Bonus: Adoptees for Family Preservation

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/bon1

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] 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 Radkey. It is finally time to tell you that I've been working on a brand new podcast for the last year, and I continue to do it's a gigantic project. I'm so excited to be creating this for you, for our community and beyond.

It is called On Adoption, and it's an investigative series that uncovers the stories adoption agencies rarely tell what expectant mothers face, how families are separated and what happens to the [00:01:00] children who grow up as adoptees. This is adoption examined from the inside out by those of us who've lived it.

I've spent the last seven months interviewing mothers who have placed their babies for adoption within the last five years. Why just recent years? I am trying to combat that argument that we used to do adoption this way, but things have changed. Frankly we may call things by different names, but the lifelong impacts are the same.

I believe that true insight into adoption and real systemic change will only come from listening to the most impacted parties, and we are the ones whose voices are left out of traditional media coverage. The goal of this new investigative series is to change how society sees adoption and to elevate [00:02:00] family preservation.

To that end, I've invited the Board of Adoptees for Family Preservation to join in on this conversation and help us do a deep dive of what I've been doing and how you can be involved. Let's listen in.

I am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees on the full board for Adoptees for Family Preservation that includes Sullivan Summer, our president. Hi Sullivan.

Sullivan Summer: Hi Haley.

Haley Radke: We have Lora Alegria, our secretary.

Lora Alegria: Hi Haley.

Haley Radke: Hi. And we have Lilly Anspach, our treasurer and financial development officer.

Lilly Anspach: Hi Haley.

Haley Radke: I'm so excited to talk to you all. Our goal today is to tell you about the new investigative series that I've been working on. But before we do that, I would love it if all of you [00:03:00] would introduce yourselves to listeners who might not know who you are.

Sullivan Summer: Thanks so much, Haley. So I am Sullivan Summer. I serve as the president of Adoptees for Family Preservation. I am a US domestic transracial adoptee. And by way of background, I hold an undergraduate degree in journalism as well as a law degree, and I spent about two decades in legal and corporate roles with some of the world's most recognizable brands. And now I function as a freelance, literary and cultural critic, as well as serving as president for the board.

Haley Radke: Thank you. Lora.

Lora Alegria: Hi. I am Lora Alegria. I am the secretary for the board. I am a domestic same race adoptee. I have an undergraduate in speech communication and pr and a master's in journalism with an emphasis in pr. Before I had kids, I worked in marketing and fundraising and event planning for a nonprofit theater and Planned Parenthood when I moved to [00:04:00] Washington so my life has always been in nonprofit, so I'm super excited to be a part of this project. And then I was a stay-at-home mom for 20 years, and while I was a stay-at-home mom, I was also involved in nonprofit boards and president of the school board for a Montessori school for two years. Now, I also help Haley behind the scenes for the Adoptees On show and help post things and help her wherever she needs.

Haley Radke: Listen, Lora is one of the main reasons you hear a show on Friday. Okay? Let's just be serious. Thanks Lora and Lily.

Lilly Anspach: Hi, my name's Lilly Anspach. I am a domestic same race adoptee. I serve as the treasurer, so I help manage our finances, help lead our fundraising efforts, really working to build resources to fund the program that we're about to talk about. So that's really exciting. My background, gosh, I have a degree in industrial organizational psychology and an MBA. Really just a background in the manufacturing sector doing operational excellence and [00:05:00] organizational development. And I really think that's gonna help me help the board build systems and structures so that we can really steward this project with transparency and integrity all along the way.

Haley Radke: We have a tremendously skilled and gifted board put together here, and I'm just honored that you all are serving in this capacity.

So recently I opened up guest applications for adoptee on and. It was amazing, the traction, and I don't know, Lora, you probably haven't seen yet, but we have at least 15 applications that came in over the course of 24 hours. And one of the comments on that post was, I'm paraphrasing. Essentially I'm tired about talking about healing and hearing people's stories.

Let's get to the root of stopping that adoption is even happening. And I was like. Listen lady, I'm on it. I'm [00:06:00] also working on this new thing that absolutely is my dream. Imagine telling our stories in a way where we really help shift people's view of adoption to that of one that is. It's family separation.

How did it ever become normalized and celebrated and monetized the way it has this new investigative audio documentary really is meant to do just that. So that's what I've been working on.

Lilly Anspach: I think I told you in one of the other times we were having a conversation how much I enjoy the narrative style documentary style podcast, and I was just wondering, why is this moment significant? Why did you choose now to look at that format to go deeper into reporting on adoption and specifically family preservation.

Haley Radke: Listeners that have been around for a while, which I know includes you, Lilly, [00:07:00] you've been a listener for many years, and a supporter. I've been talking about doing this for so many years, and when my kids were younger, I just, I really didn't have the capacity.

I even commissioned music for the series. I named it. I had art. I had liked the very bare bone starting things, and it just became increasingly clear to me that in recent years, adoptee voices are being heard more and more I believe that the impact is really starting to slowly shift in the culture. And I love podcasts.

I've listened to podcasts for years and years, and the impact they can have on people is amazing. Like the intimacy you can feel listening to stories that are told, especially in this narrative way when we introduce [00:08:00] characters and you can really fall in love with them and really understand their deeper motivations and all of those things. It can really change your perspective on an issue like this.

Lilly Anspach: Yeah, it's definitely. A different way of being high touch with the stories. It's like you're watching a film, but you're hearing it, right?

Haley Radke: Yes. Yes. And I think there's this thing where, I don't know if you've ever had this moment. I know you all are podcast listeners in some sense to the extreme of me perhaps. Could be. I know you're runners too, so you might have this moment where you have, you're listening in your earbuds. You are out on a run or you're walking your dog or doing your life things and you can remember I remember exactly where I was when I heard this moment or this very specific thing someone said on a podcast, and it stays with you.

Like I, I have this moment from I think six years ago I remember exactly where I was driving to my in-laws and listening to a podcast [00:09:00] and like the feeling all of it. It can be very visceral and intimate and you have this bonded moment. Which I think can bring about social change.

Lilly Anspach: Absolutely.

Sullivan Summer: I remember exactly where I was during the first time I heard Adoptees On. I remember who your guest was and I remember where on the sidewalk I was standing. When it got to a certain point of the episode, that really resonated with me 'cause I had never heard anything like that before. So I think you're so right about being able to make that kind of impact. I'm curious, Haley, you talked about essentially storytelling and the importance of storytelling, but there's a lot of ways to tell stories why this investigative, essentially journalistic format for this new podcast.

Haley Radke: I think that one of the I'll call [00:10:00] it problems that adopted people have had is being seen as credible in the telling of our own experiences. I felt like I, it needs to be this rigorous reporting with full backstory to, in some sense prove to the general public, what we're telling is true.

So often it's like we are not believed if we tell the story, but if some outside third party source is the one to tell it, then perhaps it's okay, and maybe it's true then and I just, I don't wanna buy into that. I want us to be the ones that tell our own stories. And I am also reporting on birth mothers experiences of relinquishment and placement.

And so I'm an outsider to that community. And so perhaps will their stories be believed if I'm the one reporting on it. I hope [00:11:00] so. This is a tricky thing I think. But because of everyone else always telling our story, it's our turn to tell the adoptee experience. That's what we've done on Adoptees On, and this is a little different because we have that in-depth reporting piece, but I'm, I really want to do such a good job of telling the mom's stories, especially because they haven't had agency. They didn't have agency when they relinquished, they didn't have agency in what their open adoptions look like currently. The one thing they can have agency over is their story, and I hope to do that justice for them.

Lora Alegria: Haley, we all appreciate your approach and your standards that you have for yourself for the Adoptees On podcast, and we know that you carry that into this project as well. And the ethical, you've taken a lot of care in thinking about how to tell these stories [00:12:00] ethically and how to tell these stories that's respectful too to the moms that you're speaking with, and we all know that the narrative, the dominant narrative has been the adoptive parents or the industry telling our stories and telling us how we should feel about our experiences.

So can you expand a little bit about that importance and what changes and why it's so important that we as adoptees and the birth mothers that you're speaking to get to hold the microphone and share our stories and why it's important that it comes from us.

Haley Radke: I think the ethical part of it really scared me because I'm interviewing mothers who have relinquished or placed their children for adoption within the last five years, and I believe that to be a traumatic experience.

And so who am I to ask them to [00:13:00] recount this trauma for me? For our listeners, and not just that, but in great detail please. And can you tell me that again in a different way, please. And so I actually consulted with someone who is a reporter and is on this committee of ethical journalistic standards in Canada.

And we talked through this and how I can ask questions in a good way for them. And also we planned out along with my advisory panel, who helps me with these big decisions for the show supports we could give to these mothers while they are interviewing with me. While the show is being edited, when the show airs and past the point of the show airing, amazingly, I found two [00:14:00] therapists who are running a support group for the women who participate in these interviews.

So I feel that they have been supported both through and after they have been able to connect with each other, which is really amazing. Listen, I'm not there every time I was there at the first one. Just introduce everybody to each other and it was so amazing, like instantly how the moms were bonding with each other, asking for each other's numbers.

And I thought, okay, I, this is good. I did the right thing in setting this up for them and though it did cost them to share with me, I hope that this benefit will somehow even out the cost that it has had for them.

The other thing, this is a weird thing that just happened literally this morning. I was listening to a huge podcasts I listen to regularly and it's a, it's like a self helpy show. I knew [00:15:00] that they changed the names of the callers and likely the locations, and this morning I was literally lying in bed and I was like, oh my God I know this caller, and it took maybe 30 seconds into the call, and I was like, I know this caller.

And then the person proceeded to ask a pretty intimate question of this, the host. And I thought, oh no now I know this private information about them. And so I've spent the rest of the day thinking about, and I already had thought about this earlier, these moms are gonna come share their stories on the show.

And likely, hopefully thousands of people will listen. Tens of thousands of people will listen. Who knows how many people will listen and could the fact that they are sharing their story, critiquing some of the experiences they've had, critiquing potentially the adoptive parents of their child, will that impact their [00:16:00] currently open adoptions?

And so it comes at quite a high risk. And so the fact that this happened this morning where I was like, oh no, they changed the name and I heard it agai n, I was like, I'm asking a big ask of these women. I've told them all the risk and they're all so committed to sharing because they don't want other women to go through what they've gone through.

Lilly Anspach: That's amazing. And when you think about these moms and you just spoke really well about the cost that we're potentially asking them. Can you give us a preview or give us an idea of what are some of the key insights you're uncovering early on? I know you're not all the way through the program, but what are some of the key insights or maybe some intersections that you're uncovering that will illuminate the story that's different than the current narrative that's out there.

Haley Radke: Ultimately, most of the moms I've spoken to have had really tricky [00:17:00] upbringings in some form or another, and of course that leads to a lack of supports when the crisis pregnancy comes.

Also for some, there is a true financial poverty. Others, that's not the case, and it's the social poverty that led to placement. There are difficult relationships with the men involved, ranging from, I really don't want to be hooked to this person for 18 years because they verge on abusive. All the way to domestic violence.

There are real expressions of not all, but almost all of them so far that at some point prior to signing the papers [00:18:00] they changed their mind and wanted to parent. And if just one person, multiple times I've heard this, if just one person had told me, I will help you do this, I wouldn't have placed. That's probably the most heartbreaking of it because I think surely we know one person in our lives that would support us in some kind of crisis like this.

And the other piece to that is, is for some of them, the crisis was so temporary, it was three months, six months, and it, you think about a child's lifespan, what's six months in the grand scheme, like you couldn't have someone walk alongside you for six months. Ugh. It's just heartbreaker really.

Sullivan Summer: So Haley, for listeners, Adoptees for Family Preservation, our purpose is really in the name. But I thought if it's okay [00:19:00] that myself and Lilly and Lora can talk for a minute or two about how we are thinking about Adoptees for Family Preservation and why it is that we felt like On Adoption was a project that we really wanted to invest in.

And AFFP Adoptees for Family Preservation really exists to raise awareness about family separation issues and the long-term impact on adoptees and their families. We understand that hopeful adoptive parents often really have the best of intentions when seeking adoption, but we really wanna encourage them to aim their resources towards supporting family units instead of facilitating separation.

We also really wanna provide education and resources to expectant parents to raise awareness about the practices and the behaviors of the adoption industry. [00:20:00] And we really felt like On Adoption was so well aligned to our broader organizational goals. Lora, do you wanna say a, I think you wanna say a few more things about that as well.

Lora Alegria: Yeah. As you, as we talked earlier, that the industry and the adoptive parents have had the microphone and it's our turn now. And that's what this podcast is about. It's shedding light on the truth of the experience of being an adoptee and a birth mother, a first mother. That is what we saw in this project as important in advocating for us as adoptees and advocating for birth mothers and giving us all back our agency that was taken. That is one reason we chose to support this project. And we hope that listeners will gain insight and awareness from the hard work that you're doing Haley.

Lilly Anspach: I think also too, so many [00:21:00] times, even if we are getting the message across about adoption and the cost to generations or even to families, there's so many people still that will say what other options are there really? We understand that there's pain involved and it's not perfect, but we're still gonna have to do this thing. We really are interested in On Adoption because it's going past just the individual stories. It's getting to that point where you can start putting these shared experiences together and see how this system of adoption is shaped by policy and power and money and culture and a lot of the political problems that are facing all of us in different ways as well.

And so I think really helping folks understand that and spark their curiosity, yeah. We haven't come up with a better way yet, but there's gotta be different ways and really just encourage that accountability, thinking differently, talking differently so that we can [00:22:00] challenge ourselves as a society to do better. We can do better.

Haley Radke: Yeah, absolutely. Those intersectionalities that we really don't necessarily. The general public don't necessarily put those dots together. So in any way that we can outline that for people, tell the story, like how did adoption come to be? Look at these individual stories, like how did their circumstances come to be for these moms that that their last resort was giving their child to strangers who may or may not maintain contact with them, depending on how good they behave and they have no legal remedy if their open adoption closes. Telling from the adult adoptee perspective, we're their kids all grown up. We can share about the consequences of adoption well into our adulthood, our children, [00:23:00] our extended circles, all the ripples out that adoption has, that most folks just never give a thought to.

So how can we tell them these things? Okay. I am so excited because I got special permission from one of my moms that's participating in our series. Her name is Beck, and she allowed me to put together a cut for you of pieces of our interviews. So Beck is a mom who parented her first child. She relinquished her second, and so we've been doing interviews all about her lifetime, her experiences, what led her to this point, and she is a gem, I am so excited to share this with you.

Beck: It was so hard for me to [00:24:00] even accept or acknowledge that I was Henry's mom, like I'm not the woman that's raising him, but nobody, no piece of paper can take that away from me. I brought him into the world. I gave him life. But it's like from the very moment that you agree to an adoption, they really work to strip your identity of what you are to your child.

The agency didn't prepare me for the isolation, the trauma, none of it, they didn't prepare me for how society would treat me or that I feel, I even feel anxious even telling like new people that enter my life, Hey, I have this other child that's not with me. The agency doesn't tell you that. How your baby will scream and cry for 365 days. Nonstop. It's really hard. People later after I placed him if I knew that you was gonna do that, I would've done this for you. And it's like, why didn't you offer [00:25:00] to help me keep my child?

If anyone had just said something, something like, I'll help you. Or It doesn't have to be this way, it wouldn't be this way. And also, if I just knew the road ahead for the consequences. For not just me. Yeah, it's hell. But I made that choice. But, for my children, and I'm actually pregnant again, but it's taken me eight cycles to get pregnant.

This is a planned pregnancy. I was happy, but I was surprised because I was beginning to think oh my God. Like I am not gonna have another baby, or, I know it sounds crazy, but maybe that's my punishment for losing my child. In some ways it feels really selfish to have another baby.

I have questions like concerns about how he's going to process me having another child and I'm pretty sure [00:26:00] like inevitably, he is gonna ask 'cause he is still little, but are you going to give this one away like you did me? And then if I say no, you know why? Why not them too? Like you made this decision for me is good enough for me. Why is it not good enough for another child?

Obviously you can't flip an entire industry built on this but you can, a grassroots effort, just reaching in and talking, reaching as many people as you can because that's still saving somebody from this isn't right, and I don't want anyone else to go through what we've went through.

I don't want anyone else to feel the way I felt. I don't, I just don't feel like we deserve this and our crisis was temporary. It didn't have to be this way. If I knew what was ahead or all the grief that would come [00:27:00] with keeping my pregnancy there, there's no way. It would've came down to two options. I would've parented him as a first choice, but if not parenting him, abortion, the adoption just shouldn't even be an option. It's barbaric.

Lilly Anspach: Wow.

Haley Radke: I listen to that and I get choked up again because her story is so powerful. But I'm gonna say I disagree with her because she says this thing like can we flip a whole industry? No, it's just grassroots. And I'm like, no, girl, we're gonna do it for you. Yep.

Lilly Anspach: Yep. That's exactly what I wrote down when I was listening to that, Haley. As, that's exactly why we exist and that's exactly why we're organized and choosing to fund specifically this project right now because that is our intention and I believe we have that ability to flip that script and make a change if it, if we have to work that hard to strip a person's [00:28:00] identity of motherhood. What's the most natural thing in the world that has to be infinitely harder than what we would have to do to preserve that family.

Sullivan Summer: So as Lilly said, this is why we exist, and so we would ask listeners to find and follow us. You can find us online at adopteesffp.org. We would ask you to just sign up with us so that we can give you updates and let you know what's coming and how you can support Adoptees for Family Preservation. We're also on Instagram @adopteesffp as well. And so again, I will just reiterate, please find and follow us. Right now that's what we're asking for. We will be asking for donations money, resources, funding, so we can continue to [00:29:00] support the work, Haley, that you are doing. That includes, of course, supporting these women who are, as you pointed out, risking a whole lot to make sure that other people don't suffer what they have suffered and what their children have suffered as well.

Haley Radke: Thank you all so much. I can't express the gratitude I have for your support for this project, for believing in me. And listeners, I have shown up for you for nine years. I believe you can trust me with telling these stories in just a amazing way because I've, I, every time I think about this project, I get those goosebumps and like this feeling like this is gonna be a big thing for our community and it's gonna make a really big impact. Like I really deeply believe that. Thank you Sullivan, [00:30:00] Lora Lilly, for joining me today to talk about this project and for supporting it in this way. Thank you.

As I've interviewed mothers for this podcast, I've come to understand so much more about the complicated circumstances surrounding infant adoption, and it's also so simple. Adoption brings a grief and pain for mothers and babies that is outrageous and is in more times than not a permanent solution to a very temporary problem.

If family preservation is important to you, please visit adopteesffp, that's Adoptees for Family Preservation adopteesffp.org, or just click through in the show notes to sign up for updates. I would love to keep [00:31:00] you in the loop of what I'm working on and how you can help. I am truly honored to be entrusted with these stories, and I promise I'm going to make a compelling and impactful show that will bring change.

Thank you for listening. Let's talk again soon.

312 Lynelle Long

Transcript

Full shownotes:https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/312

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E312 Lynelle Long

Haley Radke: [00:00:00] 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. Lynelle Long has been an adoptee advocate for nearly 30 years. The founder of InterCountry Adoptee Voices (ICAV) Lynelle has built a network of thousands of adoptees around the world to both connect with each other and to affect change at every level of government, as high up as the United Nations.

Today we get to hear some of her personal story, including her choice to have her adoption discharged in 2022, and about her role as an active observer to the Hague [00:01:00] Convention. Lynelle also has some advice to adoptee advocates for our efficacy and longevity in adoption reform spaces. We do mention sexual abuse at a couple of points in this conversation, so please take care while listening.

Before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world. We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.

I am so pleased to welcome to Adoptee on Lynelle Long. Hello Lynelle.

Lynelle Long: Hi there, Haley. Great to be on here. Thank you for inviting me.

Haley Radke: At long last. I feel like this is so overdue. I didn't realize you've been doing adoptee activism for almost [00:02:00] 30 years with InterCountry Adoptee Voices. That's incredible.

