally close my eyes before walking into that hotel and summon up courage.

Which seems silly, I think, that I was so hesitant to ask her these probing questions, but she was very hesitant to give me the answers, [00:23:00] and I'm still not sure why. I think it's possibly just the pain and the trauma that she experienced in that uniquely Irish system, it just deeply scarred her. And I often go back to those moments wondering, was I doing the right thing? Did I do the right thing? Was this fair to her?

But I was trying to get at my story, and I did do that to an extent. But what I learned was the depth of her pain, and her trauma, and I understood a little, the reason why she was keeping me a secret in this new, shiny new Ireland, you know, Post-Celtic Tiger. This was not the same country, and yet the fear of losing everything that she had built up since I had been born was so great that she would do everything she could to keep it hidden down inside.

And I should point out that, you know, I mentioned it already, but she really was not alone. [00:24:00] There were thousands of other women like her that I didn't fully appreciate at that time. I mean, that's another part of the story, which I can tell you a little bit later, the people who contacted me after I wrote my story.

But I knew I was getting at something as a journalist. I knew I was getting closer through Sarah's pain and anguish to a larger problem. So those days in that hotel when I interviewed her, they were really an enormous gift. And I look back on it fondly.

Haley Radke: So you write your memoir and it's beautiful and incredibly candid, and you share, as you've shared with us, about the painful and the awkward and all the feelings, it's all in there. [00:25:00] What happens with your relationship with Sarah when she reads this?

Caitríona Palmer: It's one thing to want to write a memoir, then it's another thing to actually publish it.

And I had not understood the depths of courage that that would take. I don't even know if courage is the right word. So I wrote it. I was very lucky. I got a book deal. Sarah celebrated that with me. And then she fell silent. So even before the book was written, four months, in fact, before the book was handed into my publishers, she sent me a text on Christmas Day, 2014.

We would reach out to each other on holidays and then occasionally throughout, once a week or so, we would send each other a text. [00:26:00] But on Christmas Day, 2014, she sent me a very cheery text wishing me a Happy Christmas and sending love, and I replied. And then I never heard from her and have not heard from her ever since.

So she had not even seen the book at that point because it wasn't even written. I reached out to her consistently for the next several months. I was very worried. I checked the death notices in the Irish newspapers, but there was no word. I do know that she is alive. I was able to find that out through another part of her family. I don't want to do any spoiler alerts in terms of the book.

So I have no idea why. I mean, I think the fear of publication, the pain of what was about to happen was possibly too great for her. So she chose to just drift away. [00:27:00] I feel terrible about that. I feel like I am to blame.

I, on my darkest days, feel that perhaps by publishing the book I committed some type of literary betrayal. But I try and stand firm in knowing that it was my story to tell and that I told it with as much love and compassion and empathy as possible. I mean, I often refer to this book as a love letter to her.

In a way, when I think back on the reasons for writing it, I mean, obviously as a journalist, I wanted to tell this story and this larger story, and, as you're probably aware, it is a sort of a larger exploration of the legacy of secrecy and shame in Ireland. But I also wanted to publicly exonerate Sarah.

I wanted her to understand that what had happened was not her fault, because she truly believes that it is her fault, that she's to blame. [00:28:00] But I wanted her to see that it was Ireland's fault and the way that my country chose to shame and to mistreat these women. So it's very confusing and it's very sad.

But the flip side and the extraordinary thing of this book, which I never expected going into publication, are the hundreds of letters that I've received from people either in my situation, secret adoptees, or in Sarah's situation, mothers who were forced to give their children away, from birth fathers, from people who've lived under the weight of a family secret, be it alcoholism or sexual assault.

It's been truly astonishing. [00:29:00] And each letter or email or Facebook message is a gift. So I've lost Sarah, hopefully not forever, but, in a way, she through her bravery and her courage in allowing me to tell the story, she has gifted to many, many people who've written to me this sense of solace that they're not alone, that there are others in our situation, that adoption ruins lives in many, many respects. And that there is hope and some redemption. It's very complicated.

Haley Radke: I'm trying not to cry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that this feels like it's cost you your relationship with her. And I remember when my first mother stopped communicating with me in our reunion and just thinking, Oh my gosh, what did I do?

And now, as a podcaster, I think, does she follow this? [00:30:00] Am I saying something that's gonna be like, well, this is it. This is the deal breaker. So there's always this wondering. Would you go back in time? Would you do it again? I mean, the price that you've paid versus all of these people hearing their story through yours.

Caitríona Palmer: I would definitely do it again. That's the thing, right? And I've learned so much through this experience, and I've grown up a lot. And I would do it again. And I don't think I would do it even any differently because I know I approached it ethically and with love. You know, I think maybe what I wouldn't have done, if I look back on my relationship with Sarah, I don't think I would've remained a secret for so long.

And I'm older now, obviously, and I'm wiser. And having become a mother three wonderful times over in the meantime has taught me a lot. And it's taught me a lot about love and [00:31:00] resilience and grit. I think what I would do differently would be to, you know, with love and compassion and as much empathy as possible to say to Sarah early on, you know, I can't do this.

I can't be a secret. I can't skulk around, you know, I love you. I want you to be happy, but this is not good for me because it wasn't good for me. I was perpetuating every bad belief I'd ever had about myself that I wasn't worth it, that I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't lovable by skulking around. And by having this secret relationship with my mother, I was enforcing that and perpetuating it.

So, I mean, it's obviously easy to say this now, right? That I'm the older, wiser Caitríona. And I think it would've been better for the both of us, [00:32:00] because I think a lot about the weight of that secret on her and living this bifurcated life.

And, you know, you and I both have young children and we both work and it's a crazy existence. You know, I lurch from day to day, from one crisis to the next, and I'm perpetually exhausted. And I think of Sarah who had children very similar in age to my children when she and I first met. And the enormous strain that that must have placed on her to live that life with these children and then be sneaking off once in a while to meet with this older, secret child.

But in a way, you know, there's been so much love that has come our way and, obviously it's directed towards me because readers are writing to me, but it's the love is coming towards both of us. [00:33:00] So, like you with your podcast, when I speak publicly, I'm very conscious that she might be listening and I always try to address her and to tell her that she has helped so many people.

And that's an amazing thing that she has done. You know, one woman wrote to me saying that she had been depressed for many, many years over her own secret child that she had lost to adoption. And reading my book had spurred her to see a therapist and had essentially saved her life. It's a lovely thing for me to hear, but I want Sarah to know that, that she saved another woman's life by telling her story.

So there has been a massive personal price for me to pay, but I think I would pay that a thousand times over. But I hope, and I worry about the personal cost to her. [00:34:00] And this estrangement, I hadn't even thought about it until I listened more closely to your podcast and, you know, that this really is, I guess, a second rejection in a way, but perhaps one that I might have played a role in. I don't know.

Haley Radke: Well, you mentioned that you have three lovely children. And she's met them, is that right?

Caitríona Palmer: Yeah, she has. Early on into our relationship when I had my first child, Liam, she became another grandmother on these trips home to Ireland, and I would take him and then my two daughters to visit with her again in the hotel.

It became a little bit more complicated then, you know, with toddlers running around. Initially, as I mentioned earlier, she and I would have tea or a drink, [00:35:00] but that's harder to do when you have squirmy young children. So we would go for a walk. We would play in the garden of this hotel.

And that was really lovely because in those moments, the weight of the secret lifted. And I could just see in her the pure joy of being a grandparent and being a nervous grandparent. She was always worried about my son falling off a tree when he was climbing. And that was lovely to watch. I know that she's become a grandmother since then with her own, uh, children.

But she had this moment with my kids initially, and that is difficult for me. As I wrote in the book, it was difficult for me to be kept hidden, but I struggled that they also were part of the secret. I truly believed that when I had my first child, [00:36:00] that that would be the moment where she would, you know, run up to the attic of her house and jump out on the roof and declare my existence and his existence.

I really thought that that would be the moment, and it wasn't. So that's when I realized that we were in it for the long haul. But I think going back to the children. Another reason why I wrote the book was to, in a way, draw a line in the sand. I wanted my children to know who I was and I wanted them to know my own story, and I wanted the secret to stop with them.

Haley Radke: Yes.

Caitríona Palmer: Sarah obviously cannot own us publicly, but moving forward the secret has been given a name and they know my past. And that's a gift that she's given me, obviously, and being able [00:37:00] to tell that. But I didn't want them to grow up tainted by the secret. I didn't realize that at that time when I was writing the book. But, you know, that's really become very clear since then.

Haley Radke: How do you think your reunion with Sarah and this sort of journey has impacted your mothering?

Caitríona Palmer: You know what? I don’t know how you feel about having your kids. You know, for me there is extraordinary joy in having a biological relative close by. I still can't believe it. So I want to just inhale my kids. I think every parent does, but there's just something really amazing about that.

But I think my reunion with Sarah has really imbued me with, I think, a level of compassion and empathy that I possibly wouldn't have had, [00:38:00] because in the moment in which I held my son for the first time, my first child, I just fully understood with magnified clarity the agonizing situation that she was put through.

You know, I actually couldn't believe it. And I don't know how you felt, but I just thought, hang on, I just couldn't have done that. And she had to because of the forces that were so pervasive and so toxic in that moment. And just how you will never get over that. How your life from that moment onwards is destroyed.

Whether you get on with your life and you marry or live a productive life as she has done, I'm thinking, inwardly you're destroyed. [00:39:00] So I approach, I think, my mothering knowing that. So I love my kids, but I love them with this intensity that obviously scares me. I think sometimes, and you know, they're great kids and I, you know, that's a little obnoxious to say that about your own kids, but they really are, there's a lot of joy in our home and for that, I'm very grateful.

And there's joy in the fact that my older son, Liam, really looks like Sarah and I see flashes of her all the time, how he looks or he'll turn a certain way and that's amazing. So she's present, even though I've lost her, I see her in them and I know that she would be very proud of them. I'm a better mother because of all of what's happened.

Haley Radke: Were your kids old enough to remember her? [00:40:00]

Caitríona Palmer: Yeah, the older Liam and Caoimhe both remember her and I told them who she was. That was important to me, that they knew at the time even though they were very young. Some people have criticized me for that. The way many people criticized my parents for telling me when I was six that I was adopted. But I didn't want to perpetuate the secret.

So I told them that she was my other mother, and they were perplexed that a mother would have to give a child away. They didn't understand that. Caoimhe referred to her as the sad lady. When we would go home to Dublin, she would say, will we see that nice lady, the sad lady? Which always intrigued me. Sarah was so warm and bright and engaged with them, but that there was this [00:41:00] pervasive sadness about her that even a very young child could see. And I wish she could see them now because, you know, it's been many years and I think she would be amazed by them.

And a few times in the last year or two when I have not heard from her, I've sent a random text, hoping that she might respond and letting her know. It's meant really that I just want her to know. I sent her a text one time when Caoimhe had learned to ride a bike because that just seemed really exciting and I thought she'd like to know that.

And Caoimhe did really well this weekend in a swim meet. And I wanted to let her know and I didn't. I decided to just hang back because I don't get responses and I don't want to upset her and maybe one day she'll come back. [00:42:00]

Haley Radke: Caitríona, is there anything you want to say to us in general about that relationship between a mother and daughter as we wrap up?

Caitríona Palmer: I think the love is always there and I think I never understood how losing her really impacted my life, and I think I'm still figuring that out. And even though I've written a memoir on adoption, I still think there's more that I'm learning. And as I said earlier in this wonderful conversation, I grew up adamantly certain that adoption had not affected my life.

I was just determined to be the best person I could be and to prove my parents' worth and to excel at school and at work. And I did very well. [00:43:00] But what I didn't understand was that that primary loss, that losing Sarah really impacted me and altered me and changed me. And obviously I'm the person I am today because of that.

But I think that that loss, her loss has been profound. And I don't ever think I've ever said that publicly in all of the interviews I've done about the book. You know? And I think I'm still grieving her, and I think I grieve her every day despite my wonderful, happy life and despite the wonderful upbringing I had and my amazing husband and children, and the fact that I go out to work every day and can seem to manage to write books.

I'm internally grieving this woman, this ghost. You know, that's a love that I'll never regain in a way. [00:44:00] I think that the memoir is an attempt to sort of grasp at that. I'm not sure I answered the questions I set out to answer in it, but I wanted people to know that you can grow up happily adopted and still have this hole.

You know, I always feel like there's a hole inside of me, deep down inside that I just can't quite fill in spite of the abundance of love that I'm surrounded with every day. That, you know, that primary loss is profound.

Haley Radke: You started out saying that there was this missing piece, and I think there's just no way, it seems for me, to explain that to someone who's not adopted.

Caitríona Palmer: Yeah, you know, the interesting thing about my book. It was received very well and I got a lot of wonderful praise and critical acclaim, [00:45:00] but there were people who just didn't understand why I needed to write that, or why I needed to investigate my own story or figure out the facts.

You know, on the surface, everything's great. Look at me, Liam and Mary adopted me. I had this wonderful middle-class upbringing. I was the first person in my family to go to college. It was great. What do I have to complain about? You know, everything's fine, right? But you cannot, I think, replace love in that way.

I have grown up with an abundance of love, but there is still that missing part of me, that dissonance, that strange itch that I can't quite scratch. And it's wonderful to have this conversation with you. You get it. And many, many, many of your listeners, I'm sure all of your listeners get it.

[00:46:00] And how lucky are we that there is this community and this opportunity to talk about it? And I expect to do more of this. You know, I have not spoken to many adoptees, and that's a strange thing for me, but there is this resonance, that you get it and that others get it. And there's belonging in that.

And I think we all just want to belong, really. I mean, every human being wants that sense of belonging, but it was denied us in a strange way. And we were meant to express gratitude and move on. And yet there's this ghost in my life that I miss and that I still pine after and who I worry about. And, you know, we are an amalgam of all of those parts, I think.

I always say that I'm a part of each of my parents and my biology and my adoptive family. And that's a wonderful thing. [00:47:00]

Haley Radke: Well, Caitríona, thank you for sharing your story and those beautiful, insightful things about your relationship with your mother and your own children.

I want to go to recommended resources and, first of all, your book is amazing, totally amazing. It's called An Affair with My Mother, and it's so beautifully written. You give insights into Sarah's circumstances. As you said, you got to interview her for four days, three hours a day, so we do get that history as well.

You share about your adoptive parents and how they came to adopt you. Your older siblings are their biological children. And the circumstances which led them to adoption. [00:48:00] And you do give this really insightful look into the Irish system.

I had no idea that the Magdalene laundries were still carrying on even to the seventies. So I went to Wikipedia and it was like, oh, the last one closed in 1996.

Caitríona Palmer: 1996, in Dublin.

Haley Radke: That's insane. So I really recommend people go and investigate that further. Your mother Sarah, she didn't have to go to the laundries. I don't wanna go down that rabbit trail, but it's a very, very sad history.

And I didn't know, there's this story about smuggling contraceptives across the border. Gee, I wonder why you had all these pregnancies there. So can you tell us a little bit about that? Like, I don't really know much about Irish history. When did contraceptives become legal in Ireland? [00:49:00]

Caitríona Palmer: Well, um, not until the 1990s. And I mean, where do I begin? How many hours do you have? I mean, obviously things are different now, but abortion is still not legal in Ireland unless the life of the mother is at risk.

But there have been some horrendous cases in recent years where one case in particular a young woman died, having been denied a termination even though she was close to death. And it's easy to say that this is the church, but actually it's collusion between the church and state.

But going back to women like Sarah, the main idea was that these women were really a threat to Irish society and, [00:50:00] and to the nation state that had emerged after Irish independence. So very early on, after independence, when basically British rule had taken care of Ireland's social ills, when Ireland became newly independent, we had to do it ourselves.

And that's when the new fledgling Irish state turned over care of societal ills to the church. So that's when you see the, basically, containment. There's a wonderful professor at Boston College, professor James Smith who coined the phrase, Ireland's “architecture of containment.” So you had Magdalene laundries and mother and baby homes.

And these were essentially places where unmarried mothers, yes, but women who perhaps had the whiff of promiscuity about them or young girls growing up in a home where a mother had perhaps passed away and there were only brothers living there were literally taken by the state and put away for not having committed any crime. [00:51:00]

And they languished there either in a Magdalene laundry literally washing the nation's dirty laundry. These laundries had contracts with the Army and other state-run institutions, and there they remained. So, as you say, the last Magdalene laundry closed in Dublin in 1996.

So, you had no choice. I mean, it's obviously changed. But I grew up, I'm 45, I graduated from university in Dublin in 1993. And even back then the worst thing that could happen to you would be to have a pregnancy outside of marriage. You know, when people wonder why Sarah could not reveal me, this is obviously the root of it. But there, there are so many aspects to it. [00:52:00]

And now, you know, your listeners may know of the extraordinary case of the Tuam mother and baby home, where recently hundreds of remains of infants were found. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

There's been a lot of international attention on Tuam, and rightly so. But Tuam is just one of many, many, many horrific stories. And there are, to my knowledge, other potential graves. And the state is trying to address it, but they're focusing only on certain homes and that needs to widen.

So, even today in Ireland, this debate goes on and people tut-tut about what happened, but I don't think we're really addressing it properly. Not to the Magdalene survivors or to women like Sarah. There are so many victims of Ireland's unconscionable treatment of, of unmarried mothers. [00:53:00]

Haley Radke: Can you tell us a little bit about the Clann Project?

Caitríona Palmer: Yeah, certainly. This is an amazing initiative by some groups back in Ireland to help establish the truth of what happened to unmarried mothers and their children in 20th-century Ireland. It's important to let your listeners know of this initiative because this group called Clann, which is spelled C-L-A-N-N, they're assisting anyone who can give evidence to Ireland’s current commission of investigation into the mother and baby homes by arranging free legal assistance.

[00:54:00] So if you have a listener to your podcast who perhaps was, whose mother was in a mother and baby home, or who themselves were born there, or even somebody like me, I was not in a mother and baby home, but I've been affected through that system. You can reach out to this group Clann. And they will put you in touch with a legal firm in London and you can provide testimony to that legal firm, which will then be provided to the commission.

So it's basically what I've done in my book. It's telling stories, it's speaking our own truth and building this larger narrative that can be of enormous benefit going forward. So that the ghosts of all the past will have a voice.

Haley Radke: Oh, that's so good. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes, and then maybe if you have any other ideas for people who want to look more into the history of Ireland and, um, this legacy, is that what I should call it? That people could look up any books or other ideas that you have for them? I could link to that as well. [00:55:00]

Caitríona Palmer: Thank you.

Haley Radke: I'm so excited because you have agreed to do our very first Adoptees On Book Club,

Caitríona Palmer: Thank you. I'm thrilled.

Haley Radke: So, we're still working out the details, but we're going to do a pop-up Facebook group, and if you've never heard of a pop-up Facebook group before, essentially, we're gonna have a closed group. So when you join, people will see that you've joined, but everything that we write in the group stays private just to the members.

And it's going to be open as soon as this airs, but we're going to start discussing the book during the month of April and there'll be opportunities for you to ask questions or to discuss things that you're learning about yourself, or about Caitríona, or adoptees in general, or about the Irish adoption system.

