156 Astrid Castro

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/156

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This show is listener supported. You can join us and help our show grow to support more adoptees by going to adopteeson.com/partner.

You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is Episode 156, Astrid Castro. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Our guest today is Astrid Castro, founder of Adoption Mosaic. Astrid serves the adoption constellation through a variety of innovative trainings designed to highlight the adoptee experience.

We discuss how she came to work in the adoption industry, the current state of ethics in adoption, and what it's like working in such a challenging space, especially as an adopted person. We wrap up with some recommended resources and, as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com.

Let's listen in. [00:01:00] I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees on, Astrid Castro. Welcome Astrid.

Astrid Castro: Hello. Thank you so much.

Haley Radke: I'm so happy we're finally talking. I've seen you online for years and doing some really good work, and so it's so exciting to connect. Finally, I'd love it if you would start and share your story with us.

Astrid Castro: Thank you, Haley. I ditto. I have watched you and followed your work for years and it's so exciting to be here. So, my personal adoption story starts about 45 years ago when my sister and I were about four and a half and six years old in Colombia. We had been taken to an orphanage and we didn't know by who.

We were left there and then stayed in the orphanage for a very short amount of time, and then were adopted by a family here in the [00:02:00] United States. They were living on the east coast in Massachusetts, Wayland, Massachusetts, at the time and they were a couple who had not been able to experience pregnancy and they had tried for many years.

So when they finally decided to stop trying to have a biological child, they went ahead and adopted my sister and I from Columbia. And it's interesting depending on which parent you ask. We all have our own stories. I don't think I realized that when I first asked them in my twenties.

I asked them separately. I did an interview for a college essay, and I asked them separately the story about why they adopted us and what they had hoped for and why they adopted older siblings. And I was pretty sick when I came. Why they [00:03:00] chose a sibling group with one of the kids who was pretty sick, and so forth and so on.

And we knew that they had never been to Colombia, so I was really curious as to why they chose Columbia, of all the countries that they could have chosen. And in this interview process, I just pretended that my professor had asked me to interview them and ask these really deep personal questions.

And I think that really speaks volumes to us adoptees who, I feel, have the right to this knowledge. I don't think we should have to feel that we're being sneaky to get information about what I think is our birthright, our birth stories, our birth. Our existence into the family that we live in, why we are with that family, we have the right to know the depths of those if we choose to.

And I know that there's a lot of adoptees who are like I don't need to know the details. I know enough. And [00:04:00] I was the kid who wanted to know every detail, every thought that went behind it. And I needed to know that there was a process, that there was a thoughtful process because I needed to matter enough that there was a process that showed the value of who we were in their family and how we came into their family.

And so I asked my parents, it had to be an interview that was asked separately, so I asked my parents separately the exact same questions. And I wanna say maybe I had 10 questions that I asked each of them, but I had to ask them exactly the same way separately. They couldn't be in the room. And it was on the phone.

And the first question was, how long did you try to have a birth child before adopting us? And my mom had said, oh, about seven years. And my dad had said 10 years. And I remember thinking, wait a second. That's a really big difference. That's a gap of [00:05:00] three years that one person seemed to be trying and the other person had stopped emotionally. Maybe emotionally, maybe physically, and that the other person hadn't.

And I think that also speaks volumes to the era and the time. My parents didn't talk a whole lot about this process. I remember in my twenties when I heard that, it was more frustrating than it was understanding and knowledgeable. For me, it was frustrating. I remember saying to myself, did the two of you talk to each other during this process? Like, how is this possible that your stories are so different?

The other question I asked was, why did you adopt from Columbia? You didn't speak the language, you didn't speak Spanish, you had never been there and you didn't have anybody in your life that was Colombian. And I was just really curious as to why Colombia. And at the time, they weren't able [00:06:00] to travel to Colombia, so we had an escort that brought us to the states.

And so when I asked them that question, my mom, she's the kind of person who wants to paint such a beautiful picture, wants us to know that we come from a beautiful place. So she said we chose Columbia because the people are so kind and wonderful and loving and, oh my gosh, the landscape is just incredible. We also knew that there were a lot of children in orphanages at the time that needed permanency.

And you asked my dad and he said, we tried to go through the foster care system here in the States and they said, you can't move for three to five years. And my job moved me all the time. And so we decided to go with an international agency. And the reason we picked Columbia was because it was the country that would get us to getting to start our family the quickest.

And so [00:07:00] once again, that experience was just two very different experiences on their part, which in my early twenties just confused me. I share this story because I think it really has propelled me in a lot of the work that I do.

Which is how do we create space to tell, to communicate such an important piece. So I work with adoptive parents all the time. And so how are you communicating? How are you making these decisions? Are these decisions the best decisions for you and your family? Is transracial adoption even something that you should be considering, or should you not?

And how do couples gather information that is not biased by an agency or not biased by an attorney. And instead Adoption Mosaic is an organization which is not either an agency or an [00:08:00] attorney agency. We provide education and adoption support.

So, hearing my parents say that was really confusing, really hard for me. And when, later in life, I realized that each of us have our own experiences and I was able to just hold that for what it was, it really helpful to figure out how to do that, to say that each of my parents had their own experience and their own reasoning and their own justification for how and why they decided to adopt the two of us.

So, throughout our childhood, my sister was the kid who was the compliance child who got good grades, didn't stir the pot. She was the older one of the two of us. She was the one that never really talked much about adoption, never asked any questions about our birth family or Colombia.

And then, I, on the [00:09:00] other hand, was exactly the opposite, I was not compliant. I was always getting in trouble. It wasn't until I was 14 that I was diagnosed with severe dyslexia, and I say severe. So to the point of I had gone through my entire education and had tricked the system into thinking that I knew how to read, but I didn't.

And so then I was pulled out of regular school, high school. In my last four years, I went to Carroll High School, which was a school that was focused for and specialized in dyslexic teaching and dyslexia. So I went to that school and graduated from high school and swore I would never go back to school 'cause I hated it so much. It was awful.

Haley Radke: But somehow you have a degree. So I feel like something else happened.

Astrid Castro: [00:10:00] Something else did happen. I found my path, right? And for those of us who struggle in traditional academia, if we find our path and it's clear that continuing our education is necessary, we have a tendency to figure it out and do it.

And that's exactly what happened. I took some time off from school and snowboarded and became a professional snowboarder for a couple years and traveled. And I met my husband snowboarding. He was a professional snowboarder as well. We traveled and did the World Cup and raced in Europe.

My ex-husband is Italian, born and raised in Italy, and so we were racing a lot in Europe and doing tours. I also lived in Colorado and was on Team [00:11:00] Breckenridge. And during that experience I had a lot of downtime in the summer during dry land training and I decided that I would volunteer during my off-season.

I would volunteer at an adoption agency. That was what I was gonna do. I thought my adoption turned out pretty good. Like my parents, I am pretty content and pretty happy where I am in my life, and I wanna give back to an adoption agency and support adoptions. However, I also was very aware of how my transracial adoption experience affected my life and affected it negatively.

And so I also was frustrated and upset that my parents had not received any support or training or anything around race and adopting older children. I now identify as an immigrant. [00:12:00] That's a super interesting conversation to me. Adoptees who were internationally adopted and many of us don't identify as immigrants. Instead, we identify as adopted people, which is really interesting that we haven't been given the rite of passage, if you will.

It is different, I think, than a traditional immigrant family coming to the states. Absolutely. It is different. And my sister and I, being four and a half and six years old, I think we could have really benefited from being seen as immigrants to receive some services.

I think my dyslexia was highlighted, I will say, and it probably didn't help the fact that I was dyslexic as far as trying to learn another language and learn English before starting kindergarten. That was the goal that us girls had to get English [00:13:00] down really well.

My mother hired a Spanish-speaking nanny to help out for the transition. As soon as the agency found out that she had done that, they said no, no, no, you need to let her go. Find an English-speaking nanny because we need these girls speaking English before they start kindergarten.

So all of those things were in the back of my head, even though I wanted to volunteer and support an agency, I wanted to find the right agency. I wasn't super supportive of international adoption. And so I wanted to find a domestic agency. That specialized in domestic adoption and, granted I was 18 years old, so please keep that in mind, I

Haley Radke: Just, okay, so Astrid, you could see me cringing, right? And so just hang in with us, guys, like we're going, oh, she's learned so much. We've all learned a [00:14:00] lot from when we were younger.

Astrid Castro: Exactly. So I decided that I was going to call the agencies. Look, it was back in the day when we had phonebooks and I opened up the yellow pages to the word “adoption” and saw there were a ton of attorneys, but also decided I was gonna call all. I wanna say there were maybe seven or eight, maybe seven adoption agencies in the area.

And I was gonna call each one and I was trying to think of a way that I could find out whether they have ethical practices or not? And so I called and I said that I was pregnant. I said I was pregnant and I was looking for an agency to place my baby. [00:15:00] And looking back on that now, and with all of the first mothers and birth mothers that I know, there's a part of me that's really proud of myself that I did that.

And there's a part of me that has a lot of shame that I did that, because infiltrating as something that I am not, which was a woman who was pregnant trying to make a plan for my baby, and yet I felt at the time, at 18, that would be my kind of right to the point, that I would instantly know how somebody who was calling, who was pregnant, who was looking to find an agency, how that individual would be treated.

I told them that I was Latina, that I was brown and I told them that the father was African American. I wasn't treated very well by any of them actually. And [00:16:00] I remember after every call hanging up and just being in shock. It was like, oh my gosh, I am being treated like this is a commodity. I am being treated with, Oh, okay, the baby's father is black. Well, we just don't have very many families. And just being talked to this way, it was such an eye-opening experience.

And it was one agency that I called and they said, oh, you know what, we are not a placement agency. We help do special recruitment for children who are in foster care, who have been in foster care for a very long time. And these kiddos need some additional recruitment and so we do, we help out with that. That was the Rocky Mountain Adoption Exchange.

And now there are lots of exchanges, Adopt US Kids [00:17:00] is a part of those programs and special recruitment for kids that are in foster care. And they said, however, here is an agency that we think that could help you and here are the questions that you might want to ask.

I felt like they were there to support me. They were there to help me be informed and make more of an informed decision, and they weren't even a placement agency. Then I hung up. I called back and I said, can I speak to your volunteer coordinator? I gave my real name and told them that I wanted to volunteer for them.

That's where my career started in this field. I was pushing papers and filing and I was doing anything anybody asked me to that needed help in the office. And I was helping with some fundraisers and so forth, and I would share my story openly. And I was there during dry land training. I was there quite a lot.

I wanna say there was a period of time that I [00:18:00] was there 20 hours a week and volunteering and just giving back. And feeling really good about that. And one day my volunteer coordinator, my supervisor said to me, Astrid, we have a prospective adoptive parent panel, because they did do some training for adoptive parents.

They had a contract through the state to offer some of these trainings, and they asked if I would be a panelist and just share my story. And they said all of the other panelists will be adoptive parents, but we've never had an adoptee speak. So I spoke. This was one of the first times outside of my snowboarding career that I felt heard and that I was good at something.

And all I was doing was storytelling. I was storytelling my experience of the things that my parents could have done better, the things that were really hard, the parts of being transracially [00:19:00] adopted, what I knew about my birth family's story, what I wanted to know, and just shared all of this stuff.

And I saw people sitting on the edge of their seats just so just absorbing and soaking this in. And I felt really empowered and I felt really good to have literally an audience that wanted to hear my story, that was there and absorbing this. And I could tell that people were listening in a way that they wanted to learn.

And at the end of that experience, I had people come up to me and make comments like as a result of you sharing your story, I am going to do things differently if we end up adopting and thank you. And in that moment, I knew that I was going to work in adoptions in some capacity. There you [00:20:00] have it.

Haley Radke: There you have it. Thank you for sharing that. So I mentioned I have the cringe moment whenever we talk about adoption agencies. I feel like on the show there's always like a little bit of a yucky feeling. I've shared so many times that I have a big passion for family preservation and, working for years in this field, all the unethical things that are going on.

In fact, part of your story is discovering some of that in your lived experience. So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that, about discovering some of the unethical things that go on and how you try and balance that while still serving in some capacity in this field where there's some good things happening, but there's a lot of naughty things, very naughty things happening.

Astrid Castro: Yes. [00:21:00] Haley, I think that's something that I grapple with, I think about all the time. I would say that as soon as I stop thinking about that is when I need to stop doing the work that I'm doing. I feel that to be good at what I do I need to be asking those questions.

But also, and this is the hard part, creating space for, at the end of the day, we have thousands and thousands of children that are the results of this system, this corrupt system, this system that supports a lot of the things that I don't. And I think that is the number one, primary way that I remind myself, when I'm doing kids groups and when I'm doing trainings for [00:22:00] prospective adoptive parents, that I don't believe adoption is going to go away in my lifetime.

So how can I find a balance between these; I'm gonna ask my families that I work with really hard questions. I'm going to support their kids in a way that I think they need support. And that might not be super popular to the families. It might be hard for the families to have me hold them accountable. Why haven't you talked to your child about X, Y, and Z?

And back in the day, 25 years ago when I was new to this work, it was questions like, why haven't you told your child that they're adopted and that's not okay? And now it's, why aren't you creating space for your child to have these conversations about things that you have information on? You owe it [00:23:00] to your child to tell them everything they should know by the time that they are off on their own and not living with you.

They should have access to every piece of information that you have. The good, the bad, the ugly, and if the child were to read their paperwork that you have on file, that there are no surprises. And so those are the things. I think it's the hundreds and thousands of kids that I've worked with that I've realized that have benefited from the work that I do that helps me to navigate the industry that I have a lot of strong opinions about, about their practices and what's happening in industry at large.

Haley Radke: So there's so many of us that talk about our experiences as an adopted person online, and what I see [00:24:00] is, well, I see a couple different groups that may push back.

I would say the vast majority are adoptive parents who insist their adoptees don't feel that way. And then some others are adoptees who, validly, might say I've had a different experience. But that becomes really taxing, and especially when you are sharing your personal story, your personal experiences, that comes at a cost.

How often do we talk about the emotional labor it takes to share something so intimately personal, perhaps interacting with people in comments if we're talking about social media, and paying a price for that. Can you talk about that? Because I know you've seen so many adoptees doing this advocacy work and paying that price and burning out.

Astrid Castro: Yeah. Burnout is, I think, in our field, and so many of us are attracted to this [00:25:00] field because of our personal experiences and I will even say because of the healing aspect that it could potentially have to share our stories and have a platform and have an audience and have people say thank you. Thank you for that. That is making me a better person. Or thank you for that. That made me feel normalized. That made me feel seen.

And when you hear comments like that, who gets to have a job where they hear comments like that all the time? And so I think that there is this draw to this field, that we have a draw for us adoptees to come back to this field for those of us in this industry, for those of us who have an interest. And I think that so many of us come into this with the intention of getting and experiencing that, and that when we experience the opposite, that [00:26:00] we don't have a community ourselves.

Oftentimes we don't have a community ourselves to go to and say, I need some support. And I have to say the thing that has helped me not have burnout and, of course, there's certain days where I'm just like, whew, I'm glad I know how to meditate. I'm glad I know how to love myself. I'm glad I know how to remind myself of my goodness and the core of who I am. I'm glad that I have the ability to do that because if I didn't, this would've tipped me over the edge and I would be out. Out.

And it is to me about community and I am so excited and it’s so thrilling to see how many groups and communities are popping up. We've got amazing programs out there like Adoptees Connect that Pam is creating, you and the [00:27:00] podcast and uplifting adoptees voices, and Anne Heffron and Pam, Adoptees who are offering platforms for practicing and writing your story and being heard.

And there's so many other individuals that are doing this work, that are creating these platforms for individuals. And then there's adoptees who are doing it behind the scene, right? Who are doing research for us that gives us these platforms. And I think about Dr. JaeRan Kim, who uplifts her adoptee community in such an amazing, phenomenal way.

And so I've surrounded myself with those people. And that is what gets me through these hard times. That is who I call; I don't call my adoptive parents. I don't call my girlfriend who doesn't have any personal connection to adoption. And I find my people who I know will ground me and help me remind me of why I do [00:28:00] the work that I do.

So because I've been doing this work so long, Haley, right now I have a young woman who started off in my kids groups when she was five and she's now 19 and she is a volunteer. She helps me and she's on panels and just loves being in this community. And every time I see her, Saiming, she is a phenomenal human being, see her come out and her voice and the strength that she has and her ability. Of course her parents signed up for these kids groups and bravo to them for doing so. And she has taken it to the level of this is what it looks like when I'm supported from five years on.

And she is such an example of what I want every adoptee to experience.

Haley Radke: Isn't that exciting? Because I think there's so many of us who don't get to that [00:29:00] place till we're in our thirties, forties, fifties, and some might never, and that's okay too. But I love that there's resources for younger adoptees to really be processing things in real time, as they should be, just my opinion.

Okay. I'm curious. You mentioned this first experience of being an adoptee on a panel sitting next to a bunch of adoptive parents and how that was transformative for you. And I've also heard you say before that being on a panel can be therapeutic. Now I've been to a few different adoption conferences and have had good experiences and have had literally terrible, worst-ever, core-shaking experiences.

So I've seen the gamut as many of us have. I think [00:30:00] there's a lot of, sorry, I'm stumbling because we're gonna talk a little bit more about this in recommended resources because you've been doing something with panels that I think is really powerful. But can you talk about adoptees on panels, the power of that, and some of the pros and cons? So some of those kinds of things from your experience?

Astrid Castro: Yeah. So like you, Haley, I have experienced lots of panels at conferences, local agency panels, except for the conferences, very few non-promotional panels, if you will. So most of the panels that I have either seen or been on or experienced historically in the past before I started doing my own panel work through Adoption Mosaic had all been with the emphasis on promotion. [00:31:00]

And what I mean by that is that it's an agency that is bringing in adoptees or adoptive parents who have a very specific narrative. And even if the narrative is: It's hard, we've had some struggles, etc., etc., the outcome is, adoption is wonderful and I would've never done it any other way.

So let's back up to back to that time when I was between the ages of 18 and my early twenties, I was on a lot of panels. It was like this adrenaline rush that I would get by being on these panels. And all I had to do was be a good storyteller. And I've always enjoyed storytelling.

So I would be on these panels, have that adrenaline feel really wonderful, and oftentimes I would over share. I was young; [00:32:00] I didn't realize the power of storytelling and how it could sit with you afterwards and what would happen, the aftermath of being on a panel, if you will.

Haley Radke: Can I pause you there? Can you just elaborate a little bit on oversharing because I think we say that quite a bit. And I think it's important to elaborate on that to hopefully protect other adoptees from having that experience too.

