162 [Healing Series] Anger

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/162

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You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Before we get started, I want to let you know how much it means to me that you are showing up here to listen to adoptee voices. I remember when I was first in reunion with my dad and we hit the inevitable rocky patch after the honeymoon period faded.

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Okay, let's get to the show. This is a special episode in our Healing Series where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee. Today we are revisiting one of our most powerful Healing Series episodes. We're talking all about anger with Pam Cordano.

We recorded this episode all the way back in April, 2017. Let's listen in.

Pamela Cordano is a fellow adoptee and psychotherapist who specializes in helping you to discover meaning in your life. [00:03:00] Welcome back to Adoptees On, Pamela.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Thank you. I'm so happy to be with you today.

Haley Radke: I'm so glad to be speaking with you.

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: Oh my gosh, yes. This is a huge subject and I am excited to be talking about it, even though it's so big, because it's one of my favorite subjects, actually. And I definitely grew up very angry. So anger's been something I've had to look at a lot over the 52 years I've been alive.

So what I say to clients about how to define anger is, anger [00:04:00] simply means I don't like this. There's a lot for us adoptees to not like about what's happened to us or how the culture is with adoption, or how the system is or contact with our adoptive families and biological families, and how we feel inside about ourselves. There's plenty of that for us not to like so there's plenty for us to be angry about.

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

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

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

So fear and anger are closely linked and, in fact, anger is often considered [00:05:00] to be a secondary emotion that follows a primary emotion. And the primary emotion could be fear, or it could be shame and humiliation. It could be sadness. Some people really are afraid of getting sad or despairing because they can sink into a pit and feel like they can't come out again. And anger, at least, is more bolstering and can make us feel like we have some power.

So anger is often thought of as a secondary emotion. So anger means “I don't like this,” and anger and fear are closely linked. And, like I said, there's a lot for us adoptees to be afraid of and to not like.

One of the things about adoptees and anger is that I believe in the primal wound and I believe that when we're born our brains are not formed yet and that when we change mothers families, environments, it's a trauma to our brains, to our developing brains, and that we go into the fight/flight/freeze mode in our brains. And [00:06:00] that's very, very stressful for us.

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

And so our bodies are emitting stress hormones and there are new ways our brains are being wired because of the stress. And it's just like the beginning of our brain development is done. I feel this on the inside of me. I don't know if you can relate to this, but I feel like deep, deep down in me there's a chaos and a fight/flight thing just ready to happen very easily.

And I look at my friends who are from intact families who are not adopted. Some of them have later traumas and I know what their traumas are like, but there's something in me that feels [00:07:00] like it's just from the very beginning and I don't say that because I know it, I say that because I feel it.

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

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

So a lot of adoptees have sleep problems. And I just think that this primal beginning lack of safety is with us throughout our lives. I just happen to believe that. I don't need people to agree with me, but that's what I believe, and it's the basis of where some of this anger comes from–or maybe a lot of the anger comes from–in us, living in a state of [00:08:00] biological neurological fear and it being very easy for us not to like how things are going or for things not to feel right to us with what's happening.

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

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

Haley Radke: Oh, absolutely.

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

“Trauma is much more than a story about the past that explains why people are frightened, angry, or out of control. Trauma is re-experienced in the present, not as a story, but as profoundly disturbing physical sensations and emotions that may not be consciously associated with memories of past trauma. Terror, rage, and helplessness are manifested as bodily reactions, like a pounding heart, nausea, gut-wrenching [00:09:00] sensations, and characteristic body movements that signify collapse, rigidity, or rage. The challenge in recovering from trauma is to learn to tolerate feeling what you feel and knowing what you know about being overwhelmed. There are many ways to achieve this, but all involve establishing a sense of safety and the regulation of physiological arousal.”

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

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah, that’s actually living in us in a neurological and biological kind of way.

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: Right, and so it's [00:10:00] powerful, necessary. We need anger. Animals need anger. Humans need anger. We need to be able to draw lines and express ourselves when we don't like something, when something's scaring us and we don't like it. So it has a very healthy component to it, and it preserves us and it defines us.

So I just want to name a few polarities of anger. There's connected anger where, let's say, an adoptee is talking to their adoptive parents about their experience and what they're frustrated about. And if the adoptive parents can make space for what's being said, for their child, the adoptee might feel connected in the conversation and connected in the anger they're experiencing. But there's also disconnected anger. And I grew up being angry in a very disconnected way. Like I would just rage at my mother and I would say, “You're not my real mother.” “The courts decided this.” “My number came up when your number came up” and “This is BS and I can't stand it.” And she would [00:11:00] just be crying and be feeling helpless, but we weren't connected. There was not a conversation happening. It was one-sided: I'm raging, she's collapsing. And then,10 minutes later I'm feeling terribly guilty and whatever happens.

But so there's connected versus disconnected anger, and connected anger can be a very satisfying and healing experience. And hopefully if people see therapists or have supportive partners or friends, when they express what they're angry about, they feel connected and they don't feel like they're saying something and they're just being stared at like they're an alien or they've committed blasphemy or something.

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: So it actually settles us down, if we talk to other adoptees who understand about something that really makes us angry or we have a take [00:12:00] on something that isn't gonna fly, culturally, very easily, and someone can hear us. It really settles our nervous system down so it's healing. And so as far as a practical thing, finding people that we can share our anger with, who can stay connected to us and make space for us and care for our experience is a very healing thing.

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

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

Haley Radke: Me too. Are there any other kinds of anger you want to talk about?

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah, there are others, too. This is sort of saying the same thing, but there's grounded anger versus ungrounded anger. [00:13:00]

So there's anger where we feel like we have our feet on the ground, we know who we wanna to talk to about whatever and we know what we wanna say and we have room for the other person to have their own experience. We have room for the conversation to be maybe a little difficult. That's grounded anger.

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

So it's a bit dangerous when we're ungrounded and we take it somewhere unsafe. And then there's [00:14:00] integrated anger where we know what we're mad about, we know why we're mad about it. We also have other emotions. We have our sadness, we have grief, we have fear.

Whatever we're feeling angry about is integrated in a larger way into us versus when people express anger in a sideways kind of way. One sideways way of expressing anger is addiction. So rather than being straight with anger: smoking, drinking, eating, shopping, gambling, whatever. Another way of doing sideways anger is being passive aggressive or indirect with what really is being brought to the table.

So does that make sense? Sideways anger?

Haley Radke: Yes, guilty.

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

And then the other one I [00:15:00] wanted to talk about is, there's anger that comes from our internal child that can be very chaotic and overwhelming. And we can feel overwhelmed when we feel it. It's just like a tantrum, almost, where there's not even words. Sometimes it's just this physiological rage that something feels so terrible versus anger that comes from our inner adult where we might know we have that huge charge, but we also know we have choices about how we manage it.

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah, I think one of the hardest things about reunion is that the adult “us” is in Reunion–if we're lucky enough to be able to make a reunion–and then we're bringing along this hurt, disconnected child who hasn't been heard or seen or understood, hasn't had her or his say yet and doesn't [00:16:00] even know if there's room for the say to happen. So, it's two of us are going into the reunion: the young one and the older one. And it's very complicated. Parenting ourselves while we're in reunion is an overwhelming challenge.

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

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

Haley Radke: That's so helpful. Thank you, [00:17:00] Pamela. I want to start with that societal concept of adoption and how we can be so angry at that.

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

Haley Radke: So I would say that the societal concept of adoption is this happy fairytale thing where these poor babies who don't have a home get picked–scooped up–by loving homes and sheltered and are happy forever, [00:18:00] and it's the best thing ever. That's what I think society thinks of as adoption.

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

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

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

And I just remember being completely confused.

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yes. [00:19:00]

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

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

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: Well, can I read you a quote about this that is a bit edgy. Because this is the anger day. So I saw this in the Huffington Post, and you might've seen it, but it was written by Mirah Riben, and it's a quote by somebody named Desiree Smolin, and she said:

“An abducted child is [00:20:00] expected to retain fond memories of and long for reunification with their “real” families of birth, and reject the abductor raising them, while adoptees are expected to bond unquestioningly to non-related strangers and, in some cases, are expected or encouraged to abandon any thoughts or talk of seeking out their roots.”

And I just felt like, wow, someone said that. And furthermore what she was saying was that to the child it's really the same. And so this is a really provocative thing to say, and I have friends who have adopted babies and I would never wanna hurt them. And this is the bind we get into. I don't want to hurt anybody I love. And yet my truth is probably hurtful to the culture, to the society's view of adoption.

Well, what do we do about that? You're asking me the question, what do we do? And I'm saying it's very difficult because it is like zipping my mouth shut. Because if I say what I truly think about adoption, I'm gonna hurt people. [00:21:00]

And so then I have to circle my anger in on myself or, I don't know, eat Ben and Jerry's ice-cream or something, because I don't know how to make room for it.

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

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

I have a new friend named Kathy, and we were having dinner together and we were talking about adoption. She's not adopted and she's Italian, and I'm married to a guy who's Italian. She said, “Oh, I get it! I know why you're married to an Italian.” And she said, “Italians never give up their babies. They find a cousin or an aunt or someone from another village because the baby's precious. The baby's a nephew, the baby's a niece, the baby's a grandchild. The baby's a great nephew. We Italians don't give up our babies.” [00:22:00]

And I don't know if that's empirically true, but I just loved her saying that to me like she culturally got it. Like I was a baby that didn't wanna be given up. I wanted my biological family, whoever they were, to have that passionate, you know, “She's mine, she's ours, she belongs to us. We'll do anything for her to keep her. No one's taking her.” So it was very refreshing to hear my Italian friend’s take.

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah!

Haley Radke: So I don't know, I guess I'm just thinking, what's the antidote to this one? Is it the social justice anger? Like, we have to be pretty strong to be out there. I feel like my podcast is that sort of expression of social [00:23:00] justice anger. But, yeah, lots of people in my family don't know about this, so I'm not quite brave enough to be really out there.

Pam Cordano, MFT: I think it probably is. I think the Flip the Script movement is really powerful. I think what you're doing, helping people's voices get out there so that the collective can hear it. Even the collective of adoptees and adoptees with different experiences can try on new ways of thinking and maybe for some people that feel like–I felt like my life was happy and my adoption was fine until I was about 21.

And then I went through a process and realized actually it was entirely different than I thought it was. Not that everyone should or has to do that, but I think that, yeah, I think you're right. I think it's the social justice, and the writing and expressing oneself and putting ideas out there. But ideally from a grounded and connected place. Like, we're not trying to make enemies. I'm saying “we.” I'm not trying to make enemies, but I wanna [00:24:00] continue to try to make more and more room for myself inside myself and in the world.

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

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: Oh, it's just such a terrible–the system is so corrupt. It's so upsetting. And I think that, in a way, this is where the first topic and the second topic are connected because I think each of us has our own strengths and the things we're comfortable doing and less comfortable doing. [00:25:00] Some people are really good on the political front. They're good with legal language, they're good with gathering people together or communicating in such a way that it's influential. And other people are better at speaking about their own experience and putting it out there in memoirs or in articles or in blogs or podcasts.

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

Haley Radke: I just got to sit in front of two different birth mothers who told me their stories and told me what the agencies had done to them, to essentially trick them to relinquish. I mean, that's the simplest way to say it, but some of the things they were [00:26:00] saying, I was like, “You cannot be serious. This did not happen to you.” And their children that were relinquished, we're talking about a 6-year-old and a 2-year-old. This is happening right now in this decade. I'm not talking 60’s Scoop. This is right now.

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

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah, so when you're even speaking about this, Haley, what I feel in my body is I feel like a column that comes from the bottom of my abdomen all the way up my [00:27:00] chest to my throat. I feel like a column of energy. And the good thing about anger is it's energizing and it's moving. It's heat, it's life, it's energy.

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

And that's where we get to make decisions about what we do with this energy and this fury and this rising. What do we want to do with it? And what do we feel called to do? And that's where our adult selves need to come in and make some decisions with our younger parts, like, “What do we do? How do we do this? How do we be most impactful? How do we be most responsible and effective with this so that we make the maximum benefit of this anger, this righteous indignation?” [00:28:00]

So, I'm Caucasian and I'm a 5’10” redhead. And my adoptive mother was a 4’10” Jewish woman, dark brown hair. We looked nothing alike. And I always got the question of where did you get your red hair? Or whatever. And that was hard, that was hard enough. When I think about international adoption and some of the things that go on with corruption abroad, too, it's just so upsetting to me.

I've been to Ethiopia three times for reasons unrelated to adoption, and to see babies being flown out, it's just hard, you know? It's just painful for me. And again, that's where there could be some adoptees from Ethiopia listening to this and saying, “Hey, I'm happy. I'm fine. I'm glad I was adopted.” And I understand there's a multitude of experiences, but for me–I guess, this is more the sad subject, not the anger. I feel sad when I see a decision not being made for these babies. It just really upsets me. [00:29:00]

Haley Radke: No kidding.

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: Or even people who say to me, “I wish I were adopted because my mother was” whatever. I think this is a common thing that, I'll just speak for myself and assume that many people will relate to this, but I have such a deep, profound experience of not being seen for the whole of me and only being seen more for maybe the outer two, three inches of me. And I'm just used to living this way, and it's part of what makes me strong and capable. [00:30:00] And it's also part of what makes me feel really lonely and alone and isolated, is that the whole of me isn't understood on a cultural level and that people can have such a profound misunderstanding of what adoption can be like–or is like for me.#

And so the pressure to adjust to the outside, whether it's to fit into the family that's adopted you or to comply with the new family so that they don't also abandon you, since you know in your bones that you're abandonable. Or to just fit in with society when you're, like, this “bastard child.” Like we talked about last time, something's wrong with you, that you were given up by your family, or at least a child can feel that way.

The pressure to comply inside of me was so huge. And what I did is I went the other way and I became the rebellious adoptee because I couldn't handle the pressure to comply. [00:31:00] And I think that we tend to do one or the other.

Haley Radke: I'm the compliant adoptee.

Pam Cordano, MFT: With your podcast!

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: So I just want to say that the pressure to comply, which then can flip into rebel from not being seen by others, and being misunderstood and in these overt ways like that we should be grateful or we're lucky or whatever–I experienced it as a huge force that I feel really angry about also. And I guess that what to do about that is to just keep learning about how to take that middle road of having the choice of, “This is when I want to comply here because of this, and I don't want to comply here because of that.” And having that inner adult in charge of the decisions, not just being the tail wagging the dog kind of a thing where it's more of a reaction to comply or a reaction to rebel. [00:32:00] It's more of a choice, a grounded choice with time and with healing, to comply or rebel or do neither.

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

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

Haley Radke: What I really struggle with is feeling angry that my adoptive parents adopted me. Yet I was adopted in the early 80’s, ‘83, I was born, and it was just totally normal. They didn't know, like, “the system.” They were infertile and this was just a normal thing. So I feel guilty for feeling angry about that because they didn't know any better. [00:33:00]

And then I feel angry at my birth mother's parents–my maternal grandparents–for making her give me up and feeling like I was disposable enough or inconvenient enough that they couldn't support her to raise me. But again, it was early 80’s, it was just on the edge of maybe teen pregnancy becoming somewhat accessible, like it's still early. But those are the things that I feel angry about, and guilty because I'm like, “I'm not allowed to be angry at that. They didn't know any better.”

Pam Cordano, MFT: I think that what I could be helpful with here is what to do about this kind of thing, because anybody could have a long list of things they're angry at their adoptive parents about, and their biological parents. Me too, of course. [00:34:00]

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

So what's really important to do–and this could either be done in a, with a therapist or could be done in a journal, or could be done talking to yourself in your car or in your room, or in your closet or wherever–is making a defined space for your anger about a specific issue and just letting it happen, letting it exist on its own and not coming in with a “But they did their best.” “But they didn't know better.” “But what we know now, they didn't know then” type of a thing. Because otherwise the inner adopted child never has a chance to be heard in their anger. [00:35:00]

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

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

And that's where, Haley, have you ever heard of the expression called spiritual bypassing? [00:36:00]

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah. So spiritual bypassing: it doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with religion, but it's a way of taking the high road before the low road has been fully explored. And that's where I think we adoptees can make ourselves sick, like, literally sick. Like stuffed with feelings and trauma that really never gets worked out.

So we have to be careful with ourselves not to take the high road until it's really, really, really time to take the high road. And I think I mentioned Nelson Mandela in our last conversation, but recently I was reading this book by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and they were talking about Nelson Mandela being imprisoned unfairly for 27 years. [00:37:00]

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

And so we can't jump to the high road just because it's nicer and it's more comfortable and it's more adult and people like it better. We have to really go through the guts of our own trauma and let it have space and be with ourselves in it, and connect to the world from that place as much as we can–even if it's only one or two people–before we go to the high road. The high road will come with time naturally. We don't have to bypass the hard part to get there too early, or else we really hurt ourselves in the process. [00:38:00]

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: Me too.

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

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

Haley Radke: Well, that's a big light bulb moment. [00:39:00]

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

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

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

And also there is a book by called Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, by an adoptee and her name is Jeanette Winterson. [00:40:00] And I read an excerpt from one of her books and she said that once she had a reunion with her biological family, she realized that she's not fully, really in either family. Like she's really her own person in a way. And that she didn't really belong fully in either place, and that was herself saying that not society.

I found that really powerful and it gave me a sense of permission that I don't have to pick and I don't have to fit into my biological family fully. I can really be my own person with my own distinct history, and that's honoring all that I've been through. I can't just slip in as if I'm, you know, the ugly duckling and the geese and I'm suddenly a goose or whatever. So I really liked that and I feel less angry when I think about how I get to chart my own course. [00:41:00]

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

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah, there's that. And then, you know, as time goes on, something that I've gotten angry at myself about a lot is my own standards for myself. Like when I as a child and as a teenager, and even a young adult, buying into the cultural narrative that adoption is just a good thing and it's no big deal. “Why am I so triggerable,” you know? And “Why do things get in the way of my progress that don't seem to get in the way for other people?” [00:42:00] And “And why do my insides not match the outsides of other people?” And like, “What's wrong?” “Why can't I do it well enough?” Sort of like the basis of “What's wrong with me?” “What's my fatal flaw that caused all of this in the first place?” morphs into this older version of like, “Why can't I do things the way I want to?” or “Why can't I do things well enough?”