Any of those topics are definitely welcome and we'll probably do maybe like a Facebook Live with Caitríona, something like that. [00:56:00] We're still planning it all out, but it's gonna be just an awesome opportunity to read this book together and really deep dive.

I was saying to you earlier, Caitríona, I bawled all the way through your book, so thanks for that. But really, I felt like so many of your experiences and your feelings, it was just, it's just me too. And remembering that moment when you meet your mother and you're kind of like, she's crying and you're kind of stiff. I'm like, oh, yeah, I think I was in shock for that too.

And there's, there's, there's several moments in the book, I'm not gonna say what they are, but there's several times where I'm like, oh my gosh, that's just what happened to me. Or just feeling the pain that some of those things have caused you.

[00:57:00] So, now's your chance. You can grab the book so you'll be ready to start our Book Club in April and you can pick up An Affair with My Mother. I can't say enough nice things about it.

Caitríona Palmer: Thank you. What a fun and wonderful thing to do and, you know, I'll learn so much from this and from readers.

Haley Radke: Have you read it with adoptees before, like in this kind of situation?

Caitríona Palmer: No, I haven't. I mean, I've done several book club events, but never with adoptees. So my only sort of contact has been through these letters that I've received. And I keep thinking that I need to do something with it. It almost feels like a responsibility for the people who write to me. So perhaps there's an opportunity for me to do something, you know, certainly back home in Ireland.

But again, you know, so many people from around the world have reached out that perhaps, you can inspire me. [00:58:00]

Haley Radke: You can invite them to join the Book Club.

Caitríona Palmer: Yes, yes, actually I can. Thank you.

Haley Radke: You can reply back and be like, here's the link. So, I'll put the link in the show notes, but if you just search Adoptees On Book Club pop-up group, it should pop up for you. And as it's a pop-up club, at the end of April we're gonna close it so you have to join when it's open.

Okay. Caitríona, what would you like to recommend to us?

Caitríona Palmer: Well, I spoke earlier about resonance and, uh, I came to social media late in the day. I actually didn't have a Facebook page until I published the memoir, nor a Twitter account. So I'm a little sad in that regard, but this has opened up an entirely new world to me.

[00:59:00]So I meet you through social media, and slowly but surely through the book I have become connected with adoptees and people in the adoption world. And I've been touched and amazed and made whole by so many voices out there.

But in particular, Anne Heffron has really made an impact on me. And just like when I listened to your podcasts and, you know, when I listened to the one recently with your husband, which was just so, so wonderful. But when you have that moment of Yes, yes. Yes, I know that I experienced that, and I always feel that with Anne when she puts out a tweet and I think, yes, I had that feeling.

That's exactly how I feel. And I run upstairs with my phone and show it to my husband. And there were so many things that she said recently that really made me laugh. And then that slightly horrified me because I'm realizing that that's me. [01:00:00] I really recommend her. And I know that she's been on your show and I know you speak about her frequently.

But I love the resonance that I find in Anne's words, and I find comfort in those. So, yes, Anne Heffron.

Haley Radke: Well, she'll be delighted. And Anne actually has two different Instagram accounts now. So she has one with all of her beautiful photos. And then the other one is strictly memes. And so, as you say, she'll have this thought. And right now, when we're recording this, she's making up this adoption dictionary and that's what she's been tweeting.

She's posting this on Instagram. Whatever word, she'll either make up a word or it's already a word that we use and then she'll define it and just sort of this brilliant turn, flip it on its head or whatever way that, I don't know, I would never think of. And it's so insightful. [01:01:00] So yes, for sure.

Speaking of social media, I'll tell you a little story about how I heard about your book. One of my very first guests, in fact, the first guest I ever interviewed that was a total stranger to me who saw my call for adoptees on Twitter and messaged me, and I said, oh, hey, I am starting a show. Do you wanna be interviewed?

And she said yes. Complete stranger to me. Her name is Maeve Kelly, that's her pseudonym. And she sent me the title of your book. She said, Haley, you have to read this book. It's so good. And so, of course, it's amazing. And so I started following you and stuff and we became Facebook friends.

I messaged you to ask if you'd be on the show. I texted Maeve immediately and I said: Maeve, Caitríona's gonna be on my show! Caitríona listens to my show! You made this happen. And so she was delighted. [01:02:00]

Caitríona Palmer: Wow. And Maeve, you know, I've never met Maeve, but Maeve's tweets are amazing. And she has been this friend out there who has been so supportive of me and who says the loveliest things.

So there are these angels out there, you know, who really help when I'm having a bad adoption day, you know, or, um, and I'm never sure if I'm having a bad adoption day, but I think, oh, maybe it's got something to do with that.

Haley Radke: I just blame everything on adoption now at this point.

Caitríona Palmer: Or if I read a bad Amazon review, which I've stopped doing.

Haley Radke: Oh, don't do that.

Caitríona Palmer: There was a humdinger recently when someone said that my adoptive parents did not deserve me. And that was a great day. Ugh.

Haley Radke: [01:03:00] Well, if you're taking lessons from Anne, she posts her one-star reviews on her Facebook page so everyone can mock them and tell her how amazing she is. So, you know,

Caitríona Palmer: There’s a thought.

Haley Radke: Oh, I actually got to meet Maeve in person and she has been an avid supporter of my podcast, so I appreciate her so, so much. She has become a dear friend.

We are so lucky to have you in our community, Caitríona. And thank you. I am so honored that you took the time to share your story with us and excited to keep this journey going with exploring your book a little more.

Caitríona Palmer: Thank you. And I'm so grateful to you and doubly grateful for your understanding and your empathy and just for getting it and for reaching the hand out to all of us, and I'm not sure you understand [01:04:00] just how important it is for the work that you're doing, which I know must not be easy.

You know, it's really important that you continue this, and I'm just so thrilled and so grateful. So thank you.

Haley Radke: Thank you.

Hey, did you know I have a monthly newsletter? I share little pieces of my life in there and try and keep you up to date with what you can expect from Adoptees On next. So head over to adopteeson.com/newsletter to subscribe, and I will be sure to include a link to the private Facebook Group for Book Club with Caitríona in the next edition of the newsletter.

This show is listener supported. What does that mean? I literally could not do it without your help. I have chosen not to accept advertisers on the show, so it will always be ad-free because of the generosity of people just like you. [01:05:00]

And whether you choose to donate monthly or do a one-time donation, you are saying that you believe the show is a valuable resource, that you want it to continue and you are paying it forward to other adoptees to find the show and be connected in our community.

If you'd like to stand with us and support the podcast, adopteeson.com/partner has all the details. Thank you so much for your generosity and I know that other adoptees that are just finding the show also express their thanks to you for helping to keep this show going.

Next week, we are talking identity and race with April Dinwoodie. Do not miss it. April is a fellow podcaster, Born in June, Raised in April. Such a great show. We talk about so many things. April is amazing, and I basically just sat there listening to her sort of awestruck by her wisdom. [01:06:00]

So make sure you subscribe in your favorite podcast app so you don't miss next week's episode.

Thank you for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.

58 Relationships - What's it like being married to an adoptee?

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/58

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and this is a bonus episode where I interview my husband and we reveal the topic for Season 4. Nick gives some insight on what it's like to be married to an adopted person. So I hope that you will find that helpful today.

We recorded this in our living room, and if you hear some rustling, I'm very sorry. I want you to picture my cute dog snuggling up. I know it's just such a big no-no for sound quality, but I needed some comfort as Nick reveals some painful truths of the ways he was impacted during my reunion with my first father.

Let's listen in.

Haley Radke: Hi, honey.

Nick Radke: Hi.

Haley Radke: Do you wanna say who you are?

Nick Radke: Sure. My name is Nick. I am Haley's husband. I'm your husband.[00:01:00]

Haley Radke: Sounds official. When did we meet and when did we get married? How long have we been married?

Nick Radke: October, no, sorry. We met in September of 2001 at school and we started dating in October of that year, and we were married on August 7, 2004. So we're coming up on 14 years.

Haley Radke: Yeah, I forgot that.

Nick Radke: Yeah.

Haley Radke: It's been a while. I was 18 when we met. And you were

Nick Radke: We were both 18. You had just turned 18. So yeah, our adult lives have been together.

Haley Radke: Okay, so I asked you on because this is a sneak preview into Season 4 because we are gonna be talking about relationships in all varieties: intimate partner relationships, but also sibling/parent, as a parent and with our first parents. [00:02:00] I'm gonna have someone on to talk about their relationship with their coworkers. I mean, we're talking about all kinds of different relationships.

What is it like being married to an adopted person? What are the weird quirks that you think I bring to this relationship as the special basket case that I am?

Nick Radke: Well, when we first started dating, I remember you telling me, I think pretty early on, that you were adopted and It was kind of just an interesting fact at that moment in time. I remember thinking, oh, okay, that's interesting. I've known a couple people that were adopted and it made no difference, really, to me. But I think you had also made it pretty clear early on that you did not know either of your birth parents. [00:03:00]

So I just thought, well, that's part of your life and that you've known your adoptive parents your whole life, and those are your parents, and that's just how things are and that's great. And I hadn't had any close encounters with anyone that's adopted, just kind of had acquaintances, so didn't know if there's anything more that I needed to know. I thought you would probably tell me if there was, but otherwise life moves on.

And it did at first, while even getting married, there was really no change or any quirks, or however you put it. When the records were open, that's when I recall first discussing it again and how you were interested in learning about or getting these records and finding the information. [00:04:00] And I was there ready to support you.

I also just thought, I'm here if you need me. This is interesting and I'm not sure where we go from here. And I definitely didn't realize or had no thought of what kind of an emotional rollercoaster it might turn into.

Haley Radke: Okay. So we were already married when I found my birth mother,

Nick Radke: I'm pretty sure. Yeah, definitely.

Haley Radke: And so, I shared that story in Season 1 in the Finale about meeting her and being in a relationship for a brief period of time, and then she cut off contact. But what was your experience with that? Like, I remember getting that email and from her and I think we might have met that same day, like it was fast.

Nick Radke: Yeah, I think it was, you talked about, okay, I want to go meet her and her husband, go to their house and meet them. [00:05:00] And I remember thinking, whoa, already this seems quick and I have no idea what we're gonna talk about. And you were insistent on me being there, which made sense that I was there to support you. But I kind of anticipated it being one of the most awkward experiences ever.

Haley Radke: I think it was.

Nick Radke: Yeah,

Haley Radke: To be fair, you were right.

Nick Radke: It was. I mean, both of us being introverts, maybe even more so back then.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Nick Radke: And so, thank goodness, her husband was very friendly and managed to break the ice somehow. I don't remember exactly how, but

Haley Radke: Yeah. He was chatty.

Nick Radke: I remember him talking more than any of the rest of us,

Haley Radke: Like put together.

Nick Radke: Yeah. Because I sure didn't know what to say.

Haley Radke: We were really young.

Nick Radke: Yeah.

Haley Radke: We were super young. [00:06:00]

Nick Radke: Yeah. I remember kind of doing this all over again when we met her parents. That was even, possibly, more awkward. I dunno.

Haley Radke: That was the worst. Oh my gosh. Yeah. No one knew what to say. Yeah, it was super weird. And that was her childhood home, right. So I was like inside melting down. Watching me go through this reunion, what was that like? I don't feel I included you very much in it, and when it kind of fell apart at the end, I don't know, I just never had a period at the end. There was no this is over. It just was like she didn't wanna talk anymore, but I thought we would resolve it and get back into relationship, but it just never did. So, what was your experience of that on your side? [00:07:00]

Nick Radke: After meeting her and her husband, and then meeting more of the extended family, I don't remember having that many more interactions with her. I know you did on your own. Quite a bit from what I remember, or maybe just at the beginning it was quite a bit.

And then again with her dad, I know you met with your grandpa a fair bit. I guess I didn't really have an understanding that things were a little bit rocky for a while there, or maybe didn't realize you had met with her fairly often and then it just got less and less. And I think I thought for a while that it would become resolved and that the relationship would continue. [00:08:00] It didn't, but then you continued to have a relationship with your grandpa for a while there.

I really didn't know how to support you. It was harder on you than I realized, and I feel like maybe I didn't realize it until afterwards how important it was to you at the time. I think I felt that you were disappointed and that that was about it. And I think it wasn't until your reunion with your dad that I became more aware of how, I don’t know if devastating is the right word, but how hard it was that you still don't have that relationship with her.

Haley Radke: Well, I don't know if I really knew how hard it was either. Like, I think I blocked out a lot of that pain and it kind of came out over the years. But yeah, I don't think I had the words to express it anyway.

Okay, so, you mentioned reunion with my dad. [00:09:00] So I have been in reunion with him and his wife and my three siblings for almost eight years, and you've had a bigger part in this reunion. You've seen it way more up close, including therapy appointments, with me and with them. So do you wanna just kind of give your experience of this, this time around.

Nick Radke: It was different in many ways. It's long distance. He's not close. It's a full-day drive or a plane right away. So the first interactions were, instead of face-to-face, over the phone or Skype. I can't remember what we did first.

Haley Radke: We did Facebook. I don't know if I talked on the phone. I think we did Skype first.

Nick Radke: Again, awkward. Yeah. [00:10:00] And then again, early on, you were ready to meet them, which I was a little more prepared for from the last time. But still a little surprised how quickly you wanted to fly out to meet them. But I was much more prepared to be involved and be there. Like we had agreed, both of us, that I definitely needed to be there the first time and that was a good thing.

When we went there, if I remember right. I think I was only there for a couple days. And then you stayed on your own for a couple days longer. And that surprised me. I remember asking you several times, are you sure you're okay to be here on your own? You just met these people in person. They seem really nice, but you just met them.

So yeah, I think we, well, me anyways, probably both of us, had learned some things from the first experience that we wanted to do differently. [00:11:00]

I was very, very surprised when you found him. First of all, that you found him and that there was even a chance of there being a relationship there. I had something set in my mind that whoever this person was, we're not gonna find him. If we do, he's gonna have no interest. And it's not been anywhere close to that.

It's also been different because your dad and his wife have three kids, too. So that was also very different. And I think, for me, that almost made it easier in a way. It's almost more comfortable that way. Like, in awkward situations when you've got, now they weren't super young, but when you have kids around, sometimes it's just, I don't know, just easier. You can just talk to the kids then and it's less intense maybe. [00:12:00]

So that was kind of nice and it was really cool that they, I feel like they opened up to us pretty early on and were welcoming as well.

Haley Radke: Yeah. What was it like when I was first in reunion with them?

Nick Radke: Oh yeah. Well, this is what I said to you before. So yeah, the word I used is that you were a little bit obsessed with them. With him especially, so like, life stopped whenever he would message on Facebook or text, if he called, then it didn't really matter what was happening. Like we need to stop right now and Hailey needs to talk to him now.

Haley Radke: Okay. Well just like that's the honeymoon stage of reunion. And so, yes, it's weird.

Nick Radke: Which I had no idea about before. [00:13:00] Obviously that would be something actually. Okay, so from a non-adopted perspective here, in a relationship with someone who is, when that reunion happens to know about this, because it was weird and at first I like sort of tried to understand that, okay, obviously he's very important and you've missed a lifetime with him, so you wanna learn about him and spend time.

But it continued further than I thought. And I remember thinking a few months in, like, this guy is more important to you than I am. Like, what's going on here? So that was a little bit tough, and that would've been something I think would've been helpful to know. I dunno how I would've known this before, but for someone else who would be experiencing that.

Haley Radke: Oh, well, okay, so I was seeing June then, my therapist, after a while because it got to the point where it was not healthy. [00:14:00] You felt less than. You know, like you weren't the number one, and so June made us rightsize everything and that was so hard and so painful, like so necessary. I mean, I think that's what got us through. I don't know what else would've pushed me to do that besides a professional's help.

Because you are so obsessed with making up for lost time and finding out everything about each other, and you're just building a friendship, you know, basically as adults it was hard. I mean, I'm sure it was hard on the kids too, and, and on his relationship with his wife and, you know, like it was hard on everyone.

It's so unnatural to be reconnecting as adults. [00:15:00] It's so good that you point that out because, honestly, I think professional help is sort of what's needed to navigate reunion in a healthy manner. I mean, don't you think June saved it? She saved us.

Nick Radke: Yeah. Totally, yeah. She had a lot of great ideas and understanding about it. That was helpful. The other thing was that it took me a while to begin to understand. I think you had a fear, maybe, that the rejection you had experienced was gonna happen again, and that was never a thought in my mind.

Like it wasn't as black and white as well. If I missed this phone call, that's it. We're done. He's never gonna call me back. But sometimes it felt that way. Like it was so important to connect with him and to not disappoint him, I think. And I think maybe part of that was you had explained to me that you were worried that it could happen again. [00:16:00]

And I didn't feel like that was going to happen, but I began to understand more and more why you might feel that way. And I think because I had always felt that the relationship with your mom was going to come back together again. So I didn't consider that an all-out rejection. Maybe that's what it was. So that's why I didn't consider it to happen again.

Haley Radke: I think maybe only in the last year I've finally been like, okay, he's not gonna leave. Like, it's taken me that long. Like, I still even, you know, a year or two ago would be like, oh my gosh, what if I say the wrong thing? [00:17:00] And now I finally feel like, well, if I say the wrong thing, he'll tell me it's wrong and we'll work it out. But I still thought like a year ago easily, that he'd be like, all right, we're done.

Nick Radke: Wow.

Haley Radke: It is this intense fear of rejection. I think almost all adoptees, I don't wanna say all of us, but we're born with that. We are born rejected, and so there's something in our, you know, spirit that's like, well, even your mom didn't want you. So that is how we live out our life, right?

Nick Radke: I have a question for you. In this reunion with your dad, do you think it has been helpful to have some geographical distance, in that maybe there's not as much expectation to spend time face to face together now that the relationship is as far along? [00:18:00] I'm not saying you want the distance, but maybe in some ways it could have been helpful or

Haley Radke: Well, I mean, in the first couple years we didn't have kids yet, and I traveled there very frequently. I think over the years that has probably helped rightsize the relationship a little quicker. I definitely don't like being far away. I feel like we don't see each other, I'm talking about the whole family, we don't see each other that often. Well, and the thing with my birth mom, I mean, you know, as you alluded to, and I shared this in my story in the Finale, like she lives in this city and so sometimes when we're out I will look for her. Like, she doesn't live on our side of the city, she's a good 20-minute drive away. [00:19:00] I often think, what if I bump into her? That's still in the back of my mind, and even now, 10 plus years after, I haven't seen her.

So, what do you think that you have done that's been helpful for me? Like, I think you've been very supportive and especially in reunion, right? You were just saying how you kind of felt like you got bumped down to second place when I first met my dad but, you know, we really navigated through that. What are some things that you think that you were doing that were helpful in that situation?

Nick Radke: Well,

Haley Radke: I should give you the list. Well, you were totally willing to go to counseling with me.

Nick Radke: Yeah.

Haley Radke: [00:20:00] And, you know, we say that we went to counseling together and we did a couple sessions with them, but really it was very few that we did together, but they were of such significance and impact. It changed the trajectory. So I think your willingness to do that and help me implement the things that June advised us to do was really helpful.