Astrid Castro: Yeah. I think that when we have spent so much of our life not having a platform that when we're asked to sit on a platform and we're gonna have an audience that's going to listen to our every word and be engaged and excited, that we have a tendency to get sucked into this moment of this feeling that everybody's going to be supportive [00:33:00] of the things we have to say, even the hard things. And we've never shared this in public, or we've never shared this with anybody.

How many times I have heard the statement, this isn't something I've ever talked to anybody about. That's, to me, when the facilitator should hear a scratching record and just stop, pick up the needle and stop. This is not the place for somebody to be sharing something for the first time. And yet oftentimes that is when the facilitator is sitting on the edge of their seat and saying to themselves, this is gonna be a fabulous panel.

Without really thinking, wait a second. What is this person gonna feel like when they're at home by themselves tonight alone? And have we done our job on giving them the resources that they need, the community that they need? Saying I will call you and check in with you? [00:34:00]

We benefited as an agency hugely from you sharing your experience, right? And yet, we are completely disregarding the toll that it will take on you as an individual, and we will disregard that. And so many of us, because we've never been given a platform, we've never been asked. Actually we've never been asked by the people who should be asking us the most and the people who should love us the most.

We should be so well practiced in this story that when we get out there on that panel, we shouldn't be, I am not saying crying on a panel is a bad thing 'cause I've cried on my panels plenty of times and a crying is an expression of emotion that I do a lot. But if the result of that is that I'm not going to feel good about myself when I'm done, then we have not done anyone a service.

We've done the adoptee a huge disservice, and the [00:35:00] adoptee is the one to whom the adoptive parents are sitting there saying, I wanna learn from you so I can be a better parent. Well, right now you're not being a very good parent because you're allowing this to happen, and this is not okay. And so we see adoption agencies, we see individuals put youth on panels, which I am very, very against.

I get it. I get why. And I don't believe that a 15-year-old, a 12-year-old, and, I mean, I've seen as young as 12 on panels, and I will say that one 12-year-old was very well spoken. And I get why somebody said, you would be great at this. And they were a fabulous speaker. And yet I just sat there thinking they're 12. This is not consensual. I would say even at 15 or 16.

I have had a 17-year-old on a panel, and the only [00:36:00] reason is because it was Saiming who grew up since she was five, and she had seen all of my panels. She had practiced to the point where this was not new. Nothing that she was gonna say on this panel was new to her.

The emotions and feelings that she was going to experience were not new to her.

And so I think that's what it needs to look like. I knew she was supported. I knew I would be calling her. And that's the way I run all of my panels. I would love to see a complete overhaul on either agencies don't do panels, period, ever, or just adoptive parent panels, not adoptee panels.

Or, if they do adoptee panels, they come to an organization like Adoption Mosaic and they say, we know that you have a pool, or Adoptees On or an organization that has support for the adoptees. We know that you have adoptees that have practice. And do you have [00:37:00] anybody that we can contract with?

And the adoptee, as a result of being on an Adoption Mosaic panel, knows that they should be compensated financially. Knows that they should be getting support resources in their community from this agency, and they know that if you're gonna be on a panel, I will put it on a calendar, I will give you a call, and I will follow up with you. Having that individual be as supported as they can be.

And that adoption agencies are subcontracting, if you will, through an organization that offers this support to their adoptee community.

Haley Radke: This might take us way too far off track, and we're just about to do recommended resources, but I'm gonna bring it back to family preservation again.

Have you seen agencies and things that you feel are doing a good job on both [00:38:00] sides of things? Making sure expectant mothers are supported if they want to parent, and making sure they're encouraging older-child adoption, even though it's “harder.” And I feel like so many of the things that I see are just, ugh. It's for profit or the coercion is still there, and all of those kinds of things. Give me some hope.

Astrid Castro: Oh my goodness, Haley. I don't know that I can.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Astrid Castro: And when you said, oh, it's for profit, I think that we have a lot of people who have hidden behind nonprofits. We have a tendency to say, oh, they're a nonprofit. If you look at how much the executive director makes, you realize that there are ways to be a nonprofit and that's where you hide the profit.

Haley Radke: So it's a for-profit, but tax-receiptable organization. [00:39:00]

Astrid Castro: Yeah.

Haley Radke: It's funny, but it's not.

Astrid Castro: But it's not. This is the tricky part, Haley, in the work that I do, I partner with agencies all the time. And I will continue to partner with agencies. Agencies call me up and ask me to help with their training. And I am grateful that I get to have access to the families that I do and that are currently parenting children that are needing support.

And yet, that being said, I will say I could piecemeal pieces of what one agency does that I think is really wonderful and what another agency does well. And it’s this patchwork of these things. When I was thinking recruitment, okay, so DHS, Department of Human Services here in Oregon, but there's such a big part of this huge system [00:40:00] that is so drenched in its own type of corruption, in its own type of unethical practices. And there are social workers who work in that who say, I know we want this changed, but who's gonna change it?

At the end of the day there are people like Haley and Astrid who are the product of this system and that we need support. So I actually am not in the pre-adopt world, if you will. The most I do in supporting or helping if a family is trying to decide whether they're going to adopt or not adopt, they can consult with me and I will talk to them about what I know.

Haley Radke: Shoot them straight. That's good. I have a feeling you don't hold back in those conversations. Good for you. Okay, let's do [00:41:00] our recommended resources. And recently I got to attend one of Astrid’s adoptee panels that we were talking about a little earlier, and it's called “We the Experts, the Speaker Series.” And it was really powerful.

Now, the one I attended was about suicide. It was extremely challenging. It was difficult to hear a lot of those things, even though it wasn't new for me. I have guests that share some of those hard things, as well, regularly with me. And I felt encouraged by the end.

Of course I knew some of the panelists, so maybe I'm a little bit biased, you had very well-chosen panelists, and I love the aspect of what you described earlier about the storytelling, right? We get a little piece of their story and then they share their hard-won wisdom with us and the questions are really well thought out. [00:42:00] There is an opportunity for the attendees to ask questions or contribute their own feedback in certain sections.

But what I was really impressed with, and this is unique to you and I think everybody should be copying you, sorry about that, is that even on your registration form, you ask, are you an adopted person? And then, if you're not, you're here as a listener and you're not gonna give your 2 cents. It wasn't worded like that, but you know what I mean. So I felt safe there. I felt safe listening.

While we're recording this, it is during the pandemic. Ugh. Boy isn't our world in a good state. And so there's been lots of things happening online for adoptees, which is wonderful. I love seeing more adoptee resources, but a few of the things I've attended, and were marketed as adoptee-centric, turned out not to be a safe place.

And you talked about my adoptee community. [00:43:00] I have my Patreon supporters and we have Zoom chats sometimes. And a couple of them shared with me an extraordinarily triggering event that happened at another supposedly adoptee space. And I just think, oh my gosh. Like even if it says adoptee on the front, we can't trust. So I'm just saying that Astrid has really created a safe space for adoptees to speak, share, listen, learn from each other.

And there's so many great topics. Even next week, there's one coming up on searching. I see you have one planned about religion and then on your website you can go back and download past episodes. There's a very small fee to register and, from what I understand, if you reach out and there's financial hardship, they'll take care of you.

So is there anything more that you want to share [00:44:00] about the “We the Expert” speaker series, Astrid? I really wanna commend you for how you have created a really safe and helpful space for adoptees there.

Astrid Castro: Thank you, Haley. And from one adoptee to another, when I get feedback like that from somebody like yourself who has been doing this work for as many years as you have been, that just means so much to me. So thank you.

And I think that you summarized it beautifully. And I would say that the one thing is no adoptee is turned away for wanting to attend the live “We the Experts.” For the recorded ones, we do ask that you pay the fee. And like you said, it is a small fee and I, of course, will make an exception to that rule if somebody emails and says, I really don't have the financial ability [00:45:00] to pay this and I really could use the support. Absolutely.

The whole idea of having the waiver and having non-adoptees sign that waiver, I have to say it has been such a blessing. I borrowed this model from a BIPOC event that I went to (black, indigenous and other people of color event), and non-BIPOC people were allowed to attend but they had to sign a waiver. And this waiver was similar to what I have written.

That waiver says I'm here as a listener. And it's only happened once where an adoptive parent wanted to ask a question, and when I realized that she was an adoptive parent, I asked, are you also an adoptee? And she said, no, I'm not. And I think I was kind and [00:46:00] gracious and thanked her for wanting to participate, but said that this was not the space for her. And then I followed up with her.

And I think that is a huge thing that is missing in the industry right now. The place where spouses of adoptees, parents of older adoptees, prospective parents, siblings of adoptees can go to get information that will help them be a better support for their adoptee person, right? And so getting to be a fly on the wall in these conversations, I think is really helpful.

So yeah, the waiver's working really well.

Haley Radke: That's brilliant. Okay. What did you wanna recommend to us today?

Astrid Castro: Okay, so I was given only one. That was the hardest thing to have to think of one resource.

Haley Radke: Space. Space for one. I didn't assign you a [00:47:00] resource.

Astrid Castro: Yeah. No, exactly. No, you gave me space for one. Just because there are so many of us out there doing this work or versions of this work. So I would say Dr. Chaitra's directory of adoptee therapists specifically. I had the privilege of meeting Chaitra in Denver when I was visiting once. She is a phenomenal human being.

And then she told me, and actually I had asked her, I had reached out and said, can I be on this list? And she very kindly said, this is a list for therapists. And she knows I am not a therapist. And so she said maybe someday we'll have another list. So if there's one of your listeners out there who's wanting to get involved or has programming or is doing things, I hope somebody will create a list like this with non-therapeutic services that [00:48:00] are led by adoptees.

So Dr. Chaitra does this list. It's nationwide. I don't know if it's worldwide. I don't believe so.

Haley Radke: It's nationwide, but she does have therapists indicated who will do tele-health or online even if they're not in that state.

Astrid Castro: Okay. Okay, great. And these are therapists that are both adoptees and specialize in supporting the adoptee community. And yet I also love the fact that this isn't a list that she is putting her rubber stamp of approval behind these therapists. She's basically being housing and collecting these active folks that are in the community.

And because of the work that I'm doing with the “We the Experts,” I share that list in every single We the Expert event we do, because we've had [00:49:00] lots of adoptees on these calls that I think need support outside of this once a month, two-hour event.

Haley Radke: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. I refer people to that list as well myself pretty regularly.

Thank you so much, Astrid, for sharing part of your story with us and for allowing me to poke at some hard places. I'd love it if you would share with us where we can connect with you online.

Astrid Castro: Yeah, so Adoption Mosaic has a website and it's just adoptionmosaic.com. And our Facebook is also just search for Adoption Mosaic, and same with Instagram and so forth.

We'd love to hear from folks. And if you're interested, the only other thing that I would like to mention is if you're an adoptee and you're interested in sharing your story and you would like to potentially be a future panelist, [00:50:00] I do have a form that you can fill out that indicates which topics you want to be a listener to and which topics you want to be maybe a panelist for.

And so I could send that; it's a Google form. Just reach out and I could send that to you.

Haley Radke: Perfect. And you have the “We the Experts” registration events on Facebook. They're really easy to find. And I'll link to your website, of course, in the show notes and also the specific page where you list all the previous events and future events for “We the Experts.”

Okay, wonderful. Thanks so much for chatting with me today.

I'm so thankful for Astrid’s voice in the community and how she is working hard to highlight adoptee voices. Of course, that's my passion too. So I'm really glad to hear that she takes very good care to do that in the area she works in. [00:51:00]

I wanted to extend a thank you for celebrating with me if you listen to last week's episode, we celebrated 500,000 downloads. It's not even real when I say it. It still doesn't feel real but so many of you celebrated with me and congratulated the show on the success, I think, of having 500,000 pairs of ears listening to adoptee stories and just the impact of that just gives me goosebumps. So thank you. Thank you for celebrating with me, and I'm just so grateful for you.

If Adoptees On is important to you and has been impactful or meaningful to you, I would love your monthly support. If you go to adopteeson.com/partner, there are ways for you to join the adoptee movement over here and help support the ongoing work of the show.

You keep the lights on and my editor paid, [00:52:00] and you help to serve adoptees who maybe aren't able to make a contribution. And just thank you so much for doing that. So thank you for your generosity. Adopteeson.com/partner is the spot for you to support the show monthly. Thanks so much for listening.

Let's talk again next Friday.

155 Celebrating 500K

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/155

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This show is listener supported. You can join us and help our show grow to support more adoptees by going to adopteeson.com/partner.

You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is Episode 155. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Welcome friends. I'm so glad you're here with me today. Today's show is a little different because I asked one of my dearest friends to come and celebrate a milestone moment with us. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, welcome back to Adoptees On, Reshma McClintock. Welcome, Reshma.

Reshma McClintock: Hi, Haley. Thanks for having me again.

Haley Radke: I'm so excited 'cause you're here to celebrate with me.

Reshma McClintock: I am here to celebrate with you. This is gonna be a party. We are going [00:01:00] to get down, virtually.

Haley Radke: Virtually. Okay.

Reshma McClintock: It's a thing now.

Haley Radke: Okay. So we are celebrating a little late, but that's okay. Better late than never. The Adoptees On podcast has reached half a million downloads. Which is crazy.

Reshma McClintock: Okay, let's do that thing where we pause for just a minute and take in half a million downloads, 500,000 downloads.

Haley Radke: Okay. So is it okay if I tell an embarrassing story about you?

Reshma McClintock: Please. I mean, why else have I come here?

Haley Radke: No. Okay, so you guys, Resh is like one of my best friends and I told her this milestone was coming and I was really excited and so she secretly sent me a gift and it literally happened to arrive on the day that I hit 500,000 downloads, which was bananas. And I was sitting at our breakfast table [00:02:00] when it happened. I was playing Uno with Isaiah right before we went to school, and I was just refreshing my phone so I could get the screenshot. Anyway, I sent the screenshot to Resh, and waited, later in the day, got a delivery at the door and I was like, oh my goodness, what's happening?

And she sent me balloons. But what came in the box was 50, five-zero, K

Reshma McClintock: One 5, one 0, and one K.

Haley Radke: And so it was so sweet and I blew them up, but I effed up the K, these are like the foil balloons that you see. You'll see it in the picture; I'm going to use it as my show art. So just look at the cover art in your podcast app, wherever you're listening. And you'll see the picture of me with these balloons. But I messed up the K 'cause you put these little straws in and you blow in and I just busted right through. So anyway, I went to Party City and I got the [00:03:00] X, the missing zero and the K.

And I wasn't gonna tell her 'cause I was embarrassed, I don't know. I didn't wanna embarrass you.

Reshma McClintock: You were embarrassed for me.

Haley Radke: I was embarrassed for you.

Reshma McClintock: Because you thought that I was an idiot. It's okay. It's fair.

Haley Radke: No. Okay. So then when I sent her the picture, it wasn't all blue. There was some silver.

Reshma McClintock: I was so proud of myself. Okay. Because I found the “500 K” in blue and I was like, it's one of her colors. This is amazing. It's exactly the color.

Haley Radke: Yep.

Reshma McClintock: And I've never seen them in blue before. I was planning on getting gold and then I found the blue. I was so happy. Now let me just tell you something really quick. I checked six to seven “d” times to make sure that I picked two zeroes. I checked it like a hundred times to make sure there were two zeroes. And so when you said that you only got one 5, one 0 and one K. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. Actually, that's not what I said, but I'm not gonna say what I said.

Haley Radke: It was so funny because in the box, I was like [00:04:00] searching, it's a tiny little Amazon box. I was like, there's gotta be the other zero here. It's not here. But there was a slip that said we've only shipped part of your order.

Reshma McClintock: Yes. So this is the part of the story I've been waiting to get to the most.

Haley Radke: Oh, okay. Okay.

Reshma McClintock: Because, yes, the other zero was coming. It was proof that I did in fact check and make sure that I clicked two zeros for “500 K.”

Haley Radke: No, what's proof is that you're about to keep me so humble because at some point in time in the next few weeks, I'm just gonna get a zero delivered to me

Reshma McClintock: No. No, they canceled it.

Haley Radke: No

Reshma McClintock: I don't think the zero's coming. So that's the last part of the story, like a day later, two days later, I got an email that said we've refunded your $6.50 because the other zero wasn't gonna make it in time.

Haley Radke: I was waiting for my zero to just be like, listen, Haley, you hit a half a million, but you're still a zero.

Reshma McClintock: Yeah, seriously, that would've been a real boost. Too funny. But what did I tell you? Originally, I told you when I [00:05:00] found out that the last zero was still on its way. I said when you hit a million, I'll only have to send five zeros. You can hold onto that one. So anyway, as it turns out, when you hit a million in just a few short months, I'm sure, I'll have to get all six zeros. So that’s good. It's okay. I'm willing to spend the money.

Haley Radke: I appreciate that so much. Okay. Can I tell you, I wanna tell you a couple things. When I launched in July of 2016. So July 1 was my official launch date, but at the time, Apple Podcasts wouldn't give you a specific date that your show would go live. Now, standard practice, when you have a new podcast, you do a little intro and you put it up there, and then whenever it's up, then you're like, okay, good, now it's live.

Now I can promote it, put up a real episode, all that. I went through my screenshots the other night which is not a good idea if you wanna feel good about yourself, just look at all the things you've screenshot. [00:06:00] But I looked and I had a screenshot on July 4th. By then I had 300 downloads, and I remember showing that to Nick and being so excited and, oh my gosh, that was so crazy.

And then I hit 10,000 downloads in February, 2017. And I remember thinking, oh my goodness, this is such a huge milestone, like 10,000, picture 10,000 people, and here we are, it's 500,000, which is

Reshma McClintock: Did you ever think you'd get here?

Haley Radke: No.

Reshma McClintock: You didn't think so?

Haley Radke: No.

Reshma McClintock: So you would see the numbers going up occasionally as you would check, and you'd hit different milestones.

I'm just thinking about how many milestones you went through to get to 500,000. You think 10,000, then you think 15, and 17 even, everything's a big deal. And so I'm guessing you've watched yourself go in increments?

Haley Radke: Yeah, and I am in a lot of different groups with other [00:07:00] podcasters who are very indie, niche, similar to me. And when they hear about my numbers, they're often like, whoa, that's amazing. Because it's unusual. There are so many podcasts. There's just tons and tons of them, and it's unusual to have that many downloads.

The stats as far as I know, I listen to Libsyn, they're my podcast host, and they host about a quarter of all the podcasts that are available in Apple Podcasts, and they say that about 80% of shows get around 150 downloads an episode. So it takes a long time to add up to something like half a million for those kinds of numbers. So yeah. I didn't really expect it. And after a while, you're just producing the show, making sure you're making good content.

And like I said, I'll admit I used to check religiously [00:08:00] and in those first few days, just refresh, refresh, did I get one more? Did I get one more? And now I just go post the show. I don't even look often at the numbers.