And trauma can actually present a lot like ADHD or ADD, with or without the H. I certainly operate that way, like my attention can feel split in a hundred different directions and it can be hard for me to focus. I don't actually believe I have ADD; I believe I'm just a bit fragmented and a bit traumatized. I'm saying “a bit,” I don't know why I'm saying “a bit.” I'm traumatized. And so I do have trouble with things that other people don't seem to, or that I have thought, “Why should I have trouble with this? “Why am I not more competent?” Or “Why am I not able to follow through on this better?” [00:43:00]

And then becoming a parent, oh my gosh. I mean, all of this trauma, my history, even though I did not want it to, leaked into aspects of my parenting. And we have a very transparent household so my kids are adults now and they understand about my history and they have an ability to look into themselves and see where they think they were affected by my trauma and my husband's different kind of trauma.

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

Haley Radke: Well, and there's so many adoptees that just repeat the same cycle: adoptees that become first parents that relinquish. [00:44:00]

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

And that's one of the things that drives me to heal, is I felt so much harm from my experience. I don't want to be harmful to others if I can help it, and I have been harmful to others. [00:45:00] And I'm just, I was going to say I'm a slow learner, but that's just that self-deprecating, cultural talk. It's like, “No, I'm actually not a slow learner at all. I've actually worked my ass off to heal as much as I can over 52 years.” As long as I can remember, I've been trying to regulate myself, learn how to regulate myself and not blow up or cut people off, or do whatever angry things I have done.

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: Right. That same guy, Bessel van der Kolk, that I read the quote from, he says that emotion is meant to be acted on biologically, like in our species, or even among animals. So when we're angry, our body is organized to take action towards something to address the anger, whether it's a fight, or drawing a line, or whatever we have to do. [00:46:00] And when we don't feel we can act on our anger, when we feel like we have to keep it inside, we pay a terrible price because all of our stress hormones and our muscle tension and our heart rate and everything is organizing toward anger. But we're shutting the door on any action and then we're curling in on ourselves, and I honestly feel like it makes us sick to do that.

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

Haley Radke: Well, that's a pretty good call to action. What are the next steps for someone who is identifying with the things that we're saying here? [00:47:00] “Okay, Pamela, I'm ready. What's my next step?”

Pam Cordano, MFT: Well, I don't know that I could have done a fraction of what I've done without the help of a really good therapist. But I think that trying on the idea that we have a younger part of us–it's like arrested development–that got stuck in different places, even on the baby level. That we might not be at all conscious of, but our nervous system knows, and the alarm bells go off. That we need to make space for the younger parts of us who have been either stuck or silenced or immobilized, to find expression and mobility and connection to others. [00:48:00]

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

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: Yeah, it's kind of nice. What's really cool about that is because, you know, we have our two brain hemispheres and if we're right-handed, our right hemisphere crosses over to the left side of our body and our left hemisphere crosses to the right side. [00:49:00] So our emotions are in our right hemispheres. I mean, that's simplified, but basically, when we write with our non-dominant hand, we have more access to our emotional writing. And our dominant hand has more access to the logic and the “distinguishing this from that,” the linear thinking. So it's useful to write the emotional stuff from our non-dominant hand, even biologically it's useful.

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: I'm just really so appreciative, Haley, that you have this podcast. I just feel like it's such a gift to people for us to have a platform to share experiences and thoughts and healing and to resonate with each other. I think that it's very powerful, and I'm grateful, so thank you. [00:50:00]

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

Pam Cordano, MFT: I hope so.

Haley Radke: I know it. I can tell you right now, it's gonna help a lot of people. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us.

Pam Cordano, MFT: Thanks Haley.

Haley Radke: Since we've recorded this episode, Pam has a book out. It's called 10 Foundations for a Meaningful Life (No Matter What's Happened), and I actually got the opportunity to interview Pam about her book a couple of times. So if you go back in the feed, you can find Pam's other episodes. Her new website is yourmeaningful (dot) life. And you can find all the other ways to connect with her over there. [00:51:00]

Another really fun way to interact with Pam, and also Anne Heffron, is their weekly Flourish classes. I had the opportunity to take one a few weeks ago. It was wonderfully both challenging and grounding, and they share the times of those classes over on the Beyond Adoption: You Facebook page. And I've seen them post about it on their Instagrams, so I'll have links to those in the show notes for you.

I want to thank you again for listening to adoptee voices and invite you to support the show and help keep it sustainable and going over on adopteeson.com/partner. And I want to thank all of you who have already signed up and have already helped me to pay my editor and pay the other cost of posting. So thank you so much. I really appreciate you. Thanks so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday. [00:52:00]

161 Bernie

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/161

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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 161, Bernie. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Today I'm honored to introduce you to Bernie, a late discovery adoptee who's been working the past two years to learn about birth trauma and adoption trauma. Bernie and I talk about how he confirmed he was adopted, what patterns and challenges he had through his life that now he attributes to birth trauma, and what happens when the validators of our memories are lost. 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.

I'm so pleased [00:01:00] to welcome to Adoptees On, Bernie. Welcome, Bernie.

Bernie Thank you. It's good to be here.

Haley Radke I would love it if you would start and share your story with us.

Bernie My story is that I am what is called an LDA, a late discovery adoptee. I only discovered conclusively that I was adopted in my early sixties. I was born in 1955 in Los Angeles and formally adopted no more than 23 days after that. My family did not mention anything about my adoption at any time, while I was growing up, or after I had become an adult. In fact, one time I can remember finding my birth certificate, which listed the place of birth as Los Angeles. And I thought that was pretty [00:02:00] cool given the fact that I was living in and growing up in Iowa. And I went to my mom and I said, “Hey mom, I didn't know that I was born in Los Angeles.” And I'll never forget this, she became very angry and she said, “Don't tell people you were born in Los Angeles. You were born in Des Moines.” And that was startling. And I just left it at that but I kept it in the back of my mind for future reference. But from that point on, if anybody asked me where I was born or if I had to fill out any forms for school or anything like that, I always listed Los Angeles.

As I say, I didn't discover the truth until many years later. I have an adoptive cousin whom I've always felt very close to, and one evening I called her because I guess the best way to put it was I was going through a period of existential angst. You know, typical [00:03:00] questions: Who am I? What am I doing? What is my purpose? And so forth. And I collected little bits and pieces of anecdotal information over the years and I thought this is interesting. One day I'm gonna figure it out. And I decided now was the time to find some things out 'cause I knew that my cousin had been adopted because she had told me. And so I came to her and I said, “My birth certificate says Los Angeles. My mom claims that her and dad flew to Los Angeles on business and she had me there and that I was a few weeks premature.” And in retrospect it didn't make any sense because why would a woman eight months pregnant in the mid fifties be flying out to the coast well over a thousand miles away from home? My mom also had rheumatic fever, which can cause damage to the heart muscle. And [00:04:00] I don't think any self-respecting OB-GYN would encourage a woman who had that to say, “Sure, go ahead. Start a family. We'll get you set up with appointments,” and so on and so forth. So that didn't make any sense either. And the whole idea about a business trip? My dad was working in a mom-and-pop grocery store and had some experience as a carnival worker in midways. What about those businesses would take 'em out to California? It just didn't fit. So I said to her, “If I'm wrong, I apologize. I'm not trying to offend or insult anybody,” but I said, “Is it possible that I was adopted?” And she paused for about a second and took a deep breath and said, “Oh, thank God you asked me.” Apparently she had learned from her adoptive father's sister, her adoptive [00:05:00] aunt, who told her that she was pregnant, and as an aside told her, “And by the way, I think Bernie's probably adopted too,” but she held onto that for all those years because she didn't want to upset me or startle me or shake up what I knew about the reality of my life. And I don't blame her. I think it was the right decision to make. And that conversation occurred in early 2018 and in the subsequent months that have gone by since then, I've tried to reconcile that with what I know and the experiences that I've had growing up and in my adult life and I've done a lot of reading and a lot of research, and after some time for the first time, everything that ever happened to me made sense. It wasn't a case of being ill, it wasn't a case of being sick, like some [00:06:00] people whom I had grown up with were more than anxious to convince me was the case. It was having been taken from my mother immediately after birth and then placed for adoption immediately thereafter. And that's been the journey I've been on ever since then.

Haley Radke Wow. There's a lot to unpack there. Oh my goodness. Okay. So your cousin confirmed this, your adoptive cousin? Your mom and dad, had they passed away at this point? Am I getting that part of the story right?

Bernie My dad passed away in 1982. He had suffered a massive stroke brought on by a cerebral hemorrhage in 1964. I was only about nine at the time, so that was another impact growing up [00:07:00] without an active father present in the house. My mom passed away in 2011,so by the time I learned the truth about my adoption it had been about six years and change after my mom passed away. And then in 2013, the last of my adoptive aunts and uncles and their spouses also passed away. My mom's parents had passed away sometime before that. My dad's parents had passed away long before I even came on the scene so there was no one left of their generation or the generations before who were firsthand witnesses to what had happened.

Haley Radke Oh my goodness. Thankful for your cousin to confirm that for you. I just read this memoir by another late discovery [00:08:00] adoptee and I won't name it 'cause I wasn't a big fan and I think one of the things that when he was writing about his story, I was like, huh. He didn't have any hints? He never knew? I thought he was gonna share all these little clues all along that he had added up. And I don't know if I'm probably projecting this onto his story because I thought of course you must have known something. It sounds like you were collecting some things here and there. Do you have thoughts about that? Have you heard from a lot of people like what I was expecting, like that you would know clues?

Bernie I had been collecting bits and pieces of anecdotal information, and none of it really screamed at me that it was urgent to get to the bottom of all this. It was more like that's interesting and this is interesting, and one of these [00:09:00] days I'm gonna take some time and try to piece it all together and find out what it means. But as I say, it wasn't until that evening in 2018 that things were finally coming up enough to the surface that made me wanna ask,

Haley Radke Do you wanna talk about the existential crisis? What does that mean for you? Where were you in that moment of just needing to put pieces together? Did you suspect you were adopted? Like when did that first come into your head?

Bernie The first time I considered the possibility was just a few years before then and again, it hadn't risen to the level of absolutely needing to know. But I was in my early sixties, I was in a job that I didn't find too terribly satisfying. As I say, my [00:10:00] adoptive family, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles were all gone. So there really wasn't anybody of those generations to connect with anymore. My family, the people that I really felt close to, was my wife. My friends were few and far between. Not that I don't consider myself to be a likable person, it's just that I'm just one of those people who has a very small number of people that I consider myself to be emotionally intimate with, and the combination of all of those things, I felt the need to know more about myself, to understand myself better. Again, who am I? What is my purpose? What am I really meant to do? What are [00:11:00] some things I can find out that might fill in the gaps? As I say, my mom didn't know how to deal with the emotional side of me. I was never a bad kid. I was never a disciplinary problem. I never got in trouble with anybody, but I was very emotional. I suspect that was a result of being separated from my mother at birth and the subsequent adoption and she didn't necessarily know how to deal with all the crying. I give her credit for doing the best she can. Nobody knows how to be a parent right out of the box. But instead of it being a case of, alright, you're upset, you go to your room, you relax for a little while, calm down and then come downstairs and we'll talk. It was never like that. It was more like, stop crying right now, or I'm calling the police. Or stop crying right now, or I'm gonna have you put in an insane asylum. And she would [00:12:00] sometimes pick up the phone. She wouldn't even dial. She would just pick it up and immediately start talking, “Hello? Yes. Listen, I can't take it anymore. You're gonna have to come and get 'em right now. Okay. Thank you. Goodbye. Okay, they’re coming.” And I would immediately and intellectually know there was no conversation. There's nothing to worry about. But emotionally it scared me to death.

Haley Radke Oh, that's upsetting. That's, yeah. Okay, so you're having this existential crisis and all of these things are coming to a head for you, and your cousin tells you the truth, but I don't feel like that would firmly plant your feet on the ground. Now you're like, oh my gosh. What was that like? Getting this information confirmed?

Bernie Again, because I had my suspicions, it wasn't that I was thrown into a state of shock. It was more like I just paused internally long enough to move it from a possibility to a fact. It's okay, I was [00:13:00] right. I was adopted, and at the beginning my thoughts were okay, but I know who my parents are. I know who loved me. I know who raised me. I know who took care of me. But as I learned more, as the months went by, I began to see, this is why I've always been so emotional. This is why I've always had difficulty in new surroundings. If anything, learning in the beginning and as the months went on began to give me comfort because I was trying to take two aspects of myself and piece 'em together, like jigsaw pieces into a single picture, and it never fit perfectly. Now, I had the realization that my life was actually contained in two boxes of jigsaw pieces. One picture for the reality [00:14:00] of being separated at birth and adoption, and the other being life with my adoptive parents. I was, as I say, I was never sick, I was never ill. I was just experiencing the after effects of birth trauma. And despite mom being unable to deal with the emotions, I learned that I could finally start letting go of the stigma of being considered wrong or out of place or misfit. It was never true. It's not true now, although there are certainly things about birth trauma that have stayed with me all these years, and those are things I'm currently working on now. But it's been a lengthy process. I went from, okay, now I know the truth, big deal [00:15:00] to, okay, now I know what the truth is, and now I know why I am the way I am, and now I have the possibility to work on this and set things right as much as I can within myself. And part of that is being able to take ownership of the truth now, take ownership of my story instead of being ashamed. Oh my God, there must be something wrong with me. And I used to get threatened every time that I cried. And thinking that crying is a sign of some terrible kind of mental illness when it really isn't. And it's been a process, letting go of those falsehoods and adopting something that's, pardon the expression, adopting, taking possession of something that's healthier.

Haley Radke So how did you [00:16:00] get to that point of I noticed you're saying, adoption, trauma, birth trauma, the impact of being separated from your mother, you sound like you've done a lot of research on this and you understand that impact it can have now. How did you figure those things out? Are you like a researcher? Did you seek out other late discovery adoptees? What were some of your first things that you did once you thought, ooh, maybe adoption had an impact on me. Not just this secret keeping, but also did it have an impact on my mental and emotional wellbeing?

Bernie One of the first things that I did was I jumped on the internet and started looking for articles about adoptees and the first article that I came to that sounded like it would have some promise was “10 Things Adoptees Want You to Know” by Lesli Johnson [00:17:00] and so many of the bullet points there rang true with me. So I took the initiative and I wrote to her, if for no other reason, to say thank you. And she wrote back and we've been in communication with each other ever since. She's been open to hearing about my experiences. I almost feel as if I have to send her a check every time I send her an email, even though she's not formally a therapist of mine, because she's been so helpful.

Haley Radke Wow.

Bernie Also, although I was reluctant to do DNA testing because I had privacy concerns, I've always been something of a reticent private person. In fact, this interview is the most I have put myself out there ever. So this is a big leap for me. But I finally did the DNA testing and it confirmed 75% Italian, [00:18:00] 25% Irish. My adoptive family is Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian. So that was confirmation right there. But as these different pieces came together, reading and connecting with people like Lesli and learning about things like EMDR, which had been used successfully for all kinds of trauma. I just started going deeper and deeper into this, and I finally got to the point where I realized, yes, they were my parents. Yes, they took care of me. But yes, there was also a lot of damage done and I've gotta find ways to fix it. One never knows how much time one has left, and it was important for me to get resolution to a lot [00:19:00] of things now. So one of the other things I did was I found a therapist locally who is trained in EMDR and that had a profound effect on me as well. After the first session, I came home and my wife said, “Your face looks so much more relaxed,” and neither of us realized that there had been any tension in it. And after several of them, the relaxation, from attention level, it went from way up here to way down here. And we never knew it was there before. So that was one way that I was able to process at least some of the trauma. Another thing I did was I learned about the book, The Primal Wound by Verrier and read it cover to cover, [00:20:00] and it was one of those books where I had to stop every few pages and just take a deep breath because everything that she described was absolutely right. It explained the separation anxiety that I experienced all those years. And again, it was validation. No, you weren't sick, you were ripped away from your birth mother, which under ideal circumstances should never happen to a child. And it explained the loss of the self. People would ask me, “Tell me, who are you?” And as funny as it sounds, I could never answer that question. I'm so and so many years old, I work in this profession. I list facts, but who am I? For years, I could never give an answer that I felt completely resonated with me because as I learned from Verrier, the self was never something that fully developed. I never had the chance to be comfortable and trusting with someone in the first two, three years of life where I could do all this [00:21:00] exploring. So one piece at a time, one resource at a time, one person at a time. And it's brought me to the point where I am today. And the point that I'm at today is I own this story. I wanna share this story very much. I'm writing right now. I hope to have it in a published form in the near future. And, whereas before, I only would speak about it with a handful of close confidants, and there's still some people I will not share the story with because I don't think it would be well received, I'm sharing it with more and more people. If I didn't feel confident about that I wouldn't be participating in this interview.

Haley Radke I'm curious, as you've shared your story, my bet is that you've been asked this question too many times, which is why I wasn't even gonna ask it. But I am. I'm going to, 'cause probably people are wondering too, you found out you were [00:22:00] adopted after both of your mom and dad had passed away. And so has there been, you mentioned a little bit, you hinted at this, but I'm wondering if there's been some processing that you've done. Have you thought about why they kept it a secret from you? Have you written them a letter perhaps, or, like all of those tips therapists give us to process things with someone that we're not able to actually have a conversation with. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Bernie I haven't sat down and wrote out my feelings to my adoptive parents. I think about what the whys and the wherefores might have been, why they might have kept it from me. And all I can do is speculate. Any reason I give is just conjecture. Maybe they were afraid that they would lose me if I knew the truth. [00:23:00] I would find a way to escape the situation somehow. I don't know how I might have done it, but maybe that's what they were afraid of. I wish I could somehow communicate to them. I have to believe that wherever they are now they certainly know that I know the truth, and the best that I can do is find people who have been in similar circumstances as mine and talk about our experiences together. There's a small group of people that I meet with on a regular basis, not a formal support group, but just people who have become good friends of mine. And we share our experiences with each other. And we talk about things like birth trauma and hyper vigilance and all of these other things that are [00:24:00] hallmarks of adoptees and and we're there for each other. And as I say, I have a therapist locally who is, though not necessarily an expert on adoption issues, is an expert on trauma and that's helped me tremendously and the writing that I'm doing also helps. I seem to have discovered, I studied mathematics when I was in college. I've spent 40 years in the IT industry, but I never realized until recently that I seem to have a knack for being able to write well and communicate ideas well, and that's helped. That's helped a lot. I guess my way of processing is putting things down on paper in a form that hopefully I can get polished enough that I can share with other people.

