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.

54 Nicole R. - Our Story Isn't Told

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/54

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is Season Three, Episode 14, Nicole R. I'm your host Haley Radke. Nicole Rademacher is a multicultural adoptee and a professional contemporary artist. She tells us about her reunion with her biological parents and her two brothers, and how it has informed her creative practice.

Nicole lets us in on some of her projects, including one that is still in the works, and I'm still in awe of the brilliance of it. We wrap up with some recommended resources and, as always, links to everything we talk about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Nicole Rademacher. Welcome Nicole.

Nicole Rademacher: Hi. Thank you for having [00:01:00] me.

Haley Radke: Oh, I'm so excited to chat with you. I know you do a ton of different things, which hopefully we'll touch on everything. But why don't you start out and just share your story with us.

Nicole Rademacher: I am a multicultural adoptee. My biological father is Mexican and my biological mother is white. I grew up in a white family. I was adopted into a white family with an adopted brother. So I grew up always knowing I was adopted. I have a really great relationship with my adoptive family.

I always wanted to search out my biological family. It was something that was, ever since I can remember, that was something I wanted to do. I was adopted in Wisconsin, in Milwaukee through Catholic Social Services. I remember when I was 18, I called Catholic Social Services in Milwaukee. They told me when I turned five, they changed the age from 18 to 21. And I was devastated.

Yeah. I was like, No! But I [00:02:00] finally turned 18 and my adoptive parents are super supportive. When I turned 21, I was kind of in a different, you know, 21-year-old state. But just before I turned 26, with the encouragement of a friend of mine, I contacted Catholic Social Services again and filled out the paperwork. I happened to be finishing my undergraduate degree and so I actually got to do it for free, which was pretty exciting.

You know, I thought this was gonna take ages. I'd read about searches where you never find your biological parents or they find you and they don't or they can't meet with you or meet you. You just never get that connection. But I was really fortunate that, I mean, I think I was fortunate that three months later in March of that same year, I was contacted by a social worker and he [00:03:00] had found my biological parents because my biological grandparents, my maternal grandparents had never moved.

And so he still had that same contact information. And my biological parents were married two years after I was born.

Haley Radke: To each other?

Nicole Rademacher: Yes, to each other. Right? Like that's really beautiful and really amazing. And I have this whole family and I have two younger brothers that are full younger brothers.

But it was, uh, really difficult. I mean, as any adoptee that finally meets your biological parents, it's. I remember this bath that I took that was like this eternal bath where I just kept looking at my skin and touching each part of my skin and realizing that it belonged to something other than just me, because for the first 26 years of my life, it had only belonged to me.

And I didn't look like, I mean, even though I grew up in a white family and I totally passed for [00:04:00] completely white, my parents are Nordic and tall and blue eyes and big bones, and I'm, you know, I'm petite. I'm 5 foot two, with dark hair and brown eyes. But it was weird, right? Because you are supposed to be super happy.

But I felt this added layer of, I guess it's rejection. I don't know what the word is. It took me, once I found that out, it actually took me a long time to call them and make the contact. I remember very specifically, like I wrote it. Really, I was shaking. I was at work when he called me and gave me the information, I just kind of stared at that number and those names for weeks and didn't know what to do with it.

I called and I got voicemail and so I hung up and I called again and I got voicemail and I just like wasn't calling at the right time. You know, I remember I talked with him and I don't remember the specifics, but yeah, it's this big [00:05:00] blur of emotions.

Haley Radke: Hmm. Can you talk a little bit more, Nicole, about knowing that your parents stayed together and had more kids and what does that feel like?

Nicole Rademacher: It's kind of cool in one sense because my adopted brother and I, like, there was so much that we could have done to bond as adoptees, but we never did that.

They were just really different people. So it's cool to have another two other options as brother, you know? But it's also like, I don't know. Like if they had kept me and then we'd live together, like would these two people exist? Would I be the older sister? I mean, yeah, but it's tough.

It feels like, especially now being a mom and having a child and he didn't come at a super opportune time, my child. We’d been talking about having kids, but not at the moment that he came. And so there is a bit [00:06:00] of resentment or something at that. I don't know if it's resentment towards them, but it's like, Couldn't you have, like, toughed it out? Couldn't you have figured it out?