Nick Radke: Yeah. I think what I've tried to do, I don't know, with some success and some failure probably, is to be okay with me not knowing what to do. Maybe it still is that way. It's an unknown area. It's still new to me even though it's been a while. But for me to be able to make sure I'm willing to take a step back and not have answers and just be willing to listen and be there for you and support you. [00:21:00]

Because there are still times that you'll have certain emotions or feelings or opinions that I don't understand, but I think I've come to the point where I'm okay with that. I'm trying to understand, but also to understand from a non-adopted perspective. To truly understand what it's like to be adopted, I never ever will.

And I don't know when I kind of realized that, but I have, and I think that, for me anyways, has been helpful to try not to necessarily put myself in your shoes or even think that I know what it's like because I don't and I won't and I never will. And that's okay. And I can still be helpful and supportive in other ways, I think. [00:22:00]

Haley Radke: You talked about when we were first dating and I told you I was adopted and you were like, okay, cool, whatever, to coming to this point where you're like, I'm never gonna know what it's like to be adopted, and yet you have a deeper understanding, I think, because of what I do. Right? I kind of talk about this all the time, and you've listened to a lot of the podcast and you've seen some of my writing online. You've seen some of the interactions. What are some of those pieces that helped you gain a bit of more understanding of my perspective?

Nick Radke: Yeah, the podcast itself has helped me understand, or get a little more understanding I should say, because then I hear stories upon stories of other people that have similar, not experiences, but I think similar emotions to you. [00:23:00]

Haley Radke: So you're like, it's not just her.

Nick Radke: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Nick Radke: Right. Well, no, kind of honestly. A little bit.

Haley Radke: I know.

Nick Radke: So yeah, that's helped. And then just us talking about it and reading some stuff that you've written. Early on in your reunion with your dad, you were writing your blog for a while there. And even that helped me kind of process it a bit too because you would talk about what was going on and what emotions you were experiencing.

We wouldn't necessarily talk about it, but you would write it and I could see it there and we would talk about it too. But I think that, through the podcast and through social media, there's kind of more of a broader scope. [00:24:00] I think too that you don't want to just flood me with adoption talk 24/7 because, maybe you could if you wanted to, but you know that I'll go a little bit crazy if we do that.

Haley Radke: This has been a lot about me and I'm curious, what should I be doing? What should we, as adopted people, be doing as a support for you, a non-adopted person? Now let me just pause before you answer that. I feel like I am myself a roller coaster of emotions. I have been through two bouts of depression, I think, with you. I have been suicidal. We were engaged, or maybe we're just dating at that point. I've been through a ton of different counselors and psychologists.

I'm the whole package, rollercoaster-ride-of-emotions person and you are very steady, even keel. [00:25:00] I feel like your family is super healthy and tight knit and, you know, you have a wonderful background and upbringing. And I'm just challenged. So I think that's part of what makes us work because you're stable for me.

But as living with someone like me, what can I do that would be helpful for you to be on this ride together? Or maybe I'm doing things already, maybe I'm already doing things, right? What am I doing?

Nick Radke: No, yeah. You are more so now than early on. What you'll do sometimes, I've noticed, is, because I wanna make sure I'm supporting you and I'm helpful in whatever way I can be, but sometimes even just to tell me: You know, I just need some time or some space or this is kind of just something I'm going through. It's okay. [00:26:00

Like you might get emotional about something that I don't understand, and I feel bad for you and I want to help you. And sometimes you want me to and other times you just kind of say, You know, I just need to talk to someone else or my counselor about this, or I just need some time, or things like that.

I guess just to know where you're at because otherwise if it's some tough emotions or, I don't know if tough's the right word. What I see as you being sad or disappointed or something like that, that I wanna make sure I jump in and come to the rescue and help. But I don't think that's always helpful, and you've made me understand that, sometimes more so, that it's not something that I can help with or that I'll be able to do much about, which is okay. [00:27:00]

I think that we went to, I guess would therapy be the right word?, early on. I was pretty unsure about it, but that was useful. So maybe that's flipping the coin more that the non-adopted person should make sure they're doing that. But I guess just bringing in your partner to help when it's needed and then understanding when there's not much they can help with. And then that's okay. It doesn't really make much sense, but that's

Haley Radke: No, I think it does. I think it really does. Like there are times when I need you to get it. I need you to understand this is why I'm losing my mind right now. Because it's easy for the rest of the world to be like, what's the big deal? Like, you have a set of parents, [00:28:00] Why is this extra set, you know, so important?

Like, it's really easy for us to be dismissed over and over and over throughout the day and triggered. I think you have really had a huge shift in understanding, I mean, with me, right? I think we've both kind of come outta the fog together, kind of, me a little bit ahead 'cause I'm the one experiencing it first and then you're sort of learning.

But even on Sunday, in church at the end of the service, I was like, so how many times did they say the word adoption this morning? And you knew, you knew exactly how many times because now you hear the things that trigger me. And so I think you've had such a willingness to learn those things alongside me and listen to hours and hours of my podcast.

Nick Radke: Full disclosure, I am not caught up. [00:29:00] I'm a little behind, but I'm doing my best.

Haley Radke: There's so many other good podcasts I tell you to listen to before mine.

Nick Radke: Yeah, which I don't. Yours is the only one I listen to.

Haley Radke: Okay. Well, my show is not made specifically for you, so I'm not offended that you don't listen to every episode. But I think it's important for me to be able to express my needs to you and, I mean, this in every relationship, right? You're not a mind-reader. So how can I expect you to know what I need if I don't tell you? And vice versa, right? I think it goes both ways.

I feel like I can easily dominate all the needs section of our relationship, though, right? So is there anything you wanna say about that? About how do you bring it back to: Okay. It's not always about you, Haley. [00:30:00] Like, I have some stuff too about whatever, I don't know, work or you've never had issues, but like if you did.

Nick Radke: Yeah, I think that's something I can work on still, but that's something, in the early days of reunion, that I could have expressed a little better. I was really worried about hurting you any more than you could potentially have been 'cause it was a pretty sensitive time.

But those feelings that I referred to earlier of thinking, wow, you're spending so much time with your dad or talking about your dad, or it was tough because I truly did feel like I was knocked down a notch. And I don't think I was comfortable. I mean, obviously, eventually I was comfortable enough to express that but I could have maybe done that a little earlier. [00:31:00] Maybe even for us to just talk about it a little bit might have been helpful.

I think just to make sure that you're heard, as well, on the other side, on the non-adopted side, if I need your help or your support, to be willing to jump in there. And that's not really a you-thing, that's more of a me-thing to know when I should do that, but I think we're there now.

Haley Radke: I think we're in a pretty good place, I don't think

Nick Radke: Yeah. And, well, like you said, you have so many outlets now where you have opportunities to talk about those feelings or just about adoption or just about your experience. Which is awesome. I think that's been super helpful for both of us.

Haley Radke: Oh yeah. I feel like just over the course of the podcast, in the last couple years, I have processed so much more than in the rest of my whole life, and I'm gonna be 35 this year. [00:32:00] So like 33 years of issues. And then processing them in the last couple years with lots to go.

Nick Radke: Yeah, and I'm excited that you've had some opportunity recently to even have some face-to-face conversations with people in our area and also not. It has been a great experience from my perspective. It just brings life to you to talk with, to someone with the same or similar experiences, which is something I can't offer. And that's fine. And that's super helpful for both of us, I think, for you to have that.

Haley Radke: So, we're gonna wrap this up. [00:33:00] The takeaways are that everyone should be in therapy, and you should go with your partner, and you should find some adoptees to talk about everything with because your partner will never fully get it. And they don't wanna hear about it all the time. Sometimes it's okay. Is that our big takeaway?

Nick Radke: Yeah, totally. And therapy was not, I don't know, I remember going four or five times maybe. I mean, it's gonna be different for everyone, but it doesn't necessarily have to be this huge time commitment. Yeah, I agree with those takeaways.

Haley Radke: And it's not freaky.

Nick Radke: No.

*Haley Radke: It's not like one hour of weirdness. It's just having a conversation with someone else there to sort of mediate.

Nick Radke: And you did a great job finding someone good. I think she had some experience with this. Because I'm sure there's probably many people that don't, so that might be kind of tricky. [00:34:00] And learn the lingo because I didn't know about “out of the fog” and “triggering.” I had no idea what that meant.

And so yeah, you just said that I'm more aware, like, we'll go to a movie or church or some sort of event. And it's not even intentional anymore, my mind is just tuned into whenever they're gonna talk about adoption. So that's helpful because, at least then afterwards, I can kind of say, are you good? Do we need to talk about it? How are you feeling about this?

And then it helps me, rather than a few years ago just going to something that I thought was relatively pleasant and you were kind of angry after. And I didn't know why.

Haley Radke: [00:35:00] I'm laughing 'cause it's so true. We'll be watching TV and then I will just get so mad because there'll be something about adoption that is completely false, and now you get it, right? But it used to be, like, what is your problem? And I didn't even know how to explain it.

Like I didn't know. I didn't know what was triggering me, but now I do. So thanks, honey. Is there anything else you want to say before we say goodbye. And wait, is it how much you're looking forward to Season 4? You just can't wait. You gotta get caught up with Season 3.

Nick Radke: Yeah. So yeah, totally. Keep listening. I don't know if you're gonna throw this in there, but

Haley Radke: Send me some money. Is that what you're gonna say?

Nick Radke: No, I'm gonna say that you work really hard on it but you do thoroughly enjoy it. From my perspective, you are really blessing other people with this podcast. However, on the flip side, I feel like this community that you're blessing is also giving back to you in a big way too. Thank you for doing that which I cannot. [00:36:00]

Haley Radke: Thanks, honey.

Okay, friend. Next week, Season 4 starts. I'm excited about all the different guests I have booked. I have names that you have heard of, names that I will be introducing you to. We even have a topic that's very sensitive, which we will be doing anonymously, and a huge variety of topics all under the umbrella of relationships.

I know you're going to find it valuable. I can't wait to share what I've recorded. Also, I will be continuing on in the Healing Series. I have a couple of new therapists to introduce to you very soon who are experts in this field of adoption and recovering from adoption trauma. [00:37:00]

So many awesome things are coming up, and I want to tell you, I could not do the show weekly without the financial support I get from people who are doing one-time donations and my monthly supporters. I just thank you so much. You are keeping this show going, and I thank you for standing with me and thank you for saying it with your money, your actual hard-earned money. I can't believe it.

You're saying that this is important and it's valuable and you want it to keep going. I am so grateful to you for that. Words cannot express how thankful I am. So if that's something, if you want to stand with other adoptees, you can make a one-time donation at adopteeson.com or partner up with me monthly, adopteeson.com/partner, and all the details are available there.

Come and connect with me! Adopteeson.com/newsletter has our monthly newsletter subscription link, and all of our social media accounts are linked there [00:38:00] as well to search @adopteeson on Instagram or Twitter. And you can also look for me, Haley Radke, on your favorite socials. Thank you so much for listening.

Let's talk again next Friday when we kick off Season 4, Relationships, together.

I mean, basically, it feels like every day you come home from work or else we're chatting, and I'll be like, Oh my gosh, look at this message I just got. Oh my gosh, look at this email I just got! Or, I just got a new Patreon supporter! It feels like close to every day that I get to show you that.

Haley Radke: [00:39:00] And so, I hope that it is helpful for you to know how important this project of mine is, because it does take away a lot of time with you and the family to work on it. Thanks, love. Thanks for talking to me. And if you wanna tweet, no? Okay. Okay. That's a no.

Nick Radke: Uh, yeah.

57 [Healing Series] Support Groups

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/57

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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 talk about support groups and how to start your own, but if that idea kind of freaks you out, don't press stop yet. My guest shares a really great alternative idea to help build supports into your life, and it's free. Let's listen in.

I am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Jeanette Yoffe. Jeanette is a child therapist with a special focus on adoption and foster care issues. Welcome back to Adoptees On, Jeanette.

Jeanette Yoffe: Thank you, Haley. Great to be here.

Haley Radke: So you are the executive director of the Celia Center, and I was hoping you could talk to us a little bit about that, where it got its name (especially), and what it is.

Jeanette Yoffe: Okay. So, Celia Center came about because… Let's see, it's 2018 now. Nine years ago, I started a support group. I'm a psychotherapist and here I was working with children of families in adoption, and I wanted to know who was out there like me. Are there–where are the other adult adoptees? Cuz I wasn't meeting many in Los Angeles.

And so as a therapist, I took it upon myself to start a support group, which I called Adopt Salon. I started gathering names and having people come to this group. And what came about from that was the support group became–we became a community. And people would come up to me and say, “Can you do a training on this?” Or, “Can you talk about this?” And I said, “Well, um, I don't have a place or a space to do that, but I'll try.” And so then I thought, You know what? What if I started a nonprofit organization that is devoted to educating the community about foster care and adoption experiences because I…? There was such a need.

So then I started the nonprofit called Celia Center and for me to give it meaning, I chose my first mother's name, which is Celia. And so for me, doing this work, just always, I'm channeling her. Because I had wished that she had a place like Celia Center to go to, to get the support she needed when I had separated from her, the education, the support of being around other mothers, other adoptees. It came from a place of: we need to do more in our community.

And I took it upon myself as an adult now. I get to do these things and I'm gonna do this because it's important. And we are leaders now and we are the ones that need to educate society about our experience. We are the experts. So, and my goal was also to bring the constellation of adoption together, because I had read Michael Phillip Grand's book, The Adoption Constellation, which also inspired me to create this center.

And the constellation is the new term in best practice today. It's the politically correct term, which identifies anyone involved in an adoption. So that's the birth parent, the first mother, the first father, the adoptee, the adoptive family, and I also include the foster constellation. So, the foster family, the foster youth, and it also includes social workers, nurses, spouses, siblings, anyone connected to anyone who's experienced this life experience is part of the constellation.

Haley Radke: So this is sort of replacing the triad, which has had its three points and sort of gives equal to each point.

Jeanette Yoffe: Correct. Exactly.

Haley Radke: Okay, that makes sense.

Jeanette Yoffe: Yes, the equilateral triangle–which they are not equal parts. So yeah, years ago I wrote something on Facebook and I had written, “triad,” and I literally had 150 posts. “How dare you use that word? That's not the word anymore.” And I'm like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. I work with anyone involved in an adoption. I have compassion for all members. I agree, there's no equal part, but give me the new language.” And that's when I found this book and I said, “Yes, that's the term. It's the constellation and we're all here to support each other.” So I wanted to bring the constellation together through Celia Center.

Haley Radke: So, yes. Very good. So can you talk a little bit more about what Adopt Salon is? And also let's just sort of frame our conversation with… So you're in the Los Angeles area. I'm in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I'm actually trying to start an adoptee support group, and I know there's a movement to start more and more across the U.S., North America, the world.

So can you sort of frame it with also, what are some things that we could be doing to do that? Peer support or as you say it, constellation group, all of those kinds of things.

Jeanette Yoffe: Yes. Okay. So, and there's different types of groups. So, I run the Adopt Salon Constellation Support Group, so that involves first mothers and first fathers, adult adoptees, and adoptive parents.

So we're all in the room together. And I also include the foster care constellation, so foster youth alum, foster parents, and their birth families as well, and/or foster families. So we're all in there together. Now, I run this group. I'm a therapist, you know, that's a lot to handle for one person to… because you're navigating all these different parts of the constellation.

So that can be overwhelming for someone starting a new support group. If you're starting a new support group (like I had originally), which was, I wanted to do with just an adoptee support group. And that, anyone can do. And so how I did this was, I put an ad on an online newspaper: “Starting an Adoption Support Group.”

And I started receiving a lot of emails. And so, I kept hold of those emails and I said, “Okay, now that I have an interest…” (because you just don't know who's out there). I said, “Okay, great. And now I can go find a place. Let me see, where can I do this group?” So I called around to churches, local adoption agencies, and I said, “Hey, you know, I'm interested in starting a support group in town. Do you, would you be willing to provide us with some free space? This will be a free support group.”

And so I found an agency that provided a space for us, and then I gave it a name; give your support group a name. And you also will need some sort of mail server, or Mailchimp, or Constant Contact so that you can–as you're accumulating names, you can also keep them notified of when the group is.

I like to keep the group on the first Wednesday of the month from 7 to 9:00 PM, so it's consistent. It's the same time on that month, on each month, so people know what to expect. So you wanna keep that consistency. It's an open group, but only for members specified of the group that you're starting.

So if it's just an adult adoptee group, it's just for adult adoptees. If it's just a foster youth alum group, it's just foster youth alums. If it's a co-group of first mothers, and first fathers, and adoptees, fabulous. But only they are allowed to attend. You set that limit on who will be attending your group. And then the other thing is this (and I feel very strongly about this): you need to set some very firm and safe ground rules, because if you don't, things can get out of hand and it can cause feelings of not feeling safe. And it can cause what I call–what is called “secondary trauma.” We do not want to do that.

So here are a few rules that I have for all my support groups, and that is, we support each other here. We do not fix each other, meaning we do not give unsolicited advice. If you, when you share and you go around the circle, I would just say, “Give me your name, what part of the constellation you represent, and tell us what you're here for. Or do you have a question? Are you, do you have a pressing issue? We'll get to you first. And you can share briefly about your story.” So, going around to the group, again, as rules, we don't fix each other. We don't give unsolicited advice. You do need to tell us what you need. You know, “I do need advice. Please fix me.”

Or after you share–because typically what happens in a support group is, you share and you feel this sense of “Whew!” relief. Because you see everybody nodding their heads. Everybody gets you. We need to be seen, heard, and received. That's the beauty of a support group and, you know, everything's online today.

Support groups are important. We need to be with each other, together in the physical realm, not the Internet. We need to see each other and feel each other, because that's how we grow. We cannot do this in a bubble. So I also say, “You can also be here and not share.” And I call it you can be an owl–you can observe, watch, and listen.

That's okay, because I know the first time I went to a support group, I was scared $%!#-less. It was very overwhelming. I didn't know what to do or how to handle, and I wish someone said, “You can just be an owl. You can observe, watch, and listen, and just take it in.” So those are important pieces.

And when I do a constellation group, I do say this a lot. The reason why I bring the constellation together is because… Think about this: If you look at a tree from one angle, all you're gonna see is that angle. This group is about looking at that tree from multiple angles so that we can bridge the compassion between each other, see that we're actually more alike than different, and this is a shared experience. And how do we support each other within this experience, within this constellation?

So it's extremely powerful. I mean, support groups are amazing. I wish they could all be recorded. And actually, speaking of recording, Celia Center– we were asked to film one of our support groups (the single adoptive parent support group, because I've had multiple groups) for the OWN (Oprah Winfrey channel), Raising Whitley.

We supported Kym Whitley when she adopted her foster child, and she hadn't told him that he was adopted. So she came to our support group and we helped her make sense of why it's important (even though he's three), that he needs to know what happened! He needs to know his story. So that was filmed. We did that, and then only last year we filmed one of our constellation support groups on Long Lost Family for (I don't know if you watched that show), Joanna, who meets her birth father. She has a lot of questions, so she comes to our support group, and gets advice, and support, and help. So it's been amazing.

Haley Radke: That’s so cool. Yeah. That's so cool. And can you tell me where does the name Adopt Salon comes from? What does “salon” mean to you?