Lynelle Long: Yeah. See all my white hairs.;

Haley Radke: I'm pretty sure I have more than you, but that's so funny. Okay we'll put, we're gonna get to that. But can you start first please by sharing a little bit of your adoptee story with us for folks who might not know you?

Lynelle Long: Yeah, sure. So I was born in Vietnam in 1973, so just before the war in Vietnam finished. And I was taken as a five month old baby by white Australian parents who had organized a private lawyer in Vietnam. It's what they called independent proxy adoptions back then to facilitate obtaining me. It looks like from all my decades of trying to find my origins that I came from a hospital, a maternity hospital as a three day old infant, seems to be the likely scenario. And they took me into their own private creche, of which they looked after me for five months until they got my adoptee father to [00:03:00] fly into Ho Chi Min City, take me out.

And all I had at that stage that I've ever had is actually a passport. I've never seen any adoption paperwork. My parents brought me back to Australia in 73 and they sat with me for 16 and a half years until they went, oh, we haven't done your adoption. We better do it because at that stage, I was trying to get my driver's license and I had no identity documents.

So they contacted the Victorian adoption department. By then, the adoptive parent organizations had disappeared and gone because the government in Australia centralized adoption and got rid of all the private agencies in around the nineties and took over adoption. So this was now hitting that stage, and my adoption was then facilitated by the Victorian department who proceeded to rubber a stamp my adoption, even though they had absolutely nothing on me.

So no birth documents, no identity records, no [00:04:00] relinquishment, nothing from Vietnam as a government to even state that I was eligible for adoption or even anything about my background or origins. And so it's one of the strangest adoptions possibly, where a government has actually done an adoption based on thin air, literally.

And proceeded to give my parents access and approval to formally adopt me at the age of 16 and a half, even though I'd been in the country for 16 and a half years.

Haley Radke: So when did you get any documentation from Vietnam?

Lynelle Long: I still haven't got any.

Haley Radke: You have none.

Lynelle Long: I've been searching, I'm now 52. I've been searching all of these years for some kind of record about my birth, my identity, and I did hire a private detective in Vietnam who had some success with other Vietnamese adoptees because of my network.

And he found and sent me a blurry photograph of what appears [00:05:00] to be a birth certificate and one adoption paper that had my adoptive parents' details. I believe it's legit because it actually has their address on it at the time, which was, now 52 years ago, which he possibly could not have forged or falsified because he wouldn't have known.

Haley Radke: Right.

Lynelle Long: Where they lived at that time. So I do believe he found probably what appears to be documents, but maybe they're so hidden and sealed down. He, he had told me the location of where they were. They were in the police precinct of district one which is right in the heart of the city. But to this day, despite sending that information and the document to the Vietnamese government they have, they spent then two years looking for my documents and said that they can't find anything, which is quite bizarre given that he found something.

It's quite a mystery, my adoption and how it even came about. It's all just guest ation. [00:06:00] So it's a very bizarre one. Hence why I say that my adoption is completely illegal. Illicit does not meet any criteria for a decent process at all. It's just so many problems with my adoption, if you even wanna call it that. It's more it's more like a

Haley Radke: Yeah, like you, you could literally be a kidnapped child.

Lynelle Long: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Who was raised for, 16 years by people and then they're like, hey, can we need a driver's license? Can you give us some papers? That is outrageous.

Lynelle Long: Yeah. And then they used adoption as a way to get me an identity. Which is, not uncommon for people to basically use adoption procedures to create you with a new identity so that all your past is wiped out. I've actually met a Korean adoptee who's, came from a very wealthy family in Korea and they used adoption very specifically, sent him to America to wipe out his ability to have any inheritance to his [00:07:00] very wealthy father. So adoption is used very consciously by people to actually, wipe out identities, create a new one, which has happened in my case.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Wow. That's super unusual, but of course not unheard of.

Lynelle Long: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Another thing that's unusual but not unheard of is that you had your adoption discharged.

Lynelle Long: I have had, because my adoption, despite being with that family for that 16 and a half years, the department did a very dodgy poor job of checking on that family. If they had, have actually spent any time with me asking about how my adoption actually was with that family for 16 and a half years, they would've learned that I had a history, a massive history of sexual abuse in that family from five different perpetrators. And I've actually held them to account through the courts.

Now, three years ago, my adoptive father plead guilty, and I at the time also discharged my adoption [00:08:00] for many reasons, but also largely because that family, had given me a whole history of trauma and, I never felt safe or really truly valued or loved in that family.

Haley Radke: Yeah, I'm really sorry. That's brutal.

Lynelle Long: Yeah. No, that's okay.

Haley Radke: One of the issues in having your adoption nullified in some fashion over here is that there's a requirement that there's a parent on your birth certificate, and so what? What's your situation? Are you as if born to no one?

Lynelle Long: No, actually, because that private detective found what appears to be a birth certificate. I actually gave that to birth, death, and marriages when my adoption got nullified, and I was able to place my birth mother's name on my birth certificate. So the beauty of doing the adoption discharge was in fact, I could revert back to being legally related to my mother, should I ever find her? And [00:09:00] if it is true, what is on that birth certificate, which is what that private detective found for me.

So that's one of the biggest reasons why I actually wanted to undo my adoption was because I believe as all adoptees should have the right to be legally connected to our birth families, especially if we find them, it's an injustice that many of us, there's 1.2 million of us documented around the world as intercountry adoptees.

It's an injustice that when we reunite and find our birth families and prove through DNA, that they are specifically our biogolical family, that we are legally not allowed to claim them as family. For instance, I always said that if I found my birth family, I would love to be able to bring them to Australia as my family legally.

Whereas being adopted under immigration, they would not be considered my family at all. So these are some of the rights that are, that we are not granted if we keep our adoption intact.

Haley Radke: How [00:10:00] did it feel when you had it discharged?

Lynelle Long: I felt very liberated for many reasons, because I of so much trauma with that adoptive family, but also to be able to reclaim my original identity. The other important part of my discharge process here in Australia was that I was actually allowed to choose the name that I had going forward. So I actually chose three names from three parts of my identity my life. So I have one part from my birth name. One part from my adopteds, which I kept as Lynelle and I have one part as my married name.

So I've been able to incorporate all three major aspects of who I am into my actual legal identity now, which has been beautifully empowering and just, yeah, really amazing to be able to finally have some sense of control over who I am and what I walk through in life going forward.

Because so much of our life, as is completely out of our control. We are adopted as infants. [00:11:00] Often we have no say over who we even get sent to. We have no say as to where we belong in terms of nationality. So yeah, it's huge. And an un you can't understate how much it means to us as an adoptee to be able to have some form of say over who we are.

Haley Radke: Certainly, I've heard you talk about this before too, where you highlight that most of us can't just discharge our adoptions. Adoptive parents can. At any time, most of them. So just the agency that we've lost in this legal process is just not respected by, and not understood by the majority of kept people.

Lynelle Long: I don't think we ever lost any legal capacity. It's more that we were never given any legal ability.

Haley Radke: Uhhuh,

Lynelle Long: It's very small difference, but important one. And that is to say that the legal system of adoption was always made for adoptive parents. It was never made for adoptees to be able to focus [00:12:00] on our rights and needs long term.

And it definitely was never there for the birth family. And I don't like using the word birth family, but that's the jargon that most people typically understand. So I'll use it in this conversation. I typically prefer specifically family. But yeah, just so your viewers and listeners can understand easier.

Haley Radke: Yes. Okay. Another thing that I heard you say, which I actually haven't heard, I've had a lot of conversations, I don't recall, how about, I'll put it that way, talking with another inter-country adoptee or transnational adoptee talking about, this shared loss, of course, of, rejection or being given up by a first mother, specifically mother. But you spoke of, you're also being given up by your country. Can you speak to that?

Lynelle Long: Yeah. Like at some, in my own story, in some way, the Vietnamese government has given some form of immigration approval for me to leave that country, [00:13:00] and yet they've done nothing to protect my identity in that process of doing so.

And so for me, I have not only spent decades trying to find my origins, but I've also subsequently been asking Vietnam through the formal channels to the Justice Department for access to a reprint of a birth certificate so that I can claim citizenship. But again, there are so many barriers in the way to even be able to do that and it feels every time that I have to deal with this, that, it's a rejection from your whole country because when you think about our lack of rights, why should we lose access to our own birth country yet through adoption we do. So not every country, luckily there are some countries like Guatemala, Chile, Colombia who have allowed adoptees to still have their identities that they were born to in their birth countries, and they're still allowed to claim citizenship. [00:14:00] They're still allowed to vote, et cetera, et cetera, and buy property and whatever else. But for people like me from countries like Vietnam, which is a communist country. We are not even recognized as part of their population. So they've done nothing like the Korean adoptees, where at least Korea as a birth country has given them a special visa to allow them to come back and live for certain years as adoptees.

They recognized them legally as a specific category of immigrant who've left and wanted to return. Vietnam has done no such thing, and there are, thousands of us because we were as early as the Korean adoptees in the seventies, early sixties, sent out from our countries on mass, especially Operation Baby Lift, and yet no recognition of us as descendants from this country.

Also, with some kind of rights to be able to reclaim, what we would like in our birth countries. I would love to live in Vietnam for certain periods of [00:15:00] time, but as yet, I still have no pathway to be able to do that. Especially because I still can't get them to reprint me a birth certificate, even though I've shown them evidence that one existed, but yet they can't find it in the same location that I've given them.

So it's very difficult and yeah, I guess for me, I have felt it very overtly that I am rejected from my birth country as well as my birth family. If they indeed did relinquish me, which I doubt having come from possibly a maternity hospital, I know that the most of this likely scenario is that children and babies were often kidnapped from these maternity places.

Because you gotta think about it, we're in a war, there's thousands of babies in an orphanage. Why get such a healthy infant out of a hospital when you could have gotten thousands of babies out of an orphanage that were sitting there? So somebody has obviously been quite concerted in their efforts to get a baby that's from a [00:16:00] completely different source compared to the average and the on mass group.

Haley Radke: And yours was very different than Operation Baby Lift.

Lynelle Long: Yes.

Haley Radke: You're not a part of that, that

Lynelle Long: it's before. It's before this.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Lynelle Long: Yeah. My adoption was before Operation Baby Lift.

Haley Radke: Oh my goodness. That is chaotic. So honestly, if I heard someone that had your situation. And wanted a path to citizenship or, to connect with their country of origin and wanted to find the path there. I would send them to you, right?

Lynelle Long: I do get thousands coming to me. Yes.

Haley Radke: And so like we're talking to the expert, capital T, capital E here, and yet it, it's justifying,

Lynelle Long: I never even solve it for myself.

Haley Radke: No.

Lynelle Long: That's right.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Lynelle Long: But that's why I do provide it, is because I know how important it is to adoptees where when you've got no known pathway, no connections in the community if you don't know where to turn. Yes, I have been [00:17:00] providing that one stop shop for adoptees so that if they have absolutely no idea, I refer them to all of the massive network that I've built over 27 years to adoptees, to allies, to people who I know are there with our interests in mind.

Haley Radke: Yeah, you're the connector for sure. I feel similarly to you, except I don't have thousands of connections nor the expertise in any I have the expertise in, in feelings.

Lynelle Long: Yes.

Haley Radke: You wanna share feelings? I'm your girl.

Lynelle Long: Yes, that's right.

Haley Radke: One thing I wanted to speak to you about is this idea of how do we change people's viewpoint on their quote unquote to parent a child?

Lynelle Long: It's such a tough question. Yeah. I am a parent myself. When I speak about this, I speak about it [00:18:00] knowing what it's like to want to have a child of your own. I know how desperately people want that, and it's interesting, I've learned a lot about the international conventions.

But I do know that currently up until now, there has not been a right to be a parent convention, but there is a right to children having rights. So it's interesting that parents want children and will go to all sorts of lengths to get one, including today's boom in surrogacy, which is the new form of intercountry adoption.

But I guess I would like to caution people about that, to do their research and to really look into children's rights and to understand how your desire to be a parent can impinge upon and put as second priority the rights of the child to know very important things about themselves, such as their origins and their identity.

And I know [00:19:00] that money is the biggest push for the parents being able to meet their needs. But what you've gotta juxtapose that against is the child who is unborn or the child who's about to be born is completely vulnerable and has no say. Whereas you as the parent, you have all the power, all the privilege, all the resources, and all the voice because you actually have a voice at that point in time.

Whereas your child has none. People like me, we are those children who are grown up. We can now articulate and explain to you how your demanding for a child can actually obliterate our right to know who we are and to stay where we belong and where we are born to and how important that is to have that connection and that knowledge.

So I think it's really important for those parents who are thinking about parenting like that to [00:20:00] really, truly try to inform themselves about how people like me experience life and what kind of rights we talk about. I've actually literally written an intercountry adoptee charter that specifically spells out the lack of rights that we've fo we've all experienced en masse as a global community of intercountry adoptees.

And if you actually read that, you'll actually see at the heart of what, of how our rights are not protected mostly, and how, and then if you look at what you are doing and how that can create the very environment that doesn't protect our rights, that you need to seriously consider what you're doing and how that affects us.

Because at the end of the day, we are your children who we're gonna grow up in the future and at least, I would hope that you'd wanna listen to them and hear their perspective and understand their point of view and understand why they might grow up feeling a [00:21:00] little bit jaded and upset about what you've participated in and how you've contributed to their loss of identity origins, et cetera, et cetera. So there's a lot to unpack in that.

Haley Radke: You know what I loved you on a different show. An adoptive parent was like, we'll know better and we'll do better in the future, kind of thing. That was the sentiment given, and you were like. No we know this now we've known it for a long time, and these adoptive parents are, I'm not, this is not verbatim, okay?

But these adoptive parents are being willfully ignorant and, it's let's just, cover our ears, cover our eyes, and, oh, I heard some bad thing, but like everything we're doing is super ethical. We've got the good path here. And, people just continue to lie to themselves [00:22:00] to get what they want. It's very upsetting.

Lynelle Long: And the biggest red flag, if you are paying money, you're definitely participating in a trade of children in whatever capacity that you are paying money in. Whether that's a donation, whether that's a gift, whether that's a, oh, I'm buying her clothes, or housing, or whatever. It's a trade and you're commodifying the child.

And so you need to seriously look at what am I contributing to in a systemic capacity? When I actually conduct myself in this manner and I'm literally exchanging a resource that I can give financial, usually in exchange for helping me to obtain a child and this is the industry of child buying, unfortunately.

Haley Radke: Yep. And you specialize in intercountry adoptions. Of course. This is happening domestically, especially in North America to this day.

Lynelle Long: Absolutely.

Haley Radke: Let's go [00:23:00] to the Hague Convention. Can you tell us about your invol? I'm not sure exactly how you're involved or your deal there, if you can tell us that, and then just while we're recording, this is gonna release, a little bit later on, but I just heard, oh, Korea has now officially been accepted to the Hague, although they signed it 12 years ago and now it's, I don't know. I'm just quickly paraphrasing. Don't take that as the news. Look it up for yourself just to get for the facts.

Lynelle Long: It is actually true today.

Haley Radke: Okay. 12 years. Okay.

Lynelle Long: Yes.

Haley Radke: I'm trying. So can you speak to a little bit of that, because I think a lot of adoptive parents will hear, oh, it's a Hague convention country or something, and then it's oh, so everything's good, everything's above board. But of course, that's not necessarily the case.

Lynelle Long: Yeah, a lot of people don't understand the Hague at all. I guess I'm privileged, very privileged to actually sit at the Hague as an observer. So any international [00:24:00] adoptee led organization can apply to become an observer and sit in on Hague meetings.

Now, for those who don't know, the Hague is the International Convention and Space, a government agreeing from country to country that they're agreeing to the rules of the Hague Intercountry Adoption Convention as to how they will send and receive children to each other. So it's a forum and they gather together fairly regularly.

It is government to government meeting, usually only, and if you are there as an observer, you get to speak, but you don't get any voting rights and they don't have to take what you say seriously, they can listen. You can try to influence, but you have no real say 'cause you're literally there as just an observer.

I, as ICAV, have always gone there to be quite critical thinking voice. I speak out, but I speak out very respectfully and [00:25:00] I respect that this is the way that government to government, country to country has agreed on doing things. I don't pointedly target countries specifically, but I'll speak about the system in general and that's why I am continued to be invited and allowed there.

If you took the approach of being antagonistic and being very angry and aggressive and directly targeting people or specific governments, you would most likely probably not be invited back because when you get in, when you apply to be an observer, the governments actually vet who is allowed in and who's not allowed in.

So if you have a reputation for being aggressive, attacking, then they generally don't allow you in. If you have a reputation for being able to be respectful, having diplomatic dialogue, then you will be allowed in. So I have been attending working groups, both the one on illegal [00:26:00] adoption practices to create a toolkit for the central authorities and also for the financial aspects.

So the two that have run since I've become an observer, which has been probably the last eight years. I've also been at the last special commission meeting, the longstanding group that has been there is IKAA International Korean Adoptee Association. It's a big umbrella that internationally brings all the other Korean adoptee led orgs underneath them.

They have been at that meeting for since it started for 15, 20 years. But yet they've never spoken out. They never talk. At every meeting I've been at, they're dead silent. So hopefully that will change because they've seen ICAV bring in. And when I've come, I've actually brought in leaders like I did in the US with the symposium that I was invited to, that I spoke to you about earlier.

I have brought in adoptee leaders from other adoptee organizations with me as ICAV, so that there is broad representation from around the world, from all different birth countries and [00:27:00] adoptive countries and different perspectives. That's why they continue to invite ICAV because I facilitate others. With voices to come in and speak.

So they're not necessarily ICAV representatives, but they are leaders who I have built up years of respect with and good dialogue. And I know that they'll conduct themselves in a way that's appropriate for this forum. So that's how I operate. So last time I went to the special commission, I brought in eight leaders two from the US, one from Canada, one from Spain, one from France, one from me from Australia, one from the Netherlands.

And I had, a pretty good spread of birth countries between them all because for me it is so important that these governments hear from a broad range of voices, not just me. I never pretend to be able to be the sole spokesperson for all intercountry adoptees around the world. I'll always say, here are all the leaders look how many there [00:28:00] are. I maintain a list. I have hundreds of adoptee led groups around the world and my list of my network, and I call on them regularly for all sorts of different forums like this to get involved and to have a say same thing for the United Nations, which I did. So this is the kind of work that I do.

I try to harness our voices on mass and bring those voices to the very tables where policy practice legislation are discussed at very high level and where it's really important that our lived experience is incorporating into what they do because very often these central authority government workers, they literally just work in the field, but they never really have a lot of contact with adoptees, with lived experience who are actually, you hear it all the time, Haley, what people are literally going through the emotional content, the physical, these situations that they find themselves in, the issues that they have.

Often these government workers have no idea about all of those [00:29:00] complexities because they're not literally dealing with adoptees on the ground. So that's why it is so important to bring this lived experience in, to meet the very people who are designing, deciding and governing how this trade of children actually operates.

So it's not to say that I am for the trade of children. I'm absolutely against it. And people at The Hague know that because they hear very critically from what I say, that I'm against this trading of children. I'm in these forums saying we have to take out all money out of all of this equation, but yet, it falls on deaf ears because they can't possibly do that for whatever reasons.

Yeah, but there will be a lot of people out there who misjudge me or don't understand what I do and believe falsehoods that are out there, and they will literally believe that I'm pro adoption, that I'm there upholding the Hague Convention, when in fact I'm in there influencing with a very critical voice.

Because when you actually understand the mechanisms of the Hague, [00:30:00] it is like this. It's like a beautiful bible that tells you, oh, this is the utopia of how you could live life and do adoption nicely. Okay, but the problem is there's no judgment day, there's no mediator, there's no authority that sits above and judges each of these signatory countries who sign up like Korea and go, why are you not making sure that your citizens have citizenship when your adoptees arrive in your birth, in your adopted country, why are you deporting them back? Or why are you allowing so much abuse to happen? There is no one monitoring what these countries do. They will send their reports to the Hague Permanent Bureau to say, oh, yes, we're doing all this. But of course, it's a very skewed perspective because they're not actually talking to real lived experience adoptees to actually give any feedback that's actually off the ground.