Haley Radke That just makes me excited to have more resources in the world from adoptees who really have worked [00:25:00] on things and processed things, and it sounds like you're really doing that. Okay. Let's shift, 'cause another thing I'm really curious about, you said you did DNA testing. Did you have thoughts of searching for your biological family?

Bernie Yes. Once I got the results back, I did a few initial forays through ancestry messaging on ancestry.com, but never got any responses back. One of the people who reached out to me on Ancestry turned out to be, and I apologize if she's listening, either a third cousin or a fourth cousin who actually lives in the same area that I live. And she said, can you help me on researching this and this? And I wrote back, I said, I'd love to help, but I'm adopted. So I need help finding out who these people are. So we got together one day for coffee and, [00:26:00] turns out she is a very serious amateur genealogist and based on the information I was able to provide plus what she already knew about her family, we traced back our common roots and ultimately she came up with, “On your mother's side, this is probably your birth mother, based on age and just some common sense criteria. This woman is too old and is too established, and she probably wouldn't be the person,” and did the same thing on the birth father's side. Unfortunately, my birth mother passed away in 2006, so contacting her directly was not an option. The gentleman whom I believe to be my birth father, who we're 100% certain about the birth mother, we're over [00:27:00] 90% certain about the birth father. I don't wanna say a hundred percent because I've tried to reach out to this person and he has refused contact. So on the very remote chance that we are wrong I wanna respect that and not say it's this person. But I've tried reaching out two or three times, both to him directly and to his son, and each time it's been met with silence. So I have to consider that to be a dead end. At one point, one of the friends who I meet with regularly, who is also an adoptee, said you might wanna try to reach out to the siblings, because a lot of times siblings are more receptive to being contacted. So I reached out to the siblings on my mother's side, five of them, four boys and a girl and I wrote letters because I didn't have any email addresses or any other contact information available to me. Within 48 hours, I got emails back from one of the brothers [00:28:00] and the wife of one of the other brothers, and they were able to help fill in a lot of the gaps based on the information they knew about their mother and the information I was able to provide about my history. We realized that each of us had correctly found the other person. So they knew that there was somebody out there that my mother had had before she got married. And from what I was able to tell them in my letters, they now knew that I was that person. Since then, I've had some communications with them. They've been very nice. They've been willing to share information. How much further the relationship goes beyond that? I don't know. It's not something I feel that I can push. I don't wanna put them into a corner where I'm demanding something of them that they don't feel that they're ready to give. But I'm grateful [00:29:00] for having found them. My sister-in-law is considered the historian of the family, and she was able to provide a lot of information and, when she asked certain questions about health related matters, and I was able to say yes I experienced this and yes, I experienced that. Oh, your brother was always, or your mother was always, there was a little bit more of a connection in that way as well. In fact, she even shared, and this is the first time I'd ever seen this, she shared a picture of my mother within two years after I was born. Apparently, my mother had shared with this sister-in-law and with her only daughter, the truth. Shortly after I was born, she met the man that ultimately became her husband for the rest of her life and shared that information with him, and it was not a deal breaker because they got married and went on to have five kids. Whether or not the other siblings knew about this [00:30:00] at the time that I sent the letters, I don't know. They most certainly know now, but I don't know what their feelings are about my being just this theoretical, without a name, without a face person that exists out there somewhere, to actually being a person with a name and with a face and with a shared history.

Haley Radke Older brother.

Bernie Yeah, I'm the older brother now and maybe they're not sure how they feel about that now. I don’t know-

Haley Radke Well I'm the secret older sister on my father's side, not anymore, but, my bio dad had to sit his kids down and say, oh, there was something when I was in high school. Yeah, that's a huge change. How much younger is your next step down sibling?

Bernie He is no more than about two years younger than me.

Haley Radke Okay. So they're [00:31:00] all, like your peers in age-

Bernie Oh yes.

Haley Radke Wow. So you talked about you don't wanna push and would like a relationship with them? Are you hoping for more details of things? I don't know. Just when you talked about this photo that you received of your mother, you lit up, like your face lit up and I, I don't know. Like I think for a lot of us, we get so little information that those things are so precious. So is there something that you hope for?

Bernie I do hope that as time goes on, they will be more open to more than just swapping emails. Right now, they certainly respond to every email that I send out, but I'm hoping that we can move beyond that [00:32:00] to maybe a phone conversation, maybe a Zoom meeting. I'd love to be able to meet with them in person if they're open to that. But right now as we are recording this, we are in the middle of a severe pandemic. That's out at least for the time being. Hopefully if somebody is listening to this, a year or two down the road, that will no longer be an issue. And we'll see.

Haley Radke From your lips to God’s ears.

Bernie Yeah, exactly.

Haley Radke Yeah. Yeah. I think that's interesting that this is another whole wrench in a lot of people's reunions right now. I was talking with a listener just a couple weeks ago, a Patreon supporter, and they mentioned I just found my family and we wanna get together, but they're in different countries, so they can't cross the border right now. And I think it's impacted a lot of people. Thank you for sharing your hopes. I think sometimes some of us are a little too scared to say those [00:33:00] things out loud, but we might be feeling them deep down, so I appreciate that. I mentioned right at the beginning some stereotypes that I have about late discovery adoptees. Is there anything that you've learned in the last couple years now about late discovery adoptees? I don't wanna group you all together, but if there's something that you would wanna share with other adoptees, like what are the best ways we could support you when you first find out and you're looking for community or any stereotypes you wanna break for us, any kind of things along those lines?

Bernie I don't know necessarily what some of the stereotypes are. I can tell you this. A friend of mine recently wrote an article for his community where he talked about validators and he defined a validator as someone who, [00:34:00] as the term implies, can validate your experience, can be with you and say, “Boy, remember when we were in high school, you and I went to whatever”, or “Remember that long night we had back when you and I were working for __ and we snuck out for a little while,” and when you get to a certain point in your life, you find that there are fewer and fewer validators. And that's true for people whether they were adopted or not, but having no adoptive family of that particular generation or previously to go to anymore, not really having too much of a birth family at this point in time, at least until they decide where they land in this whole thing, it gets lonely and I [00:35:00] think that that's the one thing that I would wanna get across to people is that it can be lonely sometimes. We who were separated from our biology are always looking for family. And I'll say “family" in quotation marks because I've searched for those kinds of deep, meaningful relationships in all kinds of venues. I've searched for them as a student. I've searched for them on the job. You don't necessarily find success in finding them, but you look for them wherever you can because your family of origin just isn't there for you. And that's something that stays with you even if you grew up in a good, quote, unquote, good home, there's still that existential [00:36:00] loneliness. There is still the separation anxiety, there is still the loss of the self and without having people with whom you started your first few moments of life there to validate you, to support you, to be there when you've been out in the wide world, sometimes wild world, and sought to make your your fortune, they're supposed to be the people that you can come home to who. Who take you in, who love you, who care about you. And it doesn't exist. And as you get older, that becomes more and more acute. And I hope people will take that message to heart. In my faith community, I put out a message that talked about how it's important for [00:37:00] people to be in touch with each other, especially in the time of pandemic and that it doesn't matter what you see their outside circumstances to be, unless you're really intimately familiar with the other person, you'll never know what their story is. Doesn't matter if they've got a lot of money, doesn't matter if they have a nice house, doesn't matter if they're working. Doesn't matter if they've got a big family. It doesn't matter if they're healthy. It doesn't matter if they look happy all the time. There might be things going on the inside that you don't know about. So when people are isolated it's all more important to reach out to them. And admittedly I wrote that from a place different from having to shelter in place and isolate from much of society because of present day circumstances. A lot of people don't know the story and sometimes it gets lonely out there. I guess that's the message and loneliness doesn't necessarily get any [00:38:00] better as the years go on.

Haley Radke That's really profound. I just finished reading My Name is Why by Lemn Sissay. I don't know if you've heard of him. He is a foster alum in the UK and he's a poet and he's written quite a bit and in My Name is Why he shares his documents from all of his social workers and things, all of his foster care information, and when he talks about this paperwork, that's the only connection he has to his memories. Those are the places he finds the validation, as you were mentioning, the people that were there and that families are the keepers of our memories. And so when Lemn was talking about this, these papers being his memory keepers, and they're written by [00:39:00] some social worker who’s just quickly writing up their paperwork for the day just to get home, it's very yikes. I don't know how that makes you feel when you hear me say that. It's definitely sobering. And so I thank you for sharing that perspective with us. I think it's really important to think about. Bernie, is there anything else that you really wanna tell us before we do our recommended resources?

Bernie The only thing I can add is birth trauma is real. It's a real thing. It has real world consequences. And I do not criticize people who go the adoption route. I know a number of people who have adopted wonderful people, wonderful kids, and I don't [00:40:00] come out as either being pro adoption or anti adoption. Those people who are considering it should look very carefully at the ramifications. I think it's important to understand that where we were back in the 1950s when I was adopted, we know so much more than we do today and we do a disservice to parents, to adoptive parents to birth parents and to the children if we don't fully understand before we make these life-changing decisions. I think that's my bottom line message. Get educated and understand fully, and if you can successfully navigate those waters, you will have a much better chance that all three sides of this triangle [00:41:00] will come out the better for it. It may not necessarily be perfect, but it will be better.

Haley Radke Well said. Thank you. Yeah, I, I don't know if you know this, but I still have adoptive parents send me emails and say, oh, when's the best time to tell your kid you're adopted? And one of them I think her daughter was like nine years old. I thought, yeah, it's probably a few years ago. Don't keep secrets. That's my tip for anyone who's listening. Okay. Let's go do our recommended resources, and I'm gonna let you go first. What did you wanna recommend to us today, Bernie?

Bernie I can't speak highly enough about Lesli Johnson. People who listen to this podcast are already familiar with her of course. If they are not, Lesli is a marriage and family therapist in Pasadena, [00:42:00] California. She is the first person I reached out to to get information about what I should do on this journey. I consider her an ally. I consider her a good friend. The Huff Post article “10 Things Adoptees Want You to Know” is a great starting point. And if you want to know more about her, you can go to her website, which is yourmindfulbrain.com.

Haley Radke I love Lesli. I'll co-sign that. She was the very first therapist that I had on the podcast and she's been so generous with her wisdom on the show. She's been on a lot of times, and I'll make sure to link to Lesli's info in the show notes as well as that article that you're mentioning the “10 Things Adoptees Want You to Know”. I have those both and I will drop those in the show notes. [00:43:00] So I've had a couple other late discovery adoptees on the show, but not too many and in that time, I found one other resource that I want to recommend, and this is actually Canadian. I'm Canadian. Did you know that? Not everybody knows. I have to keep mentioning it every once in a while. A Canadian named Megan, she's a registered therapeutic counselor and she does a lot of art therapy and I actually have one of the mugs that she made. I'll show it to you here. It's beautiful. It says, “The roots are there even if you can't see them,” and at the very bottom of the mug, it shows this huge root ball underneath this fur tree that's on the side of the mug. And it's one of my most prized adoptee-made possessions. I ordered it from her, but I wanted to mention her because she's started a website called latediscoveryadoptees.com, and [00:44:00] she has a couple of different programs. Now I think that she found out later in life that her father was actually her adoptive father so that's her connection with adoption. But the programs she's doing are for late discovery adoptees, and they're very art centered. She calls it expressive arts. And so if that's something that you're interested in, I think she's a cool connection to find. And she's got some free things on her website that you can check out. And of course, as Bernie was mentioning, he's done EMDR and those kinds of therapies, and Lesli is so good at those and Lesli does brain spotting. She'll even do brain spotting online, like through video, which is really cool. So I love that there's the scientifically proven things and then also for the creatives, there's other ways of finding connection and therapy. [00:45:00] Anyway, so that's what I wanted to bring to you, and I will link to that website and Megan's Instagram account which has some other photos of her other art and a couple other mugs that you can check out as well.

So that's my recommendation this week. Thank you so much, Bernie. It was such an honor chatting with you and thanks for sharing your story with us.

As Bernie shared with us, he's very private online, but he's open to connecting with you via email. And his email address is adopteebernie@comcast.net, and I will put that in the show notes for you.

It is National Adoption Awareness Month as this episode releases, and good grief, I hope I'm not the first person to share that with you so far, but I would ask that you consider supporting adoptee voices with your social media shares this month, with your blog posts, with your friends and [00:46:00] family. And another way to make sure adoptee voices are heard loudly above the fray is to support adoptee creators with a financial gift. If you've benefited from listening to adoptee voices on this podcast, I welcome your monthly support over on adopteeson.com/partner, where I think the benefits are fun and helpful. If you're not adopted, but have learned from me and my guests, consider a one-time gift via PayPal, and the link is in the show notes and on the front page of adopteeson.com. Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.

159 Adoptee Remembrance Day

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/159

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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 159, Adoptee Remembrance Day. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Today is a special episode where we are going to learn about an upcoming day that I think will become critically important to the adoptee community. We are talking about ways to commemorate the first annual Adoptee Remembrance Day. You can find links to everything we'll be talking about today over on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Pamela Karanova. Welcome.

Pamela Karanova: Hey Haley, thank you so much for having me today. I'm excited to be here.

Haley Radke: Aw, I've loved our conversations. We've shared a few. [00:01:00] I'll link to those in the show notes so people can hear from you. We've talked about your personal story. We've talked about how you launched Adoptees Connect, which is so amazing and I'm so honored to be a part of that. And today we are coming to a more somber occasion and we are gonna be talking about Adoptee Remembrance Day. Can you tell us what that is?

Pamela Karanova: Yes, absolutely. Adoptee Remembrance Day is going to be a day that we set aside, October 30th of this year, and hopefully every year moving forward, that's gonna serve several purposes. This day is gonna be a reflection of raising public awareness of a lot of different dynamics to the adoptee experience, but one of them is crimes against adoptees by adoptive parents, and this is something that happens more frequently than people realize. I think the adoptee community is definitely tuned into that a little more, and it's also something that the media does not recognize. So we're gonna be focused on these crimes against adoptees by adoptive parents, [00:02:00] as well as publicly mourning and honoring the lives of our brothers and sisters who we've lost to suicide, and that's a very touchy and deep topic for so many of us. And we really want them to not be forgotten and we wanna raise awareness on the topic of adoptee suicide, which is very prevalent in the adoptee community. I know many people already know, but for those that don't, adoptees are four times more likely to attempt suicide and than non adopted individuals. And we are also wanting to shine a light on the topic that there are countless international adoptees who are living without citizenship and they have been deported due to mistakes made by their adoptive parents and adoption agencies, attorneys, and whatnot. And this happening to them is beyond devastating and we need to really shine a light on this because it's something that is destroying lives and adoptees are ending their life because of the trauma that this is [00:03:00] inflicting on them. Not to mention all of the trauma they already experienced by being removed from their homeland and being in a country where they don't resemble people, and we're gonna shine a light on that topic with this day.

And then another topic that we really wanna focus on is the whole concept of adoptee loss. I know from my personal experience and networking with adoptees all over the place, one of the biggest components to my experience and so many others is the loss that we all feel. And honestly, for so many years of my life, I didn't even know what was wrong with me, but I felt like something was deeply wrong with me that I was just so sad all the time. Finally, I ended up going through a lot of therapy and recovery dynamics, and I ended up figuring out a lot of what I was experiencing was the grief and loss process that nobody ever told me I could feel. I really think that is a huge dynamic for adoptees everywhere, all the way down to their childhoods that they should [00:04:00] be able to process the grief and loss from as early of age as possible. And some people might say, what grief and what loss? And I would say, the loss of everything that we lose when we are adopted into a new family. That’s two biological families, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, our medical history, our lineage, and for many of the adoptees that are international, their homelands, their culture. So there is a lot that we should be given a right to grieve about. And I felt like my whole life that it was taken from me until I started grieving in my forties. It's a pretty big ordeal to hold all that in your whole life. And so this day is really a reflection for adoptees everywhere to really share their voice and find anywhere in them to be able to grasp how they're feeling and share it publicly if they have the strength to do that. Because people need to start seeing and learning and realizing [00:05:00] how we feel. So those are the main topics or some of them that we wanna focus on with Adoptee Remembrance Day.

Haley Radke: Thank you. I think it's so important to spend some time acknowledging those things. And it's interesting, some of the things you were describing, it's almost like this is a moment to normalize the disenfranchised grief that so many of us have experienced. And I also notice a couple of the other things that are mentioned on some of your resources when we're talking about this day: the overrepresentation of adoptees in treatment facilities and incarcerated individuals, adoption disruptions, and rehoming. And I really appreciate that you have taken this day to really acknowledge all of those different things, and even the piece where you said that it’s not really talked about in the media or acknowledged that this is a [00:06:00] thing. This isn't funny, but I joke around with my co-host of my Adoptees Off Script podcast that's for Patreon supporters, we joke about this because we both have an adoptee Google alert. And I don't know if you have one of those set up, but they drag media articles for the word “adoptee” and then they get sent to you. And I can't even tell you how many of those articles are about animals and how many are just completely positive, happy adoption stories. And it's rare to see anything reported about even what you were talking about crimes against adoptees by adoptive parents, which I'm assuming you're meaning abuse, those kinds of things, and-

Pamela Karanova: And murder. And murder. Yeah. And murder. And that's definitely one of the ones that people don't want to talk about, but yeah, it happens all the time and it's pretty prevalent. If people wanted to look online, they could find story after story of that happening. So definitely [00:07:00] I wanna shine a light on that and I want everybody to. As well as adoptees being overrepresented in the prisons and jails and treatment facilities and mental health facilities. 'Cause there's no help for them, even though they're in those places, we know as being adoptees that there's so many root issues that come with the adoptee experience. I'm not a therapist or a psychologist or anything, but I've done enough research to know that the root issues that adoptees experience can manifest in so many ways through your childhood and your whole entire life that they do impact every area and they can impact every area. Of course it's different for every adoptee, but we definitely have to start shining a light on this because National Adoption Awareness month is November. It's coming up, it's right around the corner. But how about we pause and reflect before we celebrate everything about adoption and really reflect on the truth and the transparency behind adoptions today? If we can do that and really be transparent and really try to process what processing grief and loss looks like for [00:08:00] each of us, I think that little by little adoptees are gonna start coming out into the light at a younger age than 40 years old to start processing grief and loss.