Jeanette Yoffe: Because of my background being an artist. And I didn't say this, but Celia came to the United States on a work visa to be a dancer in New York City and the salon, the term “salon…” I don't know how long ago it was, but they used to have artist salons where artists would come together, and they would just share ideas and connect with one another, inspire, be each other's muse… And I thought, Oh, that's a nice feel. You know, because I didn't wanna scare anyone. This is, you know, the constellation. There's gonna be a first mother there, and an adoptive parent, or a foster parent meeting a birth mother for the first time. I wanted to take the charge out of it and go, “It's a salon, come to the Salon.”

And I actually used to light candles, lower the lights. I mean, I was very aware of, you know, that sensory overstimulation. I didn't want it. I wanted it to feel safe. So it's nice to do these added touches, you know, lighting candles, creating an environment of comfort and safety is key. So, that's why rules are important.

Yeah, I think that I went over everything you need to do to start a support group. And we usually sit in a circle. You know, cuz it's, you know–we're all coming full circle. And have tissues. Oh, oh, and have tissues.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Don't we! Tissues. Okay.

Jeanette Yoffe: If you don't feel comfortable starting a support group (because you said that earlier), I tell foster youth alum and adult adoptees–find a listening partner. And that is someone that you can call and you both identify and know how it works.

And it could be a call that's every Saturday, or someone that you get to call every week who will be your listening partner–will just listen. Because that, in and of itself, is supportive. And it would be nice to find someone (if you're both not comfortable going to a support group), “Well, we'll be each other's listening partners.”

Again, you don't give unsolicited advice. You just listen, and you receive, and you acknowledge, because that is really important. Because we do need to share our stories. We can't keep it all inside. We need to externalize it, we need to hear it, we need to reorganize it, we need to rethink it. Because it's always, it's always evolving, it's always changing.

It's always feeling a little different, or we're feeling more vulnerable about it. We need a place to discharge, literally, from our minds and get it out of our bodies. So, as you can see, I talk. I can talk a lot; I can talk all day. But it's important. We can, and we have a voice and…

Haley Radke: Well, maybe I should have started with this question, Jeanette, what is the purpose of a support group? So if there's a… Like we are just talking, like if it's peer-run and you go around this circle and you sort of share your stories. Is it just being heard? And is there a difference between that and a therapist-led? Like, is there more of a healing to–I don't know, do you wanna unpack that a little bit?

Jeanette Yoffe: Yes. And there's different variables. Like I said, if, you know–I would not advise someone new going into this, starting an adoption constellation support group. You have to have done, number one, your own work. You have to not be biased towards any member of the constellation. So, that, I highly recommend, needs to be a psychotherapist (that's dealing with all members of the constellation).

You have to be adoption and foster care-competent and be able to answer some tough questions. Now, I've also run my groups where I have guests come, and share their stories, and tell us what they've learned, or what–it could be a birth mother, an adoptee, a foster youth… So, there can be a teaching component in your group.

You can have a guest come, and there's a...,or there could be– You could have someone running the group who's not a psychotherapist, have a psychotherapist come in for 15 minutes and teach some mindfulness meditation or educate about trauma. So you could have that piece. It's how you establish the group.

We are here to listen and share and support each other in our experience. Again, we don't fix each other. You, you know, as the facilitator–you wanna be honest. You know, “I'm not a licensed psychotherapist. There are some questions I can't answer. I can only answer from my experience.”

As a psychotherapist, when I run groups as (if you're a therapist), you are there to provide the expertise, and knowledge, and education. But anyone can start a support group. However, you do need to be aware that you may be triggered. You have to be honoring and doing your self-care.

There's another group (it's an AA and adoption group that I just went to), that Celia Center is gonna be starting to send out notices about. And that's for adoptees who also have alcohol, and dependence, and maybe alcoholics, struggling with drug addiction. And so that group, all they do is they literally structure it like an AA group, and you have five minutes to share your story. And every time you share, you have a five-minute share. And then they do a meditation, and it's done.

It can be, you know, anyone can ask questions in this group, or we can have someone come in and talk about a specific topic. You can have a suggestion box. "If we bring in a guest, what kind of guest would you like us to bring in?" So you do need to establish, as a facilitator, specifically what type of group this is.

We support each other; we’re here to listen and share our stories. And if you need advice, we will give you advice. Otherwise, we're just here to listen and support one another. And you can remain in contact outside of the group, which is really important. And I do say, and that can also serve as your listening partner person that you can turn to in the weeks when there isn't the support group.

Because a lot will come up. So we do want to create a community–exchange phone numbers, see each other outside of the group, but keep what's said in the group at the group. We don't disclose/share any personal or identifying information with those outside of the group. This is to keep this group emotionally safe, and keep this confidential.

So, I hope I answered your question.

Haley Radke: Yeah, yeah. No, that's really helpful. And in fact, at a conference I was at, I was in a support group for like an hour, and it did have all the members of the constellation. And there was not, you know, a specific facilitator and it devolved very, very quickly. Very quickly.

Jeanette Yoffe: Ooh, yes. You need firm rules. Set the tone. Yes.

Haley Radke: Yeah, so, really adoptee, adult adoptee support group is where I would love to start. And I think that's such good advice, that you really need an expert present to be able to direct the conversation, and do all the things that you've been trained to do, (that a layperson like myself, we don't necessarily have).

Plus, I would have that layer of being triggered and, you know, it's not good! It's not a good situation. So yes, that's very, very wise. Is there anything else you wanna tell us before we wrap up? About the Celia Center, or starting a support group?

Jeanette Yoffe: Yes, I actually do. Celia Center–we did our first Arts Festival last year, and we are going to be doing another one. And it's called Giving Voice to Adopting Resilience: Fostering the Spirit of Creativity, and we'll be doing another one in November. And also, I will be doing my one-woman play, which I did 15 years ago. I'm gonna be doing it again.

So I'm super excited to have Celia Center provide this for our community. We're gonna have artists, transracially adopted adult adoptees sharing their stories. We have spoken word artists, we have visual artists, we have singers. We have a dance troupe from San Francisco that's gonna come down and do their piece about adoption.

So, it's a great event that we're very excited about and it really helps transform what we're trying to educate to the community about having lived through foster care and adoption. Now we get to show it through our creativity. It's so much fun. It's empowering; it empowers you. And you actually feel stronger because of the experience, and it makes you stronger within yourself.

And to share it with another–when you share something with another, what's shareable becomes more bearable. So that's why we need to speak up, share our stories in whatever format you choose, because it's very empowering.

Haley Radke: Well, I love that you touched on this. All of my season three was this theme of healing through creativity and so I talked to a number of different artists in various capacities. I don't wanna list them all, cause there's too many, but specifically, Brian Stanton was on the show and also Nicole Rademacher. And we talked about last year's event, and how amazing it was. I think especially, Nicole and I talked in depth about it.

So if people are interested, they can go over and check out that episode. And then, of course, I'll link to all the information about that upcoming event, in November, so that people can come check it out. That's so exciting. I love that you're doing that.

Jeanette Yoffe: Thank you. Yes, there is a video on our Celia Center YouTube channel about the Arts Festival last year. And it's a beautiful video, just showing all the art displayed, and the performers, and it was an amazing event. It brought a lot of people together.

Haley Radke: Yeah. So, great. Thank you. Okay. Where can we connect with you online?

Jeanette Yoffe: Well, Celia Center is C-E-L-I-A center.org. And there's a lot of information on our website there, about our upcoming events, special events. Sometimes you go to Wolf Connection, here in Los Angeles. And again, our support groups are on there. The festival information is celiacenterartsfestival.org. That's a beautiful website for our Arts Festival that you can connect to, and you can always look on our YouTube channel, Celia Center.

Haley Radke: And your website is yoffetherapy.com?

Jeanette Yoffe: Yes. So that's my private practice for therapy. Psychotherapy.

Haley Radke: Thank you so much, Jeanette, for sharing your wisdom with us today. And I hope that this maybe will inspire someone to start their own support group.

Jeanette Yoffe: Excellent. Yes, go for it. Go for it. We need each other and we need to be with each other. It's important.

Haley Radke: Yes, for sure. Thank you.

Jeanette Yoffe:Okay. Thank you, Haley. Thanks so much.

Haley Radke: This show is brought to you by my incredible Patreon partners. Patreon is a website that collects monthly pledges that help sustain the cost of producing this show for you every single week.

As a thank you, I have a secret Facebook group for adoptees only, that you're welcome to join. And we have some really great in-depth conversations there about search/reunion issues that have been popping up from our childhood. And I wish I could tell you who's in the group, but I won't, because it's secret, right? But there are some really, really amazing people who have gathered to build this community, and I would love to include you in that if you would like to support the show.

If that's not something that you're financially able to do, please message me anyway. I have a list of several Facebook groups, and one forum that I like to send people, that are all safe spaces that I can recommend as alternatives. And don't let money be the factor that keeps you from getting support. You know, Jeanette had that great idea of finding a listening partner, and that's free. I just thought that was such a fantastic idea.

I just wanted to let you know about the ways you can connect with me online– so we have the Adoptees On Facebook page, and I'm on Twitter and Instagram @ Adoptees On, and you can also find my personal Twitter and Instagram @ Haley Radke. Or you can find me on Facebook;

I'd love to be friends with you. And if you would like to get our monthly newsletter, you can sign up for that adopteeson.com/newsletter, where I will give you just brief snapshots of things I'm thinking about or learning, and updates about the show. Very last thing. Would you share this episode with just one person today, as soon as we wrap the show?

What if you send an adoptee in your city a message saying, “Why don't you listen to this episode? What do you think? Should we start a support group here?” Or, if someone that Jeanette was describing– the listening partner and you think, You know what? I know exactly who would be a great fit for that.

Maybe you can send them this episode, and then chat about what that would look like for you guys. And if you're in the Edmonton, Alberta area, send me a note. I'd love to have you at our next monthly adoptee support group, here in Edmonton (which is actually taking place right here at my house). So, if you ever wanted to see where I record, you can come to my house and join in our adoptee support group meeting.

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

56 [Healing Series] Foster Care and Complex Trauma

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/56

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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 tackle, what are the psychological and emotional impacts of growing up in foster care, as well as multiple practical tools for working on different pieces of adoption trauma? This is another one you're gonna wanna listen to more than one time because there's so many great takeaways.

Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On Jeanette Yoffe. Jeanette is a child therapist with a special focus on adoption and foster care issues. Welcome to the show, Jeanette.

Jeanette Yoffe: Thank you, Haley, for having me. It's great to be here.

Haley Radke: So it's your first time on the show and I'd love it if you would start the way I always ask my guests too, if you would just share a little bit of your story with us and how you came to your career path.

Jeanette Yoffe: Well, I was born in New York City and I lived with my birth family for the first 15 months of my life. I then went into foster care. My mother had some mental illness at that time and needed to be hospitalized.

And then I was in foster care for a duration of six and a half years. And what happened was I was supposed to go back and live with my aunt, maternal aunt in Argentina because my first mother is Argentinian. And it fell through the cracks. So I remained in foster care for a while. The New York City foster care system took some time to figure out what to do, and then I left that foster home and went to another foster home, another home to be adopted.

And so I was adopted at the age of eight years old. And I have two siblings who were also adopted. And I had reunion with my biological brother who was also adopted, but in a separate family and we didn't even know he was in the Bronx and I'm in New York. We didn't know each other growing up, so we got to know each other as adults.

And I've also had reunion, I did find my birth mother 10 years ago and I had reunion with her, which was amazing. And then I only recently had reunion with my birth father, and that was last year. And that's a whole 'nother story and a whole 'nother episode that we can talk about.

Haley Radke: Oh my goodness. Yes.

Jeanette Yoffe: Yes.

Haley Radke: So you are in two separate foster homes, is that right? So like one foster home for a long period of time and then adopted in the second placement?

Jeanette Yoffe: Yes. Correct.

Haley Radke: And so now you are a child therapist and this is your specialty, is working with children that have been in foster care. And can you tell me a little bit about how you came to do that?

Jeanette Yoffe: Yes. I actually came from New York to Los Angeles to be an actress. Because I was very confused. I had an identity crisis. I didn't know who I was. So being an actress, oh, it always gave me a script of what to do and what to say. But coming here, I started volunteering with an adoption support center in Los Angeles.

And so I moved here, started volunteering at a group, and this little girl had come up to me and she was so surprised to know that I was adopted too. And I just looked at her and I thought, well, this is odd. And I got down on my knee and I said to her, yes, I am adopted. And it was a extremely profound experience for me because I thought in that moment, Wow, I need to do more about this.

I need to be more involved in helping kids today recognize that, yeah, you're gonna grow up and you're going to be okay. So that was what inspired me to go into psychology and study and have a focus on children, and especially in foster care and adoption. And I just became, I was compelled to do the work, and it also allowed me to do my own healing work and really focus on this piece so that I could be a resource and support to others who have also lived the experience.

So it's been amazing. It's been an amazing journey and I'm just so grateful and I feel so blessed that I can do this work and. It's amazing to be a healer and help people. And also be aware of my own process. Because this is a lifelong process. But I think as an adoptee you're so much more informed. You understand. And parents, when they hear from an adoptee, the reality of their experience, they're more likely to understand and have greater compassion for their children. So when I see that happening, that's the work.

Haley Radke: So many of the guests I've talked to prior have been adopted as infants and we sort of go from, you know, hospital to the adoptive family and we talk about all the issues that come up with that.

There's a huge emotional impact even when you were adopted right as an infant. And then foster care adds another layer onto that, because as you said, there was two different placements. You were with your original family for 15 months, and so there's different pieces of transition there in your formative years. Can you teach us a little bit about that? The psychological and emotional impact of growing up in foster care versus, and or including the infant adoption. What is, what's sort of the differences for you?

Jeanette Yoffe: Yes. So what I've discovered is as an adoptee who's separated at birth, that is considered a trauma. It's a traumatic incident for that baby. Okay.

When a child has gone through that early separation and then experienced multiple placements, or have lived in their original families for some time, and then were adopted and separated and gone into foster care at a later time, what happens is it becomes more than just a single incident trauma.

It becomes complex trauma. So that is the key term when we're talking about children in foster care to adoption. There is still that primal wound, however, it's much more complex because of the multiple placements, the multiple layers, the memories, the implicit early memories that are stored in the body.

And then there's the explicit memories. What I remember about living with my family and what may have happened when I was there. So children in foster care are carrying so much in their bodies and in their memories. So complex trauma is the biggest piece to understand.

Another piece for foster adoptees, is we tend to self blame and blame ourselves that it was our fault that these things happened. And that's because a child's brain is egotistic. They believe everything happens because it's within their power.

Haley Radke: Yes.

Jeanette Yoffe: Totally normal. However, what I've found working with foster adoptees is they wear it like it's a condition. Like, I'm adopted or I'm in foster care and there's something wrong about them. And what's hard is they cannot separate themselves from their experience. So they have difficulty with this condition that there's something wrong about them, that they were responsible and they should have fixed it. So what can happen is shame can develop, which is very difficult for a child to understand. So there's a technique that I'm gonna teach you later on if you feel that you have experienced pervasive shame. Because you'll find that you're very hard on yourself. You can't, when you make a mistake, you feel like the mistake. When there's a problem, you're the problem. You take things very personally.

So that's a piece for foster youth. So we need to learn how to let go. Separate. And see our experience with objectivity so we can make sense of it, learn from it, and walk, work through it.

There's another piece that is important to understand is that because foster youth have had multiple transitions, they've had multiple relationships, so they have difficulty with attachments, and especially if there's been abuse, neglect, there's been trust that has been broken. There's attachment trauma. So it's so difficult to be able to have a new relationship, feel safe in a relationship, trust that relationship because the blueprint. What's been stored in that memory in the mind and the body will become the blueprint of relationships for the rest of their lives, unless deemed otherwise.

And a lot of the work that I do is attachment focused family therapy. I'm very much working on the attachment, repairing the attachment, and allowing children to feel safe in a relationship again.

We do have a heightened sense of perception of any sense of rejection in others. We're always scanning the environment. There's this hypervigilance going on. Is this safe, is this not safe? And there are the seven non-verbal cues which are very important to recognize and they are eyesight, the way someone looks at you, the facial characteristics, what they're showing in their face. Are they squinting at you? Are they questioning you? Tone of voice, posture, gestures. Timing and intensity of response.

And we're always looking and relying on these seven nonverbal cues for what's safe and what's not safe. And if you think about this, 90% of communication is nonverbal. So when trauma is experienced, the first sense to go offline is sound. So I have to teach parents and workers working in this field to be very aware of their seven non-verbal cues because if you are not aware, you could be causing more distress, more trauma for that child. And we need to create a place of safety and comfort because of what they've been through.

There can also be a learned helplessness that develops for foster adoptees because especially if they remember and have memories of their families. That they could have done something and they feel helpless inside this powerlessness. So they go through life thinking that if I couldn't even help my family, how can I even help myself? So they'll learn helplessness that can occur.

Now these characteristics, some are more heightened for some foster adoptees, some are less. It's all based on temperament, personality, their ability to be resilient, to work through experiences. The amount of support they've received. Therapy is very important.

So these are variables. A big piece, also, is they have experienced a lot of ambiguous loss. And ambiguity for any child is very difficult to contain because there's a lot of questions. Especially if they've had the early implicit memories of trauma where they don't know what happened, but something happened to them.

And then there's the explicit memories of what happened to my family? Or why did I leave this placement to go to this placement? Was it my fault. Did I do something wrong? Did they not love me? So it can be very complicated to work through this ambiguous loss and have even greater questions, especially if someone's not there to help you make sense.

And one of my interventions that I do with kids is we create a question box. Just to hold and acknowledge all of these questions. So they're externalized, released from the mind, placed in a container, providing a sense of, okay, somebody's looking out for these questions, someone's acknowledging, someone's hearing me, and someone's helping me make sense of my story.

So it can feel extremely overwhelming for a foster adoptee to experience all of these pieces. I do six hour trainings on trauma informed best practices in trauma informed care for children and adults, and I have had adults, foster youth alumni and adult adoptees come to me after the training and go, I wish I had this training when I was a kid.

So we also need psychoeducation. We need somebody to teach us these pieces and then teach us how to help us work through and heal and comfort and support these pieces. So there you have it in a nutshell.

Haley Radke: Well, and I mean of course you explain like there, we all have different levels of intensity for each of these pieces. And you know what I'm thinking about the typical older child, in foster care, like teenager. I mean, how many placements have they had? And so those layers, when you get to the teenage years and you're supposed to be forming your identity, I mean, it's complex for adoptees as it is. And then compounded with all of these different relationships and attachments, as you said, it's big stuff. Really big stuff.

Jeanette Yoffe: Yes, it is. Big stuff. So the psychoeducational piece is we need to understand that we are having a normal response to an abnormal event. So that we don't judge ourselves. Like of course our body is trying to work through these memories and that's why they keep coming up over and over.

So we need to learn to accept that piece.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Is there anything else that you wanna teach on this? We could. Talk about how some of these express themselves as we reach adulthood and beyond, if they're not dealt with?

Jeanette Yoffe: Well, we'll have difficulty trusting in relationships, in feeling confident, and building our self-esteem and feeling confident enough that we can go out and take a risk.