They're just reporting what they see in their [00:31:00] data, but their data does not include ever following up on us. Asking us what's actually happened in our lives on mass Now, this is why things like the Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission have been so important because it's one of the rare few occasions where you publicly see on mass a whole heap of adoptees and their files actually been looked at and investigated to see what has actually gone on at a systemic level.

And this is why I'm one of the few people in the world because I've dealt with adoptees from all different births from adoptive countries for decades, and I've heard thousands, literally of their stories every day that I can bring a big picture that says to people at The Hague, this is actually what's going on.

No matter what country, we all have these similarities. Our documents are typically falsified. Our birth parents are typically not [00:32:00] advised properly about what this legal concept of adoption is, blah, blah, blah, and on we go. So I could rattle off heaps of that stuff. But the problem with the Hague fundamentally at the end of the day is it's a beautiful utopia, but there's no enforcement mechanism to protect our interests at all.

And there's definitely no mechanism for us to make a complaint to an independent body that says, hey, like me, my adoption, how the hell was this done? Who the hell can investigate it? There is literally nobody that we can even go to who has any oversight, who has any understanding of the intercountry adoption systems and legislations to even figure it out.

So we are literally left with nowhere to go, and that's why it is a terrible convention, and so will be the surrogacy one as well, and any others that are made to look like it gives us rights or protections, but actually, in real effect does not [00:33:00] because it relies on the countries who are signatories to monitor themselves.

And that is the fundamental problem. How can you expect a country to monitor itself when it's conducting its own trade of children?

Haley Radke: Thank you for that education, and you explained it so very well, and thus the reason people like yourself have to go back to your sending country and hope they'll deal, but they don't like there's no recourse anywhere.

Lynelle Long: They don't even, they don't even consider me a citizen, so they've got no, I've got no legal standing to even take any action in Vietnam. Because I'm not even technically even a citizen there to even have any rights, even there. You can see the dilemma for us. We are literally displaced and we are left with absolutely no, hardly any routes, methods for recourse. If I wanted to be repatriated back to Vietnam, how on earth would I even do that? [00:34:00]

Haley Radke: Yeah, just impossible. Wow. So in almost 30 years, have you seen any movement? Have you seen any changes, any people listening more? Give us some hope. It sounds like a slow grind where you have to censor yourself.

Lynelle Long: Yeah, you're right on one aspect. But there has been massive change. And what you've, what I haven't told you is the beginnings of when I first started Intercountry Adoptee Voices. ICAV my network is the very basis of me beginning my network 27 years ago was because nothing existed. Your voice was not out there Haley, neither were many others that I know of now, but literally, there was literally nothing on social media, internet, or anything for adoptees. There were no voices heard. There were no stories. Today, 27 years on, my God, I can't keep up with the number of adoptee led [00:35:00] organizations. They're just like proliferating at a momentous rate.

So adoptees have become so active in 27 years that I've been involved and there's, almost everyone's now an advocate or a spoke spokesperson or speaking, creating resources and so much content out there that the internet is inundated with content by adoptees, which is just absolutely amazing and such a massive change.

Now, that is the first step towards change is getting, going from silence and nothingness and never having even a voice or even having our stories heard to completely being inundated en mass, surrounded by so many voices. So that's the beginning. Second to that though, is, and you see a bit of a, what I'm seeing is a momentum building where these voices that have now been, 15, 20 years on are quite mature.

And what they're doing is they're mentoring and building up the knowledge base of the newer generation of adoptees. So what I'm excited [00:36:00] to see is the Chinese adoptees coming to me in their twenties speaking about advocacy already, right? I was 25 when I first started adoptee my space, and I had no no desire to be involved in politics at all. It took me 15 years to even, get brave enough to weather that, because even just dealing with just adoptee to adoptee was daunting at my early stages. So these adoptees at the same age as I was, but now, years on, are just growing so rapidly in their knowledge, in their understanding because of people like me sharing that knowledge and passing it down.

What it does is it helps build that community awareness and that community activeness, and that's what's changing and starting to really snowball. Particularly now I'm just writing a blog on all the adoptees who've actually taken legal action in the last five years. You've just, I've just seen such a snowball [00:37:00] of intercountry adoptees in this space around the world now. Going from advocacy to we want legal justice and demanding it in whatever ways we can find, which we have to invent because we are new and it's the first time and this is that momentum building. So you are getting so many more. So once you get the full 1.2 million of us becoming very active, we're gonna be a force to reckon with.

And that's what I'm excited about is that this community is definitely growing and definitely becoming much more aware of our rights or lack of, and what we should be able to have and fighting for that and demanding justice and pathways for reparation. So these are all things that, 40 years ago weren't even talked about, weren't even on the radar.

Now it's common knowledge. Almost every week I'm posting some news article about some adoptee taking legal action somewhere, or some [00:38:00] country, adoptive country doing some investigation on their historic adoptions. All of this stuff lately about the adoptions that were illegal and elicit. It is not new.

This has been seventy 70 years in the making. That's how long Intercountry adoption has formally been conducted, and that is why the Hague Convention even got created in the 1990s was because they knew in the 1980s, the 1970s, there was so much trafficking going on mass that they knew they had to try and curb it somehow.

Now, the Hague Convention arguably has been a little bit successful in doing that because you've definitely seen a slowdown in the trafficking on mass, but it hasn't. What it has failed to do is actually provide any mechanism for truth, justice, and reparation for the victims. 1.2 million of us are actual victims, and that's just the adoptees.

That's [00:39:00] not counting your birth families, which is of, is replicated. And also that many adoptive parents have been the victims because they went into it naive, gullible, blind, maybe willingly, not so willingly, but they are now finding themselves that, wow, what did we participate in? You're talking 3 million impacted people. When you look at the actual triad as a bare minimum of documented numbers. And there were people like me who are not in those documented numbers because a lot of our adoptions done before the Hague were not documented.

Haley Radke: Sure. And the ones that are like under the table somehow.

Lynelle Long: Yes. All those private, independent adoptions

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Lynelle Long: That are still not done under Hague conditions or between Hague countries. And there's still a lot of those. And what bothers me the most about the Hague Convention is that countries sign up to the Hague, and yet they'll still go outside of the Hague and have their own bilateral agreements with a country that's not a Hague country and still have an agreement about sending [00:40:00] children. And you're like what's the bloody point of this convention if you're still gonna have your own agreements that are outside of it anyway? It's like really ridiculous when you actually think about it. Yeah.

Haley Radke: No kidding. I don't wanna pass over this. You talked about legal action, so I'm sure I can think of a few. Like I'm thinking of Kara Bos suing to have her Korean father recognized. So she would be on his birth record in Korea, one of the first, if not the first to do so we have an interview with her rolling to in the show notes when she completed that. Can you give us some more examples? It doesn't happen to even be specific people necessarily, but like what sorts of actions are adoptees taking that you see more and more of?

Lynelle Long: There's been a lot lately of those suing for their illegal adoptions. You've got Norway just very latest. Uma you've seen Jenny Rogneby in Sweden. She filed a police report on a number of [00:41:00] adoptions from a number of countries. She's actually Ethiopian herself, but reporting the illegal and illicit practices that Sweden as a whole, as a country has done.

You'll see I've got them here. Got a Bangladesh adoptee suing for their illegal adoption. You've got another Sri Lankan adoptee in, in, in the Netherlands. You've got French adoptee parents in France suing for their Sri Lankan adoptee that was illegally adopted as well. You've got Malian adoptees in France.

You've got, you had Adam Crasper from South Korea suing Holt Korea, and he won that. You have Alex Gilbert, he was a Guatemalan adoptee. He actually sued his adoption sorry, his orphanage, which was run by Americans, where he was, literally put through a lot of abuse for years he sued them.

You got Patrick Noordoven, the most well-known and first major adoptee to, to sue the Netherlands and win his right to identity. And he sued his parents as well for his illegal adoption in the Netherlands. He was from [00:42:00] Brazil. You've got yeah, there's a whole heap. And I'm actually in the middle of writing a blog about all of these because.

Haley Radke: As soon as it's done we'll link it in the show notes. It might be out by the time we this comes out.

Lynelle Long: It will, yeah. It should be out. But yeah it's really important for people to understand. That adoptees on mass are awakening up to realize that their rights, their human basic rights have been obliterated through their intercountry adoption.

And the very basic one of that is our right to identity. We have a right. Every child has a right to know their origins, who their mother, father, uncle, grandparents, sisters, brothers are. And yet, how many times do we see intercountry adoptees, where the worst case that I can really highlight is twins, where they've actually been separated by adoption, not even told that they're a twin.

How basic a right should you have to even be able to know that you're actually a [00:43:00] twin, and both get sent to different countries and yet never told by that adoption agency or whoever facilitated it that they're in fact, a twin. So these rights are just so basic and simple, and yet you know the hardest thing Haley has been that we are struggling to find lawyers who even have the capacity to know how to fight for our rights through a justice mechanism.

Because in fact, this is the worst that every country that signs the Hague, they've also failed the very basic of the Hague, which is to make sure legislation exists to protect us so that when we are indeed trafficked through illicit or illegal means there is a law to prosecute against. Now, this is the biggest problem, is that when we discover that we've been obtained through the dodgiest means possible that there is no law in place to even prosecute through, [00:44:00] to allow us a right to justice.

This is the hugest failing of the Hague Convention. It has not made countries to even define what a legal adoption even is, hence no law that exists that we can even prosecute against. The biggest legal law that exists that we can prosecute against is usually falsification of papers. But that says nothing to the impact of that falsification of papers or to our displacement from one country to another, nor to how the hell we would even be able to find our original parentage.

So that falsification of paperwork is such a minuscule part of the big picture of what we've actually, endured. So this is why if countries were to take the Hague convention seriously and to take our [00:45:00] rights seriously, they should actually be putting in place like Belgium has just done a criminal code that actually defines what a legal adoption is, that it is trafficking, and that there is a route and a pathway for actual justice to hold the perpetrators accountable.

The fact is that almost every perpetrator who's conducted our adoption has gotten away with it, with literally a slap over the wrist or some tiny fine, because there has been nothing legally in place as a law to even hold them accountable to, for the actions that they've done. So just to make that clear, there is no laws in all countries that define what an illegal adoption is in order for us to even prosecute against, and that has been the biggest battle for us.

So you can literally traffic a child and get away with it because no laws exist to hold you to account. And that's why this trafficking has kept on going for so many [00:46:00] decades. Completely. There is no deterrent against it.

Haley Radke: This doesn't surprise me. And it should like, it should, I don't know. It's just scandal. There's so much work to be done. That's what I hear. Yeah. So much work to be done. Okay. Before we do our recommended resources, I would love for you to speak to adoptees who wanna advocate, who want to make change, what are the best and most effective ways to get involved and to speak up about things like this, like glaring issue.

Lynelle Long: That's hard because not every adoptee is ready for this. This is the big picture stuff where you've really gotta be quiet stable. Very balanced. Being able to really withhold the hugest criticisms and adoptees typically we've gone through so much trauma. It's a big ask to be expected, to be able to [00:47:00] stand at that level and really be able to hold your ground and be, be able to sustain it.

And to be able to stay in that space and cope with the stuff you have to hear, which often denies, minimizes and gaslights our whole experience. So I don't encourage everybody to just step in there, but I do say take it a step at a time. Do what you're capable right now, and if that means literally doing things like providing support as a peer to another peer, each of your actions are meaningful and add to the growing momentum of this community. And that's my key message is you don't all have to be advocates like me. We all have a different role. The role that you play, Haley, in educating people about the impacts, it is all so important because there is so much work to be done in this space.

To get change requires a lot of things to change. If we want substantial change, which for me is to end this trade of children. But to do that, we need [00:48:00] so much awareness. We need so much research. We need so much understanding of the impacts of adoption on all of the triad. We need so much work and we can't all possibly just do each of that all on our own.

We all have a part to play. And even though that might not be an orchestrated playing of parts, it all adds to the eventual momentum of what the community's doing. Even those who hate me in this community, they've got a very active and a very important role to play. Because there's still educating the community and doing the part that is so important, so that's my message is each of you do what you can at the stage that you're at. And that's all important because it all contributes and grows. And definitely when I first embarked in this, I had no intention of getting to where I am. I had no goal for this because I didn't even know it existed. To be honest.

I only learned it over the years. And as I [00:49:00] connected to more adoptees over the years, and as I did my own personal journey over the years, I came to realize, that it was so important to fight for the change that's affecting us all. So it's not just a personal journey it's actually a whole global community that needs this change. It's gonna take us all.

Haley Radke: I agree. How have you sustained yourself over all these years doing this?

Lynelle Long: I think it's because I've had the ability to pop in and out of the space as I need. Like I don't work in it. I don't get paid. I think if I did, I wouldn't have lasted anywhere near as long, because as soon as it becomes a job, it's tedious, it's terrible, and it's, you feel like you're not in control.

Whereas being able to just informally come and go in the spaces I need I guess for most people who see me, they probably think I'm just never not in the space. But little do they know that I [00:50:00] do take my step backwards. Like this year for example, you've not seen me run a single webinar or single thing event because I'm literally taking a bit more of a step back this year because I'm tired and exhausted and I'm just like trying to figure out how to leave the space.

It is like surely there's enough other people doing this now and and I'd like to move on, but. Something that, you know, and Facebook was awesome 'cause it wiped me out at the beginning of the year for six months. And suddenly I lost all of my connections and went, oh, maybe this is a great godsend that suddenly I can just leave like this.

Awesome. But no, it, I had so many people write to me saying the ICAV space is so important to them. And I just thought, oh, I can't leave yet. And then Facebook brought me back on and I'm like, ah, there you go.

Haley Radke: You're back. You're back.

Lynelle Long: Yeah. It's not to be yet. And I'm very much I do believe in, a greater force a greater power that kind of, if you eventually find yourself, [00:51:00] find a work your way through your trauma. Like I have come to a very peaceful place in my life where I am completely open to whatever the universe has for me to do. And if it's meant to be that I stay in this space, I stay.

If it's meant to be that I'm out. And it's not like I have to control anymore. I'm quite open to just letting it unfold as it's meant to be. So I guess it's been such a journey for me over these many years of finding my own self, empowering myself, taking action against my own perpetrators.

That was a huge part that I felt I had to do before I ever stepped outta this space. And now that I've done that, I do feel like largely a big part of my journey's finished, but yet I see that there's still, this big part about the illegal adoptions and us fighting for some justice and legal pathways still seems to be something that I am carrying in terms of, that's a load that I want to see some change in.

So I continue on, [00:52:00] I would love to one day get to the point like I've had for my sexual abuse, where I have a formal apology and a formal reckoning of, how my adoption was actually conducted, but on a mass scale for all of us, because I know I'm not the only one. And I'd love to see that, that recognition and that yeah, just that validation that, yeah, what has happened to you has been wrong on such a massive scale. And if that can happen, then I would very much be at complete peace and feel like I've achieved everything I wanted.

Haley Radke: I hope in our lifetime, Lynelle.

Lynelle Long: I do too. And I know it could be another 20 years or more because I'm, I'm know. I've been around for a long time and I know how slow change is in this area, but I think it's possible and, and I'm very hopeful that as our, as I was speaking before about how our generations are maturing and growing in awareness and growing in a desire for change as well, that we might get that on mass voices to be able to push [00:53:00] enough to tip it over so that we can see the end of adoption as it's done today.

And a new form of, I'm not people often mistake my anti adoptioness for not wanting children to be cared for, and that's not the case at all. I completely want vulnerable children to be looked after in the right, settings and conditions, but we shouldn't be doing it in the way that we are because there are just too many pitfalls and lack of follow up and lack of check-ins to ensure that all vulnerable children are placed in safe homes in good conditions with their rights intact. We need a whole new revisit of how we actually look after vulnerable children, and we need to keep away from the word adoption because it's just had decades of bad connotations and implications for those who've lived it.

Haley Radke: Yes I know you're a strong advocate for family preservation, as am I.

Lynelle Long: Yes.

Haley Radke: Also.

Lynelle Long: That's a lot.

Haley Radke: It's a lot. But I want to make sure to [00:54:00] recommend your organization, InterCountry Adoptee Voices, and the website is intercountryadopteevoices.com. You have so many resources for, all the sending countries. All the links are there. You have collected just a massive database wealth of experience. It's incredible. It's really incredible. So thank you for your volunteering work. In all that for those almost 30 years, I keep saying that's just wild. That's wild. How can people best support ICAV?

Lynelle Long: That's an interesting question because I don't necessarily need support in that sense, in the sense that I never ask for funding or anything like that. It's more, I think people should ask how can they support the intercountry adoptee community?

Haley Radke: Okay.

Lynelle Long: And to do that, I would ask that you go to my page on adoptee led groups where I list many from around the world that are in my network that I'm in contact with. And find ways to support your locally placed one. [00:55:00] A lot of them need people with certain skill sets. A lot of them are happy for donations. But, this is the work of our whole community and for domestic adoptees too, and trying I recognize that you're all there and that you need that support too.

It's just, I don't ever speak and step into that space because it's not mine and I don't wanna try and, pretend to be an expert in it when I'm not. But definitely look for your adoptee spaces, wherever you are around the world, and reach out to them and ask, how can we support you? That's what I asked people for.

Haley Radke: Wonderful. And what did you wanna recommend to us?

Lynelle Long: All those adoptee groups.

Haley Radke: Okay, that's perfect.

Lynelle Long: Who are doing this work every day? Just like me, who are providing peer support to our community, who are doing advocacy, who are doing research, who are doing, so much writing, blogging, podcasting, documentaries, like there are just so many of our community doing this work. It's not just me, it is thousands of us all doing this work and it is [00:56:00] all just as important.

Haley Radke: Where can we connect with you online Lynelle?

Lynelle Long: You can through my website. I'm also on LinkedIn as Lynelle Long and I'm on Facebook. So Facebook is where I connect to adoptees. LinkedIn is where I connect to a lot of the professionals and allies because they can't go through Facebook. And yeah, those two places is where you are mostly find me.

Haley Radke: Thank you for your work. Truly.

Lynelle Long: Thank you for yours too, Haley. It's all very important.

Speaker: Just wait, you let me gush on you at just a second. Your work has been so important to so many people, and I don't think you'll ever know all the ripples you've made, and so I hope all those good vibes come back to you in some fashion.

Lynelle Long: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

Haley Radke: Such an honor. What a delight to talk with you. That was amazing. Thank you so much.

Lynelle Long: Thank you.

Haley Radke: So Lynelle is too modest [00:57:00] to share some of the things she has had influence over, but we were talking privately after we recorded, and I mentioned a couple of items that I had seen, big changes in the last several years.

And she would say, oh yeah, I helped with that. And she's a volunteer. She volunteers her time. It is incredible the impact she's had. She mentioned her critics and things. I haven't really seen that, but yeah, anyone in the public gets criticized for doing something quote unquote wrong by people who aren't doing anything.

So I hear, I see that. I hear that. I see that. But I thought was so interesting how she talked about just we have to be so respectful and slow and the [00:58:00] consistency that she's shown. I think that is remarkable. I don't necessarily have al I haven't always been super respectful to the people who I have problems with, and that's just a, a Haley personality trait.

And so I go about my advocacy in different ways by calling things out. And by now you likely have heard that I have been working on a brand new podcast. I can't wait to bring this to the world if my work has impacted you. If you are passionate about family preservation, please support this new project.

We will have details in the show notes for you or if you go to adopteeson.com, there will be details there as well. Thank you so much for listening. [00:59:00] Let's talk again very soon.

311 Sasha Hom

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/311

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] 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. Sasha Hom lives an extraordinarily unconventional life. I'm so excited to introduce her to you. She is a writer, a goat farmer, a mother, and her new book Sidework is incredible. Today we talk about her experiences as a Korean adoptee adopted to a Chinese American couple in California.