But, you know, they were 19, and I remember when I was 19. Thinking like this is the age that they were, and knowing that I was still just a child. So I mean, I have a lot of empathy, but I also have a lot of just unresolved emotions around it. There is an anger, but I think my anger is not as strong, I think, if I don't know.

It's not, it's not as strong as maybe it was before, but like before it was masked by all these other things because I thought I was supposed to be super happy 'cause I was 26 when I met them and really unsure of who I was. I really thought I was still in the fog, right?

And so then learning that, I was like, Well, I'm supposed to be happy. This is [00:07:00] really amazing. Like I don't have to find my biological mother and my biological father, like both of my biological parents, they're together, and I have this whole family and it's like picture perfect and we'll just tie a bow and it's great.

Haley Radke: And yet, what happened next?

Nicole Rademacher: And so I, being 26 and thinking it was this picture perfect bow, like they sent me pictures of them and that was profound. Just seeing my own physical attributes mirrored in ancestors and in people. Within or maybe a month later, I went down and met them all and being the ideological person that I am, I stayed with them for, I think, a week and a half.

Haley Radke: Oh, wow.

Yeah. I know, I didn't know what I was doing. I would never do that now. And I was like, Well, I have a [00:08:00] family so I'm gonna be in this family. Right? My youngest brother was 16 at the time, and so he was in the house, and no one knew what to do. You know, like now looking back at it, it's been 13 years, I didn't know what to do.

I think my brother who was 16 was the only person who knew what to do because he was totally oblivious to all these emotions that were going on. But no one else really knew what to do. You know, like, how do you treat this person that's your child, that's not your child, that you haven't known, that you didn't raise.

And so even though they look like me. I really do look like both of them and I act like them too, which is, you know, that profound thing about genetics. Yet they didn't know me and I didn't know them. And so here we are as adults trying to get to know one another and I didn't see it then. And like the following year I was living in [00:09:00] Europe.

They came to visit and we went on this month-long trip together, and that was when the [censored] kind of hit the fan. There was one point where I did something emotionally, or like I talked to my youngest brother in a certain way, and there was a lot of tension and I had no idea I had done this.

And my biological mom said something to me like, Oh, you really hurt Luis. And I was like, Well. Luis needs to tell me that. You know, and it was like really in your face. Like, who are you? What are you? You are not my mom. He's my brother because he's my brother and he'll always be my brother, but I don't know him.

And I think we still go through these things. Um, I talk with them often. My, who is now the middle brother who grew up as the oldest, his girlfriend's sister lives in Los Angeles where I live, and [00:10:00] so he'll often end up coming here and visiting. And so we have this growing relationship and we're growing it like you do with your extended family, like with your cousins if you don't live in the same area.

I mean, I don't live in the same area as the cousins I grew up with, my cousins that are part of my adoptive family, and so we're growing it that way. You know, there's still weird hurdles. I think for the last two, three years I've really been delving into the adoptee community at least here in Los Angeles, and digitally as well, which is, you know, how I found Adoptees On.

It's really helped me to understand who I am and how all these pieces fit in together and how my relationship is with my biological family. I think it helps that too. It helps me understand the situation that they were in and kind of calms [00:11:00] the anger because I can logically think about it and understand that. But still allow me to feel those emotions, if that makes sense.

Haley Radke: Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I have talked to so many adoptees, more than I would expect, that have been in your situation, who have searched and then found their bio parents are married and have more kids, full siblings, and it's just, like, it sounds unusual, but it actually happens quite a bit.

And so I just think that's so much to process, which is why I asked you kind of how you felt about it, to give some language to people about that. I don't know. It's for me, you know, when I found my parents were teenagers and so there's this sense of understanding of why they couldn't parent [00:12:00] and yet still, there's a lot of feelings like, Well, why didn't their parents help them? And, you know, so it's just like the mixed bag. I feel like we're always like walking that line. Right?

Nicole Rademacher: Yeah. And I think, you know, as an adoptee you always feel like you're this singular being, you're this island out there because you're growing up in this place where no one's mirroring. You're not mirroring anybody and you don't look like anybody around you. And then from all the tales you've ever been told of people who find or could possibly find their biological family is, you know, the parents aren't together and they're all messed up and all of this stuff and blah, blah, blah.

Then I find out that my parents are together and actually they're in a higher tax bracket than my adoptive parents. And you know, [00:13:00] it's like, it's really fantastic. And you know, and then you feel like, Oh, I must be this anomaly. I'm finding that I'm not an anomaly. There's lots of us out there.