Because if we're not feeling secure and safe within our bodies, we're not gonna be able to take risks. We're going to feel held back, unsure of ourselves. And we really need to be a part of a community that understands us, that we don't have to explain ourselves over and over about our vulnerabilities. We, we need to be around other people that have also experienced similar experiences.

So sensitivity within ourselves, and we also will have difficulties in attachments and trusting others. It's really learning how to manage all of these pieces and have a daily practice. You must honor what you've experienced and see it for what it is.

It's there. We can't just make it go away. We get to, is what I always say. We don't have to. It's how we look at it. We get to do this healing for ourselves. We get to repair what happened to us because it's not what's wrong with us. It's what happened to us. We get to learn how to be more compassionate.

We get to re-parent, re mother ourselves. It's an opportunity for growth because we're either in two modes of functioning. We're either in protective mode or growth mode. And we get to decide which one we wanna go move towards, but we also do need to have a community that understands us and supports us in our growth.

We do need to be with an adoption or foster care competent therapist. Because they may say they understand the experience, but they do not. Okay. So I teach County Social Workers, department of Mental Health therapists here in Los Angeles to be adoption and foster care competent because it is, you're dealing with complex trauma.

I also suggest to adult, foster youth alumni and adult adoptees to go to trainings, read books on adoption, read, Coming Home To Self by Nancy Verrier. Really get to know these pieces and parts of you. It's not all of you. There's pieces and parts of you that need to be explored and examined.

And when you find that person that you feel that you can open up to, that you feel safe with, the first thing that's going to happen is you're going to tap into that primal wound. And I remember the day that I did it . I was probably about 21 and I was in therapy . I could feel this abyss like coming up from inside of me, and I allowed myself, because I felt safe enough with my therapist, to go there and I just cried and I cried and it was like a well of tears.

I tell kids that I work with, we're gonna cry buckets. And you know what? When we do that, we're gonna feel better. It's not gonna completely go away. I'm, I am real with kids and adults. It's not gonna go away. However, the way you can see if you're working through your primal wound is it will decrease the in intensity, frequency, and duration. It won't be as intense.

So really see it as an investment in yourself, because the more you go in there, the less it actually will become, and you'll be able to tolerate it more and manage it more because that is the condition. Not having been adopted or having been in foster care. The condition is learning how to manage these psychological and emotional impacts, effects of having lived this experience.

That's the condition. I'm all about helping us see things differently. Because when we can see things differently, change our perception, we can start to trust and go down the road of healing.

Haley Radke: Yeah. That's so powerful. Shifting our mindset to one of healing and what are we gonna do about it, right?

Jeanette Yoffe: Yes.

Haley Radke: Oh my gosh, yes. That's so important. Okay, so you had mentioned that you were gonna share a couple of tools with us. You mentioned a shame technique. Can you go into that? What do you mean by that? And maybe before you do, just, one more, just addressing the difference between guilt and shame, cuz a lot of people say they feel guilty, but if you could explain that would be helpful. I think.

Jeanette Yoffe: Yes. This is something I have to explain a lot. Okay. So shame, it's like, and this is how I explain it, shame is like a bubble that surrounds you and in the bubble you see a mirror. And all you see is your bad self. You feel, you see your deficiencies. You see you are not worthy. You see, you're unlovable.

There's something wrong about you. Okay? So because it's a bubble, you cannot see past the bubble. Okay? People who experience pervasive shame who live with this feeling that when someone points out to them a mistake, they can't separate themselves from the mistake. It's all in meshed in one. When you point out my mistake, I feel in that bubble, I'm the mistake.

Okay? Shame will impede the development of guilt because guilt is feeling sorry and acknowledging the other person. You're not only looking at yourself. So that's why it's very difficult for people who experience shame. It's very difficult for them to apologize and take responsibility, and this is a common red flag that you are living in shame because you cannot go to that person and say, I'm sorry, because what you're saying I'm sorry for is, I'm sorry I'm so bad. I'm sorry I'm so wrong.

And I know this because I lived it, and my mother would, oh, I'm gonna teach you responsibility. And she would sit me on the stairs and you're gonna go and apologize to your friend. And she would tell me to do this, and I would fight her to a T because she didn't understand what was going on with me.

It wasn't that I couldn't take responsibility. You're asking me to go to that person and reaffirm how bad I feel about myself. And a lot of kids and adults who've experienced foster care have this pieace. And so how we do this is... and the research shows people with pervasive shame have low levels of the ability to show remorse, take self responsibility. People with high levels of guilt have more empathy for others, are able to show more empathy.

So what we wanna do is help the person separate themselves from their behavior. And so there's a metaphor called the sandwich metaphor. And so the bread on the bottom is the stroking. Okay? So if I'm talking to an adopt foster youth out there, when you have recognized that you've done something wrong, okay, you made a mistake, you showed up late or you blew the stop sign, whatever it is, okay?

The first thing you need to do, the bread on the bottom is say to yourself, you are a good person, okay? You matter. Like you would talk to a good friend. You are a good person, and you put the emphasis on the behavior. And I made a mistake about this.

And that's the burger and the sandwich, that's the lettuce, the tomato. I made a mistake about this and I can learn from this mistake. I'm not the mistake. The mistake is the mistake and I'm gonna learn from this.

And then the piece of bread on the top is the, I love you. You are a good person. You matter. You're gonna get through this. So again, stroking because, and we need people around us.

If you are married or have a spouse or a partner or boyfriend, that this is a vulnerability for you. If you're gonna point something out to me that I've done wrong, can you just tell me first that I'm lovable? I love you and honey, can you not leave the plates hanging off the shelf because they broke today our new plates?

I and I love you, honey. So the emphasis goes on the behavior. And most of the families that I've worked with, I worked with, I had one family who said, Jeanette, that was a single most important piece you helped me understand. It shifted everything in my relationship with my child. So we get to do this work now for ourselves.

When I make a mistake, I do this for myself. I go, okay, you are a good person. The mistake is a mistake, and you are learning. This is how we learn by making mistakes, and I'm gonna learn from this, and I love you. I do the ho'oponopono, the Hawaiian Prayer.

Haley Radke: Oh yes.

The, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you. You do that for yourself. That's the difference between shame and guilt. So guilt is the ability to go to that person and say, you know what? I'm sorry that I left the plates on the shelf. I'm gonna learn from that. I won't do it again. I'm sorry that I did that, and I'm sorry that it affected you and the glass broke all over the floor and you got hurt. I'm sorry about that.

So guilt is expressing concern and empathy for the other person, and also having a regard for yourself. We're human, we are imperfect, and the gift of imperfection. Brene Brown's book is a beautiful book to read to help honor and grow that part of yourself so that you can have that empathy for yourself.

I think what happens with kids and adults with shame is they haven't had someone be empathetic towards them. I cried a lot as a kid and my mother would say, stop crying. What are you crying about? And I have approached her as an adult and I said, mom, that wasn't helpful.

What I really needed you to say is, Honey, I'm so sorry. You're feeling so sorry about yourself. I know a lot happened to you and I'm gonna be here and you're sorry and in your sorrow. And the parents get confused. They don't know how to read, and as adults, we don't know how to read our behaviors. We misinterpret our behaviors and we get stuck in our behaviors.

So, and I'm sure the listeners or some are gonna identify and go, yes, that's me. So the tool is really doing that sandwich metaphor with yourself. You are a good person, we're all good people. All good people make mistakes. You're not the mistake and you can learn from it and that's how you grow. But be kind to yourself.

That re mothering. Reparenting because children who've been in foster care and adoption have a lot of unmet needs. So we get to meet these needs and reparent ourselves today.

That's a very helpful exercise. Thank you. Is there anything else that you wanna touch on before we wrap up, jeanette?

Jeanette Yoffe: Yeah, I think there was one piece that is important and that is I use an acronym called pace. It's called PACE Yourself, and it actually comes from attachment theory, P a c E. So you apply these attitudes towards yourself.

P stands for Be Playful. Okay? Be playful so we can lessen the harshness we have on ourselves. Do something fun. Go try something new. Go out of your comfort zone, be playful, laugh at yourself. Laughter releases stress.

A is be accepting of yourself. You may not be accepting of the action you took or the mistake you made, but accept yourself; that you are doing the best that you can. We are all doing the best that we can at any given moment. I hope I'm doing the best that I can in this moment.

Be Curious, C. Be curious. Okay. Be curious about what you're feeling in your body. Trauma gets stored in the mind and the body. So it's through the body that we get to be what's called a sensory detective because trauma gets stored through the five senses. And trauma also can get soothed through the five senses. So the five senses are a sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. So a sensory detect, detective use, look, and explore. Okay. Which sense is heightened for me because that's my vulnerability and I need to learn how to soothe that sense. So be curious. You ask yourself, where am my body? Am I feeling this? What does it look like? How can I help soothe this part of myself? What do I need to do with my hands? Do I need to just squeeze some Play-Doh? Sand? What do I need to do? Do I need to drink some nice warm tea to sooth myself? I use lavender all the time in my practice. I use it before I see a client. I use it with a client. Breathing, teaching myself to breathe and slow down. Okay. And listening to calm, soothing sounds, providing yourself with sensory comfort is very important if you've experienced trauma.

And then E is have empathy. So PACE yourself. Treat yourself with kindness. You're doing the best that you can and do that sandwich metaphor. Whenever you make a mistake or do something wrong, you're learning from it. You'll explore it and go deeper and you can make a difference. And make changes, small changes. Cuz the way we change is in small doses. We can't just jump in the pool and expect everything to just change.

The last piece about healing. I say healing is like being in a whirlpool. Okay. Because you're being asked to change and shift and transform what you're experiencing into something different. Well, if you think about a whirlpool, everybody's going in one direction for a long time, and then you're asked to turn around and go in the other direction. Well, that's what change is gonna feel like.

It's gonna be very difficult at first to put these pieces of practice in your daily routine. And the more you do it, the more you stick to it and just push through and put in that effort. You can have a new rewiring in your brain, a new felt sense of relief, cuz that is the goal for treating and healing trauma.

It's feeling a sense of ahhhh. So the more you can find that relief in your life and it's through the senses using these, some of these tools, you'll be able to feel better and then you will do better. Trust me. And I've done a lot of work on myself and I do practices every day. So it's important.

You matter. You are worth it. I say that to all my clients, over and over. You are worth the effort. We're all worth. We're all worthy. We're all deserving of worth and value. We're here. We get to be here. You have a seat at the table too, so it's reclaiming, naming what you're feeling so you can tame it and work through it.

So I'm pretty serious and very direct with the clients that I work with, that how important it is to put in these daily practices because you matter and we're never going to fully heal. You know, this is a lifelong process. So right at that actually gives me a sense of, oh, okay, great. I mean then this is a process.

You don't have to put all that pressure on yourself. It actually gives you a sense of, you know what, okay. I am going to accept that I get to do this re mothering, reparenting rewiring for myself, and I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna do it the best I can and that's good enough. And give myself permission to do this work.

And you know, a lot of adoptees, they come usually when there's a life, big life stressor, there's a loss they experience and it just opens up that primal wound. And everybody's in their own, on their own journey. Let's not judge each other. Some people are more advanced than others. Cuz like me, I went into therapy when I was 13 years old and I'm still in therapy and I'm a therapist.

It's okay. It's important. We need to take care of ourselves. It's self care. Because of what happened to us and take responsibility and we get to then go into the world and utilize our many strengths, because I also say we also have many strengths. You know, there's all these issues and core issues and well, where are our strengths?

We're very strong-willed. We're very determined. We are deeper thinkers. We feel the world on a much more profound level. That's what makes us amazing creators, visual and performing artists, writers, painters. We can see things that other people don't see because we are very observant. And once we can tap into that strength we actually can do things that we never thought or imagined we could.

And so it's exciting. I always want to inspire adoptees, fellow adoptees and foster youth alumni to, to go... and I created this training... be the archeology of you and go in your primal wound. That is actually an exercise we did. Okay? Walking in the desert, there's a hole cuz it's a desert out there. And you, before you go to the hole as an archeologist does make sure you have your backpack, your flashlight, some boots, and extra set of clothes. Whatever you need, because you're gonna go in your primal wound right now and put the flashlight on.

We're gonna look in this big hole and we're gonna talk about what's in there, and we're gonna redecorate it. We get to go in and explore this part of us, examine it, and redecorate it.

So I've literally done this exercise with many adult adoptees, and we climb in our primal wound holes with our headset on, with our hammer. We're all ready. We climb in there and we create a space of comfort because we need to get to know this part of us. The more we avoid it, the more it's gonna be enacted out and reenacted out in the real world. So going in there and listening, feeling, befriending this part, putting a picture on the wall.

Putting a floor on the bottom and learning how to feel the bottom of it, because we can plant ourselves in there and examine it and be with it and know we're going to be okay.

Haley Radke: And that, and just having the bottom, like as you're saying that I'm like, if we don't go there, we picture it as like the never-ending abyss. Right.

Jeanette Yoffe: Exactly. It gives it some footing. It gives us a, just a grounding because, and that's another exercise that I do, is the grounding tool where you imagine from your belly button to the center of this planet, there is a cord and that cord cannot be broken. And it is extremely powerful. And when you feel that pull. And you have to be standing. You just stand arms at your side. Just go in your mind's eye, in your imagination, and imagine there's a cord from your belly button to the center of this planet. You feel that connection, and then you ask somebody to give you a little push. Your body feels this newfound strength and you feel this connection that you've never felt before.

And for me when I first did this, and I teach this to everybody, is it helped me feel a sense of belonging and connection. And that's that footing, feeling a sense of being grounded.

Because when you're uprooted-- I don't know if you've ever seen the sign language for adoption, but it's literally, oh gosh, it was a little scary to see it. But literally it's like, they're holding their hands together, they're pull something up, they put it to the right and they put it down. That's sign language for adoption. And when I saw that, it just reminded me of this image of a plant being just pulled out by its root, pulled out and put in another, just smashed in another pot.

And there's no sense of this. You know, you're uprooted, literally. So we need to ground ourselves, put that lining in our primal wound so we can get a footing. So we can see it for what it is, and befriend it. And get to know it and live there. Not live there literally every day, but go in there and not be afraid of it. And honor it.

Haley Radke: Thank you. Those are some real, some really good tools. I really appreciate that. I love having really practical things that we can do and your wisdom at on just this needs to be a daily practice and it's a journey. And it's a lifetime of moving forward with that. So thank you. Thanks so much for speaking to those things.

Jeanette Yoffe: You're welcome.

Haley Radke: I'd love it if you would share with us how we can connect with you online.

Jeanette Yoffe: I wrote a book about all the interventions that I do with children and teens and families in adoption, so that you can find that on Amazon. It's called Groundbreaking Interventions, Working with Traumatized Children, Teen and Families in Foster Care and Adoption.

My website is Yoffe therapy.com. I also have a YouTube channel, Yoffe Therapy, and there's a lot of videos on that. And that's how you can find me.

Haley Radke: Thank you. That's so great. I was just on your YouTube channel this morning and watching a bunch of the different videos. You've explained these exercises in depth. It's, they're so good. So good. It's a great resource for people to check out. Thank you so much for sharing with us today, Jeanette. It was just an honor to speak with you.

Jeanette Yoffe: Well, thank you. You too. Thanks so much. It's been an honor.

Haley Radke: I've been on a bit of a break from the show prepping and recording for season four, so I wanna give you a quick update on that.

And I sent out my monthly newsletter last week where I revealed the theme of season four as chosen by my monthly supporters. Thank you guys.

So if you're curious about what the theme is, you can go back and find the back catalog of my newsletters. There's three, so it's not like a ton of things to go through.

Adopteeson.com/about is my bio page, and I have a couple of links there to articles I've written, and there's also a link for the newsletter. And so if you click through on that one's got the back issues. So you can check back on the latest one to see what the theme is for season four. But before I start releasing season four episodes, I'm gonna have a few more healing episodes for you, including the one next week where I invited Jeanette back and we talk about support groups and how to start your own support group, which is perfect timing for me because we have started one here in my city in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

So if you're a listener and you live in the Edmonton area, please get in touch with me so you can come to our next meetup and I'll send you the address. It's at my house, so if you're ever curious about where I record, you can come to my house and see.

Anyway. Tune in next week because you really wanna hear what Jeanette has to say about starting your own support group. This show is literally brought to you by the support from my Patreon partners, and I couldn't do it without them. Truly, Patreon is a website that allows. Creators like me to raise monthly support to help me keep producing this podcast for you.

And as a special thank you for a monthly pledge, I have a secret Facebook group for adoptees only, where we support each other through search and reunion issues, and we get really real about all the things we're struggling with. So come and join us. AdopteesOn.com/partner has all the details. I'm so grateful to be able to do this for you, and I couldn't do it without that financial support. Thank you. Thank you so much.

So if you wanna come and support the show, monthly, adopteeson.com/partner has the details. I also have a one-time donation link on my adopteeson.com page for PayPal, if that's something that you. You're not really interested in joining the group, but maybe you would like to give a one-time donation that is so appreciated and helpful also.

Thank you. Okay. I have a special message from a fellow adoptee to share with you. Let's listen.

(Voice Recording of Christie) Hi, my name is Christie. I discovered that I was adopted at the age of 18 in a fight. And for many years I wasn't allowed to have any feelings about that. In fact, growing up I wasn't really allowed to have many feelings at all.

So I internalized a lot of my emotions and now I was ready to let those emotions out. Through writing and let my story be known. So the past year I've been working on my book, and yesterday it officially became available. Right now it's only available on lulu.com, but in six to eight weeks it will be available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and that's l u l u.com. The name of the book is, Why Aren't You Like Me? The brochure said you would be. I hope you read it and I hope you enjoy.

(Haley Speaking) Thanks, Christie. If you are an adoptee and would like to tell us about your book or blog or whatever you're working on, head over to adopteeson.com/connect and click on the microphone at the bottom of the page.

Don't email it to me. I wanna hear your voices. This is a podcast, right? Thank you for listening, and thank you for being so kind during my break. Let's talk again next Friday.

55 Finale - Healing Through Creativity and Community

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/55

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Haley Radke: You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is season three, episode 15: Finale. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Throughout season three, we've been discussing healing through creativity. And for the finale, I've brought in two more adoptees who are absolute experts in this topic.

My guests are Pamela Cordano, a psychotherapist who we've heard on some of my favorite healing episodes, and also (no stranger to the podcast), Anne Heffron, the author of You Don't Look Adopted, which happens to be my favorite adoptee memoir. We discuss creativity and, “Can we actually heal from adoption trauma?,” or “Are we just building up a huge toolbox of coping strategies together?”

Get ready to put this episode on repeat because Pam and Anne have a fire hose of wisdom on topics I hadn't even considered before, like why healing in community means magnified healing. If you're listening when this has just been released, Anne and Pam are also going to tell you about a special event they're planning for February 2018, and even once they get into the details of the retreats, stick with us, because they give some great takeaways to try out, for those of us—you can just go ahead and insert that sad face emoji here from me–that won't be able to make it to the retreat.

If you're listening after the retreat has already happened, I am almost certain there will be another one in the works, so make sure to follow their socials to get details of any upcoming events.