Haley Radke: So another thing that you mentioned to me is that adoptees, some of us are talking about these things, but this day is for everyone. It's not just for adoptees to pause and acknowledge Adoptee Remembrance Day, but you want it to be for everyone. Can you talk about that?

Pamela Karanova: Yes, absolutely. I was pretty set on that from the beginning because I just feel like the more people involved the better. But the adoptee community, most of us that are living that experience, are in a position where we can acknowledge some of the difficulties that we have and acknowledge some of the grief and loss. But it seems like a lot of people that are not adopted are not able to fully grasp that because they're not in our shoes, and that's totally understandable. But we invite them to [00:09:00] support any adopted person that they may or may not even know. They might be an adoptive parent or a birth parent, or an aunt of an adoptee or an uncle of adoptee, grandparents of an adoptee, or a birth mother, birth father that has lost an adoptee. This day is for everyone to really reflect that adoptees lose on this day and reflect on all the other topics that we talked about on this day, and to really step into a new light that there might be more to the adoption experience than what we've always known our whole lives. And yes, we want everyone to get involved. There's a lot of ways to get involved and we can talk about that in a minute. But yeah, this day is for everyone.

Haley Radke: Okay. Let's talk about the color yellow. I see you have chosen yellow, and I wanna know why. What led you to that color?

Pamela Karanova: Doing research, I felt like I really had to pick a color and I did some research and found out that yellow is a symbol of remembrance and that was very fitting for the [00:10:00] day. And there wasn't a better color that I thought based on some other colors with different things. I had to really navigate what we wanted to call this day and remembrance was definitely in there. And so that's why I picked yellow, because it's a symbol of remembrance.

Haley Radke: Now you mentioned there's lots of different ways to get involved, so let's spend some time talking about that and what are some of the different ideas that you've had about ways to observe Adoptee Remembrance Day.

Pamela Karanova: Our website has a complete list, but for me to share a few, I would say one of them is to wear yellow.

Haley Radke: I ordered my shirts. Did I tell you that?

Pamela Karanova: Yay. I'm so glad. I ordered mine too. I ordered some coffee mugs and some other things too, to be able to spread the word, but yes. Yeah, I actually found yellow shoes the other day. I don't know if you saw them, but I was like, I gotta get these because they're gonna go perfect for the day. But wearing yellow and I wanna spark conversations of, wow, you got a lot of yellow on. I'm [00:11:00] gonna explain why. I've got a couple of the Adoptee Remembrance Day shirts coming as well, that I hope spark some conversations. I really encourage people to use hashtags that are #ard2020, #adopteeremembranceday, and #adopteesweremember. Those are the three hashtags that we're using for this event, and I really want everybody to try to use them so that we can share that on our Adoptees Connect page and on our Facebook page, and we can just go to the hashtag and find what everyone's doing. We're also gonna have a moment of silence at 12:00 PM Eastern Standard Time where everyone just pauses for four minutes. And that four minutes is basically a representation of adoptees being four times more likely to attempt suicide, and that's why I picked four. I will be at work that day and I will probably be in the corner with a box of Kleenex, and I already know that, I've already [00:12:00] pictured that, but I just feel like this needs to be done. So I just encourage everybody, wherever you are at that time, if you can just have a moment of silence for four minutes and allow yourself to feel whatever it is you're feeling and really cry it out if that's what you have to do. And, hopefully wherever you're at, if you're at work or if you're in your car, you have a few minutes to really honor that moment in remembrance of the adoptees that have passed away and all that you've lost in adoption. All that we have all lost in adoption. One of the things that I'm doing personally is my Adoptees Connect group here in Lexington, Kentucky, we're having a ceremonial bonfire, and that's gonna be something that I think is gonna be really fitting for our group. I prefer smaller, more intimate gatherings than big, huge things. And it's not really a public gathering because I just felt like for me personally in my group, we just wanted it to be more private. But if anybody wants to do something more public or go have their own thing, I totally encourage it. We're going to [00:13:00] have a candlelight vigil at 9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, and that's gonna be a thing of remembrance as well to all of the things that we named in the beginning. That is something that I encourage everybody to do in their communities, in their homes, wherever they're at 9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. Sorry, I think it's different for you. And then of course if people need to tweak it to their time zone or whatever of course, it's not like by the book, we just really want people to do something. We're gonna be having our candlelight vigil at the bonfire in real life in my backyard. We've got someone, Darren Zakin of Richmond, Kentucky. He's gonna come and sing a song he wrote called “My Home.” It's a tear jerker for sure, but it's an adoptee centric song. And I have another one of our attendees that's gonna sing another song. And so it's just gonna be a small little gathering. We ask that people tag the Facebook page and anything that they're sharing [00:14:00] online, and then what we can do from there is we can share it on the page. We really hope that this gets bigger every single year and that more people are made aware of this day and that it really should be acknowledged every day of the year. But if we can at least just get one day where it's really highlighted and it's like a fire where it just catches wind, all over. So if people can tag the Facebook page Adoptee Remembrance Day - October 30th, we would really be grateful for that. And let's see, do you want me to keep going? Because I have other ways people can get involved.

Haley Radke: I know you do. I know you do. You have so many ideas. I wanna pause you just because one of the things I really appreciate is that there's moments for remembrance and there's also moments of awareness. So you're doing both, right? Like the public acknowledgement and sharing and making sure we use the hashtags and all of those things. But I'm thinking of those quiet moments and I even wrote a piece for [00:15:00] you and as I was writing it, I was tearing up and you're talking about being in the corner with your box of Kleenex for those four minutes. I hear you. Just mentioning it, I just have so many feelings that come up, and that might seem silly to some people, like really? But it's true. I have so many feelings about adoptees that are hurting and just in order to acknowledge it and to think of those that we've lost, feelings bubble up right away. But when you were talking about the bonfire, it reminded me of something you wrote and one of the things you wanna do at the bonfire, the singing the songs and everything, that's really special. There was another thing that you mentioned, what was that?

Pamela Karanova: At the bonfire, we're gonna have the candlelight vigil at 9:00 PM. We're also each gonna have a chance to share spoken word or poetry. I'm gonna have something available for everybody to write on at that time, but everybody that might possibly be coming has been given notice that they can take as much time as they want to write something, but we're going to read them unless someone doesn't wanna [00:16:00] read them, they don't have to. But when we're done, we're gonna take turns placing our messages into the fire, and then, as the fire goes up, we're gonna be sending our messages to the heavens that something really changes in adoption and we start really highlighting these truths. And I totally understand what you're saying because I wrote a poem, I've already posted it online, called “It's Hard to Smile Today,” and it's a tribute to Adoptee Remembrance Day. And I literally bawled the whole time writing that and I have bawled anytime I read it, and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna bawl when I read it at the bonfire. We need to be bawling. We have a lot to bawl about. We have a lot to cry about, and I just really hope that people catch on to the reality and the real rawness that we all have to deal with every single day of our lives. And so I hope that people are able to come to a place of that transparent moment. And if you're not, I'm not a bawler in front of people. I'll just be honest. I get really weird bawling in front of people. Like I hold it in and [00:17:00] then I choke and oh my God, but this thing, there's no way to stop it because I'm like you. I welt up and immediately get emotional when I think of these topics. And one of the ones that gets me really emotional is international adoptees. Like I can't even barely say international adoptees without bawling. Like I'm starting to cry right now because I just feel so many different ways for their experience and it just totally breaks my heart. And this day is so much for them, as it is for every adoptee out there. So I'm gonna stop on that topic 'cause I get so emotional about that topic. Like I think of being a domestic adoptee and then I try to put myself in their shoes. I don't try to weigh out people's pain or people's trauma, but I just think being adoptees, if anybody's to understand a little bit of their experience and we can put ourselves in their shoes, we're the ones that can even comprehend a little bit as to what they feel like and it's still not enough. And that is a topic that [00:18:00] just makes me really angry and it makes me really emotional.

Haley Radke: I had Adoptees For Justice on the podcast earlier this year, July, and we shared an adoptee’s story, Anisa, who has been deported and I talked to their executive director and just the impact for adoptees, especially those who've lost citizenship. Not lost, never had citizenship in the first place and have been deported. And just the staggering statistics of those people who have died by suicide is really shocking. And yet not. Can you picture yourself, like you have no citizenship, you get deported back to this country where you have no connections. You probably don't know the language, you have no resources. It's really upsetting-

Pamela Karanova: Oh, yeah.

Haley Radke: Yes. Yeah.

Pamela Karanova: And I had a conference call as well with Megan and Emma from Adoptees for Justice yesterday, and I'm so thankful for them and Ed as well, for all they are doing for that whole community, but one of the awesome things that we're doing with Adoptees Remembrance Day is [00:19:00] they're coming on and co-signing with us, and they're gonna create a whole event of their own that obviously anybody can come and join. And we can talk more about that in a minute about other people coming together to pull this whole thing off. But they're amazing, and I totally stand for them and what they do, and it definitely needs to be brought to light in a more profound way. So hopefully this day will really highlight that area as well.

Haley Radke: So it sounds like there are so many different ways that we can observe Adoptee Remembrance Day. Whether you're a creative and you wanna do some spoken word performance, whether you're an activist and you are gonna use this to really light a fire and literally spread a message around the world, whether you are someone who just needs that few minutes to really mark the moment and process quietly on your own. Sounds like there's kind of something for everyone. [00:20:00]

Pamela Karanova: Yep. I agree. That’s exactly right. And if there isn't something that stands out to someone, then we really encourage you to create whatever does work for you. I think this thing is gonna be best when we open it wide up to everybody's ideas and everybody comes together to pull it off. So we are encouraging everybody to get involved and some people are more private than other people and some people might just wanna do something very private, which is totally okay. But yeah, hopefully we'll have something for everyone that is available for people to get involved. And we just spread the word.

Haley Radke: So I wanna just take a beat and go to your personal story. What I've seen from you over the last number of years now, you guys might not know, Pamela has been in adoptee land for a long time. I won't age you. For a very long time, and writing about adoption and blogging and collecting community together and in a [00:21:00] variety of ways, and I've seen you kind of transition and take pauses, short or long over the years, and lately what I have seen is you're just drawn to nature and hiking and searching out waterfalls and those kinds of things. And just to bring it back to Adoptee Remembrance Day, I noticed that some of the things that you've shared, you also have added nature in, or even some of the practices that other groups might use, you've noted these are some things we maybe shouldn't be doing to make sure we're honoring nature and not being detrimental in any way. But can you talk about those two things? I know they’re separate topics, but how you have explored nature as a self-care healing, why you've reached in that direction and why it's so important for you that a part of Adoptee Remembrance Day is honoring that [00:22:00] as well by not doing things that are detrimental to nature.

Pamela Karanova: No, I totally don't mind sharing about that. I think my story might be similar to a lot of other adoptees. I've basically spent my whole entire life running a rat race of trying to find a home, and for me, home has been nature. I think I tried everything for, I would say 44 years. I've really been doing the nature thing probably anywhere from two to three years as far as hiking and finding waterfalls, but everything that I tried to fill that hole with, it never worked. So I decided to start hiking and it actually connected me to a time in my childhood where everything was really good. I think the best childhood memories that I have are out in nature and I grew up in the country in Iowa and a lot of times we were just let free to run out in the corn fields and the forest. And so as I started hiking this connection came back to me from my childhood that this was actually [00:23:00] probably the safest place that I know that I've ever been. So I get emotional talking about it. Ooh. But Kentucky happens to have over 700 waterfalls. And so as I was discovering myself and discovering the new chapters of my life going through the last, I don't know, I'd say 10 years, I discovered that love for hiking really connected me to my childhood. And then I'm like, wow, Kentucky has over 700 waterfalls. I wanna put it on my bucket list to see all of them. I know I probably won't see all of 'em, but it's a good goal to have to just always find someone new to run off to and have an adventure. And it's become my number one source of escape. A lot of times I go by myself and I really don't need people to go with me because I love just connecting with nature by myself. And sometimes I take people and even my Adoptees Connect group, we've gone before and that's a whole new thing of fun because it's awesome to share something you love with other people. I go a lot with my kids and that's been my number one [00:24:00] healing thing for my adoptee stuff. And after running so many years at the rat race, I woke up one day and realized that everything I was actually searching for was actually right inside myself. And so doing more soul searching within myself, of my likes and dislikes and what I love and what I don't love, and what I will stand for and what I won’t, has been a key to finding moments of happiness and making great memories and doing it. And one of the things that we did put on the website for the guidelines for Adoptee Remembrance Day is that we're hoping, because of this love for nature, and I know I'm not the only one that has it, is that we hope nobody will release balloons into the atmosphere because they have to come down somewhere and somebody has to clean them up, and that is an important part because I know that a lot of people love to release balloons for occasions, but we're asking very strongly to please don't release balloons. But we do have so many other ways to get involved that are all listed on the website. Hopefully that answers your question.

Haley Radke: Yeah. You have [00:25:00] so many different ideas. We could literally, we could go a long time listing them all up. And there's so many really creative things I really love, even floating yellow flowers and trying to make sure they're from nearer to you so they haven't been transported far away. I love the opportunities to write, to sing, to do those kinds of creative things that we mentioned earlier. And I feel like there are adoptees that I know their names. I really do know their individual names of adoptees who've died by suicide or adoptees who were murdered by their adoptive parents. I do know those names, and some of them have become famous in some way, but there's so many that we don't necessarily know their names. And so finding ways to tribute the anonymous lost adoptee, I think is really [00:26:00] special too. So thank you so much for sharing those things. We've talked about a lot of different ways we can acknowledge this day. And you mentioned there will be multiple different opportunities for events within the day. And there's gonna be details for that on your Facebook page for Adoptee Remembrance Day, a specific website for that, which we will link in the show notes. You have a Facebook event page for Adoptee Remembrance Day as well, which I really like the event page and I don't know about you, but I've had a few people say, Hey, can you share this as an event? 'Cause it reminds me, especially when there's a specific date and time for something. So can you tell us a little bit about the event page and your Facebook page and the other things we can find there?

Pamela Karanova: Yeah, absolutely. If they consider getting involved, one of the easiest ways to do it is to go to the event, which is actually on Facebook. Right now there’s only one event there. The Facebook page is [00:27:00] Adoptee Remembrance Day - October 30th. But if you go to the event, you can RSVP that you're gonna be attending the event, and you can also invite all your friends and family, and we really encourage everyone to do that because it's a great way to spread the word. A lot of times when you like an event on Facebook, it shows up in your newsfeed and it shows everybody on your friends list as well that you're going to this event. So that's a great way to advertise and get everybody else involved. The Facebook page itself, what we're hoping is that when people participate in this day, that they will tag the Facebook page and then from that we'll see those and we'll be able to share them to the page. And we'll actually also be able to share them on the Adoptees Connect social media as well. And they'll probably spread from there online all over the place, but we don't have Twitter or Instagram for Adoptee Remembrance Day because it's just way too much to keep up with. So Facebook is definitely the main page and main social media source for that day. So yeah, I would say use the [00:28:00] hashtags and make sure you RSVP to the event. We did just create quite a few promotional graphics that I uploaded to the page for people to use for their Facebook profile pictures, and they can share 'em on all their social media everywhere to highlight the day as well. So if anybody wants to help promote it, that's a great way to do it too.

Haley Radke: Nice, nice. I love it. Making it easy for us. And if we are not on Facebook, it's totally fine on Instagram or Twitter too. Just make sure you're using those hashtags when you're posting about it. It just means you're not gonna reshare it on a specific Adoptee Remembrance Day thing, right? So you're not monitoring. Okay. Awesome. Okay. I feel like we've talked about so many different things. Today, this is our recommended resource, you participating in Adoptee Remembrance Day. It's very important. I want to see it grow, just like you do, of course. And I really think that this is an [00:29:00] incredible way for us to teach people around us about the loss and trauma in adoption and also have that personal moment of reflection and giving ourselves an opportunity for some space for grief. Is there anything that you wanna make sure you tell us or anything else I missed asking you about that you wanna share about Adoptee Remembrance Day?

Pamela Karanova: I think the only thing that stands out to me is some people might be more comfortable doing something in person. Maybe you could have a Friday evening dinner or get together with a small group of friends, of course, being careful with the current situation, or maybe share something at your work with a few coworkers. And then there's other people that are going to want to participate in online things, which are gonna be available. But whatever your thing is, if it's not there for you, just maybe consider creating it yourself, whatever works for you. But exactly like you said, whatever you can do to get involved in that [00:30:00] day, we’re really excited for people to get involved. And that's everyone, not just adoptees.

Haley Radke: Thank you. Thank you. And I wanna thank you for your role in leading adoptees in various ways through Adoptees Connect, through your Facebook pages and blogging and creating Adoptee Remembrance Day. We are so blessed to have you in the community, and I thank you for your service to us and for your leadership in this way.

Pamela Karanova: Oh, thank you, Haley. It's honestly the biggest pleasure of my life. It takes purpose to the pain, so thank you. I appreciate it.

Haley Radke: All right I just wanna remind everyone, I'm gonna have links to all of these things in the show notes, but you can find more information about Adoptee Remembrance Day on the Facebook page in the event page. So just search Adoptee Remembrance Day on Facebook, and you'll find both of those things. And then we'll also link to the Adoptees Connect page. That has all of those [00:31:00] ideas that we only got to a few of them of ways you can acknowledge the day and then also has a list of other events that you can participate with online. Some of them are pretty cool, I think. So anyway, I love that and I just really thank you again. It's just been such a pleasure talking with you.

I am so thankful for Pamela Karanova. You guys know what a gem she is in the community and all the things that she has done for adoptees and she's just one of my heroes, truly. I'm so grateful she was able to share with us about this important day. And like I already said, I would encourage you to acknowledge this day in some way, even if you're listening well after it's passed, make sure you mark it on your calendar for next year. I'm sure this is something we'll be seeing for years to come. And I'm hopeful that it will raise awareness [00:32:00] about all of those adoptee issues that we mentioned before when we were talking with her. And I think there's so many adoptees doing such great work, especially looking ahead to November Adoption Awareness month. And I think this is a special way for us to acknowledge adoptee loss and take that moment of pause to really center ourselves before we decide what we're going to be doing in November. Whether you are out there on Twitter and debating the people who are drawing happy faces on their hand or if you choose to take a break from November, whatever is best for you. Not that you need to debate all the people with happy faces on their hands. There's nuance there. I totally get that. Just take good care of yourself and I hope to see a lot of you posting next week. And we'll have a special episode next week on the [00:33:00] actual Adoptee Remembrance Day, which will be a little bit different than most of our episodes, so I hope that it is a good tribute to the day. So thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.