And then I know that you've talked to so many adoptees. You know, we do exist and there's a lot around that and I actually, I mean we'll talk about this in a little bit, but that's one of the things that I'm processing in my creative practice. It’s this idea of what could have been that never was.

You know, it's not even trying to decide whether one thing was better, because that's, you know, don't talk about that. Like, I don't wanna think about that. But to sit in a space that never existed and just kind of let it be and feel your feelings with that and just give yourself the space to do that, or I'm giving [00:14:00] myself the space to do that.

Haley Radke: It's so wild to think about back to when we were born and just that, that life ended there. And there's a different life that we're living. I love that, giving yourself an opportunity to process that. And so many of us just, we either go there and we really fantasize about it, or we just totally block it out.

Nicole Rademacher: Yeah. I mean, and it's all good. Like, I've found myself, because that family exists, really kind of daydreaming about it, and I'm like, I don't think this is really healthy for me. I don't think that this is really helping me. So, trying to figure out a space where I'm allowed to do that, but I'm not carrying it too far, where maybe it's [00:15:00] wasted energy, you know, where I really need to concentrate on what's here.

But I don't want to shame myself into not being allowed to think about that.

Haley Radke: That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Okay. I was just like, oh my gosh. So you hinted at it, Nicole, what do you do?

Nicole Rademacher: I am a professional contemporary artist. The point of departure in my work is my adoption and my reunion with my biological family.

So I look at nonverbal communication between people as a starting point and really kind of look at gesture, space and object as cultural facts of that and kind of look at identity construction, ideas of belonging, intimacy, alienation. I've been really delving into ethnography and psychology. So it's not just about me and [00:16:00] my experience.

So I'm starting to understand it in context and how it's shaped by the world around us and how my experiences might also relate to other people and other people who are not adoptees as well.

Haley Radke: And what are some of the types of projects that you would work on?

Nicole Rademacher: So I have a couple projects that are kind of half today that I'm working on right now. I just wanna talk about one of them because it's the one that I hinted at. And then the other projects I'm working on are really community based. So the project I'm working on has the working title “Invisible Images.”

It's taking photographs of my biological family, of them as a family and then figuring out how old my younger brothers are, and then finding a picture of me, like doing the math, it's not very hard doing the math, and trying to find a picture of me. Not at the same age, but at the same time.

So I'm 11 years [00:17:00] older than my youngest brother, so if he looks like he's one, I'm trying to find a photograph of when I was 12 and using this optical toy that was popular in the 19th century. It's called a thaumatrope, T-H-A-U-M-A-T-R-O-P-E. And basically it's this disc, on one side it's one picture, on the other side, it's another picture.

So using the theory of persistence of vision, where basically you oscillate it back and forth and it appears in your mind that the images are together even though they're separate. And it's dealing with this idea that they'll never be together. Like this reality never happened, but what if it did happen?

And then it would be, and so it's only happening in my mind, right? And it's only happening in the mind of whoever's looking at this thaumatrope. And so the strings, there's strings tied to each side, and they're twirled really quickly between the [00:18:00] fingers so that these two pictures blend together. Does that make sense?

Haley Radke: Yes. And I'm just like having my jaw open, like I'm having this moment. Wow, that's incredible.

Nicole Rademacher: And I actually need help to do this because it's so emotional for me and a good friend of mine is helping me. She is actually tracing the images, so I'm finding the images and then I kind of stare at them for a while and I look at them in Photoshop together and kind of freak out, and it's a little bit too emotional for me to draw the images, and so she's actually drawing the images for me.

Haley Radke: What I'm picturing is, uh, sometimes when I go to my bio family's house and every once in a while, you know, they'll bring out some pictures and just looking at old family photos is so difficult for me. Like I love it. I wanna take it all [00:19:00] in and I wanna absorb it all. And yet I'm always like, I'm not in any of these pictures.

It's very triggering. And I have literally pictured, what was I doing at this exact time? And so that's why I'm just like, that's amazing. I love that you thought of that.

Nicole Rademacher: So, I mean, my bio mom. When we met, she gave me a scrap she had put together. She's so lovely. And she had put together the scrapbook of them for me, of her and my biological father before I was born.