This episode has been brought to you by my incredibly generous Patreon supporters, and so I'd like to dedicate this finale episode to you amazing people who believe in me so much that you are standing with me financially every single month. No words can explain how grateful I am for each of you.

Okay. Show notes, including links to all of the things we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Anne Heffron. Hi, Anne.

Anne Heffron: Hey, Haley!

Haley Radke: And Pamela Cordano. Welcome back, Pam.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Thank you. It's so good to be here. And hi to you and hi to Anne. And hi to everybody listening.

Haley Radke: I am so excited to talk to you guys, because you have something big planned. And so I really want everyone to hear about your event that's coming up.

But first, let's just talk about season three. And we had this thread, throughout, of healing through creativity. And so I was wondering what your thoughts were on that and if you had any big takeaways from listening to any of the episodes, thoughts about healing through creativity. Anne, why don't you start?

Anne Heffron: I listened to all of them at least once, and some of them I listened to a few times. I think if I put them all together, there's hopefulness. Yeah, that's what I took away from season three, was that it's one thing to tell your story as an adoptee, and sometimes that can be—well, it's depressing a lot of the times! But to take that story and then to make it art…

I mean, Brian, I listened to a couple of times just to hear his voice because he was so joyful. And even when he was close to tears sometimes, there was still an energy in his voice that's… I was calling him vitamin B in my head because I was thinking, Okay, this is where the superpower of adoption comes in. When you take what you're given and you make it into something else, like if you sing, or you create jewelry, or you paint, you do needle work…That's the joy.

I did it through writing, but I wrote about adoption so that I could have some credibility in the adoptee world, because what I really wanted to do was help other people tell their stories. Because for me to watch someone go from thinking they don't have a story to tell, or that their story is the same as everybody else's (so it's not worth telling), to seeing in their face them recognizing that their story not only has merit, but that it's actually really important to tell—That is the very, very best thing.

And so when I heard Pam on your show, I was thinking it's her! She's the golden ticket, because she understands how the brain works. And I want to connect with her, because I think it's like when you have two people at the piano, I felt like we could cover a lot of keys together and really tap into people. People who are really stuck and just don't have hope of, how are they special? How are they gonna get out of feeling trapped? And what can they do with their life? What do you think, Pam?

Pam Cordano, MFT: I think creativity is such a powerful topic, and I'm so excited that you're focusing on it, because I think of creativity as being like birth and from the wreckage of our histories, and from the treasures of our lives, what do we want to create? What can we create, that touches us, and touches other people? And makes an impact, and creates a picture, or creates a sentence where there wasn't one before?

And I feel like creativity is exponential healing and offering, in the sense that it touches so many other people. And then they have a new awareness of something about what was either created, or spoken, or written that they didn't have before. And then like our consciousness rises around the issue of adoption.

Haley Radke: That was something I said to a few of the different guests I had on season three: “Do you understand that you are literally changing the societal view of adoption through this particular work?”

Pam Cordano, MFT: Right. It’s pioneer work and it's a gift.

It's a complete gift to everybody and it's powerful. Maybe it's the most powerful thing. When I hear about what people are doing with their pain and their stories and their strengths related to adoption in a direct way, I just get so inspired and strengthened when I hear about it. And it's almost like I've been in the closet as an adoptee and I've been parts of other worlds related to cancer, and illness, and trauma, and death. And I've been healing and working on my adoption, but in more indirect ways.

And so, when I heard about this Six-Word Adoption Memoir Project, I was just blown out of the water and I find myself writing my own six-word memoirs on different days (and they change, you know, one day is different from the next). And I just love the project so much and it just makes me so happy that it's adoptee specific.

Haley Radke: I know. They're so fantastic and I don't think I could just write one, like to encapsulate everything. It's…yeah. Yeah. Such a great idea. So many of my guests came up with these really unique ways to express themselves creatively. And don't you find that because our trauma, so much of it is pre-verbal, it's kind of the only way they (it sounded like to me), it's the only way they knew how to get it out of themselves.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah. I mean, listeners may know that Anne has been on this meme kick lately and I've been writing memes. I've been designing memes that are really— I think most of the world would consider them pretty blasphemous as far as what they're saying about being adopted. So I haven't really gone public with them yet, but maybe—I don't know if I will, but to put a picture together with a word or a phrase was so satisfying.

I basically was awake for two days just doing meme after meme after meme, and laughing harder than I've ever laughed, you know? And it was just so liberating.

Haley Radke: Okay. How do I get to see some of these?

Pam Cordano, MFT: Oh my gosh. I'll send them to you. I mean, they're pretty risque, honestly. Right, Anne?

Anne Heffron: Yeah!

Haley Radke: Do you want to give us like one, like your tamest one?

Pam Cordano, MFT: Oh, okay.

Haley Radke: No, no, no. I'm not asking Anne, because I know she'll out you in one second.

Anne Heffron: No, I'm not gonna, I would never do that. The two of us, we were up all night and we would just send them to each other. It was so….

Pam Cordano, MFT: Okay. I have this really cute picture of these two babies sitting up in diapers. They're looking at each other and their hands are kind of open, like they're having sort of a baby conversation. And I have the words in big blue, bold writing: “How much did you cost?” That's a really tame one.

Haley Radke: Oh my gosh. [everyone laughs]

Anne Heffron: You know what it was like? And this is community and this is, I believe this is healing in community because you know, when you're a little kid and then you're sharing with a friend something that your parents probably wouldn't like, but you can't? It's like when you first say the word “fart,”or something and you can't stop laughing.

Right? I feel like we got to be children together (doing this) and then we get to switch back to being grownups, which is an amazing thing to do when you're adopted because often the child part got kind of skipped.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Haley Radke: I so feel that. I so identify with that. I feel like I was born and then I just had to be a little grown up.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Great. Can I share another meme, then, about that?

Haley Radke: Uh, yes!

Anne Heffron: You start.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Okay. So I have this little baby vacuuming the house, and it says, “For f's sake, I'll do it!”

And that's how I felt in my house with my parents. Like, “Fine, I'll do it. I'll pull it together. I'll be here to complete your life. Whatever you need, I'll do it.” You know, so it's this angry baby vacuuming meme. With the f-word in it. [everyone laughs] I really like that one.

Haley Radke: Oh, that's good. Those are great. I think maybe you should start an anonymous account.

Pam Cordano, MFT: I thought of it. Yeah.

Haley Radke: Oh, so good. Okay. Alright. Do you have any other thoughts on the creativity piece?

Anne Heffron: Well, because I was thinking about what you said, Pam, about how, at first when I was making the memes, I just couldn't get enough of the fact that there was a picture and words? You know, it was like getting to write a children's book, but I was getting to tap into two different parts of my brain, right? I was getting to choose a picture and then I was getting to choose the words.

And I think if you look at all the guests that you've had, Haley, it's like in their own ways they were playing with pictures, right? Like, even if it was Shannon, she's stitching words, but she's also stitching pictures. And I think that—Now when I'm doing memes, I'm pretty much dropping the picture, because I have the confidence just to do the words. And then you have these people come onto your podcast and they've gone from creating to actually having to use language.

And that's a big step forward, because that's where we want to be, right? We want to be at a place where we can speak our deepest thoughts and feel heard. And so it's like a little kid—they start with Play-Doh, or they start with drawings, and then… But as adoptees, because most people didn't really understand what we were going through, our sense of language was stifled.

Pam Cordano, MFT: I think it's a relief. It's like putting forms of something unlived inside. Like the part of me that never got to live itself authentically because I was too busy being a traumatized infant and small child. And then I was too busy being used by my adoptive parents to complete their dream. I was belonging to somebody else.

So there's this whole voice and self that didn't have its right to full expression. So, to start to find expression that doesn't necessarily follow rules or please people, but is actually honest and real, is completely empowering. When I made my memes, I mean, I was laughing. I felt like my organs were laughing. It was so funny and it's such a relief to say what I wasn't supposed to say or allowed to say. And I almost felt like I was walking a little bit taller. Like, you know: I said it. I spoke the truth. I created it.

Haley Radke: Mm-hmm. I'm very sorry that I cannot post them online.

Pam Cordano, MFT: I can be twisted. As long as I don't get in too much trouble.

Haley Radke: I won't get you in trouble, I promise.

Pam Cordano, MFT: I do still have a compliant side, after all.

Haley Radke: Good adoptee. Good job. Good job.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah.

Haley Radke: The other thing that we touched on was, “Why do so many adoptees gravitate towards creative outlets?”

Pam Cordano, MFT: Okay. I think it's because we have so much authentic life living and hiding inside of us, that it needs to come out somehow. And being straight about it hasn't worked. Society doesn't mirror our straight expression of ourselves and we have to go around the corner a bit.

And then I was also thinking that, I mean, sure. A lot of adoptees are just smart, talented, artistic people who—but that's not really what you're asking. I just think we have a hidden life and the hidden life needs expression and we have to find a way to do it that feels real enough. But that's… It's sort of like outside of the box of relating to people. Like if we try to relate our truth to our birth families or adoptive families, they often miss the mark with us. So when we create something, there's a satisfaction that won't be found in relationship.

Haley Radke: So I hadn't told my adoptive parents about the podcast, right? For like a year. And then I told them I had a podcast. And then one day my mom kind of called out of nowhere and said, “Congratulations on season three.” So I was like, Whoa, okay, so maybe they're listening. And in our last visit I said, “Are you like listening to some of them?” And she's like, “Oh yeah, I listened to a couple. I got the gist of it.”

Pam Cordano, MFT: Wow. [everyone laughs in disbelief] Oh my gosh. Thanks!

Haley Radke: That is— (Sorry, Mom. If you listen to this, I guess maybe you are listening to more.) But that is seared in my brain now.

Pam Cordano, MFT: It's like you heard one, you heard 'em all. Thanks. Ouch.

Haley Radke: I feel like I am having a hidden life. And you're talking about that. I was like, this is me expressing the hidden life. And even when I do bring it and I say, “Oh, here it is. This is like my life's work.”

“I got the gist of it.”

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah. This is my heart, and my soul, and my brain, and my talent, and my special voice I use.

And it's like, “Eh.”

Haley Radke: That was a fun conversation.

Pam Cordano, MFT: But good thing that the rest of us love you so much and that you're changing our lives and helping us so much. So…

Haley Radke: I know. She's not my target audience. I get that.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Right, right.

Haley Radke: Okay. With this theme of healing through creativity, just the word “healing” can be a little bit controversial. In fact, at the CUB retreat that Anne and I were at in California, someone asked the panel of therapists essentially that question: “Can we really be healed of adoption trauma?” And, you know, one of the answers given was almost an example of, “Oh yeah, well…I have all these different coping skills built in…”

And so Pam, can you speak to that a bit? Because this is something that you wanted to get to today, was coping skills versus healing. And I really want to hear your thoughts on that.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Well, I really believe it's possible to heal and to do more than develop coping skill strategies. I mean, coping strategies are really important, and to me, they're just the container for the healing.

I know that when I eat well, and exercise and sleep well, maybe even meditate once in a while, my whole system feels better (my nervous system), and that supports me to be able to heal. And healing, I think, is more about feeling different inside yourself in the world, and feeling a sense of belonging to the world and having the freedom to bring toward us what we want and to keep away from us what we don't want. And to really tap into joy, like the joy of being alive.

So you might know one of my heroes is Viktor Frankl, who was in the Holocaust, and he wrote a book called Man’s Search for Meaning. The original title of his book was Say Yes To Life. And so he wrote the book in 11 days, right after he got out of the concentration camps for three years, where he'd lost almost everybody in his family. He found ways to tap into—I would say the meaning of being alive, the joy of being alive through all kinds of ways. Even when he was starving and dying, and trapped and had no possessions, and lost his pregnant wife and everything else in the concentration camp.

And I feel like I've healed a lot (and I wouldn't have said that maybe 10 years ago). But I think when people heal, they feel like there's a path back to that joy, and that vitality, and that saying, “yes” to life. That's what healing feels like.

It's more like the fabric of a person. It's not what a person does. Like, maybe there can be people that have very healthy eating, exercise, meditation, yoga, therapy, habits, but they feel miserable inside. Or they feel isolated, or they feel hopeless, or they hate themselves, or they have negative talk going through their heads all day long. And that's not healing. That's just having “healthy behavior.”

But healing is finding a new way to relate to yourself and to the world, where you feel like you're part of the whole dance of life, really. And that's just too poetic. It sounds too intangible. But I just know that when I have my bad moments (which of course I have them all the time), but when I have bad moments, I know there's a way through them to joy and access to what I need.

With having access to creativity, that's an avenue of expression and of connection that's really meaningful and has so much life in it. And to me, that's a very healing way of being in the world. And then we're not constantly creating (you're not constantly doing podcasts or whatever), but you have access to it.

I would use that as an example, Haley. I would just say, you know, your podcasts are creative. You created this whole Adoptees On, and it's touched so many lives. We can't even count the lives it’s touched and then it's touched the lives of the lives it's touched. The friends, like the connections of the lives it's touched. So, there's this whole exponential kind of touching lives that you've done. And you probably have difficult times with your kids or, you know, whatever… Difficult things happen. But this is alive and happening all the time in your life. Do you know what I mean?

Haley Radke: Are you gonna make me cry on my finale? That is so mean. I can't believe you would do that. Wow. [everyone laughs]

Pam Cordano, MFT: But so even in your worst moment, you can know that, right? That that’s happening. And it's happened. It's real and it's still happening. And you have more in you. So I think that that's an aspect of healing.

Haley Radke: I love thinking about that. Thank you.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Thank you. That’s from all of us. The finale.

So I was adopted at the age of six months. And in my first six months, I was left alone in an apartment by my birth mother, who worked full-time. And I was, I'm sure, very hungry. And she was also physically abusive. I was in two different foster homes, and then I was in a shelter, and then finally adopted.

And so by the time I was adopted, I was— My grandparents told me that I didn't smile, or cry, or show any facial expression at all. I was basically frozen. And I have the feeling now, like when I try to feel what that might've felt like, that I pulled deep into my bones just to try to survive, really.

Something that I've said to you, Haley, before is that for me, moving toward healing has been a necessity. I think I would've died. I think I actually was close to death as a baby, as a newborn in this apartment. And I think that my body knows what dying and freezing feel like, so strongly.

And so healing is about filling out my whole physiological system, opening my eyes, inhabiting my eyes. And moving back into the flow of life and participating with life.

Anne Heffron: It's exactly what I see in the Write or Die. And I watch the people's bodies. People (adoptees in particular) come in and they are coping. They got to this, they're living their lives, you know, they drove their car… But it's like—I watch their eyes and their eyes, they move around a lot or they look down. And their bodies are stiff. It's a frozenness.

And there's a moment in every class I've seen when they realize that— When they feel in their body, they feel the merit of their story or they feel the spark, their shoulders go back, the blood goes to their face and their eyes change. And it happens every time. I think that that's the body. Right? And I think that that's what I recognized in you, Pam, and that's why I want to work with you. It's like you have this vital force.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Mm-hmm.

Anne Heffron: Right? It's like if there's a pool, I'm pretty sure you're gonna jump in it.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah. So, I guess what we're saying is that a person can have really good coping skills, but not be healing. They can be more surviving and coping. People who are dying of—(I work so much with cancer). People who are dying of cancer can heal emotionally. They can die on a happy note. And I've seen it again and again. People coming back to life, even if they're in a dying process.

There was something that Anne and I were talking about earlier today, which is that in our brains, we have something called the default network. And the default network is if you—(I picture it like a triangle, although I don't know what shape it actually is). But it's like the stories where we tell ourselves about our lives and who we are, they go around and around and around, and our brains have this negativity bias. So, the stories in our default network are mostly negative stories.

Like we wake up in the morning and our default network is going, and we're thinking, I screwed up last night, and Oh my gosh, I forgot to send in that check. And Oh, my daughter's pissed at me still, and blah, blah, blah (and you know, everything wrong with us). And we can't heal in our default network. Our default network is like a closed system that just goes around and around and around. And so to heal, we have to shift into something called our direct experience network. And that's where something new can happen, where we feel safe enough to let something new in.

And that's really what therapy's all about. So when a client comes to therapy, if they're just sitting in their default network, “Blah, blah, blah, my mom, this, my dad, my husband, my kids…,” they're not gonna walk out of the room any different. But if a therapist can help a client shift into their direct experience network, that's where they're in the moment. They're having a direct experience with one of their five senses. They're probably in their bodies to some extent, and something new can happen. That's where healing happens.

For me, healing has been about doing some bold things to create opportunities for me to have direct experiences. Like, I've done a lot of traveling and I've done a lot of humanitarian work where I'm encountering people who are also having other kinds of problems than I have. And I've thrown myself out of what's familiar to throw myself into direct experiences, and that's where I feel like I've gotten better.

Anne Heffron: Yeah. And I had a similar experience where the healing came from two things: writing my book. (And then, what that actually did was that opened the wound.) But it didn't—that was only part of the journey. What I had to do was come back and actually do the legwork, which was like, How am I gonna survive in the world as an adoptee now? Like I feel physically and mentally challenged by coming out of the fog. I mean, I would've liked to have gone to a sanitarium and just have someone take care of me for the rest of my life, because I was tired and confused.

And I think that then to step up and say, Okay, well I'm gonna start these Write or Die classes, because this is how I'll use the tools that I have (the creativity that I have) to make a living. And to help other people at the same time.

I mean, isn't that what we're all doing? All three of us? I mean, we've figured out what our creative skills are and we're trying to help the larger community, but the adoptee community in particular, because there just aren’t a lot of guidebooks out there (or any, really). I mean, there's books that will tell you how to suffer, but they don't really tell you how to go out and feel okay.

Haley Radke: Hmm. I'm just, I'm just reading. Option B by Cheryl Sandberg. Have either of you read that?

Anne Heffron: Yeah, I couldn't finish it. I didn't really like it.

Haley Radke: Okay, well, I'm not very far in, but she talks about this thing... So Option B is… Cheryl's husband just suddenly passes away and she's talking about how she's learned resilience. And so, you know, all of those things are very tempting to adoptees to hear like, “Oh, tell me more about, you know, how can I survive from my grief that no one will acknowledge?” So in the first section, she talks about the three Ps: personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence when we have a trauma.

And so personalization, meaning, It's all my fault. So adoptees are like, Oh, it's all my fault. I was given up for adoption. Right? It's me.

Pervasiveness: Adoption affects every part of my life.

And permanence. There's nothing I can do.

And this is where– (she didn't write these parts about the adoptee, I added that). But this is where I feel like so many of us are stuck. We're stuck here. And we're learning all those coping skills. And while we talk about healing, we're really just equating coping skills with healing.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yes.

Haley Radke: And so I want to hear about moving forward. You were talking about direct experiences and I want to hear all of those things.

Pam Cordano, MFT: So one thing that comes to mind with the three Ps—I read the book and I followed that story and I'm from the same area where she lives in Silicon Valley, so I was really interested in her story and her recovery. So something I've learned is that when we're bonded to our moms, or our dads, or each other, what makes a bond is a call and a response.