158 Amanda Medina

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/158

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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're listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is episode 158, Amanda Medina. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Today we are talking with Amanda Medina, creator of This Adoptee Life. Amanda and I talk about how she came out of the adoption fog in the past few years. She shares what adoption separation from our ancestors looks like via a beautiful and heartbreaking symbol of a broken legacy, and we discuss her commitment to building community among adoptees. 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.

I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, [00:01:00] Amanda Medina. Welcome, Amanda.

Amanda Medina Thank you, Haley. I'm so happy to be here. It's such an honor.

Haley Radke Oh, I'm so excited to be chatting with you. I'd love it if you would start and would you share your story with us?

Amanda Medina Absolutely. So I was born in Columbia and the story that is in my adoption papers is that in November of 1984, an unknown woman came to a police station in Medellín and she handed me over, saying she had found me in the streets and couldn't find my mother. She claimed to have had me for about a month, and at the time I would've been about four months, and the police takes me to the Colombian Family Welfare Institute. I'm placed in an orphanage/transit home and my photo is published in the newspaper. It says I am an unknown baby. Name unknown, parents unknown. There's an address [00:02:00] where if somebody would like to come claim me, they can, but nobody comes. So this way the authorities in Columbia can claim that they have tried to locate family, and now they can label me abandoned and I can be entered into the adoption program. Also around this time I was examined by doctors that estimated my age, 'cause again, they didn't know. So they say I'm about six to eight months and they give me my birthdate and I don't know where in this process or by whom I'm given my name. That's not mentioned in the papers. I'm placed in a foster family where it says that I catch up developmentally and physically, and there's also a note saying that I'm doing so well because this is an emotionally stable environment for me. Before it had said that I was exhibiting the typical signs of an [00:03:00] abandoned or institutionalized child, the biggest one being that I was not attaching or really accepting any adults to come close. In October of ‘85 (so now we're about a year after I was handed over to the police) I am matched with a Swedish couple for adoption. They fly to Columbia from Sweden. They adopt me. The papers are signed. The civil registry in Columbia is changed so that my last name becomes the name of my adoptive parents. And with that, all the legal ties to any first family that I have is essentially done, broken and cut. Then I am taken to Sweden and that's where I grew up. Until I'm about nine, I would say I had a very happy childhood. I always knew I was adopted. I never thought about it. It was almost something I was a little proud of, made me unique [00:04:00] and made me special. But when I'm about nine, my parents were starting to have marital problems and with that everything shifted for me. I started feeling less safe emotionally. I almost felt like this wall coming up and I was like, okay, I need to protect myself here. I can't attach too much to this. I lost trust in our home and in us as a family and I decided to distance myself mentally, emotionally, and even physically. At a young age, I decided I was gonna leave Sweden and I was just gonna go and live my own life, and I did. When I was 20, I moved to the US and I've lived here since. And, yeah, that's the adoption story.

Haley Radke So you can look back at age nine and already feel like this is the time I made a plan that I'm not even gonna be in [00:05:00] Sweden anymore.

Amanda Medina Yeah, it was. For many years I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that it was because I realized my parents had problems in their marriage, but I definitely have come to terms with that's just a fact. I don't have to feel guilty about that. I don't have to feel ashamed over that. But for many years I did and I think that's a thing for us adoptees. Many of us carry this guilt because we have these feelings, these thoughts, questions, emotions that we don't know where they come from. We don't know that it makes sense, the trauma we've been through and all of that. So that's very much what was happening to me for many years.

Haley Radke What was it like growing up in Sweden? I'm Canadian, so I don't know. I feel like we have a few things in common with the Nordic countries temperature wise-

Amanda Medina Yeah, I grew up very much the [00:06:00] compliant adoptee, deep in the fog. I would tell you well into adulthood, “Oh, I'm like the success story of adoption.” Meaning it hasn't affected me. “I'm totally fine. Sure, whatever questions you have, no problem.” I'm gonna answer them. Search for family? “No. Why would I wanna do that?” All those kinds of standard phrases that we tell ourselves, or at least that's how it was for me.

Haley Radke Did you know anyone else from Columbia when you were there? Like was adopting from Columbia common there? Did you know other adoptees growing up?

Amanda Medina There was my brother, my adopted brother. We never talked about the adoption experience. His was more tumultuous, I would say. He was acting out more, and I was just keeping myself in check, which I think it's in The Primal Wound, Nancy Verrier, she talks about how a lot of times if you have two adopted children in the same family, they can take opposite roles. And that's very much what [00:07:00] happened for us and we just never fully connected. I would say with my adoptive family, all in all, it's not bad relationships, it's just very shallow and I'm okay with that today. It just is what it is. But growing up it was hard. And you asked if I knew other Colombian adoptees? No, I did not. There was one kid in a different high school that I knew of. We did have mutual friends at some point, but there was never a thing where, “Oh, you're adopted. Oh, me too. Oh, cool. How's that for you? How do you feel?” No, it was more like, oh, you're adopted. Oh, okay. Yeah, let's not talk about that because that's just too heavy. That's too uncomfortable or whatever the case was at the time. I don't even really know.

Haley Radke Okay. What's it like coming to the States at age 20 on your own?

Amanda Medina Yes, well the first time I was here, I was 18. So to backtrack a little, I lived in Spain for a year when I was 16. [00:08:00] There was a Swedish school where my parents let me attend for a year and live with the Spanish family. So like a guest student with the purpose of learning Spanish. And while there I met this guy and we became really good friends and then he moved to the States and I went back to Sweden and then we reconnected later. And so I went to visit him and you know-

Haley Radke Oh, the rest is history.

Amanda Medina The rest is history. We are today married with two kids and it all worked out pretty well.

Haley Radke Okay. Interesting. So how many languages do you speak?

Amanda Medina Fluently, comfortably: three.

Haley Radke Okay.

Amanda Medina Yeah, I just did a podcast that released yesterday in Spanish. That was the first. But Swedish was the language I learned, like that's my native tongue.

Haley Radke Yes.

Amanda Medina In the sense that's the first one, that's my first language. And then English and Spanish.

Haley Radke So were you learning Spanish even as a child or was that something that you [00:09:00] learned as a teenager?

Amanda Medina Yeah, as a teenager. I did not know any Spanish growing up, and in the beginning I would speak like a Spaniard, not like a Colombian at all. And to this day, I don't really have the Colombian accent. So yeah, I got the language, but I still wouldn't fit in. If I went to Columbia, I would be made on spot as soon as I open my mouth.

Haley Radke Oh my word. I'm just picturing in Canada, we have a province, Quebec, and they speak French there. And so when they go to France, it's like, well this isn't French. This is not right. There's that barrier. So that's so interesting. Wow. Sweden. Okay. But you were outta there. Now, I've seen a photo that was shared on a blog post, and it's the photo of you as a baby in the newspaper.

Amanda Medina Yeah.

Haley Radke Where did you get that and what's it like for you when you see that? [00:10:00]

Amanda Medina My adoptive mom, or my mom, gave it to me. She gave it to me, so now I have it. But she had the original newspaper, like the actual page, and then it's also copied into the adoption papers that I've been given. Since I asked for it. They gave it all, so they're very supportive in that sense that my adoption papers were always available to me. I just never wanted to look at them. I never wanted to read them until I was starting to dig into it. But yeah, when I see that picture, I look very sad. There's two girls sitting next to me and I think they look neutral or I don't think any of us are smiling, but I definitely look very sad, like ready to cry. And in other pictures too, from that time, I feel like there's this serious face and then I try to look at it and I wonder what I was thinking 'cause I was obviously going through a lot in that period.

Haley Radke It's quite a stark, shocking image. [00:11:00]

Amanda Medina Yeah.

Haley Radke There's two adult hands.

Amanda Medina Yeah.

Haley Radke Propping you guys up 'cause you're babies.

Amanda Medina Yeah.

Haley Radke You can't even sit up. So yeah, it's quite a shocking photo. So you said something there. What does that mean when you're starting to unpack things, starting to look at what's happening for you?

Amanda Medina Yeah, so like I said, well into adulthood I was very fine with everything. And then, as is true, I think for many of us adoptees, once we have our own biological children, something happens, there's a little switch. At least it was for me, where all of a sudden, this is the first time I can feel and really understand the importance of a biological bond. That it is truly unbreakable. Like it doesn't matter if we have a fight, it doesn't matter if we say we will never speak again. That bond is there and it will never, [00:12:00] it cannot be physically broken in a way. Just seeing so clearly my daughters. Like this she got from me, that she got from her father. And just over time realizing there are people out there, there are people in Columbia with whom I share that. And then I never shared it with my adoptive family, obviously. And so that contradiction and that kind of just weird place to realize that. And then also I think what really bothered me was not being able to provide medical history for my daughters. That's where I realized that my story isn't just mine. I can reject it for myself. I can say I don't have an interest in knowing, but in doing so, they won't have access to half of their story. And I'm not sure still to this day exactly what I will do, whether I'm going to go full mode searching one day. I haven't yet. If it will be enough that we reconnect with just learning about food and music culture, [00:13:00] going to Columbia. That's still a decision in the making, but just realizing that. And then my husband had around the same time started saying, “There are these DNA tests coming out. Would you want one?” And I said, “No, absolutely not.” And he could not wrap his head around how I would not wanna know. “There are people out there. You don't wanna find them?” And said, “No, don't even ask me anymore.” And he didn't. He respected that. But then little by little, like I said. And there was a specific interaction in a text message with a person who I was connecting with on Facebook over something completely different, but I told her I was from Medellín. I told her my last name in Medellín and she says, “My best friend is from Medellín and that's her last name.” And we're leaving Ikea as I get this message. I'm in the parking lot about to load my kids and all this stuff in, and it just clicks. I go, “Oh, I have real biological [00:14:00] family.” There are people in Medellín that have my last name, whether it was my last name for real or not. But just in that moment and I go home and I say to my husband, “Okay, buy the DNA test. Let's do this and also-

Haley Radke Can I just stop you?

Amanda Medina Yeah, for sure.

Haley Radke It had to happen in the IKEA parking lot. That’s just very-

Amanda Medina Oh yeah, that is funny. I never even thought of that. But yeah, that is definitely a funny point to the whole situation. And then, yeah, in the same process, I found a group on Facebook. So I was like, you know what? There must be other adoptees out there. I looked for a group on Facebook, adopted people from Columbia or something, and I found one and there were 1500 members and this is where I was introduced to adoption with language like trauma, corruption, first mothers. I heard stories of fellow adoptees that had reunited with their family [00:15:00] in Columbia and found out that the mothers were lied to. The baby was either kidnapped, the mother was lied to in the hospital, told that it was a stillborn girl, and then it turned out it was a boy, and that was said just to erase traces and make it harder to look and all that stuff. And reading my own adoption papers, realizing there were no names in there, and starting to doubt is this actually my story? How come they didn't bother to put details? It's a very generic story hearing from others having very similar, if not the same story. And so, Pandora's box flew open.

Haley Radke Once you see that stuff, you can't unsee it right? Can you make broad sweeping generalizations, sorry to put you on the spot there, but I know you are connected with a lot of adoptees that are adopted from Columbia and I'm curious if you've seen a pattern. How does searching happen over there? I've heard [00:16:00] both DNA stories and I've heard like hiring a private investigator kind of stories. Just curious, if you did wanna search and you wanted to go that route, just in generic kind of terms, what do you see most people having success with?

Amanda Medina Depending a little bit on which era you were adopted in, so seventies, eighties, there will be more stories like mine where there's no identification of a mother. There might be a very generic story, lacking details, and so for us it would be DNA, possibly a private investigator. I know a lot of people do that and combine the two. They might find somebody and it seems okay, the story matches, let's do the DNA test to confirm. If you were maybe adopted later, like in the nineties and on, I think they did put stricter laws, stricter regulations on needing to have signatures or at least like it's called cédula, which is the identification number of a person [00:17:00] for the mother. There tends to be more information and some people have even been able to just find via social media relatives and then confirm with a DNA test. Yeah, seventies and eighties, it's, for us it's harder. It's definitely harder. And it was a time in Columbia without going into politics or history, it was a time in Columbia where things were tumultuous and there was a lot of corruption. And then Sweden has one of the biggest adoption agencies in the world, I think it's the second largest that they facilitate. Sweden is the country with the highest number, from what I've heard, the highest number of international adoptions per capita. And they didn't necessarily do their jobs, so you can't just blame the first country. So there's definitely, there's a lot there to unpack, but yeah.

Haley Radke Oh yeah. Oh yeah. What a tangled web we weave. Okay. So going back to you, your personal story. Did you buy the DNA kit?

Amanda Medina Yeah, we did, but I have not been able to [00:18:00] find any close matches. The closest is second to fourth cousins, which, once you find that, if you've never had that before, that is, I have a cousin, I'll take it. I don't care if you're like 1%, but it's that one little percent of drop of blood that we share. We're cousins, we're primas, we're primos. So yeah, I connected with a few and stay in touch with some of them.

Haley Radke Okay. I wanna ask you about another part of your story that you mentioned, that you were literally guesstimated how old you were and given a birth date.

Amanda Medina Yeah, so that I always knew. I can't say how or when, but that was always just a matter of fact. And I think it's one of the things my parents did do right because it meant that I actually got to claim that day. So I [00:19:00] never wondered, oh, is it that day? Is it not? I didn't have that. Some adoptees, once they read their papers, having thought their birthday was a set date and then they realized it might not have been that date, or in fact it wasn't. And then that's adding to the identity crisis of coming out of the fog and the grieving. Now it's yet another thing to grieve. I didn't have to go through that. So for me, it's worked out in my favor in the end. But yeah, it's definitely growing up and being a teenager and everybody's reading horoscopes and, oh, what sign are you? And it was still there. It was still something that on some levels, a reminder or something that bothered me a little bit, but not so much adding to the coming out of the fog dilemma. And in that sense that other adoptees, I know many struggle, really struggle with their birthday.

Haley Radke I don't know why I'm just stuck on it, like just knowing that oh yeah, the date on my driver's license, it's just like an estimate of [00:20:00] my birth date. Like it's just kind of like, I don't know-

Amanda Medina Yeah. If even that, because honestly, at this point I don't trust a thing, a single thing in my papers. It's just, that's the story I was given and that's why I always, I've started adding that when I introduce myself and when I tell the story it's like, “In my papers it says-”

Haley Radke I noticed that. And interestingly, sadly, I guess you're not the only person to share their story that way now. Just because of what you mentioned, all the corruption and things that now we've come to learn about how they were doing things. I shouldn't say were. How things are sometimes done.

Amanda Medina Yeah.

Haley Radke Okay. So you have this kind of epiphany like, okay, there's things happening. I am connecting with other adoptees online, and oh my goodness, there's trauma and all this stuff. What led you to starting your blog and actually talking publicly about adoptee issues and sharing your story and other adoptee [00:21:00] stories?

Amanda Medina I had always wanted to, I had always written my entire life. Poems, letters, diaries, song lyrics, like I've always been writing. That's how I process, that's how I make sense of everything. I write. And so I always knew I wanted to, for many years I said, I wanna write a blog. I wanna share my story, but I didn't know what my story was until that adoption piece came in. I wrote my first piece on adoption that was shared on Dear Adoption. I think that's now two years ago, two/three years ago.

Haley Radke Oh, I love Dear Adoption. One of my very best friends runs that. Hi, Reshma.

Amanda Medina Yeah. Oh, she's awesome. Yeah. Hi. I think I wrote that before I even had started the blog, and the things that I shared in the group were received very well. People were saying, ”Wow, you express yourself so clearly in ways that you're validating what I felt like. Thank you for putting words to my feelings.” And I just [00:22:00] decided to go ahead and see what would happen if I just started sharing my story in a blog. I didn't share my name at first. I was hiding behind This Adoptee Life because I didn't know where it was gonna go. But then I realized quickly that by sharing my story, by telling my own story, I got to own it. And I realized how empowering that was to do that. To get to choose the words. To get to decide from which angle. And there was, like I said, so much empowerment in that, that I wanted to give the same opportunity to fellow adoptees. So that's when I started inviting fellow adoptees to share their story on the blog as well. And then I shared some of my writing as I processed coming out of the fog and all of that. And that's how that went. And I think at some point it also became, because I grew up feeling so alone, never talking to anybody about what I felt, always [00:23:00] feeling very guilty for wondering why was I adopted to this family and not another, feeling guilty for not feeling connected to my family, but never feeling like I could talk about that with anyone because nobody would understand that there was probably something wrong with me for feeling that way, but then realizing later on that that made perfect sense. Once I knew what I had been through, and then just wanting to say to other adoptees like, you're not alone. I'll share my story so that if you are reading it, you know at least one other person out there who feels like you, who has been through the same. And that's really it. Just none of us should have to feel alone. Whatever it is you're going through, adoption or not, but specifically because I'm an adoptee, that's what I can speak on.

Haley Radke You glossed over this and I don't want it to get missed. You really do give other adoptees the opportunity to share their stories, and I'm curious why that part of blogging also is so important to you because there's so many [00:24:00] adoptees that their blog is specifically about them and their specific story, and it's very focused on just the one individual. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. Why did you want to give others the opportunity to share your space?

Amanda Medina Because I grew up feeling like I didn't have space to express myself in. Because again, I felt like I was alone. So in a way, not in a selfish way, but it's like I am giving others what I needed, what I would have wanted. So I'm trying to validate, support, and give that space, be it on the blog where you share your story or on social media where you can come in and comment. And if you are an adoptee, I got your back. If you're contacting me and you're an adoptee, I prioritize replying to you before non-adoptees and that kind of thing. Because having pushed our feelings aside for years and years, feeling like either we're gaslit or we're not validated, or we're told to just feel differently, [00:25:00] I'm here to say, “No, you don't have to feel pressured for anything and I got you.” Basically. That's what I try to do.