So like them when she went to visit them in Mexico and my aunts and uncles, both in Mexico and in Milwaukee, and all my cousins and my younger brothers and, you know, just this scrapbook. And so that's where those pictures are coming from. Otherwise, I don't know. I wouldn't know how to ask her for them, you know?

And I asked my mom, my adopted mother, I asked her to send me a bunch of pictures and she just went through stuff and just [00:20:00] started sending me things and she has no idea what I'm using them for. And I usually post stuff on Instagram or whatever, just to like process based, but I can't bring myself to do it because they all follow me on Instagram.

I feel like I'm not doing anybody right by doing it, but I know I need to do it. So, I don't know. My biological maternal grandfather died recently and I was so touched by actually being included in his obituary, right? I was like, yeah, I do belong.

Haley Radke: I'm actually here. I am in this world.

Nicole Rademacher: Yeah. So, yeah, so like I said, it's half baked. I don't actually know where it's going. I don't know if I use the objects. Right now the objects are just experiments. Oftentimes, doing visual work I usually work in video, so I don't know if they become videos of that and then the object is next to it. I'm not sure where that's going.

Outside of that piece, I have a couple different [00:21:00] community-based projects that I'm working on. One I'm kind of in a pause at 'cause recently in the fall I did a bunch of workshops around it. It's called “Origin Stories,” so it's a community-based artistic project.

It began as just an artistic project where I was exploring these imagined histories that I had as a child. Everyone imagines that you're something else when you're a kid, but as we all know, as adoptees, there's more staying power to the stuff you imagine as an adoptee, especially in a closed adoption, because you could be anyone or anything.

I had always latched onto this idea. I knew my biological father was Mexican, but I grew up in North Carolina and with a white family, and so I had no context for what Mexican meant. I had no idea of what Mexican culture was [00:22:00] except for what I'd learned in social studies class. And I grew up in the eighties, so I knew that there were Aztecs in Mexico. And I grew up in the eighties with Disney and Disney princesses, so I fashioned myself to be this long lost Aztec princess.

And at the same time, I did not have a studio at the time, so I had some space in my house that I was working in, but I didn't really have a lot of time to myself.

I have a son and he was one and a half. So anybody who has kids knows that you don't have a lot of time for yourself. But the one thing I did have is my commute and anyone who lives in Los Angeles knows that commutes can be really long. I had all this time in the car to talk to myself and I began to elaborate on the story and kind of just expand and [00:23:00] explore what it was or what it could be.

And this was the same time that I started going to Adopt Salons with Jeanette Yoffe, who is an MFT here in Los Angeles, also an adoptee. And so that was really the time when I felt I could explore myself as an adoptee and I could explore my community and I really could explore what that particular thing means in my work as an artist.

So I just started creating the story and I'll be this long-lost Aztec princess or indigenous princess, or whatever. I'll make up this story for how this, how this girl came to be. I researched fairytales and I researched oral histories, and so I was like, Well, I'll do this in the oral history tradition. And so I never wrote it down. Every day or almost every day, I would just continue to tell the story and get further and further and further.

In the end, I realized that it really wasn't about [00:24:00] my story, it was about the fact that I could imagine the story and then how can I, as an artist and also somebody who works with the community, how can I inspire, or how can I help be a witness to other people figuring out what their story is or imagining their story.

So that's really how the workshop evolved. So it's called “Origin Stories” and it's been going on, I guess, for a couple years. Originally, it was designed to empower adopted and foster people to record their unique histories. It's about a two-hour workshop.

And the attendees, the participants work in groups to create a story using visual prompts. People will come to the workshop. I'll tell my story as an adoptee and [00:25:00] give a background of the project. So I tell them the same thing as far as imagining myself as this long-lost Aztec princess. And then we talk a little bit about storytelling and what goes into storytelling.

And then in the beginning we're using these tarot cards as visual prompts so that people, you know, people who aren't usually creative always get really shy about it, even though everybody has this creativity. And so I wanted people to be relaxed about it, that they didn't have to invent everything, that they could, you know, rely on different things.

But as I started to work with my community of adoptees and foster youth, I realized that the tarot cards I was using really, um, even though I hand chose them from different decks, really didn't speak to who they imagined themselves to be or who they wanted to be in the future. I began to expand it to the general public, to artists, to people who felt marginalized because I think that's who we are [00:26:00] as adoptees.

