30 [Healing Series] Success
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/30
Haley Radke: You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and this is a special episode in our Healing Series, where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves, so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee.
Today we tackle the topic of success with Katie Naftzger. I recorded this episode with Katie a few months ago, just before her book launched. She tells us about some personal insecurities that this process has brought out for her. Let's listen in.
Katie Naftzger is an experienced psychotherapist who works with adoptees through the lifecycle, adoptive parents and families. Welcome to Adoptees On, Katie.
Katie Jae Naftzger: Thank you so much.
Haley Radke: Oh, I'm so glad to have you back. Today we're talking about adoptee success and how some of us can struggle with that. We might not feel like we deserve to be successful. There's maybe a fear of putting ourselves out there and having people actually accept us and actually love us. So I'd love to get your thoughts on that.
Katie Jae Naftzger: Sure. This topic is relevant for me because I am coming out with a book for adoptive parents of teens soon. So really, just this morning I was at a meeting to talk about the launch party that I'm working on. It's actually at a bookstore that’s amazing, for any of you who are local, it's called More Than Words, and it's run by those in foster care or those who have been in foster care at some point. But anyway, that's a side note.
So we were just talking about the launch party and some of the other folks who were there asked me, “Are you excited?? And I guess I didn't seem that excited, even though I did say yes. And they asked me again, like, “Are you excited??” And I was trying to figure out why I wasn't able to just be as excited as they were, or be as excited as I thought I should be.
I was remembering a situation that happened several years ago when I first started working on conferences and stuff. I was talking with an adoptive parent about the schedule for the conference, and she was talking about who the options were for the keynote. I mean, I was very young, I certainly wasn't volunteering myself, but I said, “Well, what about an adoptee? It would be nice to have an adoptee given that it's an adoptee organization.” And she said, “You know what, Katie, to tell you the truth, adoptees are a dime a dozen.”
I was really floored and I was also really young and confused by that comment. I was also really confused because she was a supporter of adoptees. She was kind of in the adoption community, and she was very educated and informed, and very passionate about adoptee issues. So I just didn't really know what to make of that. And although I did find it a bit offensive, I also resonated with it, that I do think that sometimes adoptees can feel that way, that we can feel like “a dime a dozen”. Like we're not worth that much, there's not that much value to what we bring to the table or who we are as people or, you know, that we're special or interesting or unique in some way. And I was just thinking to myself, ‘How can we get to this other place where we are not a dime a dozen?’ When she said that, I did say to myself, ‘Well, I'm gonna challenge this stereotype that she has.’ So at that point, I did decide, ‘Okay, I'm gonna make it clear that adoptees are not a dime a dozen.’
But here I am with this book, and I do still feel haunted by these insecurities or certain feelings, like, ‘I really shouldn't be doing this book. I really should just be doing the usual thing and not really trying to stand out, and not trying to say something important or timely or something like that.’ And it haunted me more than I was expecting because I feel good about the book, I feel good about the information. But there is still that thing about, ‘Am I really just another adoptee?’
So even when we're talking about the party and the sale, you know, whatever else people talk about with books, I still have that nagging thing that is happening to me, literally these days as I'm preparing for this launch, of ‘You're just another adoptee. What do you think you're doing?’
And so when someone says, “Are you excited?” Yes, I'm excited. But I'm also actively trying to manage this whole other kind of insecurity that is probably pretty old and weathered. And it takes a lot of effort and energy to work through that on an everyday basis.
I think a lot of adoptees go through that. Obviously, adoptees are just as deserving as anyone else. Adoptees deserve to be happy and adoptees deserve to have it all– not that we do have it all or ever will, but we deserve to have everything that everyone else has. And there is something about feeling entitled to that that feels wrong somehow.
Haley Radke: What's the piece of that you can identify for us about that? Like, I'm just trying to think. Is it because we just really need to fit in and being successful breaks us out of fitting in? I don't know, I'm kind of confused about that piece.
Katie Jae Naftzger: You know, it's funny, whenever I talk about this, I have this image of the infant care unit that I was in Korea, which I talked about at other points. And just seeing these rows and rows of babies and and just feeling like, you know, even though they're all different– and when I spent time in that infant care unit, I remembered that they're all different. And they’re all radically different, I mean, their personalities are so distinctive. When I pick up a baby, when I change a baby's diaper, they're completely different from the baby next to them. But when you don't look up close, they just look like rows and rows of babies. And for me, there's something oddly comforting and then also kind-of alienating at the same time, that it's sort of like we're anonymous. We're like, “Baby Boy”, you know, we're the ones without names and without stories and without answers. And I feel like it's hard to kind of break through that.