Reshma McClintock: And the numbers are an affirmation. The numbers are not just numbers, they are people. And we know that the show has been wildly successful, apart from the numbers, just in transforming the lives of so many adopted people and opening the eyes of so many non-adopted people. And because of that you stop and think all of those numbers represent an individual person.

And then even how that webs out, right? Like how many people did they talk to about the show? How many people have they shared with, even if they just shared the information. And even if that person didn't listen, your reach is much broader than I think you can even fathom. And that is so exciting.

And so I know you go through phases where you look at the statistics and you become obsessed. And then you just do the job that you have been doing so beautifully for the last few years. This is so exciting. I cannot tell you, just to sound so [00:09:00] cheesy, how honored I am that I get to celebrate with you. As a personal friend, I'm so just in awe of you so frequently.

And also as someone in the adoptee movement, as someone who's an adopted person who stood up and said, I am not going to allow the world to speak for me any longer, and the way that you have done that so beautifully and so powerfully. I am so proud of you and I just can't believe I'm someone who gets to celebrate with you.

It's really worth noting. It is worth the pause. It's worth the minute to take the mismatched balloons and raise them in the air and say a cheer and just soak it all in. I hope you're really able to soak in what you've accomplished so far, and that this will just continue to catapult you forward.

And I can't really even fathom where you would go. At one point you could never have imagined being where you are now. And if you sit with that for a minute. Oh my goodness, imagine where you'll go next. It's really exciting.

Haley Radke: Goosebumps, hearing you talking about [00:10:00] that. I was just asking Nick the other day 'cause he's had a transition at work and his boss resigned and there's a new boss and I was like, oh, how do you picture yourself in five years? Are you gonna do the same job?

And then he asked me the same and I was like, oh my goodness. Will I still be podcasting in five years? I don't know.

Reshma McClintock: Right. Yeah. It's hard to know.

Haley Radke: It is hard to know. Another cool thing that I've shared before when I've hit these milestones. Before or on birthday moments, I might post on Instagram what the current stats are just 'cause I think it's fun and I think people are interested to see.

But the show's been downloaded in over 144 countries.

Reshma McClintock: Wow.

Haley Radke: Which is almost but not quite all of them; it's three quarters of them.

Reshma McClintock: Yes. Worth noting. Wow.

Haley Radke: Yeah. And so I think there's something of real significance there. Adoptees are scattered through the entire world. Now, not necessarily all English speaking of course.

That's North American-centric thinking in my head. But [00:11:00] yeah, I think that's really neat. And the other cool thing I wanted to tell you is the top 10 countries that regularly listen.

Reshma McClintock: Yes, I wanna hear this.

Haley Radke: Okay. So of course number one is the United States. 70% of my listeners are in the US.

Reshma McClintock: The US has to be first at everything. I'm just kidding.

Haley Radke: And then I go to my country. Did you know I'm Canadian? Some of my listeners don't know that I'm in Canada.

Reshma McClintock: This is international here.

Haley Radke: So 6% of my listeners are Canadian. And then we go to the UK, Australia, they're both at 4% each.

And then Ireland, Germany, New Zealand, France, Sweden, and South Africa.

Reshma McClintock: Oh wow. That is very cool.

Haley Radke: Yes.

Reshma McClintock: That is so significant.

Haley Radke: I love that. And I've interviewed adoptees, I think, in eight different countries and maybe adoptees adopted from probably only a dozen countries. When I started out podcasting, there was only a couple of other adoptee [00:12:00] podcasts and one of them strictly focused on international adoptees, and the host was an international adoptee himself.

And so I really was like, oh, that's your space. And that show has paused. We call it “pod-fading” as podcasters, pod fading. That doesn't mean he won't come back, but yeah, so I've had lots of requests for international adoptees to share, and so I started doing that a little further on in my podcasting journey. But yeah, it's really incredible the amount of lives touched by adoption all over the world.

Reshma McClintock: Yeah. And I have to tell you, as a transracial international adoptee, as a person of color, I appreciate that you at one point had paused to say, is that my space? Is someone else filling that space? Obviously. However I will say, because I've had the opportunity to be on your show a few times and listen to multiple transracial international adoptees, how powerful it is. And one of the things that [00:13:00] you do so well, which I know you are frequently complimented on, although you wouldn't share that yourself, is that you are so good at listening and elevating voices and so you are not like, let me provide you with this platform.

You're like, I'm here to listen. I want you to be able to share because I want to learn, because I want to know. And I just appreciate the way that you do that. It's a tricky thing, especially in today's cultural and political climate, but I think it's something you do really well. And it's something you've learned about as you've grown and as you've listened.

it's just something that I really appreciate. I know you so well, so I know you would never be like, I provide a platform for people of all colors and races. It's not about that. It's about the education. It's about the opportunity for all of us to learn from people of different cultures and backgrounds and different experiences. And you so well provide that platform without talking over your guests and just allowing them to share and asking all [00:14:00] the right questions so that we can all learn together.

It's a very unique thing that you're able to do so well.

Haley Radke: Thank you. I appreciate that so much. And I do try very hard to come into each interview just in a space of learning. A posture of learning. We've heard enough podcasts where the host tries to mansplain and all of those kinds of things. And this is not the place for that, for sure.

Reshma McClintock: Yeah.

Haley Radke: I heard that you might have a couple questions for me, and that makes me feel nervous, but okay.

Reshma McClintock: Okay. Might need a drum roll or something. I should have planned a sound effect, drum roll, something, because this is the moment that I've been waiting for to ask you questions. On air. We've gone back and forth a little bit, a few times, but you told me that I could basically ask you whatever I want, and I appreciate that. It's one of the things I love about you.

Haley Radke: I don't think I said that, but okay.

Reshma McClintock: Listen, we're here. Let's just go with it.

Haley Radke: Okay. [00:15:00]

Reshma McClintock: Yeah, you didn't say that. That's not true. You didn't say, I can ask you whatever I want.

Haley Radke: I feel like you're just trying to get me to acknowledge permission ahead of some invasive questions.

Reshma McClintock: Oh no. I'm not looking for permission. I've learned a long time ago, it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission so I’m kidding.

I wanna know, there are a lot of people in the adoption community who listen to your show, obviously. A lot of people use the word “transformative” when they talk about this show, that this show has been transformative in their life, that this show has made them feel less alone.

Anne Heffron, our good friend, has frequently said that in many ways this show saved her life and had a great influence, I should say, in saving her life. And a lot of us listen to you and think, wow. I listen to you and your guests, rather, and think, wow, where else could I have learned this information?

This is truly transformative. It's the first time [00:16:00] I've heard this specific thing stated in this specific way, and I have a better understanding of adoptees and their lives and their experiences, and it has been so incredibly transformative for so many people. I want to know for you personally, in what ways has it been transformative for you? Haley Radke adopted person, not Haley Radke the professional podcaster and interviewer? I wanna know what has that been like for you personally? In what ways has it transformed you?

Haley Radke: Okay. That feels like a, just a huge question and it really is true that it has transformed me and I could answer the professional one, you said not to, but I feel like I've gained a lot of confidence and, you wouldn't know it now, but I feel like I'm a lot more of a polished speaker. Editing is magical. But personally I feel like after every [00:17:00] episode where I record with someone, I think here's 10 more things I need to talk about with my psychologist. It's really shaped me to look at my own issues deeper.

Things that I had covered up, was coping with, things that I had hidden. And the more my guests share about the courageous steps they've taken to find healing from a variety of different ways that they feel adoption has impacted them, the more I feel brave enough to be like, maybe this is the next thing I can talk about with my psychologist.

Truly, personally, I've grown a ton from listening to other people and it also has really humbled me. It has really truly [00:18:00] humbled me. The honor it is to listen to people's stories. Sometimes they haven't shared them before, and I try and be really careful with that.

I try and make sure that guests are ready to talk about things publicly. We've seen so many people overshare things and can't reel it back in once it's out there. We've seen so many young adoptees especially, you have personal experience with this. I think I'm not oversharing for you, but you had become a poster child for adoption in youth and paraded around saying adoption's so amazing. Look, it saved my life.

Reshma McClintock: Absolutely.

Haley Radke: So there's the cost of that. So I try and really walk a fine line of not asking someone to overshare in that way. But the trust they put in me, sharing things sometimes for the first time, is so humbling. How am I, a stranger, able to hear these really deep things that are coming from the bottom of your heart, and then you're trusting not just me, but my [00:19:00] listeners.

So yeah, I've grown a lot and learned a lot. And trust me, there is no one who's been more impacted by the show than me.

Reshma McClintock: Wow. That is a really fascinating statement. Interesting. That you've been the most impacted. I guess what I really appreciate about what you had to say is that I think that in adoption land, and we all do this, and you and I have talked about this before.

There are these pedestals that we put different adoptees on. There's a rotation, right? After you've been in adoption land for a long time, you see these are the new faces. Oh, this is the new person. And that's not necessarily a negative thing. There's new people coming up and sharing all the time, and I love that.

And I talk about that frequently, about the seasons, right? We're in a different season. I'm in a season of. Productivity? No, not me, but this is just an example. Surely not me, but sometimes I have before, had seasons of incredible productivity. And really, this is my moment. This is [00:20:00] my season, this is my time.

I'm gonna be one of the people out there sharing and doing a lot of work and putting a lot of effort out there, which I appreciate and love that we can come and go because for me it's about taking breaks and for my own family's sake or for whatever reason, right? Different seasons for different reasons.

However, what I appreciate is that you are not putting yourself on a pedestal. I think that's a really important thing for us as adopted people to note, and you just demonstrated that so well, because I think a lot of people will look at you and be like, oh, Haley, I wanna get to where she is, not professionally. Well, a lot of people think that too, but I just mean thinking, oh, she clearly has it together. She's clearly got things sorted out and figured out emotionally as it pertains to adoption and all of that because of where she is.

And the reality is we shouldn't be trying to attain to get to where anybody else is. It's all about our own personal journey, and I just appreciate that you're willing to say, of course, I haven't arrived. And there [00:21:00] is no arrival destination, but that you're constantly working on yourself and discovering new ways that you can learn and grow and new things that you need to address.

I find that with your show, of course, and so many other people do, but to know that the host is I'm here to learn. I am here to grow personally in my own journey with my psychologist, with my therapist, with my family as it pertains to reunion or whatever the different specific areas are. I think that's a really bold statement that you made that one of the ways that it's transformed you is that you walk away with 10 things or so to really think about and work on.

I think that's a really powerful statement. And again, not to say that you aren't someone that people should look up to, I absolutely believe you are, but that is one of the reasons, not because you've arrived, but because you're working through all of the things that you need to work through on this journey.

Haley Radke: I think you're talking me up too much.

Reshma McClintock: Truly I'm not meaning to, that's not my intention. I'm not trying to flatter you.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Reshma McClintock: Yeah. So I [00:22:00] know you 'cause I know where you're going. I know I just think that it's a powerful thing that you can say that because I think a lot of people in your position with your kind of success wouldn't necessarily say, I am still learning every day and in the show that you happen to provide and host and curate that it is even benefiting you in your journey on your path. That it's not like I've arrived so I'm going to host this podcast so other people can get to where I am. That's not what it's about. It's about collectively growing in our own paths and our own journey.

So I think that's really wonderful.

Haley Radke: One thing I have felt fearful of with the show is we talk about a lot of hard things and a lot of adopted people are always being accused of being so negative if we're critical at all about adoption and I don't want us to stay stuck in the bad experiences.

And it's so important to me that we do seek healing and [00:23:00] growing ourselves. And if I'm not gonna model that, I'm a complete hypocrite. So I really do think it's important for us to be working on that. And I hope that with the ways I have, the Healing Series and I have therapists on and some of the questions of the guests, like sometimes I ask guests like, what have you been learning in therapy and is there a question I can ask you that you can teach us from, because I want them to give an opportunity to be like this is where I came from, but here's all the things I've worked on, because they're examples for us as well. It's so important to not stay stuck and that's just a human thing.

Reshma McClintock: That really is, I love that. I think you've had so many, I couldn't even start to list, good therapists on who talk about that a lot, about them being on their own journey also. They want to help people; obviously, meet them where they are, but that they're also doing their own personal work.

And I think just in general, across the board, outside adoption, we all [00:24:00] have to be doing the work on ourselves. And that's where we flourish really. So the problem is just like what you said, the dangerous territory is when we get stuck. And there's no growth.

So I just appreciate looking at someone like you where, I think, professionally you've had this success. It's just remarkable what you've done, that you've created out of nothing without any experience. The fruit that you have produced is just really extraordinary.

And to hear from someone, frankly, at your level, that you are still learning and listening and all the benefits that you personally find, I love that. So thank you for answering that question. I know that was a lot.

Haley Radke: Let's just talk about me some more. That's just my favorite.

Reshma McClintock: Yeah, I know you, this is your favorite thing.

Okay, let's see. I also wanted to know what is your favorite part of the show? What is your favorite aspect of doing the show? And I've heard you say to [00:25:00] me many times, and I love hearing it from you every time that people will share their stories with you is so powerful.

What do you love about Adoptees On? If you can, can you pull yourself out of it at all? Are you able to separate yourself at all from Adoptees On and say this is what I love about Adoptees On?

Haley Radke: Oh my goodness. That's tricky. I was a podcast listener for a decade before I started this show, so when podcasts were starting. So I have listened to podcasts for years and years, and I structured the show in a way that was my favorite format. And I think some of my favorite moments of the podcast itself, each episode, are the last couple questions that come right before recommended resources.

So it's always the questions that are wrapping up the interview. This is their last chance to share with the listeners some powerful thing that has impacted them. [00:26:00] I feel like those are the moments that are like the penultimate, I don't know. Because we wrap up with recommended resources and I'm usually sharing something, if it's an author I'm usually sharing about their book, and they're gonna promo something else and that's great too. But it's just like those moments right before, and I feel too like guests often relax by recommended resources. So they're comfortable at that point and share some pretty amazing things. So I feel those last couple questions are my favorite usually.

Reshma McClintock: Oh, I love that. That's good to know. Now the pressure's on for future interviewees. No, I'm kidding.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Watch out. Question seven. That's the one.

Reshma McClintock: My last question for you is this: If I am new to Adoptees On, and I were jumping in and it's, whoa, she's had 500,000 downloads, a half a million downloads, how many episodes could she have? How could I ever jump in and get caught up [00:27:00] and listen and know what this show is all about? First, I'd like to know how many episodes do you have, quickly,

Haley Radke: This is gonna be Episode 155.

Reshma McClintock: Love it. 155 episodes. So if I'm someone coming in and there are 155 episodes. I'm not asking you to pick your favorite child or anything here, but could you pick a reasonable number of episodes that you would recommend to give someone a crash course in Adoptees On and, frankly, the host, who you are, because that's a huge part of the show, but are there a certain number of episodes that you could get to give someone a crash course on Adoptees On?

Is that something you could include in the show notes for this episode?

Haley Radke: Okay. This was a big ask and thank goodness Reshma did warn me about this question. I'm gonna separate it into two, okay? So if you wanna get to know me a little better and you haven't binged all the episodes, which some of you say you do, just a few days’ time, which is too many, that is too many hours of me talking. Don't do that.

If you [00:28:00] wanna get to know me a little bit better. I actually share my story in Episode 13 and it's a long episode. We start off with a couple different things, so if you just wanna hear my story, I start around the 28-minute mark of that episode and that is about my failed reunion with my first mother.

And then unusually the other two episodes where you could learn a little bit more about me. These are some of the only episodes I have that are with a guest who's not adopted, but they are people that are in my life. And so I have an episode, Episode 58, with my husband, and he talks about what it's like being married to an adoptee. So if you want more dirt on me, hit that one up. Nick shares all the dirt. There's not that much dirt.

And then the third one is an episode that I feel is quite controversial. I have had feedback on both [00:29:00] sides of that fence. It's very polarizing. So it's Episode 86 and I actually interview my biological father's wife, and I call her mom, because I call her mom, And she shares what Reunion was like for her. And it's a challenging listen, but it gives you a good perspective of how our reunion went.

So those are the pieces where if you wanna get to know me more, and if you have people in your life or around you, you probably do, and the impact that your presence might have in their life, you might see some of that in these.

Reshma McClintock: I just wrote 'em down too, because I've listened to all of those, but I'm going back to re-listen.

Haley Radke: Okay, great. Now the other ones, that's so hard, it's really tough to pick. What I did is I wrote down the top three downloaded shows.

And the first one is an episode I did with Carrie. It is Episode 1 [00:30:00] with Carrie Cahill Mulligan. She is my co-host most of the time on Adoptees Off Script, which is the Patreon-only show that I also do weekly. Did you know I have two podcasts every week? Oh my gosh, Resh. It's a lot.

Reshma McClintock: It's a lot.

Haley Radke: It's a lot.

Reshma McClintock: It's amazing.

Haley Radke: So if you need to hear me talk more, I talk a lot more on that one than I do on my own podcast here. But Carrie shares about her reunion and we'd really go back and forth. This was much more of a back-and-forth conversation. What you're used to now is really not hearing too much of me. My editor. I don't know. She might roll her eyes at this. Is this too many secrets? Sometimes I get her to cut out my questions so that the guests can seem like they just keep talking and they have another thought and they go onto a different topic because I don't want it to be about me.

Reshma McClintock: Wow. I love that.

Haley Radke: So this is a little bit rougher, and the sound, everything. We're a lot more professional around here.

Reshma McClintock: [00:31:00] Episode 1 and you're on 155. We can have grace for that.

Haley Radke: There you go. There’s some grace. The second most downloaded one. I wonder if you're gonna be surprised by this? It's Episode 128 and it's with Blake Gibbons.

Reshma McClintock: Oh, I love Blake Gibbons.

Haley Radke: So if you want to hear about adoptee advocacy and the challenges in that space, and if you wanna be thinking about ethics and all the complicated things that come with adoption and advocacy, this is the one to listen to.

Reshma McClintock: Blake makes my head hurt in the best way.

Haley Radke: Yes,

Reshma McClintock: Because they are so smart and wise and kind and energetic and all the good things.

Haley Radke: That's right.

Reshma McClintock: So yay, Blake.

Haley Radke: That's right, I agree. The third most-downloaded episode is an episode with a therapist we've had on the show multiple times, Pam Cordano. But this [00:32:00] episode is Episode 85 and she asked her two adult daughters to come and share what it's like to have an adoptee as their mother.

Reshma McClintock: Okay, how have I not heard that one? Okay, I gotta write that down too. 85.

Haley Radke: So if you wanna talk about putting yourself out there and putting yourself on possible blast and sharing our dirty laundry. That is an episode. It is amazing. It's one of the most powerful, and that's why I think it's one of the most downloaded. Who gets to listen in on that kind of conversation? Who?

Reshma McClintock: Wow. Yeah, I haven't listened to that episode and I'm going to do that today. That is wonderful.

