226 Harrison Mooney

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/226

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Haley Radke: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests is to be construed as psychological, medical or legal advice.

You are listening to adoptees on the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today we are so honored to introduce you to Harrison Mooney, author of the incredible new memoir, Invisible Boy, where he exposes the trauma of transracial adoption. Harrison shares with us why family preservation is so important to him and how he was able to reconnect with his biological mother after a lengthy time of silence between them.

We talk about the complexities of being in a situation where it didn't feel safe to say the whole truth about adoption and about how good it feels when you're finally able to speak freely. We wrap up with some recommended resources and, as always, links to everything we will be talking about today are on the website adopteeson.com.

Before we get started with my conversation with Harrison, I want to invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community over on adopteeson.com/community. Which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world. Okay, friend, I'm so excited to share this episode with you. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Harrison Mooney. Welcome, Harrison.

Harrison Mooney: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Haley Radke: Absolutely. My pleasure. I'd love it if you would start the way we always do here, if you would share some of your story with us.

Harrison Mooney: Yeah, so I was adopted as a baby. I was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and adopted at 11 days old.

As I understand it, there's a waiting period where some forms in Canada have to be filed or something. But my biological mom had me for five days and then they took me away. You know, she didn't really want to give me up. So she tried to hold onto me and she said every day the nurses would come in and kind of wrestle me away from her.

Because they didn't want her to get too attached to this baby that grew inside of her body already. Anyhow, I was adopted by a White, very Christian family. And we lived in Abbotsford, which is a little suburb just outside of Vancouver. Very religious, small town vibes.

It's getting a little bigger now, but it still just feels like the smallest, jerkiest town and we were radical Christians. So, I grew up understanding that God had built this family, that he'd taken me from, you know, a vessel and given me to this other family because, you know, they were Christian and they were God-fearing and they prayed and asked him to do that.

And so I really leaned into my faith and to Christianity. And as my family got more and more radical, we went to more and more charismatic churches. You know, I did my best to fit in and to ignore the white supremacy at the heart of these institutions and mine, in particular.

And at the same time, I wasn't really being taken care of. I wasn't given any guidance for how to be Black in these spaces. And it wasn't until I was about 19 and I got a call from the adoption agency. At that time they were called the Hope Adoption Agency.

I was told, now that you're 19, you're an adult, so you're allowed to know some things about your biological parents, and they want you to know that they love you. And I didn't know what to do with that information, but that kind of thing just rattles your foundation, you know?

It’s really like, okay, well, so somebody else is my mom, somebody else is my dad, you know? I mean, I guess I had always known that, but you don't have to engage with it until it's right on top of you. And, you know, that started a journey of, I guess, self-discovery.

I eventually went down to the adoption agency. I learned my parents' names. I was so much more comfortable in White spaces than Black spaces at that point that I reached out to my dad first. Or at least I met him first and that didn't go very well for me. But a little while later, I reached out to my mom and I met her.

And that was incredible. I mean, the moment that I met her, you know, my life was completely changed. And I don't know that I knew that at the time. At the time you're just trying to process it and, you know, get through it, try not to cry or throw up or just run. But it was actually seven years between meetings.

I met my mom that first time and we made plans to have dinner a week later. And then we both just didn't do that. And, yeah, seven years later I called her and we tried again. And you know, in that time it took, we had a few really good years of building a relationship and recovering what was lost.

I wrote this book Invisible Boy to really explain to her what my life had been like after she gave me up. And she read the first draft and we cried together and we commiserated and we shared stories that were just so similar. And then a month after that, she woke up one day and there was blood in her eye.

She went to the doctor. It turned out that she had leukemia and she died in May. So, now I'm post a lot of things. I'm post this book that I wanted to write my whole life. You know, I wanted to meet my mom and have a relationship with her and I wanted the 30 years with her that I got with my adoptive mom.

Yeah. Now, I'm reeling a little bit, you know. I've done this big thing and I've suffered this great loss, and I'm not quite sure where to go from here, but I'm really glad that I started this journey and I'm really glad that I met her and that I had an opportunity to know her before she died.

Yeah, it's an ongoing journey, but that's mine.

Haley Radke: Thank you. I'm so sorry for the loss of your mother, and I've heard you say a couple of times, “I'm proud of my sorrow.” I wonder, would you be comfortable sharing a little bit about what you did to summon up the courage to get back into a real relationship with her?

I'm hesitating because so many of us have had the luxury and privilege of meeting a biological parent. If we're so fortunate. And maybe having a brief reunion and then one or both just cut off contact because of numerous reasons.

But the reconnection following that, what led you there? What did you do? How were you both ready or not? I mean, that's really interesting.

Harrison Mooney: Yeah, it was so difficult because she meant so much to me and I meant so much to her, but you could tell, you know, like when I looked at her, I felt all this love that I wasn't used to feeling.

And I felt this attraction, you know, like an attraction to my mom. Like it was platonic or whatever. But it also felt weird. It felt stronger than my fondness for my friends, or it was an attraction that I didn't really know how to handle.

And I know that she had that too, and that just freaked us out. It was weird, you know, how do you deal with emotions this strong? And after everything that we'd both been through, we had all of our walls up and I think we were both quite withholding. Every time that we saw one another, it just made us want to drop all those walls and just like hug, and in my book I said I wanted to climb into her lap and ask her to tell me the story of how I was born.

That was just a real tangible feeling and it was intense. So, yeah, after avoiding each other for those seven years, I invited her over to the house and we made dinner for her. I listened to the episode with Tony Corsentino, and he talked as well about having his family over and making dinner for them.

It's part of the people pleasing thing. It's part of, Hey, I turned out really well and really responsible and I mean, look, I can even cook for myself. So, we did that and I remember after dinner we went outside and we smoked a joint together and I thought it would put us at ease and instead it made us so anxious and we couldn't look at one another.

And so we actually went back inside and we stood on either side of my wife and we talked to one another while looking at her because we couldn't do that. But I said, while staring at my wife, to my mom I said, I know that this is just so intense and awkward right now. But yeah, it won't feel that way in 30 years. This is the work, and it's the work we have to do to recover what was lost and to get where we want with one another. And every time I see you it's going to be less awkward.

And it was, we got to a point where we could chat and she came over and we could look one another in the eyes and the first day that she left, she said, I love you. And I said, thanks. And I've done that a few times in my life, but as our relationship went on, it just became clear that this is safe. You know, you can say, I love you, too. And I did.

At that time I was even struggling with my terms, you know, I had my adoptive mom who I was calling my mom, and I thought of as my mom. And then I had my birth mother, you know, this kind of formal distancing term that we have to just put some space between us and the woman who gave birth to us. But I didn't like it. I felt like I love her. She's my mom. I wanna call her my mom. And it took a long time.

I mean, it took the whole process of writing this book and it took therapy and just a lot of thinking and feeling sad. But, you know, one day I woke up and I thought of my mom and I thought of my biological mom, and it felt like a lightning bolt and I didn't know how to explain to other people. Like, no, you don't understand.

Like, I woke up today and when I thought “my mom,” I pictured a different woman than I've pictured every other time for my whole entire life. You know, I did it, and it was just so rewarding. And so, yeah, when I say I'm proud of my sorrow, it's because I just put in so much work. I went against all of my instincts for self-preservation and avoiding conflict and discomfort.

I just leaned right into it because I want her back. I want her in my life, you know? And I'm not going to let what happened to us keep us apart after we found one another. So, she's gone now, but I knew her. I loved her. And when I think of my mom, I think of her. And I can't tell you how proud I am to mourn my mom. When the first time I met her I couldn't think of her as anything else than a birth mother. I couldn't tell that I loved.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. The work, it goes unseen usually, and so to actually spell it out for folks who are likely along that path somewhere, I think is so valuable. And you alluded to or you mentioned these feelings of self-preservation and, you know, we often talk about the traditional adoption narrative and trying to blow that up here in this adoptee-only space, we've been working for a few years on it already, followed by multiple decades of other adoptees who've done the work before us. And I am curious how that's shifted for you now having your work out in the world.

There's a scene in your memoir where you're sort of hijacked to come into this meeting with a bunch of White adoptive mothers and this intense pressure to be like, Oh yeah, adoption was great. Like, I'm so glad a White family adopted me and answering those questions in the way they hope and expect is out of this place of self-preservation.

Can you talk a little bit about that moment and then what would you say now versus coming from a place of strength and not that fear of having to pull it together?

Harrison Mooney: Yeah. That moment in the book comes when I go down to the adoption agency and I'm there to learn my parents' names, but I get there and there's a support group happening for the White moms who adopted all these other versions of me.

And you know, they're all sitting around and when I get in there, they kind of jump up and they're really excited to talk to me. And it turns out that they knew I was coming. And so in their minds I was kind of their special guest and I realized then, I think, often as adoptees, we have this sense that we're really alone.

You know, we have our own language for what's going on but we learn that in our house, and it's so hard to connect with other adoptees and it's often hard to think of ourselves as part of a larger structure, this whole system that's scooped up so many of us and displaced so many of us and just left us confused and with this weird sense of loss that's like invisible and mostly unexplainable, but we feel it and it just handicaps us at every moment.

It's so bizarre. So that was the moment where I started to realize that there were just so many other people caught up in this, and my experience of being raised by these White parents who just had no idea what they were doing, that was quite universal. I think a lot of people had gone through that, but it made me mad.

Well, why are you all doing this? Like, why wouldn't you just even treat your adopted kids as people and be like, Hey, I actually don't know how to handle your Blackness. Do you know how to handle your Blackness? And then when I say, No, I don't, because you never taught me, we go looking together for a way for me to claim my identity.

I just feel that work could be done, but it's not. And I got so mad and I wanted to tell everybody, Look, you know you guys aren't equipped to raise Black children, like every one of you is disqualified. But yeah, I mean, these were 12 versions of my mom who I was terrified of.

So instead I said what you're supposed to say, which is, you know, “I'm grateful” and “I had a great life.” And “Wow, like I moved up a couple classes with this adoption. So look at me now.” And actually, you know, growing up around White people gave me a White voice, and that makes me really good on the phone, and that makes me very hireable in Vancouver.

I could say all kinds of things that people want to hear, but now I'm mad and now I've written a book and now I've done work that I know a lot of people haven't done, and I have some experience now in attempting to restore a relationship and in going back through your trauma and working on what to say to people and, you know, when I wrote the book, I said, this is my big powerful statement: Adoption is not necessarily good.

That's what I said. But, you know, as time has gone on and after writing this, I lost my mom. I mean, now I say it's not good. It's not a good system. And when people push back, and they do, because of course there are success stories or folks who are still in the sunken place and haven't realized how bad this is for them yet, or, you know, whatever else.

I get that those stories are out there. But, you know, because of that, there's always going to be a pushback. And that pushback is: Well, what would you do differently?

And my answer is: Adopt families, not children. My mom was 16 years old when she put me up for adoption. She was in the foster system, she was adoptable. And what makes me so upset is that instead of helping her and taking her in, she needed a home. She could have used all the resources that I got.

Instead of doing any of that, they just ripped me out of her arms and left her to die. I feel it's just so unconscionable. It makes me so upset and that I have to explain to people why that's a stupid system for helping me makes me mad. So, that's what I say now.

Haley Radke: Well, we are all about family preservation here, so yes, yes, yes, yes.

I don't know why, I've heard the word “adoption agency” like five million times. But at some point when I was reading and thinking about your memoir, I just kept thinking of the word “agency”. And the irony that adoption agencies are called agencies when we have no agency and they stole it from us. It's kind of funny to me.

Harrison Mooney: I know. That's fun. Can I just say that I intentionally included agency in their name because of that. And Hope Adoption or I think sometimes they were Hope Adoption Services, but I wanted to make it very clear that, no, they're out here peddling agency and I'm just delighted that somebody noticed that.

Haley Radke: Wasn't it something even worse? Before they were called Hope Adoption Agency?

Harrison Mooney: They were called Burden Bearers International.

Haley Radke: Well, we are a burden. Okay. I am going to go back to this idea of agency and I don't know if you're comfortable talking about this.

Harrison Mooney: I probably am.

Haley Radke: You probably are. Okay. So your biological father almost succeeded in quashing this book. And so as an adopted person who's had so much agency removed at the beginning of your life, what was it like to have him try and usurp your voice as an adult?

Harrison Mooney: Oh, it was so difficult. It was frustrating because I knew him. I knew from our first meeting, which is in the book, it's chapter 9, what I was in for if I decided to step back into his life or to reconcile with him. He is a man who didn't listen to me and he didn't really seem to care that I'd lived a whole life.

He wanted me to pick up where he left off. He called me by a different name. He said weird things about Blackness, about his kids. When I was writing the book, I called him and I told him, Hey, I'm gonna write this chapter and it's gonna have this first meeting in it, and it doesn't necessarily make you look the best, but I'm hoping that you'll understand that this is part of a larger thing that I'm trying to do.

It has a lot to do with how White parents engage with Black children. And, you know, he didn't take that well and I didn't send him a copy of the book before I submitted it to the publisher. But when my mom was on her deathbed, he came to visit her and got ahold of it and he read just his part and got outraged.

And he sent, he says, a cease and desist, but it was just a nasty email to HarperCollins customer service. And he called me a liar and he said that I defamed him in the most corrupt ways. And he came to my mom's house while I was there and he yelled at me and I fled the house.

And this is one of these things that I'll probably wind up writing about, but as I was running down the stairs to get away from him, he stood at the top of the stairs and said, You know, you're not even really Black. You only wanted to hang out with your mom because she makes you feel Black, but you're half White too.

And I said, Oh, you're blowing it. And he said, Get the hell outta here before I do something I'm gonna regret. And then I fled the house and I knew that somebody was going to do that. This book is not shy. I didn't hold anything back. I knew that some people were going to get upset.

I just didn't think it would be him. I didn't think that he'd get that upset. But, yeah, that's kind of where we left it. The last time I saw him was at my mom's funeral and he stood a ways off with his arms crossed and we didn't speak. And I'm sure he'll come around again.

I think that honestly he has more need of me than I do of him at this point, so I don't think I've heard the last of him. But, man, let me tell you, having your dad yell at you like that? I mean, it sucks when it's your dad who raised you, but when it's like your biological father and he's…oh, yeah.

I don't know. I haven't told that story before, so it's not polished. But it was a tough one. It was one of the worst days of my life.

Haley Radke: I'm really sorry you had to experience that.

I don't know what to say. You know, the silencing just doesn't end. Sorry to tell you this, but I've interviewed a lot of adopted people who've written memoirs and it's cost them so much, which is not a surprise to you.

One of the things is, when you've got this platform, which is amazing and it comes from all the work you've done over the years as a journalist and sharing other work that you've done.

And I'll tell you this, I don't know if you know this. I went to your book launch Zoom and one of the first events I think you did for the book when it was out in the world. And I had to turn it off immediately because the first question you were asked was “What do your adoptive parents think about this?”

Harrison Mooney: Oh, yeah. Right away.

Haley Radke: And I almost vomited. I was like, it's not even safe. You said everything you need to, this person obviously didn't read your book because they maybe would know, and that was the first question they landed on. And I just thought, God, it just doesn't end. So I'm not asking you what your adoptive parents think.

I'm asking you, how does that feel for you to still be like, wow, did I not put it all out there for you yet?

Harrison Mooney: Yeah. That's a fun question because, you know, as much as I've done this and I feel very brave and I feel I pushed through all these fears. I'm still really afraid of my parents, my adoptive parents, and when people ask, what do your parents think about this?

It makes me tighten up. I try not to think about what they may or may not think about this because there's so much else at play, right? They almost never looked at my other art, like I was in a band. We released an album. I gave them a copy, shrink wrapped.

And a year later I came over and it was still shrink wrapped. And I've written some short stories for journals and I'd say, Oh, I have a short story in this journal. And they didn't read that. I was in a play. They didn't come to that. So I feel like there's a really good chance that they never read this book, and that's heartening and somehow more hurtful.

I would love it if they didn't read the book because then they won't get mad at me. But at the same time, I mean, these are my parents. They're supposed to care about my biggest achievements. This is the best thing I've ever done. And I've been working on this in some way or another for like 20 years.

So, you know, the book's been out for two weeks and it really is devastating that I haven't heard from them at all, even to yell at me. But I don't like getting yelled at. I had to decide when I was writing this book that I don't care in the end what they think about my story because this is my story.

One of the major themes of this book is just the reclaiming of narrative. You're told that you're a bit player in somebody else's story. We prayed and God gave you to us. And I held onto that for so long, but then you want to be your own person. You want to be the star of your own show.

As I got older I realized the scope of my show, and the reality of where it began and where I am now and realized that my adoption was really more of an abduction. It's just that when you're in charge of the narrative, you can call it an adoption.

I realized I had to tell that story and come what may, so it was really terrifying. And there were times that I would write something that I knew was truly transgressive. Like, you're not supposed to say that about your family. You're not supposed to share those stories about your family.

And the fear that I would feel in those moments was so visceral that it felt like there was a scary man standing behind me. And there was one time where I decided to write something and I could swear that I felt him back there and I jumped and I screamed, and then it turned out that I was sitting outside on a sunny day.

I felt like I was in a dark dungeon and it was terrifying. But I mean, that's what you have to do in order to tell your story sometimes. You've just got to push through all of that abuse and all of that gaslighting and all of the ways that people say, Hey, you can't tell this.

You're not supposed to just say that. Well, screw you. I'm gonna tell it. I don't care. If I can't tell my story, I don't exist. And I do. I exist. So yeah, I've written it and I'm sure that my parents would have big thoughts about it and I don't give a (beep).

Haley Radke: Love it. What a great answer. Okay. I've heard you talk about a worry that you had that people from your past, the history that you're sharing about in your memoir, which really is like childhood to young adulthood as a main scope of time, that folks might dispute what you've shared.

And that you felt. Again, as a journalist, you felt the need to collect evidence and corroborate your story. And on the show here, we've talked a lot about so many of us are estranged from our adoptive parents or they've died and sometimes we're mourning the fact that they have been what we see as the history keepers, you know?

They still have the photos, they still have the family movies, you know? Home movies when that was a thing.

Harrison Mooney: What are those?

Haley Radke: I know I'm just a couple years older than you, so I related to the timeframe that you really shared about. Can you talk about how you got folks to corroborate your memories and how that felt?

And you just mentioned the gaslighting after being told so many of those things didn't happen. And in your memoir you recount multiple times where you would bring up an incident of racism that you experienced. And anyone you shared it with, they'd be like, Oh, no, no, that's not racist. That's, no, no, no.

Harrison Mooney: You're seeing things.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Could you comment a little bit about that? On looking for corroboration, but also how we can gain back our memories or have corroboration from somewhere else if we don't have a connection with our adoptive families.

Harrison Mooney: Yeah. I think the first thing is your memories are true. Right?