We feel marginalized, our story isn't told. Our narrative is like this same narrative that none of us really feel connected to about being saved or lucky or you know, whatever, whatever it may be. And so after the storytelling part, there's this card making part. They make these three by five cards that is something about themselves or something that resonated with them about the stories that they tell in this group. And then those cards are scanned and put into a deck that then get recycled back into the workshop.

You come in, we talk as a group. I tell my story. We go into the storytelling part, where you work in a group of three to five, create the story. You tell it back to the group. And then we take out the crayons and the markers and the watercolors and the drawing pencils and the collage [00:27:00] materials, and then you're asked to create a card of something that resonated with you in the story or something that speaks to you and who you identify as.

Haley Radke: And so what does that do for you and the participants to really write this sort of fictional, alternate story and process that way? Like what, what are some of the things that you're seeing happening from doing this?

Nicole Rademacher: Well, it's been really interesting because as I opened it up to the general public and to people who felt marginalized, I started to realize how many people feel marginalized and how isolated a lot of us feel, whether or not we're adoptees, and how we as adoptees can kind of connect with these other groups.

The workshop itself is I'm sharing something intimate. They're not very large workshops. I think the largest has been 25 people. I'm sharing [00:28:00] something really intimate and I'm asking people to share this time with me. I also do these breathing exercises beforehand to like ground everybody.

Really like the social emotional part of it so that there's this understanding that we're going to share this time together and it's gonna be something personal. And it's not just a workshop. Oh, I'm gonna come and learn how to collage something. It's about something different and it's about something I'm asking them to go a little bit deeper.

And I've been really surprised by what people have done. Some people wanna talk about it and some people don't wanna talk about it. I also still do them with adoptees. And one adoptee had this tracing paper on top of hers and it said “death.” And then when she went to share it with the group, because it was in this adoptee group where we actually go back and talk about it, she took the tracing paper off and just showed the collage and the drawing underneath.[00:29:00]

And I was like, But wait, but you know, I can't say it 'cause she took it off. So there's something where people are connecting with this idea of they can really imagine themselves as anything and who could they be?

Haley Radke: Processing our identity in so many different ways is so powerful when you're talking about, you know, inviting the general public in that has been marginalized in some way also, and having them identify with adoptees.

I have some listeners now that don't have any tie to adoption, and yet they find commonalities with us and some of the different experiences that we share and feelings and et cetera. And I just find that so fascinating. So I love that you are doing that as well and finding those connections.

That's so cool.

Nicole Rademacher: Yeah, and it's interesting because like, oh, in [00:30:00] passing talk with people about just being an adoptee and kind of not feeling like you belong or these ideas of identity and family, things will resonate with them. But then when you spend like two to three hours with them, then you're seeing them produce something creative and I'm facilitating it.

So I'm not actually creating the stories with them, but I'm listening to this story and to that story. And the stories were really kind of amazing because half of it was fiction, or part of it was fiction, and another part was based on one person in the group, something that happened to them and then another person, it's based on something that happened to a friend of theirs or a family member of theirs.

And so it's all this fact and fiction that's all mixed together, and people can't help but bring that in. And then from an activism standpoint, we have to find [00:31:00] connections with other people out there and other communities that are bigger than ours that are fighting for their rights as well and fighting to be heard and for their voice and their narrative to be changed. And I think if we can really harness that, then, you know, we have a way in.

Because there's so many people right now fighting to have their narratives in the general collective society be changed. And I don't know if we're on the top of that, you know, near the top of that list at all. So I think that if we can figure out how to figure out those connections with the other communities that are also marginalized. And commonalities. You know, like people have to bond together. Whether or not you're part of the same group. We all are fighting for common goals.

Haley Radke: And I think there's something to this, like we are showing up [00:32:00] and saying, You know, we're adopted. It actually was a trauma. These are the ways it's impacted me.

Any way we can flip people's picture of adoption. Right? Any way, and to start out by showing our heart and our wounds to someone else, and that's what they can see and that's what they can identify and understand with, like, that's amazing. Oh my gosh, Nicole, that's so cool. I love that you're doing this.

I just wanna go back. You said it's an oral tradition, meaning these don't get written down? Does anybody record them?