Sasha tells us about her trips to Korea and China. We talk motherhood as adoptees and how important writing is in her life. Before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to join our [00:01:00] Patreon adoptee community over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world.

We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.

I am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On Sasha Wol-soon Hom. Welcome.

Sasha Hom: Thank you for having me.

Haley Radke: I'm so excited to talk to you. I read your book a couple of times. I was just telling you before we started, I've read a whole bunch of pieces of your work that you've written over the years and I'm just like such a huge fan.

But before we get to that, would you mind by starting the way we usually do, Sasha, would you share some of your story with us?

Sasha Hom: Yeah, I would be happy to. So I was adopted from Korea as a young, [00:02:00] I guess as a baby, probably around eight months old, eight or nine months old. And my parents flew me out and I came like many Korean adoptees, this was in the seventies on a plane load of children.

And my parents, my adoptive parents are actually Chinese American, which is unusual in Korean adoption for especially of that time for another Asian American to adopt a Korean adoptee. So both of my parents were actually born and raised in Oakland. They come from families of five and six, and their parents were immigrants from China and for whatever reasons, they couldn't have their own biological child, so they went to Korean adoption. And that's how I got here. And then when I was about 12 years old, they decided they wanted to [00:03:00] adopt another child. So they went back to the social worker and wanted to adopt another child from Korea. Their reasoning at that time was we don't want Sasha to grow up, and be by herself.

We are getting older and we don't want a baby 'cause I, we can't really do diapers anymore and we don't want them to be too far apart in age. So they adopted an older child. My sister was four and a half when she came here and she spent her earlier years in the orphanage. And so we went over to Korea when she was 12.

This was like, I think it was in 1988. And I, I don't know if some people might know this, but in 1988 in Seoul there was like full on demonstrations happening, protesting for democracy. I think that was when dictator Park was still in power, although I could have my dates wrong. But [00:04:00] anyways, so when we got there, it was, there were demonstrations in full effect.

And I just remember as a child, every time we had to go in and out of our hotel, we had to cover our faces 'cause of the tear gas and it. Sometimes, it got quite those protests were pretty heated and I could watch from my hotel room, which was really high up and I could see everybody like running back and forth and that's what I included in that story sidewalks actually was that scene. But I remember it very vividly and that was like the backdrop of our experience of going to Korea to adopt another child.

Haley Radke: And was that your first time back to Korea?

Sasha Hom: Yeah, that was my first time back. And so it was my, also my first impression of Korea and as well as from my parents. And it was interesting. It, yeah, and I think for my parents [00:05:00] it was difficult in many ways. I think my mother attributed some of it to like oh, that's just how Koreans are. Like they're very, they're a physical culture and there's, that sort of thing.

Haley Radke: And this was likely their first visit if you came over on a plane by yourself?

Sasha Hom: Yes, that's correct.

Haley Radke: Oh goodness. That is quite a story, Sasha, that's very, I'm picturing 12-year-old you processing that. And so now as an adult, looking back on that, how did that impact your view of your home country?

Sasha Hom: It's interesting and I think that so much of how I process information and remember has to do with myself as a writer I think. So things that stay with me are, [00:06:00] certainly the feelings of being there, of like confusion, but also of there's this feeling that this is where I came from and yet I don't necessarily feel a familiarity with this place or this culture or this language, but I feel like I should feel those things.

And I, in some ways, I feel like I want to feel those things as well. I think that yearning also came from never feeling exactly like I fit in with my own family. And, I grew up in Berkeley, in California. In the Bay Area. So I grew up in a really diverse community. I was fortunate in that way.

My best friend was adopted, some of my other friends were adopted. So that was really, that was helpful. Like I, I meet a lot of adoptees who grew up and they're like the only Korean in sight or within a hundred mile radius, which is like my situation right [00:07:00] now 'cause I live in Vermont and I'm like, oh my God, how did I go from Berkeley to here? Talk about not feeling like I fit in.

Haley Radke: We have to find that out too.

Sasha Hom: So there was a lot of those sort of like mixed conflicting feelings. But I remember so clearly also this feeling of connection. And I write about that in the story, like seeing these like older women. Middle aged ajummas, like just how like familiar they were with each other and how like physical and boisterous and playful and just feeling oh, like that felt familiar and oh wow.

That's what I feel inside, but I don't always have the appropriate cultural context to express myself in that way. So I think that trip also there planted, there was planted the [00:08:00] seeds of some sort of connection and the potential for belonging that seeded future returns and searches.

Haley Radke: That's fascinating because what was in my head was, I was like, oh my gosh, this seed of fear planted when they sent you solo on a plane to America. And then you go back and I see that the tear gas, I see that as like a fear again, intermingled. And you're, you've got these mixed feelings of I'm curious. I should want this. And like it's just, yeah, God, that's complex. Let's go to your upbringing again. So you had Chinese American parents and that is really unusual. So many of the adoptees I've interviewed that are from Korea are adopted into white families. [00:09:00] So can you talk about that experience? And I imagine you, were grew up in their culture.

Sasha Hom: Yeah. And like their culture was very specific.

Haley Radke: Exactly.

Sasha Hom: And they were like, first generation Chinese Americans born in Oakland,

Haley Radke: Uhhuh,

Sasha Hom: who both grew up with quite a high amount of poverty initially, and chaos and dysfunction as well. And, but at the same time, growing up, their families were very close. I really appreciated that. So I had a lot of cousins, I had a lot of aunts and uncles. That changes as things often change when like the grandparents pass away. My parents eventually got divorced, but that was much later in my development. I guess I was more like closer to 20 at that time, or 19 or something. So I did grow up with two [00:10:00] parents, like a two parent household, and I was very close in retrospect, I say everything, of course in retrospect. So sometimes I like question myself, like, how am I remembering this? Is this like correct?

And there's a part of me that's always, I hear my parents in my head saying things to me and, oh, that's not true. Or, but in, in retrospect, I mean I was very close to my mother's side of the family and her parents. I didn't grow up with my father's parents. But I grew up with my mother's parents being a part of my life.

And my maternal grandfather, he actually took me with a group like on a tour back to China, to his village. So when I was 16, I went with a group of American born Chinese and Canadian born Chinese whose, who had ancestral ties to Southern China. And we all went back and [00:11:00] we went to our like grandparents villages or whatever.

So I got to have that experience of going with my grandfather and seeing what he came from. And he had this incredible story of leaving China and like basically, running away when he was like, fourth grade age or as a young boy, like naked 'cause his, he was in a situation of abuse, but starting with literally nothing.

Not even clothes or shoes. And then, that the story of, coming up and becoming wealthy and owning his own Chinese restaurant one day and, becoming very successful. So it was really great going back to his village and just seeing like the board, which was his bed, where he grew up, and just that whole experience.

But I had that very acute feeling of oh wow, like I come from a village too. I come from some beginnings, some story that I don't know that is probably just [00:12:00] as incredible and fascinating and complicated, but I don't have that access. And that for me, at 16 was another moment of, wow, I wanna know, but I don't know how to know.

And I think that also fostered the writer in me. I can know in my imagination. I can write scenes, I can explore that. I can write characters. But there's still that, not that knowing that. But you'll still never know.

Haley Radke: Yeah I was thinking, which piece is it that I read that you write these different possibilities of origins? Sorry, I have them all printed out. I killed a lot of trees for this reading. Oh yes. Origin Story One. Origin Story Two. A Guidebook, This Pen, that piece. Yes. I love that. But yet. [00:13:00] Do you try and search? Do you, did you ever go back to Korea again after that trip to pick up your new sister?

Sasha Hom: I did. I did go back. I went back in my twenties and I actually, I went on a trip with a friend and she is Vietnamese and she went back, she was going back to Vietnam for the first time in however many years, 10, 11 to go visit her family. And she invited me to go along and I said, sure, I'd love to. And that trip included a stopover somewhere.

And that stopover happened to be Seoul. So I went with her to Vietnam. And I saw her be reunited with her family and relearn her own country through what she was eating and having all these memories of that, and also all this grief because since she [00:14:00] immigrated to the United States, her mother had since passed away. So there was also this grief that came up. So I was having that experience vicariously through her. But what ultimately happened was I left early, I left Vietnam and I went to Korea and I started my own search. And as like in my twenties, I didn't have a lot of emotional skill. Like I didn't have a lot of self care and ways to support myself and even know when I needed support.

So it was a really, it was it was a rough trip. It was a little rough, but I was a little rougher then too. But I did connect with a, the GOAL, The Global Overseas Adoptee Link in Seoul, and they had just begun, that was 19, holy crap. I'm not gonna remember. 1998 or [00:15:00] nine. Yeah. Something like that.

And so I met all these like amazing adopted Korean people who were living in Seoul and like trying to advocate for the rights of adoptees who have returned to Seoul, who felt like, this is my culture, this is my country. I wanna know who I am and where I've come from, and I wanna be able to stay here for more than three months at a time and then have to go, or whatever it was.

So yeah, so that was, that felt very I don't know, what do you call it? When you're in a place at a certain time, that is, is feels historical, so yeah. So that was the first time I searched and I did what a lot of adoptees do. I went on television and I put an ad in the paper and I went to my agency to look at my files again, and ultimately nothing really turned up.

I did discover that the exact time of my birth, which I didn't know, and the [00:16:00] social worker kept saying, oh no, you know that, the time you were born, we gave that to your parents. And my parents had never received the time I was born. And it was a very specific time. It was like 10:06 PM and I called my adopted mother in the States and she was like, oh, great, now I can find your rising sign.

I'm like, okay, great mom. My astrological chart is finally complete. But to me, that signal that there was more information out there for one. And that there was misrepresentation happening, and this was before all that stuff came to light, really, like it was slowly dawning on me. And I was in this community of Korean adoptees there from all over the world who've come back to do the same search and.

There was like story after story, like one adoptee went to his agency to ask for help to find his birth family, and they said, we know nothing. And it was like at the exact same time, his birth [00:17:00] family had gone back to the agency to look for him and they told them the same thing. So there was all this stuff that just wasn't making sense to me, and ultimately I didn't find anything else out and I had to go back. I went back home.

Haley Radke: Did you have the abandonment story that so many do? Yeah.

Sasha Hom: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Isn't that interesting then that they know exactly what time you were born, right?

Sasha Hom: Yeah. Yeah. I was, yeah left on a doorstep in a basket or something with a note.

Haley Radke: Uhhuh. Wow. So did you ever want to keep, do you still want to keep searching? Did you ever find anything or do you put that away and think I guess that's, that. I don't know.

Sasha Hom: Yeah, interesting. I, so couple things before I like really address that one was that it [00:18:00] was on this podcast that I learned the term paper orphan from another guest and whose name I can't pull up right now, but I was like, oh wait a second. That's me. And so I did return again in my gosh, I was almost 30. No, I was in my thirties, in my early thirties. My husband was doing an Korean language program in Korea, and this was in 2008. And I did go back. I presented a paper at the GOAL's 10 year anniversary, and I had two children with me, a three and a half year old and a five month old.

And my husband was like in this program and it was in a university and I had to stay in the women's dorm, and he was in the men's dorm. And it was just like I didn't have, I hardly saw him at all. So I had to go and do that in Seoul the paper presentation with my kids and just take the [00:19:00] bus and it was wild.

But I did not intend to search. That was never my goal when I went out, when I returned that third time, but just in case I brought whatever paperwork I had. The dorm that I was staying in, the woman's dorm downstairs, there was a flower shop. And the flower shop people was this couple that they didn't have any kids and they, when they found out I was an adoptee, they were like, oh no, we're gonna find your family for you.

And by then the 10 years had passed. It was a totally different culture in Korea towards adoptees. Like when I first got there in 88 or whatever it was, they, people were like covering their face and running the other direction when they figured out that I was an adoptee or like screaming at me for not knowing my language or, it was just like this wide range of reactions.

And some of them were positive, but a lot of 'em weren't. But this couple took me under their wing and they [00:20:00] tried to find this place where I was supposedly abandoned and I had both of my children with me and we went and we drove all around the town of an Anyang but all the streets had been renamed.

So we, it took us a while to find the spot and I'm like, my, I had a 3-year-old, I think or almost four, and she was like refusing to sit in the car seat. So she's at the foot at my foot in the back of the car and I have this five month old and I'm like, I don't know if I even want to find the spot where I was abandoned.

But eventually we found it and it was so bizarre 'cause there was nothing there. It was just like a utility pole and a pile of trash on the ground. And there wasn't much else. And my daughter points to the pile of trash. And she goes, mama, is that where you were found? It's just oh Lord, I didn't know what to say. Maybe baby, [00:21:00] but I don't know, and do I wanna find more information? Yes, I do. I would love to know, but do I have the time or the capacity or the means to like do that search now I don't, I have four kids. I'm a goat farmer. I live off grid in a yurt in central Vermont, and I am busy as all hell, and I'm a writer and yeah I would love to do that search a little further. And I think my children a couple of, so my oldest. My oldest is 20, and then my next one is 17 after that. And I think that they have some curiosity about my past and my, my lineage. So maybe they'll take up that search. I have no idea.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for reminding us the difficulties of search, especially for folks who've been [00:22:00] trans nationally adopted. Us domestics, take it for granted. We can spit in a tube or get our paperwork some much more easily. Okay. Before we go to the yurt and the goats, because please, like I don't worry, I'm not gonna miss that.

I just have one more question about your adoptive parents. So were you ever, does, is mis raced a thing? Were you ever thought to be Chinese? Yes. You're nodding.

Sasha Hom: Yeah, like all the time.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Sasha Hom: I think, and I also feel fortunate that I found out I was adopted at a fairly young age. I found out in preschool, and I found out because my friend told me and I didn't know what it meant. And somehow, like her mother told her and she told me my, so my parents didn't tell me. And so I had to ask them what it meant. And then, and that's how I found out. So I [00:23:00] think, that was helpful. But people would always say, I look like my father and I, it's sure, whatever. And maybe I do, and when I went to China, people always thought I was Chinese and my grandfather would actually correct them sometimes.

Explain that no, I was adopted, I'm Korean. But I think, people always wanna say, oh no, she looks, she's Chinese. She looks classical Chinese. But I think there's a little bit of that too in communities where one community wants to claim you. Yeah. And so the feeling of who I really am felt like a secret, like I could pass, so therefore it's easier to pass. Like why explain who I really am. So yeah, that was an interesting effect, I think of that.

Haley Radke: You didn't have to announce, you were adopted to explain your presence in the family or [00:24:00] anything like that. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. Wow. Thank you. Okay, so you live an unconventional life, and how did you come to be goat farmers and nomads and I know that you were in California and the wildfires sent you to Vermont, essentially, but can you share a little bit about that part of your life with listeners?

Sasha Hom: Yeah, it's a long story, so I'll try to keep it brief, but it began when I had my first child and I think like a lot of mothers, I was going crazy and I just, I didn't understand like how people could be a stay at home mom and not have community and try to like actually make a living and be artists and make work.

It just, it made no sense. So I decided, hey, I [00:25:00] have a solution to this problem and I, instead of working 60 hours a week husband, we're gonna buy a van, we're gonna move into this van and we're gonna live out of it and be together all the time and be on the road and take our baby and figure it out. So we did that with my oldest and that sort of began like this sort of openness to unconventional living.

It didn't last super long 'cause we lost, we ran outta money as happens, and we ended up living on an island off the coast of Maine. But then also my oldest daughter had a lot of sensory processing issues, and at that time we were living in Davis, California in a suburb, and the recommendations were things like, oh, have her carry something heavy or like this joint compression stuff to get proprioceptive input into her body or wear a weighted blanket.

I, they had all these suggestions that felt, you have to [00:26:00] manufacture the effects of that on their body. But we noticed that when she was outside, like when we were in the woods and camping and she's climbing trees, or she's hiking and we're carrying backpacks or we're at the beach, she was fine.

I think after her first year of preschool, we took her, or maybe it was kindergarten, we went backpacking and it was like she literally walked seven miles at the slowest pace possible. It was like one foot in front of another, in front of another. Not the whole seven miles, but it was a good amount of time and it was like she needed to do that to process her first year of kindergarten.

And so we let her do it and my husband stayed with her 'cause I could not keep that pace. And I was like, I can't do this. But he can. And so I think that also reoriented us to the possibilities of the cliche of the healing power of nature, [00:27:00] which is no joke. This kid got something from being outdoors that helped her be in her body and be in her self. So we left Davis, my husband got a graduate, what do you call it? A dissertation fellowship. So they paid him to write his dissertation. So I'm like, okay, baby, that means we're gone. We don't have to be anywhere. So we moved back into the van and we looked for another place to live. And also I'd, I would say like economics has a lot to play in it, because we didn't have a lot of money.

We're not like, oh, let's go buy land and start a homestead. It was more like, we have to figure out how to do this. We have a couple canvas tents. We have our dog, our kids, our van, which brought us to an intentional community because we could live there fairly inexpensively and do unconventional things.

And that ended up being living in tents. [00:28:00] So we got like a big canvas tent and a teepee. And there was space in the woods that we could live and we figured it out that way and caught rainwater and cut all our own wood and we'd have to walk in. And we had, by then, at the end of that, we had four kids. So a lot of our kids grew up that way, just outside.

But yeah. And then the wildfires happened and there went that situation. And it was the fourth year in a row where we had to evacuate because of wildfires. Mostly because of smoke 'cause like when you're living in a tent, you, there's no protection. It's just you and the elements and the smoke.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Sasha Hom: So we would always evacuate and the last time in 2020 we were, we were in pandemic. I'd lost my job as a waitress because of the pandemic. So I was also on whatever they would give you. They were throwing me some money, but not [00:29:00] much. So we took that as an opportunity to be like, okay, let's figure this out again. Let's go somewhere where there's not wildfires. It's not quite as expensive and competitive.

And that's how we ended up in Vermont. It was just literally like driving and sending out emails and seeing what came back. And just Vermont, somebody answered an ad that my husband's cousin put out there or something, or not an ad, an email, and said that they had a place for us. So we bounced around Vermont a little bit and then we found a land co-op.

So we're on again, we're on cooperatively owned land and we were here for a while before they're like, okay, sure, go ahead, put up a yurt. And so that's what we did. But you can't live in Canvas tents in central Vermont, although I'm in one right now. So we live that, we live in them half the year. But then, so that's why we moved.

We upgraded to Yurts, [00:30:00] which is a significant upgrade.

Haley Radke: Just to keep a little warmer, okay. So unconventional life, not an exaggeration. I'm curious. You must hear this a lot. I could never do that. We could never do that. And what do you think people fear when they ask you that question?

Sasha Hom: I think that people say, I never wanna do that because they don't want to have to challenge or rethink what they are doing now. 'Cause it's a lot of work. And sometimes, we do get a lot of, not a ton, but we get a lot of reactions to how we live and how we are. And not a ton though, but I think the most common one is oh, like fascination. I wish I could do that.

Like how, like where do you go to the bathroom? Like how do you like that kind of thing, like how do [00:31:00] you like, get in touch with other people and.

Haley Radke: How are you doing a podcast?

Sasha Hom: Yeah.

Haley Radke: How did you write, how did you write a whole book and publish all these stories and articles.

Sasha Hom: Yeah. Yeah. Which is its own thing, right? And it's true. But I think, yeah, anytime you're doing something out of the box or out of the norm. I think it can be challenging for some people. I don't know why everybody has got their own reasons as to why, but I also try to, I don't tend to accept here, broadcast my lifestyle to others.

Haley Radke: So you have four kids and you, it sounds like you started this outdoor life, I'm gonna call it, to help your daughter. Can you talk about motherhood and especially as an adopted person? 'Cause it's different for us. I think it's different for us.[00:32:00]

Sasha Hom: Yeah, that's a great question and way of connecting it. I think that a lot of what came up, all this came up. Because we were putting our children's needs first in a different sort of way. Not oh, I'm gonna spend all my money so she can have classes at Kumon. Or something like tutoring. And it was more, how do you say it? I think that it was also taking into account like the family as like a holistic whole unit.