They're your memories. And even if you misremember something, the way that you misremember it, that impacts who you are, that impacts how you walk and you talk, and what you're recovering from. So writing this book, I was very confident that what I remember happened, but also that my memories are factual.

I'm not making anything up. I'm telling you what I recall, and if it turns out that there's something that has been narrativized or something where I've misremembered it in some way, that's also part of how memory works. So, you know, these things get twisted, but we need to be able to stand up for what we remember.

That said, if you write a book that insinuates that real living White people are racist, you're probably going to get sued. And I knew that. And so I looked for every single person that I wrote about. I'd call them, I'd email them, you know, I'd tell them what I was doing. And, I had a little bit of a trick because they never understood my experience.

And so even as I explained it, I knew that it was just washing over them so I could tell them exactly what I was doing and they'd be like, Oh, oh yeah, you know, that sounds good. But then I would ask them, what do you remember about this moment? What do you remember about this moment? And there were times that, you know, our recollections aligned and then there were times that they remembered it completely differently.

And that was interesting too, I think. Well, you know, how come I don't remember saying that thing? And I think often with memory, our memories are also trying to protect us and this kind of fragile version of us that exists. And so, you know, there are times that we'll omit something from our memory because it makes us feel bad about ourselves.

I did a workshop last night where we were working on memoir writing and storytelling and I asked one of the students to tell a story and she told the story about a time that a neighbor girl drank some wine from her mom's liquor cabinet. And then what we did is we asked her a bunch of questions about it.

Because any time that somebody tells a story, they've told you more about themselves than they realize, and, I mean, you can always find the pressure points. And so I asked her eventually, Did you have any wine? And she said, You know, I don't remember. I was like, Okay, well, see. Then I said, How much of a transgression would it have been for you to have wine?

She was like, Well, we were very Christian and it would've been a big sin. Again, I understand that whether she did or didn't, her memory is that she did not. That's how we work to preserve ourselves. So I love talking to other people and hearing their kind of Rashomon version of my story.

I know that they didn't engage with me as a full human being in many cases. So yeah, they don't actually remember my reaction. They don't remember saying these things to me, and they don't want to think of themselves as a racist, so they're going to omit that stuff from their own memory. But some people are really cool.

You know, you'll call them and you'll say, Oh, this is what happened, and they'll be like, Oh, I did do that. I'm really sorry. And then we'll talk all about it. I had to do that when I reached out to Ashley, my ex-girlfriend from my teenage years. I was part of gaslighting her.

I was on my family's side and they hated her. And I didn't know how to serve two masters in that case. I really think that she suffered as a result. And so when I reached out to her, the first thing that I had to do was just say, Hey, I've been doing a ton of reflection on my life. Turns out it was really messed up and I figured that out after I left Abbotsford

But now that I know, Oh my God, I'm so sorry. And it was really healing and it was just really incredible for her then to be able to corroborate our time together and those experiences and the things that I remembered and in the end, all of that research made me feel so much more confident in my story because all of the controversial parts, I have somebody who was there or somebody who can back it up or somebody that I told the next day, like, you won't believe what happened at my parents' house.

And then being able to do all of the other research to just find historical context. And political context. Yeah, it's made me very confident in the story I'm telling. And knew that I had to be able to stand on this as hard as I can because the detractors are coming. But you know, I'm really glad I did it.

Haley Radke: Well, let's go to recommended resources because I absolutely want to recommend Invisible Boy. It's, oh my gosh. Harrison. It's so good. I mean, I hope, you know, I mean, I think you know, it's good. But it's in, I don't wanna hurt anybody's feelings, it's in my top three adoptee memoirs of all time. I'm not just saying that cause you're just here, but,

Harrison Mooney: Oh, you're gonna make me cry.

Haley Radke: I'm a White woman. Same race adoption. So I'm actively unpacking racism. And of course I still carry that with me, so I don't identify with those parts of the book. But as an adopted person, I identify with so much of what you shared. And then, as a quirky coincidence that we have in common, I was raised in a very conservative Mennonite town in northern Alberta called La Crete.

Harrison Mooney: Isn't that suspicious?

Haley Radke: My parents weren’t Mennonite, but it just happened that we lived there. But some of your references to nineties kids’ evangelical culture working in a Christian bookstore, I was like, oh, I remember those songs.

And so you triggered lots of memories for me. Some in a good way. Some in a not good way. And you're so funny. I mean, God, there's so many funny moments, which is really strange when you're reading some really hard, hard things. So I unreservedly recommend your book. I hope everyone picks it up.

I love voices because I'm a podcaster. It's super important to me. I listened to a lot of it on Audible and it's so lovely that you read it. How was that like?

Harrison Mooney: I loved it. I just loved it. Yeah. It was the most fun thing I've ever done. I want to read the audiobook for every book I write. I want to be a freelance audiobook guy.

I can do other people's books. It's so fun. It took a little bit for me to get into it. I think when I started, I was nervous and you're working on your cadence and there was a lot of lip smacking and they told me to eat an apple. They were like, eat an apple and that will get rid of the lip smacking.

And it was a bad apple, obviously. It wasn't like a lip smackingly good apple, because that would've increased the lip smacking. So, I did that, but then eventually I got into it and I just had so much fun. There's a moment towards the end where I actually break down.

I'm reading my own book that I had not read. I wrote this in the middle of a mental health crisis, and then I tried not to look at large parts of it. It was like I don't want to engage with that. When I get it back from the editor, if there were no marks on certain pages, I'm not even gonna go back.

Those pages are done then. So the haircut scene, I wrote it and I did not read it again. The ending, I wrote one time, never looked at it again. But then reading the audiobook, I had to engage with this stuff, and now I was on antidepressants and kind of getting a hold of myself.

And so looking at this book and kind of seeing the dark place that I went to and how vulnerable and just kind of naked I was writing this book. Yeah, it really rattled me. And, so when I got to a part towards the end where I speak in tongues, or try to, and I just felt the tears coming on and my voice cracked.

It was like, Oh, no. But yeah, they didn't make me record it again, so I assume that you can also hear me breaking down as I read my own audiobook.

Haley Radke: It's so powerful. I love hearing your voice say your own words. I'll just show you. No one else can see, but look at all my book darts. So, it's funny when you're listening to the audiobook and I'm like, oh my gosh, I gotta mark that. And I didn't even open this while we were talking today, but I was like, oh, I gotta go mark that. So I would quickly flip to where that section I thought was so I could put the book dart right there.

So there we go. You gotta get Invisible Boy, everyone. And what do you want to recommend to us, Harrison?

Harrison Mooney: I want to recommend my friend Jenny Heijun Wills' incredible memoir, Older Sister, Not Necessarily Related. And I know that you guys have probably talked about it before. It's a big award-winning book, but man, what a book. And I just met her recently and we had just an incredible conversation about our own adoptions.

And we did a panel called “Transracial Adoption: Is It Any Good?” With me, Jenny and the Vancouver writer Wade Compton. And the thing that I just loved about Jenny was she's gone ahead of me in this space. She's answered all these questions before, and so there were times that I asked her the questions that, you know, where I was starting to get, and she would just smack me back with the strongest answer.

She's so strong. I've met a lot of adoptees and I feel like most of us are people-pleasers, we're willing to contort into whatever shape and that's how you fit in in a space. But Jenny is, I mean, in her own words, a brat and just from the moment she was born, it seems like you could not tell Jenny what to do.

And you know, her book was the first adoption memoir that I read where I was like, Yeah, I want to be strong like this.

Haley Radke: Yes, I love your description of her. I've been in spaces where she's the one to just like, instantly be like, Oh, nope, no, no, we're not doing that.

She is like, oh my gosh, one of my favorite, favorite people. She's been on the show. She was on episodes 133 and 218. We did a Book Club with her. Maybe we'll get to do a book club with you?

Harrison Mooney: I'd love to.

Haley Radke: Okay, lovely. Next year, 2023.

Harrison Mooney: I'm saying yes to all book club invites until it seems like it's not fun for me anymore.

Haley Radke: Okay. Hopefully you have a good experience for all the book clubs. No, it's amazing reading. We have a Book Club for Patreon supporters of Adoptees On, and every month we read another adoptee-authored book and then we're discussing it with adoptees, which is such a powerful experience.

So I'm so thankful for your work on your memoir. I can imagine it feels like you're standing naked in a field and we're all getting to see all the hard parts. But your bravery will help others be able to share their experiences as well. So thank you. Where can we connect with you online and follow your work and see what else you have going on?

Harrison Mooney: So I don't have a website yet, because I still haven't gotten any money, but as I understand it, the money's coming. It's tough. You don't get rich writing a book.

Haley Radke: What?

Harrison Mooney: No, no, no, no, no. I'm on Twitter at Harrison Mooney. I'm fairly active on Twitter. You know, some days I tweet a lot. Other days I just lurk and retweet.

But If I do anything interesting, I'm gonna tweet about it. And I'm on Instagram at picturesofharrison. You know, I'm in the process of turning this account from an account that was just for me into one more like a professional account. So, you know, right now there are a lot of pictures of my kids and there will probably be fewer of those as we go.

But who knows? They're very cute and I just want to post pictures of them all day. Maybe I'll be allowed to, I dunno.

Haley Radke: I know once your kids are old enough, I'm always asking them like, am I allowed to post this or this? So yes, it changes over time, doesn't it?

Harrison Mooney: Yeah. I've been asking them, too, but they're four and two, and they say yes but they don't actually understand the privacy considerations. Like maybe this isn't actually ethical for me to be like, Hey, two-year-old, can I post you on the Internet?

But you know, we're all working out the ethics of the digital era at the same time on the fly.

Haley Radke: Indeed, indeed. Thank you so much, Harrison. It's just been an honor to talk with you today.

Harrison Mooney: Oh, thank you so much for having me. This was just an absolute delight.

Haley Radke: It's such an honor that I could have a conversation with Harrison and I really hope you grab his book. I really did love it and I'm sincere. Hopefully he will come back in 2023 and join us for Book Club. So we have a Book Club that is semi-monthly over on adopteeson.com. A lot of our readers felt once a month is too much.

So this month we are reading Surviving The White Gaze by Rebecca Carroll, and she is joining us if you're listening to this, when this episode has gone live. She is joining us on Monday, October 24th, for a live Zoom call with Patreon supporters of the podcast to discuss Surviving the White Gaze with my co-host Sullivan Summer.

And we're really, really excited about that conversation. And if you're listening after that conversation was recorded and the audio will be available for Patreon supporters in their Patreon podcast feed. So I invite you to join us. If you want to see more info about Book Club, it's adopteeson.com/bookclub.

And we have read so many fantastic books. So definitely check out the list on the website.

The other thing I'd recommend is ask your local public library to buy these books and have them available. It is a huge gift to other adoptees who might not have the money to buy every new book every time we talk about a new book on the show and expose other people to adoptee-authored work.

So your libraries often will have a form on their website or if you go in you can tell your librarian, Hey, this is the hot new memoir. You guys should carry it. And I know, especially libraries across Canada will be stocking Invisible Boy, so you should be able to request it from your library.

Okay. Thank you so much for listening and reading with me and thank you so much to my Patreon supporters. You make the show possible. So thank you, thank you, thank you, and let's talk again next Friday.

225 Ethan Ferkiss

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/225

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Haley Radke: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests is to be construed as psychological, medical or legal advice.

You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today we are joined by Ethan Ferkiss to share his heartwarming reunion story. Expecting rejection or indifference, Ethan wasn't prepared for his search to end in what he calls the “jackpot scenario,” a full-scale welcome.

But as you can guess, navigating new relationships with four adult siblings, his biological mother, and his biological father has been a whirlwind and can be overwhelming at times. We wrap up with some recommended resources for you 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 Ethan Ferkiss. Welcome, Ethan.

Ethan Ferkiss: Hey, Haley, how are you?

Haley Radke: I'm so good. I'm really excited to chat with you and I'd love it if you would share some of your story with us?

Ethan Ferkiss: Yes, of course. I'm very excited to be here too, so thank you. My adoption story, you know, for years was very short. It could fill a pamphlet, and then all of a sudden, about a year and a half ago, it blew up into a novel, but I'll start at the beginning.

I was born in 1967 through Catholic Charities. I was three weeks old when I was adopted, and I was raised in and around Washington DC and for years, all I knew I had was two wonderful parents.

A really loving, engaged, wicked smart mom and an academic dad and two very fun older siblings. And it was an amazing childhood. My father was a professor, so we were exposed to his college campus. We grew up in Washington DC which at the time was such an amazing place, I mean, it's still a beautiful city, but growing up during the Bicentennial years when I was a kid, it was just amazing.

Plus, we got to live in Vancouver BC, Trinidad and Tobago, and Berkeley, and so it was just a larger-than-life childhood of ideas and destinations.

My mom was integral and I think she recognized that I had some extra energy. I think it's that energy that adoptees have that lives in their bodies. I used to be so demonstrative and I used to just have so much energy and I was just this engine and I did have this little frenetic energy and I would have meltdowns, but I was talented and so my mom was able to put me in so many activities to harness and focus me and so I did anything and everything. We threw ourselves together in everything, whether it be chess or homework, and I really just responded to her.

She told me when I was a kid that I was adopted very early on. She said it in a very loving way. She said, you know, you have a biological mom and dad. But they couldn't take care of you the way that they thought you deserve. And we really wanted you.

So at the end of it, I just thought, well, this is how it goes sometimes. It's normal. I'm loved, I'm wanted, and she said it in such a way that I was intrigued by these two people, but I just thought it was, anyway….

I lived my life. I enjoyed my life. And then throughout the years, I would just have a passive kind of wonder about who they were, especially the birth mom. That's where the connection is. It wasn't until last year that I realized, well, at some point it would be nice to meet my birth mother, if possible.

And so I took a DNA test, and this was Christmas of 2020. And then a few weeks later I got the test results and I had a first cousin, which is pretty remarkable to get such a close hit. So I reached out to the first cousin. I said, Hey, we are apparently first cousins. Here's a little information about me:

I live in Seattle. This is what I do. These are the kind of things I like. And as I'm adopted, and as far as I know, if there's anybody on your side of the family who knows who I am and wants to meet, that would be great. And if they don't want to meet, I totally understand. Because that's what I had actually prepared for. These are often old secrets that people just carry with them.

There was no pressure on my side. I just thought, well, there's probably gonna be a half-brother or half-sister because she was young when she had me. I just put it out that way. And as it turns out, his name is Ryan. So he went to his dad, my birth mom's youngest brother, and he told him who had surfaced in his 23andme.

So his dad went to my birth mom and then they started reading her the letter that I had written, and they could see the wheels turning in her head. As soon as they read the part where I said my birthday was March 31, she just broke down in tears, they told me, and she told me, too. And she was just so happy and joyful.

And it turns out I've got four younger siblings. I'm the oldest of five. They knew about me. So this all broke open very quickly.

So as soon as Ryan, my first cousin went to his dad, who then went to my birth mom, my birth mom was like, Oh my God, I can't believe it. So she wrote me a letter. I had mentioned in this email to Ryan, my first cousin, that I worked at the local TV station here in Seattle, one of them.

So she wrote me a letter. I was working from home and this letter sat in my inbox at work for two months. So on my end, I thought she just wasn't interested because Ryan said he was going to reach out to his family and he would get back to me and a couple months passed and I was thinking, you know, it's too much. I get it. She's not gonna reach out.

This is obviously an old secret and I was fine with it. On her end, she had heard from me through the grapevine, she had written me a letter, and then I hadn't responded, and this is two months. So we're both just in this limbo thinking the other person's not ready for whatever reason.

So she finally tells her oldest daughter Suzanne, who turns out to be my younger half-sister by two years. She says to Suzanne, Hey, the son I gave up for adoption, they knew about me, years ago has surfaced. I wrote him a letter but he hasn't responded, and Suzanne's wicked smart. She said, You know, mom, he's probably working from home, that letter is probably sitting in his inbox at work and just rotting there.

So she reached out to me on LinkedIn. She said, Hey, I'm your sister. It exploded from there. I was overwhelmed. The fact that I had four siblings who knew about me their entire life. There's this letter waiting for me at work.

You know, this is late at night and I hadn't been to my work in over a year, and I said, Oh, I have to go get that letter. And I went that night, it was like midnight. I went in and got this letter and I'm very sentimental and so I just carefully opened it up and it was such a beautiful letter. And she said: I am ready for anything you want.

Relationships, stories, and there are just so many coincidences and remarkable events that we realized happen in no particular order. After college in Washington DC, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had the idea of bicycling across the country one day, and this was before the Internet.

I didn't know if anybody had ever bicycled across country. I don't know if it was possible, but anyway, the idea kept on growing and growing. Eventually, I bicycled across country. It was 4,400 miles and it was such an epic, wonderful trip. And it was the first and only time I really spent any sustained time by myself.

And it was physical, it was spiritual. It was just hour after hour in this beautiful landscape, all back roads. The coincidence ends up where I pull into Seattle. August 1, 1990. I meet a friend from college who's living there, and we go to a nice little dive bar that still exists here called The Comet.

And so we have a few drinks and I'm happy to be in Seattle. I'm happy to be off the road and to explore my new life in Seattle. Turns out, when I met my birth mom last year we're sitting down, me and my wife Stephanie, and Irene, my birth mom, and we're just having a wonderful time talking with one another and she's just bighearted and speaking in poems and she's gleaming and she's just a beautiful woman.

Everything was popping up and one of the things that popped up. She said, Yeah, I've lived in Seattle since 1989. I moved there in 1990, and I said, Well, sometimes I would go to The Comet back in 1990. And she said, Oh, that's where me and my girlfriend would go after our work shift in 1990.

So my salmon senses, not only on a bicycle, took me from DC all the way to her home city where she was living, but it took me to her favorite bar at that time that first night.

And there's been these types of weird little coincidences unfolding ever since. My half-sister works just a mile down the road from me. They've lived in and around Seattle for years. We've passed each other probably too many times to count, but never knew it.

When you're an adopted person, you sometimes just wonder how close have I come to my people? Have I passed them on the subway? You'll scan the bus and you'll look for details that might look like you, and that says nothing about your family. I love the family I grew up with.

It's just, it's like wanting to know, people wanting to know their ancestry. It's the same thing for adopted people. They want to know their story. And I love stories. I worked in the local TV station for like 20 years and I just wrote stories. So this was a story I wanted to know.

I had a deep feeling that my birth mom was this remarkable woman, because my mom, my adopted mom, who I call my mom. She gave me some background information. Your birth mom, she got pregnant and then she ended up in DC and I was like, Wow, that's a real adventure. And you see what a commitment that is to turn your life upside down to go across country.

And for some reason, I just knew she was doing it because she had this big heart. Because otherwise you just go to the fastest place, you go somewhere and you leave and like you go to, I don't know, somewhere, California, but she did this whole journey and it turns out, I found out later she found refuge with her grandmother who knew what was going on with her, but didn't ask and she didn't pass any judgment.