Nicole Rademacher: I audio-record them. Right now I've just been saving the audio recordings. I need to go edit them and put them into the archive. I have an archive of the workshops I've done since April, which is since April it's been with the whole card part of it. [00:33:00] That's on my website, and it includes some images of people in the workshop and then some of the cards that have been made in the workshops. Once I finish editing the audio, I'll start adding those to it, and those will just be the stories that people tell.

Haley Radke: Wow. As an avid audio consumer. Did you know that about me? I don't know how, how could anyone tell?

Nicole Rademacher: I didn't know that. (shared laughter)

Haley Radke: No? I know. It's a surprise. Um, that's amazing. Oh, I love that so much.

Nicole Rademacher: I'm a little behind on my audio editing.

Haley Radke: Why does it take a long time? (more shared laughter)

Oh, so good. Okay. Thank you so much for sharing about that. Let's go on to recommended resources. And I mean, for me, your website and all of these different things you've done is an amazing resource for people to check [00:34:00] out. And so you're gonna share that right at the end of the show where we can get in touch with you. But I love that you're adding these audio things from “Origin Stories” and you have videos.

You have, like, it's the works, like all your work is up there. It seems like there's probably not everything, but yeah. Tell us a little bit about what else we can find up there.

Nicole Rademacher: The “Origin Stories” is there. “Gate Path,” which is a piece that I did that was up at LAX airport and that actually looks at privacy and security, which also stems from, you know, my ideas of and my experience as an adoptee.

“Potential Spaces,” which is a project that I did thinking about hybrid cultures as somebody who's in multicultural relationship. And then also growing up as a multicultural adoptee.

“You Are A Perpetual Tourist” which was my thesis piece for my Master of Fine Arts, and that's really [00:35:00] looking at nonverbal communication between children and adults in their lives.

And this is all found subjects. And so really trying to as a voyeur, as an observer, which I find, I don't know if you find this as an adoptee. You're always looking at how people are interacting and who people are, and always wondering if that's somebody you're related to and you're just kind of like dissecting all these little parts about what's going on.

Haley Radke: Oh, yes. Like I feel like I am a people-watcher, but like exponentially.

Nicole Rademacher: Yes, yes! So I took my people-watching skills that I had been honing my entire life and with my video camera and looked at kids in public spaces and how they related to one another.

Haley Radke: There's a video of what looks like a little family and there's a little [00:36:00] boy and they're at the bus stop.

Nicole Rademacher: Yes.

Haley Radke: Oh my God. That's part of it. I just watched that and I was like, oh my goodness, this is incredible. It's very short and there's no words or anything. It was really moving.

Nicole Rademacher: Oh, good. Thank you.

Haley Radke: Oh yeah, so there's all these little gems on Nicole's website, so you should definitely go and look at it. It's just really, really amazing. You're doing such cool stuff.

Nicole Rademacher: Thank you.

Haley Radke: You're welcome. I mean it, I mean it. You had sent me a link to the Celia Center Arts Festival. Can you talk a little bit about that? And Brian Stanton, actually I interviewed him. And he said, Oh yeah, Nicole did this whole thing. And this is what he was talking about.

Nicole Rademacher: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So Jeanette Yoffe, she's a marriage and family therapist who's also an adoptee here in Los Angeles. She actually got me and Brian together, so I curated the visual art [00:37:00] portion and Brian programmed, I guess is the proper term you use. He programmed the performing arts part of it, but it was a day-long festival of adoptee work. So we had professional artists as well as adoptees or foster youth that are still teenagers that sent in work.

We exhibited at the Electric Lodge here in Venice, and it was really amazing because we had like over 200 people that came, and we had workshops and we had the performances and we had spoken word poets and then we had all of the artwork up and we had like a couple videos that were going on around too. Like there was a documentary. Brian did his performance at the very end. It was like the show-closer. It was just amazing.

Haley Radke: Oh, Blank. Blank is so good. So good.

Nicole Rademacher: Oh, it's so moving. It's just [00:38:00] no words for that. We also had a panel of some of the professional artists that were involved in the show to talk about their experience. And that was really moving for me and I just moderated it.

But there was one artist, John Christiano. He's a sculptor here in Los Angeles and he had found the call, I think, through Facebook, or something like that, and sent in this sculptural work. And I realized that he'd had a career, you know, he's like an actual professional artist and has studied and sells work and works in a studio.

And so I invited him to be on the panel and he was fine with it. But then like the day before when we were installing, he was like, Well, I don't know. And so finally he decided to do it. His portion, like what he told about his story, was just so moving about how he doesn't get along at all with his adoptive family.

