149 [Healing Series] Mother Loss Part 1

Transcript

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

---

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

You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and this is a special episode in our Healing Series, where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves. So they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee.

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

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

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

Welcome, ladies.

Amanda Transue-Woolston: Thank you for having us.

Stephanie Oyler: Yes, thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amanda Transue-Woolston: Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who wants to share first about that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amanda Transue-Woolston: Thank you for having us.

Stephanie Oyler: Thank you.

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

Stephanie Oyler: Yeah. Thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

142 [Healing Series] Food Insecurity

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/142

---

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

You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and this is a special episode in our Healing Series where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee.

Today we are talking about food insecurity. We do touch on the topic of intuitive eating in this episode, but we are not referring to losing weight or dieting or any of those types of topics, if that is a challenging subject for you. We tried to make this as safe as possible. Okay with that, let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Janet Nordine. Hi, Janet.

Janet Nordine: Hi, Haley. How are you doing?

Haley Radke: I am a level…I don't know. I was gonna say I'm a level 5 but that doesn't mean anything. What does that mean? Yeah, we're in unprecedented times here. We're recording during the Covid crisis of 2020 and, yeah, it's a perplexing time.

Janet Nordine: Yes. We here in Nevada call it “stay home for Nevada.” That's where I am.

Haley Radke: That's nice. In Alberta we're supposed to stay home, but there's no cute name, so stay home for Alberta.

Janet Nordine: We have a hashtag. It's a hashtag.

Haley Radke: Come on. That's perfect. Love hashtag.

During this time we've had a few zoom calls for the Adoptees On Patreon, and there's been some themes coming up that people are struggling with some similar things, and one of them is food. And you kind of jumped in right away and were talking about some things that really I had some light bulb moments about. And we had a couple people say, oh my gosh, you guys have to do a Healing Series episode about this. And so what you were calling it was food insecurity? Can you explain what that means?

Janet Nordine: Sure, and I can kind of explain that from a perspective of my own life experience. I've been on the show before, so people have heard kind of my story, but the part that I didn't share then was I came to my parents at about seven months old and I was underweight and I couldn't eat off a spoon, and the back of my head was flat.

I'd been in an adoptive placement prior to them and then in foster care. And I had a lot of difficulty just relating to food and being able to be fed. And I've worked on that and thought about that and struggled with that most of my life. And had I been a baby born today in that situation, I would have been probably diagnosed with failure to thrive, which is when a baby can't take in nourishment and has a difficult time with that process of eating.

All of my life, I have worried about food. As a child, I was the kid that hid the food. I never wanted somebody else to have a special treat because that meant I wasn't a specialism. So even into adulthood, and even as a therapist, it's something I still work on. Carbs and bread, that's the crack cocaine for me, that's the thing that gives me comfort.

I grew up in a family where food was a big deal. My grandmother was an amazing cook. Both my parents were amazing cooks. A lot of things rotated around the family dinner time. So food insecurity for me really means is there going to be enough food? When is the next meal? What am I going to eat? I'm planning ahead, always thinking about it.

So my insecurity and other children and adults’ insecurities wrap around that early childhood, even in utero experience of food. So that's where the term food insecurity comes from.

Haley Radke: I've heard this from other adoptees, especially those that have been in foster care, multiple placements, orphanages for a long time. That food hoarding thing, like sneaking things away and hiding them in your bedroom or having a stockpile somewhere and this really gets me, but I've seen some adoptive parents who will put a lock on the pantry or the fridge because of that. Is that something that is actually, I don't know, I wouldn't say it's like super common, but is it? I don’t know.

Janet Nordine: In some foster homes I would say that is super common because the kids will get into food and it becomes a power struggle, doesn't it? And what they can control is what they're putting in their mouth and their belly.

And then the parent or whoever is the caregiver doesn't want them to eat all the food, or have it be gone, or not have it be there when they need it, so they'll put a lock on it and then it becomes a shaming issue. I'm not supposed to have food, now I'm shamed because of it. So yeah, that does happen. I wouldn't say it's helpful at all.