And she felt very safe with the grandma in Texas. So her journey was from Bozeman. Down to the Alamo in Texas and then eventually up to Washington, DC, and for some reason, I firmly believe I feel the connection between her. I think that journey that we took across country, it lives in my body.

I think I picked up on her sense of adventure, her sense of she was a kid that was in over her head, but still determined to figure out the best route forward. So her cross-country trip was a little different than mine, but 23 years later, I just went right back the other way towards her.

She listened to her inner voice and she just trusted. She didn't know where it was all going to end.

I didn't know that I was born at Georgetown University until I talked to her. You know, I'm 55 years old, and I just knew I was born in Washington, DC. I thought I was born at the St. Anne's Orphanage, but it turns out I was born at Georgetown University and that's where I went to school and I lived across from the hospital when I was in school there. And I would pass that all the time.

So she's a wonderful woman and it's been such a great delight to connect with her. She lives in Olympia. I'm in Seattle and we see each other and text each other and we send each other cards. I know it sounds cosmic and kooky, but I feel the connection with her even when we're talking and, you know, I really appreciate that.

You know, along with the story, I have the journalist in me working at an old TV station here who was like, Well, okay, who's the dad? And at that first visit when we're sitting on our couch in Olympia, she just straight out told me. Well, his name's Michael Beldon, we can use his name cause he's, as it turns out, he's a proud papa now.

So I grew up the youngest of three, found out a year and a half ago I'm also the oldest of five. And then when I reach out to this gentleman, Michael Belden, who lives in Arizona, I'm expecting rejection again. But we're on a road trip, my wife and I are on a road trip, and it just surfaced to me and it's like, well, he's probably 80.

I should probably call him. And so I did call him. Stephanie went in to get some groceries and I called him from the van and I said, Hey, this is a weird call. Is this Michael Belden? He goes, Yep. And I go, Well, you might not wanna talk to me, but I'm your biological, and I didn't get the word “son” out. And then he's like, Oh my god, my boy.

And he's crying just like he's such a bighearted, sappy, wonderful guy. And it was so funny to just be like another flood of happiness, and unexpected. I didn't plan it out. I didn't think I was going to call him until this voice was just like, Okay. It didn't subside. So I called him.

Turns out he was pretty sick. His friend reached out to me the next day and I could tell there's something wrong with him, but he was being a tough guy, and he was like, No, I'm fine. Anyway, his friend said, Look, we think he's in real dire straits, but he's living alone in Arizona and if there's any way you could make a U-turn, we were in Utah, make a U-turn and check in on him.

And I didn't have to think twice. There was no other choice. I wanted to make sure he was okay. And so I called my brother, my adopted brother, Michael, because we were going to meet and I said, Hey, I just found my birth father and he might need some help. And he's like, Go for it. So I have a really supportive family and we went down there and I go up to his door and it's 110 degrees out.

And I knock on the door and I see where I get some of my kookiness. He answers, he's a little bit sick and tired, but he's so happy that I came down and he enters in his underwear. So my first hug with my biological dad is just, you know, he's built like a rock.

It's so funny. Both my birth parents are 5’4” and I'm six foot half an inch. And he's built like a knuckle, like a rock. And that's why I'm hugging this naked man and he bounced back after that. He's 80 and he's doing really well and his health has just shot up this last year and a half.

And I check in on him and he's got a wonderful friend who lives on the east coast who checks in on him. And he's just so happy to have a boy. It's like his happiest thing. He's always calling me up, and he's also a writer.

So I have an adopted father who's a writer. I have a biological father who's a writer. I was a writer for more than 20 years at a local TV station.

So I found all these details. My birth mother went to DC. She really excelled in that city. It was so funny to see she was this young, beautiful woman showing me pictures of places that I grew up in and it's so wild to see my birth mom was living just about four blocks from my first house where I was growing up.

Haley Radke: I'm curious how it's been for you to move from someone who said, I had these passive wonderings to now having real humans in your life, extra bonus relationships with all these people. It can be so overwhelming.,

Ethan Ferkiss: Well, yeah, I appreciate that question.

You know, my birth mom Irene said we had such a lovely time connecting one-on-one with Stephanie there, my wife, and then she said, We're gonna have a party for you. And she looked at me, paused, made sure we had eye contact, and she said, Get ready for the tsunami. And so she knew that connecting with her is amazing.

And then it is overwhelming. There's so many people. And at that first party it was amazing to be in a room filled with relatives and seeing everybody's jawline and nose and eyebrows and short legs and long torsos. And I'm like, Oh my God, this is a whole room of us. And they’re all wonderful. And this is all first draft for all of us.

They welcome me with open arms, but there's also this part where it's almost, you've really gotta breathe cause all I had prepared myself for was the possibility of “I'm not ready to meet you.” And I would've been fine with that.

I wasn't ready to have this big family welcome. And it sounds like it's the hugest blessing and I know it's the best kind of problem to have, but it was still a little disorienting because I'm kind of a solitary guy and I have a small circle and I grew up with a small circle, and that's where my comfort zone is.

And I've actually had really wonderful conversations one-on-one. My first conversation with Suzanne, the oldest daughter, my half-sister, was about three hours and it was wonderful. And then I've had a wonderful conversation with another sister, one-on-one, when I took her to the airport.

My favorite times have been when we've had a chance to talk one-on-one. You know, when you're with a family, there's a group dynamic with any family that's established and there's behaviors and trying to crack that is disorienting. But each person has been wonderful to talk with.

I realized at one point I was so discombobulated by how do I navigate this feeling? And it's just so much. Not much in a bad way, I just mean I don't know how to fold it in and it's so much information. It's like trying to read an encyclopedia in a day, like you just can't, so I realized I needed to just internally make some soft boundaries so I could make sure I'm still in my heart.

Because honestly, one thing about me, I got out of my heart. So my mom, my adopted mom died when I was 14. She was the one person who was, her life and death were very pivotal for me, because her life was just everything to me. And then she died suddenly and I went external. I had nobody safe to help me navigate through this grief.

My father, as accomplished as he was as an academic, just wasn't available in the relationships, which is typical of his generation. And so I, and also at the time in the early eighties, you're supposed to just move on, you know, and I'm a processor. I need to process, I need somebody to talk this through.

I need to know where I'm at. And I didn't have somebody to process that through. And it was so confusing for me. So then after my mom's death, like I said earlier, she helped me harness this adoptive energy that lives in our bodies when you're adopted. So not only did I have the unprocessed grief of her loss, because I didn't get a safe place for me to grieve and then I just stuffed it all down.

And then I also had this amorphous adoptive energy because without my mom's presence it was just kind of getting diffused. I got through high school and college on the surface. Great. But emotionally was I rooted in my heart as fully as I could be? No, I knew I was a kind of a mess at points.

Sometimes I just start crying and I was like, what is wrong with me? I didn't beat myself up too much, but I knew something was wrong and I think the bicycle trip across country was my way of just saying, Hey, I need time to myself. I love adventure.

And so that gave me the time and space and that gave me my first recognition that I was living externally, like trying to accommodate somebody else or trying to make somebody else like you or whatever, you know.

I was scrambling to get my father to be a team. But he wasn't available for that. So by the time I hit 22, 23, I finally started to take a hold. I need to do something. I need to start examining some stuff inside of me. Because the past will stay present until you process it.

I try to explain to people I love and care for who say, Well, I just don't wanna live in the past. And I firmly believe that the past will live in you until you process it. And I was a young kid, when nowadays if you're 14 and your mom dies tragically, suddenly, there's a lot of support.

There's a lot of recognition. The narrative has changed, and people know that you need to process it, think about it, acknowledge it. And it was the early eighties for me, so I didn't have that. And that's where I felt a little bit like, Oh, I'm slowly, softly trying to figure out how to fit into this external world.

And I was placing me out of my body. I didn't know how to navigate through it. So I could tell I'm coming out of my body. Because it was so overwhelming and it's, again, not anything against them. Everyone is doing their absolute best and they've been nothing but great. But I realized, Hey, I need to just softly say, if you want to get to know me, let's get together one-on-one and do it.

And my birth mom Irene even recognized that. I think there was a push to have a big party before I even met her first. There was a push to have a big party and we both said, no, no, no, no. Because real connection happens one-on-one, getting to know people one-on-one.

And like I said, every time I've had it, conversation one-on-one, with all of my half-siblings. I've had a chance to talk with my half-sisters. I haven't had a real chance yet to talk with my half-brother, but you know, everyone goes on a different timeline and I'm trying to just respect and figure out what everybody needs on their end, too.

I don't know what it brings up on their end. Even the most awesome reunion opens up a floodgate of dynamics that you have to navigate, and if you want to do it, seat it in your heart and you just have to take it slow. I hadn't prepared for that. I thought I just had to prepare to understand if they didn't want to reach out to me.

That's what I prepared for. Again, it sounds like I'm complaining about a real blessing because it has been a blessing. I'm trying to just emphasize the fact that as we fold people in, you just have to listen to yourself and make sure you're doing it in a way that you remain in your heart. Because I don't know if this is something that happens when you've had tragedy in your life or if I know that it happens when you're adopted.

A lot of people can disassociate when the external world doesn't make sense. I know that's common in a lot of adoptees, I think I'm prone to that. I slowed down a little bit just so that I could speed up the process of getting to know them.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing about the challenges, because I think that's what really gets glossed over in a lot of conversations.

And even with the good, like it really can bring about, I mean, just meeting one birth parent is completely life shifting, and so navigating that on its own, but having all of these extra layers, even if it's all love and joy and you know, wanted good things, it's so much for one person, especially if you don't have anyone else to talk about it with.

Like, right, because I can hear you. I can hear you saying, no, no, but, it's good. Because you don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, and yet it's hard.

Ethan Ferkiss: Right. I don't fear I'm going to hurt their feelings. I just have a real hard time explaining. I was a writer. I could write this stuff much better than I can talk it.

So if I was slowing down and overexplaining, it's just when all of a sudden a lone wolf needs his pack of 50 beautiful people, you're still going to need your lone wolf time a little bit.

And fortunately, really blessedly, I have this dynamic that adoptees have that some people talk about getting out of the fog. You know, I was in the fog for a long time, compounded with the grief of my mom. And then when you only cope with it in not the healthiest ways because that becomes kind of a habit and you just push your feelings away and then at some point you don't even know how to navigate through your feelings and you're just lost.

And I had patterns I would repeat in the fog. I would have this coping mechanism. I didn't want to get too close with anybody in an intimate way, a real heartfelt way, because that was just too scary. So either I would sabotage it or I'd find somebody who truly wasn't available. So it was the two sides of the same coin, but it's all the same drama, the same play that can be played out because we just can't.

It's too scary to go to your heart. One thing that I had with Stephanie that I've never had with anybody else is we find each other after challenging moments and our love grows. And so now here we are, 15 years in, and I now have the environment and security of a loving relationship that puts my heart at ease.

I learned how to love myself and it was a struggle. I learned to truly love someone else and accept her and she with me and that puts you in a position to start truly exploring other aspects of your life. I listened to your guests and so many of them are doing this incredible effort to, you know, to journey back home, the hero's journey.

Everyone has their own individual hero’s journey and all it is is just figuring out how to get back to the basics of your heart. And, you know, I have to admit it. It is hard to talk about. We live in a society where nobody wants to talk about hard stuff. And I appreciate your show a lot. I appreciate books I've read because we are human, we're frail, we can get derailed.

And I know I felt like I was on fumes by the time I was 22 or 23, and I still struggled. I still repeated coping patterns throughout my thirties and forties that worked as a kid to get through. But just over 15 years ago, I got out of a relationship and my coping mechanisms are no longer working.

I'm a mess. I've got to figure this out. And I was able to like, finally, I had some footing cause I guess it's the cliche rock bottom. I was just like, this is not working. So I've been climbing out, but it's only been like the last 15 years that I've made sustained progress and it is that for any listener who isn't familiar with this energy that adoptees hold. I didn't know about it when I was a kid, and so you just think there's something kind of crazy about you, but it's this pre-verbal energy that's in your body. And until you have a framework, thanks to your show, you can't start exploring what it truly is.

And then so often when I couldn't sleep before. You know, I have battles of insomnia and I wouldn't really dread it. I would just look at it as an opportunity to explore what's going on inside of me. It was sort of like Encyclopedia Brown or Sherlock Holmes and having the love of Stephanie, we recognize that we could help each other grow, and when we find each other, it's just amazing, always.

So that's helped me get out of the fog, finding somebody who is honest and just as raw sometimes, and willing to come back and admit when, you know, I'll just start from scratch or admit when we may be overstepped or something, and take it from there.

Haley Radke: I know that you have this storyteller's mind. How have you used that? Have you to unpack some of your adoption stuff or the grief of the loss of your mom as well?

Ethan Ferkiss: You know, I am still in this process. Like this family reunion has just happened in the last year and a half, and I'm trying to figure out how, in terms of writing or some type of something to share with others, I don't know where I'm at in terms of that.

I mean, I should, this stuff does need to get written down at some point, but what I do is I just take long walks with my dogs. I'm writing the story in my head and heart still, and I'm trying to just process it through my body and I just try to listen to myself and it's a story for myself and for people I care about.

And I reached out to your show because I would listen to your show at night and fall asleep to it. And not everything reverberates. Everyone has individual unique portions, but it resonated enough that it shook free this energy one night where this is going to sound kooky, but we speak in words, which is intellectual, but our body speaks in something different.

And for the one and only time in my life, I really felt, Oh my God, that was what it felt like to be separated from your mom. Cause you know, you're with your mom for nine months and you're just the same heart rhythms, everything. And then one day, you're in her arms and then you're not. And my body was speaking to me when I could feel this and it was overwhelming and I wasn't victimized by it or anything.

I was just soaking it all in. I was like, Oh, that's what that baby felt. And it was because I was able to loosen it up, because other people are talking about it. Your guests are writing it in their books. I couldn't listen to what was inside of me for years because it was too chaotic and I didn't even know how to orient myself.

But now that I've got some tools, it's not so scary. And then you just have to listen. The story's still being written inside of me and how I'm processing it and maybe we'll see where it goes from there.

Haley Radke: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story and so much of the ups and downs and for telling us about your mom. I appreciate that.

I wanted to recommend a couple things, but do you want to start today? What do you want to recommend to us?

Ethan Ferkiss: Well, I've been saying it, all the books that other guests have mentioned are great: The Primal Wound, The Body Keeps the Score, You Don't Look Adopted. But once you do that, I think at some point I would recommend taking time to listen to your inner voice.

I know that sounds hokey, but it could be late at night. So if you're having insomnia, maybe don't dread that you're having insomnia. Maybe your body's just trying to loosen something up and listen to it. And so that's been my greatest resources.

Respecting, recognizing an inner voice and trying to see what it's telling me. It's actually led me a great life. When I was 23 and I was bicycling across country and all I ever wanted was a beautiful little home, somebody to love, and, you know, my health to explore. And I have everything I want.

And that was the result of listening to my inner voice. And that would be my recommendation is do your best to listen to your inner voice.

Haley Radke: I love how you shared that through the interview and you're also following in your biological mother's footsteps. Like literally. So that's really special. Yeah, no, I think that's a good call.

Okay. Well I love that you mentioned one of Anne Heffron's books, cause I have two recommendations. The first one is a new book that she put out this year. It's called Truth and Agency: Writing Ideas for Adopted People.

So if you are wanting to write, but you're struggling a little bit, this one has tons of prompts and ideas and you can just, you know, flip to any page and start there. You can read it front to back. Either way it is so fully Anne. I mean it's lovely. So it's called Truth and Agency: Writing Ideas for Adopted People and the other book that's brand new this year. I've just been meaning to recommend but I haven't had a chance because I got it in the summer.

It's a book of poetry and it's by Sun Yung Shin. She has a number of books of poetry available, but this came out in 2022 and it's called The Wet Hex. She is a Korean adoptee and this book is beautifully written and thoughtful and full of challenging ideas. You need to read it slow. And there's a whole section that also has drawings that go along with it that's very interesting and provocative.

It's one of the best books of poetry I've read lately. And so it's called The Wet Hex. It's 10 out 10. Love it. So yes, those are my two books to recommend.

Ethan Ferkiss: I'll check 'em out. That sounds great.

Haley Radke: Wonderful. Where can we connect with you online?

Ethan Ferkiss: Well, I do have Twitter, it's Ethan Ferkiss and Instagram. If you wanna see a bunch of videos of my puppies.

Haley Radke: Always. We love dog videos.

Ethan Ferkiss: Yes. So that's Ethan in Seattle, all one word. And I am on Facebook. Just look me up under my name, Ethan Ferkiss. And if anybody wants to talk about reunions or what they're going through, it's such a treat to be able to talk to a fellow adoptee.

And so, yes, I would love to hear from anybody who's interested.

Haley Radke: Absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing with us. I really appreciate it.

Ethan Ferkiss: Thank you. I appreciate it too.

Haley Radke: I think it takes so much courage to share your reunion story, whether you are a year and a half in or 10 years in, if we're lucky enough to get a reunion. We're all kind of just like figuring it out as we go. So it's such an honor to be able to share these with you and, you know, Ethan was kind enough to say he listened to so many of your stories on Adoptees On and that helped him process through things.

So I hope his story now will pay that forward to you if that's something that you connect with. Another way you can help the show continue and help more adoptees feel supported when they're going through these things that no one else is talking about is joining our community. adopteeson.com/community.

You can join our monthly Patreon. There's a Facebook group for supporters. There's weekly episodes where I talk with my friends about what's going on, either in the news about adoption stuff or just our personal lives navigating through adoption things, or we're talking about adoption reform or spicy takes on whatever pop culture or books are talking about adoption and getting it wrong.

We do all of those things. We also have an adoptee-centric book club where we read books written by fellow adoptees, and that is one of my favorite things that we do. There's so many amazing recorded events that are available on Patreon as well with adoptee authors and fellow adoptees discussing these books.

So again, we'd love to have your support, adopteeson.com/community, and join us over there and we can talk more adoption. Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.

187 Dr. Liz DeBetta

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/187

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Haley: You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is episode 187, Dr. Liz DeBetta. I'm your host Haley Radkey. We are coming to our summer break. What better note to end on than this encouraging episode with Dr. Liz DeBetta. Liz has been on the podcast before and shared her story of coming to her late thirties before examining the impact adoption had on her life.

Today, though, we are strictly diving into one of her areas of expertise, which is using writing as a tool for healing. Writing is accessible. It has physical, emotional, and mental health benefits. Writing can help us create a new narrative for ourselves. Liz recently led a group of adoptees through a transformative writing group, and she shares with us some tools we can use to start our own writing practice.

We wrap up with some recommended resources and, as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, www.adopteeson.com. Let's listen in. I am so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On Dr. Liz DeBetta. Welcome Liz.

Liz DeBetta: Hi Haley. So good to be here.

Haley: I'm so excited to talk to you. The last time we talked was episode 118, so you can scroll back. You were still working on your dissertation, so I was so, like, pumped when you put “Dr.” on your paperwork because you're done. Woo!