So when babies are born, they call by crying, and a good enough mom responds and can kind of be attuned and figure out, “Okay, is the baby hungry or does the baby need help going to sleep? Or does the baby need some stimulation (or whatever).” For us adoptees, our call and response probably got kind of screwed up with, first of all, being with a new mother and then not being mirrored in our grief that we'd actually lost our whole lineage and we're in unfamiliar territory. So there's this disruption in the call response and a disruption in the bonding.

And in my case, I didn't really bond well with my adoptive mother. I just held her at arms distance my whole life and her whole life. So I couldn't call to her, because her response wasn't what I needed. And I think that we adoptees, we have a call that we're ringing out to the world, like, “Help!!” You know, we had a bad time. The culture isn't mirroring it like the– We have disenfranchised grief; we have a traumatized brain. We don't know what to do. We don’t know how to heal, and we need a response coming to us that actually fits us, that actually is attuned to what we actually are asking for in a given moment.

So that goes back to the beginning of what Anne was saying about how this community is so special, because that's what's happening so much on social media is people are calling and other adoptees are responding and they're saying, “Oh, that happened to me too.” Or, “Oh, that's so painful.” Or, “That's so hurtful.” Or, “That's so heartless,” or whatever it might be.

And so being responded to with empathy and attunement is a very big part of healing.

That's where we have a lot of power in our community to work together to magnify the healing by doing work on a group level, like not just one-on-one. Trying to find a therapist who can, you know, understand the magnitude of the trauma of adoption, but actually working in an intentional way together to optimize that we all can respond to each other's calls because we understand this territory together.

Anne Heffron: And I think it's about—as a group, I think what I've noticed with myself and with other adoptees is it's really easy to get caught up in the story. You know, if you go to an adoptee conference, you'll find people telling the same story over and over again. And, I did it. And it's like The Old Man and the Sea in the Hemingway story, where he told his story over and over again. And we do that because we're looking for some kind of sense of finality, but we can't figure it out. So we keep saying it, but the more we say it, it's like a straight jacket.

We become our story and our brain spins trying to figure out like, What is my story? How can I tell my story? How can I… It's important to tell your story, but I think it's also important to realize that we are a body of energy. We are a bunch of cells put together. If I took your body apart, there is no story in your body. But I actually thought my story was going to kill me. And so that's why it took me so long to write it. And when I was writing it, I thought it was going to kill me. But it's not in me, you know? It's a thing, it's an idea.

And I think that what I want to work with people (because now I see this), is your story. It's not something that you have to tell, right? It's not something that you have to find all the details and get it right. You get to tell the story any way you want to tell the story. You get to own the story, instead of the story owning you. And that's where the creativity comes in.

And all of the guests on your show this season told their story in different ways, different creative ways. And it frees you. So then you can go out in the world and say, “Okay, I'm a human being with a certain level of energy and what do I want to do with this life?” Right? You deal with the story part, but then you can move on.

Which is for me, it's such a relief. I don't have to think about my story anymore, because I figured out how to tell it. And the way I figured out how to tell it was, “I'll just tell my story from my point of view because then no one can argue with me and tell me I'm wrong.” But it took me a long time to figure really basic stuff like that out.

Pam Cordano, MFT: I know that in individual therapy and also in group therapy, I try to find ways to hear the story or the essence of the story and then put it to the side. And then see what else wants to happen, because there's always more that wants to happen in this story. We all are imprisoned in our stories and they are hurting us, but we don't know what else to do and we want to make sure that they get their fair weight of the truth in them.

So today I had a client that came to my office who was in a story about her to-do list, that her to-do list is running the show in her life. So I got a big piece of paper and I sketched out this pretend to-do list with big boxes to check things off. And I put it on this table and I gathered the clocks in the office and put the clocks with the to-do list. And I had her stand up in the room and on the other side of the room, I put everything frivolous I could find.

I put these clay objects, I put this little funny plastic monkey thing, and a stuffed bear. And I put that on the other side. And so I asked her to kind of be, you know, walking around trying to figure out what she wants to do with her to-do list, because she says she wants to get out from under its control, but she says it's running her; she can’t. When she picked up the to-do list and she was actually thinking about getting it out of the room, but then she realized that her to-do list was actually keeping her safe. And she had an embodied experience, like a real experience of the fear she would feel without it. And so we're not done yet, but I had a relief, like, Okay, she just started to peek behind the story of the to-do list being so important and realizing that it's actually holding something together for her.

So, she's still grabbing on the to-do list and she went home without– We didn't work it out yet, but she's closer than ever to not being run by her to-do list, because I know that she's going to be thinking, Whoa, you know, there was more to this than I realized. Because she had an experience of it, and that really excites me.

So I feel like there's ways that the creativity and therapy can get around and under our stories. When I was training as an intern, we would use the whole group to help a person move beyond their story. So if these were cancer groups, so let's say there was a man with stage IV colon cancer and he's got a story that he always disappointed his mother, you know, and da dah, dah...

So somebody in the group would volunteer to be that story, and they would stand behind him and say, “You're such a disappointment, you've always disappointed me.” And they would be the mother giving him the story out loud. And then he would say, “Oh my God, my shoulders have so much tension.” So then somebody else would stand up and put their hands on his shoulders and provide some tension and then he might feel something else.

But we're trying to get these things out of the way so something new can happen and it's when something new can happen in our direct experience, that's when we start to heal this into becoming more of who we actually are. And we're not just trapped by these stories.

Anne Heffron: And when you see other people around you doing the same thing, I think, because in some ways terrifying to be an adoptee and to think, Well actually, who would I be without my story? Because maybe, it's the only thing we've had our whole lives, and even if it makes us feel like prisoners, it's still ours.

But you can look across the table and see, “Well, I see who you are without your story.” Right? “You're this beautiful person. You're so much without your story.” And then that gives you confidence that maybe you'd be okay without your story. I find that tremendously helpful.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah. I really believe in group healing and the power of group healing. It's contagious. We have these mirror neurons, you know, 30% of the neurons in our bodies are mirror neurons. So whatever's happening with you starts to happen with me and then it gets cooking. When groups are all about the story, people leave the groups feeling exponentially worse, you know?

And that's like a bad day on Facebook where it's like, “Oh my gosh, I can't believe this. I can't believe that.” Like trigger, trigger, trigger. But when things start to go well in a group and there's enough safety and people start taking risks to move beyond their stories, it becomes contagious and super powerful.

And then the challenge is: How do we integrate it after the group is over? How do we go back into our lives that are organized around our stories? And how do we start to actually translate the healing into our lives? But it's easier because now we know it. Now we know there's more.

Anne Heffron: And also you have community. I mean, you and I have only met face to face twice, but it feels like I've known you forever. And there's something about knowing, you know, when you work with people. Like Haley, even, you know, I've only met– Have I met you more than twice or just twice?

Haley Rider: Just twice

Anne Heffron: Feels like, yeah. I mean, but see, I can't even keep track because you're so on my mind. I love this, because what your intention is to be the best Haley possible. And that makes it easier for me to be the best Anne possible. It's energetic group work, even from a distance. It's amazing. I am a hippie and I'm in Santa Cruz. [everyone laughs] I'm all right with that.

Haley Radke: I don't know what to say to that. It's okay.

So, I love this idea, that group healing. Pam, you said, group healing (right before we started, I think), “Group healing is magnified healing.”

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah. I've been facilitating groups since, gosh, the mid nineties. My first experience with groups was after I got my master's in psychology, I was looking for a place where I wanted to have an internship and I was really drawn to working with cancer, even though I had never had cancer, and my family had never had cancer, and no one I really knew had ever had cancer.

But I know now that it was because when people suddenly get a diagnosis of cancer, the rug is—especially a bad diagnosis (like, you know, something that's incurable or a recurrence)... The rug is pulled out under their feet and everyone who knows and loves them, their lives are completely changed in that moment.

And something resonates for me as an adoptee with that kind of trauma of this quick shift from one world to another, one way of life to another. So I was really drawn to working with cancer because of that. And it was a place I could go and show up because of my adoption trauma. I know that now.

I was trained as an intern at this really wonderful, innovative cancer center and we would work with groups of about 20 people and everybody had a very serious diagnosis. It was people with cancer and their either significant other or someone, a friend, someone important to them. And we would all get together for 10 weeks, one day a week, all day for 10 weeks.

And it was my first experience of what a group could really do. There were ground rules like confidentiality, so we knew anything that was said was going to be kept private. And there were ground rules around not giving people advice and just letting people express themselves without any worry that they're going to have to deal with someone else's reaction to them.

And then we had all these really creative and innovative ways of working with people. And what I saw in the group was people who were dying like withering plants come back to life. It was like the group was water and sunshine to these plants. And even if they died, and many of them, most of them did, they got their twinkle back in their eyes and we had a lot of joy in the groups and people just came to life. I came to life.

And it was my first experience feeling like what a healthy family would feel like. To be an intern at this place, I had to participate for 10 weeks first and really experience it as a participant even though I didn't have cancer. And then I was able to start facilitating the groups with the main facilitators. But I felt like these people were like brothers and sisters, and that the facilitators were like parents. And I felt like they had my back and I felt like I had everybody else's back. And it was a “we” kind of a thing. And my life up until that point had been an “I” kind of a thing, like I felt on my own unless I was putting on a false front to try to survive and get through.

But I wasn't really connecting from a deeper place. And this was the first place I started to connect from a deeper place. It felt like the kind of internship or job that woke my heart up in a new way. And it was healing. It was healing to me. And then it let me know something about the power of groups.

One thing I was thinking about this good family kind of model is that when we feel safe in a group, we know that no one's going to share anything personal we say. We know that no one's going to give us advice or indulge in massive reactions to what we share. We have the space to start thawing, or fluffing up our feathers, or bringing deeper layers of ourselves forward.

And this is really what we're talking about before with creativity, where creativity is bringing something of the hidden life forward. And when we're in a group that feels safe, we can bring parts of our hidden lives forward. And it's not always about pain, and suffering, and trauma. Sometimes it's about humor and joy, and energy and vitality, and dreams that are unexpressed. And just space to be more of who we really are.

I think of groups as being really empowering to the hidden life that wants to happen, not just to the pain, and the trauma, and the darkness that has happened already. And that's maybe one of the most exciting parts. Something so wonderful for adoptees about being in a group is that we often don't see ourselves accurately.

We have our trauma that we live with, and we have whatever stories we tell ourselves about why we were given up for adoption and why we don't fit in, and why this, and why that, and everything wrong with us. And we have this traumatized brain that's just looking for problems to anticipate them and to protect ourselves, really.

So when we're in a safe group and we start to come forward with our hidden life, we start to be seen by people more accurately for who we really, really are and not for who we're pretending to be or passing as to be safe. And that is extremely empowering and exciting, because people don't know how great they are.

People don't know how aspects of them are so unique and appreciated by other people. And so they get witnessed in a group for the fuller picture of who they are, and then the roles they play in their life can expand to more roles. Like, I was always the rebellious, angry adoptee. And so to start to be seen in groups for my goodness and my kindness was just sort of—it changed my sense of myself. Like, Oh, okay, I still am a rebel and I'm still angry, but I'm also really kind. I'm not just bad. I'm also good.

That's so powerful in a group. And that's where groups are like magnified, healing because we don't just have a therapist who we're paying to… you know, it's easy to make up a story and say, Oh, okay, if I finally found an adoption competent therapist, and she's really nice to me and she doesn't argue with my level of trauma I'm describing to her, but I'm paying her. So what is it worth? Does it really matter? Is she just, you know, am I paying her to be nice to me?

But when you get in a group and you have all these people around you, people start to notice things and share how you're touching them and how you're impacting them. And then it's so much more believable to our whole nervous systems. We can kind of, it shakes up our sense of ourselves. We can go, Wow, maybe I am funny. Maybe I am edgy. I had no idea.

Haley Radke: That's amazing. That just like, is lighting my fire to get my support group started here.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah?

Haley Radke: Yes.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Do you hope for that with your support group for people to see each other and be seen in broader ways.

Haley Radke: Absolutely. And you're in the Facebook group. I have the secret one for Patreon supporters and guests, and it's been incredible to see how people share these really intimate struggles that they're having and sharing their deepest parts of them, just as you said.

And then the others come and say, “Oh my goodness, me too.” So that's an amazing level. And in the online community, it's so cool that we can do that. But the in-person is just one more level.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Right! Because our eyes are really receptors, you know, our eyes take in people's faces. And so when we have these faces in front of us that see us and aren't asking us to be different for them (they're just accepting us as we are). And then they're actually starting to love us (like to fall in love with us), and to value us, and to see things in us that we don't even really know. Our eyes drink that in and it changes us.

Our eyes are such important portals. And you know, originally that's what gazing is with babies and infants, is that infants are gazing at their mothers and their mothers are gazing at them. And ideally, that's drinking in being loved and being wanted on this planet.

But we don't all get that. I didn't get that. My eyes at first didn't even really want to look. I didn't want to see what people were gonna look like looking at me because I felt so ashamed of myself. And to wake up my eyes and kind of bring them back to life and be able to look at people looking at me, seeing something good and not just, you know, what I'm ashamed about was really powerful.

Haley Radke: That does sound powerful.

Pam Cordano, MFT: I think that safe and effective group work is worth a lot of individual therapy. I love individual therapy. I love going to individual therapy. I have a great therapist.

Anne Heffron: Tell her about the dog.

Pam Cordano, MFT: I heard a dog trainer say that when dogs are kind of neurotic, what helps them out is that they can walk off leash together in a pack. And we've got these fields. I live in Davis, California. We've got these fields outside of town and we have two dogs and our daughter has one close by. So we'll get the three dogs together and we'll take them off leash into these fields. And I always just think about that trainer saying, “Yeah, that kind of sets their minds straight or it heals them a bit in their, in the brain.”

And I think about us, we're pack animals. I know we're pack animals, too. We're tribal animals. And for me, the thought of adoptees healing in a tribe is so exciting. Like, I just think I've been kind of just sneaking doing it in these other communities. Like I've gone to Esalen and I've gone to all kinds of workshops (because I love them), but to actually have adoption be the center of it– Like, wow, what could happen there? So yes, group healing is exponential or magnified healing.

Anne Heffron: Well, think about what it feels like just in your body. If you're an adopted person and you walk into an office of a therapist who by some miracle is an adoption competent therapist, it's gonna feel incredible because you're gonna feel safe. But you're also one person. Imagine if 10 people walked into that room with an adoption competent therapist. It's like a life raft is sitting in the room, because all of a sudden… I mean, one of the things about adoption, at least for me, is this feeling of aloneness. Right? Like nobody really gets it.

This past year, after writing the book and having people write to me and say that they could have written the book themselves. That's a shocking thing. When I thought those thoughts had isolated me. And so just knowing that there's people out there that think the same way I do, this is what's made me so driven to have more of a healing community, because that's what I feel is missing. It's this, ‘Okay, now we recognize that we're in this together, but what do we do next?”

I mean, we've given ourselves permission to voice our pain, which is extreme.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Healing! And I'm not talking about coping skills. I'm talking about healing. Healing really requires going out of one's comfort zone. Of course it takes, like I said, it takes safety to do that, but it is really about taking a risk and having faith that there's something better for oneself than the story that has become really comfortable (like a comfy coat), that we don't want to take it off because we don't want to lose– That's the little bit we've got is, is that.

I mean, I've gone to groups before where I've thought, What if I didn't share that I was adopted? What if I didn't bring my adoptee trauma in? Could people ever really know me? And I've ultimately thought, No, they really couldn't. But sometimes something else wants to heal or something specific wants to heal, and it really takes courage to step into healing and out of the story.

Anne Heffron: It's hard. It's scary. I mean, it's—I wrote about this in my book, so I don't think my daughter would be mad, but there's, you know… When she was a little kid, she used to suck her thumb, which is a habit. And then we went to the doctor and he said she needed to stop sucking her thumb because it was messing up her teeth. She made it a day, because I said, “Okay, you can have all the candy you want. Every time you wanna suck your thumb. I'll just give you a piece of candy.” And at one point, at the end of the day, she was just kind of sweaty and she looked at me and she was staring at my face. And she said, “Mama.” And I said, “Yeah?” She said, “Can I suck on your nose?” [Everyone laughs.]

And there's that, you know, she's trying to grow up. You know, trying to change and be a big girl, but it's really hard. And when you do it in community–I was there for her, right? So I let her suck on my nose, which if you ever have a kid do that, it is a weird feeling.

But that, I mean it's a strange example, but that is healing and community because the next day she didn't do it, right? And then eventually, she wasn't sucking her thumb. But if it was up to her, she would've sucked her thumb for a very, very long time, because it's more comfortable. And even if you're an adoptee and you're living with your story, and you're in an unhappy marriage, and you're in a job you don't like, and your stomach hurts all the time, it's still safe to you.

And so it's scary to give up those things, even when they cause you pain. But what I found is, anything that scares you, it is a doorway of flames that's worth walking through. It is an invitation. So I used to avoid those doors and now if something scares me, like writing the book or doing Write or Die, I know that the fear, it's a…

I mean, there's a fear of walking into traffic. That's the kind of fear, it's not worth doing. But there I have a sense of, Okay, this is a fear I need to face. And at the other side, there's a world that I didn't even know existed. And so I have to sort of leap into the unknown and just make a game of it, have faith that I'm gonna survive, and that there's gonna be something on the other side. But when you're doing that with other people, it's less scary because then you can commiserate.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah. You know, like Haley, I was—my practice got too full this year and I was seeing all these women who are widows and they had so much in common. And I felt like if I started a group for them, they could see each other twice a month in a group and they wouldn't need as much individual therapy and it would be a lot cheaper for them.

And they would have a community to connect with. So we started that last February, and these eight women are just delightful. They've bonded with each other, they understand what each other is going through, and I just facilitate a resilience group for them. And they remind me of adoptees, because their life has changed suddenly and the main person they're bonded to has now died and they don't wanna be in this new world, but they're forced to be in it.

And their nervous systems are all screwed up. So we just had our final group of the year and we lit a barbecue, a fire, and a barbecue. And we burned these things that we wanted to let go of for 2017. And then we made these art projects where we wrote down things we wanted to cultivate and bring in for the new year, but the joy in these women is incredible.

And one of them just started to have knee problems. She's like close to 80. And these other women just showed up with walkers, and canes, and all these things for her. And it's like they have a community. So they're not needing to see me individually, because they've got each other. And so it's just a much better situation for them. And they're healing so much more rapidly than they would if they were all in individual therapy with me. And saving money. Now they can go travel together if they want.

Anne Heffron: With their walkers.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah, with their walkers. No problem.

Haley Radke: Well, just like you said, Anne, with people writing to you and saying, “Your book is so similar to my life.” I can't believe the emails I still get from people who just randomly happen upon the podcast and they're like, “This is the first time I've ever heard other adoptees voice these things.” And we've just kept them stuck and silent for so long.

Anne Heffron: I know. It's amazing, because when you start talking about it, you forget that it wasn't always like that.

Haley Radke: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Especially now we live in “Adoptee Land.” It's kind of like, “What do you mean, we're the first ones? You don't have all your friends that are adopted?”

Anne Heffron: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Okay, ladies, I wanna hear about your retreat.

Anne Heffron: What I wanted to create… So I had this opportunity where this famous person gave me her house for three months so I could create my book. And it was like this nest, and it was a miracle. And I was trying to think of, How could I…. So it took me three months to transform my life, and I was thinking, How can I give this to other people, but do it in a compacted way?