And I think that mothering, it kicked my butt, right? Like it kicked my butt when I had my first child. I remember looking at her when she was three days old, like the day that I was supposedly abandoned on the doorstep in the basket with the note, and just having that realization that, oh my God, this is what I was like when my mother left me.

[00:33:00] This is how she saw me last. And it was this realization of 'cause I spent a lot of time as a young adult feeling anger about being left. Like, how could she leave me? Or how could I have been like, rejected and feeling that abandonment and rejection. But in that moment with my daughter, my hormones are raging and everything, but as they are after birth I had this moment of wow, she must have loved me so much to be able to let me go like that and to have to go through all that pain herself.

So I think that was a moment where my narrative flipped a little for that story. But the other thing that happened was life wasn't about me anymore. It wasn't just about what I wanted, where I wanted to go, when I wanted to go, and that lack of mobility was hard 'cause I was a city girl. I would just go, jump in the car, [00:34:00] jump on the bus, jump on my bike, go wherever.

I was a dog walker, that's anyways too. So I was like all over town with, a gang of dogs and in the hills and then all of a sudden I couldn't do that. And that was really difficult. And I think I realized that, okay, if there's gonna be movement, it's as a group, it's all of us together.

It's like the dogs, my daughter, my husband. And I think there's just something in me that is tuned towards movement. I have a hard time staying put and, that has more to do with me but that was one way in which. We as a family, me as myself, evolved as a family into something that was more workable for everybody, you and babies love movement.

Haley Radke: Frankly, that's sometimes the only way they can fall asleep, right? You're replicating the movement of what they felt in [00:35:00] utero, you said something a little earlier in our conversation that perhaps your oldest children, they might be the ones to take up the search, and it reminds me that the adoption severance is not just for our gen, but the ones that follow and that gap in knowledge can pass on as well. Do you ever think about that? Do your, do you have your daughters ever talked about going to Korea or doing any of that exploration?

Sasha Hom: Yeah I think my 17-year-old has been more interested about Korea. Maybe my 20-year-old too. She has a friend who is from Korea who has invited her and my 17-year-old, to go back and offered a place to stay and stuff like that. So I think that they're entertaining that and I think that they will, I think that there will be some [00:36:00] kind of connection there for them. It's so hard to say, like our children will, I don't know. We all have to figure out like how we belong in this world and how we connect to what we connect to.

But it was interesting because I was reading this book recently called Tastes Like War by a Korean American sociologist, I can't remember her name right now. And. It was fascinating for me also just to learn more about Korea in the seventies and what was happening. But my daughter asked me what I was listening to, 'cause I was listening to it on, on, on tape.

And so she actually picked it up herself after she was visiting us. And she went back, she moved back to California and she read it as well, which I was like, oh, interesting. Yeah.

Haley Radke: So there's curiosity whether or not it's spoken or not.

Sasha Hom: Yeah.

Haley Radke: I just looked up Grace Cho. Is that the [00:37:00] one?

Sasha Hom: Thank you.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Sasha Hom: Yes.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Sasha Hom: Yeah. And it is, and I think that our lifestyle, how it hits the children, it's, it in effects is different. My 20-year-old, she moved back to California as soon as she could. She didn't ever really accept Vermont as a place for her. And then my 17-year-old, she's home halftime, but she spends the other half, like in, in the city in Burlington. She's really like enjoying exploring city life, but I think that where she goes for nourishment is into the woods and back with the animals. Whereas my like 13-year-old, she had a moment where she's I can't go to school 'cause we homeschool. And she's she wanted to go and then she just had this realization of, I, I don't think I could be inside for eight hours a day. And she's in fact, I know I can't. And she also has some sensory issues and she's got her set of challenges [00:38:00] and she grew up outside. So she really has used the outdoors as a way of self-soothing and just feeling like this is where I belong in the world. If she has trouble, she'll go and sit under a tree or in a tree and we'll see what happens with my 10-year-old but he was the one who grew up until he was like five or six, never having spent like much time in a house. He had never lived with toilets or doors or stuff like that. Running water. My 13-year-old still, she struggles with doorknobs. She doesn't like it just don't make sense. And it depends on the style of doorknob too.

Haley Radke: There's a great scene in, in Inside Work about that. It's just so good. Okay. I don't wanna spoil it let's talk about writing before we, we do talk about recommended resources. How do you fit it all in? Where do you write? Literally, are you writing on paper? Are you writing on your [00:39:00] laptop? Where are you fitting this in? Because to live outside is so much extra work that someone like me, okay, am I getting my groceries delivered this week or am I gonna go pick 'em up at the store? No big deal.

Sasha Hom: So I'm very fortunate too. 'cause my husband is, I guess I, I wouldn't say I was fortunate. Maybe you know. Five years ago or something. But he is also a, an art, an artist. He's a composer, so he understands like the need for time and quiet and a place to work and which makes employment difficult. That's all I'm saying. Part about not being so fortunate is like we both don't really like to work nine to five jobs and we don't. So we share and have shared studio space for some time now, and I'll use it in the morning and he'll use it at night.

So when we were in California and I was [00:40:00] waitressing, I had some extra income so I could rent a place down the hill from where our site was. And it was like an old watchman shack at a mill. And so we would share that space and now we have two yurts, one that we live in and one that we work in. So that's our studio space.

So I go in there in the morning and I write in there. I'm up pretty early. However, when we evacuated, that was really challenging because we had the van and that was it. We had the little minivan and then we were staying with his parents for part of a time, although it was pandemic, so we couldn't go straight there.

So we were also staying like wherever we could figure it out. I couldn't, there was really hard to find time and space, and I was in an MFA program and I was just, writing Sidework. But, and so I would go in the car and then what we, what I figured out was that if I wake up at two in the [00:41:00] morning, it's quiet and I can write.

So I would, I started doing that. I would wake up at two and I would write until about seven, get my kids situated for breakfast, and then take a nap. And then take another nap and go to sleep at really early. And then I did that for quite a while. I wouldn't recommend it unless you had to.

Haley Radke: Do you need to write?

Sasha Hom: I tried to quit, I swear. I have tried to quit writing a couple times now, and one time when I tried to quit, I started twining rag rugs. So I was like, I'll be a rug maker. And so I was like stripping all like our old clothes and like making frames and making rag rugs essentially. And they were, really interesting, more like art pieces than rugs, although we use 'em for rugs too.

But then they all slowly morphed into these stories. So each rug, might be made out of like my [00:42:00] old daughter's sling. And then it would have this whole narrative that came along with it, and then I would start, then I'd have to write it down, or they'd turn into poems and I'm like, I can't quit.

I am physically, like consciously trying and giving myself some other like expression, and it just keeps coming back. So I was like, all right I give up. But I also feel like, if that's you, then you do you, and in a way it's, if that's also my form of expression, but also something that I am able to do and I can, I'm fairly okay at, I feel like in some ways it's a gift to be given and shared. Like a gift is a responsibility. And so I gave up and stopped, like criticizing myself being like, oh, it's like self-indulgent, or, oh, it's this or that, and realizing, no, it's not like you have to thrive to be able to give. And regardless if you [00:43:00] know you're doing well, you're touching people, you're showing people, especially your children.

So like when I decided to go back to an MFA program again, I was like, oh, I shouldn't do this. Oh my, I'm gonna leave my children like 10 days for 10 days twice. What's it? Twice a year? 'cause it was a low residency. My son was like two, I think he was even still nursing. He was, if he was two.

Anyways. But I just, I was like, I just need to, I do this right now. And when my daughter found out, she was just, and I've said this before too it. It touched my heart. She was like, mom's going back to school, mom's going back to school. And she didn't go to school. She had no idea what she was saying, but she was so excited for me and proud, and I was like okay. I get it. I gotta do it for them.

Haley Radke: I love that. And you don't realize, but you're also doing it for us. You [00:44:00] meant like it's a gift for us. I read Sidework twice, and this is gonna sound simplistic, but it's so real and authentic and the person that you're describing to us just by how they're treating the server, in the story, it's so quick, it's so fast paced, it's so funny and sharp, and you're making all these societal critiques, and yet it's so easy to read and it just, I, God, genuinely loved it, truly.

Sasha Hom: Thank you.

Haley Radke: And then in, in preparing for this, I read your short story Sidewalks and it moved me so much. I thought, oh my gosh, is this my favorite short story I've read in the last couple years? Like I think it is.

Sasha Hom: Thank you.

Haley Radke: Yes. And now [00:45:00] getting to hear your story from your mouth. I see the pieces of you in Sidework and the pieces of you and Sidewalk and your story and how you blend those things. I really think listeners are gonna just love both of these things. We will link to them in the show notes, but Sidework especially. Congratulations. It's so wonderful.

Sasha Hom: Thank you.

Haley Radke: Yeah,

Sasha Hom: thank you. I really appreciate that.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Sasha Hom: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Is there anything you wanna talk, tell us about Sidework?

Sasha Hom: So I wrote that one. I started it when I was at my MFA program, so I was working on that too. And we were again like moving around and without a place and it was really enjoyable. The book, not the moving around without a place, but the book, it was, I just, and even to this day, like I do a lot of library presentations in Vermont that where I've, I had, I just decided I was gonna do a PowerPoint [00:46:00] for them.

I've never done PowerPoint in my life, so I decided to make this presentation in the book a PowerPoint. But it's been really fun 'cause I include a lot of photos, like old photos of like how we lived in California and in the tent and all my children, and it's like a, what do you call, like a personal narrative presentation of what was going on in my life when I wrote this, what my life looked like.

And as well as. I do readings, so I'll then I'll read excerpts and I'll link it also to like the craft decisions I'm making in the book and how those craft decisions also sprang from our lifestyle choices. And what was the, and there's it's this whole thing and it's been really fun, but it's like popping the hood on the book.

Haley Radke: Yes.

Sasha Hom: And showing you all the what's inside. And I've had readers who like do their library book clubs be like, oh my God. Like when I first read this, I [00:47:00] was like, what is this? Like how do you know? How do I read this? And then to hear me talk about it, they've had these kind of these feelings of, oh wow, that's I wanna read it again or so that, that's been really fun.

It's hard to sell a book from a small press and do all your own marketing.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Sasha Hom: And it's taken a back burner in my life, partly because we have, we raise meat goats and we we're trying to start this program like Heifer International, where individuals can buy meat from us and then we donate it to community organizations who then distribute the meat to people who are food scarce.

I have one organization who supports survivors of torture and trauma in their home countries, so we get it to a lot of refugees and immigrants, refugees especially, who will be losing food stamp benefits soon. So it's, that's what we do. [00:48:00] And we're in a drought in Vermont and we, the way we feed our goats is we rotationally graze 'em.

So we're moving paddocks every single day with electric fencing. So now I'm moving paddocks like twice a day or three times a day, like trying to get these goats food. But yeah. It's just, it's a lot.

Haley Radke: It's a lot. And you get a glimpse into Sasha's life, although it is fiction, but there's for sure pieces of you in this.

Sasha Hom: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Okay. So you and I discussed briefly on email what you wanted to recommend and tell adoptees before we wrap up the show.

Sasha Hom: That was a hard one because I feel like some of, like the support I get for myself as an adoptee and feelings of disconnect and that longing and not knowing [00:49:00] and that mystery, like the solace I get for that sometimes are in more conceptual ideas.

And I think the conceptual ideas that I mentioned, one, and I write about this in Sidework too a little bit, it made its way into that book, but is the idea, and I learned this a while ago as a mother, that when we conceive a child that child's DNA is in our bodies sometimes for decades, whether or not that child is still living even.

And so it was a moment of healing for me, but also to, because immediately I felt like a closeness with my own children and I've had miscarriages and stuff like that. So I also felt like the losses weren't lost, but also recognition that I'm not a loss. I am not lost, and I am not a loss. I am still there with [00:50:00] her and have been for decades.

And I think they've discovered all this like really crazy like science stuff too, in that experience where that the cells and the DNA of that child in the mother can sometimes even help the mother heal from X whatever she might be having. Those cells will go in there and heal her tumor or her cancer contribute in that way or cause autoimmune disease or cause you know so it's still a relationship.

There's still a connection. And then something else that I stumbled upon that gave me pause was this concept of, oh, the atoms that we are made of, every one of us we're born in the heart of a star. And then that star exploded and fell onto the earth. And that is how we, we were somehow like compiled from that dust.

You know [00:51:00] what the scientific accuracy, please go find out yourself because I am no scientist. I am a mother and a writer and a goat farmer, but not a scientist. But just that concept of origin, a shared origin story, but also a shared story of collective transcendence from those origins. And that's also something that I explore.

I just finished my second book that I'm. It's not published yet. It's not represented yet. It's still but I, it's something that I really took up was that idea of collective transcendence and bringing together a group of characters who have suffered through so much trauma and loss and just hardship, and then where they end up and how they keep going even together as this sort of motley group that is only connected in my book, at least by this, [00:52:00] by the fact that we're all at People's Park on the day of Eclipse.

So that's, that was like the premise of it. And then, and how that connects you and how so those are just concepts that I sometimes like to think of and in relationship to who I am as an adoptee and what that means to how that informs even being a human right.

Haley Radke: I love that.

Sasha Hom: So yeah,

Haley Radke: little things we can carry around with ourselves to think of as a comfort. They're not little things, big things. Sasha, where can we find Sidework and follow along to know when you have other work out in this world?

Sasha Hom: Oh, that's a good question. So Sidework is sold on my press's website, which is Black Lawrence Press, B-L-A-C-K, and Lawrence, [00:53:00] L-A-W-R-E-N-C-E. I think it's blacklawrencepress.com.

And also I'm on Instagram. It's either @sashaghom.

Haley Radke: It is sashaghom. Okay.

Sasha Hom: Thank you. Yeah I'm new to Instagram and I was just in Brooklyn for the Brooklyn Book Festival and I stayed with my dear friend who I hadn't seen for 18 years, Minh-Ha Pham, who is like this amazing academic at Pratt, and she had to teach me how to use Instagram.

Haley Radke: But if you wanna see a picture of Sasha's goats, they are on Instagram too.

Sasha Hom: So much goat porn. Oh my God.

Haley Radke: Amazing. What a delight to get to hear from you. I just, I really love your writing, truly just an honor to get to speak with you. Thank you.

Sasha Hom: Thank you. Yeah. What a pleasure it's been to be here and talk about these things and [00:54:00] yeah, it's, and just the fact that you do this podcast, it's just, it's amazing. So thank you.

Haley Radke: I was just reflecting after my conversation with Sasha about. Just how many incredible adoptee creatives there are in this world. And we bring you many authors, of course, of different genres, memoir, fiction, those kinds of things. In Sasha's case, she's writing fiction here with Sidework, but there is so much of her in it and her personal experiences and story that you can tell it's so her anyway, but it's fictional. It's of course, fictionalized character. But besides writers, I don't know if you remember way back in the day. I did a whole series [00:55:00] about adoptees and creativity, and I talked to artists and actors. We had a costume designer and folks who had written their own, one person shows to a whole production where someone could come and walk through their imagined childhood home with adoption artifacts throughout.

And we've been working at trying to tell people what the adoptee experience is like for years and years. Before I ever started a podcast. And I just think it's so incredible, and to me it's inspiring that Sasha could talk about making rag rugs, and as she's weaving them, there's this story because of [00:56:00] the fabric that she's chosen and how we can do that in our own lives.

I'm really thinking about this because I'm working on this other podcast and I'm sure we'll be sharing how you can support that. And soon, if we haven't already. It's coming. It's coming. I'm just, I'm working ahead while I'm recording this. I am thinking of this because I'm, we're telling stories of adoption so that the general public can understand its impact.

And I'm so grateful that so many of you have gone before me to share in your own special way and whether or not you're an artist. As you share your personal story with your, your friends or your close to you, the people that you feel safe with, it impacts their view of adoption and helps [00:57:00] them start to critique the adoption system.

And all of those moments matter and shift things. I really believe that. So I was digging for something in my app called Bear. I don't know if you've ever used that. It's like a notes app, but prettier. I started using it I think in 2017. And so I was just searching for a document, which ultimately was not there, but it brought up this letter that I had written in 2017 to someone who asked me about adopting, they were thinking of adopting, and I brought up the letter and I looked at it and it was long, and I was like, I can't believe I sent this letter.

It literally outlined all the same critiques I'm making today. [00:58:00] This many years later, and I just felt really proud of past Haley for saying those things out loud to someone privately. And now I'm gonna say those things out loud publicly and have been really, but publicly in a different way. I don't know. I'm just, I'm really thrilled that there is this work being made. Sasha's work is Sidework is about this character who works in a diner and the whole morning that's what it is. It's the morning of work and it's all the tasks that she needs to do. And all the people she serves and the people that she works with and their stories and little vignettes here and there.

It's really remarkable. And through that she critiques adoption. How about that? I [00:59:00] just think us adoptees are pretty special. Anyway, thanks for allowing me to carry on here with my little I was gonna say rant. It's not a rant, just the thoughtful vignette for you to chew on and decide. How are you gonna share your story?

And is it through a creative outlet? Is it through a conversation to a friend and sharing little pieces of yourself on social media or what? I don't know. I hope you do. Thank you so much for listening and for listening to adoptee voices in particular, and let's talk again soon.

310 Mirella Stoyanova

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/310

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] 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. Mirella Stoyanova is our guest today. And I don't normally say this, but this was one of my favorite conversations in recent memory. Mirella is a therapist and writer, and her insights dazzled me. We talk about her experience being adopted at age five, and what coming to America from Bulgaria was like.

We discuss the what ifs of kinship adoption, living in the both and of grief and gratitude, and she shares an insight that stops me in my tracks. Do adoptees reflect an existential crisis [00:01:00] back to society? We mention violence and suicide at multiple points during this conversation, so please take care when deciding when to listen.

Before we get started, I wanted to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and the show to support more adoptees around the world. We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.

I am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On Mirella Stoyanova. Hello, Mirella. So good to talk with you.

Mirella Stoyanova: Hi Haley. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. I've been looking forward to it for months.

Haley Radke: Me too. Okay. The first time I took note of you was at the Adoptee Literary Festival where you read a [00:02:00] piece in the sizzle reel and you were so captivating. I immediately went to my guest list and wrote your info down, so I'd love it if you would start by sharing your story with us.

Mirella Stoyanova: Oh my goodness. Where to begin? I am. I'm a writer. I'm a therapist. I always like to say I'm a recovering perfectionist, but I am.

Haley Radke: I say that too.

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah. Do you?

Haley Radke: That's so funny. I've said that for years. Yes.

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah. I'm also an international adoptee, and I worked in the field I was a crisis worker. For the five years after graduate school and then I became licensed as a clinical social worker. So I'm a practicing therapist in the Seattle area, and I have experience working with [00:03:00] individuals and families in pretty much every context you can think of.

From acute trauma to the outpatient mental health that I do now. And I'm also a mother of a 2-year-old son, and I live, as I said in, in the Seattle area with my husband and my son.

Haley Radke: So you have one of those unique circumstances because I talked to a lot of infant adoptees and hold on a second they're adults now, but were placed for adoption as an infant.

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah.

Haley Radke: But in your circumstances, an intervention really was necessary. Do you care to share that part of your childhood?

Mirella Stoyanova: I was adopted at five years old. I was actually speaking with a friend this morning who was also an older adoptee and a fan of the show, and he was like, represent the older [00:04:00] adoptees. So here I am representing, you know who you are. I was adopted from Bulgaria to the United States at five years old. My parents had died a year and a half before in the very, very early nineties, and my grandmother, who was caring for me, happened to be dying of cancer, so she had to figure out what was going to become of my future and the country where I was born bulgaria was newly democratic. There was. An effort in the country to expatriate the Muslim minority who were Turkish and who from her perspective, my grandmother's perspective looked very much like me, and [00:05:00] Eastern Europe was a dangerous place for a newly orphaned child. So she found my adoptive parents about a year before I left, and while she entertained the idea of me being adopted by various families pretty early on, she decided that I would go with 'em.