Liz DeBetta: Yes, it's true. I got done in, you know, in the midst of the pandemic.

Haley: So you're still planning the party then?

Liz DeBetta: Yeah, we had a Zoom party with a bottle of champagne and some takeout sushi and a few friends on Zoom and that was pretty much it. So yeah, there hasn't been a big in-person celebration yet, but a good excuse to have one.

Haley: That's right. Absolutely. I'm going to point people back to that episode to hear some of your story and the background on how you got to doing some of the things we're going to be talking about today. But I would love it if you just give us a little intro into who you are, and how you got to the point where we are now for adoptees to be writing as a method of healing.

Liz DeBetta: I have been writing since about the age of 14. I had a really smart, insightful teacher and coach who knew that I was going through some stuff. I can't, I don't recall if at the time he knew that I was adopted.

I'm pretty sure that he did. But either way, he knew that I was dealing with some really big feelings, and so he suggested I start writing poetry, which at 14 years old, I really thought was the dumbest thing in the world. Because poetry, like, who writes poetry? Come on. And then one day, we were sitting in his office and he read me this poem that he had written for his college girlfriend and the poem was called “Blue Fire.”

I'll never forget it. It was a poem that he wrote while he was on a date with his girlfriend. He had taken her to see the ballet, which was her favorite thing. And he spent more time watching her watch the ballet than watching the ballet himself. And he wrote this poem about it. And I was profoundly moved by this experience of this man sharing this poem with me.

And then from that moment I was like, oh, maybe this isn't so dumb. So I got a little colorful journal notebook and I started writing. And at the time I didn't know why I felt the way I felt. I didn't know why. I was depressed, I was sad, I was angry, I was confused, I was scared.

All these things. And I just wrote, and it was for me. I never shared any of that with anyone. And so I did that for a lot of the years. Any time the world got too much for me, or my own feelings got too much for me, I would just go to my notebooks and I would write. And stuff just sort of came out.

It wasn't anything that I was ever really super conscious of. Yeah, I mean, it is a conscious process, but I also feel like there's something really unconscious about a lot of the writing that I was doing, especially early on. And I have a theory about that, which I'm still playing with just from an academic, theoretical, scholarly standpoint.

But anyway, I did all this writing and, in retrospect, it really helped keep me balanced. It helped me organize the really intense feelings that I had. And gave them some place to live other than inside me.

And so, fast forward, all of these years later, when I got into my PhD program, I didn't really know where that journey was going to take me, but I did know that I was really interested in continuing to pursue creative writing as one part of it.

And one of the courses that I got to take in my program was Poetry for Healing. And it's a whole field. There's a whole field of poetry and writing for healing that I didn't even know was a thing. And I was like, this is the thing I've been doing my whole life. I've been using poems to help myself manage the difficult stuff.

And so then, when I learned about all of that and I learned that there are actually physical and emotional and mental health benefits to writing through grief, writing through pain, writing through trauma. Writing about it and making sense of it. I was like, oh, this is so exciting. And again this is the thing I've been doing.

And so then, as I moved toward thinking about my dissertation, which was a creative dissertation, I decided that I wanted to do an exploration of some of my early writing. And as I looked back through some of my first poems,

Haley: Because you kept all your journals and things, right?

Liz DeBetta: Yes, of course I did. And I will tell you something. Not one of them is finished. They are all from different parts of my life and I have never completely filled one of them. And I think there's something really telling about that, because I think we're always on a journey and we're always unfinished, right? So it's a metaphor for that, I think, in those notebooks.

But yeah, so I started going through these early poems and I could very clearly see all of my pain and my grief and my trauma and my loss and my confusion. It was all there, right? I started looking at the language and the images that I was constantly using and the mood. And the tone of so many of those poems was really dark and just a lot like a feeling of being lost and having all these questions.

So there was an implication of all these questions, but never finding any answers. So it was really interesting to start to look at that and then to look at how to take those early poems and create a new narrative. So a big part of my dissertation project was a one-woman show where I incorporated some of my early poems and then some newer poems where I was rewriting parts of my story that were still unknown to me.

So like questions about the circumstances of my birth, for example. I didn't have any answers about that. I didn't have any information about that, right? So many of us don’t. And so some of the more recent poems were about just me reimagining what the night I was born was like.

And so I created this whole narrative that was punctuated by all of these poems to tell a story about what it's like to live with the trauma of being adopted in a patriarchal society that's disadvantageous to women and children, right? That says that two parents are better than one, and that a young single woman is irresponsible and shouldn't be able to keep her baby, right? And of course, lots of these things are generational, but they're still happening. So it was really important to use art and the creative process to tell a story publicly that people need to hear. So I guess that's it in a large nutshell.

Haley: I've heard you speak about writing as a public testimony and it's interesting that your project was this one-woman show where it's literally giving a public testimony. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I don't think, of course, not all of our writing will be performed and you are an actor. You have got a theater background as well. So there's that piece for you.

Liz DeBetta: So in some of the research about creativity, using creativity to heal trauma, Dr. Sophia Richmond writes about creative transformations of trauma, and one of the things that comes up in her work is this idea that the art, whatever it is, whether it's a poem or a piece of personal narrative writing or a painting or a drawing or a piece of music that is composed. Whatever form the art takes becomes a container for the artist to put the trauma into and to reshape it and to fashion it into something.

And then that's one part of the way that we start to heal, when we can put our feelings into something outside of ourselves. So the poem, the one-woman show, the whatever. And then the other piece of healing, at least according to her, is having that art witnessed and sharing it publicly.

And that also comes up a lot, there's a lot of connections to that in lots of the other research. It is this idea of not only writing or creating, but then giving it to someone else and saying, here, witness this. Because I'm heard and I'm seen, and also the act of public performance is, I don't want to get too theoretical, but it is another way of creating empathy, right?

Because when you are a performer or a speaker, when your body is in physical space with an audience, the audience members are part of that experience with you for the time that it's happening, and they can't turn away, right? Like they've chosen to be there. They've chosen to sit there in this live experience, to take in what is happening, right?

And to engage with my body as it tells the story. And what happens is then that space, that theatrical space becomes a container for empathy and for critical thinking. And so part of the process for me then was also a couple of audience talkbacks where people got to ask questions.

Not only about the writing and the performance process, but like my own experience, and why I chose to tell this story. And what it ended up doing for a lot of people was shifting their perspectives and having many people say, I had no idea. I never thought about adoption this way.

I had one woman who grew up with adopted siblings and she said, I have this much better understanding now of what was going on, like why my family dynamic was the way that it was. It's probably because my siblings were going through some of the things you described in this performance and none of us knew.

Haley: How does that feel for you personally to know that you got to shift someone's narrative.

Liz DeBetta: That's exactly why I do this work. That's the thing that became really important to me. The more that I worked on my PhD and my dissertation study was like, okay, I can take all of these parts of myself, right?

I can take my background as a theater artist and my background as a writer and a teacher, and a thinker, and I can smash them together in a really unique way to do something positive in the culture of adoption. Because the more that I studied all of the literature, the scholarly literature, I was like, nobody's telling these stories.

And we know in the adoptee community, we know how often we're silenced. We know how often, “but what about…”; and people speaking for us and about us. And so it was part of my own healing process to do this important work, but also I look at it as an act of cultural mediation and cultural healing, right?

If we don't start to tell these stories and make people listen, then nothing's going to change. So it's really affirming to have people, multiple people, after they've watched my show say, Wow, I have totally changed my perspective. So that's why this work is so important, and that's why every opportunity that we have to get adoptees’ voices centered and telling our stories, we should. Because I think the time is well past when we should be paying attention. It's 2021 and, like, we gotta get comfortable talking about trauma. Like we can't. Sorry, but sorry, not sorry.

Haley: It's time.

Liz DeBetta: Yep. Yeah,

Haley: I have this Adoptees On Healing Series where I'm always talking with therapists about various things related to trauma and healing and things.

And, you've used the word healing and I'm curious what that means for you. What things have shifted for you or changed for you as you've written poetry and literally studied this and performed and all of those things. Do you feel like healing happening? What is “healing,” what does that mean for you?

Liz DeBetta: I think, healing, one of the things that I wrote and I say in the show is that healing is not a linear process. For me it's been concentric and twisting and turning in on itself. And because it's a journey, right? And it takes different paths at different times.

But for me, what I've come to realize, especially over the last couple of years, is that healing is about finding wholeness. About finding ways to feel whole and to feel real and to feel grounded. To not feel like I'm gonna fly off in a million parts, which is another thing that I wrote. This constant feeling of I'm gonna fly away into a million parts. If I don't keep control, right?

And yeah, a lot of the healing comes through owning these parts of my story and really sitting with the feelings, I, and I think a lot of adoptees, can relate to dissociating and not feeling, and not wanting to feel, and being afraid to feel or being taught our feelings aren't valid. And so we just shove them down and pretend everything's okay, and then we don't know. We don't know what's okay and not okay. It just becomes a mess. And I have that experience of really not feeling and sort of existing in a numb but overactive space for a long time.

In terms of my experience of my body. So a big part of healing, too, for me has come in having a new experience of my body. And learning to stay in my body, to be present, to feel safe, to not want to escape all the time. And that was a big part of why the performance aspect of my dissertation project was important because the performing and the living through the words that I had written and through the story I was telling and really experiencing all that in my body through the rehearsal process and through the performance process helped start to move trauma too.

I started to feel different, like I would finish rehearsals and things would hurt. And yes, it was a very physically active show. I did a lot of movement and breath work and stuff, but, like, things hurt. My hips hurt. And that's a place where we know that trauma gets stored. And I started to notice the places, the sort of what I call holding patterns, right? Like my default holding patterns where I was like, oh, I have held my hips and my gut and this whole center of my body really tightly for my whole life.

And now I can start to release that. I can let it go. So it's also feeling those physical changes that tells me that I'm healing. And then I guess another big thing that's happened is I've been doing EMDR, too, for the last couple of years, so that's been a really good companion to all of this other work.

But the way that I don't have my recurring nightmares anymore, and I know that a lot of adopted people have these sort of very similar recurring nightmares around searching for something that we never find. And that's certainly been my big recurring dream of looking for someone or something and spending the whole dream panicking and not being able to find whatever it is or whoever it is I'm looking for.

Or starting out the dream with my partner and then getting separated and then never being able to find him again. And now when I have this dream, it resolves itself and by the end of the dream, we're back together. And to me that's huge.

Haley: That is huge. Wow. That's amazing. Thank you for sharing all those things.

I am doing EMDR again, like I'm really in depth right now, but I feel often scared of writing. Even privately because I am worried about the things that are gonna come out, it's like admitting things to yourself. But that’s just my personal note. I know that you ran a group for seven weeks with other adult adoptees and were leading them through all of these different writing prompts and different exercises, and I would love it if you would talk a little bit about that because I think it's such an amazing thing to talk about, writing on your own. But then you've brought in this other aspect of writing in community and what that could do for people.

Liz DeBetta: Yes, I think it's really important for people to write and writing is scary, right? You're not the first person. You know, yes. You have to confront things, right? But it's also a way of getting it out. And so for the group that I just worked with for seven weeks, I was really interested in creating a space, an adoptee-only space, and creating an opportunity, as you say, to write in community. And what we, I called the group migrating toward wholeness.

Because, like I said, that's healing. I think, for me as an adoptee and for a lot of other adoptees, especially as adults, is to try to move toward a sense of wholeness. And so the group was comprised of 11 other adoptees. Aged from their mid-twenties up through their sixties. So we had multiple generations represented.

I specifically chose domestic closed adoption adoptees for this first group because I was interested in seeing what the commonalities in our experiences might be despite the age differences. Just from a researcher’s standpoint.

Haley: And that's your personal experience as well.

Liz DeBetta: Yeah, exactly, that's my personal experience. And I am a creative person and a facilitator, a sort of guide. And this aspect of social justice, like this is real social justice work when we can create spaces for adoptees to come together and find ways to tell their stories and to heal in community.

Whether the writing that gets done gets shared publicly or not is a side bonus. But there was the act of writing and sharing in the small group, because we were witnessing one another for those seven weeks. We got together every Saturday for seven weeks for two hours. The first week, people just shared their stories and we just listened to each other.

And from that first session everything was really emergent. I didn't really pre-plan a lot because I wanted to work with who was in the room with me. Who was there and what was I hearing and what did I think people needed to start to think about and write about.

And so the prompts came out of things that people were saying, the questions that I posed to them. Each week we had two sets of questions. There was a set of writing questions and then a set of writing prompts. So those were just some direct quotes followed by ellipses that they could just finish the sentence and keep going.

Or, several questions that came up related to things people said, related to the experiences that were shared. And then I also offered them each week four questions for reflection, because one of the important things to do is not only to write about the experiences and start to discover what you need to say, but also to reflect on it. Like what's happening as I write, as I'm working through this process, like, what's going on in my body, right?

Am I sleeping better? Does my breathing shift? Things like that. And also there were some things that were really hard for people to write about. Because for some people this was the first time they were giving themselves permission to write about being adopted and their feelings and, like, go there, right?

So to your point, Haley, like some of them were like, I saw this and I was like, this is scary, but I'm gonna do it. They jumped in and what happened was incredible. It was an incredible process and we wished it didn't have to end. We ended up adding an additional session because by the time we got to six weeks, we were like, okay, we need more time.

We need a little bit more time together. And for some people, this was the beginning of creating space to feel what they need to feel. What they've been told has not been okay to feel. And many of us know that something really special happens when adoptees come together in adoptee-only spaces. It's automatically a safe space.

So, I think I talked a little bit about this in the presentation that we did after the seven weeks with the group, but it is this idea of reflective resonance, which we as adoptees do automatically. When we listen to one another's stories we're not listening to respond.

We're listening to hear. And to be supportive and to be empathetic and say, yeah. What I'm hearing you say is, this is really hard for you. Or, this has been a really challenging way to go through life. What happens, usually, because we're socially conditioned to listen, to respond, which is not reflective resonance.

And so this happened so much as adoptees, when we try to speak in other spaces that are not exclusively adoptees, we get spoken to, we get spoken over. People are not listening to us and reflectively resonating with us. They're not going, “Oh wow, that sounds so hard.” They're going, “Oh, but not all adoptees.”

Or, “but what about the adoptive parents?” And this is something that comes up a lot, like in conversations I have with my own parents, which is incredibly frustrating at times. But I give my parents a lot of credit because they've also been on this journey with me for the last couple of years, and they're trying. They're really listening and they want to know, and they want to understand, and they feel bad that they didn't know 40 plus years ago what they know now.

And I know that it's incredibly difficult for them to listen and to hear. Anyway, back to my point about this idea of reflective resonance. I think we do this instinctively as adoptees where we just listen. We're here and we can be mirrors for one another.

And so I think a lot of this work, part of the healing comes in the more that we can create adoptee-centric spaces, I hope that there will be a shift in this to more widespread reflective resonance where people can start to receive the stories. But the first step is creating spaces where we feel safe together, and that creates that community of braveness.

Right? And the ability to explore the feelings. Knowing I'm sitting here with 11 other adult adoptees whose experiences very closely mirror my own, despite the fact that we're in different parts of the United States, grew up in very different circumstances, in different decades. But here we are saying so many of the same things.

That gives me permission, or anyone who participated in the group, the permission to really go there and to have the opportunity to not be afraid to dive in. And that's really powerful.

Haley: I was just asked about this and the person challenged me, or adoptees, asking what is this adoptee activism thing? Are we just in an echo chamber? And my response was I feel like we're practicing on each other and building up the muscles. And I love that you said bravery because it takes courage to share our story wholly. That is against the traditional narrative. Knowing that the responses we've gotten in the past may continue, the “but what about” and “I don't believe you” and all those kinds of things.

So building the muscles in order to share outside starts out with having the safe space. I love this reflective resonance, I love that term. It's so perfect. And could you speak a little more on having an intergenerational group? Because when we share stories on this show and there are younger adoptees or older adoptees and some of them will say I was in the Baby Scoop. Or you identify yourself by that sort of generation. But what was it like to have people from different decades participating and speaking to each other in that way?

Liz DeBetta: I think it was really important. I think what it did was it showed us that we are not the problem. Right? It showed us that we are not the problem. That the culture of adoption and the system of adoption as it has existed since the mid-1940s is the problem. Because we had adoptees who were in their mid-twenties who were still products of closed adoption.

And adoptees in their sixties who were definitely part of the Baby Scoop who had been really effectively silenced by their generational guilt and the shame. But all of us talked about this guilt and this shame and this needing to fit into a mold. And someone else's idea of who we should be, right?

There was so much crossover in what people said and shared and parts of stories and just the internal experiences. I guess that’s really what I'm talking about is having this multi-generational group of adoptees talking about internal experiences that were very similar.

Haley: And you had only closed domestic adoptions represented in your group. And even when I think of some of the younger adoptees that I've spoken to who were products of an open adoption, that thread continues. So I love that you said that. It's not us. It's not me, it's you, system.

Liz DeBetta: Yeah, exactly.

Haley: Yeah.

Liz DeBetta: And I think it was really empowering and affirming for us to come together and for the younger adoptees to connect with the older adoptees. And again, I think the most profound thing was that for several of the group members, this was the first time they were doing this kind of thing.

And so there was a tremendous amount of trust that they placed in me and in each other that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't adoptees only. And hearing each other share different parts of their stories or pieces of the writing that they were doing from week to week gave other people permission to keep writing and to keep sharing.

Haley: So we've both talked about doing EMDR and various therapy at other points in our lives. And you mentioned your social justice activism, and I'm curious if you have thoughts on the accessibility of writing. And if you think it's accessible and if that makes it just another reason why it's such an important tool. Because of course we can, I've said this on the show before: therapy is inaccessible to a lot of people. It's just very expensive and it's inaccessible sometimes. So can you talk about writing and what your thoughts are on that piece?

Liz DeBetta: Yeah, I love that. And it's so (beep) that therapy is inaccessible for so many people. When so many of us need it, not just adoptees, but so many people in the world. It's a part of our physical health, right? Taking care of our mental health. So we need to do better about that.

But yeah, I do think that writing is accessible to anyone regardless of circumstance or situation or ability because you can get a notebook and a pen or if you have a computer, you can open a Word doc or a Google Doc and type if that's accessible.

If you have some physical limitations, you can speak to text, right? Like you can speak and the technology will type for you. And so I think that recognizing that writing can also be a very private act, right? It doesn't have to be something that you choose to share, but it can be something that you do for yourself because it is therapeutic. Because it helps you give shape to things that feel chaotic. That's in some of the literature about why writing is a therapeutic thing. It’s that when we create a narrative for ourselves, we're giving order to something that formerly felt chaotic.

When we use something specific like poetry, we're getting right to the heart of the emotions, right? We're taking out all the unnecessary language and we're using images to connect to the really deep, intense emotions. That can then help us make sense of them.