Haley Radke That's wonderful. I've also seen you share that family preservation is very important to you.

Amanda Medina Yeah.

Haley Radke Can you talk a little bit about that? Why things shifted for you there?

Amanda Medina I think a lot of us, adoptees and society, we cling to this positive narrative of adoption, not realizing that a lot of times adoption is not the only, if even a necessary, alternative for children who find themselves, be it in foster care or whatever it may be. Adoption is, what is it they usually say? Adoption is a permanent solution to a [00:26:00] temporary problem. A lot of times there might not be a need to cut ties to your actual family or your first family. I try to put into question and really let's examine adoption, the concept, how it's carried out. Is it really such a good thing? How can it be harmful? Because it can be, what's the support that's needed out there? And so family preservation was presented to me, and now later on, legal guardianship I've heard about where a lot of adoptees will say, when people ask what's the alternative? Well, legal guardianship can be an alternative. I have to look into it more. I can't really speak on it, but that's come up a lot of times.

Haley Radke When people connect with you to write on your blog, I'm curious if you have any adoptees that you might say, “I think you're still processing a little bit of foggy things.” What are your thoughts on sharing [00:27:00] space for all the adoptee voices? Because, we do sometimes talk in generalizations about, oh, most adoptees feel this way, or most adoptees feel, but really everyone has had a completely individual unique experience and has thoughts and opinions in all kinds of matters that are different.

Amanda Medina Yeah, no, for sure. And that's why I am actually very careful not to use absolute language. I don't say, “Adoption is-” I do use language like, “Many times.” It may very well be, “Many of us,” or I'll base it on my own personal experience and just say, “Hey, but I know I'm not the exception here. I know there are others like me.” So that's one thing. And then most adoptees that have shared, I haven’t not shared anyone who has reached out, obviously, because I stand by my word that it's for all and every adoptee. But so far I think I am very clear in where I [00:28:00] stand. And so it's been adoptees who feel like, okay, here's someone who will listen to me, validate me, and will share my story. This is a space where I can, and I've had some say this is the first time I share my story and that they've read the blog or seen my social media posts and say, “You've helped me feel like I can tell my story,” which is such an honor and so humbling because that is exactly what I hope to do. So it's a mutual thing where we're in this. That's what I say right in my post, to all my fellow adoptees, “PS we are all in this together.” But yeah, then there are some who contact me and well, you said this and I don't feel like that. And I say, that's okay. I can't ascribe an experience to all. I'm not invalidating your happy story with my struggle. But, there's room for all of us to share our truth. We have to respect each other though, all around. That's how I look at it.

Haley Radke No kidding. I think [00:29:00] some people might need reminding that we should all be respecting each other, especially lately. Whew. Seen some nasty things.

Amanda Medina Yeah, there's a lot going on. All around.

Haley Radke All over. Yes. Yes. I know we're not always gonna all get along, but I do feel some respect is missing occasionally.

Amanda Medina I can just say super quick just what my thing is. 'Cause people have heard, how do you reply so calmly? Or how do you not, and I rarely, if ever, reply in my reaction. I'll read these things and things will trigger me left and right. I'll get upset, I'll get angry. I feel I wanna just throw my phone out the window. That's how angry I get it at what I read sometimes, but that's not when I type my answer. That's not when I reply. Instead I'll process it. I'll think on it. I might write something and then I might go and edit. Not to silence myself, but if I want my message to come across, I don't know [00:30:00] about you, but I don't respond to attacks very well. If somebody comes at me, I won't necessarily be, oh, okay, yeah, sure, we'll do it your way, but if you wanna introduce some ideas, sow some, throw out some seeds and watch the plants grow, that's how I look at it. The change that's gonna happen over a longer period of time. It's not gonna happen overnight as much as we want it to.

Haley Radke I will often ignore that stuff. And that’s-

Amanda Medina That's so great. And that's just what it works for me.

Haley Radke Oh, totally. But that's my method of self preservation to keep me in the work, because from past experience, I have seen that I can put a lot of effort into replying to someone, and I think I am being as gracious as I can summon up and filled with facts and all the things and bring them to the table and be shut down again. And I’m-

Amanda Medina Oh, absolutely. [00:31:00]

Haley Radke I'm, I don't know if you can tell this I'm super sensitive sometimes, a lot of the time, and so that's what works for me, but I do appreciate that you are willing to have those hard conversations, and I've seen that in a lot of adoptees lately that are, especially, we will talk a little bit more about this during recommended resources, but adoptees that are open to having a conversation with adoptive parents or with first parents.

Amanda Medina Yeah.

Haley Radke Prioritizing the adoptive voice, but yet still teaching out of your adoptee experience. And if you're gonna listen, then I'm gonna teach you. And maybe we do have a conversation back and forth. So I appreciate that because not all of us are willing to do that.

Amanda Medina It's been a learning process too because, when I first came out of the fog, having gone through what I had gone through, having realized what I had realized and just essentially having just completely [00:32:00] broken down to, I call it, I had my eat-pray-love moment where I was just on the kitchen floor crying and just ran out of tears. And I was like, I don't know how I will ever come back from this. This is it. Like I'm sitting in this dark hole and I'm gonna be stuck here. I've lost myself, the person I was before, and I don't know how I'm gonna build her back up in any kind of way, but I did eventually. But having gained that strength, at first, that was, you mentioned adoption. I'm ready to give you a two hour lecture on everything that's wrong and just, “You think you know? No, no, no, no. I'm gonna tell you about this and this.” So I've been there too. I definitely have. I've been anything from kicked out of groups to blocked from people and I've gone at it that way and it didn't work. So then I had to reevaluate and I also learned when is it even worth answering? It's not always worth answering. There are comments on my social media that you'll see I actually did not reply because maybe it's, [00:33:00] “Are you really trying to engage in the conversation or do you wanna just tell me that I'm wrong?” And I've had times when I have replied and then no conversation is happening. So you learn as you go what works for you-

Haley Radke Whether or not to take the bait?

Amanda Medina Yeah. Basically.

Haley Radke I don't know. I think there's so many conversations that happen on social media and a lot of the public ones I feel like don't necessarily go places but I know there is a lot of hard work also being done in the DMs where-

Amanda Medina Absolutely.

Haley Radke There's some really amazing conversations and changes of opinion I think happen when it's just that more one-on-one personal connection. And no one else is jumping in to give their 2 cents and I know you're having those conversations, so thank you for serving in that way.

Amanda Medina For sure.

Haley Radke I watched a piece on YouTube that you posted [00:34:00] not too long ago. It's called A Piece Broken Off, and you describe feeling like you were broken off from a chain. You talk about the richness of the history that now your link is broken away from. And you're really talking about the loss of a family legacy of adoption. I thought it was really powerful and-

Amanda Medina Thank you.

Haley Radke I'm wondering if you can share a little bit about that and what led you to the chain metaphor and if you could just speak to that a bit.

Amanda Medina Yeah, for sure. So I had said in one of my early posts, I remember saying that I realized that as the adopted child of a couple who were not able to have biological [00:35:00] children, I will not be carrying on their family line. And also, again, being an adoptive child with no information about my first family, it also falls on me to start a new family like I am now the roots of a new family tree. So feeling very in between there. And then this specific piece that you're referring to came out of, somebody shared in a group that I was in a poem read out loud by two Mexican American girls who had written a poem celebrating the rich heritage of the Latina women before them, their mothers, their grandmothers, and you know how they were these strong women in their Latina culture, in their origin, in all of the ancestry. And I just felt like [00:36:00] that should be mine, right? I was born in Columbia and I know there's so much richness in that country in terms of culture and heritage and ancestry and all of that stuff and I have no access to it. So that's where I felt like I had been just plucked out of the ground and placed somewhere else, somewhere where there is no tree for me to attach to, touch my branch to. So that's where that poem was inspired by and came out of.

Haley Radke Beautiful. Before we do recommended resources, when I ask guests on, and we always have like a few minutes ahead of time before we record, and one of the questions I ask, and I asked you before we started, is do you have preferred adoption language? Because I like to be respectful of the guests and, oh my gosh, first/birth/bio/natural. I don't know, I'm probably missing a few there, but I always do that to be respectful. And one of the things that you had mentioned to me earlier is [00:37:00] that there is a difference between positive adoption language and honest adoption language. And what I said was, do you have preferred adoption language? I'm curious if you would like to share a little bit about that 'cause we've seen some kind of hot button topics on social media in the last few months about positive adoption language.

Amanda Medina Yeah. Yeah. So I love linguistics and I love sociology, and so language is extremely important to me. I say that one of the ultimate ways to control people and shape their reality is via language, right? You tell them what words to use, and that then reflects in their mind. So when people talk about positive adoption language, first of all, we gotta see who is putting out positive adoption language. Who is that for? It's not necessarily for the adoptees. We are not the ones that say, oh, we wanna be called blessed. We wanna be called chosen. We wanna be [00:38:00] called loved. That comes from the agencies, that comes from the adoptive parents because that fits their narrative. That allows them to feel that they're doing a good thing, that everything is to be celebrated, and there are no problems. Meanwhile, I made a post, again early on, on Instagram, saying, no, I was not chosen. My parents were chosen. It even says in the adoption papers, we have the pleasure of informing you that you have been selected to adopt this child. I was available. And I'm okay with that language because that actually reflects the truth. So that's where honest adoption language comes in. This way, I don't have the pressure on me to feel lucky or blessed or fortunate or grateful. So I think it's really important for adoptees because that's where we will find the space to explore our true story, our true experience, and own our feelings. Because we should. We deserve to process [00:39:00] what it is that we've been through. We deserve to know that losing your mother, doesn't matter what the circumstances are, losing your mother at any age is traumatic and that's something that needs to be processed, healed from. However you wanna put that. But so that's where I feel it's so important to talk about honest adoption language. And that's not gonna be easy adoption language, that's just gonna be honest. That's all that I'm saying with that. Truthful and honest. And that's where we will hopefully be able to make change and actually approach the adoptee experience for what it is for many of us, not all, but many of us who need that support, who need to know that it's okay to struggle.

Haley Radke Thank you. Okay, let's move to recommended resources. And we've already mentioned, Amanda, that you have the blog, This Adoptee Life, and I love that you are sharing your own story. You've got like a whole ton of posts sharing your story, going more in depth than we did here today because of [00:40:00] time. What is that? But I've attended some of your lives on Instagram and what I really appreciate about you is what your commitment looks like from the outside to community building and really connecting with other adoptees, bringing them in. There's pockets here and there, we see lots of different Facebook groups and things, especially the really huge groups. It's hard to connect really in person with adoptees. And so I really am thankful that you are building your own community and gathering together adoptees.

Amanda Medina Thank you.

Haley Radke It's really important work. The other thing I wanted to mention is Amanda has a mantra.

Amanda Medina Oh, you got it.

Haley Radke I'm showing it to her on video. You can't see that, but you can hear me crinkling the paper. Maybe not. Maybe my editor's just too good. I'm just gonna take it out. [00:41:00] I'm doing it extra for you, Jen. I'm not gonna read it out 'cause I want you to go to Amanda's Instagram and she's got it there in a couple places and I think it's also on your blog. But the very last thing you say is, “I belong on this earth.” And to me, even as you share it through the interview, and I got stuck on the fact that your birthday is fake, and you have no idea where you were for your first months of life. I just thought, man, to ground yourself in that thought: I belong on this earth, is just so powerful. Is there anything you wanna speak to about the mantra or your blog that you wanna share with us?

Amanda Medina So I could just say about the mantra that there is a video where I introduced it on Instagram and Facebook. But just for anybody who's listening here and hearing about the first time, it's essentially a set of phrases that I've realized so many adoptees struggle with, and I've been one [00:42:00] of them for sure and still do, but it's just realizing that where I have been wanting for other people to tell me, I can tell myself and I can find strength and confidence in just claiming that for myself. And so that's why I wanted to share it with, again, I wanna share it with fellow adoptees so you can order it and I will be so happy to send it. And people have bought it and they send me pictures. It sits on their bathroom mirror or by their bed or some have it in their office and just a daily reminder that you deserve this. You can say that, yes, I exist and yes, I deserve to live happily.

Haley Radke Powerful. What did you wanna recommend to us?

Amanda Medina My recommended resource is a page on Facebook, and they are also on YouTube. They're called Trauma Informed Parent. And while it's not adoption [00:43:00] specific, for me as an adoptee, seeing their posts and what they share, it is definitely relating to the fact that I have been through trauma. And I think a lot of adoptees can find information on there and specifically adoptive parents because adoptive parents and prospective adoptive parents need to know about the trauma that the adoptee child has been through.

Haley Radke And I think, you know what I've learned so much from the therapists that have been on the show is that we can re-mother and re-parent ourselves, especially when we have an understanding of trauma. I don't wanna talk down to us, but sometimes it is easier to learn about it from an adult looking at a child's perspective, at first, when we're first learning about it. So I really like this. I'm really excited to check it out. I'm so glad you brought it too. I hadn't heard of it before, but I'm gonna go check that out as well. Thank you. Where can we connect with [00:44:00] you online?

Amanda Medina I have the blog, which is This Adoptee Life, so www.thisadoptteelife.com. And from there you can also find me on Instagram, Facebook. I am intending to become more active on Twitter. I'm still figuring that one out, but I'm on Instagram a lot.

Haley Radke Yes, Twitter is a whole beast and you gotta have the right timing to join Twitter as well. That's an inside joke for if you knew when we were recording this. Yikes. Anyway, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. I really appreciate it. And thank you for also making a space for adoptee voices. I think we share that passion. It's so important and we really wanna hear each other's stories.

Amanda Medina Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It's been such an honor and a pleasure to speak with you and share my story here. [00:45:00]

Haley Radke One of the things I really appreciate about Amanda and so many other adoptee bloggers is that they are willing to share their platforms with us. And so if writing has been on your heart and you haven't built up a platform for yourself yet, you wanna just dip your toe in and try things out. That's what Amanda did to start. She wrote a piece for Dear Adoption like she shared with us, and there's so many adoptee bloggers who are sharing their space, sharing an opportunity to have your words go to maybe a wider audience than you would have if you did a Facebook post on your own, or there's a lot of places that will let you share anonymously also, if that feels safer. We've got November National Adoption Awareness Month coming up, and I always feel like adoptees are [00:46:00] working their hardest to be louder during November than everyone else. And our voices often get drowned out. So if you've been thinking, maybe I have an idea that I wanna share with the adoptive community, or maybe you just wanna get some feelings out, this is a good time. There's a lot of different people that are accepting guest posters right now, so I'd encourage you to look around, see who's accepting posts, make a connection there and write something. We wanna hear from a variety of adoptee voices and maybe we haven't heard from you yet. So if you want to, I would really encourage you to do something like that. And I've always said that one of my most sad things about making the podcast is that I couldn't possibly interview everyone who listens. I just would run out of weeks and time and so this is a really great opportunity for you to share a part of your story, perhaps. Maybe it's something that you've really wanted to come on the podcast and [00:47:00] weren't able to. This is a great way for you to start out sharing what the adoptee experience has been like for you. So there you go. There's your little push. If you needed a sign, should I write something? Yes. Yes. You should write something.

Okay. I really have enjoyed talking to so many really incredible adoptees lately. It's just been wonderful. Now, our next two episodes coming up are a little bit more of somber topics. We are gonna be talking about Adoptee Remembrance Day with Pamela Karanova, and there's going to be some opportunities for community input. I will be putting some details out on Facebook, Instagram, but my Patreon supporters knew about it first, and some of them have already gotten on and gotten to work on their submissions. So if you want to hear about those things first, you can go to adopteeson.com/partner to find out the details of how you can join Patreon. And there's lots of bonuses over there. There's another weekly [00:48:00] podcast called Adoptees Off Script that is unfiltered-Haley, much to the chagrin of my co-host sometimes. No, we have a lot of fun over there. There's a secret Facebook group just for adoptees. There's other levels with other bonuses, and there's some really fun things coming up. I know I keep saying that. It's coming. It's coming. I promise I'm working on it very hard, but I'd love to have you over there. Adopteeson.com/partner helps sustain the show, helps keep the show going and growing and supporting adoptees around the world. Okay. I thank you so much for listening, and let's talk again next Friday.

157 Damon Davis

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/157

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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 157, Damon Davis. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Today I'm excited to welcome a fellow podcaster, Damon Davis, creator and host of the Who Am I Really? podcast. Damon gets a turn to share his story of search, reunion, and loss.

We also chat about why reunions get held up as this mythical gold standard of heartwarming six o'clock news bait and what we've learned from talking to hundreds of adoptees over the past few years. 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, Damon Davis. Welcome, Damon.

Damon Davis: Thank you so much, Haley. How are you?

Haley Radke: Good. Podcasters unite. I got a chance to be on your show. I don't know, it was your big episode 100, which is a huge milestone and now you're well past that. And anyway, it was time. It was time. I would love to introduce you to my listeners and to have you share your story with us.

Damon Davis: Thank you so much. It was such an honor to have you on. When I started my show, I started looking around for other podcasts and you were one of maybe two that I found. So I thought it was really appropriate to have you on for show 100, so thank you for being my guest. I appreciate it.

Haley Radke: Absolutely.

Damon Davis: To start my own story in terms of being an adoptee in reunion, I began my search after several things happened, and it was a confluence of about three different things. The first of which was, well, I should probably start back at the beginning and just talk a little bit about myself as a child. [00:02:00]

I was perfectly comfortable in adoption. I had no worries, issues or complaints. My parents were great people. I'm African American in descent, and my mother is lighter skinned black than I am. My dad is darker skinned than I am, and I'm in the middle. So for all intents and purposes, we looked like we could have been family if you had mixed their genes together and produced someone in the middle.

So I had a great upbringing in Columbia, Maryland, and I really didn't have any issues with adoption. And I was told I was adopted from an early age and I came to accept it. So I could speak very openly and freely about it with other people, which is something one of my guests said was eye-opening for him.

This is my best friend Andre, who was my very first show. He said, you were like the first dude that I knew that would speak openly about adoption and that was freeing for me. So just as a sidebar, I think that's why part of our shows are important because it allows other people to speak [00:03:00] out and it's freeing for a further network of adoptees.

Haley Radke: Totally.