Haley Radke: So there are a bunch of different series I used to do: the Reunion Series, the Adoptees in Addiction, Adoptees in Relationships, Healing through Creativity. And the Healing Series continues with all the therapist interviews.

So all of those are linked on adopteeson.com. I really can't pick a favorite, [00:33:00] but I do think if what you're struggling with the most right now is relationships, and that's number one thing that people will say to me, then listen to that series and I think you'll get a lot from it.

Reshma McClintock: I love that. Thank you so much for sharing those. I think that it can be really overwhelming to come into a show with 500,000 downloads and 155 episodes and think, whoa, where do I even start? So I think that's a really wonderful tool to have as a jumping off point. What I'm certain of is that as soon as anybody listens to any one, two, or all of those episodes, they're going to wanna go back to the beginning and have a Haley binge.

So yeah, I imagine that'll just be all that people need to get sucked in because there's just so much goodness. When you really think about what those 500,000 downloads entail, like the knowledge and wisdom and emotions and experiences shared in each of those episodes and downloads and how they must impact [00:34:00] people, it's really like the mind-blown emoji. It's a lot to take in.

Haley Radke: Totally. Thank you for grilling me. I mean thank you for interviewing me. I know she could have asked a lot for the dirt, but there isn't any

Reshma McClintock: I'm selfish. I like to keep those for myself.

Haley Radke: Oh, that's, yeah, it's private.

Reshma McClintock: That's for Vox.

Haley Radke: It's for Voxer. Blackmail later. Down the road. Yeah. Alright,

Reshma McClintock: Yours can be that someday you'll interview my daughter.

Haley Radke: Only when she's an adult. And she can consent to that.

Reshma McClintock: No, I'm not as brave as Pam Cordano.

Haley Radke: Oh my goodness. Yeah. She's pretty amazing.

Okay, we're gonna wrap up with recommended resources, but first I'm gonna tell you the five things I've learned after 500,000 downloads. So number five, we're gonna count up to the top. Number five is that internet friendships are really real [00:35:00] and the connections that I've made online are so true and can be deeper sometimes than some of my in-person friendships.

The friends I've made on the Patreon Facebook group, dms on Instagram, through emails people have sent me, it's really special and I don't have words for it. And including my friendship with you, it's pretty amazing the level adoptees can go to with understanding each other right away. And I think sometimes internet friendships get a bad rap, like is that really like a thing? And it is. It's a real thing.

Reshma McClintock: Agreed.

Haley Radke: Number four, something I mentioned a little bit earlier, the experience of being adopted and being human. This is gonna sound like obvious, but it's absolutely tangled together, enmeshed. I have multiple listeners, you might not know this, that don't have a connection whatsoever to adoption, and they [00:36:00] learn so much from our stories.

And I think that the pain, the trauma that we've been through from adoption leads a lot of us to seek healing like we talked about earlier. And it's actually really inspiring for others, even outside of our community to hear. And I'm really proud of that for us as adoptees speaking up that we can impact people even outside of adoptee land.

Okay. Number three is that adopted people are very generous. I right now actually have over 150 monthly supporters, and they keep the lights on here, they keep my editor paid and they keep the podcast free and available to anyone who needs support. And I see some of those same people giving to other adoptee podcasters.

Adoptee Kickstarters, other adoptee Patreons that are doing art, writing, you name [00:37:00] it, they are willing to put their money where they think the resources need to be made, and they are helping impact their community by doing that. And so I thank you for your generosity and your willingness to do that. And I see it and it's amazing.

Reshma McClintock: Oh, I love that.

Haley Radke: Okay. Number two, adoptive people can be extremely passionate about our fights for original birth certificates, for citizenship, for family preservation. Oh, my word. Have we seen the people doing the work in these areas? Wow. I don't even, I don't even know how much more I can speak on that point.

I think it's evident to me, it should be evident to you if you've listened to any number of these podcasts. The passion, the drive, the fire in some of these advocates. It is awe-inspiring. I don't know how they do it. It's [00:38:00] amazing. And like we are cheering you on. Okay.

Reshma McClintock: Yeah. That's amazing. And so true.

Haley Radke: Okay, number one, I think this will be my second time crying, so I'm okay. I mean on this episode. Okay, this is not new information, but it's the most important.

Adoptee voices matter. And when you create a place of safety and are willing to be vulnerable with your own story, there's something really magical that happens between us, myself, my guests, with you listening. You get to listen and feel like you're sitting with us. And truly you are because my office is surrounded with your words, the books you've written and sent to me.

I'm looking at a wall filled with cards and [00:39:00] letters. I have art you've made for me, embroidery, paintings. My purse, two of my purses are made by adoptees. I have a mug fired in a kiln that is by an adoptee. All of these things surround my office and surround me while I'm talking to guests. And it's a constant reminder that your voices matter no matter how they're expressed.

If I hear your voice and we're sharing them audibly with listeners, or I'm seeing your words and your art, your creations, the show has turned into my love letter back to you, to adopted people, and I just wanna remind you that you're not alone. Your voice matters and it matters so much to me. Okay. That's it.

Reshma McClintock: Oh my gosh. I [00:40:00] am wrecked. Haley, I just want to say on behalf of adopted people who love and appreciate you, who listen to your show, who've seen your work, who have read the things you've written, who've been impacted by anything that you have done for our community, thank you. I know that is not what you're looking for here.

We didn't discuss this, but I just want you to know how thankful we collectively as a community are for you and for your work and for how deeply you love our community and how committed you are to it. So thank you for elevating adoptee voices. I just couldn't thank you enough.

Haley Radke: Thank you. Okay. I'm supposed to be the one that's ready with the transition voice. Let's do a recommended resource. No, seriously. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I know that Adoptees On is appreciated and loved. And, like I said, I have letters from people. Did you know you could send me letters? I have a PO Box on my website and I love getting [00:41:00] cards and it's really fun. My boys love it. Where's the stamp from?

Reshma McClintock: I love that. That's great. I wanna add one thing really quickly. Sorry, I'm going off. I'm going rogue. Okay. Brace yourselves.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Reshma McClintock: I just also wanna say your show has also been the catalyst for so many other adoptee organizations or websites or podcasts. I know, because I get to talk to you personally, how many adoptees have consulted you before starting their own podcasts. You're very quiet and very humble about that, but you're also very gracious with sharing the space and acknowledging that there is room for all of us to do our own individual work, even if it's along the same lines of something that someone is already doing.

That there is space for all of us. So I think that's a really powerful, important thing that a part of that success, a part of those 500,000 downloads is that you have helped other people build their own dream of elevating adoptee voices in their own way, on their own podcast, on their own website, in their own book, whatever it looks like for them [00:42:00]. That Adoptees On has been a catalyst for that. And that is really important to acknowledge, especially as you go into recommended resources.

See, look, there's a good transition.

Because that's one of the other really powerful things you do is elevating adoptees, not just who you're interviewing but other resources in our community.

Haley Radke: Thank you for acknowledging that. I'm laughing because Reshma knows good and well that I do not like compliments or any of those things. It makes me very uncomfortable. I'm fine. Okay.

Reshma McClintock: That’s like the 16th time you've said, I’m fine.

Haley Radke: I'm fine, I’m fine. There's a terrible acronym for that and that is what I am. You can look it up on Google. I was gonna say Urban Dictionary, but don't do that. If it's really gross and terrible, I don't mean that. I just mean you're not really fine, but you're fine. Okay. You know what, since you brought that up, I know there are over [00:43:00] 35 other adoptee-run podcasts. Did you know that number was that high?

Reshma McClintock: I did not, no clue.

Haley Radke: Okay. Those are the ones that I have been watching and seeing grow over the years. The first one that I know of was started in 2016, and that's The Rambler. I actually had Mike McDonald on the show a long ways back but he was the first one that I know of.

And shortly after that, April Dinwoodie started Born in June, Raised in April in February of 2016. And I started July 1, 2016. So 2016 was a big year for adoptee podcasts and I recommended many of them on the show before. And if you're looking for more adoptee podcasts, just search 'em out. They are out there for sure.

The second thing that I should shout out is Lesli Johnson. She is an adoptee [00:44:00] therapist who has been on the podcast a number of times. She was my very first Healing Series therapist that I had as a guest, and I don't even know how many times she's been on. It's close to 10, I would guess.

Reshma McClintock: I love Lesli.

Haley Radke: Yeah, she is amazing. I've met her in person before. She's just as delightful in person. And, oh my word. The feedback I get from people that have been her clients, it's like topnotch. She has just launched a course just for us, for adult adoptees, it's pretty incredible. I trust her. I know her expertise.

She's worked in this field for a number of years, and she is up to date on all the things trauma related. So I haven't personally been through this course, but what I'm saying to you is I can endorse it because I know Lesli and I endorse her. The course is called “Come Out of the Fog and Into Your Life: Rewire your Brain for Resilience and Joy.” A six-week course for adult adoptees. [00:45:00]

Now, the time we're recording this, it's gonna start right away next week, but if you go to adoption.com, you can find out how to register and if you have already missed this round, I'm sure she's gonna be doing it again and I'm sure there's details there of how you can sign up and be notified the next time she's running it.

So please go and do that if that sounds like something that would be important for you. We talk all through this episode about how important healing is, and if you've connected with Lesli in some of the Healing Series episodes that she's done, then you probably know that this might be a good fit for you.

So if you sign up, let me know. I wanna hear about it. I wanna hear if it's something I should sign up for in my spare time. Honestly, if it wasn't pandemic times and I wasn't concerned my kids would be home again with me any day now, I would be signing up this round. But I'm gonna wait. I think that's my recommended resource.

Reshma McClintock: I love it. I love Lesli. I'm on board.

Haley Radke: Alright Reshma, we've talked a lot about me today, but you are [00:46:00] the creator of “Dear Adoption,” a producer and the subject of the documentary Calcutta is My Mother. And I know you've been on the podcast before sharing about those things, but where can people connect with you online to read Dear Adoption and to see more of your work and to find out more about your documentary?

Reshma McClintock: Dear Adoption is dearadoption.com and we've been on a bit of a hiatus for some time but there will be more at Dear Adoption. I think that Dear Adoption will forever be a thing, but there are going to be some breaks here and there, which I think is also really healthy. Dearadoption.com is a great place to go to listen to a wide variety of adoptee voices. Haley being one of them, actually. You've been on twice. We have, I think, two on there from you.

Haley Radke: I think I do.

Reshma McClintock: I love them both. And the film. Actually, we had to postpone our screening in Minneapolis last spring. But that screening is not canceled. Just postponed. Probably looking at 2021 at this point.

And then hopefully soon after, the film will [00:47:00] be released for streaming available worldwide. So we will keep you posted on that. But thank you so much for bringing up my couple of little projects. You're always so kind and generous with your promotion and I appreciate it.

Haley Radke: I'm eye rolling 'cause you said “little” projects. Okay. We know that Reshma is a force in adoptee land.

Reshma McClintock: Thank you.

Haley Radke: So, all right. Thank you so much for celebrating with me today. I have my balloons up here still, my mismatched balloons and I'm really sad to hear that zero is not coming. I was really hoping for that, but I'm using “zero day” just to keep me humble.

Reshma McClintock: I can still send you one.

Haley Radke: It's been a pleasure chatting with you. Thank you so much, Reshma.

Reshma McClintock: Thank you. Love you.

Haley Radke: Love you back.

On re-listening to our conversation, I feel like I did not express to you how shocked I felt that the show reached half a million [00:48:00] downloads and that each download represents a human person who most likely is an adopted person, some of whom have never heard from other adult adoptees on the impact adoption has had on them.

And so they found the show, and that download counts as a person who was able to hear someone else who had an experience just like they did, and they felt that they were not alone. So thank you. Thank you for being one of those people who downloaded this episode and thought adoptee voices were so valuable that you really wanted to listen and hear part of the adoptee experience. So thank you for being a part of that.

I also want to express my great thanks again to my monthly supporters. Without you guys, I don't know that this show would've reached this [00:49:00] milestone and continued for four years as it has. So thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. If you want to join my supporters and if you think Adoptees On is impactful, that is an amazing way to support the show. Adopteeson.com/partner has details of that.

And like I was telling Reshma, there's the Adoptees Off Script podcast that's also weekly that I do for my Patreon supporters. And there's other things in there. But honestly, the best way and the free way to support the show is to tell just one other adopted person about the podcast.

And Reshma was saying, oh my gosh, there's so many episodes, 155. Where would you get started? If you are sharing the show with someone, it's amazing if you show them how to download a podcast if they've never done it before. Pick your favorite app. I love Overcast. There's lots of free ones if you're on an Android.

Download your favorite episode of the [00:50:00] show, something that has really been meaningful to you, or if there's one that relates to your friend's experience that they might find value in. Pick one of those. I really appreciate it and I do think once someone has listened then they’ll scroll through and find what they're interested in. So I think that's really helpful. Sharing the show with one person is amazing.

Another thing you can do is share the podcast on social media. Again, share an episode that you love and that you think your friends would love. And I'm so grateful 'cause so many of you do that regularly and I really appreciate that.

So thank you so much for spreading adoptee voices all around the world to over 144 countries 500,000 times. It's more than that by now. I just checked as I was editing. I just checked and I'm at 507,000 or something already, so there's already another 7,000. It's just [00:51:00] snowballing, which is wild. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening. I love you. Your voice is valuable. Your story matters, and I wish I could hear each one of you share your story on the show.

If you have listened this long, if you've made it to the end, I want you to know that I have opened up applications to be on the podcast, and I'm already receiving more than I could possibly interview, but I know that you've listened all the way to the end of the show, that you are excited about Adoptees On, and maybe you wanna share your story.

So if you go to adopteeson.com and you go to the connect page, there's instructions there on how to apply to be on the show. It includes recording yourself. A little message about what you would wanna say to adoptees. Share a little bit of your story with me. Why you think you'd be a good [00:52:00] fit for the podcast, and who knows? Maybe you'll be on the next episode of the podcast.

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

151 JS Lee

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/151

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This show is listener supported. You can join us and help our show grow to support more adoptees by going to adopteeson.com/partner.

You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is Episode 151, Jessica Sun Lee. I'm your host, Haley Radke. It's a great honor to bring to you the creative powerhouse, Jessica Sun Lee. We talk about racism, dealing with multiple complex traumas, and the challenge of how we attribute our resilience as adopted people.

I wanna give you a content warning for this episode. We briefly mention childhood sexual abuse, gun violence, sexual assault, and domestic violence.

Jessica has a brand-new book out that we talk about today, so make sure you listen to the end of the show to find out how you can win a signed copy. We wrap up with [00:01:00] some recommended resources and, as always, links to everything 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, Jessica Sun Lee. Welcome, Jessica.

Jessica Sun Lee: Hi Haley. Thanks for having me.

Haley Radke: I can't believe it's taken us this long to get together. I can't wait for a conversation I've been eagerly anticipating for a long time. I'll be candid about that. I would love it if you would start the way we always do. Would you share your story with us?

Jessica Sun Lee: My story has changed over the years, and I'll probably never know the truth. There was so much corruption in Korean adoptions, but it went from being delivered to a police station in Seoul at a day old to being found outside the hospital grounds in Daegu. When I was visiting in Korea in 2006 was when I learned this. I found paperwork [00:02:00] that suggested I was around two weeks old.

From there, I ended up at the White Lily Orphanage in Daegu. I may have lived with a foster mother for up to four months before being adopted at six months old. Then I was adopted to a white family in the Boston suburbs with two older girls, biological to my adopters. And after that my adoptive parents had four more biological kids after my adoption.

So I was the only Asian and right in the middle. We lived in a town that was over 95% white, with summers and weekends in Maine at a house where in that town I was in most cases the first Asian or even person of color people to encounter. So that was interesting.

And we thankfully always had a lot of animals. So I bonded with them more even than my adoptive siblings. I always saw us as more the same, and I know that's really offensive for some adoptees, but for [00:03:00] me that was my experience, just being the soul of my kind. In such a large white family.

Haley Radke: What kind of animals did you have? Do you have a special pet that you remember?

Jessica Sun Lee: Oh, I remember and loved them all. We had two dogs, four cats. There was a hamster, a lizard but really it was the cats and the dogs I really bonded with the most. They brought me a lot of comfort.

Haley Radke: Do you still have pets in your life?

Jessica Sun Lee: Yeah, I have two cats right now. They're siblings; I wasn't about to separate them, adoptee issues. They really come out all the time and yeah, they're wonderful. They're gonna be turning 12 in two weeks.

Haley Radke: I love that. I haven't heard someone mention that to me before, about how important animals were to them as they were growing up. So thank you for saying that. I'm sure some people using the same language of adoption with kids and animals, like [00:04:00] that is super problematic, but I'm sure there's others that will relate to that, just that feeling of, oh, these are my people.

Jessica Sun Lee: No, they were my people.

Haley Radke: They were your people. Wow. Okay. Sorry. Please continue. I'm so curious about what happened for you after that.

Jessica Sun Lee: Oh a lot. Yeah. That's really so much that I'm not sure exactly where to go first, but that was my childhood. That experience of two houses, two very white towns where I was really very much visibly an outsider.

Haley Radke: Okay. So I'm curious because now I know that you are an artist in a variety of capacities. So you're an author of adult fiction, children's books as well. You are an essayist. You [00:05:00] blog regularly.

And you are an artist in various mediums as well. And musical, a singer. I don't know if you play instruments. I don't know. My jaw just kept getting wider and wider open as I saw all the things that you do. So did you feel creative when you were younger? What kind of led you to dabbling in all these sorts of things?

Jessica Sun Lee: Yeah, the way I use my creative outlets varies by medium and has varied throughout my life. At first it was so therapeutic as a child. There were so many inarticulable emotions and experiences that more visual or musical art allowed me to work through. And I was always writing stories and all of those things, just painting, music, writing.

They were like my best friends. The people I could trust, here we go with people again. But yeah, [00:06:00] it's what I had, so I would just spend hours working on things, making things. And I mentioned I had a really large adoptive family, so if you can imagine the noise that was going on in that house.

I had to escape, and escaping into these arts I would always find a closet, whichever room was my bedroom. It moved around. But the running joke in my household was that I was in the closet, which they didn't even know that I was a queer child then, and neither did I really fully understand.

But that was the joke, was that I was in the closet and I was always working on something. To carve out a little bit of peace for myself, but yeah, so we didn't have privacy. Not only were there a lot of people, but it was a big house and we had surveillance cameras and intercom systems in our bedrooms that all fed into little TVs [00:07:00] in the kitchen. Which, yes, I see your face.

It's so nice to get that validation now and how wrong and how strange that is. Because it was my normal, it was my normal growing up. So anyways, my art and music and writing, they were fine. My adopters really loved when it made them proud. Say, I wrote something that furthered their narrative and it maybe won an award at school.