Haley Radke: So if we’re successful, we might really be seen for who we are.
Katie Jae Naftzger: We might really be seen and we might be kind of slapped back or rebuked, like, “What do you think you're trying to do, be something that you're not?” Which is totally irrational, obviously. It's weird, sometimes when I think about adoption, I think about the fact that adoptees were really dependent on the kindness of strangers. Given that we really didn't have those first parents, you know, looking after us or caring for us, that we really just would hope that people would take care of us. And there's a way that we can feel like we're begging to be taken care of or begging to be loved.
So the idea that we could be entitled or empowered can almost feel sort of risky. Like, sometimes that doesn't work when you are the ones just trying to get by or just trying to be taken care of.
Haley Radke: So what would be the next steps for reconciling that, that we're worthy of being successful? Like you said before, like we could have everything that non-adopted people have.
Katie Jae Naftzger: You know, I think that in general, I like to say that integration is our goal as adoptees. That there are all these different fragments of our personality, of our history, of the important people in our life that don't mix well. And so I'm always striving for integration. For me, the answer isn't to chastise that part of us that's insecure, or judge or criticize that part of us, or try to ignore that part of us, it's to somehow try to integrate it in a way where we can acknowledge it, but not cater to it and let it make the final call.
And when I think about decisions that I've made while being haunted by this part of me that feels like, ‘look, you're just another adoptee’, it's because the drive to do that particular thing is just a little stronger than the drive to stay ‘just another adoptee’. And so that's what I really depend on for myself.
Like for this book, it's way out of my comfort zone. But I felt strongly enough about the message and the information that I feel that adoptive parents really need in order to best parent adoptive teens. And so for me, that overpowered those other feelings of insecurity. Not that they're not there, but that they can't make the final call.
Haley Radke: So thinking of all of this, what would you say to adoptees who might unknowingly be self sabotaging themselves in their families, in their personal relationships, but specifically in their careers or their ambitions in other ways? What would you say to them?
Katie Jae Naftzger: Of course, it depends a little bit, but I might challenge them on that if I feel like they're playing it safe. Meaning that they're either sabotaging so that they're not successful, or they're not taking certain risks like getting a job that's a little bit outside of their comfort zone, or doing something like that. I might actually just challenge them on that, like, “It feels like you're just trying to stay in your comfort zone.” Which I totally respect, actually. It's not that I need them to move forward, but it's more that I want them to be able to make an informed decision, not just be reacting to unconscious feelings.
Haley Radke: Well, It's interesting to have this discussion because we can probably all name a few celebrities that we know are adopted, and those people probably have had that drive to make themselves known in some way. And then we can think of the –geez, I don't even wanna say it– the “dime a dozen” adoptees. Anyway, it's interesting to think about that range.
Katie Jae Naftzger: Yes, definitely
Haley Radke: Any last thoughts for us on this, Katie?
Katie Jae Naftzger: Yeah, I think my last thought is that we are more than just adoptees, that we are adoptees who bring a lot to the table and who are really interesting and really complex and who have a lot of feelings and reactions and goals. So we're more than just adoptees.
Haley Radke: And it's okay for us to be successful.
Katie Jae Naftzger: Yes. Yes, it is.
Haley Radke: Thank you so much, I loved talking about that with you. Where can we connect with you online?
Katie Jae Naftzger: My website is www.adoptiontherapyma.net.
Haley Radke: Great. And I will link to all of your social media accounts on the show notes, and we can find that book that you were telling us about on Amazon, and it's called Parenting in the Eye of the Storm: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Navigating the Teen Years. Thank you so much for talking with us today, Katie.
Katie Jae Naftzger: You’re welcome, I enjoyed it.
Haley Radke: Everything we talked about today is in the show notes at Adopteeson.com, including a link to that bookstore Katie mentioned, More Than Words. It looks like such an amazing program, what a great concept. If you would like to connect with other adoptees who are on this healing journey, come and support me on Patreon. You can help me by pledging a monthly amount that helps sustain the podcast, and as a thank you, you can join my secret Facebook group, which has all these incredible people in it who are just like you, working towards healing and wholeness, and we're all just going on this journey together. To join, go to Adopteeson.com/partner and you'll find all the details there.
Today, would you tell just one person about this episode? Maybe it's a fellow adoptee that you think may be holding back from doing that big, exciting thing that they are just meant to do. Ask them to listen and see if they feel challenged to step out bravely.
Thank you for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.