Damon Davis: I didn't really have any desire to search. People would ask me about it from time to time and I was like, nah, I'm good. I've got parents. I don't need two more parents. I'm fine. But the birth of my son was a real eye-opening experience for me because this little person that we created out of love and after some challenges, we tried to do in-vitro fertilization and assisted conception.

And it didn't work and he was conceived naturally. And so I, I abbreviate that piece of the story, but you can imagine the breadth of emotion that probably happened for us as we traversed that whole assisted conception sort of path. Then for him to be conceived naturally thereafter was just magical.

And then, you stop and you think, wait, this is the first biological relative I've ever known in person and I made him. It was really, really impactful.

Haley Radke: How old were you?

Damon Davis: I was in my early thirties, so he's 12. I was about 36. [00:04:00]

Haley Radke: Okay.

Damon Davis: And, just being at home with him, I was, I like to say fortunate to have been laid off. So I was lucky to be at home with him as an infant and I bonded with him tremendously, both, as my first born, but for the importance of who he was as a biological child. It was just unbelievable. That was one factor.

The second factor was my father-in-law came to town from the Caribbean and he would come into town and he would sometimes stop and sometimes he wouldn't stop by and this particular time he said he wanted to go see one of his relatives in Baltimore. And this guy was really into family and really into sort of the connections that you can make around the world. He's a very big philanthropist in every way.

But he was also a family person in terms of holding the family together. So we go see this person whom I've never met before, and this elderly woman answers the door, greets us, brings us into her home, and as she's sitting there, she's spreading out all kinds of artifacts [00:05:00] from their lives, my wife's life and his life, and other members of the family.

And it was just this stark moment of realization that there's a historian in my family, someone who knows all the facts, all the stories, all the pieces that I don't know in my biological family I'm referring to. And I say, if that person, my family historian in my biological family is elderly, like this person who by the way is dragging an oxygen tank behind her, like she's clearly in the autumn of her years, I might miss out on these kinds of stories being spread out on the table before me if I don't look and search.

So that was thing two. Thing three was I was going through some challenges with my adoptive mom. My adoptive mother was starting to show signs of mental deterioration. She was hallucinating things, accusing me of things. We had a very tumultuous relationship around the time that my son was born, and it was really difficult for me.

And one of my best friends, [00:06:00] Kelly said, maybe you should search for your biological mother. And I wrote it off like why would I insert someone else into this position when I'm trying to fix this relationship over here? But she told me later, I asked her why she recommended that course, and she said, because I just felt like you were lost. Like you were looking for something and you needed some grounding and that potentially finding this other woman and some answers might be helpful for you.

So that was the third thing. So with all of those things coming together and having the knowledge that I was born in Baltimore, I reached out to Baltimore’s city social services and I asked, how do I go about search and reunion? I was connected with a lovely social worker. Her name was Lee Burress, and Lee was able to help me down the path of what it takes to do a search, and she set expectations for me, which I thought was really important.

She said, look, this thing doesn't always go fast. It's not a rapid process. It could take some time. [00:07:00] And she asked me some questions about why I was searching to make sure that there weren't any, for lack of better words, red flags for her about what my expectations might be, what I thought I needed out of the process.

And I was able to tell her, thankfully, look, I'm good, like I've got two great parents. I admit my mom and I are going through some challenges, but I'm not doing that, for any reason. I don't have any medical issue, thankfully. I just want these answers.

And so she helped me to go down the path of writing an introductory letter that so many of us have done, and really crafting a message to my biological mother that would help me introduce myself. And I went to work. I tell you, I joked in my book, I was working for the federal government at the time and I went to work that day and I spent the entire afternoon writing this letter. And I feel like I owe the American public a couple of dollars back because y'all paid me to write my letter at my desk. I did not do your [00:08:00] work that day but I tell you I made up for it in spades, by the way.

But I crafted a letter, sent it off to Lee. Lee held it for a while. Lee sent it off. And then, I'm walking through the building that I worked in, the Department of Health and Human Services, downtown and I get this call on my phone. I'm looking at the caller ID and it's Lee, and I was like, that's weird. Why would she be calling me unless she had news?

And sure enough, she said, I found her. And I was just flabbergasted. I just could not believe the news I was getting. It was really unbelievable. And so through a series of back and forth with Lee, we ended up coming to Ann, my birth mother, writing an introductory letter back to me.

And then after she received that letter back at her desk, she read it to me over the phone and I remember I sat on a park bench in the park outside of the building I was working in, and I just cried as I listened to this sweet [00:09:00] voice of Lee reading my mother's words to me for the first time.

And it was as if she was a surrogate for my biological mother, and she was just so kind in reading that letter. And I'm hearing her name for the first time, I'm hearing about her history. For the first time I'm hearing her express herself. I heard the words that she used and it just all felt really good.

After she finished reading the letter, Lee said, look, I can connect you guys, and then it's up to you. And so I sent her a text at that moment, and I wanted my biological mother to know that was the moment that we were in touch, that I knew who she was and that we were ready to move forward.

And she called me that night and, it was funny, I missed the call initially, but I got a message from her because I missed the call and it was so sweet. She says, this is your birth mother Ann. [00:10:00] She said, I don't know what to say to you, but I'm so excited to get in touch with you and you can call me any hour of the day or night, which was really cute.

And she was like, you could hear her holding back tears of joy and confusion and excitement at the same time. It's just the sweetest little message.

Haley Radke: I love that and I love that you texted her so she can have like concrete, this is from Damon and then you have this voicemail that, I don't know, maybe you played it more than once, I'm guessing.

Damon Davis: Yeah, it was a really great moment. I wanted her to know right then, you and I are now connected. And it worked out in spades. We had a great conversation after I called her back and, it was funny, I picked up on some of the nature in that conversation. We talked about our dispositions in life.

Like I told you before we started the show, I'm a glass half full, like more than half full kind of person, and I'll do little random acts of [00:11:00] anonymous kindness for people. Things like that. And we talked about some of that stuff in that very first call and it all resonated and it was just amazing to hear what her disposition in life was as it compared to mine.

So we maintained our own individual relationship at first. So we talked by phone that night. I texted her the next morning because I’d learned in that first letter that her birthday was the next day after I was being read that letter by Lee Burress.

So Lee is reading me my mother's words, and she's telling me in that letter, tomorrow's my birthday. So I called her the next morning as I went to work and I said, happy birthday. And she was like, oh my gosh, the best birthday ever. And it was just so cute because I literally hadn't done anything but shown up. And my presence back in her life was a gift that she [00:12:00] appreciated and I thought that was so cool.

But what she didn't know was that she had told me the night before that basically she worked around the corner from me also as a federal government employee. She was two blocks away and we were sharing the same metro station when I chose to get off at that station from time to time.

So she didn't know, but I was planning to surprise her at her office that day, and that's exactly what I did. I left a meeting, jumped in a cab, went over to her building, and I cleared building security. And it was so funny. I'll never forget, I told the security guard. She says, who are you here to see?

And I said, Ann Sullivan. And she says, and what's her number? And I was like I don't know. I've never met her before. I'm in my own head. I'm thinking, I'm here to reunite with my biological mother, and I thought to myself, I've never met her before. That sounds weird. You should tell her what you mean by that. Don't be a weirdo.

So I said, it might interest you to know that she's my biological mother and I'm [00:13:00] meeting her for the first time right now. And the guard, this person who's like churning people through these turnstiles with zero emotion, looks at me with bright eyes, smiles and looks her up in the computer and dials the phone. Like her whole demeanor changed and she points me to where I'm going through the turnstile and wished me luck.

And I'll just never forget that day. I stood there on that elevator going down and I'm looking in the reflection of the elevator doors and I'm fixing my tie. I am tugging at my suit. I'm trying to look my absolute best. And the door opened and this woman is standing in front of me and she looks at me, like holy….. And I said, oh my God, that's gotta be her.

So she had gotten up from her desk to come receive me at reception. Meanwhile, I'm coming downstairs to go to her desk. And a piece that I left out, I had put [00:14:00] in my introductory letter, a photo of myself, my son, and my wife so she knew what I looked like. I had no idea who I was looking for. So when she saw me, her jaw dropped, and it was just a jaw drop that was unmistakable, like we are here in this moment together.

And I practically dove out of that elevator onto her shoulders. I wrapped her in a big, huge hug and I cried on her shoulder and she cried on me. And it was just an amazing moment. And I whispered in her ear, happy birthday. And it was just. I'll never have a moment like that again. It was just absolutely incredible and it was so fulfilling to then build a relationship based on what I feel is a very fortunate unfolding of my own reunion story.

Because as you and I both know, having interviewed hundreds of people, they do not always go that well. And so I feel extremely fortunate for her receptivity, her close proximity, for her openness in telling my story to me about how it was that I was conceived, who she thought my birth father was, and the whole shebang. [00:15:00]

I was very, very fortunate in how that all went down.

Haley Radke: Can I pause you there? Because I saw that you had even some news coverage about your reunion and we've all seen those stories and Damon's was like that. It was the happy reunion, the picture-perfect kind of thing. The heartwarming one that gets shared across social media.

And I don't know if it was shared on socials, it was a few years ago now, but you know what I'm talking about. And I am curious what your thoughts are now, knowing what you do and having talked to so many people, what do you think is going through that security guard's mind when she hears that story and the people that read that article and have that heartwarming oh my goodness, this is like so beautiful?

Thinking of the reunion moment, what do you think is going on [00:16:00] in their mind subconsciously that this is such a heartwarming thing?

Damon Davis: Yeah. I think they have, you know, we make the joke about Hallmark made for TV movies that are intended to tear you down and build you back up with heart-wrenching stories that end in bright lights and roses and all kinds of warm, heartwarming stories.

And I think that this is the challenge with that kind of publicity for a story like mine and others is that it perpetuates the narrative that adoption reunions are awesome, and you and I and our listeners know they are not always awesome. Even mine did not have ultimate awesomeness all throughout it.

They all have their ups and downs, and I think that this is part of the value of your and my show, is that it's real, it's reality. It's stories told by the adoptees about [00:17:00] how it perhaps didn't go so well. You'll never see a story on the news that played as much as mine did. Mine was on the next morning at 7, 9, 11, 12, 5 and 7 o’clock. They played it the whole next 24-hour news cycle.

Now, if my story had been, I reached out to try to find my biological mother and my social worker Lee found an obituary or reached out and she said she was summarily uninterested in speaking with me. That's not gonna make the news, but that is, I think, a significant portion of the stories that you and I help to tell that don't get told more broadly on the news, on social media and stuff like that.

I've never seen a tweet that says, hey, I just reached out for my biological mother and I wanted to share the story of finding her obituary. I mean, you do, but it's not in a celebratory manner.

Haley Radke: That's not going viral.

Damon Davis: Exactly. That's not the [00:18:00] positive news story that gets shared broadly. You're right, you've helped me to articulate what I was trying to say.

Haley Radke: I always struggle with words for this part. Like deep down those people that are reading it and thinking this is just super heartwarming. There's gotta be something underneath that's like, huh, I don't know if this was the way it was originally supposed to be and now they're back together. There's some kind of hint of that.

Like what's so heartwarming about reconnecting if there wasn't a brokenness in being disconnected in the first place?

Damon Davis: Yeah, that's a really good point and it's a great question, and I think that also is part of the value of the platform that you and I have chosen is it helps people to understand everything that happened up until that moment of reunion, right?

So you and I, we've had guests on our shows that have expressed true gratitude, immense love and appreciation for the adoptive [00:19:00] parents that they were reared with. And many of us will often say, I can't imagine my life a different way than what I went through. However, there's a great many people who before that reunion moment went through immense adversity, almost inhumane treatment.

Some stories that we've covered just make you look at other humans and go, how could you be like that to a child, another person? Even if it was an adult, how could you treat somebody that way? And that's the part that doesn't get covered in the five o'clock news heartwarming story. And it's the kind of thing, like what's the documentary that many of us saw? Three Identical Strangers.

That is a classic example of that kind of thing because on the outside, people across New York and that whole area up there, we're seeing these three brothers brought together starting a restaurant and bar and hanging out all the time and joking and [00:20:00] living it up. But it wasn't until more recently when these stories started to come out in their entirety that you start to see that those brothers were actually pretty troubled by the fact that they were separated at birth as part of an experiment.

They were challenged to make some of their successes continue, and challenged to think through what would it have been like had I lived with my brothers, of which there were two others that I didn't know until I was an adult. These are the kinds of things that have an initial wave of warm feeling when you only get the headline. But it's not until you get to dive into the entirety of the story, which you and I facilitate, that you really get to see the full picture.

And it's just like so many other stories, they have their ups and downs. It's like a marriage; it's like raising a child. It's like trying to navigate your professional life. It has its ups and downs. And adoption is a prime example of how you [00:21:00] can start off on one end of the spectrum and potentially end up on the other. You could have a great adoption and a terrible reunion. You could have an awful adoption and amazing reunions.

You just never know how any of this stuff is gonna unfold. And I talk about that a lot. I did a blog post where I talked about the adoption journey, almost like you know the control board that you have there for your sound, your mixer thing, and it's got all these dials on it, right? You could turn any one of those dials on the adoption board and get a completely different story, right?

You could take myself and put me into a family, a white family, and put me in the Midwest. So you change locality and you change the ethnicity of the parents. And I have a totally different story. You take me and you put me in South America or Africa, and you adopt me internationally into a new name, the family type, and you change the dial on the geographic area and you've got a totally different [00:22:00] story.

And I think, that's one of the things that I enjoy about being the host of a show that allows for the cultivation and the extraction of those stories, is that you get to hear the richness of what happens to a variety of people, of different religions, of different socioeconomic backgrounds, from different geographic areas, etc., telling their story about how it unfolded for them.

So it's just, it's really fascinating. But you're right, they don't all make the news in a heartwarming way.

Haley Radke: Okay. I am gonna dig some more. Damon. You've said you're a really positive person. You exude gratitude even in your book you're expressing some of that right at the beginning. And you do talk about coming out of the fog, and I know you know what that lingo is. I'm wondering if your perspective on adoption has shifted over the course of doing more and [00:23:00] more interviews with adoptees?

I don't know if a lot of people know you are actually an adoptive parent yourself in an in-family circumstance. And I don't know, there's a lot of things in adoptee land where we have big feelings about lots of different topics, but I'm curious for you how things have morphed and changed if they have.

Damon Davis: It's a great question because I'm influenced by multiple different factors. As you've said, I am an adoptee myself. I have adopted two children within my in-law family, so I raised two kids from their preteen years. Each of them came to us when they were nine years old, respectively, and we've raised them through adulthood.

I will admit that they have struggled. There are reasons why children are in need of a home and that was how they came to live with us. They had needs that the family wasn't entirely able to fulfill. And [00:24:00] we were in a strategic position to do that. And we took on the challenge gratefully, willingly, because I'm an adoptee and I was open to it anyway.

However, I will admit that I've heard stories from some of my guests and I just think to myself, geez, I wish that person could have stayed with their biological mother or father, right? But on the flip side, I'll admit that personally, one of my kids has a child and the child, my child, is not doing that great.

And it's now putting their child in a really tough position. And so adoption is on the table and I can now see why a parent who is in a bad place and is not able to care appropriately for a child, might need to place them somewhere else for that child's welfare. So I will admit, I remain very confused by the whole thing because [00:25:00] I'm just being honest with you, I can see why there are some people who are very fervent in our community that are like, no adoption. Never, ever.

And I respect the position that they come from and the experiences that they have. But I will say on the opposite end of the spectrum, I think there are some children out there who will be in grave danger if they are not extracted from the places where they currently live to potentially have a better or alternative chance at their life in a different place.

So I don't think there's any one answer. I think it's literally case by case and it should be devoid of opinion. It should be based on facts. It should be based on what is in the best interest of the child and that child's safety. And those are the only blanket statements I'm willing to make about it because it's just too hard. It's too hard.

Haley Radke: It's so complicated. I totally get that. And I've heard recently [00:26:00], I was watching a discussion about adoption versus legal guardianship and how that can impact and all the complexities in the foster care system and how systemic issues of racism and injustices keep being perpetuated.

So it is terribly complex and it's very hard to make a blanket determination, I think. But I appreciate you addressing that because I think some people like yourself will be stigmatized by other adoptees who are not grateful whatsoever, and nor do they need to be, but I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about that.

Damon Davis: Yeah, I appreciate it.

Haley Radke: Okay. I paused you. We took a detour. Let's go back to your story.

Damon Davis: Yeah, no problem. So we've talked a lot about my biological mother, and I think it's only fair to speak about my biological father too, because there's a fascinating story on that side. And that's kind of the interesting piece of all of these [00:27:00] biological reunion journeys is that they don't necessarily unfold the way you think.

I'll have guests on the show and I'll think to myself, I know where this is going. This person found their biological mother and then they found their father and blah, blah, blah. And they will throw a curve ball, and I'm just like, oh my God. That's what you get for settling in and getting comfortable and thinking you know everything, genius, 'cause you don't.

Haley Radke: I've made some similar assumptions, just so you know.

Damon Davis: Yeah, and I'm glad you can admit that too. It's just crazy. You start to settle in and you think, I can see where this is going, and they just take a hard left turn and you're like, whoa.

So mine had an interesting story along those lines as well. So I had a phenomenal relationship with my biological mother. We were in reunion for six years before she passed away, sadly. She bought a house, retired from the federal government, moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. And, I'm not even kidding you, within several months she was gone.

So it was an interesting time for me because [00:28:00] obviously the woman who carried me, brought me into this world, had passed on and we had only just had several years of relationship. We hadn't even gotten into double digits. So it was sad to have lost her, but it was phenomenal to have ever known her in the first place, which is something that many adoptees don't get.

And I feel incredibly fortunate for having ever spoken to her, come face to face with her, gotten a chance to hug her and talk to her about my story. It was just amazing. But what happened after she passed was I realized I have an opportunity here to seek out this biological father whom when I would speak with her about my story, I could sense the pain in her voice of how it unfolded.

So I said, you know what? While she was alive, I said, I'm not looking for this guy right now. I'm good. She's good, I'm good. This is good. Let me just stay right here. But after she passed away, I said, I can't hurt her if I find this guy. And I decided to do it. So I did the classic thing. I [00:29:00] started internet searching and trying to find this guy's name, and he had a very basic name that brought back thousands of guys across all social media platforms and stuff.