So for a while there was a transition from these things being therapeutic and for me into parental approval. So that's so addictive as a sole adoptee of color in this family, but it was also a betrayal of self. So it took a really long time then after that to reclaim my voice and my creativity for me. And because I was always spied on, my notebooks, diaries, etc., were read out loud and [00:08:00] for things that they didn't approve of, I started to use fiction as a way to tell the truth without getting in trouble.

And I think that's where my love for fiction began, just needing for me to find a way to own my feelings. Where it wasn't going to get me punished. Yeah. That was the kind of household I grew up in.

Haley Radke: I'm so sorry. I got really emotional. Just you sharing relying on fiction as a way to tell the truth without getting in trouble and the lack of privacy and having your journals read out loud and shamed. I am just like, that just makes me feel sick to my stomach.

Jessica Sun Lee: Yeah.

Haley Radke: There's so many things that little people were trying to work through, like our identity especially as adoptees, and I'm just thinking of you as a younger person and how that [00:09:00] would've impacted you.

I love how you said you worked to reclaim it for yourself. Now, can you talk about that? What did that look like and when were you able to take that back?

Jessica Sun Lee: I'd love to say that it started in my teens and that was wonderfully empowering, but it took a lot longer than that for the fiction. Yeah, that was a way to work through therapy. It was my therapy. But I didn't really fully reclaim my voice for decades. It took a long time.

I think probably when I wrote my only memoir, my first book. That was when I really was able because that was nonfiction, first off. But it was a way for me to say I'm not going to be afraid. I'm going to speak my truth here. And whatever happens, happens. And it did. It did end up ultimately separating me from my adopters, and [00:10:00] it's what had to happen. It was a way for me to find freedom.

Haley Radke: I'm not sure if you're familiar with this, but a couple years ago I did a whole series on healing through creativity. And do you resonate with that at all?

Jessica Sun Lee: Yes. Yeah. I feel like that why I've gravitated to all of these different art forms is really for healing purposes. It's allowed me to have a voice when the alternative was to have none, was to be silenced. It allowed me to try to shape things, try to make sense of things, because I wasn't able to speak clearly. I wasn't able to say what I was really feeling inside. And I do think it is such an empowering thing to allow yourself to explore, to explore whatever's going on in there. And that was my way. [00:11:00] It's still my way.

Haley Radke: Thank you. I appreciate that. What I really have appreciated is all of your posts and writing lately, especially on criticizing in various ways all these issues, adoption, racism, classism, and I know you've seen the absurdest comparison of adoption as slavery because you wrote a blog post about that on your website. And I'll make sure to link to that in the show notes.

And the one really problematic comment I hear very frequently from fellow adoptees, and this is in regards to receiving original birth certificates and you've probably heard this too, that (I'm putting this in my air quotes) adoptees are the last group denied their civil rights. Now over the last few months, we're recording this during pandemic times and, here's the buzzword, the unprecedented civil unrest in the United States, but do you see any movement in this [00:12:00] area?

In particular with adoptees over the last few months? What I think I've seen is I've seen a few adoptees get schooled over this.

Jessica Sun Lee: Yeah. This is a really hard area because honestly I haven't seen as much movement as I would like. There are still so many who look at trauma and oppression competitively, and it's not just white adoptees either.

And when I try to make sense of it. I think it's invalidation, right? I think invalidation is just so painful and adoptees in general are so used to not being able to have our trauma witnessed, our pain accepted. So we might tend to make these overblown statements in comparisons hoping that it's going to be recognized that way, and unfortunately, it's very offensive.

There's no excuse for it, but I think that might be where it's coming from, but there are some who truly get it [00:13:00] though. And it really means a lot to me to see that, for me to see certain white and domestic adoptees, for instance, using their platform to talk to other white people and say, listen, this is what's going on.

Because the sad truth is for a lot of white people, they need to hear it from white people. They won't listen to me. So that is, I think, being a true accomplice.

Haley Radke: Thank you for that challenge. I have been learning a lot myself over the last number of months and what it means to be an ally and anti-racist and those things, and I'm certainly cringing at myself at many times where I've had transracial adoptees and asked them to explain microaggressions to me and all kinds of those things. So I'm for sure learning myself.

Now talking about the times we're in, your brand-new book, Everyone Was Falling, tackles so many of the very important issues that society is grappling with right now. [00:14:00] So all kinds of themes: homophobia, racism, gun control, mental health issues. And, this is awkward, but all I could think of was that line from Hamilton, which I know also can be problematic, why do you write like you're running out of time? And so that's what I was thinking when I was reading your book.

And do you have a sense that there's something in you, that you need to get these things out and just these are the issues right now and this is the message I wanna get out in my book.

Jessica Sun Lee: Yeah. There's definitely a sense of urgency and I started writing this book in December of 2016, just after Trump's election.

So for several months I'd been witnessing the varied views of my network, and I sensed Trump's win coming. Several people I'd [00:15:00] known from my hometown and beyond, which is a blue state, were finally sharing some horrifying views. So when he was elected, I, like many, was deeply depressed, not only for what I saw coming in terms of immigrants and people of color, but for us.

But he's clearly a narcissist, and I had just cut ties with the narcissist in my life. So it was infuriating and to see how many people were willing to sell out the marginalized people that they supposedly loved in our families. People in our families, because we weren't considered, we were the exceptions, right?

So I wrote this book as a form of therapy, as they all are for me, and all of these themes in the book crash into one another because all of my vulnerable identities and pressure points were colliding at once. So I also really wanted to convey how we all handle traumas differently, right? And how we [00:16:00] handle them is gonna vary by our identities and life experiences and how society views or treats us.

For instance, in the book, the three main characters: Christie is the white woman and this trauma is her only trauma. So she is able to work through it in a much more free way. Where Lucy, the Asian queer adoptee, is dealing with a lot of homophobia and a lot of racism in her family. And Donna, the black character, she is viewed as a suspect. So she can't even begin to process the trauma of the gun violence because she's under attack.

So I just really wanted to explore that. And since you follow me on social media, you know that I struggle with a message from white folks that change happens slowly and you've gotta be patient. Because not everyone has time, right? So there's that sense of urgency again. There are black folks getting murdered in the streets by [00:17:00] people that are supposed to protect them. And when they're not killed, black and brown people are jailed for petty crimes, their families disrupted with ripples and ripples of repercussions.

We all know about the children in cages at the border, separated from their parents who have no means of tracking them, and there's been the heightened anti-Asian violence still ongoing through this pandemic. Which is always under-reported. So when white folks talk about the time it's gonna take, it's hard not to get riled by that because, yeah, we're running out of time.

Too many have already run out of time. And so while we're witnessing people who are really well intentioned, just starting their education, starting to read books and to try to understand things people are dying and there's irreparable harm being done. So with all of that pressure that I've been feeling I also wanted to empower people, namely people of color and women.

Because I don't [00:18:00] know if or how we're gonna get out of this tangled mess of capitalism, racism, and all these other terrible -isms. But if we do, it's not gonna be by playing by the rules, right? So that’s, without giving any spoilers, part of what's in the book.

I love that Audrey Lorde quote that a master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. That is so poignant. We're going to have to find ways around the system. Because we can't work within it. It wasn't built for us. The way it functions is by design. So all of this stuff is why I felt so compelled to write Everyone Was Falling.

Haley Radke: Goodness, 2016 you started. That's really amazing. So you've tackled, as I mentioned, some really intense subjects in Everyone Was Falling and also in Keurium. Am I saying that right? Curium?

Jessica Sun Lee: That's okay. Close enough. [00:19:00]

Haley Radke: Close enough is not good. She's so polite. And the grimace.

Jessica Sun Lee: Well, I'll tell you, I had to learn the word too. As a transracial adoptee, I didn't have my language and it's hard for me to say as well, but I asked for some help to learn how to say it correctly. It's like a D for the R,

Haley Radke: I'm almost there. I always wanna get people's names right. It's very important to me and so it's important to me to get your book title right, too.

Back to my question, the topics you cover are so intense and you mentioned before fiction is a way to tell the truth without getting in trouble. So I'm wondering if you're comfortable sharing any parts of your story that you bring through into your books and your personal understanding of PTSD. [00:20:00]

Jessica Sun Lee: Yeah, this is when we get real here, right? Not that, we haven't been already. I'm obviously a transracial adoptee. I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, narcissistic abuse, racial trauma. I was raped at gunpoint by multiple offenders a month after I turned 16, so I'm familiar with that type of gun violence and sexual violence.

And that's a lot, right? Despite that, while all of these things were so awful, it took decades to fully understand them and how they impacted my life. You’re just trying to survive; you’re just trying to keep putting another step forward. So it took me a really long time. I repeated the unhealthy dynamics of my childhood in adult relationships, both friendships and romantic, because I didn't have the chance to process them when they were happening.

I also experienced domestic violence. I left my abusive first husband, who was also an adoptee, at age 24. So while I was waking up to my adoptee trauma in my late twenties and how the [00:21:00] rape affected me in my thirties, it was only about five years ago that I realized the rest. I had written my adoptive mother to tell her I was finally starting to heal from the rape at 16, and her response floored me.

Instead of being happy that her daughter was finally finding peace around such a life changing trauma, she chose that opportunity to blame me for putting her through so much stress the night that it happened when she didn't know where I was. So it was just incomprehensible but it was actually bad enough for me to finally see that there was something deeply wrong.

I think it's what I really needed and I'm not glad for any of this, but it helped me see the truth. A prior therapist had once suggested that she was a narcissist, but I didn't fully understand what that meant. And I'd been blaming myself for so long for not being able [00:22:00] to get our relationship right.

So when I was finally able to see that it opened more doors to the many things that went wrong in that house. I'm not gonna lie, it was a grueling few years of processing and just coping and trying to write and get my head around things and to feel like I could move on from it all. But I had a lot of help from some key friends, online support groups.

I had a therapist, which not everybody can have, and I had my own inner will to get through it. So I have this joke that I'm alive because I'm stubborn. I wanted to live to tell my stories, and I've got plenty to keep me going. So yeah.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. One of the Twitter threads you wrote talks about resilience, and I think this is a good time to mention it because we see a lot of [00:23:00] adoptees taking some kind of pride in their resilience because they've been adopted. And you have a little bit of a different take on that. So I just wanna give you the space to talk through some of those things, if you wouldn't mind. And you have a very sobering reason for it, I think.

Jessica Sun Lee: Yeah. I have a lot of feelings around that, I think, as you can imagine. I do think it's great to look at what we've made of our lives in spite of the traumas we've been through and feel proud of who we've become. I think that's so important, but I absolutely reject the idea that we owe thanks to our traumas.

I am the one who made me who I am today through a lot of hard work. And honestly, there are many times when I didn't make it. We owe ourselves that gratitude and not the things that nearly killed us, not the things that tried to kill us. We are the ones who do all the work and continue to do the work every [00:24:00] day.

A big step in my personal healing journey, which is going to be a lifelong event, has been giving myself a chance to wonder what could I have become if not for my traumas? What if I hadn't been taken from my country, culture, family language? What if I didn't have to spend so much time coping with the aftermath of my other traumas?

How might I have thrived? What might I have created? What might I have done? And I know all of that's so taboo. When I was younger it was, and some people still think it is now. They get upset, maybe because they don't wanna go there themselves? So we're not allowed; society tells us we're not allowed.

But honestly, going through those questions and that process just gave me a chance to have self-compassion for myself. Something that was so hard for me, that I really struggled with and I still do struggle with today, but it helps me move on. [00:25:00]

Haley Radke: I really appreciate that reframing and I think it's very powerful. So I think you've given us a lot to think about just with that.

Going back to Everyone Was Falling, you've got a character with multiple layers of trauma, as is your personal experience. And I've talked with other therapists about complex trauma and for adoptees, there's all of these compounding layers and we all have different stories and different experiences, but I'm curious how you wrote Everyone Was Falling with this character that has these multiple layers and picturing someone who's not adopted or doesn't have an understanding of PTSD or just being adopted in particular. What would you hope that someone like that would read and learn through your book, through your words? [00:26:00]

Is that something you think about when you write that someone outside of adoptee land might really have a deeper understanding of an adoptee?

Jessica Sun Lee: I should say it's good for a writer to be mindful of their desired leadership, and for me, it's not outsiders. I write for myself and my people. I want us to feel seen. Anyone else who reads it and gains value from it is a bonus. So they're like the cherry on top. I think a lot of folks like myself with multiple marginalizations and multiple traumas can be really frustrated by the way, society only seems to focus on one thing at a time.

A singular marginalized identity, one major trauma, but life's kind of messy, at least mine has been. We don't get to choose. We don't always get to choose just one focus. And the complexities of managing multiple stressors is a reality for a lot of us, especially people of color. And I'm always thinking of the younger [00:27:00] generation and trying to give them what I might have wanted or think about what I might have needed.

If you're one of the demographics that industry caters towards, you might take for granted how valuable it is to see yourself accurately represented in a variety of ways. I'm probably going to pronounce her name incorrectly, but I just love a writer named Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She did this talk called “The Danger of a Single Story.” You can Google it. It's a great short piece where she talks about how, because as marginalized people, our stories aren't told in platitude that there's so much pressure for us to tell everybody's story in one story.

And with that mindset, we're going to fail because no story can do that. We should be able to tell all of the stories we wanna tell without having them have to represent an entire community. And basically the solution to that is [00:28:00] for more marginalized people to be given more opportunities to tell our stories.

And I know for adoptees, we're always trying to fight against the happy-go-lucky, perfect, fairytale adoption story. So that's for adoptees. And then add every other marginalization or different identity on top of that. There's so much pressure to cover everybody and you just can't. We can't do that.

Haley Radke: I'm curious if you have thoughts on non-adopted people writing adoptees as characters.

Jessica Sun Lee: Yeah, I do have thoughts on that. I think it happens too often and I haven't seen it done very well frequently. There might be one that I think had a lot of research behind it, but typically I find it offensive.

The representation tends to fall [00:29:00] into stereotypes that we adoptees fight against. And when it comes to movies, especially, oof, that I find extremely upsetting because that's so accessible to the public. It's what people are going to gravitate towards. There's more investment in getting through a book than maybe an hour-and-a-half, two-hour movie.

And a lot of times it's really frustrating to see the poor representation and to have the things that we're constantly, the adoptee creatives, are fighting against. It's just being piled on top with these dangerous, incorrect narratives.

Haley Radke: What you said earlier about writing for yourself and for your community, something I actually love about both of the fiction books that I've read of yours, I think, the general public would love them as well, and there's this big education piece to me, and I always picture [00:30:00] someone who has no connection to adoption reading, like what an adoptee's experience could really be like.

And it's on the slide, they're learning things about adoptee life without maybe intending to. So yeah, I totally agree about all the tropes that adoptees are put into. More than just adoptees, pick up your book.

Okay. As we're winding down, let's go back to writing a little bit. And you said you, you did write a memoir. I haven't read it. I'll admit. I didn't know you had a memoir. I think a lot of adoptees focus on writing memoir as their first book. And I've heard from a lot of my listeners that they're trying to write down their story and trying to get their truth out there.

Is there something you could give advice in that area? Maybe there's some permission that's given in fiction that could be a little bit more freeing for them. What are your thoughts on that for an adoptee [00:31:00] who feels like they need to get their story out, but it's a little bit scary to do memoir.

Jessica Sun Lee: Yeah. I think that it is a great way to take back some power by owning your story. I highly recommend it. I don't think you have to be a writer to do that. I think you should. It's a very therapeutic process, and I would say write it as if nobody's going to read it. That's how you're gonna get the most truth. especially as adoptees, there's that fear, like you just mentioned.

You need to be as honest as possible not just about the events, but, you know, how you are feeling along the way and how different situations or pieces of awareness just moved through you. I think that's what makes it really all the more therapeutic and real. And just keep writing.

Just keep writing, keep revising and don't expect to ever have money. [00:32:00] I see some people saying, oh, I just need to write a book and all these, and, oh, that's not how it works. You write it because you need to. Because you need to, because the story needs to be heard. You need to tell that story, and if it's important to you, you'll find a way to bring it out.

You know what's funny to me? I follow a lot of writers on Twitter and I see a lot of them talking about how miserable the process is. And I don't get that. I wonder if maybe they're just not writing what they really want to write, because for me, nothing else I do makes me feel more whole, more like myself, than when I'm writing, out of all the things that I do.

And maybe I feel that way because for so long I wasn't free to speak my truth. But it is just, I think, such a wonderful gift to give yourself is to be able to write your story. I do think, personally, I do prefer fiction. Not because of fear of getting in [00:33:00] trouble anymore, but I just think it is a way for me to be more honest and reveal even more because I have to look at things from a slightly different angle. And, creating characters that you get to know on the most intimate level is so satisfying for me.

But then of course, bringing my adoption back into this, it's sad to move on once you get to know these characters that you've created so well. It's abandonment perhaps rising because even when I am starting a new novel that I'm so excited about, there's a longing, a sadness, not a betrayal, but like a feeling of loss. So that's how close I think a lot of writers get to their characters. It's very rewarding.

Haley Radke: That is so special insider info to know. I haven't heard anyone talk about that before and I think it's because I probably have conversations a [00:34:00] lot with more memoir authors or in the self-help genre. So that is really special, like they’re your people again.

Jessica Sun Lee: Yeah. I had to create my own people. I do have my people now too that live outside, real breathing people.

Haley Radke: I'm so glad you mentioned that. Everyone can know that Jessica's is okay, She’s got all her friends and her chosen people.

Oh my goodness, I've learned so much from you. And right at the beginning you shared that your story has changed over the years based on information that people were giving you. And so you don't necessarily know your true beginnings, and coming to writing your story changes over the years as well, likely. Thank you for that wisdom. I really find that valuable.

Okay. So let's move to recommended resources. [00:35:00] And I'm so excited to have you on to share about your books. So your brand-new book, it's gonna be released in just a couple of days, which is so exciting. Are you excited or do you get nervous for release?

Jessica Sun Lee: Yeah, it's a mixture of both. I am excited for people to read it. I do think it's unintentionally very timely. I didn't expect for the past six months to have been what they have been, but yeah, we'll see what people think. I do think it's gonna have a lot of mixed results. It's gonna be challenging for some people.

I'd love to know how it was for you to read?

Haley Radke: So it's called Everyone Was Falling and I read it. I probably would've read it in one sitting had I not had my little people around bothering me. But I loved it and I loved all the nuances of the various characters. And I find it hard to do a [00:36:00] review when I don't wanna give any spoilers whatsoever.

I wouldn't even read the back cover. I would just go in and just enjoy the experience. You'll learn a lot from reading it, and I found it really powerful and insightful. There are so many little nuggets that I highlighted through the whole book and I don't wanna spoil anything. What can I read to you that would be not spoilery?