And of course, the myth from the adoption side as the, the story goes that my parents had three boys, biological children, and they were trying for a girl. They were considering trying for a girl and they had friends of theirs who also had three boys and were trying for a girl, and instead of getting a girl, they got pregnant with twin boys.

And so the story is that was when my parents decided they wanted to adopt and they [00:06:00] had tried to adopt another little girl from Bulgaria before me. Who was actually in an orphanage, but her birth mother came to reclaim her because she had not consented to adoption. And this little girl was there because her mother couldn't afford to take care of her.

And in my case, I came to the United States with an entire history that I remembered pretty well. I came here with a lot of grief, unresolved grief and trauma, and a lot of questions that went on unanswered for many years. And I guess that's where the story ends, right? From the narrative, the non adoptee narrative. Anyway, it was happily ever after from there.

Haley Radke: Sure. I'm sure it was. What a gift. So in my research, I [00:07:00] think I understood correctly that your birth mother was also an adoptee herself.

Mirella Stoyanova: She was.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Mirella Stoyanova: My birth mother was adopted and I've never, I've always wanted, but have never been able to search for my, I've been discouraged from searching for my biological maternal grandparents because the system, the government, in Bulgaria is notoriously bureaucratic. Like they shut down over the summer just because it's summer kind of thing, and it takes a long time to get anything done. But recently a woman who's Bulgarian who had someone in her family was adopted, reached out to me and she shared that the Bulgarian court system recently has unsealed the records of adoptions in the country and [00:08:00] depending on, whether you can present them with the right information, they may be able to unseal the records. So I don't know that I can, as the daughter of my deceased birth mother, but I think that will certainly be, a question that I ask and explore in the coming years for sure.

Haley Radke: Interesting. So your grandmother was her adoptive mother? And she also adopted you once your parents had died.

Mirella Stoyanova: She did.

Haley Radke: So you're double.

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah. Yes. I'm a second generation adoptee.

Haley Radke: And twice adopted.

Mirella Stoyanova: Yes. And twice adopted. Yes. And I'm half Iraqi, half Bulgarian. My, my parents died by murder, suicide. [00:09:00] My grandmother. She felt it would be unconscionable for me to be adopted by my paternal family. But my paternal family did seek out adoption. In fact, they put in the paperwork for adoption. But

Haley Radke: Were they also in Bulgaria?

Mirella Stoyanova: With the Bulgarian government? Yeah. And there was a real effort to prevent me from being raised by them. Because of, I think what were very natural and normal, but also from the perspective of my paternal family, like very hurtful reasoning, which was, that I could be re-traumatized because I witnessed the event of my parents' deaths. [00:10:00] And, the thought of me being raised by people who resembled my birth father didn't seem like a good idea.

And of course, the blind spot was, I also resemble my birth father. And so for many years, I had I realized this is being recorded, people won't see me, but I even wanted to bring you, just to show you, I have this, it's a photo album and it's got about 30 pictures in it, and for about 20 years, that's all I had, as far as my awareness and connection to anyone who looked like me.

Haley Radke: You have this other unique perspective of having worked in I'll call it child welfare for a period of time and uniquely your parents were unable to parent, your grandmother unable to [00:11:00] parent as she passed quite shortly after you were adopted. We have people ask us all the time is adoption even necessary? What would you do? And you have a very different vantage point than someone like me who's an infant adoptee who I think it was unnecessary. What are your thoughts on that?

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah, I think in my case it was maybe also unnecessary in some ways, although having been raised and benefited from certain advantages that I wouldn't have otherwise. I see the nuance of that perspective, and I'm glad for the life that I've had. I wouldn't say I'm entirely grateful. I think there's a lot of complexity in that, but Bulgarian law says that a child is only eligible for foreign adoption after they've been offered for adoption to three Bulgarian families.

And anyone in their biological [00:12:00] family, and that like regulation was not followed in my case. And okay, it might not have been entirely necessary for me. I, it was necessary for me to be adopted. Absolutely. I needed to be raised by someone. And the alternative of going to an orphanage was certainly not something that my, my grandmother wanted for me, but was it necessary for me to come to the United States?

Was it necessary for me to be adopted cross-culturally? I'm not sure. As a former child welfare worker. I actually, I went to graduate school. The reason why I went to graduate school originally was because I was going to use that as a foundation for going to get my legal degree [00:13:00] and doing global child welfare policy advocacy.

And so my personal opinion, which is informed by years of research and also on the ground experience, which was, initially how I became a social worker, is that we have to support families, first of all to stay together in whatever capacity they can when a child truly becomes adoptable.

Obviously the existence of adoption points to insufficiencies in our infrastructure, social infrastructure to support children and families, right? But then, if a child is adopted or placed in foster care, we have to work to make sure that [00:14:00] family is supported on a community level and that the infrastructure is there for that child to be raised within the context of a connected and loving and supportive environment where they have themselves as they are truly reflected back to them. And that's not the case for so many of us, regardless of what our stories are.

Haley Radke: So we're gonna live in the both and for a moment.

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah.

Haley Radke: And if you had access to. Let's call it trauma informed care at the time, because, I haven't commented, I'm so sorry for, the horrific way that your parents died and the impact that's had, of course, on your life.

I'm very sorry. And so if you had that sort of [00:15:00] trauma-informed care, which I don't know, was that available, you're younger than me to go with your paternal family, do you think, like looking back are you like, I don't know, like it's so complex. Like I get it, I get why people made the choices they made and weren't sure about this, and that.

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Do you wish that's the direction they would've gone?

Mirella Stoyanova: I see it both ways because I see the harm that it caused within that family. My paternal biological relatives who I reconnected with after that, after the end of my first year of graduate school. I see it both ways. There was a giant rupture in their, in the fabric of their family.

And I don't know. I don't, I think, I don't think actually, because there's also a really complex conversation about [00:16:00] patriarchal violence, which is baked into to not only my story, but the story of adoption. And also there's like a cultural component of that I'm not sure could have been overcome.

I wanna believe that it could have, but I don't know. And I like to stay in that place of not knowing because it, it allows me to connect in ways that I think I wouldn't otherwise be able to. So I think that the answer to your question is probably not. When I was adopted, by the time I was adopted, I'd had a year and a half of being cared for by who could care for me.

I went to school at kind of an elite boarding school, preschool in [00:17:00] Sofia, and so I spent time going to the school and then when I wasn't at that school, if my grandmother was feeling well enough, she would take me, but oftentimes she wasn't. And so I spent time with others who were designated to make sure that I wasn't like falling through the cracks.

So I arrived with a year and a half's worth of grief work that I was behind on and trauma recovery that I was behind on. And I actually had the very good fortune of working with at the time, one of the top adoption, attachment and adoption therapist in the Seattle area. Deborah Gray, who's written the book, Attaching in Adoption.

But at that time, I still needed a lot and given the family that I [00:18:00] grew up in and their, I think sort of the lack of awareness of what it would entail to adopt someone at an older age with those sets of issues, it wasn't going to be enough, unless they were gonna be able to. Do their own work. Understand what's unsettling about having an adoptee who's in pain, who has a story like the story that I had.

Haley Radke: What was it like to come to the US? Here's your new white family with three big older brothers.

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah,

Haley Radke: That I can't imagine, did they come to get you? Were you, did you go on the plane and they met you here? What happened?

Mirella Stoyanova: Without telling the story itself, what I will say is that it was an exercise in cognitive dissonance, [00:19:00] a 15 to 20 year exercise. And in some ways it still continues because on one hand there's the story that family creates about who you are as an adoptee joining their family.

And on the other hand, as a person who was adopted at age five, I had my own set of memories and feelings and thoughts about my experience. That were not always congruent with the narrative that my family wanted to tell about my belonging to them. And I experienced that at multiple levels. I experienced that at the level of, I used to always write [00:20:00] this in my journal.

I would say, I had a life before you knew me. I had a life before you knew me. Like I wanted them to know that. Which didn't totally get honored. There was a lot of pain that like they didn't have the capacity to recognize and a lot of just, not even pain, but like my identity, they didn't have the capacity to recognize.

But then there was also the issue of my ethnic and cultural difference. And I am racially ambiguous. People look at me and the first words out of their mouth are, what are you? Which is very, it becomes funny the more you are on the receiving end of it. But funny, not funny, right? And you look at me, I have curly hair and tan skin, and you know how I move through the world is [00:21:00] as someone who is ethnically different, and actually I've been mis race, so it's partially also racial difference. And then if you have a family who's reflecting back to you that they're just looking at you because you're beautiful, they're just, there's nothing wrong. They're not treating you any different. We don't treat you any different. It becomes really confusing and difficult to know. How to be in the world.

Haley Radke: I have a couple thoughts. One is for families who collect another person because of their gender. That's weird.

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah.

Haley Radke: But common, and the other thing, as you were talking, you've, you referenced this in a few of your different pieces, but I'm just gonna read from your piece in Write or Die Lost Side Effects May Include you say, my new mother says she can't compete with an angel, but no matter how hard I try, I can't forget the mother who [00:22:00] died. So I do not invoke her memory in the presence of my new mother, who is also jealous that I have taken to my new father instead of her.

Are you comfortable talking about that a little bit or does that say it all?

Mirella Stoyanova: Let me think about this, my adoptive mother she died a year and a half ago. And it's so funny because even though people pass from our lives, those relationships continue and in so many ways ours has. But what I can say about her is that she had her own set of expectations about what having a daughter would mean that were created through her own unresolved childhood needs, unmet childhood needs, and when I didn't fill those needs, [00:23:00] and of course I couldn't because I came as a complete human being child. It was very disappointing and she had a lot of negative feelings about that, that she directed toward me in so many ways throughout my upbringing.

And my mother also happened to be someone who had some mental health issues that meant she operated at two speeds. And so how those expectations got refracted into our relationship was very fraught. I was very afraid of saying and doing the wrong things constantly. Felt like I was disappointing her or that I could never live up to her expectations because also the other side of it is her longing never [00:24:00] could be stated. What is this saying that we can never get enough of what we don't need. She was looking for answers in the entirely wrong place she was putting that on a child. And now, I look at it with a little bit more complexity because I am a mother myself.

And I, I also recognize that what so much of what was scary to me about my mother was the life in her. Very early on the scope of what was possible and a life was made very apparent. I witnessed a murder suicide, so you know, I was very afraid of some of those natural and normal parts of what make life life, it was intense emotions, the uncertainty of relationships, and even just [00:25:00] engaging in life in a way that meant you were taking risks. I didn't wanna do that. And she, that was her all the way. That's who she was. She was, flying by the seat of her pants and scared me.

Haley Radke: So she passed just after you became a mother?

Mirella Stoyanova: She did.

Haley Radke: How's your perspective changed on that since having your son?

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah. One of the things is that, motherhood has completely shifted the way I experience myself as a, an adoptee. So my son is two now, and there were sort of other things going on at the time, but I was really thinking a lot about both through my writing work and my work as a therapist, what makes the experience of being an adoptee universal.

[00:26:00] And I don't know how it registered or when necessarily there was, but there was one sort of particular moment in the recent past where I was viewing my son, I was like. I don't know. My husband and I, we both work from home and each day we're, walking around the house, we come into the kitchen or places where my son is with the person who cares for him during the day and it's always so hard. It's always so hard to leave him. And there was a moment where I was reflecting on the pain of leaving him and how he cries out for me and how that pain is, it's reciprocal. Like he's crying out for me because we're separated and it's really uncomfortable for me to be separated from him or to hear him crying somewhere else.

And I think I stumbled onto this insight that [00:27:00] his pain of being separate is not unlike the pain that I experienced as a newly orphaned child who was taken from, who lost my mother and was taken from my community, my country, there's a pain of separation there. And shortly after realizing that I started looking around and thinking to myself, that is the pain that I feel with my son, but that's also the pain I feel, in other relationships and other facets of my life. That pain of separation, that pain of disconnect, and it was a revelation for me because what I thought made me so different as an adoptee and as someone who's experienced [00:28:00] multiple iterations of capital T, trauma in my life is actually the thing that binds me with all humans. And I might argue all living things, right? And so I've just been, I've really been reflecting on that. And I was preparing for this talk and I listened to the most recent of your conversations with Pam Carano in the healing series that you do. And you asked a question about like, why do you think people, maybe people who are like adoptive parents or non- adoptees or muggles, I think as she likes to call them. Aren't willing to look at, you were, I think you were talking about like the nothing place, right?

Haley Radke: Yes.

Mirella Stoyanova: And I, I truly think that as adoptees we're mirroring back the physical [00:29:00] reality of an existential problem that other people who are not adopted will do anything most of the time to get out of thinking about, we have entire industries, the wellness industry, the gosh, the dating industry, the anti-aging industry, that their whole thing is like to keep you from, or maybe to help help you feel more in control and to keep you from thinking about the reality that you know, you are born alone, you die alone. Sorry to be so uplifting here, but you are alone. You are alone. And no amount of things you can buy are going to, keep you from that reality. And as, as adoptees, as people who are, system involved. Children in the foster care [00:30:00] system who age out into adulthood who've had these really nuanced experiences, we're reflecting back a reality that is very uncomfortable for people to sit with. And so I think this narrative of like sad story with a happy ending, it's more palatable. Then you became a part of something, then you belonged again.

You were alone and now you're not. We're all alone. We're all alone. And it's okay. That's part of it. Because the other thing is like how beautiful that we keep reaching for connection. How beautiful that we are still reaching for each other and doing the work of iterating in what ways we can, that we are not alone.

Haley Radke: Mirella, I think you just connected something for me that I've thought about for years. You mentioned cognitive dissonance earlier. This is the [00:31:00] thing that pisses me off so much is that cognitive dissonance. Oh my gosh. I'm so glad you were adopted. Oh my gosh. I love the reunion story.

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah.

Haley Radke: And it's like I've always had that gap in I don't get it. Why don't people connect that for there to be the happy reunion then there is the separation, and I think you nailed it there. I think that's what it is. We have to cover up the fear middle of we can't be alone, we can't be with ourselves. We're,

Mirella Stoyanova: It's a deeply existential concern bordering on spiritual, and people don't wanna think about it because it's uncomfortable to be faced with the reality of that truth of our experience. And so that dominant narrative of adoption, that's what we wanna reach for, and I had the unique experience recently.

I, I wrote [00:32:00] something very brief and it was in an attempt to connect with other adoptees, but it was posted on Facebook or something. And the reaction to this like brief snippet of my story was, there were some beautiful and kind comments and there were some really atrocious, but also predictable comments that reflected back something about the discomfort that stirred up in whoever it was that wrote what they did.

And a lot of it was like, so nothing positive happened, so you're not grateful. Some of it was go back to your own country, which was an interesting one for me 'cause I hold a United States passport, there's that, but I was really struck by what it reflected, which is like we as a society are not really set up.

There isn't an emotional [00:33:00] infrastructure for understanding and sitting with the discomfort of cognitive dissonance that both and, that two things can be true at once. That level of complexity and nuance. And it really creates a lot of pain for people in relationships. Personal pain. For me, I came into adulthood with a lot of relational disconnect.

In part because I had no idea who I was. It was so uncomfortable. It was, and this is a common like adoptee story is like we're trying to fit in, so we do everything we can, and then as a result, we don't know who we are. We have little self-acceptance, so we can't really understand who we are and in relation to other people.

And a lot of that is like learning to be okay with who I am. And if as an adoptee you're straddling all of these [00:34:00] lines, someone is telling you who you are and that doesn't fit with how you know yourself or what your experience is. It's gonna create a lot of relational disconnect.

Haley Radke: And I think, so you're a therapist, so you can tell me, and I wanna hear about how you came to, to choose that profession. But as you're talking through those things, I think, yeah, and ultimately, of course, adoptees are human, and the human experiences too have pain and suffering and all those things. And for us, like I really feel like the, quote unquote healing journey. This is gonna sound so cliche, just go with me. Is literally learning to love ourselves. And when we have that big black hole carved out and you say, love yourself, that's the fix. It's okay, but I, how do you love the black hole that's, it's a void. I can't see it. I can't, it, it feels impossible to overcome that. [00:35:00]

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah, I think if we were to like go deeper on that, which I don't think it's cliche, I think it just, it needs some conveyance of what is it that we're looking at. You can't love or accept yourself if you don't know who you are and whatever that means to you. Whether it's, I don't have the life experience to understand who the self is that is navigating this world, or I'm confused because somebody told me who I was or who I should be, and that doesn't match with how I move through the world.

But if we don't know who we are, we don't know where we end and where other people begin, we're not then able to form healthy [00:36:00] boundaries or relationships with other people because everything is a negotiation. And how many adoptees have you spoken with Haley, who you know have talked about being chameleons, right?

Some people say it's our superpower and it was certainly mine and sometimes I feel myself pulled to try to figure that out, and be that version of who, someone is expecting me to be. But I do think the healing work comes from uncovering who we are truly. And for so many adoptees, that question is complicated by not having access to information and whether you need that information or not to really know who you [00:37:00] are. It's like this whole other conversation that we could go into probably great depth about. But unless you can really do that work of articulating to yourself a version of who you are that you can accept.

It's gonna be really hard to see the difference between who it is I truly am and how I move through the world, and the stories that other people have about who I am and how I move through the world.

Haley Radke: What led you to becoming a therapist? And I think now after people hearing you with your insights here, they're gonna be lining up.

Mirella Stoyanova: I didn't know I wanted to become a therapist until I topped out in the child welfare work that I was doing and realized that no amount of advancing [00:38:00] through that goal that I'd had for so many years was going to be satisfying for me. It was like recognizing that, that I was in so many ways trying to be someone I was not, and I really more than anything wanted to be who I was. That was where I was in my own sort of healing journey at the time.

Haley Radke: Cause you also had the idea of going on to law, right? Yeah. And so that, that didn't pan out or I don't know.

Mirella Stoyanova: No, I actually just course corrected.

Haley Radke: Okay.

Mirella Stoyanova: And some of it was that I went through a health crisis in my twenties. I withdrew from topical steroids, used to treat childhood eczema for many years, and that was like a four and a half year long process that involved basically my body just like completely rebelling against what I was trying to do, which was like clear it from my [00:39:00] system. And it was at that time that I was like, what?

What is gonna make me happy? What is it like if nothing changes if I'm in this physical pain that I've been in for these many number of years, if nothing changes for the rest of my life, like how am I gonna be with myself? What is it that I need to live a satisfying and meaningful life? And at that point, I'd actually been pursuing my clinical licensure for three years without really having an intention of sitting for the exam.

And I was in my life outside of work, I was reading theoretical texts about psychology and healing and all these things. So that was the point at which I was like, yeah, no, I think I want to become a therapist. And about a year later I went and I worked at Seattle Children's in the inpatient psych unit and [00:40:00] studied under a really wonderful behavioralist who's done a lot of great work for adolescents on mood management type stuff. But then I also had this, really extensive background and interest in like existential and Buddhist psychology and that happened to lend really well to the work I do as a therapist. So I then opened my private practice in 2018 and I've been seeing clients ever since.

Haley Radke: Amazing. Thank you for your service to the folks that need your guidance. I know you work with adoptees also in addition to muggles, I'll call them.

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah.

Haley Radke: And you have an expertise in racial reclamation as well, and can speak to those things too. [00:41:00] Is there anything that we didn't really talk about yet that you want to make sure that you share with listeners?

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah, it's an expertise in racial reclamation or racial conscientization. There's also the trauma recovery piece that I do, and also working with folks like around perfectionism. I work with a lot of like high performers who struggle with feelings of, as it happens inadequacy. So you know, that's an area where I do a lot of sort of in-depth work. I have notes, but I haven't looked at them today. I feel like we touched on so much.

Haley Radke: We did. We touched on some really deep things that I didn't anticipate us talking about, but I think it was so impactful.

Mirella Stoyanova: I'm glad. I have, the two books that I was thinking [00:42:00] about, what I would wanna recommend to anyone on their own journey and some of the, foundational texts and how I approach healing in general, but also, that stemmed from my own sort of healing journey.

Haley Radke: Yeah. You go first, what are the books you wanna recommend to us?