And I was just like, I'm never gonna find this dude. So I was finally able to track him down based on some characteristics that she told me about him, that he was a Detroit police officer. I think she gave me his name. So I was finally able to find some archives about a police officer with this guy's name. And I tracked him down and I wrote him a letter and I said, I think you might be the guy.

And it was such a weird experience because I gave him all my contact information and he called me on the phone and it's this loud, booming voice. He is very dramatic in his speech and all this other stuff, and he's really overbearing. And I was just like, ugh, this doesn't feel right at all. I just [00:30:00] couldn't feel any of the same kind of connection that I had when I spoke with Ann.

And so I was immediately standoffish with him and through a series of different phone conversations it just got weirder and weirder. And I was like, you know what? I think I'm gonna let this die. I don't really feel like I need to meet this guy at all. And probably a year or two went by and it just hit me. You know what, man, if you don't see your biological father face to face, he could pass and you will have lost this opportunity.

You might not like him, but you might have to suck it up and go out there and meet 'em. And you meet 'em one time and you don't have to ever meet 'em again. And right about the time that I made that decision, I texted him and we talked about it for a minute, and he was like, are you sure I'm the right guy?

And I said I know how this whole thing works and she said you were there. So I have an eye-witness to your presence. And so he said [00:31:00] have you seen my name on anything? And it started to put questions in my head like, you're right, it's possible that we're not right.

And so he suggested that we do a blood test, and he called me back and he said, I got a great idea. Let's do it on the Maury Povich show and do a big reveal. And I was just like, that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard in my life.

Haley Radke: Yikes.

Damon Davis: So shortly after that little exchange he sent me a note in the mail and it was very definitive. I'm sorry Mr. Davis. I'm not the guy. And I was like, how does he know this and how can he reject me? I said he was the guy. How could you? That's not cool. And I had some feelings about it for a while, and then I just said, you know what? I didn't really like that dude anyway, so I just have to try to get over this and let it go.

And it was in that moment that my immediate family was doing some DNA testing of our own, because my wife's [00:32:00] mother, my mother-in-law, is also an adoptee from Canada. And she never had any desire to search for her story at all. And so we are now in this era of a lot of very easily accessible, consumer-friendly DNA testing.

And so we were like, hey, let's spit in some tubes and find out about some people. And I'm thinking to myself, it's also gonna give me some additional information about Seth, my son, because I only know a piece of my family tree and so I only know an even smaller piece of his. Therefore, knowing something about my mother-in-law and her lineage is going to help me fill out his story and beyond.

So we submitted our Ancestry DNA tests, and they came back. Mine came back first and I didn't even really pay that much attention to it because when I met Ann, my biological mother, I had already done 23andMe with her. So the whole gravitas and [00:33:00] surprise and deep interest in what the DNA test was revealing had already washed away six years ago when I first met her.

So when I got my Ancestry DNA test, I didn't pay two seconds of attention to it. I was more interested in my wife's and my son’s because they had pieces that I didn't know at all. When theirs came back. I saw some really cool stuff that Ancestry did, like global migration patterns and this is where your people come from.

And it was just so fascinating that I decided to dig into ancestor DNA on my own record, and it was there, where one night I'm sitting in bed digging into my own record, not even thinking about any of the relationships that I wanted, because again, over on 23andMe I had four or five sixth cousins, whatever, reaching out, saying, hey, and it just was too far off in the distance to really build any meaningful relationships.

So I started getting those relationship connections again, and I didn't look at it at all on Ancestry DNA, but then [00:34:00] I just peeked in on it and I had a very close match and it said parent-child relationship. And my jaw dropped and I'm staring at the screen like, you gotta be kidding me. Who?

So I'm clicking on this thing and it says, extremely high confidence. Parent-child relationship, this person is your father. It doesn't say anything like you might wanna check into this 'cause this seems pretty interesting, in print, like close. They were definitive in their proclamation that the person I was connected to was my father.

And it was not the initials of the man's name who Ann had given me and I had connected with in Detroit. It was a different dude, which lent itself to even more confusion 'cause I'm like, wait. She said it was that guy, but science says it's this guy. And so I'm going round and round in my head.

So I message them, they don't [00:35:00] reply. I message again, they don't reply. I sent another message and I'm like, look, I don't want anything, but I'm an adoptee. I've got nothing. And this guy's popping up on my screen, you gotta tell me something. We don't have to say anything to anybody else in the family, but I would like to talk about this for a few minutes.

And lo and behold, a couple of days later on a Saturday, I'm driving along and I get a call from a family member who is, interestingly, this is a white descendant of mine in the South, and they were slave owners back in the day. They had done a very extensive sort of family search for all of these people that were connected to them because while doing their own Ancestry DNA.

They started to see that their DNA heritage was bringing up a lot of black people as connected to their family. So they started reaching out, trying to learn more and more about how far this went. [00:36:00] And among them was my biological father, Bill White. So to cut a story a little bit short, they finally agreed to connect me with Bill White, who lives out in Las Vegas.

And coincidentally, I spoke with him by phone the night before I'm leaving for a family trip to Los Angeles and I was like, look, I'm gonna be in your neighborhood. I'm in Los Angeles tomorrow and you're in Las Vegas. And he said, yeah, let's see about connecting. He was really receptive, which was refreshing because the other guy was very confrontational, I don't know how to put it. It wasn't like a warm, fuzzy fit.

And Bill was like, oh, wow. Huh, I had no idea. Wow. This felt like it was an interesting, cool development for him. And he was 80 plus at the time. And he's still alive. I don't mean to talk about him in the past tense, it was just the past tense of the story.

So we took a day-trip from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, and I meet this guy, and I tell you, I looked at him and [00:37:00] I thought I looked like my biological mother when I first saw her. But then my wife took a picture of myself and Bill next to each other with Seth in the picture as well. And I'm looking at the way we smile and squint our eyes and all kinds of stuff.

And I was like, I look just like this dude. It was crazy. And we ended up developing a great relationship. It turned out he was a genealogist, which Ann had also been. So between the two of them, never having met them before in my life, within a very short time of meeting each of them, they were both able to hand me an entire family tree, full lineage with stories about every person in it, almost.

It was just astonishing to make this connection and we continue to have a good relationship. I called him a couple of weeks ago when I was in LA and we had a great chat and it's just really great to find connectivity, reach a place of peace that you didn't know you [00:38:00] were actually needing.

And to hear the stories about yourself and your own bloodline. You accept the stories of your adopted family because that's the story you grow up in. But when, as you alluded to earlier, you come out of the fog and you acknowledge what adoption actually means. That you are a child of a different family's lineage. I don't think there are that many people who don't have some level of curiosity about that.

I think the folks who don't search are likely suppressing that curiosity. And you can get really good at it, especially if all of your needs are met. If you've got a great loving home, you are not wanting for anything, you've reached to some level of what you decide is success in your life, whether that's building your own family, your own career, traveling the world, whatever those things are, and you're not really feeling like that is an answer you need. It's easy to suppress that. [00:39:00]

And I'm not saying that people have to resurrect it and dig deep to search. I'm simply saying I do think it is within everybody to some degree when you reach that realization, that adoption means you came from somewhere else. And it has been an incredible journey to find these adults that I came from, hear the story about what they were doing when they were adults and how this whole thing came to fruition to bring me into this world.

And it's been incredibly enlightening to then turn my story into a passion for hearing other people's stories, starting the podcast and writing the book. It's just been amazing.

Haley Radke: Oh, wow. Thank you for sharing your story. You go into it way more in your memoir. And I love hearing those little excerpts from your voice. It's so good. I love that you addressed that feeling that some adoptees might be suppressing that desire. Because I was [00:40:00] gonna ask you about that.

Your show really does focus on the search and reunion, or if they're finding someone, like finding a grave, or those kinds of things that happen, too, which is very sad. I was just challenged recently on asking everyone, when did you decide you wanted to search? And just being challenged on that not everybody wants to and that's okay.

So thank you for saying that. I think that acknowledges that part of our community that just doesn't have that desire for whatever reason. I think it's time for us to do recommended resources, but that is gonna give me a chance to ask you another question. So of course, I'm gonna recommend your podcast.

You have almost 130 episodes already and more coming and there's just so many different stories. I love how you've covered all kinds of different topics. And so if you like Adoptees On, you're gonna love Who am I Really? [00:41:00] because it's more adoptee stories. And you have a really beautiful way of producing the show, and I really enjoy that.

I also wanna talk about your memoir, and I bought the hard copy in my hands. And I started reading it. And here's how you know that I have listened to a number of episodes of your show because I started reading it and you were talking in my head. I was reading it in your voice, and I will admit I got a little bit irritated and I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna read it in audiobook. So I bought the audiobook instead.

So I listened and that was such a great experience. I loved hearing your voice tell me the stories and not all adopting memoirs are available in audio. You can get it on Audible and I just really enjoyed that. And another special thing about Damon’s book in audio is you have a section where you [00:42:00] give the eulogy after your adoptive father passes, and you actually have the audio of you sharing that and it's so powerful.

Damon Davis: That was the moment, boy, I tell you. It brings me to tears right now, man. I tell you, I had the foresight to when my father passed in, I think, 2017, I knew that I was gonna be the focus as his only child of giving the speech at his celebration of life.

And so I was the final speaker and I put my phone up on the podium and I just said, you wrote it, you should record it 'cause you can't be in the audience to hear it and you're gonna want to hear it later. And I didn't listen to it for years and I'm glad that I did record it because as you've said, in doing the audio book, there was a moment when I talk about losing my father.

And it was really powerful to be able to bring back the very moment in my own words, when I laid him to rest, for all intents and [00:43:00] purposes, in front of an audience and to hear the things that I said and the expression of gratitude for his life as it applied to mine.

To put that in an audiobook is just absolutely amazing. I feel so fortunate that I had the foresight to think to put my phone up on the podium. And if you listen closely at the end of my speech, you'll hear my son say, great speech, dad. It's the cutest.

Haley Radke: Okay. I have to go re-listen for that. Okay. I did not think we were gonna have a cry today, and it wasn't me.

Damon Davis: I'm an emotional dude, man. There's no question about it. And I cry with my guests too. I don't know about you, but

Haley Radke: Oh, gimme a break. I'm a disaster half the time. Anyway, I thank you for sharing that. And again, there's something about the power of audio for me. That's of course that's what I do. But I've always been like that.

And so to [00:44:00] hear you read your words and to hear your eulogy, all of those things are just really powerful. So if you have been listening to Who Am I Really? And I'm not converting you to be a listener, then, and you haven't got Damon’s book on audio, you gotta get it. There, because you'll for sure love it.

Okay. My question for you. That was a long lead up to this question. I want you to address what the words “Who am I really?” mean to you?

Damon Davis: When I crafted the idea for the podcast, I was driving down I-95 and it just hit me that I've spoken to so many adoptees before I had even recorded a story.

They all had this thematic piece to them of the search and reunion component where the people were wondering who they actually were as it applied to their biological family, to their natural relatives, and it just jumped out at me that that was what I was asking myself. [00:45:00] Who am I really in this world of an adopted family and a family out there that I don't even know?

Who am I really as it applies to them? And so it just seemed like such a natural fit for any adoptee who may be out there wondering to themself where they fit in the entire mix. And I thought of that title and I never looked back. There was no list of titles or anything like that; it just hit me and I ran with it.

Haley Radke: I love it when that happens. Okay. Do you have a specific episode that you think you could recommend to people? Or is there a search? This is gonna sound a little bit out there, but you and I both have a lot of episodes. So sometimes to a new listener, it's a little bit overwhelming where to start.

So do you have one or two that you're like, oh, you should listen to this one, or search on my website for whatever, late discovery or something like that?

Damon Davis: Yeah, no, it's a great question. I'll tell you, for [00:46:00] folks who haven't listened, you should definitely listen to Episode 100. Haley tells her story on there, and I was grateful to her for being a guest. And it sounds like I'm playing up to the host here, but I'm being serious about that because oftentimes the person behind the camera, the person who is the writer, the person who is the interviewer or host, doesn't often get out to tell their own stories.

And so I wanted to make sure that I got to hear who Haley is and how she got to where she is doing this podcast for herself. So if you haven't listened, we're gonna exchange show guests here, and I'm gonna say definitely listen to Haley's, but there's such a breadth of stories on my show. It's hard to pinpoint them.

I will often tell the story of a recent guest. She is an Ethiopian descendant who was brought to this country, terrorized as a child, sent back to Ethiopia and came back again and found her sister. And is finding her way through adulthood after just tremendous [00:47:00] adversity. I think that her show is highly impactful.

There was a guy who tells this great story of searching for his biological mother and as he's sitting in the public library, internet searching or microfiche searching. I think it was a long time ago. This image starts to unfold very slowly on this old computer. And you can just imagine the line going up as the computer generates this image. And it was a picture of his mother in her wedding dress. And he said, I'd never seen her before. And here's this beautiful, angelic woman appearing before me for the first time. There are so many episodes: one where a woman is reunited with her biological father and she had been married in the prior years, but her father was not able to walk her down the aisle, nor do a father-daughter dance. So she invited him to do a father-daughter dance in her backyard, which was so cute to me.

And another guy who went [00:48:00] on this journey to try to find his biological family. And he ends up searching through records and he ends up contacting the hospital where he was born. And he said he slipped the lady in the records room, this is 30 years ago. He slipped the right lady in the records room a sum of money and said, I want all of the names of all of the women who gave birth on my birthday. And she slips him a list and he ends up contacting his birth mother and he decides I don't want to actually meet her and let her know who I am.

I just wanna meet her and not let her know who I am. So I'll cut his story short, but he knocks on her door and after a couple of conversations there, she invites him in and they're talking in her kitchen and he's freaking out. He's standing in his birth mother's kitchen and her back is turned and he reaches for the calendar on her wall. And he flips it up and he sees his own birthday circled on her calendar.

The stories are just unbelievable. And those are [00:49:00] just a couple of the ones that stand out for me. I could go on and on. So you know, I say to anybody who's listening to your or my show, just pick one, dive in. Because they're all so vastly different. All these different lives and different experiences.

Haley Radke: And it's just about hearing adoptee voices. Adoptee voices matter. And I love that you're highlighting that so, thank you. What did you wanna recommend to us?

Damon Davis: I wanna recommend a different resource. There's a guy online, his name's Greg. What's Greg's last name?

Haley Radke: Luce. L-U-C-E. Luce.

Damon Davis: Yeah. He runs the Adoptee Rights Law website and I find it to be a fascinating resource because he has all of these different maps. For one, the “United States of OBC” talking about where you can find your original birth certificate. He's got an interactive map of OBC access. So he can tell you things about whether your state has unrestricted access to your OBC, whether there are [00:50:00] some restrictions, and he calls it compromised in terms of your access, or completely restricted as in you're not getting your OBC in that state.

And I just think it's a valuable resource because there's a lot of questions about where to start in the adoptee search and reunion journey. And starting with knowing the laws for either the state where you were born or the state where you live, the state where you think you were conceived, whatever that thing is, having some kind of resource that you can go back to, I think, is incredibly valuable.

So I would highly recommend the Adoptee Rights Law Center, and it's at adopteerightslaw.com. Lots of valuable information there.

Haley Radke: Awesome. I love Greg. I met him at a conference a little while ago now and he's a great guy, a very amazing adoptee advocate, so that's a great recommendation.

Thank you so much, Damon. I just really appreciated hearing your story from your own voice and I'd love for you to share where people can hear the podcast and connect [00:51:00] with you online.

Damon Davis: Absolutely. You can find the podcast online at whoamireallypodcast.com. You can follow the show on Twitter at waireally and you can follow me there. I send out tweets with quotes from each of the shows. There's so many different ways that you can express how a show goes down and I try for getting the shows to live on in perpetuity.

I've been recording them to YouTube as well. So I now have a library, a channel on YouTube where you can listen to any one of the shows. There's nothing visual. You're not gonna see me or my guests, but it's just a straight slideshow with the audio. And you can find the podcast anywhere you get your podcasts.

They're all over Amazon, Apple, any podcast platform, it's out there. So check it out and let me know what you think of the show and feel free to reach out if you would like to be a guest. There's a form on my website: whoamireallypodcast.com/share. You can write in to [00:52:00] be a guest on the show if you would like to tell your story as well.

So, thank you so much, Haley. It's been great to be here with you today.

Haley Radke: Wonderful, my honor.

One of the best things I have found as a podcaster, an independent indie podcaster, is that there is a real spirit of community and helping share resources, education, and I have always found that to be true, that it's not necessarily this big source of competition, but it's more collaborative and I really appreciate that about Damon.

And there's other adoptee podcasters that I've had on the show before. We've recommended each other's shows. And I think that you've seen that and I really appreciate that about the adoptee podcaster space, which in itself is very niche. [00:53:00]

But, like I said, there's so many adoptee podcasts that you can listen to. There are people sharing their own personal story. There's other interview shows. Anything you can think of that is adoption related, there are some really talented adoptees leading conversations in that area, so I'd encourage you, if that's your thing, to branch out and look for some other adoptee-led podcasts. I think that you will be greatly blessed by doing that.

And the other thing is, this podcast and so many adoptee podcasts would not be possible without your support. So if you love Adoptees On, if you want it to grow and reach more adoptees, to connect to the community and do all of those things that I strive to do, be educational and entertaining and a support in your earbuds.

So we can hang out every week. I love doing that for you. If you want that to continue, one of the best ways you can do that is sharing [00:54:00] the show with one other person that you know is adopted, especially picking one episode that you think they would enjoy and showing them how to listen to it.

And the second is becoming a monthly Patreon supporter. If you go to adopteeson.com/partner, you can find out details of how to support the show. You get bonuses. There is a bonus podcast every single week that I do, mostly with my friend Carrie Cahill Mulligan, who's also an adult adoptee. And we talk adoption topics. We talk nonsense, we talk things that we would never share ever in a million years on the main feed.

But we do share them with our closest friends who have been, some of them have become close friends, supporters of the podcast. So adopteeson.com/partner has details for that. And there's a couple other levels of support where you can access a private Facebook group for adoptees only. You can schedule a call with me, which has been really fun. [00:55:00] And I've been doing Zoom calls here and there, which I'm gonna be continuing.

So if any of those things sound good to you, go to adopteeson.com/partner and sign up today. I'd love to have you as a supporter. Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.