An image that I work with a lot has to do with ghosts and tombs and bones and things, and I think that it's really important to not just write the things but then go back and like what? Why did I write this, right? What are the ghosts? And for me, like I know the ghosts come up because we know there are ghosts in the adopted family, right?

Most people hopefully know about Betty Jean Lifton and her work specifically on ghosts in the adopted family. But that actually came up in the group. One of the group members was like, I just learned about this and I was like, yeah, here's the article. But it's true.

We live with these ghosts and so I, as a writer, have to pay attention to what's coming up and what that tells me about my internal experiences and things that maybe I still need to process. But the writing is a process and an act of processing too.

Haley: You've taught us a lot during this whole conversation, but I just want to double down on it, and I think you'll talk to this when we're doing our recommended resources as well, right away, but it's a process. It can be a tool for healing. There's research and it's proven. And even as you were listing off the things that “healing” meant to you and the impact doing this work has had on you, you were mentioning physical, emotional, and mental things that have come about. So it's not “Oh, I'm just gonna scribble in my notebook.” There's meaning behind it and there's things that come out that are really beneficial.

Liz DeBetta: Yeah, I think one of the important things about using writing as a tool for healing is that we're not just word vomit.

We're not just writing that all these terrible things happened. We're describing them, right? Specifically, we're using really deep, detailed descriptions of experiences, and that can come out in, like I said, in the images, in the details that you used to talk about who was there, when was it, what did it feel like?

But then we're also thinking about not only what happened, but how did it make me feel? How did it make me feel then, and how do I feel about it now? And so always like having that sort of conscious process of checking in with ourselves and saying, okay, I am writing, and I need to write about this.

And often that's what happens, right? Is like the feeling, or at least for me anyway, the feeling gets too much and I have to do something with it. I can't keep holding it inside me or it's going to eat me up. I don't want to hold that. I don't want to sit there for a week feeling (beep) inside.

I want to do something. And it comes out as a poem usually. I did this yesterday. I was having a really complicated set of emotions surrounding Memorial Day. My brother, who's also adopted, is a vet. Severe, complex trauma from both being adopted and his time on active duty.

And there's a lot of really complicated stuff going on with him and my family. And we watched Da 5 Bloods on the night before. And that story is about a group of Vietnam vets and one of them said things that were so close to some things that my brother has said, and it hit me really hard.

And I woke up yesterday and I was feeling all of this stuff and I was like, I gotta do something with it. So I wrote a poem to help move some of that stuff, and so that's an active agency too, right? That I can do. That I have control over the things that are going on. I can choose to do something about it.

So I chose to sit down and feel what I was feeling and write it. And that's another reason why writing is both powerful and accessible for everyone. Louise DeSalvo in her book Writing as a Way of Healing says that writing is an act of freedom we often felt we didn't have. She also says that through writing we change our relationship to trauma because we gain confidence in ourselves and our ability to handle life's difficulties.

Through writing and changing our relationship to trauma, we come to a feeling that our lives are more coherent rather than chaotic and that we can solve problems. And she says also that because our writing, our work of art, is a concrete object, it becomes a memorial and a testimony to the resolution of the mourning process.

And so that sort of connects back to what we were talking about earlier with the container, right? Like the poem is the container. And so I'm going through a mourning process of not having a relationship with my brother anymore because he's really damaged and it's really sad.

And he's really angry. And so that poem became the concrete object where I could memorialize and create a testimony to my own grief and that sense of loss around that relationship, but also where it's coming from.

Haley: Thank you for sharing those things. So powerful. Before we do our recommended resources, I'm wondering if you would give the folks listening, a writing prompt or two if they're new to this, if it feels scary to me. One or two things that we could start doing. What's beginner level?

Liz DeBetta: The thing that's popping up right now is two things. I often like to find inspiration in other things. So sometimes like a word or a phrase or part of a sentence from something else that I've read will inspire me, and I'll start with that. So if you have a particular line or quote that speaks to you for some reason, that could be a good way in. Another thing I like are letters. You can write letters to yourself, and this was actually one of the really hard activities. So maybe this is not great, but I'm gonna suggest it anyway.

Like we can write a letter to our younger self. For some of us as adopted people, that's really hard because we still haven't really fully embraced that little person. But it can be really helpful to do that as an exercise, over a week or two weeks or a month. Take 10 minutes every day and engage with that part of yourself and say the things that you needed to hear. Things that maybe never were told to you that you, as your adult self in your full power now, have the ability to say, “Hey, I see you, I'm sitting with you and we're okay.” Or just letters to people that you need to say things to. And you don't ever have to send them. And if it's hard to write in the first person, shift that and write in the third person.

Because then it puts you outside. When you shift.

Haley: You're the observer.

Liz DeBetta: You become the observer instead of in the story, right? And then as it gets easier, then you can shift back. And you can rewrite it in that first person narrative when it feels more comfortable and when it feels less intense.

Haley: I love it. All right, so we got the beginner level and intermediate level.

Liz DeBetta: There you go.

Haley: Oh, that's so good. Okay, what do you want to recommend to us today?

Liz DeBetta: Okay, so there's so many really good books, but what I chose today to share with everyone is a book called Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives by Louise DeSalvo, who's a writing teacher.

And the book is based on 20 years of research that she accumulated in teaching writing and also connected to some of the stuff I talked about earlier. She pulls in a lot of the research, but also her own experience. And what I like about the book is that it's both about the way that writing can help us and it's backed up by the research.

But also she makes sure to continually discuss the idea that we need to have balance when we write. If we're just writing about negative experiences, that's not going to be good for us, right? We need to write both about the negative and the positive and create what she calls balanced narratives.

Each chapter is followed by some writing activities and exercises, so for people that want to start writing and aren't sure how to do it, this is a really nice kind of overview of all the things that we've talked about today, like this idea of using writing for healing and how we do it and why we do it.

Haley: I like that. I like that balanced approach. Because I could see how, if you're just constantly writing all the horrible things, that's what gets stuck, right? You're not shifting anything.

Liz DeBetta: Exactly. Yeah. And that can actually create negative health outcomes. But it's because you get stuck in a negative feedback loop when you’re just focusing on the bad. But actually there's good too, right? There's always good.

Haley: Yes. Thank you. That's great. Fabulous recommendation. You mentioned earlier that you had presented on your seven week group and the outcomes, and I think I've mentioned before on the show this year that the Rudd Adoption Conference was virtual, and so their focus was adopted adults. Connections across generations. And so your presentation was the last one to wrap up this year for 2021. And so I'll make sure to link to that. So you talk more about the group and what's really special, and Rudd actually linked both videos you have. There's two participant videos.

There's a shorter one and a longer one where people in your group are reading some of the work they did with you and some of the writing. It's very powerful. And then they're also a part of your presentation and talking about some of the things you shared today about the impacts and I was there live, on Zoom. I think I was making dinner, but I was listening and it was just wonderful and accessible and really interesting.

And I highly recommend you go and check that out. And the other presentations that Rudd offered are also on their YouTube channel, so I'll link to those things. Then the other thing that you and I have in common, is we're both Adoptees Connect facilitators. And now that, I was just gonna say, now that Covid is wrapping up, I don't know, it's not really everywhere, but a lot of the Adoptees Connect groups are meeting in person again, we're still doing online here in Alberta because, yeah, that's just how it is.

But the founder of Adoptees Connect, Pamela Karanova just announced that they are now planting more groups. So if connecting with other adult adoptees has felt important to you, and if anything, what Liz was sharing about the power of community today felt important to you.

I would encourage you to go to the Adoptees Connect website and see if there's a group near you that you can join. And if not, you're the person. Tag you're it. You can start it. You don't have to be a therapist. You don't have to have any credentials. You have to be an adult adoptee who's willing to connect with other adult adoptees.

And that's been one of great gifts in serving the community and I've felt very blessed by doing it. Meeting new members and we have new people coming all the time to our group. We're still really small, but it's really cool to connect with other adult adoptees, especially people that haven't been in the community before and have no idea about the impact adoption has had on them.

And they're reaching out for resources and you could be the person that starts a group in your area. So I'd recommend you go and check out Adoptees Connect. Do you have any thoughts on Adoptees Connect, Liz?

Liz DeBetta: Yeah, I think that, again, we talk about the importance of adoptee-only spaces and adoptee-centric spaces and Adoptees Connect is one of the really important opportunities that we have to come together in community. It's about building a community where we can just come together and share ourselves and our stories in a non-judgmental, social way.

And we, my group in Salt Lake City, just got together a couple weekends ago for the first time in person after hosting on Zoom off and on throughout the pandemic. And we had two new members. It's been a slow grow for us here over the last couple of years, but people are finding each other and people are coming. I think the more opportunities we have to create community together, I think it's another tool for healing.

And why it's been important for me is that I can bring more people together.

Haley: Absolutely, yes. Thank you. So speaking of that, where can we connect with you online and where can we sign up if we're interested in doing this writing experience with you?

Liz DeBetta: Yeah, so I have a waiting list is the best way to put it. So lots of folks are interested and in order to keep myself sane and organized I will send you the link to the original Google form that folks can add their info to. They'll just have to skip through the part that says, are you available for all sessions? And just say no. Because it's from the Rudd, the original Rudd writing group that is already over. But for everyone that is including their information on that Google form, I will have your contact info and then as things develop, I will be able to keep in touch and let you know what's coming next. Things are still a work-in-progress, but I hope to do much more of this, as much as I can.

Haley: Love it. Wonderful. And what's your website? And I'll make sure to link to that form and your other contact info in the show notes. But where can we find you?

Liz DeBetta: So my website is currently not live. It's a work-in-progress, but it is my name: LizDeBetta.com. So easy. In the interim folks can look for me on Facebook.

Haley: Sounds good.

Liz DeBetta: And if it's okay, I would love to leave you all with a poem.

Haley: Yes. I can't wait.

Liz DeBetta: I also think about poems as gifts. And so this is for you and for all of us who might need to hear this right now.

“I am here, finally, fully, frightfully aware of me, myself, and I. I who has been afraid to be here, afraid to be me, afraid to present myself, my flaws and my imperfectly perfect self. I am here now knowing nothing is impossible because I am possible. I am me moving through grief, moving through pain, moving through fear to find peace in myself, with you, and in my circumstances. I am here unapologetically. For the first time the fog has lifted. I am free. Free from shame, free from guilt, free from my own self-doubt. I am free to be me, myself, and I.”

Haley: Thank you for that wonderful gift.

Liz DeBetta: You're welcome.

Haley: Oh my goodness, I cannot believe this is the last episode until the fall. It's our summer break and normally I would go to the end of June, but just because of COVID and having the kids at home, I know I've told you about this in the last couple episodes. This is just how it worked out. So I am taking the break.

I'll be ready and refreshed to come to you with new episodes in September. And there's a huge back catalog, so I am sure you couldn’t have possibly listened to all 187 episodes, have you? Scroll back if there are things you haven't checked out yet. There's so many good episodes. I'm sure you can find a gem or two to listen to during the break.

And there's still going to be new episodes for my monthly Patreon supporters. So if you go to AdopteesOn.com/partner. You can find out details of how to join us there. We are still hosting our monthly book club. This month we are talking about The Guild of the Infant Savior with Megan Culhane Galbraith, which is a fabulous book. So excited to be reading that with her this month.

We have Barbara Sumner in July. We are going to have a round table in August. So many good things coming up, even during the summer break. So if you can't get enough and going through the back catalog is not gonna do it for you, come join us on AdopteesOn.com/partner for the Patreon bonuses.

There's a weekly podcast there called Adoptees Off Script, and they're all ready to go for you. There's over a hundred episodes there. So if you really want to go back and binge listen, there is more. I am so grateful for each one of you for listening. I am truly honored that I get to do this for you, to be in your earbuds and on your hikes and walks and commutes and when you're doing the dishes.

Thank you for allowing me into your ears and I know it's so annoying that I say thank you a lot. I'm sorry. It's a Canadian thing. It's an adoptee thing. It's a people-pleasing thing. It's just my quirk, I guess. Anyway, thank you so much for listening and I look forward to talking to you again very soon.

In September, we'll be back with brand new episodes of Adoptees On so make sure you're subscribed or following wherever you listen to podcasts. Let's talk again soon.

185 [Estrangement Series] Lora K. Joy

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/185

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] You're listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is episode 185, Lora. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Today, I'm excited to introduce you to Lora K. Joy. This is another installment of the Estrangement Series. Lora tells us how she always knew she didn't fit in with her adoptive parents and how she made promises to herself that she would do things differently. Lora recounts a transformative moment where she grieved her adoption loss that changed everything. We unpack some of the things that led to her estrangement decision.

Again, as in everything during this Estrangement Series, I hope you can use the lens of “would this be helpful to reflect on?” It's not meant in the spirit of “we want you to break up with your adoptive parents.” We wrap up with some recommended resources and, as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website [00:01:00] adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.

I am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Lora K. Joy. Welcome, Lora.

Lora K. Joy: Hi, Haley. I'm so happy to be here.

Haley Radke: I'd love it if you would start by sharing some of your story with us.

Lora K. Joy: I've toggled about how to do this because I am in reunion and so I know what led up to my adoption. So I guess maybe I'll start there. My mother had a child before me. My brother's about three years older than I am and he has Down syndrome. When he was born, his father chose not to be a part of his life. And so then she became pregnant with me and approached my biological father and he also disappeared. He literally walked away. Never saw him again. And so she was then left to be a single parent to, possibly, two children and she wanted to keep me. She tried to keep [00:02:00] me. But she ultimately decided to go to the adoption agency. Her mother actually suggested it because her mother was helping with my brother when my mom was working. And so her mom put that out there because she said she couldn't help with two babies, and especially with one having special needs. So she felt like she didn't have any other choices. She had two fathers walk away and then her mom couldn't help anymore, so she chose adoption. I was born about at least a week late, breech, and had a broken left collarbone as a result. Yeah, it was traumatic. Traumatic beginnings. And went straight from the hospital to a tender care home, which, as I have learned, is basically foster care, but it's a term that my adoption agency used, this tender care home. She did not hold me. She thought it might be [00:03:00] too hard. So I know I went straight to the tender care/foster care home. I was there for five weeks and then I was placed with my adoptive parents. And the files show that the adoption agency tried to reach out to my biological father to have him sign off his paternal rights, but he never did that. So I haven't heard too many people tell their story with this in it, but because he didn't sign off his rights, my adoptive parents had to put an ad in the newspaper for an entire year. And if he had seen the ad, he could have come back and claimed me. But after a year, they were able to finalize the adoption.

Haley Radke: What state was that?

Lora K. Joy: Indiana.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Lora K. Joy: And I was born in 1979. So it's late '70s.

Haley Radke: I've heard of a few different putative father, I don't know, recourses? I have heard of that before but I didn't know what state, and I wonder if there's multiple states that had some [00:04:00] form of notice, in some way.

Lora K. Joy: Yeah, I haven't heard whether people have just not included that as part of their story or not, but yeah, I haven't heard too many people say they had to do that, or their adoptive parents had to do that.

Haley Radke: The ad in the classifieds. Wow, what a depressing section to look through.

Lora K. Joy: Yeah. So I guess I was placed at five weeks and I was raised as an only child. And as this is a part of the Estrangement Series, I will say I always knew I didn't fit in there. And at the same time, never felt like I should search or wanted to search because of that loyalty, I guess, that societal pressure to be loyal and not ungrateful.

Haley Radke: What does it mean to you that you felt like you never fit in there as an only child?

Lora K. Joy: I just always knew I didn't belong there. [00:05:00] My brain didn't work the same way as them. Just thought processes overall, just the way things were done. It just never felt right to me. And my adoptive mother told me that she supposedly told me I was adopted when I was four, but I don't remember that conversation. I remember the next conversation, which was at eight. And so it was definitely after that conversation at age eight that I remember looking around the world and going, This is not what I thought it was. And all these people, how many of these people knew? How many people look at me differently now that I'm looking differently at myself? It was like the matrix fell down around me and my whole world shifted. And then I just had a different filter and just [00:06:00] saw everything through different eyes. That conversation was in the car, without my adoptive father. He actually never spoke with me about my being adopted. And it was, you know, being the late '70s, early '80s, they were told to talk about it whenever the child brings it up. There wasn't the same kind of education there is today. So there is a little bit of grace there, but at the same time, it was like, okay, we had two conversations, between four that I don't remember and eight. And then none ever with my adoptive father. So yeah, she told me in the car. We were just she and I, and I just remember it was supposed to be, like, this is the way it is and that's just how it is sort of a thing. And what she said to me, and she would dispute this, is: "Your birth mother didn't want you, so we got you." And I just remember in that moment thinking, why do I feel so unwanted when you wanted me? [00:07:00] The overwhelming feeling was of being unwanted. And when I addressed this with her years later, she said, Why would I ever say that to you? And I said, I don't know why you would say that to me, but that's how I felt. And I have carried that with me from that moment. It's not as if I made that up. It was a very strong, overwhelming feeling and I remember that carrying through my whole life. So it was just like always I was unwanted. But it was so confusing at the same time because why did I feel that way when they clearly wanted me? So it was so confusing as a child.

Haley Radke: It's interesting that you had just said earlier that you never thought of searching. Well, why would you want to [00:08:00] search if your adoptive mother told you that you just weren't wanted so they got you?

Lora K. Joy: Right, yeah. So I guess that carries then forward to your question of how did I always know that I didn't fit in. And I can't explain that other than just I didn't. I didn't look like them. I was a white domestic adoptee adopted into a white family but I still didn't look like them. We had completely different lifestyle choices, and I didn't have healthy body images reflected as well as just where did my blue eyes come from and where did my nose and my hair come from? Anything like that. It was very obvious that I didn't genetically belong to my adopted parents. And then just the whole mentality of how you do things, so different. And I realized emotionally also from a very [00:09:00] young age that I wasn't getting what I needed, and I started taking care of myself emotionally from a very young age. And I vowed and made mental notes my whole life about how to do everything the opposite of how I was being raised.

Haley Radke: I'm like, oh my goodness, your little self and mothering yourself, making that choice when you're so young.

Lora K. Joy: Yeah. And having it be so clear inside of me, and then having to be this different person externally to appear as if you are being the loving, loyal daughter.

Haley Radke: So I gotta ask you: how much of this is you can look back and see that this is what you were doing versus during childhood did you feel [00:10:00] this way? It's pretty clear to you that as a young person you were actually cognizant of these things.