Haley Radke: And so kids who are now adults but who had a stockpile in their room or felt they need to save food just because they don't know when the next meal is coming, or they're afraid that there's not going to be another meal coming.

Janet Nordine: There's some of that that happens. Yes. And so I have to hide food because I need to know what's available to me when I need it. I'm the one that needs to know where it is, so if I get hungry, I can go and find my little stash in the closet and I can be able to feed myself when I need to.

Yeah, it's a control issue. It's also just a biochemical response to stress. I'm feeling stressed and when I eat that cookie or that sweet thing, I get that sugar rush and I have that moment of, oh, I feel better because those good brain chemicals got released into my body.

Haley Radke: I'm not gonna say whether or not I grabbed a cookie right before I came down here, but I did.

Okay. Now, this in the context of Covid, people are under shelter-in-place, or we're watching the videos of the grocery stores with bare shelves mostly. Toilet paper, empty, but also pantry staples.

Janet Nordine: I can't find pasta. There's no pasta.

Haley Radke: Guess what? All you gluten eaters are also buying the gluten-free pasta. So you're welcome for what you have to eat now.

But it's really highlighting this in us, right? If it wasn't obvious to us before that we might have had a little issue with food insecurity. I don't say “little” to minimize it, but if it wasn't top of mind as an adult, this can kind of bring it out, which is what I'm sure seeing in some of the adoptee groups.

Janet Nordine: It definitely does exacerbate the problem. Like, if there's nothing at the store, then there's really nothing. What am I going to do now? Where is that going to come from? I can't trust my community to provide food for me. I can't trust; my parents didn't provide food for me. Where is that going to come from?

Yes, it's very scary when you go to the store and here in Las Vegas there's lots of stores that have lots of empty shelves. It's getting a little bit better now that we're 4-5 weeks in. But in the beginning it reminded me of the seventies during the breadlines in Russia, when you would just see people lined up waiting for the food.

That was something that just came to mind as I was seeing people lining up and waiting and, yeah.

Haley Radke: I definitely noticed heightened anxiety in myself when I couldn't find the gluten-free pasta because especially since I'm celiac I can't have gluten, right? Or it makes me violently ill, whatever. It's kind of a big deal. My family can all eat gluten, but I can't. And so that was this extra layer for me of, oh my gosh, what am I going to eat if I can't find the things that are safe for me to eat?

Janet Nordine: And then we, as adoptees, if we've had any of those food insecurities as little people, little children, we have that feeling as if I don't have food, the instant I need it, I will die.

That's kind of that intense feeling that you go through.

Haley Radke: Wow. So I know that there's lots of people experiencing this heightened anxiety and around food, not just adoptees. But specifically talking to adoptees who are listening, what are some things that we can kind of learn about ourselves?

And, I don't want to say work on during this time, but it's calling attention to something in ourselves that maybe needs addressing.

Janet Nordine: For me, as I began to research and I began to work with a new therapist that does a lot of body psychotherapy, it really normalized things for me to know that I'm not the only one.

And little babies that are not adopted, they have some of these same struggles. Other people that are not adopted have some of these same struggles and adoptees have these same struggles. So for me, getting the information. Knowledge is power.

When I can learn something about how my body responds and how it's responding perfectly normal for this situation that I'm experiencing right now, I feel like I can work with the situation or the problem or whatever is being presented and I can heal and I can move forward.

So as I've done research, my relationship with food really starts in utero. So what I know about my own experience of being in utero, since I've met my birth mother, is she shared that she was hiding in a trailer during the first of her pregnancy with very little food, smoking cigarettes. So when I was born, I was low birth weight, which we know is a contributing factor from smoking.

And I didn't get a lot of food in utero so I started off with that implicit memory, like Dr. Julie Lopez speaks about, of food is life and I don't have a good relationship already with food, so having that information was great for me because then I could really say, oh, now I understand what's going on in my body when I feel like I don't have enough food.