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah, I've got, Complex PTSD From Surviving to Thriving Pete Walker's work on complex PTSD, which I feel would be really relevant for this audience, as well as a very beautiful book called Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair, and it's written by Miriam Greenspan, who is the daughter of concentration camp survivors, and has a lot of really solid and [00:43:00] beautiful work around, how we can relate skillfully to difficult emotions.

Haley Radke: When you sent me the the complex PTSD book, I looked it up and I thought, oh my goodness, this would be so helpful for people to work through, especially if they feel that or have been diagnosed with PTSD or C-P-T-S-D. It's great. Thank you so much for recommending them. So your writing is really incredible, and I told you right at the start your reading on that sizzle reel is what just captivated me. And I've read all the pieces that you've got publicized on your website and we'll link to those in the show notes. But I just feel like your writing is it's reflective, it's evocative. You can hear how Mirella you shared with us today, and I feel like you, you write in that just such a thoughtful way so I know you have a memoir, you're querying [00:44:00] around, so you know, let's get this girl signed people.

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah, I wrote a book about a crisis I faced when I got engaged in 2020. And I couldn't shake the feeling that I was living a double life or a life that was, written according to what somebody else wanted.

And I realized that I needed to reckon with my past or risk losing my relationship and pretty much everything, that by that point I had worked really hard to build, it was like over a decade of healing and self work. And I was in crisis thinking that, if I really looked at my relationship, I was going to blow it all to pieces and so that's what the memoir is about. And hopefully, right now I am. The thing about writing and pursuing traditional publication is you realize, you're, you write and then you rewrite, and then you rewrite again, and you think you're done. [00:45:00] But you're really reaching some kind of threshold of more nuanced understanding.

And I am going to be, I'm currently, I'm revising again. To take my book back out and re-query it in 2026.

Haley Radke: Okay. We're all cheering you on. Thank you. I'm gonna link to these pieces, but the one that really spoke to me was Loss, Side Effects May Include, and then you wrote in Business Insider, which I'll tell you, it scared me a little bit and I practiced earlier.

I was adopted as a child by an American family. They still can't pronounce my name correctly. Girl when you wrote Mirella, I was like, I grew up on Anne of Green Gables. Okay? And so then that stuck in my head and I was like, dear God, that I cannot say that today.

Mirella Stoyanova: You didn't.

Haley Radke: So I hope I did okay anyway.

Mirella Stoyanova: And I think I've, I think I've probably scared a lot of people, but honestly it was just a an honest expression [00:46:00] of exasperation I felt at having spent 18 years of my life trying to ask for my name to be pronounced correctly and with some individuals in my family it's been harder than with others, but names are so reflective of who we are. They're an expression of identity. And when somebody, even if someone isn't saying your name when they try, it's about conveying that you're seen and we all wanna be seen.

Haley Radke: Oh yeah, I totally agree. Okay. And so my assistant, actually anyone that's worked for me, that is one of the very first things we talk about is I'm like every guest's name is gonna be spelled correctly, and I'm not gonna see any name spelled incorrectly. And so I always make this point of making sure I say people's names correctly. But I know I don't always get [00:47:00] it quite right, but it's so important. I totally agree. And it to the degree where I have multiple friends who've changed their name as their identity reclamation project.

Mirella Stoyanova: Yeah, I have as well.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Mirella Stoyanova: Stoyanova was is my, it's my pre-adoptive middle name and the family name of my grandmother and my birth mother.

Haley Radke: Yes.

Mirella Stoyanova: So it's, of course it's complicated because there's like the whole eastern European like Bulgarian nomenclature. Thing. But I did, I ended up reclaiming that.

And I have my married name, but I write under my pre-adoptive name.

Haley Radke: I love that.

Mirella Stoyanova: It's very significant.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah, totally. So please go and check out Mirella's writing Mirella's writing.

Mirella Stoyanova: There you go. That's okay. It's okay.

Haley Radke: You know it's not hard. I don't know why I'm struggling.

Mirella Stoyanova: It's not about saying it right. It's about the [00:48:00] intention.

Haley Radke: So we'll linked to those in the show things in the show notes, but where can we connect with you and cheer you on in your search for finding this publisher?

Mirella Stoyanova: I am on Instagram. I love connecting with folks there because it's a place that exists at the cross section of my personal and professional lives, but I also right now have a website for my writing work that will in the new year, also be a website for my therapy practice as well. And you right now, it has the link to my therapy practice, but it's just a writing focused page. And that's mirellastoyanova.com.

Haley Radke: Perfect. We'll link to those both in the show notes so you can click through easily and follow. Thank you so much. What an honor so much to speak to you today. I really enjoyed our time together.

Mirella Stoyanova: I'm so [00:49:00] honored to be here. I'm, I was so happy when you asked, and thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure to be here.

Haley Radke: Okay. Chat did. Okay. First of all, did you know that's what the cool kids talk like these days, chat. Like they just call everybody chat. I do it and my kids, roll their eyes at me anyway. Okay. Chat. I want to know. What you think about Mirella's insight with us, reflecting back to culture, this idea that there's a fear of being alone and our existence and our complete disconnection from our biological origins shows them you too could be alone. I wanna know what you think about that. And come to [00:50:00] Instagram, put it in the comments for this episode. I'm fascinated by it. I have, I truly, I have thought about this nonstop since we had this conversation and I think she's onto something. So I think these ideas that keep coming out the nothing place this existential, crisis theory, these are really worth talking about because they help us understand ourselves better and they help us talk about adoption in a way that the general population can understand. 'Cause isn't that what we want? We want them to understand the truth of our experiences, the pain, the both and the trauma, all of those things.

Because if they understood us better, perhaps we could lessen the amount of [00:51:00] unnecessary adoptions. Perhaps we could halt them all together. Perhaps we could have more supports for adult adoptees for current growing up adoptees. Imagine what a world. Anyway, come to the comments and let us know.

And if you are listening to this around when it airs, I just wanna remind you. I'm gonna be in New York City to attend the Adoptee Film Fest. Also celebrating with Sullivan Summer, the launch of her chatbook into the world. And it sounds like that's the name of her chatbook. Performance Anxiety is the name of her Chatbook.

And so I'll be there celebrating with her and I would love to meet you. We would love to see you there. So we'll have links to those events in the show notes. That's happening in November, 2025. And of course, if you're listening in the future we missed you. Perhaps we'll see you next year. Okay.

[00:52:00] Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again very soon.

309 Megan Hunter, MBA

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/309

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Haley Radke: [00:00:00] 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. It is such an honor to bring you today's guest, Megan Hunter. Megan is known as the conflict influencer and is the co-founder of the High Conflict Institute. We get to know Megan's personal story today, including her reunion.

Megan shares about how she first connected with her birth mother about a gut wrenching experience with her biological father that resurfaced an adoptee wound, and she offers us advice in navigating new reunion relationships, including both the complex and the beautiful [00:01:00] sides. Before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world.

We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Megan Hunter. Hi, Megan.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Hello. Hi, Haley. Hi everyone. Thanks for having me.

Haley Radke: What an honor to talk to you. I'd love it if you would start the way we normally do. Would you share some of your story with us?

Megan Hunter, MBA: Adoptee story business. I'm usually doing business podcasts, so, or conflict podcasts. So that's what I'm used to talking about.

Haley Radke: I know we're going to the personal today. How about that?

Megan Hunter, MBA: Not the personal side. Alright, we can do that. I was adopted at the age of two months. [00:02:00] So my biological parents are, they were, you know, last year of high school, senior year, and the relationship didn't last, and I was born in September.

So what would've been their. I guess their freshman year of college. So they chose to place me for adoption and I guess I went to a foster home for a couple of months and I was told it was a wonderful one. And then I was adopted by some really wonderful people in Nebraska. So I grew up on a farm. And had two, I had an older sister who was my parent, my adoptive parent's, natural child, and then they'd lost two children before she was born.

Very tra you know, sadly with some heart problems. So they had her, she also had the heart problems, but she survived it. And at that point, I think they were like. This is too painful to try to have more children. You know, genetically, there's obviously something wrong, but they wanted more [00:03:00] kids, so they adopted a boy and then two years later adopted another boy, and then two years later adopted me.

So I'm the youngest of four and grew up my whole life knowing I was adopted, which I'm so grateful for because I know a few people who didn't know for a long time, and that's just been a painful journey for them, or painful new piece of news too, to absorb and assimilate. So yeah, I was grateful for that.

And I'm sure there'll be lots of, lots of questions about the whole, all of it. But I guess the, the fast forward part is in my twenties, I was about 24 or 25 when I was flipping through television stations and I just, just flipping through, you know how you, so you're like on something for two seconds before you flip to the next thing.

At least back in the old days. I don't even think we do that anymore.

Haley Radke: No. You just like, look up what you wanna watch and there it is. Right.

Megan Hunter, MBA: I just realized that. Yeah. Right.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Megan Hunter, MBA: We used [00:04:00] to do that. I, I mean, like I grew up when we didn't even have remotes so ancient, but, so I'm flipping through. See, I, I lived in Nebraska, but we got Colorado news stations and networks and things, and there was a Colorado news, a TV sh, you know, news show on, and I just caught in those two seconds adoptees.

So I went back to that station and they had this story about Colorado had just opened their birth records to adoptees for six months. You had a window. And so I followed up, I'll followed through and I think I paid $125 or something very, very nominal for. They assigned me to a intermediary who had access then to whatever records were available, and she tracked down my birth grand maternal grandmother and that led her to my biological mom, birth mother.[00:05:00]

I told her, you know, like I didn't have any expectations of ever, ever meeting anyone, but I, I was interested in medical information. I mean, I was honest and authentic about that, but, so she did write me a letter back and gave me, you know, some medical information, but there were no names or any identifying information included, and I didn't expect it.

I didn't give her mine. And then about three months later, after a couple of letters, maybe the intermediary called and said, your birth mother would like to talk to you. So, I don't know, within a day or two we were on the phone and this thing I'd been, you know, thinking about for 25 years was suddenly happening.

I had this, this, the, the dream, the fantasy, you know, that we all create in our head about who they are and what they look like and all that. Well, I was born in the Vietnam War era. I knew my bio father had gone into the military, [00:06:00] so I, in my fantasy mind, he was dead. I just thought, you know, Vietnam. So that was my story.

Well, it turns out he was very much alive and still is. So, so I got to, I got to meet him first, and he didn't have any other children. I was it. And then I met my birth mother. Probably sometime in the next six months or so, and she had four kids that were born after me and three daughters and a son. So I've gotten to know all them and then her husband and you know, now it's been over 25 years. So I have some experience now.

Haley Radke: You do. You so do. And because you're an expert in conflict resolution, you have all these skills for sure. Now that would help I'm sure, in difficult reunion situations. How about when you were 25, 26, 27 and those difficult things come up? [00:07:00] Can you remember anything that was particularly challenging?

Megan Hunter, MBA: At the beginning, I was just in my twenties. I think I was just full of life and exuberant and it was like, oh, this is great, you know? So I just kind of accepted. I was very accepting of everyone and I wasn't cautious. At all. I just went full in like, oh, this is so exciting. And so there wasn't conflict in the beginning, I would say took about a decade for the skeletons to come outta the closet.

You know, it was kind of like we're all putting our, our best foot forward, you know, in our shiny faces. And as we all know, in every family there's some skeletons somewhere and some conflict. So when those things came up, I didn't necessarily know how to handle them. Well, and I, I wouldn't say I was in the conflict, but I just had funny feelings.

Haley Radke: Hmm.

Megan Hunter, MBA: So on my, my bio dad side there was, there was no conflict [00:08:00] me with anyone, but he and his siblings had tons of conflict, and so I could step back and watch this from afar and it's like, yeah, this is great. I don't have to be in it. Birth mother's side of the family, you know, they had their dynamics, their sibling histories and all of that, and again, I wasn't part of it.

So when they had big conflict, I was still this outsider. Now in my adoptive family, loads of conflict, high conflict. So I, I finally reached a point where I realized that when you come from an adoptive place and you know, all these families, plus I'd been married, had that family, got divorced, got remarried have family. You have a lot of family now, and I realized that with every family comes that some of those skeletons, some of that conflict history, you know, drama and it can be too much. I [00:09:00] felt overwhelmed because there was too much drama in many of the families, most of them. So I think as an adoptee, that was really challenging for me. Even though I could step back from some of it, it still affected me. So if you want me to focus on. A back breaker of a conflict. I can do that.

Haley Radke: Well, as you were talking, I was thinking like sometimes we are the skeletons in the closet when we come back and find, right?

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yeah.

Haley Radke: And so

Megan Hunter, MBA: I was.

Haley Radke: Yes. Did your siblings know about you on your maternal side? No. So they have to just, mom has to share that secret.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yep. She'd never shared with anyone. Except her mother.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah. That can be so difficult in relationship. Just that.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yeah. And she's a very private person and I'm a talker, you know, and I'm exuberant and she's very private and quiet. So that was, was difficult, but it was [00:10:00] so kind that she did share this information with her family and they accepted me completely open armed.

Haley Radke: Hmm.

Megan Hunter, MBA: And I have wonderful relationships with a couple of my sisters, and there's just, that's been just a highlight in my life.

Haley Radke: Oh, I'm so glad for you, Megan. That's wonderful. Yeah. Okay. I mean, you, you, you gotta share the doozy because, you know, we're all waiting to hear. You're like, Haley, you have to ask that. I will, I will.

Megan Hunter, MBA: A little, little teaser there. Yeah, and I, I, I'm willing to share this because I think as adoptees we do deal with something different than non- adoptees and I, I think it's at a cellular level. So on my birth father's side, like I said, there was a lot of conflict in that family, and if they would get together for a gathering, it would last a day or two. And then like there's a blow up and then they're making booking tickets to go fly home immediately and that kind of thing. I would go [00:11:00] visit my paternal grandmother. And I realized I could handle about 12 hours before I felt exhausted and kind of overwhelmed and like needed to get outta there, right?

So you know I had probably known him 15 years or so, and my bio dad called me, he lived several states away, and he said, you know, for my mom's 80th birthday, I'm gonna fly to where she lives. Surprise her and tell her we're gonna hop in her car and we're gonna drive to see you. And stay with you for 10 days.

Exactly. That must have been the look on my face. I'm like, okay, God, I can do anything for 10 days. Right. I can be charitable, I can be generous. I have a big house. We can, I can make this work. I'll just do it. Right. So it, you know, we're, eh, first three days are okay. And then it just, things kind of started feeling weird and like they'd kind of disappear and wouldn't say [00:12:00] they were going anywhere and they'd be gone for hours and hours.

It was just, I don't know, just no communication. And I would start to get that feeling again, of just being like, run down and at the edge of falling apart, but I'm strong. I got this, I can do this. So we were going to have a we hosted in our home like a, a weekly like marriage Bible study for married couples on Monday nights.

So I told my bio dad and his mom about this and I said, look, you don't have to come. I'm not trying to proselytize, but it's something we do in our home. If you'd like to come, you're welcome. If not, no problem. She said, no thanks. He said, yeah, please come get me in my room. So I went and got him in his room.

When it was time we walked down the hall together. And right before we got to the living room, he said I gotta get something. I'll be right back. So I thought, well, I must need his glasses or something. I don't know. Never came back. Never did come back. So [00:13:00] afterwards, I sent my son down to the bedroom.

So what, you know, to find him. And he's like, he's not there. He's not in the backyard, he is not in the front yard. He's gone. He's just not there. Odd, right. We looked, we kind of waited, just wasn't there. So the next morning I just woke up at 5:30 in the morning, and which isn't normal. I usually, it's like 6:30 or seven.

And I immediately had this thought, they're gone. I woke up my husband and I said, honey, they're gone. What are you talking about? They're, they're gone. I know they're gone. No, they're supposed to be here another three or four days. They're gone. I got my robe. Walked down the hall, they were gone.

And I think as an adoptee that ripped the rug right out from under me. You know, there's probably a lot of, a lot of variables there, but you know, in birth family in all of this. But [00:14:00] I guess I didn't know what was gonna happen. So it wasn't necessarily like a big conflict, it was just they were gone. So my husband's said, let's, go to breakfast.

So we went to this restaurant and we sat on the patio for probably three or four hours. And I had, which from the outside probably looked like a nervous breakdown.

Haley Radke: Mm-hmm.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Or a psychotic break. I would just sob and weep from my core over this, probably abandonment.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Right. Even though I didn't even like this guy that much, I didn't like his mom that much. Why is it affecting me so deeply? I would just, I would weep from the, I mean, guttural, ugh. It was horrible. And then that, you know, I'd go for a while and then I'd start laughing hysterically. So like I said, crazy lady. But that was my reality that morning. And I think looking back, you know, it's been 15 years better ago now, and, and I realize that my belief is in some of [00:15:00] us, based on our temperament, our DNA, our life experiences and all of that, our biological family, our resilience, you can have that rug ripped from under you and not, not real, just you have no idea its coming. You don't know it's there that you can get hurt deeply, even by people you don't feel like you're even that close to.

So that's my big conflict story. Not that I, I mean, it, it just ended with me setting limits when, when they called that night because word got around quickly to a cousin who called an aunt, who called him on the road. So he called me and I was of course upset and I, I just said, look, I never wanna see your mother again, and I'll let you know when I'm ready to talk to you. And I must have sounded pretty fierce what he heard. It was, I'll never wanna talk to either of you again.

Haley Radke: Mm-hmm.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Right. So we have healed things since then, but I'm pretty cautious. Then fast forward [00:16:00] to about six years, five years ago, my little grandson's first birthday party. Now I've let these folks back in my life again.

He and his wife, they wanna come out for my first grandchild's first birthday. Great. Come on out and we just finished the dinner and you know, I'm an excited Nana, I love my little grandbaby and its first birthday and oh, the cake and the good to the presents and all that. So we'd finish the dinner, we're sitting at the table and just waiting to, you know, get the table cleared and we're gonna have the cake and presents and things.

And he looked at me, he said, I just wanted to let you know I went to our lawyer and took you out of our will.

Haley Radke: At the party, he said this to you?

Megan Hunter, MBA: Mm-hmm. Now, as an adoptee, I never had an expectation of being in the will in the first place.

Haley Radke: Mm-hmm.

Megan Hunter, MBA: 25, 30 years ago, he, out of the [00:17:00] blue, told me he put me in his will. Okay, great. Thank you. So now the expectation's there. You don't even think about it again, you've forgotten about it until someone, the person who gave life to you tells you, lemme rip that rug out from under you again. So there we were again, and I was much stronger at by that point and had been in therapy. But I still think there's so much about being adopted that at least for me is at a cellular level.

Haley Radke: Mm-hmm.

Megan Hunter, MBA: I don't know.

Haley Radke: How long did it take you from your setting the limit after that first disappearing act to engaging with him again?

Megan Hunter, MBA: Mm, it might've been over five years.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yeah. I was just, I was just, I've never had anything like that. Just, I just, I could feel it in my cells. That's all. That's the only [00:18:00] way I know how to, to, to describe it.

Haley Radke: Well in this behavior, I'm telling you, something inflammatory at a public celebratory occasion is like, this person just really wants a scene or something like that is so wild. What a choice.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yeah, it's like just no really low social skills, I think. And you know, I, I don't think there was bad intent by it. It was just, you know, the explanation the next day was you know, your husband supports you and you have your own company and so you don't need anything from us. Well, that's true. However. The underlying part of this is the human part. Yeah. You know?

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Megan Hunter, MBA: And maybe in a different setting, said in a different way. Like, hey we've had this conversation and here's what we decided to do. We just wanted to let you know. So that was my [00:19:00] experience. And after then, after that. Like he, the look on my face must not have looked great. He saw that, noticed it, blamed his wife for everything, and then took off out of the house.

Like I told you, conflict, they run. Well, they rode with us in our car, so we had to come back and the next day we dropped 'em at their condo and the next day they, they said, hey, we we're, we're not feeling well today, you know? And then they contacted me the following day. I had lunch with them, brought my daughter along who they hadn't seen yet, and I just kept it surface and pleasant. And when he went to the bathroom at the restaurant, his wife looked at me and said, are we okay now? And I said, no. What I've learned from this is you can have too much family.