I mean, I don't wanna necessarily talk for him, [00:39:00] but it was really amazing to have somebody who was so ambivalent about doing this to then have something that really touched all of us. And so we're gonna do it again. We're gonna do a very short visual portion of it in November of 2018, but it'll mainly be film and performance.

And it'll be here in Los Angeles on the west side, and if you follow my social media handles, I will definitely be tweeting and posting about it. So, it's a bit away.

Haley Radke: I couldn't believe it when you sent me those links and I was watching, there's like a video recap that is, I mean, I think it's at least five minutes long and it's got all of these different snippets from that day and I was just like, oh my gosh, I wish I had been there.

That's like speaking my language. So, so cool. Yes, definitely gonna watch [00:40:00] out for that. And there was one other thing that you wanted to recommend to us.

Nicole Rademacher: Yeah, there is this cultural archive, so I'm also starting to try and build this archive. I've found that the more I get into my community of adoptees, I'm finding more and more adoptees who are also artists and creative professionals, and I've stumbled upon this.

It's called Adoptee Cultural Archives.wordpress.com. They are a Korean Belgian adoptee, from what I can tell, and they have this list of activists and artists and filmmakers and writers and books and films and shows, like all different kinds of things. It's all about adoption. It's mainly skewed towards transnational adoption.

But for those of us who are not transnational adoptions, it's still just this amazing, amazing amount of information and media and things for us to help us [00:41:00] understand ourselves better, I think, and be a bit more aware. So again, it's Adoptee Cultural Archives.wordpress.com.

Haley Radke: It's huge. Like there are so many links. It's a treasure trove for sure.

Oh, thanks Nicole. Thanks for bringing that to us. I have one more question before we wrap up. Is that okay? You just said something and I wish I had asked you about it when we were talking before, so I'm just gonna ask you now, what do you think it is that brings so many adoptees into working in the creative field,

Nicole Rademacher: Working creatively you're working in this language that's not English or Spanish or French or whatever, this language that has words, right? You're working in something else, and maybe you're a writer but you're still working with writing as a creative art, you know, or you're a comedian, but you're still working with these words in this creative realm. So you're building a different language, whether [00:42:00] it's visual or time, or you're building a different vocabulary.

I think that what we've experienced and the trauma we've experienced, it's so profound that we're oftentimes not allowed to feel those feelings or to express ourselves with it. We have to make up our own language for it, right? So that we can, and maybe we don't even know what that stuff means, but we can feel it.

And working in the creative realm really gives us permission to do that. We don't necessarily have to articulate everything. We can articulate it enough.

Haley Radke: I love that. Thank you. I put you on spot there, but that was so good..

Nicole Rademacher: Yeah, you did. I was like, Oh man. I dunno. Why do you do it? Lemme think about it.

Haley Radke: Oh Nicole, this was so good. Thank you so much for chatting with me. Um, where can we connect with you online?

Nicole Rademacher: So you can connect with me on social media. My handles are at NICRRAD [00:43:00] and that's on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And then my website is nicolerademacher.com.

And feel free to email me if you wanna chat about anything. It's nic@nicolerademacher.com.

Haley Radke: Perfect. Thank you. And for sure, go check out Nicole's website and follow her to make sure you keep up with all the things that she's doing. Thank you. This was just such a great conversation. I loved hearing your story and I can't get that little picture-spinner out of my head. Like I couldn't picture, I don't even know what it's called anymore, but I can picture it and I’m just stuck on that.

Nicole Rademacher: Thank you so much, Haley. This has been great.

Haley Radke: This [00:44:00] show is brought to you by my Patreon partners. Patreon is a website that allows creators like me to raise monthly support to help me keep producing this podcast for you.

As a special thank you for our 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 are struggling with, like coming out of the fog. Come and join us. Adopteeson.com/partner has all the details.

Today would you tell just one person about the show? It is literally by word of mouth that podcasts are able to grow their audience. If you are able to do that for me, it's just such a huge help to raise up adoptee voices worldwide. I'm so grateful for you. Thank you for listening. Let's talk again next Friday when we wrap up Season Three. [00:45:00]

Isaiah and Griffin: Okay, say it. No, you say it with me. Happy New Years. Let's talk again next Friday.