Lora K. Joy: I was absolutely cognizant of doing everything the opposite, and I was absolutely cognizant of knowing I wanted something different and that I needed something different. And my whole life, this part is retrospective, and it's just being able to look back after therapy and being able to say that is total lack of attunement from my adopted parents. And being able to name that and put language to it. And also realizing that as a child doing that for myself, I was completely inadequate. Children aren't supposed to parent themselves. And then there were things shared throughout my childhood so that I found myself parenting them a lot. And one example was in the [00:11:00] fifth grade, we always had financial struggles, and money was always an issue. And there was some financial situation happening when I was in the fifth grade, and I have this very vivid memory of being on the back porch with my adoptive mother. She was having a cigarette, and she was stressing out about this financial situation, and I tried to comfort her. I tried to parent her by saying, Well, at least we still have our house. And her response to me was, We barely have that. And from that moment on I just worried about money all the time. And I went to school thinking I was gonna be the homeless kid. I thought I was gonna be homeless. Looking around at all the other kids and thinking, I'm gonna be the homeless kid. That lasted for a few weeks, and that didn't ever happen, but it was the way it was communicated to me that just scared me so bad. [00:12:00] And it was in that moment that I vowed to make sure I was financially stable in life, and that meant going to college, which no one in my family had done. So I knew I had to go to college, and I knew I had to be able to be secure for myself. So in a way, it was good that I was that determined and driven, but there's healthier ways to get there than that experience.

Haley Radke: I would say, yeah.

Lora K. Joy: So yeah. So that was one example. And just, over the years, my adoptive father never spoke to me, really. I don't remember any conversations with him, especially anything of importance. And he's just that type of person. He doesn't talk a lot, except for he would get upset with me and yell at me if I upset my adoptive mother. He was always in defense of her. So anyway. [00:13:00]

Haley Radke: So what did that look like in the teen years and young adulthood? Because you're talking about memories from very, very young and being really aware that these things are happening, and then even older, when a lot of us are starting to figure out identity and all these kinds of pieces, what was that like for you?

Lora K. Joy: The teen years were... I remember feeling trapped, and I remember I just want to get out of here. I want to get out of this town, and I just want to be independent. And so I went to high school. I worked as much as I possibly could. Again, the financial burden that I carried was still there, so I would work as much as I could. I wasn't home very often because I was trying to be busy. So yeah, I just tried to kinda do what I was supposed to do [00:14:00] to get out of there, to pass the time, to get out. So my estrangement happened just recently in the last year but really it's been 30 years in the making. After I left for college, I didn't really go home. I went to college and came home the summer between my freshman/sophomore year, and then I never went back. And from that point forward, it felt very obligatory, the relationship, and it had started to feel that way in the teen years as well, but as a teenager you're still dependent so you have to kind of get through.

Haley Radke: So what was the thing that happened a year ago that all of a sudden was like, Okay, it's 30 years in the making, it's happening now. What was that?

Lora K. Joy: I can talk about that, but then I need to go back 13 years to 2008.

Haley Radke: Rewind, rewind us, Lora. [00:15:00]

Lora K. Joy: Do we talk about 2008? Okay. Let me just say that before I was “out of the fog” because I do resonate with that term and I know some people don't like it, but it was very clear to me what that meant when I saw and read it, so it does resonate with me. But before that moment happened, when I met my husband, I used to say three things. I would say it always felt like she got me for her. Like I was supposed to take care of her emotionally, and I could never pinpoint why. It didn't make sense to me that that's how a mother-daughter relationship was or should be. So I would say that. I also would say–and I have never heard another person say this except for adoptees–is that I would feel relief when they died. [00:16:00]

Haley Radke: And, okay, saying that out loud, how does that feel for you?

Lora K. Joy: Oh, yeah, it feels good. It just means... I know it can sound... I don't wish them ill will. I just would be relieved to not be obligated to them. And to do things that don't match how I feel inside because society says I should. So the third thing I would say before I was "out of the fog" if people ever asked me are you gonna search for your family? I would say, No, I am not gonna search because I don't need more people to take care of in my life.

Haley Radke: Oh, that is interesting. That's an interesting twist on it. I don't hear that much.

Lora K. Joy: Yeah, you know, it makes me think of April Dinwiddie when she says, "More people to love and more people to love me," and I had the exact opposite thought [00:17:00] because that's what I thought family relationships were supposed to be. I was supposed to take care of everybody else emotionally. So why would I need more of that?

Haley Radke: You're finally getting to the age where you can be free of that and just worry about yourself. Why are you going to add more responsibility back on to...

Lora K. Joy: Right, so I think that saying those things before I knew about relinquishment and adoption trauma is pretty telling. So that was my mentality. And so what happened is in 2008, I became pregnant with my second child, a girl, and I was terrified to have a girl, and I had no idea why. Our first child's a boy, and I just always thought I'd be a boy mom, and I don't know why. I just thought that's what I was going to be. And so I had found out I was having a girl, and I was terrified, and I couldn't [00:18:00] figure out why. So 2008, I'm halfway through the pregnancy and I'm figuring out that I can't get around this, oh, I'm having a girl. Something is blocking me. Something is wrong with me that I can't be excited about that. So because I was so scared, I decided to go to therapy for the first time in my life. So I went to a therapist in town and just told her what was going on when I got there, and at the end said, Oh and by the way, I'm adopted, just as an afterthought, because I had never considered it as a problem before. And that's what she honed in on, and I was just super lucky that she was competent in that. She said, Well, you know, there's some things there that we should look at. Have you ever done any work on adoption? I said, No, why would I? She gave me a book to read. That book, in the first few chapters, a woman is talking [00:19:00] about feeling this grief about where's my mom? As an adoptee, she's remembering this grief of where's my mom? And that hit me. It just washed over me. And this is in 2008 before I knew anything about IFS or any sort of therapy tools, and first time I'd ever been to therapy. So I'm reading this book, I read those three words, and I am on the floor. I am bawling, just waves of grief washing over me, and I felt that I became my infant self, my newborn baby self and I had that emotion: Where's my mom, where's my mom? And just grieving that, that loss. And it felt like I was on the floor for 45 minutes and just tears streaming down my face. [00:20:00] And my husband came in and he said, What's wrong? What's wrong? I said, I'll tell you when I'm finished. And so I got up off the floor, and it was as if I was a different person. I grieved. I held that newborn baby self, and I was then able to cradle her, and she was able to fold herself into me and be where she belonged, where she could be safe and I could take care of her, and that we were both able to grieve that loss that we didn't even know was there. So then I was able to explain that to my husband, and I just thought that was how all therapy was supposed to work. I thought it was all supposed to be that transformative.

I saw everything from a new lens at that point, and just had more empathy for everyone in the world, and immediately did a 180 in my thinking and processing. And that was the [00:21:00] big shift for me that really woke me up out of the fog. That was it. And I wouldn't know that language, though, for 12 more years. So I was then able, though, to speak to adoption as being trauma and rooted in loss. So the next step in that therapy process in 2008 was that I was then ready and able to have my daughter and bond with her. So that happened very quickly. And then I started to think, I do want to find my birth mom, my biological mom, because I wanted to know the answers. I wanted to know the truth. When I was a teenager, my adoptive mother had given me my non-identifying information, and she never hid the information. They never acted as if I wasn't adopted, but it always turned around to be about her [00:22:00] in the conversations. And in one of the conversations with giving me my non-identifying information, my biological parents were 28 and 37 when I was born, according to the paperwork. We would later find out that my father was nine years older than that. So yeah, he was in his late 40s when I was born. However, having just their ages, even being 37 according to the papers, she would always say that she thought I was the product of an affair. And she's put her own narrative to the story, and would plant that in my mind as to, Gosh, am I a product of an affair? Was he married? Was it a one-night stand? What's this, what's the deal? What's the story? And so there's so many endless possibilities you can make up in your head, and the only way you can know is to find out the truth. So [00:23:00] I did decide to look for my biological mom in 2008 as a result of having a girl and going to therapy and realizing that adoption does cause trauma, does cause harm.

Haley Radke: Did your non-identifying information say anything about your biological mother having another child, an older child?

Lora K. Joy: Yep, it did. It said that I had a half-brother from her, and also that I had two siblings from my father that were older as well.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Lora K. Joy: Yeah. So in 2008, I was really only focused on her, as most adoptees do, I think. The mom seems to be pretty important. So it was relatively easy. I called the adoption agency. I had to fill out two forms with the state, and they found my file and said, We will contact her on your behalf, and [00:24:00] if she is willing, we'll be a mediary, and you can exchange anonymous letters, packages, and then you can move forward from there. I told my husband, I said, I have to do this with no expectations because she could not want to hear from me. She could not want to know me. I could find a grave. Maybe she's not very nice, whatever. I just have to go in with no expectations. And she got the message and called right back and was very much interested in knowing me and reconnecting. She did tell me that she thought–I was 29 when I started to search–and she said, I thought by age 29, you weren't gonna be coming looking for me. She thought I would've done it earlier. But she was happy to have me search.

Haley Radke: So you were just past the age she was when she had you? [00:25:00]

Lora K. Joy: Yes, I was. Yep. And her whole family knew about me and so I wasn't a secret. It wasn't something that she had to then reveal. So I think, what I found from her is that she's super matter-of-fact and honest and forthright, and it's just been, that's how I am. So it just works. And I think she had an adjustment time, we both did, to get to know each other. We started with emails after the initial anonymous exchange, and then phone calls, and then she came to visit, and we've had multiple visits and are still in reunion today. So that's really good.

Haley Radke: Was your maternal grandmother still alive when you found her?

Lora K. Joy: No. She had passed exactly a year before. Yeah. And I do wonder about that. I wonder. [00:26:00] When I went back and I met all of her brothers, she's the oldest of five, she has four younger brothers, and I met all of her brothers. One of them was reminiscing. They said, Oh, mom used to say: I wonder whatever happened to that little girl? And so, I don't know.

Haley Radke: I just ask because I think a lot of us in that age range, I was born in '83, a lot of us had grandparents who had something to do with these decisions.

Lora K. Joy: Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that led to reunion with her, which has been wonderful, and I've met my brother and that whole side of the family. And that was it. I thought that was it. I thought I was done with the work. And at the same time, I felt completely alone and that I was the only person who felt this way in the whole world because it was 2009, like Facebook was just getting [00:27:00] started and I wasn't super savvy, apparently, on the internet to find the adoption community. So flash forward to last May and the week before Mother's Day, I found this online adoptee community and I just sat and read post after post and post after comment after comment, and I was like, Oh my gosh, these are my people. This is exactly how I've been feeling for 12 years, and I'm not the only one. And that's the first time I saw the language of “coming out of the fog” and other people talking about their relationships with their adoptive parents. And I just jumped up outta my chair and I looked to my husband, “Look, these people are saying exactly how I feel.” And it was in that moment that I realized I could have the strength to start having [00:28:00] agency in my life and start speaking my truth. Someone had posted something about not fitting in anywhere, and I just said–and it was a public post and I didn't realize that this would happen, but I posted–"Oh, I've felt that way. I feel that way too. I don't fit in anywhere except for with the family I built for myself with my husband and kids." And within 24 hours, my adoptive mother messaged me about that post, about that comment, and it was my fault because I didn't realize public comments could be seen by everybody that's not in your…

Haley Radke: I wonder how many stories go this way from an oops-Facebook-comment.

Lora K. Joy: Yep. Yeah. So in the same moment that I found these people and felt so validated, I also felt violated that she saw that, [00:29:00] like this was my own private thing. So then I thought, Okay, I'm just gonna find the private Facebook groups for adoptees and I'm only gonna interact there and speak those honest feelings there. And I immediately switched to the private groups. But what happened from that is it set off this chain of messages from her that were checking in to make sure we were okay and I was okay and she was okay. And I'm like, I have validated your feelings and put your feelings before mine my whole life. And I've now found my community and I know that what I have been feeling for the last 13 years is real and it's okay. So within the week, she asked me twice if our relationship was over and I just said, I need some time and I'm not going to put [00:30:00] your emotional wellbeing before mine anymore. So I sent that message and I just left it there, and I found Lesli Johnson, who I have now been working with the whole time. And I found you through Lesli because I listened to one of her episodes on her website. And this whole time I'm trying to have space with my adoptive parents and the first thing Lesli asked me was, What do you want? What do you want for your life? And I'm like, I'm allowed to say that? I'm allowed to say what I want?

Haley Radke: I was just going to ask you, has anyone ever asked you that before? Or had that thought ever crossed your mind before?

Lora K. Joy: Yeah, no!

Haley Radke: Isn't that silly? Because there's so many of us, I think, that can relate to that so much. Lora, I really believe that we would never have thought that.

Lora K. Joy: Yeah. I'm allowed to have agency in my life. So it took me probably six [00:31:00] weeks of her asking me every week, What do you want? What do you want? And eventually I said, I want agency in my life. I want my outside world to match my inside world. And so I've worked with Lesli through that. There's some parallel stories that happen here.

This whole time my adoptive mother's continuing to message me, even when I've asked her not to. And Facebook Messenger, you get that little dot that tells you when someone's read the message. And so I knew as soon as she would see that dot that her clock was ticking for me to respond, and I just felt that hanging over my head. And about every two weeks I would get another message from her, fishing, and I just wouldn't respond. This part of the story, it leads to the next, is in this time I'm learning about IFS. I'm listening to your episodes on that. I'm talking, I'm reading some books about it. I explained [00:32:00] to Lesli that sort of experience I had with my newborn self in 2008. I said that to me felt like IFS, but I'm not sure if it really was because it just happened. And I had this memory of myself when I was about five, and I was at the daycare, and for some reason this memory had just stuck with me. And I told Lesli, I said, I think I need to spend some time with that memory and that little five-year-old girl and see what's going on. So I did that. She's laying on the cot, my little five-year-old self laying on the cot, bear-hugging her tennis shoes. All the kids are supposed to put your tennis shoes under the cot for nap time, and I could not figure out why I couldn't do that. I couldn't put my shoes under the cot like everybody else. So I was just terrified and hugging my shoes. And so I spent some time with this five-year-old girl hugging her shoes, and in my mind I snuggled up behind her as [00:33:00] if I would my daughter and tried to talk to her, and she wouldn't look at me. And I just kept trying. And eventually, I don't know what made me say this, but I said, It's okay. You don't belong here. And that's what made her turn around and look at me. And it was with relief that she looked at me. And it was in that moment that it wasn't just that I didn't belong with my adoptive parents, I didn't belong anywhere in that adoptive family. So I spent some more time with my five-year-old self and, again, told her it was going to be okay and that I was going to take care of her from now on and that she belonged with me. And again, she was able to curl herself into me and be safe. And that opened up this floodgate of I never belonged [00:34:00] there. And it was that process of thinking about the entire family, extended family and whatnot.

So it gave me more, I guess, strength to set firmer boundaries. And so I messaged my adoptive mother and I said, I need you to stop communicating with me on Facebook Messenger. If there's an emergency, you can text me on my cellphone. Within 20 minutes, I had a voicemail from her saying that, Oh, I've been wanting an answer, and I think you gave me the answer. And as far as I'm concerned, and especially your dad, there won't be any emergencies. So I got the voicemail, and I wrote it down word for word, and then I deleted it, and I felt freedom. I felt free. And I think I had built up this, Oh, I have to “break up” with my parents or something as [00:35:00] this big conversation or this big hard thing, and all I had to do was set boundaries, boundaries that they couldn't respect. So I texted a friend of mine after this, a friend of mine who knows my journey and knows the history, and I said, It's the relief I thought I would feel when they died. And she said, But that's not you. That's not how you do things. You make things happen for your life and for yourself. And they weren't an anchor grounding you. They were an anchor pulling you underwater. And that was so validating for her to say to me. So as I tasted that bit of freedom, I thought I can't ever go back to the way it was. But I was also bracing myself because I knew that wasn't the last time I would hear from her.

I got another text message in October [00:36:00] that was basically, Can we talk? We’re your past? And I debated: Do I engage or do I just reestablish the boundary? And I decided I would just start with reestablishing the boundary. So I just texted back, I've asked you not to communicate with me right now. And her immediate response was, I'm done. And I'm like, Okay, I thought you were done two months ago. Okay. So then I get another message the week before Christmas that says in a text something like, Can you just let me know if our relationship is over so I can mourn you and move on, or grieve and move on or something. And I'm thinking, I think it's pretty clear. So it felt like she wanted me to be the bad guy. [00:37:00] I'm setting boundaries. This is the way it's going. But you want me to say the words so that you can say, Well, she said that. That's what it felt like. It felt like a setup to me, and I just let it go. I just thought, No, I'm not. I don't need to respond to that. And through Lesli's guidance, she’s like, Well, your actions are speaking pretty loudly, right? And so pretty early on, like before Christmas, I did say to my husband and Lesli, I said, I feel like I need to communicate, to change your power of attorney, please, because I am an only child, so it will default to me. And so I didn't want any medical emergency or anything like that to come up where I would be the first phone call. So I sat with that for a while. And so the text message at Christmas, and then she texted me “Happy Birthday” the day before my birthday, which [00:38:00] I'm like, If you're gonna text me when I've asked you not to, at least text on the right day.

So, I think, end of January, I was starting to have that sort of emotional worry about when's the next text message going to come? And so I decided I have to block them on my phone too. So end of January, I decided to do that, and it was like I can always unblock them. If it doesn't feel good, I can always undo that. And so I did. I blocked them on my phone and also email, and it felt even lighter. It felt even better that I was like, Okay, now I don't have to worry about every time my phone buzzes, is it gonna be a message from them? And I'm still just sitting. I'm sitting with it, and I decide, March 1st, I decide I need to send a letter that just says: Please change your power of attorney. It would be better for [00:39:00] you to change your power of attorney and inheritance, whatever. And I think I phrased it something like: "I've pretended there was a connection for longer than there really was." And I needed to send that for myself. It didn't matter how they responded or if they did, because I needed to communicate that final boundary. My kids are now 12 and 15 at the moment, and they've been on this journey with me. They know most of this story. And I was going to sign the letter, "Please do not contact me or my family further." And I wanted to let them know about that because they are old enough to communicate on their own if they wished to. And my husband wanted to make sure that they knew it wasn't something that we came to lightly or it wasn't just a flippant decision. It was something that had [00:40:00] been coming. And I asked them, I said, Do you guys wanna be included in that please do not contact me further? And they both said, Yeah, that's fine. And I said, Okay. And if they change their mind, one has a cellphone, one will have a cellphone soon. They can start communicating if they'd like.

And going back to 2008, I think part of the reason I didn't set this boundary then is because I felt like I couldn't do it with babies. I couldn't take grandchildren away from their grandparents and vice versa. I had to maintain this obligatory relationship because I would be a horrible person for doing that, right? I would be a horrible mom for taking the grandparents away from the babies or the grandkids away from the grandparents. So, I don't know, I just felt like I had to keep that up. But then what I did was I spent 12 years protecting my [00:41:00] kids emotionally, and now they can understand. They're at ages where we can have conversations about why and how. And so, yeah, I think that's why it took me so long to get to that point because I felt like I had to, and I also didn't have the strength of this community. [00:42:00]

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. There's so many painful parts of that and hearing their responses to your requests that were very quick and sounded really angry and off the cuff and stuff. It made me think of how much work Lora has undertaken. We're talking about years of therapy and building up all these tools and skills. And I love how you talked about IFS–we have episodes on that if you go and look, search “IFS” on the Adoptees On website and that talks a little bit more about that. But, you know, that remothering your baby self or your five-year-old self, and I saw you wrote something somewhere about your 10-year-old self, those kinds of moments. It's so clear that you have worked really hard on those things and when the people that you're in relationship with aren't doing those things, it feels like they're just farther and farther away. Does that ring true for you?