Jessica, while I was reading it, I thought, am I really learning a lot about Jessica through reading this? Because there's these little vignettes and moments where you share an experience about connecting with other adoptees and connecting with something with Korean culture and all of those little pieces.

I felt that was a really powerful way to get to know an author through reading fiction. So I might have made some assumptions during that time as well. So I'm really glad I got the opportunity to interview you, [00:37:00] to hear a little bit more about that. And your other book was so good, too. And the cover! Now tell me something. Did you design this?

Jessica Sun Lee: I did, yeah.

Haley Radke: Okay. Can you describe the cover for us?

Jessica Sun Lee: It's an Asian woman's profile. So she's sort of part of her, half of her face is above water, so you can see her forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, and chin. But the water is rising. And there's a reflection of her in the water. It's a bit fragmented, so it really ties into the story of Keurium, where she is without power. She's catatonic in the hospital for half the book. And she's reflecting on her past, on pieces of her past, and trying to make sense of them because she didn't have the opportunity to do so along the way.

So now that she's stuck in this state and has [00:38:00] nothing, no excuses, no distractions but her own mind, she's able to find her truth and understand her past and how it led to where she ends up.

Haley Radke: And so when I look at the covers together and I also see fragmentation that maybe I'm reading into that, but on the cover of Everyone was Falling.

Jessica Sun Lee: Oh yeah, so Everyone was Falling. The sensitivity reader, Emmy, who I worked with was fantastic. She and I were chatting and I was really having a struggle with the design of this cover, and she suggested what about having the fireworks somehow overlaying her face? The character’s face. And I said, oh, I never actually thought of that.

And I started playing with it and I loved it because so much of her story just came to [00:39:00] life. And of course the story began the weekend of 4th of July. And the PTSD of fireworks and everything just fit. I didn't intend for it to be a collaboration, but it ended up being really cool.

Haley Radke: If there was ever any doubt, Jessica is a true artist. She's got a beautiful eye for that. And so creative. I love them both. I'll admit, I have stared at the cover of Keurium for a long time just because I do find it very powerful. So to hear you explain it is wonderful.

Jessica Sun Lee: Thank you.

Haley Radke: Please go check out Jessica's books. I'm curious what you brought for us today as your recommended resource.

Jessica Sun Lee: So this is very unorthodox because I know I've listened to your show and it's usually adoptee-centric resources, but I really felt it might be important to recommend something that's Asian American history because we aren't [00:40:00] really taught Asian American history in the United States, especially not accurate history.

So I read this wonderful book by a woman named Helen Zia and she reads her own story. So let me just back up a little. The title of the book is called Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People, and it was written in 2001. I believe she might be working on re-releasing it because it is so timely right now.

She weaves her story in through Asian American history and how her firsthand experiences of living through the lynching of Vincent Chin and, as a journalist, how she became an activist and so much information that I had no idea about. And I know others don't either.

In the United States, the Asian Americans [00:41:00], we have been used as a tool of anti-blackness to prop up this whole bootstraps mentality to keep other people of color, black, Latinx, more brown people down. And the truth is, we are the race that has the greatest wealth gap also. We are not a monolith, the one that they choose to portray us as.

It’s, I just think, a very crucial piece of history, not a piece of history but we're a demographic that's very misunderstood in this country. And I think the more we understand the way different races of people have been used and oppressed, the more we can know what's going on today.

Yeah, that's my long-winded answer.

Haley Radke: I love it. Thanks for challenging us. I think we need to be challenged more often. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us and [00:42:00] for those insights into why you write. I'm really thankful. Where can we connect with you online?

Jessica Sun Lee: I first just wanna say thank you to you. I love what you do. Thanks for giving a voice to a variety of different types of adoptees. It's wonderful and I can be found at jessicasunlee.com. My Twitter handle is also Jessica Sun Lee.

Haley Radke: And where is the best place to pick up Everyone Was Falling?

Jessica Sun Lee: I'm going to say any independent bookstore. Support your independent bookstores. They need it now more than ever. And they care for us. They care for writers; they care for the community. The larger stores don't.

And if you go on to my website or if you just type in everyonewasfalling.com, it will lead to that page and it has links to bookshop.org, indiebound.org and then there's also an Amazon link if you feel that's the way you'd like to buy them. [00:43:00]

Those, I think, are the best alternatives to just calling up your local bookstore and asking for it, and they'll get it for you.

Haley Radke: Perfect. Love it. And just so you guys know, when an author is releasing a brand-new book, this is the best time to pre-order if you can. If you're listening to this after it's released, no problem. Grab it anyway and make sure you go and rate and review it wherever you like to collect those things.

So you can give five stars on Amazon. You can go to Goodreads, anywhere that you like to look for books. It's really helpful to authors if you give it five stars and write, even if it's just a couple sentences. It's super, super duper helpful. Thanks so much for chatting with me today, Jessica.

As we mentioned at the beginning of the [00:44:00] show, Adoptees On and Jessica Sun Lee are doing a signed-book giveaway. So to find out how to enter, go over to Instagram and the Adoptees On Instagram account. The handle is @adopteeson, and we will have a post with the two books that Jessica is giving away, signed copies, to one listener.

And we will have the instructions on that giveaway post. So go to Instagram @adopteeson is the handle, and you can easily find that post. You'll have about a week to enter from when this episode airs, and Jessica will be sending those books out. So excited. We haven't done a giveaway for a while, so that's really fun.

I am really thankful for people like Jessica who are willing to share some of the really hard things with us and I know there's a lot of you that are going through it right now, especially during the [00:45:00] pandemic times, and I know in the US there's elections and all kinds of things happening. Thinking of you, it's rough out there.

So I'm really grateful for those of you that keep speaking up, keep sharing your story and keep talking about the difficult things and not pretending like they're not happening. The other thanks I wanna give is to my monthly Patreon supporters.

So thankful for your support. I wouldn't be able to do the show without you. And like I said, a few weeks ago, we're going back to our weekly schedule with new episodes. And so you are helping to cover the production costs of the show, which is just a great help to me. So if you wanna join the other people that think Adoptees On is so valuable, they're willing to even share the cost of producing the show. Go to adopt design.com/partner and there's more details there.

And also details of all the fun benefits [00:46:00] you get by supporting the show monthly, including another weekly podcast. So I know we're on show #152 here. On Off Script. I think we're up to Episode 77, so I am well into the two hundreds of podcast making, which is wild.

Anyway, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for listening, and let's talk again next Friday.

150 [Healing Series] Mother Loss Part 2

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/150

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Haley Radke: This show is listener supported. You can join us and help our show grow to support more adoptees by going to adopteeson.com/partner.

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.

This is Part 2 of our discussion about Mother Loss. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Stephanie Oyler and Amanda Transue-Woolston. Welcome back.

Amanda Transue-Woolston: Thank you for having us.

Haley Radke: Okay, so last time we talked about some very sad things you both shared about the loss of your first mother, Stephanie, and Amanda, the loss of your adoptive mother. And you really talked us through some of the practical things that were just happening for you in the moment.

And we even mentioned that you're kind of in shock and you're kind of going through the motions at that point, and not necessarily that there was anything that you could have prepared ahead of time for this sort of loss.

Now let's put on therapy hats, social worker expertise hats. Looking at mother loss, Amanda, I got this quote from your Facebook page you shared:

“Because I am adopted, I will lose more than one mother more than one time throughout my lifespan.”

That's pretty powerful. Do you have some thoughts on that?

Amanda Transue-Woolston: Yes. When we talk about the “adoption triad,” which I don't use personally but it's very popular, we think of the adoptee, the first mother and the adoptive mother, and it's like this triangle with equal sides, which we know is not a thing, first of all, because there's power imbalances and representation imbalances in adoption and also because there's so many other factors and players involved.

I love the idea of the constellation so much more. But that idea of the triad, I think, causes people to see, if they're going to agree with me, that adoption involves a lot of loss which is still hard for people to comprehend. They're thinking, well, okay, you lost your first mother and then your adoptive mother died. The end.

And it's even more where I personally pull in the visual of the constellation because I lost a foster mother. I lost my first mother one time, but then I also reunited. So I eventually will also be involved as an adult in her end-of-life planning because we're close. And then also I have the loss of my adoptive mother, and I have this kind of ambiguous loss of never having gained much information about my foster mother either.

And being a therapist and being a social worker and working with children, I have an understanding of childhood development and I know better than to think that I'm not affected by these losses of my first mother or my foster mother just because I was young and couldn't remember those times.

I know better, and it's actually more concerning that I didn't have language at that time to process because you carry it around with you. And when emotions arise now, as an adult, I have to wonder when was the first time I actually felt this way? And was it when I was a child? And what is behind the feelings that I feel now as an adult, just in my everyday life? Because I don't know a lot about the first five months of my life. I won't have answers.

Depending on how many placements you had, depending on if your foster or your adoptive placement was disrupted, depending on if you were reunited later, you can lose multiple primary parental figures over and over again and also be in a position of having to teach people what that is like for you, if they're even willing to put aside their own assumptions that it doesn't matter or that only one of those mothers or fathers is allowed to matter.

When you get past that part, now you have to teach them what “mother loss” is.

Haley Radke: Talk about grief through the life cycle. Like, wow, do we get layers?

Stephanie, even when I was talking with you and Amanda about having this conversation, I broached the subject of I feel like this was pretty recent for you guys. Do you want to wait a little bit longer? And you guys both were like, no, no, no, we're ready, let's go.

Stephanie Oyler: You know, everything Amanda just said really, really hits home. I mean, just the amount of loss, and I'm thinking of the kids I work with even now, and just how people don't recognize it. They don't recognize anything but the loss of a mom, like the one mom who raised you.

And even going into the foster care piece, you know, I was in a couple of different foster homes. I was in one foster home for a pretty long time, and that was pretty significant because I was described as a very different child in their home. And then redescribed and re-, I don't even know, I was just a whole different child when I moved into my adoptive home.

So just the idea that I want to be able to know who I was before that point and I'm probably never going to get that opportunity.

It is a lot of loss. It's a lot of, it's just a lot of loss.

Haley Radke: I'm curious, both of you have mentioned that you have your children and how were you able to tell them about losing their, I'm not sure, sorry if this is presumptuous, Stephanie, but if you presented your first mother as a grandmother figure to them or not, and then Amanda, your kids losing their grandmother, how were you able to present that to them?

Was that really challenging? You know, I think, just that extra layer why I'm asking this is: For a lot of us, we feel like we're starting a new legacy once we have children and keeping our family intact. So I think there's this whole extra piece to it. Sharing this loss with our kids.

Stephanie Oyler: So my son is younger and he's a little bit crazy, so bringing him around my first mother would've been difficult because she had a lot of mental health issues and she took a lot of things very personally. She didn't understand certain things, so my son met her but I didn't really bring him around.

My daughter I did, and she's nine. She was eight when my first mom passed. She was there. She actually came into the room to say goodbye, and it was very difficult to explain because she understands adoption to an extent, but she didn't understand death. So I think the idea of that being a first real loss for her and then also just getting to know my first mom, she was a grandmother figure, but not in the same sense as my adoptive mom.

So I think it's still complicated even now. We're still kind of having conversations around it. There's actually been a lot of loss over this whole Covid situation. Our dog passed away a couple months ago, so there's been a lot of conversations around it and a lot of confusion.

So that's just an ongoing conversation, just developmentally, with both of them.

Amanda Transue-Woolston: I've asked myself this question and it's hard. It's been hard for me because I want to give people advice that I personally connect to. And it's hard for me to say how much of the explaining for my children was on me because it was really my husband that told them because I was in Florida.

So when he picked them up from school that day, I was already in Florida and he had to tell them why I left and where I was. And so I don't exactly know how he did that. I assume it would be very similar to the way that I would because he's been a paramedic for a long time. He works in a big city. Death and trauma is kind of just what he does every day. So my children are very familiar with that just because, you know, fire service and emergency service becomes part of a family culture.

My children also have participated in my interest in positive death culture literature and media. And so there's a death-positive creator that I really like. Her name is Caitlin Doughty and she's written books for kids. So I've read those with my children.

A lot of that was a part of me wanting to continue staying competent for my work in hospice, but also, even though I'm not working in hospice anymore, because within two years prior to my adoptive mother dying, my biological paternal brother died. My biological father's sister died. My grandmother, who was my kid's great-grandmother, my mom's mom, she died and was close to my children.

Other people died. There was more. People that we knew. It just seemed to come in waves. And so we had had this conversation already. And also our dog had died too.

So we don't use “pass away.” We don't use “went to heaven.” We've always said their heart stops. Their brain is not functioning anymore. Their personality words, the ability to take in information doesn't happen anymore. The body immediately starts breaking down, you know, and this is what happens when you bury something that's been alive. It becomes part of that whole cycle of life again.

And so we've always been very literal and concrete about death. And so they, my kids, seem to be able to apply that to when their nanny died. My youngest son, he has some mental health disabilities. And so he seems to understand, but I do answer some rather childlike questions. He's nine but he's developmentally younger in his thoughts, and so I do tend to answer more questions for him, and so sometimes I'm unsure how much he understands or is it a matter of how he's expressing himself.

Does he not know how to tell me that he understands, or does he generally still not kind of get what's happening? His first reaction was, what is wrong with Florida? Because his great grandmother had just died in Florida almost about a year prior. So he's like, Florida is where people go to die?

He did not really want me down there with my dad because I stayed in the hospital room with my dad. I slept on the chair and on a cot for eight days when he was in the ICU. So, that was the whole thing, them trying to get me out of his room. I was like, no, I'm not worried about any of you people here liking me. I'm not leaving my dad's side. That's just not happening, nope. We are loyal, we adoptees. We can be loyal to a tee.

So, anyway they didn't want me in Florida because Florida's a bad place. So that was my youngest son's first reaction. It's also been very weird because of the pandemic.

I feel like when people died when I was younger, I processed a lot of it through the awkward questions other people would ask me as a kid. Like, do you miss your whoever-it-was? It was just weird things people ask because they don't have to talk to kids.

But nobody really had contact with my children or my family, so it's hard to know if we're understanding and explaining normally because we haven't even had my mom's funeral yet. So this is completely new territory.

Stephanie Oyler: Yeah, it’s so interesting because I started to think more about my son in the mix, and he was in the hospital as well. He didn't go into the room. We kind of gave him an idea of why we were there, but just recently he's been very concerned about death. And I'm sure it's part of the pandemic that we're in and the dog dying and then my first mom, and he actually asked my adoptive mom when she had dropped by, we haven't seen her that often just because of all the restrictions and whatnot.

But he actually looked at her and was like, oh, I thought you were dead. And I thought about it and it just dawned on me the connection between the grandmother piece as well, because my first mom was considered a grandmother, and then, you know, she disappeared and then now we're in a pandemic, and then my mom disappeared, my adoptive mom.

So, yeah, I think it's just a lot more coming up with him just around death. And where do people go? And, well, I wanna visit them. He's five, so he's younger. Well, how do we get there? That's been a lot more, I think it took him a little bit to realize that when someone passes away or they die, they're not coming back.

I think that was something that's just now kind of recently started. So the conversations are coming back up, it's just ongoing. As we move through the emotions and the processing and just how each wave is different and how different things can trigger emotions or memories and just how that's impacting right now.

Especially with all the extra stuff happening around the pandemic.

Haley Radke: Totally, totally. Oh my goodness. There's so many things that kids just are expected to kind of jump on board and know right now that we, even as adults, don't know either.

Now I'm curious, in the same vein of having conversations and things, what both of you mentioned in our last episode was some of the ridiculous things people were saying to you as you're in this state of shock and grieving, or not even necessarily to the point of grieving yet.

But do you have any advice, coaching, anything that, now with hindsight, you can think, okay, if I had phrased something this way, this might have shut down some of those inappropriate questions? You know, it should. The onus shouldn't be on us. I totally get that. But if there is some piece of advice that you could give another adoptee who might be in a similar situation at some point.

Things we can say to shut down those inappropriate things. Especially when you're dealing with someone who doesn't understand the grief piece we're going through, like we mentioned disenfranchised grief last time.

Stephanie Oyler: I think it's hard to give advice because when you're in the moment, it's really hard to think about what you're going to say. So I think that that's where I trip up.

I think what I should have said was, this was my mom and I'm hurting. And that probably would've shut it down. But I think I was just so taken aback by the fact that people didn't even realize that this would be a painful thing for me and a hard thing. That it just kept me tripped up in what to say.

And I don't know if I have advice on how to combat that because I just feel when you're in the moment, your emotions are your emotions. And I guess I would say it's not a reflection on your relationship. It's not a reflection on the experience that you've had with your first family or whoever at that point.

It's just that people don't get it. And that doesn't mean that it's any less important or you grieve any less. And just being kind to yourself in that, because I think I was hard on myself in the sense that maybe I didn't speak about her enough.

Maybe I should have expressed that I had this relationship with her, and then people wouldn't think that I didn't, and they would understand that it hurts. So I think that's the piece, just being kind to yourself and allowing yourself the grace in the moment when you don't have all the right words.

Amanda Transue-Woolston: Yes. I think that Stephanie's strategy of preparing yourself to safeguard yourself from the reactions that people are going to have is the best, most self-loving way to get yourself through that process.

One thing that I keep in mind for anybody that's going through any type of death and loss is that people tend to respond to the grieving in ways that meet their own needs first. And I don't think that people realize that they're doing that.

And so to give an example, my aunt came to the hospital when I was with my dad and she kept taking me aside for coffee, and I didn't want to leave my dad's room. So it's her wanting to take me aside, she needed to feel like she was doing something for me, even though that's not necessarily what I needed or wanted. Her desire to take me aside for coffee.

She got so frustrated with me because I wouldn't cry in front of her, and she actually gave me feedback that that made her feel like she wasn't being helpful or that we're not very close, because I wasn't crying in front of her. And so it was that people tend to feel like this is what I have to give you and I need you as the grieving person to make me feel as though what I have and what I want to give is helpful to you.

When we mix adoption into that, it becomes even more painful because a lot of people have their own assumptions about adoption. Even therapists who aren't adoption competent will approach adoption as though it's something easy.

And if you just had that one right thing that a therapist could tell you. The adoptee must not realize how simple this is because it's simple in the mind of the person or of the therapist. So I'll just say a few phrases at you and then you'll get it. Like, oh, well, you don't need to be sad because she loved you so much, she gave you away. And it's like, oh, that never occurred to me. Thank you so much!

But people have those grief snippets that they want to throw at you with adoption too. Like I can make you feel better and I can make myself feel good for being the person that made you feel better in your grief by reminding you that you still have your other mother. Like, you still have your adoptive mother and she's the one that raised you anyway. Or if you just realize this adoption thing was so simple by these one-liners that I have to throw at you.