And I thought, Well, okay, number one, to make it go fast, you need a really good therapist. Right? Because this is hard stuff. And if you have focus and if you have support, this could go really, really well. There's something about checking out of your normal life for a couple of days. I wanted the retreat to be more than two days; be more than three days. It's a Thursday night, Friday, Saturday, and then a Sunday morning. That's a significant amount of time.

Your nervous system gets reset. You get to step out of your life for a while. You make these really good connections. And Pam and I get to dive in deep and with the writing, and with the different therapeutic exercises that we'll do. It's the thing that if I couldn't have written the book and done it that way, I would've wanted to do it this way. This is like the super express train to how to get really joyful.

Well, you know, joyful is not even the right word. I can't say that. I'm more myself since I wrote the book. It doesn't mean that I walk around laughing all the time. I mean, I'm still sad sometimes and I still feel confused, but I definitely feel a hundred percent more grounded in myself. And I think that the way Pam and I work together, there's—we just understand each other and our thoughts. It's like we're feeding each other.

And I wanted to share that with other people. And then I wanted these people that come to us and do this, they'll be their own group. They'll know each other forever for the rest of their lives. And they can teach other people.

And then, I mean, I hope this is the work I do for the rest of my life. I feel like everything I did is to get here: to help people free themselves. We only have this life, you know? I mean, maybe there's reincarnation, but let's just pretend that this is the only one. And you can blow it as an adoptee, you know, you can get so stuck that you die feeling like, Wow, I never got to be myself.

And I think that, you know, Haley, like you, I found you by some miracle, and then I found Pam through you, and then I found all these people through your show. And I don't really believe in coincidence, you know, I think everything happens for a reason. And I think Pam and I are really, really powerful together, and we have so much to offer, and I just wanna share it and have people feel excited.

Adoption, for all of its difficulties, you might as well make it an opportunity, right? Because you're stuck with it. So, let's see how great we can make it.

Pam Cordano, MFT: I happen to really believe in our power to heal, and there's that word “heal” again. Just like if I cut my finger, you know, get a paper cut, I know my body's gonna get to work right away and start healing my finger, even without me doing anything. And I think that for adoptees, given the right soil and given the right support, we can heal. And I think that what's been missing for us is the right soil and the right support.

So, I feel like I really trust that we want to heal, like we want to get freed up to live fuller lives and to connect more deeply and in a more satisfying way, and to become more the creator of our own lives, rather than just this object that was thrown around and bought and sold and treated, (well, in my case, unkindly). And, you know, we want to get back in charge of having our life be like a palette where we get to decide what we put in it and live the best life we can possibly live, whatever that means to each person.

So I believe in our ability to do this, and in some ways, working with people with terrible diagnoses, or becoming paralyzed in accidents, or losing vital people (like we all have, too). Seeing people heal has really shown me—like my body knows we all can heal. If we're given the right soil and help, we all can heal. And I know this. So I want this retreat to be amazing soil with amazing quality help. And I trust the process. I trust we get there and we do the right things in the right ways, we're gonna just naturally heal together and bond.

Anne Heffron: Seems inevitable.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah.

Anne Heffron: Plus it's in Berkeley, which is so beautiful. I love Berkeley.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah. So the retreat is going to be in Berkeley, California up in the North Hills (which is a beautiful area of Berkeley), right near this place called the Gourmet Ghetto, where you can walk down and get all kinds of amazing food.

But we picked a giant house that has a view and there's some rooms for rent in the house, or there's like Airbnbs or bed and breakfasts nearby in the neighborhood. We're gonna meet for four days. We're gonna have eight healing sessions. Each session will be three hours. So we're gonna have eight times three hours together.

And then we're also gonna have rest time and you know, take a walk, go explore Berkeley, get some sleep, whatever, you know. So time off as well, because people need time to integrate and just, you know, not just be with people all the time. I think there's some introverts coming who are gonna have their own rooms and just have a place they can just go retreat and get away from people if they need a break, you know?

And we're gonna be working in all kinds of ways with people. We're gonna be using art, we're gonna be using writing, we're gonna be doing a lot of being together. And I'll be facilitating ways of interacting and teasing out this, you know, what wants to come alive versus what's blocking you from coming alive.

And I think that the fact that we're all gonna be adoptees is gonna be just amazing, because there's so much we won't need to explain to each other. And that's just gonna take so many layers out of the way of getting close and connecting. The cost is $625 for the retreat. And then people book their lodging either with us in the house or nearby and pay for their food on their own.

I think we have six people who are signed up and others who are considering it and thinking about it. I think we have three or four people flying in from other places. We're really excited about it. We have a couple of young guys coming and college age, so that's gonna be an interesting mix of men and women, younger and older. And we just expect it to be a really nurturing and transformative experience.

So it's Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It's President’s Day weekend in the United States, so February 15th to 18th. It is gonna end at 1:00 on Sunday, the 18th. And then people in the United States won't have work the next day, so it's time then to either get home or have a day to just rest or integrate,

Anne Heffron: We're gonna come kidnap you, Haley. So have fun being there. [everyone laughs]

Haley Radke: If we're not able to come to your retreat, say we live in England, for example, or New Zealand. My New Zealand listeners wanna come, too, I've heard. Is there an activity that you might be doing at the retreat that you could recommend to us to maybe do at our next support group meeting?

Anne Heffron: I thought of something right off the bat. I think there could be that someone could be listening right now and feeling discouraged that if they don't have enough money, or they don't have enough time, and feeling left out: right off the bat, you could write the three reasons why you can't go to this retreat. And those three things will seem like problems. But what if those three things are—what if they're wonderful things? Like what if those three things are you? So it might be, the three reasons are, 1). I don't have enough money. 2). I don't actually like Berkeley. I swore I'd never go there again. And the third one is, 3). No one's gonna take care of my dog.

Well, you have three things to write about. And the first is, “I don't have enough money.” So tell the story. Write the story, write two pages of not having enough money. And it's not a pity party of not having enough money. It's, “What is it like to not have enough money?” And you treat it with seriousness and beauty, right? It's like you make a little movie out of it. And it's not that saying, “Oh, I wish I had more money.” It's just, “What does it look like when you don't have enough money?”

Or if you say, “I have to take care of my dog.” Well, write about your dog for two pages. It sounds really, really simple, but I think anything that gives you access to writing about your life in a way that's with careful attention is a form of prayer, and that's a form of escape from pain.

Haley Radke: Well, I definitely have FOMO (fear and missing out), so…

Pam Cordano, MFT: Can I add something to what she said?

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Pam Cordano, MFT: We have a lot of opportunities now to find people online who we connect with, and I would just encourage adoptees to find people that they feel very understood when they share something important to them. When people respond to you in a way where you feel like, Oh, they really got the essence of what I was trying to say, that's a good connection. And when you start to feel like you can move in the relationship: you can be serious, you could be joyful, you could be funny, you can play... All those things are indicators of a good quality relationship.

And so I think that we adoptees need to find as many people as we can. And who is better for us than other adoptees who understand the heart of the trauma, like the heart of the beginning of our lives. And so to have room to move in safe relationships that have many aspects to them is a wonderful thing. Even making subgroups, I mean, there was some talk about, you know, the “cool table” and the “not cool table" recently on some posting, but it's not about cliques. We should really be careful not to form cliques, because we all are so sensitive to rejection.

But trying to find people that just really resonate with us and where we feel good about ourselves, where we feel more like our best selves with them. And that's one thing I found with Anne, is when we talk (whether it's about a problem or about something good), I feel more of a sense of my best self with her. And it's unique, because she understands the pain that I understand. So it's great in that way for me. It's healthy for me to go to her, to call her, and be responded to if I need help. So that's maybe something I would say is: find the right people.

Anne Heffron: Yeah. And Haley, as far as the fear of missing out, I was thinking about— You know, Pam, when you were talking about how there was the mirror neurons, and then we're all connected. You know, Haley, it's like we are as adoptees, we are all connected. And so if one group is doing something, I think it influences everybody.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yes. And so it's like the ecosystem.

Anne Heffron: Right. Right. We're one huge group. And it’s an interesting thing.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah. And it's a thing that goes to the beginning of this podcast of us talking about how the creative episodes have influenced us, because they have. So what each of us is doing is affecting each other.

Anne Heffron: Exactly. Their successes are also my success because of that they're, “I know that they could do that. That means I could do it.” Even if it doesn't mean I'm gonna be a beautiful singer, but in some way. It's possible. Just even…

Pam Cordano, MFT: More is more.

Anne Heffron: Right. More is more, yeah. Like that. Especially with cake.

Pam Cordano, MFT: And connection, in our case. Adoption connection.

Anne Heffron: Oh, yeah. Gotta stop thinking about food. [Everyone laughs]

Pam Cordano, MFT: What I was thinking about your question, Haley, is that… I'll tell you about a really neat thing I've done with my women's groups this year. I have three groups in my private practice, and they're all with people who have some kind of major loss. What we've done is we've made bridges where they pick two points, either in the room or even outside. And one side of the bridge is the feeling of being constricted and afraid and feeling awful (kind of like how we adoptees feel on our worst days, like we just wanna go hide in a hole, or worse, just not even be here).

And then crossing the bridge, there's a threshold in the middle somewhere. And then the other side is where we feel more expansive and more connected, and we feel part of the world. And we're not just into conserving for our own wellbeing. We're more in touch with our generosity and wanting to share with others, and that's when we feel the best, that's how we are. We humans.

I've had people make their own bridges, they've done it on paper and then they've done a walking back and forth between these two sides and it's really walking between “trauma" and “not trauma.” And we all have those in us. We have the “trauma" and we have the “not trauma.” When we walk over to feel what the “trauma” feels like, and we feel constricted and tight—our muscles are tight, and our eyes are looking down, and we don't wanna be there, and we maybe have some pain... And just as we feel pain, or whatever.

Then walking to where we feel expansive. And we see the colors around us, and we see the world beyond us, and we know we're part of it and we have something to share, maybe. Once people start realizing that's a bridge that we live on all the time— Two hours ago, I might've been on the constricted side of the bridge and then now I'm on the more expansive and connected side of the bridge.

But we need to get to know our bridges, because this is really how we heal. Because when we're on that expansive side of the bridge, that's how we wanna feel. I mean, that's what Viktor Frankl was doing in the concentration camps. He knew he could go take a nap when he was exhausted and feeling awful, but he might go (he was a doctor), so he might go and do some medical treatment on somebody to help them out. And that was a more expansive, connected thing to do. And he knew that that mattered and it was meaningful to people and he felt better inside and he had that power to make that choice.

So anyway, getting to know this bridge is really important to me and it's important to me to help people that I work with (one way or another), get to know this bridge.

Haley Radke: So that's something that you could do together and then you sort of talk through the experience of being on one side or the other, or how it feels to be choosing your side or…

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, in a way it's really what a trigger is. Like we might be doing just fine and then suddenly we get triggered by something and we're—Boom! We're on the other side of the bridge and we feel awful.

And it can really feel like we don't have access to anything but that terrible side of the bridge. And we don't want to expand, you know, we don't want to connect. We just want to say, “F-you world,” you know? “I don't wanna be here.” And it can take a long time sometimes to get out of that. That's what being triggered really is, is like landing on the other side of the bridge. And it's horrible.

So, I mean, that's just a metaphor for how to work with it. But it's really the thing that I think that (to me) is what healing is, is like knowing that there's a bridge and knowing how to put one foot in front of the other and get back across it, and getting more and more familiar with the path so that it's not—It doesn't take so long. You might start to take 30 minutes instead of three months.

Haley Radke: When I was talking to Nicole, the art therapist in one of the episodes in Season Three, she was talking about drawing a bridge and what's on each side. And she gave a really great exercise. So if you want to go back and listen to that, that would be something that people could do on their own.

Okay. Can you talk a little bit about what is different about a retreat (like a small intimate retreat like this, with two of you leading), versus a conference situation where you're going to different lectures and workshops? And even some, they have a theme of healing, but it seems like that's an unfulfilled promise. You get to the end of the weekend and there's, you know… It's an unfulfilled promise.

Anne Heffron: I can address that. There's something about when you go into a conference… For me, I feel very, very exposed because there are a lot of other people who are also feeling really exposed, but there isn't one common—

Well, we're all there. I mean, why do people go to adoptee conferences? They go there to connect and learn, but it's very loose. And I think when you go to a retreat, you inherently have a weighted blanket over you, because this is something you're doing for yourself. You don't have to take care of yourself in the same way. It's like you're sitting in a comfortable chair and you get to sit back because Pam and I are running the show. When I went to a writing retreat with about 10 people, it just felt so decadent and I felt like I was doing this for me.

Pam Cordano, MFT: One of the key differences is that (I can't speak to every retreat), but I've had really good retreat experiences, both as an attendee and as a person facilitating retreats. But to me, retreats are safe places to explore new territory, within. And to open up new doors.

And to me, when I go to conferences, I'm more in learning mode and I have a guard up, because I might see someone I'm scared of, or I might have a bad interaction. It's so big. There's not like a safety nest built in. So retreats to me are safe and intimate and they're places to go deeper inside and to heal.

Like I know with my license, I have to go get a certain amount of educational units and I used to go to conferences to get those units, so I could learn about this and that. But now I go to places where I can experience something in an intimate, safe setting, so that I can grow while I'm getting my units. Retreats are like therapy and conferences are like education and networking.

Anne Heffron: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely feel like after a conference I have to do a whole lot of self-care. Where after a retreat, a retreat is the self-care.

Pam Cordano, MFT: I mean, the thing that people might have to recover from after a retreat is growing, because when we grow beyond the ways our lives are organized, that's a bit stressful, because we have to then figure out, how are we going to make room for this new thing in our current lives? But that's growing.

Anne Heffron: Right. Right.

Pam Cordano, MFT: It's like molting, how snakes molt.

Haley Radke: Well, I love what you talked about earlier, Pam, about the experiences and how that changes you and just the experiential nature of a retreat and all the different hands-on activities and things that I imagine that you're planning.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah. I mean, my hope is that people are mostly in their direct experience network, where they're mostly directly experiencing the nourishment of the view and the safety of kind responses when they share something, and the direct experiences that Anne and I bring to the retreat itself. And delicious coffee, or tea, or whatever.

I love the air in Berkeley. It's like wonderful air. And that's all direct experience and I wouldn't want people to have much of a chance to get too far into their default networks, because that's just not what it's about. That's just fortifying the old fortress of pain.

Anne Heffron: Well, it's also like a nurturing river. You're not just being thrown into an ocean and say[ing], “Good luck!”

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah. No, we would be setting up a whole structure for safety at the beginning, you know, from confidentiality to how we talk to each other at the retreat. I'm pretty strict about that stuff, because I know what stuff makes us feel safe and what doesn't in a group. People need space to share without having to worry that they're gonna get, you know, disagreed with or advised or any of that stuff. We don't do any of that. That's not helpful to growing.

Oh, I have a little anecdote, which is that I sent a copy of the writeup to Nancy Verrier, because she was my adoptive mom's therapist for 15 years. And she lives right there near Berkeley, so this is like right near her community. And she's turning 80 this year and is mostly doing phone work now and still some conferences and things. But she was saying she loved the title, because she's really been focusing on moving forward into healing, too, herself. She likes that what we're offering is also fitting with the way she's approaching her work these days (which is more about healing and less about just kind of the very important part of taking inventory of just how bewildering and upsetting this entire thing is). Speaking for myself. You know, it's important that we get our bearings around how hard this has been, but also, and then what do we do?

Anne Heffron: Which is essentially what Haley's been doing with this whole third season, right? Like the first two seasons you're telling the stories and now you're kicking into creativity. A beautiful thing.

Haley Radke: It's something we've talked about before, briefly, about spiritual bypass. Just that very thing you just said, Pam, about recognizing it and acknowledging it, and then you can do the healing.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Exactly. It's really about being grounded in the gravity of this whole institution and how it's impacted people who are hurting from their experiences of being adopted, without minimizing anything. And then it's the, “Then what?” “Then what do we do?” “How do we let our traumatized systems, whether it's ways we've been calling to the wrong places, calling to addictions, calling to people who aren't really there for us?” “And how do we start calling for the right things and getting responded to the right ways so that our lives can become better and we can heal?”

Anne Heffron: My life is definitely a million percent better with you two in this, for sure.

Pam Cordano, MFT: I feel that way, too. You guys make sense to me.

Anne Heffron: Yeah, exactly. That’s a good way to put it.

Haley Radke: It's so good to speak the same language.

Anne Heffron: Yeah.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yes. My nervous system's happy right now.

Anne Heffron: Yeah.

Pam Cordano, MFT: I can laugh.

Haley Radke: Well, it has been so lovely to talk to you ladies, and I so appreciate all the different pieces of wisdom and amazing insights that I got from you.

Can you tell us again where can we find the information for the retreat? And where can we connect with you online?

Anne Heffron: The Facebook group for the retreat is called Beyond Adoption: You. I can be reached on my Facebook page, at Anne Heffron, or my email is anneheffron@gmail.com.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah, the best way to reach me is through my email, which is pcordano@comcast.net. That's P-C-O-R-D-A-N-O@comcast.net.

Anne Heffron: Remember, we're kidnapping you.

Haley Radke: Oh my gosh. I love you girls so much. So fun to chat with you. Did you know I have a monthly newsletter? It's new, sort of. There's only been two so far, and I'm sending my next one in about a week. It's a place for me to share my personal thoughts with you and also any behind the scenes news of the show, like what's coming up for Season Four, the theme and dates of the launch, all that good stuff.

If you'd like to be among the first to be in the know, you can sign up on adopteeson.com/newsletter. If you are passionate about helping adoptees and want to move our voices forward, come and partner with me. Adopteeson.com/partner has all the details. I've had this goal for 50 patrons for a while, and it would be so amazing to hit that before I launch Season Four.

So if you've been on the fence or you've thought about supporting the show, but just haven't pulled the trigger yet, it would mean so much to me. I take monthly pledges that help pay for the cost of hosting and producing the show for you. And I have some great thank you gifts for you, including a secret Facebook group. There's even some unedited episodes of the show if you need something to tide you over until Season Four. So that's adopteeson.com/partner.

This is the Season Three finale. What does that mean? When will the show be back? I'm gonna take a brief break, friends, and I'm gonna be starting to record Season Four and you'll likely see a few healing episodes in your feed here and there just before Season Four gets going.

So make sure you're subscribed in your favorite podcast app and you won't miss an episode. But I will miss talking to you every week, so I can't wait until Season Four starts up again. I just love you listeners. I love connecting with you on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter is my favorite. But I am active on all of those social media platforms.

So you can come find me @Haley Radke and also @Adoptees On. So I look forward to chatting with you on social media during the break and make sure you subscribe to the newsletter so that you will know when the date is of our launch. Thank you for listening. Let's talk again soon.

Outtakes

Pam Cordano, MFT: There's my dog again. Someone just rang the doorbell. Probably someone selling encyclopedias.

Haley Radke: Do they still do that?

Pam Cordano, MFT: No.

Haley Radke: Hopefully it's someone selling chocolate.