Lora K. Joy: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And it felt like that too in 2008. I had a conversation with my adoptive mother in 2008 where I had to address some things from their visit after my daughter was born. And I was saying, I need some time. And she was like when do I get to see your babies? And I said, I don't know. I don't know how long this is gonna take. And she said, Will it be another year? And I said, I don't know. And what you're telling me is that you care more about seeing my kids and yourself, than you care about me. And then her [00:43:00] response was: You're caring more about yourself than your kids or me. She was just reversing it back, not taking the responsibility. And she said, Oh, my doctor suggested I go to therapy. And I said –

Haley Radke: Sorry, I literally just took a drink of water, and you almost had me in a spit take. That's good.

Lora K. Joy: I'm sorry.

Haley Radke: No, it's good. It's good. That's what happens to me all the time on the Patreon show.

Lora K. Joy: So she said, Actually, my doctor suggested I go to therapy. I said, Actually, my therapist thought it would be good for someone to help you on your end as well. And she said: “I don't believe therapy is for everyone. I won't go to therapy. For every person who is healing, there are a half a dozen others getting hurt.” And I just thought that's not what the work is about. It's not about hurting other people. It's about healing yourself. And then you change, you grow, you heal, and then you are a different person, and you live your authenticity and your truth. And the people who have been in your life don't like that change and that growth, and they can't see it and appreciate it. So that was her response to me in 2008 about that. Same sort of thing, and I look back and it's so clear to me now. It's so clear that there's not been any change between 2008 and 2020 and 2021. So when you know something and you see something and you know it's the truth, and you know it just on a cellular level, you can't unknow those things. You can't undo those things. And when I got that message at Christmas, I thought: I have worked so hard to get to this point. It's not worth undoing that work. [00:45:00] And ultimately, if I were to sum this up in a sentence, I would say it mattered that I was raised by strangers from the beginning, and this estrangement feels like I'm rebuilding a life I should have always had. [00:46:00]

Haley Radke: It sounds to me, as we wrap up and do recommended resources, that you have very much come from a position of empowerment. So making these decisions, through therapy with guidance from a therapist, and it didn't come as a big surprise to you that maybe this was the decision that was coming. It sounded very measured and things, and, similarly, with some of the other guests we've had on the Estrangement Series and some of the other adoptees that message me, I haven't yet had this big "Oh, we were estranged after this massive fight.” It's just these little things here and there that just build up and build up, and eventually you just decide, Can I choose me first? Is that okay?

Lora K. Joy: Yes. And it's exhausting. I just knew I would have to keep reestablishing these boundaries for the rest of their lives, and that's exhausting. I don't need to do that. That's more emotional work for me. [00:47:00]

Haley Radke: Well, and you had mentioned that you were spending time protecting your kids or undoing things after visits and things. I'm reading into that a little bit, but, that just feels... okay, this is relatable. This series is the series that's taken the most out of me. But there's been decisions that I've made similarly with the guidance of my psychologist, etc., and when you talk about this obligation for providing your kids with access to their grandparents or whatever there's questions underneath that like why? Why is that so important? Is it important to you? Is it really? Is this another thing that's society's expectation that you provide grandchildren, all of those things? What I want people to hear is you have permission to think about that question, and I would recommend, too, that you would explore it with a therapist if that's something that's on your mind or if that's the thing that's like this obligation that's holding you somewhere that maybe you don't want to be.

Lora K. Joy: Yeah. I 100% agree with that and relate to that, and I will add that even just making phone calls on holidays, Father's Day, Mother's Day, Christmas, any time, birthdays. I'm like, "Oh, it's 5:00. I better call and say “Happy birthday." There was never any joy behind that. It was all [00:48:00] because I had to. So I ask myself now–and I've tried to expand this beyond my relationship with my adoptive parents: Do I have to do that? Is it because I should do that? Or is it because I want to do that? And there's a difference, and it's okay to have agency in your life. You are allowed to have agency in your life, and you are allowed to speak your truth and live it. And I hope that this is an empowering story for people. I know it's been a difficult series for you, but I hope that it is an empowering story because that's how I feel. I do. I feel empowered after this process. I will say, I'm gonna add one more thing, after I sent that letter in March asking them to change their power of attorney, we received a box back from them, and I didn't want to open the [00:49:00] box. I had my husband do it. I said, I need you to open that. I'm sure there's a letter. I need you to screen this for me and tell me what's in it. And he read the letter. It was a four-page letter, and the box contained family photos of me and my family that I had sent last year before everything happened in May. So the family photos got returned to me and then the letter. And he said it wasn't a mean letter. It wasn't a nastygram or anything. He just told me what was in it, and I said, Okay. And you know what, Haley? I have decided that at this point, and maybe never, I don't have to read that letter because I asked them to change their power of attorney and I set a final boundary for myself, no matter how they responded. It did not matter if they responded at all or angrily or positively. I don't need their response. I did not need that. So the letter's here. I might read it someday, but for now I don't have to. And that’s part of the empowerment, I think, that I'm not beholden to them anymore. [00:50:00]

Haley Radke: I have a similar system: husband/readers. Because they're a step away. It doesn't hurt their feelings, whatever. I thumbs up. I think that's a good decision. And I feel like I should say this, and let's put a pause in Lora's story, and I just want to say, not that I think this could have turned out differently for you, but I wonder if you're in this situation, listener, and the other party decides they do want to go to therapy and makes that choice for healing and those kinds of things. It's not, oh, then you're going to start a relationship necessarily. Maybe you both decide, yeah, we're all done, and you walk away. But you're both moving towards [00:51:00] something, some form of wholeness or healing. I think things can be different. I think it's really discouraging hearing that she just didn't even care to try, that therapy just wrecks other people. That's just a weird thing to say, in my opinion. But anyway, what I hope for people is that there would be movement on both sides so that there can be some sort of... I just don't want this to be the “how to break up with your parents” series, like how you alluded to.

Lora K. Joy: Well, I agree with you. And you know what? I'm in Pam and Anne's Flourish Group, and there are people in the group who have had positive experiences with their adoptive parents and having those hard conversations and being heard and seen and validated, and the adoptive parents being open to learning. I think that's all we need.

Haley Radke: Thank you so much for sharing that, and I'm so glad that you shared even that piece about validation. I was so [00:52:00] surprised because you sent me this really cool project you were working on. I had no idea. And you are also starting a blog and lots of really neat things over at My Adoptee Truth, and we'll have links to that in the show notes, so you can look for that. But you wrote a book. What? You wrote this really beautiful, I'm going to call it a children's book, but I want to hear how you classify it. It's called Goodbye, Hypervigilance: Healing Adoptee Worry. I think it's really powerful. One little phrase I pulled out of it is the main character expresses that she has been looking for emotional danger, and I thought that is so brilliant to describe hypervigilance that way. Can you tell us a little bit about this book and just that experience of hypervigilance?

Lora K. Joy: Yeah. So I wrote the book and [00:53:00] just tried to simplify the language so that it could be understood. Whereas I had that feeling my whole life but I could never name it and I couldn't see it. So if you're an adoptee who just needs to see this named for you to help you heal, or if you're a therapist who's working with someone who can't quite grasp that concept of hypervigilance because it's an internal thing, maybe it will help a therapist communicate what that's like. Maybe it will help name for an adoptee. Maybe it will help an adoptive parent read with their child and help prevent that for them. At first I did call it a children's book and I still do. It is in the format of a children's book. It is illustrated. I do think I'm referring to it more as an illustrated book now because it is such a deep topic. It's not something you hand to your child and they can just read by themselves. You certainly have to sit with [00:54:00] them. But it's something that I hope is a good tool.

Haley Radke: Oh, I absolutely think it is. I think it'll be very helpful, so I look forward to seeing some more of these. So special. All right. What did you want to recommend to us today, Lora?

Lora K. Joy: Ooh, a new thing has popped up on Facebook from Adoptees Connect and our friend Pamela Karanova. She's your friend. In my mind, she's my friend. I hope she's my friend someday. Adoptee Epiphanies Handwritten Sentiments. Adoptees can write in; it has to be a handwritten note, one to three sentences or words, and everything is shared anonymously. So it's this new account that she started. I have resonated with most of them, and I love seeing them. And I asked her if I could read a few that had resonated with me. So there's just a few here.

One was, "I have a grudge with adoptive parents. Less talking and more listening to adoptees, please." [00:55:00]

The second one, "They say time heals all wounds. Not if you're adopted because you have lost time being someone else and somewhere else. Ever since I can remember, I have felt that love from others was conditional."

And the last one: "I just want my mom. I have always just wanted my mom."

Haley Radke: They're so powerful. I've loved reading them. Some of them are really painful, as you just read. It's very reminiscent of what's that account? Like PostSecret, where people write out these postcards of their secrets and they mail them and they're shared anonymously. That blog's been popular for years now. But there's something about having them in their handwriting; it feels personal and yet it's still an anonymous way for people to share, which is, sadly, sometimes the only way people feel [00:56:00] comfortable to share those deep feelings. I've really appreciated that account, too. Thank you.

It's been such an honor hearing your story, and thank you so much for sharing even the really hard stuff. Will you share with us how we can connect with you online and how we can find your book and see what else you have coming up?

Lora K. Joy: Yeah. My website is new and Facebook is new, myadopteetruth (dot) com.

You can also get there by lorakjoy (dot) com. Facebook is just My Adoptee Truth. And on the website there's a link to the book, and there's a couple more illustrated books coming soon, as well. They're in the works. And the memoirs, I don't know how far off that is, but it's coming.

Haley Radke: I feel like sometimes people take their time with that because it's so intimately personal, obviously. Yeah. What an obvious thing to say, Haley. Anyway, thank you so much, Lora.

Lora K. Joy: Thank you.[00:57:00]

Haley Radke: All right, my friend. That was likely our last episode in the Estrangement Series for a little while. I may do a few more of them in the fall if that is requested. I can certainly do that. I had a couple other guests that I was considering talking to about it, but we've put a pin in recording for now because I just happen to live in the province that has an explosion of [Covid] cases right now. And so my kids are online schooling. If you didn't hear that in a previous episode, they're at home, so it's put a little damper on recording. So we're wrapping up this round of the show a little early to go on summer break, but we'll be back in the fall, of course, with regular weekly episodes.

And in the meantime, if you just need more Adoptees On content, you can always support the show on Patreon. That money [00:58:00] goes to keeping this show free and available for everyone, and so I will never put Adoptees On behind a paywall. I do have the second podcast, Adoptees Off Script, as a thank you to my Patreon supporters. If you go to adopteeson.com/partner, you can find out how to join there. And I have so much fun recording Off Script. It is very unedited, candid Haley. We talk about lots of different topics, and we've been doing a monthly Book Club, which has been such a gift. Sometimes the author joins us. Sometimes we do a round table with fellow adoptee readers, and it's just been wonderful. And if you can't be with us live, we drop the recording of the audio right into your podcast app of choice. So it's easy-peasy. It's so great. Easy way for you to connect with more adoptee authors and adoptee-produced work in this world, which of course we are always cheering for.

So a couple episodes left before we wrap for summer break. Thank you so [00:59:00] much for listening. Thank you for supporting the show. I have so many new Patreon supporters. I'm so grateful, and without you, I can't keep doing the show. So you gotta keep supporting it if you want the show to live. That's just how it is.

So adopteeson.com/partner, and let's talk again next Friday.

184 [Healing Series] Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/184

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and this is a 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 going to meet a new to Adoptees On psychologist and do a hybrid episode. So we'll hear some of her story and throughout we'll be talking attachment challenges and how adoption trauma can display throughout our lives. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Dr. Sharon Stein McNamara. Welcome, Sharon.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Hi. Good to be here.

Haley Radke: I would love it if you would share a little bit of your story with us.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Sure. So I was adopted in 1959. I was adopted through Children's Home Society of Minnesota, and my birth mother at the time was 19. [00:01:00] One thing I have just recently found out that I'm so excited about is that there's a Minnesota History Museum, that there's a book that's come out about the Booth Memorial Hospital of the Salvation Army, and I was born in that hospital. That's where the unwed mothers went to give birth. Anyway, so I was adopted by two people who couldn't have children on their own. They were infertile. My mom and dad are Betty and Bill Stein. They're both dead now. But it was a difficult adoption, I think, in that they waited seven years. They never told me exactly why, but that they kept on getting turned down by Children's Home Society. I later found out that it was probably due to my father having been a World War II veteran and that [00:02:00] he had some PTSD, but that wasn't until I got the papers later. I actually did get all my records. I petitioned the court.

Haley Radke: So even then, they knew to kind of watch for PTSD symptoms. That's interesting in a home study.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Yeah, a little bit. They didn't really. They just mentioned that he seemed to be more anxious.

Haley Radke: But after seven years, they got the go-ahead stamp anyway.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Well see, the story is that my dad called and said, Hey, we've been waiting all this time. What's going on? We're gonna go to Lutheran Social Services if you don't give us a baby. And so then they gave me to them. So it’s sort of interesting to think about the decision. Of course, back then they did the matching of eyes. I had both parents have blue eyes and I have blue eyes and brown hair. So they, actually more than intellectual matching, they did eye color and hair color. That kind of thing. [00:03:00]

Haley Radke: So that was so you could blend in, so people wouldn't know.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Right. But yeah, my parents basically were told that we were blank slates, that they were to tabula rasa. And so I have a younger brother and a younger sister. My brother's two years younger, and my sister's five years younger. But yeah, that was the family, and it wasn't really ever discussed why my parents couldn't have children. I later found out that my father had mumps in the service that caused infertility. But it was a secret growing up, what was wrong that they couldn't have their own bio children.

Haley Radke: Okay, so your other siblings were adopted then as well?

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Yes. I found my birth mother when I was 22. So gosh, when was that? It was in the [00:04:00] '80s, right after graduation from college. And she was willing to see me, to meet me. She said she had been thinking about it every day or every year at least on my birthday. And so she had wanted to have a connection. In the long run, when I look back over my family history, the person that I have the most anger or confusion or upset with is her father, my birth mother's father, because he was the one who said, We can't deal with a baby. You can't keep her. And so I know all that retrospectively, but...

Haley Radke: And so you found her just a couple years after for you in age that she was when she relinquished you.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Right. She was 19, and I was 21 or 22. I think it was 22. Yeah, so I learned all about therapy because I went to therapy from [00:05:00] college age on, and then being interested in psychology, I ended up wanting to go on and study more. But I knew nothing about trauma or developmental trauma or anything until I went to The Girls Who Went Away, the woman who wrote that book, Anne Fessler. And I remember being in the audience listening, and she kind of looked at me because I asked a question and she said, Well yeah, this is trauma. You having been pulled away from your birth mother, that's a traumatic incident. Animals don't do that to their young. She was the first one that I remember hearing about comparing things, like how a shepherd, if a shepherd knows that the baby lamb has lost its mother, they have to do all [00:06:00] kinds of elaborate stuff to get the mother sheep to take the baby lamb. They have to put the smell of the dead baby on the new baby to make the mother accept it. And I was like, Oh my gosh, we do all that for animals? And then, they just hand over a newborn baby? So in my case, I know–and I've done a lot of therapy, a lot of work on myself–I believe that because I was in a foster home for the first six weeks, so I know I was a breach birth, 48 hours in labor, and this is from the Booth Brown house where, my birth mother has told me the story, and she said I was breach and probably had possibly even a dislocated hip as an infant being born. So they put me with a foster parent to watch and see if everything was going to be okay. [00:07:00] And she said she remembered visiting me. She wasn't sure about relinquishing and she went back and forth, but in the end, her father basically said, Look, we're not gonna help you. And my birth father, first father, whatever, was not wanting to marry her. So it was back in the day when a woman alone couldn't be an unwed mother. It was just not allowed.

Haley Radke: So you went to a screening of Anne Fessler's documentary and that's where you first learned about attachment trauma. Can you tell me where were you in your training to become a psychologist? Had you already become a psychologist?

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Yes, I was already a psychologist. They never talked about it. I went to a developmental psychology program, Harvard, the Graduate School of Education in Developmental Psychology. And I don't know if you've heard [00:08:00] of Joyce Maguire Pavao. She was ahead of me in that same program, and so she was the first person that I had ever spoken to who really studied adoption. And she was older than I was, but I went to some of her trainings and I got to learn, you know, I've been to her retreats in Provincetown. Provincetown is where she had them, and I think she's retired now. But anyway, I learned a lot from her just later reading her books. But yeah, they did not talk about anything about babies and developmental trauma. It was much later that the brain stuff started to come out about like, yeah, the baby is actually searching for the heartbeat and the smell and the sound of the mother's voice. All that is wired into a baby, an infant that's born is looking for that sound, that connection. [00:09:00] And then, I don't know if you've seen the new documentary. I saw the trailer, but I'm really excited about the Primal Wound documentary that's coming out because it shows just some of the photos of those infants just crying and crying and crying. And then we knew some stuff about Bowlby. He was the psychologist that studied both animal development and human development, and he talked about this terrible depression that babies would go through when they were separated from their mothers. And so I remember my adoptive mother said to me, Yeah, all three of our adopted children cried all the way home from the Children's Home Society. And, see, later I found out that I had sleep and eating issues; those have been constant issues with me. While a lot of it has to do with the fact that you didn't get sleep training because [00:10:00] the adoptive parents didn't know that it's not normal for a baby to just cry herself to sleep. They told me they didn't know how to put me to sleep. They would just leave me to cry and just leave me in the room until I would probably just disassociate or pass out as an infant. And that's what they thought was normal, I think.

Haley Radke: My parents said that I had colic, right? And colic is sort of this diagnosis they give anything. They're like, Oh, they cry a lot. It's probably colic. It's this, what do you call it? It's not a specific diagnosis. And there's so many of us that that's what our parents would have said about us: Oh, they're just colicky. They're colicky.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Yeah. And I remember even as a three-year-old, my little brother coming along and they said he was a colicky baby. And so yep, that was the diagnosis.