I didn't hear as many as Stephanie did, but one thing that I did hear was the story with my aunt and then doctors and nurses making comments in the hospital about if I was related because I don't really look like either of my parents. And I told one of the nurses that my mom had died and I wasn't crying again because I don't feel comfortable crying in front of people.

And she just looked at me and was like, oh, well you must be the stepdaughter then? Because I wasn't acting the right way and I didn't look the right way. And so she felt the need to parse out why I wasn't and that was her selfish curiosity that wasn't about me.

All that is to say we need to safeguard ourselves for how people will seek to meet their own needs in grief through us needing them or us telling them they did a good job or whatever. And they will mix adoption themes into that.

You can try to educate and you can try to explain yourself, but it's okay not to, as well, because the more you explain to someone who may not be interested in learning, the more you just give your power and your time for yourself away.

Haley Radke: Well, that's some amazing insights from both of you. Thank you. I know that as friends and colleagues, you guys have been talking with each other about these things and your losses and have been kind of going through this mourning together.

Can you tell us any other things that have kind of popped up for you that are really different, you know, grieving the loss of an adoptive mother versus a first mother. I don't know about “versus,” it doesn't sound right to say it that way, but I hope you know the spirit of the question I'm asking, not necessarily for just comparison's sake but just it's different circumstances.

So do you have any thoughts on that?

Stephanie Oyler: I know for me it was very difficult to go into the hospital and speak to doctors. I don't want to say uncomfortable, but I just felt like an imposter. Like, she didn't raise me. Am I allowed to do this? Are they going to want me? I almost felt like I had to tell my story every single time I went. I was adopted and this and that.

I spoke to a couple other people who were in similar situations and that's a common theme that I've seen. Just the idea that we're put into this situation to make these decisions, life or death decisions, and sometimes we just ask ourselves: Are we allowed to? Is that okay?

I feel like an imposter because she didn't raise me. And am I allowed to make these decisions for her? And what if it's not what she wants? And I'm confident that I made the right decision. I did know my mom, and I did know that this is what she would've wanted, but it still creeps up. Am I worthy of making these decisions?

So I know that that was a really overarching theme. Every time I walked into the hospital, every time I answered the phone to a doctor, every time I spoke to the agency who provided case management services with her, I just felt like a person, almost like on the outside, coming in to make the decisions, if that makes sense.

Amanda Transue-Woolston: Yes. So we've covered a lot of the overarching themes that Stephanie and I would need to cover if we were making a book or we were making a resource. What is everything that we would need to cover? We've covered a lot. We've touched on a lot of it so far in this two-part series.

Some other things that I know we've put on our list. We talked about spouses and children. We talked about belonging and relatedness. How do people perceive you as being related depending on birth or adoption. We've talked about finding support.

It looks different if you are biologically related but weren't raised with that family versus being raised with the family but not sharing that genetic connection, when it comes to instructing others about how to respond. Or adoption competence and finding support.

Some other things that we talked about were the idea of obligation, because that is family systems theory. Murray Bowen, who is the father of family systems theory, actually proposed as part of his theory that it's being cared for as a child that obligates.

The better you are cared for as a child, the stronger your sense of obligation will be as an adult to take care of a parent. But adoptees kind of throw that for a loop because they have had their caregiving often split up between multiple caregivers or contentious relationships with their adoptive parents. And then they have biological parents that may not have raised them, but they will step in and make those end-of-life decisions.

And that obligation is, I don't want to call it “obligation,” but that's the theory. It's there, even though the early childhood caregiving wasn't there. And so we challenge that theory. And what is that? What makes adoptees step in regardless of childhood connections.

Inheritance of heirlooms. When you have no legal ties, when your legal ties are severed from your biological family, you are not legally entitled to anything. I mean, there may be some exceptions in a few states.

When you are adopted, you are legally entitled to whatever, but your family may not agree that those items should be yours because your family may feel that [you are not family].

Personally, I inherited a necklace from my mother that was made from her grandmother and her mother's wedding rings. And I know she would've wanted her wedding ring added to it, and I've already put in my will that it's going to my niece, my niece who is genetically related.

I don't even want to know what my family thinks about me keeping those things, you know. It's fine, but your legal relationship versus your nurturing relationship affects how entitled you feel to these items versus whether someone else thinks that you should have them.

We talked about being entitled to grief. That was another one. And the differences between making next-of-kin decisions.

So for us, neither of us were legally, technically the next of kin, but when you're in that position anyway, we had talked about [how] there's a lot of emphasis when we're children on keeping biological and adoptive families separate and making sure that adoptive families have all of the decision-making and all of the rights and everything.

If the original first family is present at all, they're there for visits and stuff, but they're not parenting, and we're alienating adoptees from their resources in that way. But when first parents and adoptive parents are aging and there aren't systems in place to take care of them, we have encountered, as social workers, [cases] where it's like, oh, they have a long-lost adopted child, let's find them because someone needs to come make decisions for Mabel.

Then all of a sudden, they want to pull us in. And then it doesn't matter. Like, oh, you met them once when you were five? Yes? Please, someone come and make these decisions because we don't care for our elders like we should. And that's when all of a sudden adoptees are allowed to be resources.

We hear that. I was hearing about that when I was still in social work school, where a caseworker for someone who was experiencing financial abuse, elder abuse, they found that they had relinquished a son like 50, 60, 70 years ago, and they went and found that son, reunited them so that he could become her new decision-maker. And he did. And he was glad to do it, you know, and so that's when, oh, who cares about secrecy? Someone needs to step in and solve these problems.

Haley Radke: Well, that's pretty fascinating. Wow.

Amanda Transue-Woolston: Yes. So there's all this other legal stuff about do we go with a feeling of entitlement through nurture? Or do we go through a legal entitlement through adoption? Or do we go through, we're biologically related? And adoptees are always adoptees and consistently show up on all fronts.

Whether or not we're accepted or embraced, adoptees tend to be the ones that are accountable and willing to help.

Haley Radke: Like I said, I find that really fascinating. Thank you for those points.

And you know, we're sort of wrapping up. The one thing that just keeps popping up into my head, you're both speaking from the point of view of you were connected to and had a relationship with the mothers we've been talking about.

How many adoptees have you heard from where they find out via a Google search that either an estranged adoptive parent passed? Or a first parent who maybe they had a brief reunion with and that ended? Or maybe they weren't reunited at all? And you know, there's all these themes of I'm left out of the obituary, nobody even phoned me to tell me. Those sorts of things.

Would you mind speaking to someone who's had that experience? And just as an encouragement, you know, even if you aren't acknowledged in that way, what are some ways you can still process the loss and take care of yourself? Because I feel like that would be extremely hurtful.

Amanda Transue-Woolston: It is hurtful. For me, I know it's hard to speak on because I haven't been left out of anything when it comes to my adoptive mother because everything has been on my shoulders.

I made all of her end-of-life decisions. I handled all of the disposition of her remains and all of those choices. It was a car accident with a reckless driver, so I've handled all of her wrongful death investigation and the insurance companies. I wrote her obituaries and I'm planning her whole funeral. And my dad, love him so much, my dad is just like, yeah, Amanda's got it. So, I don't want to be left out, but I'm too involved. I don't have boundaries with this.

The only thing when my aunt died, I wasn't told about any of her funeral arrangements. I wasn't involved. It was important to me. My biological father was, my readers are familiar with him. He was not a very good person. And of course, that affected my aunt through her whole life. It really alienated her from others, and I would've loved to have done special things for her when she died because she still celebrated my birthday, my growing up, even though she never knew if she would ever see me.

But her own sons were just kind of like….I can't even find that they put an obituary in for her. So I heard she died through town gossip in Maine, which the entire state of Maine is a small town. So that is not directly related to my mother's losses, but that is an example and I can empathize with other adoptees about that.

And I know Stephanie, it was all on you too, right?

Stephanie Oyler: Yeah, it was all on me. And I'm actually in the process of kind of planning everything out for her as well. But I do see and recognize the loss of wanting to find your family or wanting to find your mother or father and searching. And then to find out that they passed away.

And sometimes I've spoken to people for whom it was within the last year of their search and they just weren't able to meet them in time. And just the incredible amount of loss, not only for the parent, but the relationship that could have been and that was almost there. I can't imagine that loss.

And I, as well, empathize with that. And I can't imagine that as I'm grateful that I was able to have a relationship with my first mother and to experience and make memories with her. So there's just so much loss, I think, in adoption.

There's so many ways it can go, so many twists and turns. There's that all of a sudden it's loss again. It's a theme from the very beginning. And yeah, I really do empathize with situations like that as well.

Amanda Transue-Woolston: One other piece that I think is important to mention is the racial cultural ritual differences that I think are important to pay homage to.

I was not transracially adopted and as a white person in the United States, everybody wears black and, you know, sniffles at the graveside. I feel like that's generally accommodated in the funeral industry.

And when it comes to embracing the death rituals and experiences of communities of color, that's not as well represented and what the everyday person knows about death and dying.

And so I think it would be so cool for Stephanie to be interviewed, if she's comfortable in the future, about when you are a person of color trying to plan and have your rituals incorporated and the person that you're grieving may be of a different race than you. Or you're trying to plan for your mother who was a person of color with a white funeral director and they don't know how to manage hair or makeup or skin in a respectful way for someone that's different than them.

We talk about adoptees of color not having their hair taken care of properly as children. But even into adulthood, do adoptees of color have an opportunity to learn their original families’ death practices and also overcome the racism in the funeral industry that they may encounter?

And so that's something that I know Stephanie can uniquely speak on, and I definitely want to support her and other adoptees in doing that when they're ready because I'm not equipped to talk about that myself.

Stephanie Oyler: I think that's a really important thing. And actually it didn't affect me when I went to the hospital, but I was nervous going in because my mother is white.

My first mother was white and my father was black. And I don't really look like anybody. So I was nervous in the fact that I'm coming in as an adoptee. I wasn't legally raised by her and, on top of it, I have no paperwork saying that's my mom, you know. And just like how that was going to play out.

But I definitely agree. There's just so much to unpack with cultural pieces of that. So I agree with Amanda on that.

Haley Radke: Well, thank you so much for bringing that up as well. Like we've said, right? All the complexities of layers.

Wow. There's so much to unpack. And I'm excited to hear that you guys are going to be working on this, and I'm sure that as we follow your blogs and other efforts, we will hear more about this from you in the future, which is wonderful.

So speaking of that, Stephanie, where can we connect with you online?

Stephanie Oyler: You can find me at adopteelit.com. I just launched my business and it is a consultation business for adoptive parents, a mentoring business in the sense that for adoptees, both minor and adult, and then an education business that I hope to provide workshops on. And I also have a blog that is linked directly from that website.

Haley Radke: Perfect. And Amanda, how about you?

Amanda Transue-Woolston: I have my professional website, amandawoolston.com and my adoptee blogging website, declassifiedadoptee.com. All of my social medias are there. I forgot to mention last time, I have started a podcast for The Declassified Adoptee, in that I have been asked for years to make my content more accessible by turning it into audio, and I chose a podcasting format for that.

I am doing a dramatic reading, I guess you could say, of my written content at wherever you subscribe to your podcasts, for folks who find it easier or more preferable to listen instead of having to read. That's another accessibility option for them.

And I have to give credit to Stephanie because that was inspired by her because we are also working on a podcast together, which was her idea. That is different, that's a real podcast. It'll be a real podcast show.

I'm also on Stitcher and whatever else under The Declassified Adoptee.

Haley Radke: Perfect. Thank you so much. Look forward to hearing more news about that and we will make sure to share it on Adoptees On when you guys launch. Thanks so much for your wisdom. Really appreciate it. It's been such an honor talking with you both today.

Make sure you are following Stephanie and Amanda to see what they have coming up. I promise it is going to be worthwhile. And I love seeing more adoptive voices out there, more adoptees sharing in different ways that really help our community heal and actually look at the impact adoption has had on us and how we can move forward.

I really appreciate that so much. So, thank you so much, Stephanie and Amanda, for sharing with us. Grateful for your work. And I look forward to cheering you on in all the new things that you have coming up.

Okay, friends, I'm so grateful for you for listening. One of the best ways that you can help the show that's totally free is just sharing this episode with another adoptee that you know that might have had a loss in their life.

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149 [Healing Series] Mother Loss Part 1

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/149

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Haley Radke: This show is listener supported. You can join us and help our show grow to support more adoptees by going to adopteeson.com/partner.

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.

I just want to give you a quick update before we get to today's show, and that is we are going back to weekly episodes, so make sure you're subscribed wherever you love to listen to podcasts so you don't miss any episodes. Today's show is two-parter, so next Friday we're going to have Part Two of our conversation.

We are talking about mother loss and…I just wanna prepare you. This is a very powerful conversation with two incredible women, and you are going to hear their very recent stories of losing their mothers and how that's impacted them, what it really looked like right when it was happening, and I mean, sometimes I'm–no, often, I'm shocked at the candor people share with us. And so you are stepping into some sacred space today and next week will be as well.

So I hope that you find this conversation as helpful and enlightening as I did. It's one of the most impactful I think we've had here. Without further ado, we're talking mother loss. Let's listen in. I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Amanda Transue-Woolston and Stephanie Oyler.

Welcome, ladies.

Amanda Transue-Woolston: Thank you for having us.

Stephanie Oyler: Yes, thank you.

Haley Radke: It's my first Healing Series three-way conversation, and so it's just a pleasure to talk with you. I'm so excited. We're going to talk about some hard things today, and I'm very honored to be able to learn from you both. And let's start out–Amanda, can you share a little bit of your story and how you became a therapist and social worker and etcetera?

Amanda Transue-Woolston: Thank you so much for having me, for having us. This is exciting. I have explained this so many times and you would think that I have this “elevator speech" down… But as my identities keep evolving, I keep adding and taking away how I explain who I am.

So the short of it is: I was born in 1985 and I was surrendered to adoption as an infant. I was three days old and I was placed into foster care for a short period of time. And at about four-and-a-half months old, my adoptive parents became my new foster parents, essentially. And then I was legally adopted the following year in New Jersey. And they raised me from four-and-a-half months old.

So I… It was a closed adoption and I grew up not knowing what I wanted to do with my life. And I had a friend who wanted to be a nurse, so I'm like, I'm gonna go to nursing school. I don't know why I picked that, but I went to the same college she did, and it was deciding that I didn't want to be a nurse that really threw me for a tailspin.

And people kept saying to me, “You should be a social worker because you are adopted. And social workers really helped you make your life just so wonderful.” And even when I was not ready to talk about adoption, I was not ready to talk about any of the new nuances or loss or grief about adoption; even then, I really did not like that. I didn't like the idea that I was going to make someone else's life be like mine, because that's not nice or respectful, and my life was not perfect. And so I always just–I specifically never looked into social work, because I didn't understand all that social workers do.

I didn't know that a lot of adoption workers actually are not trained; they're not social workers. So that is a difference there. And I just went in the complete opposite direction, until I wanted to work with older adults. And then I learned more. I met social workers who weren't adoption workers, and I realized that the values of the profession aligned with my own.

And at that same time, I had my firstborn child and I wanted to learn more about my background and history–lots of family of origin stuff. When you're going through social work education, it makes you very interested. And that adoption was not something that I was going to touch as part of my education, but your social work professors make you. They make you pull in painful parts of yourself so that you deal with them, because they can't come out in your client work later.

Your work as a social worker cannot be about you. And I became very much more comfortable with it. And I went into therapy based on the feedback of my professors–that's what I would be good at. And they directed me towards a school where I could specialize in clinical social work for my master's degree and that is the whole….

I reunited when I was 25, so that was part of it. But social work was… I processed all of that, my reunion, everything throughout my social work education, which was, really, it was–A lot of people don't get that kind of support, so that was a saving grace for me.

Haley Radke: Wow, that's amazing. There's a lot of layers there.

Amanda Transue-Woolston: Yes.

Haley Radke: Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that. Stephanie, how about you?

Stephanie Oyler: My adoption story began when I was two weeks old and I was removed from my first mother and placed into foster care. At that point, it was considered respite care; I wasn't actually put into the foster care system.

Once they realized that was probably gonna be a more long-term situation, I was formally changed to foster care and was in a couple of different placements. And then, around my first birthday, I was placed with my adoptive parents (who were at that time fostering me). And then I was adopted right before my fourth birthday. So I was with them.

I actually had a lot of struggles growing up adopted. I didn't really put it all together as that really being the cause of it until I was an adult and in school for social work and really seeing how that connected to all the different struggles I had growing up. I had a lot of identity issues, so I hadn't really connected the dots of being adopted and how that played into all the struggles growing up. I really struggled with identity. I'm also a transracial adoptee, so there was a lot of layers of that piece. And my parents had the colorblind mentality, which just made it really hard to fit in, just because I stuck out so much in the family that I didn't look like.

So there was just a lot of different things. So at 17, I moved out and I went on a little soul searching mission, went to different places, and eventually I got pregnant and had my daughter. And I think that is when I really realized that I wanted to go back for social work, or I wanted to go to school for social work (not really go back). But I never really had a clear picture of what I wanted to do. But when I had my daughter, I realized just the connection that I have with her, and just realizing how much I missed out on that. I ended up going for my associate's degree and then transferring into a bachelor's program for my master’s, or for my social work degree. And then moving on into my master's level courses.

Haley Radke: Wonderful. Thank you so much. So, with that being said, you guys are experienced in adoptee things (just because we are all adoptees), but you also have this extra layer of having your master's in social work. And I know both of you do different things in Adoption Land, but what brings us to our conversation today is some very challenging things that you both have experienced: some losses.

Who wants to share first about that?

Amanda Transue-Woolston: Our losses that we are focusing on together for the purpose of this content we're building together over time, and we're gonna talk about on our own channels and is about the constant concept of mother loss. And that is something that we–it dawned on both of us at the same time from talking…

Stephanie lost her first mother recently, just before I lost my adoptive mother. Both deaths were sudden. And we were both put in the position of being the next of kin, to handling the affairs, and the end of life decisions when we (legally) really weren't. And one of the realizations that we have is that we will (because we're adopted), we will lose more than one mother more than one time throughout our lifetime.

Both of us have been a part of that adoptee movement that has focused on that compassion and empathy for children. When they are so little, they can't cognitively really understand what's going on, but they very much experience the loss of their parents. In attachment theory, the foundations of attachment theory, always focused on the mother, like the significance of that. Whoever gave birth, that relationship is foundational for the family and a person going forward.

And so in that kind of vein, and because adoptees tend to also focus on their mothers a lot as well. We were focusing specifically more on the mother relationship (not in intentional exclusion of anybody else). And so we lost our original mothers, our first mothers when we were kids, and then many of us (Stephanie and I included) lost foster mothers that some of them we may or may not remember. And then we see adoption as like this celebration and common adoption culture as, “Oh, you finally gain your forever family,” and the losses should stop, right? But they don't, because now we have to lose mothers again as adults, which isn't paid attention to at all.