Haley Radke: Mm-hmm.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Which probably wasn't the nicest thing to say, but it's the only thing I could think in that moment.

Haley Radke: Mm-hmm. That's so real though.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yeah, it's a lot. It's a [00:20:00] lot to carry.

Haley Radke: So a lot of people, we, we even did a whole series on adoptee estrangement, and so a lot of people are choosing to go this route now. And I know with your expertise, like you help people navigate really challenging circumstances and especially with people who are high conflict, really difficult people.

And so do you have a, a line or, or things that you tell people about, like, listen, if you see this, we really gotta. Yes. Safer to break ties, or if these things are happening, I could help you work through that. Like, do you have something like that that you could share?

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yeah, we do. I mean, it's, we do work with a lot of people in really tricky situations, whether it's adoptee, I mean, it's. Infrequently adoption related, but it's, you know, high conflict, which is a, a kind of a pattern of an, an individual with a [00:21:00] pattern of doing a lot of blaming and having, you know, really extreme behaviors, unmanaged emotions, and very all or nothing in their thinking. And it's just kind of how they approach life kind of unconsciously, like an operating system so they can wreak havoc on their close relationships and even relationships at work, but especially in intimate relationships and parenting and families, siblings, all of that. So the people that come to us are usually often in times in despair. Like, I'm in a deep dark hole and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to get out.

Everything I do is a misstep. I'm wrong. I'm blamed, I'm scared, I'm frustrated. I'm exhausted by the chaos. So what we help people do is just understand, first of all what high conflict looks like and then they start to get this first like kind of brick in the foundation of, okay, I'm not crazy. And then it's kind of understanding what's happening with this other [00:22:00] person and accepting that this is who they are and I'm not gonna be able to change it.

Therefore I have to change how I approach it. So we do have, you know, communication skills we teach, which is, you know, using what we call EAR statements when they're escalating, complaining, blaming, give them something a little with a little empathy, attention, respect, little EAR. And it, it helps really connect with the reactive part of the brain and helps them kind of helps their brain get regulated more, gives them what they need before you have a conversation or get to what you need to, like, if you have to have a difficult conversation, you're gonna sprinkle a little EAR in it whenever the other person's upset, escalating, blaming, going all or nothing or any of that.

And then we have other little techniques. We have writing techniques and things too, but a big part of this is setting limits and with high conflict people, [00:23:00] you really have to have this balance of, of giving them empathy or respect. Some need respect more than empathy 'cause they'll manipulate you with your empathy.

And then a balance with setting limits, they don't stop themselves and so you kind of have to give the gift of setting limits and what that really means bottom line is I'm going to do what I need to do. Because if you think about it, we're typically doing what the other person wants us to do and we're afraid to assert what we want.

But setting limits, having boundaries is doing or saying what I'm going to do, I'm going to leave this room now if you don't stop talking to me in that way. And if they continue, I'm leaving the room now. So there's those, little, you know, things that happen in conversations, but then we go to the bigger picture of making decisions about that relationship.

And that's one that takes some time. And you know, in these [00:24:00] tricky reunion type situations, you're blending different cultures basically on an intimate, most intimate level. And sometimes gonna work great as you know. And other times it's going to be tricky and sometimes you're, oftentimes there's gonna be a, a pretty negative situation that you find yourself walking into.

So, you know, I like to say, remain cautious for a year at least. Tread lightly. Be observant. Look for the red flags. Don't make any promises. Don't get too close, too quickly. Stay as arms length as possible for the first year or so, and then you can make decisions from there. 'cause I don't know you today, but I will.

I will know you and I'm gonna know that you're okay. Healthy enough to be in a [00:25:00] relationship with or not, or somewhere in between. And that's how far or close I'm gonna have you.

Haley Radke: That's really good advice. So difficult to follow through in. Especially for

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yes ma'am,

Haley Radke: you're meeting your birth mother for the first time. Your fa like, it's the draw, the lure of like finally getting to know someone you dreamed about for and had all these stories about. It's so difficult.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yeah,

Haley Radke: and I really encourage people to have a, a competent therapist to walk. Them through this time to help press the brakes for us. 'cause we can't, it's, it's really difficult.

I was gonna say, we can't do it.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yeah.

Haley Radke: I mean, we could, but it's hard.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yeah, it's hard. I like, listen, I'm old now. I'm a grandma, right. So I have a lot more experience and wisdom and missteps along.

Haley Radke: You sure look old

Megan Hunter, MBA: in my 20.

Haley Radke: Just for people who can't see you, like. [00:26:00]

Megan Hunter, MBA: Filters help, trying to stay looking young. But, and the good thing is my voice sounds young, which is nice. So the people that can't see me think I'm really young. But when I was in my twenties, when I met everyone, you know, I was just, I, I didn't have any of these skills. I didn't know, I was just happy. Let's, you know, ah, it's gonna be great.

Haley Radke: Mm-hmm.

Megan Hunter, MBA: It's like a Odie in Garfield, just ha ha ha. So it's a, it's a journey.

Haley Radke: Well, and I think you kind of alluded to this, but this deep-seated fear of like a re abandonment, I think is in a lot of us. And so we will say yes to a 10 day visit, even though, or like really, right, we'll say boundary crossings all over the place just to keep the peace.

And, and that that comes at our costs. Like it's, you know, and so I think with, you know, lots of therapy and maturity can come, the ability to set those [00:27:00] limits, like you were saying, but it's hard won.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yeah, it is. And, and you do, I mean, I'm really glad you, know, say out loud, get some competent help to go through this. I really didn't have any, I just. Just was fumbling along. And then over the years, you know, since then, finding lots of issues within my adoptive family too, and having that family cut me outta their will. So kinda, I know, I don't know, too many people have been cut outta the will twice for two different families. But here I am.

Haley Radke: You're just too successful. Like what?

Megan Hunter, MBA: In a way which does, you know, not to be, you know, narcissistic or conceited or anything, but I think there's some, issues of that in one family, not so much in the other and none in the other, but. Yeah, you have to, you just, you need help 'cause you have to, it's, these are really [00:28:00] challenging, difficult situations that can take a toll on your self-esteem. And you can really take some, some big hits. And there are things I just didn't understand, like why am I looking like a psychotic person on the patio at Gooding? You know, back and forth and swinging all over the place.

And, you know, and I, I've been to therapy and, you know, I help a lot of other people, but at, at the same time, I was experiencing this myself and I couldn't get a grip on it. I just couldn't understand it. So I think that for me at least, that seemed like that comes from the deep down adoption stuff, is there are things we are doing ourselves, we just can't understand.

Haley Radke: Mm-hmm.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Why am I feeling this way? Why am I doing this? Why? So for me, it finally kind of came together when, you know, I had to make some tough decisions in my life about my adoptive family [00:29:00] and just some really heavily unhealthy things there. And it was okay for about three days after I made my decision.

Tough. I'm strong. I've got a great husband. I have great kids, all this. And day three, I was like, wake up, woke up and I always felt like I was falling apart, like I felt a little crumbly and I called my husband at his office about 10 o'clock. I said, I've never not had a family before. I don't know how to do this.

I don't know if I can do this. He hops in his car, drove home from his office, 30 minutes, sat me down at the table, my calm, cool, collective, super sweet husband, and he looked at me and he said, don't ever again let anyone hold your self-esteem, value, or happiness in their hands. That was it. I was over it. I was fine, and I've been fine ever since.

It's been years. There's something in that that I guess. I don't know [00:30:00] if it's just my temperament that I didn't have that strong self-esteem or know who I was or was adoption part of it. I don't know, but it sure helped with all of it.

Haley Radke: Hmm. Thanks for sharing that. I don't know if you're comfortable talking about this, but I know your a mom and you have a big family, extra, extra step kids now, and you've got, you know, lots of people to love who all are influenced when we're talking about reunion, right? It's,

Megan Hunter, MBA: yeah.

Haley Radke: Trickles down. So in the difficult times, how did you talk about these things with your kids, you know 'cause I'm estranged from my adoptive parents also and it's, rare, but every once in a while, one of my children will be like, ask about the grandparents they barely remember anymore 'cause it's been a number of years. Right. And so having those conversations with them and also trying to make sure they know I'm not gonna go anywhere, you [00:31:00] know, like I'm here.

Megan Hunter, MBA: True.

Haley Radke: And also they know their mom is adopted and I was separated from my parent. Right. So. So it's really complex to have these conversations with our children at whatever age or stage it's sort of happening. Do you remember having anything like that with yours?

Megan Hunter, MBA: Probably not in such a thoughtful way as you've just said it, I think. Honesty is always a great policy. And I think that came from my parents always telling me I was adopted. So that's just kinda carried through my life. I think being authentic can't hurt.

So I think if you've raised your children with that secure attachment, that's the foundation. And then you can be honest and, and you know, depending on their age. But just asking them, you know, when mommy, if something came up and you say, you know, if when mommy goes to the store, does Mom come back? Yep.

Well, I'm always gonna come back for you. I'm always here. You know? So I think it's just [00:32:00] repetitive information like that and action, and it can be words or it can be your actions. Right. It's just, it's just being there. So did I have that conversation? Hmm. Not so much. I would probably whined and complained it too much, but they were older.

Haley Radke: Mm-hmm.

Megan Hunter, MBA: You know, but even things that I probably took missteps or screwed up with my kids, I've been able to kind of repair that, you know, in adult life. And I'm just very vulnerable and transparent with them and they experience changes that I'm going through that are pos, you know. All changes, I guess. But I'm always working toward positive growth and development and they feel that.

Haley Radke: I bet.

Megan Hunter, MBA: And now they're pretty healthy for the most part. And they make decisions about people in their lives. They're very supportive of me. I've been very much, don't be a take sides person. If you wanna have [00:33:00] a relationship with any of the people that I don't have a relationship with, that's your choice.

I will respect that and support whatever you decide. If something becomes unhealthy and I see it, I might bring it up to you, but it's gonna be up to you. It's your choice. And I think through that, that's taught them to make their own choices and they are healthy choices because of that.

Haley Radke: Mm-hmm.

Megan Hunter, MBA: The bad part of it, the negative or the negative side I've seen is that when I kind of did a walk away from my adoptive family. Then one of my children kind of wanted to distance himself from his brother, my other child. And I, you know, I keep saying, don't do that. You can't do that. We gotta keep our family together, we gotta keep ourselves, you know, and his comment was, well mom, you know, look, you walked away from your family. So kinda have to weigh those things.

And [00:34:00] role modeling is really important. And I think for me at least, it was trying to avoid being all or nothing and, and saying, look, I'm putting a pause. I've walked away, but it's a pause. It may change in a couple of years. I don't know yet, but I'm gonna do the right thing. I'm taking right steps, and if I learned I've taken a wrong step, I'll try to make a right one the next time. If this relationship is meant to heal, I'm open to that. So I think it's just figuring out as you call.

Haley Radke: Yes. Okay. Well said. Thank you. Is there anything else that I, I know you've sort of dipped your toe in with the adoptee community or with the NPE community, I know you've gone even presented at one of the conferences.

And is there anything that you see in adoptees that, especially related to your expertise in conflict that we should learn about more or advice for [00:35:00] us? Anything like that?

Megan Hunter, MBA: Well, first of all, I was really surprised at the first conference to see that it was, there's so many, and it was, you know. In the old days it was just adoptees.

Haley Radke: Mm-hmm.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Now it's all these other non-parent event, I don't know, what are they? Embryo donors and all this, all that other stuff. And now

Haley Radke: This is the Untangling Our Roots conference that we're talking about. Mm-hmm.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yeah. And then people who, you know, were one of 60 children from a sperm donor and just, it's grown so much and there's, you see the same desires in no matter what circumstances you came from and the people I've talked to that have like just found out, let's say they're my age and they found, find out dad's not my dad, a bio dad. It's really interesting to see how deeply that cuts that they've been lied to. They're 55 years old and they found out I'm not Jewish and I thought I had, you know, Holocaust [00:36:00] survivors in my family and now I find out I'm not even part of that family and that's their thinking.

So. I think, you know, obviously people listening to this are, maybe have gone past that already. I don't know. But I guess my words of caution would be to be cautious because there are people who are not healthy. There are people who may take advantage or they might have a really wonderful outcome.

I've talked to some who thought they'd found their biological parent, and then it turned out it wasn't. Now they've built and established a relationship with that person and then find out, oops, that wasn't him. Now another hurt. So I just think you have to be cautious. You don't have to be afraid or live in fear, but just get with that therapist, get with somebody that's walked this journey. Get with a good friend who has a very objective perspective and take your time. There's no rush. [00:37:00]

Haley Radke: Yes, definitely, I mean. Huh. I should say sometimes people feel a sense of urgency depending on how old they are when they search those kinds of things.

And that also can make us make some foolish choices, so.

Megan Hunter, MBA: That's true.

Haley Radke: Yeah. As much as you can. I totally agree. Take your time and have, have someone walking alongside you if you can.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yeah. And if I can just say one thing real quick. This has probably been kind of heavy for people. It's just reality. I'm very much about reality and being authentic, and if it helps someone, I hope it does. There's also some really great stuff that's happened in my life and I have these two sisters, half sisters, and we vacationed together this summer. I look in their eyes and I see my eyes, and those are, as you know, it's really cool when you finally find someone that looks like you or they talk like you or they act like you or you find you have these common traits and, [00:38:00] you know, wonderful, wonderful relationships. And I'm, I'm very fortunate that I've, I've been blessed with like some great humans in my life. The only downside with that is there are four siblings in that family, and two are on the out, way out, and two are in. And so when I came into it, it was three sisters and me, and I was considered a triplet with them.

There's twins and then I was, I was so much like them. They called me their triplet. Well, those two twins don't talk anymore.

Haley Radke: Mm.

Megan Hunter, MBA: And that was another loss for me was feeling like I'd lost now the sisterhood because of that.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Megan Hunter, MBA: But you know, as a grownup, you have to accept those things and.

Haley Radke: Man, it's complicated.

Megan Hunter, MBA: It's complicated.

Haley Radke: Well, I, I'll share with you before we do recommended resources. I'm in Reunion for over 12 years now, and I also have siblings and was at my youngest sister's wedding earlier this [00:39:00] year, you know?

Megan Hunter, MBA: Oh.

Haley Radke: So you get to reclaim some of those special moments that perhaps you missed growing up with them. But it's pretty amazing to build those relationships now as adults.

Megan Hunter, MBA: You got to be at the wedding.

Haley Radke: I did. Yes.

Megan Hunter, MBA: That's amazing.

Haley Radke: Yeah.

Megan Hunter, MBA: That's so amazing. I love that. Oh, that's so good.

Haley Radke: Yep.

Megan Hunter, MBA: So good.

Haley Radke: Well, I am just, I have too many things that we could keep going on, but you have so many resources available for folks. In fact I know you have a number of books out, and so I was like, I don't know what. I should order to like prep for an interview, but I ordered one. 'cause I'm like, I'm gonna give this to my friend soon as we're done.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Oh,

Haley Radke: okay. It, I, I ordered High Conflict Co-parenting Survival Guide because my friend

Megan Hunter, MBA: Nice,

Haley Radke: not funny, but is in that very situation and so I was like, oh perfect, I can give this to her. And I was listening to your show. You have a podcast called It's All Your Fault, High Conflict People, and you have so much great [00:40:00] advice, Megan. And I saw you present at, not at one of the conferences, but I think you did a, a little event for Right to Know, and you were talking about the BIFF method and, and those kinds of.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Oh, yeah.

Haley Radke: I won't, I won't say what those things are. I mean, people can go and read and listen to those, but like, you give so much very practical advice and I love that. It's super helpful just in your day to day, right? Because we're adoptees, but we're humans and we live with people,

Megan Hunter, MBA: right?

Haley Radke: And all those things. So I hope folks go and check out all of those things. Is there anything in particular you wanna direct adoptees to in all of your, like, there's so many things. We'll link, we'll link to all the things, but there's so many things to mention.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yeah, we do have a lot. So the, we've just in the last month or two launched a new platform called conflictinfluencer.com and it's for 18 years, we've been training professionals, like lawyers and judges and psychologists and all that, how to deal with high conflict clients, litigants, [00:41:00] HR, all of that. But you know, we discovered there's just a lot of people dealing with high conflict in their personal lives and they're confused by it and they're really tired.

So we launched this platform to help anyone. So I would say that's probably a pretty good resource where to start, all the books are on the website and there's a class I teach called Conflict Influencer and it's like a six week class. It's really pretty inexpensive. I am notorious under pricer, but I just want people to get the help and, and get the support from the rest of the group and things like that. So that's always running and there's little classes and courses and all kinds, and the podcast is free. You know, that's, that's always on. And my co-founder, Bill Eddie, who's just absolutely genius, brilliant. He's the one that came up with BIFF and EAR and all these things.

We recorded two episodes today and we're recording another, so we're always answering listener questions and all of that.

Haley Radke: It's really helpful like for folks who are like, Ooh, I kind of wanna know more of that. Like, [00:42:00] seriously, it's not like one of those shows where you sort of skim the top and you don't ever get to, they're like, buy this course. So then you can really know, like you share all the things.

Megan Hunter, MBA: I probably have a problem. I don't even know.

Haley Radke: Oh, I'm sure someone, someone out there would tell you to pay wall some of that, but no, I'm really thankful. I have the same thing, right? Adoptees On free for all, for, you know, hopefully forever in the will. And I think it's important, you know, like we have these stories and this wisdom, you have this expertise and I think it can bring peace to so many people, you know?

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yeah.

Haley Radke: So thank you. Thank you for sharing that and for sharing some of your story with us. What an honor to hear the personal, so we are best to connect with you then online?

Megan Hunter, MBA: So probably conflictinfluencer.com.And my last name is Hunter. So I'm Megan Hunter on Instagram. I think it's like Megan Hunter official or something, and I can give you the links, but I have all [00:43:00] kinds of social media that I never use, so you can find me at conflictinfluencer.com.

Haley Radke: It's because she's out there teaching people. You're at conferences, you're presenting to businesses and traveling the world. Yeah.

Megan Hunter, MBA: Yeah, exactly. Trying to hold it all together and make good decisions and have good relationships all at the same time, but you're doing the same and it's, you know, really, really important work you're doing. So I'm, I'm really grateful for that. It's, it's needed.

Haley Radke: Thank you. Thank you so much.

I don't know if I gave this the biggest sell in the episode, but you would not believe the difficult situations that Megan has helped folks navigate. She is like this amazing mediator [00:44:00] and truly, I have learned so much from their podcast. It's so, so good. Even in just day to day of how you, you know, interact with people online or if you're gonna send that email, you know following their method of how to write things is just really helpful and practical. Am I repeating myself? Anyway, I hope that if you have been struggling in a relationship with someone that's really, really difficult, that you do go and listen to her show and look up some of those resources that they're offering because it's so helpful. Super duper helpful.

And, you know, we kind of talked around this a little bit in the episode, but reunion can just be so fraught. You know, everyone brings all their own baggage to the table, and you have this idea that you're going to like meet your [00:45:00] family, and we're gonna be so much alike and everything's just gonna go smoothly.

And that is just fake. It's not real. That is unrealistic unless everyone participating is actively working on themselves and working on the relationship and being really communicative and open it it just doesn't go the way the you know, reunion shows show you the, the, we used to call it reunion porn. Do we, are we still saying that? Anyway, so I hope that if this is you and you're in the new stages or you're thinking about searching and that you, do slow down and you get some support 'cause it's very difficult stuff. I really appreciate you listening, and I, I'm so thankful to each guest that shares their expertise and lived experience with us.

It's just a [00:46:00] real gift to be able to share these conversations with you. If you wanna keep hearing more Adoptees On, you can partner with us and go to adopteeson.com/partner and sign up to support the show on Patreon. We would love to have you there, and thanks for listening. Let's talk again soon.