Haley Radke: Okay. So I gotta ask you, Sharon, [00:11:00] looking back, you've been a practicing psychologist for years, and to know that so many of your colleagues had the same training as you, and you're an adopted person, so you looked into this, and something drew you to go to Anne Fessler's documentary screening. And so then you learned and you figured that out. But that means, and I think it's pretty obvious, it's been demonstrated by a lot of my guests whose therapists don't get it, that there's so many people who were trained in the era you were trained, and later, that had no idea about this.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: That's right. And even now, I'm on a listserv of psychologists. We know now that there are adoption-competent psychologists or therapists, in that they do special training. But overall in mental health, it's not considered that you have to [00:12:00] have a specialty in this in order to do the good work. But every once in a while, I'll see a posting by somebody saying, Oh, I have this adopted person, and no matter what I try, they have this negative view of themselves, and they can't seem to get out of it. And I keep trying to do cognitive restructuring and…. Yeah, it doesn't work because it's so deep. It's a primal, primal wound. What I have found is that the most healing thing is EMDR that has a focus on pre-verbal early development. There's a book called When There Are No Words that I use a lot. It's an EMDR book about rewiring the emotional system. When There Are No Words: Repairing Early Trauma and Neglect From the Attachment Period with EMDR Therapy by Sandra Paulsen. That's a book that has helped me a great deal and I've done this protocol [00:13:00] myself in my own recovery. And it's really gotten at some of the core trauma response. I don't know about you, but I have, still now, a high startle response; I easily jump, and this is trauma. It's kind of hardwired.

Haley Radke: Yeah. And for those of you who are asking what's EMDR? There is an episode on EMDR in the back catalog so you can go and listen to a little bit more on that. Yeah, that's fascinating. I've done EMDR myself, and I've heard of a lot of adoptees that have used it to their great benefit. I noticed that you also use dialectical behavior therapy.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Yes.

Haley Radke: That's a mouthful. What's that?

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: That's a therapy that was originally created by Marsha Linehan. She's a psychologist and adapted cognitive behavioral therapy to [00:14:00] include this thing called dialectical behavior therapy. It's basically looking at black-and-white thinking or extreme polarities and trying to find a middle ground between. So that's why it's called dialectic. The two sides are either doing complete acceptance. And as adoptees, the first thing we have to kind of do is accept that there's no control over the fact that you aren't being raised by the people who are genetically related to you. So all you can do is a form of acceptance: Okay, I accept that these are the people that I have to be raised by right now. Later you can decide to end that relationship if you choose, but as a child you really can’t. So it's the two sides of the dialectic, the big teeter-totter, basically is can [00:15:00] you change the situation or do you need to accept the situation? So there's change strategies and acceptance strategies. This is an interesting piece and I'm curious. I know that this is for anybody who might be listening who has an interest in adoption, whether they're adoptive parents or birth parents or adoptees or bio sibs or whatever. But the piece that is most difficult for me as an adoptee is not so much having that relinquishment piece, it's that my adopted parents hadn't done their grieving about their own loss of not having bio children, and they also were fairly self-absorbed people. I was there for them. They wanted a child and they got a child. It wasn't so much, Oh, this child needs us and we're gonna try to figure out what she needs. [00:16:00] It was more, we need her. So you know, I was a good adoptee. I adapted. I figured out what they wanted and figured out how to pretty much please my adoptive parents. That was my upbringing. My sister was more "Fine, I can't do what they want, so I'll rebel.” And so it was a somewhat difficult childhood in terms of having two girls that were quite different from each other. And of course you're going to create the family that you have with the siblings that you have. My brother was in the middle, so he just figured out how to try to make everybody happy. But yeah, we had these two things, two sides that my sister and I acted out.

Haley Radke: What can it do to someone to be the good adoptee and to just kind of give in [00:17:00] and be molded into what's expected instead of being allowed to be your own self?

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Yeah. And I think that if you know that survival is to be what they want, what your adopters or your adoptive parents want from you, you're going to figure that out and just do what they want, and I do think you give up pieces of yourself. It was clear. I figured out that they wanted someone who was good in school, so I was a straight-A student. I was going to figure out how to be the very best student I could be. It also gave me some freedom from home, so that was a win-win thing. And so that I raced through college and went on to get a PhD or in my case, an Ed.D. in psychology because it was a safe place to feel like I could fulfill my parental wishes. [00:18:00]

Haley Radke: Oh, my goodness. Yeah. There's so much weight put on the expectations. It's just so weighty, I feel like, for so many.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Yeah. And then not even knowing what is it you inherited from these other people that you have a genetic makeup from. Like, is there a musical ability? I don't know if you got yours, but when I was a child, they did give me that piece of paper that's called the social history from Children's Home Society, and I would read that over and over and over again. And in my case, it said-

Haley Radke: So a lot of people would call that non-identifying information, right?

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Right. The non-identifying information. Yes, the social history piece. I remember reading that my birth mother and her sisters had musical ability, and I like to sing. So that was [00:19:00] maybe a little clue to who I am genetically.

Haley Radke: So now with your training and you're looking back on all these things, what do you think is one of the critical pieces of information for adopted people to know about the impact being separated from their first mother has had on them?

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: So the biggest piece–and I lived this and I learned it out of trial and error–is you're very vulnerable. Most adoptees, at least my experience has been that during adolescence it's a very vulnerable time because you don't have these pieces of information about who am I? Where did I come from? Having missing pieces makes adolescence really difficult. So one of the things that I'm actually working on is a memoir, a healing [00:20:00] memoir about my personal history and what I've learned as far as healing as an adoptee. So one of the most painful times for me was I had trauma all throughout my childhood but I didn't know it. I still remember going to kindergarten at a new school. I was sent on the school bus by my mother and she didn't think there was a problem. Well, I missed the school bus. I got lost and I completely freaked out so badly that I was just sobbing and I literally dissociated. I remember blacking out and then coming to with my mom there and the teacher saying, What's the problem? Your mom is here. She came to pick you up. But I thought that I was gonna be left forever at school. I think adoptive parents and adoptees don't realize, Oh, you mean [00:21:00] other people don't have that kind of abandonment fear? It doesn't go all the way to where you think you're gonna die? And see, that's what adoptees have because we were traumatized to feeling like we were gonna die when we had that original loss. You're listening for the voice, you're smelling for the smell, you're listening, your brain is thinking you're gonna die because you're with strangers now. The people that are supposed to take care of you are gone. So then that repeated throughout. I mean, I had episodes where my parents left me with a babysitter and didn't come home, and, again, I would have a panic attack, anxiety. I know people that watch This Is Us, the adoptee in that television show will sometimes have high anxiety, and yeah, I was exactly like that. And then when I had [00:22:00] my first breakup, I was 17, fell in love, was completely boundarylessly in love, just merging with this boyfriend. And then when he broke it off, I became suicidal. I said things in my head like, if I am going to be alone and not have him, I don't want to live. And it took several months, but I almost got hospitalized. I didn't, but I did have chronic thoughts of suicide after that breakup.

Now I look back and I'm like, Oh yeah, that was because your early infant trauma got triggered and the feeling is I'm gonna die, so I might as well make myself die, because I can't deal with this pain. I did get good therapy and was at that time able to work through that. But I [00:23:00] remember seeing the movie Ordinary People when his brother had died in that film, and he had the same kind of thing, like this feeling of, oh my gosh, I can't live. In his case, I think it was more survivor's guilt, but it was definitely a trauma reaction.

Haley Radke: Yeah. That's really hard. I'm sorry little Sharon was going through that.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Thank you, Haley. Yeah. I do think that I am a good therapist because I'm not afraid of…. Other therapists have never experienced the level of pain of abandonment that most adoptees have gone through. So another thing is that you want a therapist who's not afraid of that level of pain and is able to be there with you with that deep, I mean, when people regress to [00:24:00] that infant-like state, they're wailing as if, oh my gosh, I'm gonna die right now. And some therapists really have never experienced somebody being in that much pain psychologically.

Haley Radke: I mean, you've said it several times. The book called it the primal wound. That's, yeah, very aptly named. I want to make sure we have space for the other side. So when adoptees are discovering that they have all these things happening in life, and maybe there's a root cause somewhere. Lots of people discover my show and they're like, Whoa, I never thought adoption could have been…. Talk to us about the hopeful side. Once you see the primal wound and talking about developmental trauma and all of the buzzwords that we use all the time, once we know that, what's on the other side of that for [00:25:00] us? Talk about the hope. Let's not get stuck.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Oh, absolutely. So I think of multiple layers of recovery. So the first recovery for me was after having suicidal thoughts. And the other thing is I had a negative belief that I didn't know I held onto, which was I'm just a random accident. I have no purpose to be here. I was just born by accident. In fact, I felt almost like a burden sometimes, and this is partly because my adoptive parents sometimes complained. They would say things like, oh, you kids are so expensive or I can't believe how much you cost us. And I'm like, Okay. Other kids probably wouldn't have picked up on that and felt bad, but adoptees do. They internalize all that with, oh, I guess I'm a big burden on them. Wow, I had better be perfect or [00:26:00] I better be good enough so I don't get thrown out. So those unconscious beliefs were in my mind and it was actually a spiritual piece that helped me. One of the therapists that I had talked about said, Just because your first mother and father couldn't keep you doesn't mean that you weren't meant to be here. Maybe you have a bigger purpose than you understand. Maybe there's a spiritual purpose. Maybe there's something that you don't fully comprehend that is your purpose here. And this may sound a little, I don't know, woo-woo or out there, but this literally happened to me. I had a spiritual experience. There was a time when I was thinking about killing myself. And I had an experience of, now I think maybe it was [00:27:00] like some kind of ancestor medicine or something. But a woman came to me and just kind of spoke to me. This was just thoughts. It wasn't like I had a vision or a hallucination. But I remember feeling that it was a presence, and she just said, You have more to do in this life. You have more to give here, and you will know later. You won't know, but you will help a lot of people. And so that actually settled me right down. I had this emotional relaxing, Oh, okay, yep, so it wasn't a big mistake. I am meant to be here. Even though it wasn't my parents' plan, it was somebody's plan. And then that helped me. I haven't had the same level of suicidal thoughts since then.

Haley Radke: That's beautiful. I was at an event fairly recently where Zara Phillips and Gabor Maté were talking about the [00:28:00] trauma of relinquishment. And Gabor Maté expressed that because some people are uncomfortable with talking about the spiritual kind of side of things, or whatever, and he expressed it so beautifully. I want to share it again here in case you missed that. He said: "Life wants life, and life wanted you." And I just thought that was such a beautifully expressed sentiment, and it was very powerful. And yeah, for so many of us who just literally feel unwanted. Life wanted you. Oh, powerful.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Yes, he is an incredible healer. I have listened to several of his films; he does continuing education. So yeah, I like his work. But I will go listen to that podcast. So thank you for that.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Okay, so that's one layer. That's a big deal. What else? [00:29:00]

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Well, the other thing is relationships. I know a lot of adoptees struggle with relationships. So in my case, I had a repetitive pattern of getting attracted to men who were not able to commit. And guess what? I was doing that replay of probably my birth father's drama with my birth mother. Here you get into this intense relationship and then can't stay. And so what oddly happened for me is the way to break that pattern was first I found my birth mother, but it wasn't until I think I was 35, and I kept having these relationships that didn't work. Finally, when I found him and I met him, everything shifted for me, and I was able to have a long-term relationship [00:30:00] that I'm still married to my husband now. The key to it is, and I wouldn't have known, that in psychodynamics they talk about how we keep replaying these early wounds. Or that which is repressed is destined to be repeated. That's a Freudian phrase. So when I brought it out into the open, I was able to... My birth father he's gone now. Anyway, he was not really very capable of talking much with me. He felt incredibly guilty with the wife that he married after he left my mother. She knew about me but they were quite conflicted about what to do about me, so there was a lot of drama about that. So he would call me when he was alone, but he [00:31:00] didn't want me to come to his home. He didn't want me to meet her. He didn't want me to meet my half-siblings. Not until as an adult was I finally able to meet my half-siblings. But these relationships are incredibly complex. You've got four sets of parents. Not sets, but four parents, birth mother, birth father, adoptive mother, adoptive father, and then how do you manage all these parents and siblings and half? It's complicated to be able to finesse it. So anyway, long story short, what happened to me was seeing him and grieving for that and understanding that he couldn't have been able to be in my life freed me up to break that pattern of having these men who couldn't commit. And so then I was able to marry my husband and we're still together. But [00:32:00] also, I married a man who is incredibly patient and capable. I'll occasionally still, even now, he'll be down in the basement working, and I'll think he's left the house, and I'll be like, Where are you? Where are you? I've lost you. I've lost you. Are you here? And, I’ll walk around the house yelling his name because there's still the baby part of me that's going, This person that I'm supposed to be attached to isn't really gonna stay. They're gonna leave.

Haley Radke: I appreciate you saying that so much, Sharon, because that connected a dot for me like big time. Because we moved recently. We used to live in a very tiny house, and now we have a bigger, a bit of a bigger house, so it could be that we don't know where each other is. It's not imagined. It's just a normal house. But if I don't know where Nick is, yeah, I have a little voice asking, Where is he? And if one of my kids asks me where he is, I get really irritated [00:33:00] because I'm like, First of all, look yourself. Second of all, now I don't know where he is. Thanks for pointing that out to me. Wow. Yeah. That's interesting.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Yup, it's your little inner abandoned kid that's still getting triggered.

Haley Radke: Why not? Why not just add one more thing to the list of things to talk to my therapist about. Perfect. Okay, great.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Yeah. I also know Betty Jean Lifton was a wounded healer in this area and, certainly, there's several adoptees who are also therapists. I do think it adds a dimension when you have lived it yourself plus you are in the healing profession. There just is a plus to it, if you've worked through your stuff, to be able to offer it to others.

Haley Radke: And there are so many adoptees that [00:34:00] choose various healing professions. I've seen that a lot. And I didn't realize this at the time, but my degree is in psychology. I'm not a psychologist, but it's interesting, right? When you're in your teen years, late teens, and going into university and picking psychology, it's like how do I get to know myself, right? How do I figure out human behavior and all that? I think it was a cry to find myself.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Yes. Very much for me too, but it's interesting because I couldn't really own it until later. I went through my whole graduate school program and I studied compulsive gambling because that was okay because my adopted grandfather had a gambling problem. So that was allowable. But to study abandonment [00:35:00] trauma or developmental trauma, it wasn't until later that I really realized that. And also addictions. I certainly know many adoptees have them because we're trying to block out such emotional pain, and it's attractive to use drugs or alcohol to numb that until you can do your full grieving and acceptance of the pain.

Haley Radke: Totally. Wow. Okay. I know that you brought a recommended resource, but before we get to that, is there anything else that you want to share with us or thoughts you want to leave us with?

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Yeah. It's a difficult thing to talk about. I have done a lot of work on forgiveness because I couldn't really move through the pain without getting to the other side and getting to where [00:36:00] I don't think of forgiveness as acting like it didn't matter. Forgiveness is not saying, Oh, I never had pain because I'm just gonna act like it didn't happen. No. Forgiveness is the acceptance that people did things to us, adoptees, and that we have to reduce our expectations that they could have acted differently. So I have forgiven all four of my parents and done a real piece of work on how much I got hurt by their choices and the pain that I went through and releasing the expectations that they could have done things differently. And this I was taught through a person who is actually a first mother. Mary Hayes Grieco, and she wrote the book that I mentioned, the audiobook called Ambushed by Babies. And one of the [00:37:00] stories is about the relinquishment she went through. And she also has other children so she talks about being a mom and all the pieces of being a mother. But she's also a forgiveness trainer and has helped me a great deal with that because at the end of the day, we can't ever go back and no one can make up for the loss that happened. It is what it is. So radical acceptance and releasing my expectations. And I've even gone so far as to do ancestral healing because the grandparents played a role for both my birth father and birth mother. This was back in the late '50s when it was unacceptable to have a child who was pregnant out of wedlock. And [00:38:00] so my prayer is that the earth, the world, the whole world becomes more accepting of the fact there are complicated ways to have a family.

Haley Radke: I was just talking to someone about family preservation because I'm really passionate about it, and we were lamenting the current state of foster care and how, this is a long story. Anyway, there was a Twitter thread and someone was advocating for more foster families: “We gotta find families for these kids.” And someone just so succinctly and impactfully, I think, replied: "They already have families." And I don't know why that was such a light bulb moment for me, like, they already have families. We already had families, and to negate that and just gloss over it. [00:39:00] I don't think blank slate theory has really cleared out the way many people might have thought it had. Yeah, that's really impactful how you said that. I really appreciate that. So yeah, it's true. It's true. Thank you so much, Sharon, for sharing some of your story with us and some of the ways that you've found to help adopted people. Where can we connect with you online?

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: My website is sharonsteinmcnamara (dot) com, so that would be the best place, and I also have email. I can give you my email: sharonsteinmcnamara (at) gmail (dot) com.

Haley Radke: That's perfect. I will share both of those in the show notes, and I'm really thankful to have more adoptees who are therapists, psychologists in the world to serve our community. Thank you.

Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed.D.: Yeah, thank you. [00:40:00]

Haley Radke: Friend, I'm so glad you stuck around and hung out with me and Sharon today. I want to give you a couple of real-time updates, so if you are listening in real time when this episode is released, I'm Canadian, and I happen to live in Alberta, which is the province that, at the time of the recording, hopefully this has changed, but we are number one for COVID in North America, which isn't great. It's not great to be number one in that. But that means my kiddos have come home for online learning, and I'm sure you can understand that means it has a significant impact on the Adoptees On production capabilities. So I'm coming to let you know just a couple things. I have always [00:41:00] planned to have a break for the summer, and this year Adoptees On will be on pause for the summer and will be back in September with new episodes. I'm not going to be doing any replays. I've done that in the past, but there's a huge catalog, you guys. So many fricking episodes. I calculated out the hours the other day, and you can listen to six full days, night and day, of back catalog episodes. So I was like, Yeah, we're not gonna do replays. I had planned to take July and August off anyway, but now it's likely that we're going to wrap up earlier in June. So I'm going to finish all my episodes that I have recorded already, and we'll be bringing those for the next couple weeks. But just anticipate. See, I'm letting you know ahead of time because I know how hard it is to get surprised. You can just anticipate that Adoptees On will be on a break during the summer, and it's [00:42:00] just a little longer than I had intended because my kiddos are going to be home full days, every day, and Haley is switching to “mama teacher sorta” mode supervising the online schooling. I'm sorry about that. Literally out of my control.

But I want you to know if you are a Patreon member, if you're in the Patreon Facebook Group, I'll still be around. It's easier for me to do that than it is to record. I'm sure you can understand that. So yeah, I still have Patreon episodes going up every single week throughout the whole summer. A lot of those are already done, thankfully, and we're still doing Book Club. So if you feel a little nervous about Adoptees On not being there for you on Fridays, I'm on Patreon Adoptees Off Script every single Monday and once a month with Book Club. So if you want to support [00:43:00] the show and you want to make sure you hear a little bit of Haley every week…oh my gosh, that sounds so stupid, it is what it is.

It's true. Adopteeson.com/partner has the details of how you can access that and support the show and keep it sustainable. And don't worry, I will be back next Friday, the next couple Fridays, but just so you know, the break is coming. Adopteeson.com/partner for the Patreon bonuses. Thank you so much for those of you who support the show monthly or have given a yearly gift. It is huge to keep the show going. Thank you.

Thank you for listening, and let's talk again next Friday.