Both of us do a lot of diving into research and literature, and it's not really (except anecdotally), it's not really spoken about at all. What happens when I reunite with my first mother and she dies? Or, What happens with–now I have to lose my adoptive mother when she dies? The losses continue to accumulate.

And developmentally, there's not a lot of theory about what happens to people when they have to lose a mother multiple times and multiple times in that way. It's not–it's just not part of our normative trajectory when we talk about adult development. And so that is… Since both of us had that experience recently and not being able to find much about it, but having a lot to say about it…

That is one of our really strong topics of interest right now and we're also finding that a lot of people are like, “Yeah, tell me! What is it? I wanna hear it, cuz I can't find it either. And I also just lost my mom.” So…

Haley Radke: Let me just say how sorry I am for your losses and...I don't know. I think there's that extra layer, right? When it's unexpected and in a tragic circumstance. And then you mentioned, Amanda, that you guys were both called upon for some responsibilities that you weren't necessarily expecting. Stephanie, do you wanna touch on that?

What were you asked to do when your first mother passed that maybe you weren't necessarily expected or expecting to be called on to do?

Stephanie Oyler: A little backstory. I reunited with my first mother when I was 18, but it wasn't really physically; it wasn't in person. It was more like phone calls, and letters, and things like that. I'd say the last five or six years, I really started visiting her more.

She didn't have a family. She lived in a group home setting. She had treatment teams and case managers, and she had actually aged out of the child welfare system herself. So she really had no family. And so when I finished school, I really wanted to provide her with a family and be there in a way that she never really had. So I started going to her treatment team meetings and I started visiting her regularly.

My children met her. My husband met her. We did our best to include her in just everything that we were doing. And so, I think at that time I was in constant communication with her peer support specialist. And I was at work one day, and I got a frantic call from her saying that, “You need to come to the hospital. Somebody has to sign paperwork and there's nobody to sign,” (because the agency and her case manager could not sign it). There was nobody to sign a power of attorney type thing.

I rushed out; I went to the hospital. And I had signed the paperwork, and then I was put into this position of, now I'm dealing with the doctors and I'm talking with them. And I'm all of a sudden making all of these decisions that I would've never thought in a million years I would be doing. Because I mean, I knew her, but I didn't know her history. I didn't know her medical background. So I–there was a lot of imposter syndrome. When I'm speaking to the doctors, I felt, Am I allowed to do this? It was a lot of feelings at the time, but I got put into the role of just making all of those decisions.

And then, eventually, I had to make the decision of whether to remove the life support, because she was not ever going to come out of what she was in (which I did). And then I was put into the position of, Okay, now you are in charge of all of the arrangements and all this stuff afterwards (which once again, I didn't even think about, because I'd never been in this position to even understand). So then, I started doing all of that stuff and it just was overwhelming. There was really no help and I didn't have support. So that's just the gist of where I came into play with that.

Haley Radke: That does sound overwhelming. Can you just (I don't know if you're comfortable sharing this), but how were you feeling during that time?

Were you like, actually in the moment experiencing things? Or were you in this state of shock and just going, Okay, I think I need to do this next. I think I…, more like just going through the motions?

Stephanie Oyler: Yeah, I think I was in shock. I tend to get into this professional mode. And I think sometimes I did that a lot with my first mother, just because it was easier to keep myself separated at times (if I went into professional), which is why I really wanted to be on her treatment team. And I really wanted to help in that sense.

So when I got the call, I really did–I was shocked. I was like–They basically told me she was gonna die if I did not come to the hospital at that exact moment. So I was like, Okay, time to get it down. I'm rushing from work. I go to the hospital and I sign the paperwork and yeah, I just–I think it was like just going through the motions at that point.

I didn't even realize what I was doing. I think when she passed away, that was the point where I was like, I just…The last few weeks were just so rapid and chaotic that at that point I was just like, inundated with all the emotion. Just with making the decision and then being left there to sit with it (if that makes sense).

Haley Radke: And your loss, too, of your mother, Amanda, was unexpected in a different way and very sudden. Do you mind sharing about that and also some of the things that were just going through your head when that was all happening? Because I think we might have this idea like, “Well, if we can sort of mentally prepare ourselves for at some point in the future, we'll sort of have this hat on, then we'll be ready for whatever comes what–no matter how shocking it is.” I don't know if that's even possible.

Amanda Transue-Woolston: Definitely not. I don't think it's possible, at least not for me. And I do feel–I have always felt prepared for death in a general sense of: I've worked in a nursing home that had palliative care. I worked in hospice as a social worker. I am very supportive of the death positivity movement and have consumed a lot of that literature and material, just because I find it interesting having to also support people through death as a therapist.

And so I do think that I'm more prepared than most people, but not as prepared as I thought that I was. And of course the issue with my mom really blew that wide open. I was teaching. I teach college classes, and that includes high school kids that are eligible for college classes, as well as main campus classes. So I bring psychology and sociology classes to high schools because not all the kids have licenses. This is a program that my college really wants to expand. So they were there that day taking my picture for a local magazine. I didn't know that they were coming and they walk in… (fortunately, I brushed my hair pretty good that day).

They're like, “Okay, can you erase Stanley Milgram off the dry erase board and put something more pleasant?” We're setting all this up and my phone is ringing and it's on mute or whatever. It's on vibrate, but it's still out of control (you know, when your phone's on vibrate and you don't wanna receive calls, then the vibration might as well be as loud as the ring). So my phone was going nonstop and I'm like a p– cuz my director's there with the photographer with the reporter. All of the students like…, and I'm just like, “My phone does not normally ring while I'm teaching. I am so sorry.” So I'm like, “I turned my phone off.” I'm so angry and just trying to keep my job. So after that, I forgot that my phone was off and I'm driving to main campus to teach another psychology class there. And I had turned it back on and I had all these missed calls and I'm like, Oh my gosh, what student loan thing didn't I pay? (Cuz that’s usually what it is).

Or, What did my child do at school, anyway? But I noticed that the Caller ID said Florida, and I remembered that my parents were on vacation in Florida (or they were heading down there). And I'm like, I bet you they’ve arrived there. I guess I should... And then I realized (cuz I didn't realize before), that I had a voicemail and so on this voicemail is a chap— there's several messages from a chaplain saying, “Amanda, your parents have been involved in a very serious accident. We need you to call immediately. Please call us right away.” And there were multiple messages to that effect.

So I called. I believe the chaplain's name was Scott, and I reached him and he said something… I don't even know exactly what it was, and it may have just been–he may have very well said, “We have a concern about your mom, but your dad seems to be okay.” Like he may have said that, but whatever it is he did say, I remember that my mind was: Both of my parents are dead. That is what I heard. And so I just–I was shocked having to lose both of my parents at the same time.

And then the chaplain said, “ Let me see if your dad's awake.” And I was like, Oh, okay. All right. There's hope. Wait, what? My dad didn't want to talk to me. And he probably had a concussion (I realize now), but immediately, I'm like, I'm being rejected. That was really hard for me. And I also know that my dad would probably do something like that.

I'm telling myself this in this moment: He would do something like that because he wants me to focus on my mom. He doesn't wanna consume any time or energy that could be spent on her, because he's always okay. And so these are the things that I'm telling myself. I'm trying to get information from the chaplain about my mom and he said, “She's not here. She went to another hospital.” And when he told me the name (and I've also worked in hospital systems and emergency rooms)--

When he told me the name of the hospital, I was very concerned, because it was not an advanced trauma level hospital. And so if someone's being taken there, they either have very little chance (and they're just going there to be stabilized, potentially because it's the closest), or they're going there because they have a few scratches. It's either one or the other. And so the thoughts that things are not okay continued. So I did get a hold of– That hospital had not called me and I got a hold of them.

And they put me on the phone with a surgeon and he said that they had operated on her. “She's in surgery right now,” and he's just telling me every gruesome detail that you could imagine. Like, he was describing that they think she hit her head (which could be the main problem), but there's internal bleeding that they need to stabilize. And then he was just describing her limb injuries (that even if they stabilized her brain, even if they stabilized the internal bleeding, she's gonna have to deal with horrible injuries to all of her limbs). And I'm just…

And I'm like, He's explaining it in this way to me for a reason, because the feeling that I got from it was that her dying might be a saving grace (in a way), because otherwise she's gonna suffer for the rest of her life, (which is what I picked up it that he might be trying to communicate to me in a very weird, clinical, “doctorly” way). So they didn't ask me to consent to anything at all, and technically my dad is the next kin (whether or not you would consider him incapacitated or not, I don't know). But he basically said, “Just don't expect her to make it.” And that was the end of that.

So I said, “Okay, thank you for your time. Please go back in the operating room and save her.” So now I'm like– I'm driving home. I told my students, “I gotta go.” They're like, “Are you okay?” I'm like, “No.” (But I am laughing cuz I'm uncomfortable). ”But it is. I've gotta go do something. So you guys are good. Everybody gets an A! I gotta go. Don't worry.” Like the students always panic if they're gonna, if I cancel class, if they have–if they get marked down for anything. And I'm like, “Nope, you're good.” So I go home. I'm feeling horrible for my students. And my husband got me the next, very next flight out of Baltimore to go down.

The doctor had told me, “Just go to your dad, cuz there's no hope here.” Cuz they were in, they were like three hours apart, the hospitals. And so I decided to go to my dad and as I was packing up, I got a call from the hospital, telling me that they are now transferring my mom. I was like, “I was told my mom was gonna die.” And the registrar (who really just wants consent to transfer and the insurance information) is like, “Apparently, she's a fighter!”

I'm like, so awkward. It's just so awkward. I'm like, “Yes she is. Okay. So she's being transferred to this hospital. Okay.” So, that hospital was also really far away from my dad. So I consented to that. They were gonna airlift her; I gave them all the information that I could, and then I got on the plane. I paid for the service on the plane where you can text from the plane, and so I'm texting various relatives. I'm letting my dad's job know, I'm letting people…(I don't know why, like I just felt the need to do something, to be productive on this airplane).

And that was a really awkward experience that we could also probably talk about, like at some point: how people react when you tell them bad news like this. I felt from some people that I was almost…They couldn't accept that I was telling them that my mom was probably gonna die and my dad almost died.

And so they almost interrogated me (like I didn't know what I was talking about), and that happened multiple times: “No, no, no. What do you mean that she's gonna die? Who told you that?” And I'm just like, “No, what I need from you right now–I need to let you know not to call either of them. And my dad's not gonna be at work on Monday or Tuesday.” So, anyway, I don't know if that happened to Stephanie or not, but anyway, that's just a very weird part of being the person who has to tell.

Texting back and forth with my aunts and uncles who were in Florida, because they live there, and my aunt says, “Your cousin's picking you up from the airport.” And that was unexpected, because I was going to– Now, I was gonna go to my mom and I was Ubering there, so I didn't understand that. And so the thought in my head was, My mom died, because otherwise, my cousin would be at the hospital with my mom. Like, Why is she…?

And my aunt– I texted back and I said, “She's dead, isn't she?” And my aunt's like, “I'm not texting you back about this.” Like just…, and I'm like, “Okay.” So I texted my cousin, I'm like, “She died, didn't she?” I am not the type of person that..., I don't like surprises. I don't wanna wait an hour to find out.

And my cousin was like, “We can talk about things when you get here.” Neither one of them wanted to be in a place to give news like that through a text. And I understand that, but that's just not what I needed, because what ended up happening was I got off the plane and the police department called me.

And on the other end of the phone, was a sobbing police officer. And he said, “I am so sorry. My mom also just died in a car accident. I'm an Iraq veteran and I've seen a lot of terrible things in my life. And this brought me right back to being in that desperation, and wanting to save somebody that you care about (or someone else cares about). I did CPR on her, and I tried so hard, and I'm so sorry.” And he's crying, so now I knew she died. Like she was pronounced–What happened was, she was pronounced dead at the scene and they brought her back at the hospital. So he didn't know that they had brought her back; he just thought that she, they had…

She had coded at the scene. I don't wanna say they pronounced her, but she was pulseless at the scene, and he did not think– he already had thought that I already knew. And I didn't say… I just thanked him. I was there for him. I listened to him. I comforted him. I told him I was sorry for his mother's loss, but now I knew, and it was a police officer that told me. It wasn't my own family.

So then I did see my cousin at the airport, who picked me up, and she did. And the first thing she said to me was, “I didn't wanna text you that.” I'm like, “Yeah, I already texted myself that in my mind, so too late. But I get it.” So they took me to see my dad, cuz I didn't wanna see my mom. I didn't. She was already gone; I didn't want to. I've had OCD my whole life and a lot of that is very imagery in my mind, and I don't want that image stuck in my head repeatedly. So I opted not to go see her. But I had to be the one that told my dad, because he was not being kept updated at all.

So that was awful having to tell him. And as we entered, we approached the room (my cousin and I). And I said, “My dad, I don't think he knows how to do ‘sad.’ He knows how to do ‘angry.’ So when I tell him he may yell and kick me out, and you have to be okay with that. You can't defend me, cuz it's not about me. It'll be fine.” But he didn't; he cried. And that's the fourth time I've ever seen my dad cry in my whole life. So that's the whole kind of the tale of losing my mom.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. Stephanie, did you have any similar experiences? I know that you said your first mother didn't really have connections, which is why you ended up doing some of those decision making things at the end.

What about telling friends or family of yours that you were going through this? Did you share it with anyone? Did you keep it private? What was that like for you?

Stephanie Oyler: In the beginning, I kept it private from friends. I did tell my adoptive mother when she was in the hospital and sick, just because I have a younger sister, who was also adopted with me. She was adopted after I was adopted, but we have the same mother.

We handle adoption differently. She was not really involved and did not have a relationship with my mom, but I still wanted to keep her updated on what was happening. So in that sense, yes, I did tell them. But when my mom passed away, that was like a very different level of interaction with people, because nobody really knew how to address, how to even speak to me. “Are you sad? I mean, she didn't raise you.” And that was really like the overall–and people even asked me, they were like, “How should I react?” Some, I think a couple of people actually asked that.

And it was really hard because I didn't feel like I got the recognition that I feel like I should have gotten with it because people just didn't– In their mind, they were like, She wasn't really your mom, she didn't raise you, so it's probably not as bad.

And I got that from my adoptive family, as well, to an extent. And there was a lot of emotions, and probably a lot of things that were said that really hurt me. And I just had to step back from a couple of people, just because they weren't willing to see that this was very hurtful.

And I had a relationship with my mom for 12 years and was very interactive with her. I mean, my kids were at the hospital with me when I had to make the decision. So it was really difficult and I didn't get–I didn't really get any condolences that you would think. So...

Haley Radke: I'm sorry that you went through that. And we've actually talked about grief before on the Healing Series, and we've really dug into disenfranchised grief, which is really what Stephanie's kind of explaining to us. It's like, you're not getting the casseroles after a funeral. You're not–and people are just saying, “Oh, really?” That’s so–Ugh. Yikes.

And Amanda, you were saying that you were sort of having to explain things to people? You were getting interrogated. It's very interesting, like the different reactions. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with those really (oh my goodness!) life-altering is not really an overstatement. I think that's really accurate in this circumstance.

So thank you so much for sharing those things deeply personal and I hope it'll really be helpful for our listeners. I really want to continue this conversation, because you guys are also trained therapists and so you have another whole lens to look at your experiences through. So we're gonna come back and do that next week. But for now, why don't you share where we can connect with you online. And Stephanie, why don't you share first.

Stephanie Oyler: I just launched my business, Adoptee LIT llc.com. It is a consulting business for adoptive parents, mentoring for adoptees, and then it's gonna have an education piece with trainings, and webinars, and stuff like that.

You can find me there. I also have a blog (which if you go on my main website, there's a link to that as well).

Haley Radke: Perfect, and I think you've got links for social media as well on adopteelitllc.com. And Amanda, how about you?

Amanda Transue-Woolston: I am on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. (I’m trying to think of where else…) So most of my handles at most social media places is @AmandaTDA (for Declassified Adoptee), I think except for my Facebook page (which is just The Declassified Adoptee). But all of my social media is linked at my website. So I have amandawoolston.com and also declassifiedadoptee.com.

Haley Radke: Perfect. Thank you so much. I appreciate you.

Amanda Transue-Woolston: Thank you for having us.

Stephanie Oyler: Thank you.

Amanda Transue-Woolston: This is great. Thank you so much for starting. This is the start of our journey talking about mother loss. So you are the first–we're gonna take a lot of the things that we uncovered today through your questions to help develop the rest of what we want to teach people about these experiences. So thank you so much.

Stephanie Oyler: Yeah. Thank you.

Haley Radke: Okay. So I think that was very powerful. I'm so grateful to Amanda and Stephanie for sharing their stories with us, and next week we look at mother loss with their therapist lenses on and we learn some lessons from them–things that they have taken away during their grieving process, things they feel that the adoptee community really needs to be aware of, and it's just all super duper important.

I shared off-mic with Amanda, the impact that her work has had on me over the last number of years. You guys probably already know Amanda's work over at The Declassified Adoptee and (of course) she started the well, well-beloved Lost Daughters’ website. So those are some resources that you definitely should be checking out.

And I'm so excited for Stephanie with her new endeavors. Make sure you go and give her a follow as well links to all of their contact info will be over in the show notes.

I'm just so glad to be back. Can't wait to start podcasting weekly again. It is my joy to be able to bring you this content, without which I wouldn't be able to do this, without my monthly Patreon supporters. So thank you so much.

If you have signed up, adopteeson.com/partner has details of how you can access the other weekly show I do: Adoptees Off Script and we are talking a lot about adoptee-written books over there. We are also doing some semi-regular Zoom calls with members of the Patreon community and there's also a secret Facebook group.

Basically, there's a lot of stuff over there (a lot of content). And it's been really beautiful to see how people have been supporting each other, even behind the scenes, connecting through direct messages. And they'll find each other in the Facebook group and say, “Oh, I have a situation like that.” And then they take their friendship off to the DMs. So you can have personal conversations with someone else who's experienced what you're going through.

Anyway, I am so grateful for you. Thank you. I wouldn't be able to do the show without you. Adopteeson.com/partner has the details, if you are wanting to sign up for that.

And another amazing way to support the show (totally for free), is to just share this episode with a friend. Sometimes people don't know how to listen to podcasts, but you do, because you're listening right now. So you could share this with a friend that you know is adopted and maybe has lost someone close to them.

And this–they might find this conversation inspiring and hopeful, knowing that they're not alone. And yeah! Thank you for the way you share the show. I appreciate you. Thanks so much for chatting with me. It's been so long, I forget what my sign off is. How about this? Let's talk again next Friday.