When the relationship ruptures, any relationship, it creates a lifetime of wondering will I ever have food again? This relationship with food, if it's had some attachment issues. Is there enough food? Will I need to hide the food? When will the food come to me again? So just learning about how your body functions and listening to people that are super wise and seeking out guidance and support has been so helpful for me.

Haley Radke: One thing I will never forget, I might not have the wording exactly right, but I was talking to one of our mutual friends, Anne Heffron, and one of the things she said was, I'm still waiting for my first good meal. And she was talking about that in context of she didn't get breastfed after birth. And this is not to shame formula versus nursing or any of those kinds of things. But we don't necessarily know what our first meal was in hospital.

Janet Nordine: Sure, and that was one of the things I said on that Zoom call that I was just amazed by the response. I said, who fed us first? I have no idea either.

I know I went out one door and my mother, birth mother, went out the other door, so I don't know if some nun who was a nurse gave me a bottle or if it was propped up or what happened. My brain can create all kinds of scenarios and stories, and none of them are great.

But yeah, I've spoken to Anne about food, too, and we talk about what we are hungry for. What is that? What are we hungry for? What we are looking for and what that little baby needs is that attachment and that attunement with the person that feeds them. As you're holding that baby and you're making eye contact, and whether you're breastfeeding or using a bottle or however the baby's getting food, it's the eye contact and the attunement and the connection that they need.

And then, if the person that's doing the feeding, the caregiver, is anxious or angry or annoyed at the end of their shift, whatever's going on, the baby's picking up that. What babies can do, they don't know they're hungry, they just know that they need some need met. So they cry.

So then they come to get fed. And the anxious caregiver is feeding them. The baby picks up on that eye contact and that energy of the anxiety that the person's feeling. And then they get the clue that, oh, this food means that I'm not really attaching to this person. So then their little body and their little nervous system has other responses because they're not attuning to the caregiver that's giving them the food.

So the baby's looking for the attachment, not necessarily the food. So when you've been feeding a baby, your own or somebody else's, it's that cooing and that's that “Oh, what a good little”, and all of that, that the baby needs and loves and helps it grow. And if they're with a foster home or a nurse or whomever, maybe that's not happening for them. And I'm not saying foster parents and nurses are not doing that, but maybe not in the way the baby needs.

Haley Radke: Wow, that's fascinating. And then, of course, these are like our earliest memories that are getting built. Non-verbal.

Janet Nordine: The baby learns that the food is the comfort, not the attachment. So it's meeting the need. My tummy's full, but I'm not really attaching. But now I feel better because I'm not crying because my tummy's full.

So food becomes comfort. And for me that means cinnamon toast becomes comfort.

Haley Radke: The food becomes comfort, not the attachment.

Janet Nordine: Yes, the signal to the body is that the food is satisfying and it's very confusing because they're not getting the attachment and the attunement, but they're satisfied.

Haley Radke: So how is this related to just oral stimulation in general because people have this thing with putting things in their mouths if it's food or a cigarette or chewing on your nails. What I've heard, I don't know, I didn't research this, but that's a comforting thing and a lot of people are going back to maybe nervous habits that have to do with the mouth during this time because it brings some sort of comfort.

Janet Nordine: Yes. It's exactly the comfort. It's not necessarily the process of eating or the process of smoking or the process of touching your mouth or, we can't touch our face. We do it all the time. Now I notice so many times I touch my face more than ever.

But we have in our body, we have two brains. We have a brain in our head and we have a brain in our belly. So what's happening when you're eating or you're using that oral stimulation, your belly brain is saying, oh, I'm getting satisfied. I feel better.

Haley Radke: So it's just things aren't right. Something is off because, yes, I'm stuck at home with my children.

Janet Nordine: Yeah. The belly brain speaks to us about our language of satisfaction and sensation, like it needs that sensation of eating or that sensation of chewing or all of those things to feel satisfied and feel comfort.

Haley Radke: It's just an extra way of giving ourselves comfort. But it's unconscious, right? Like we can kinda just start doing that without deciding to,

Janet Nordine: Yes. So I have this book that I've been reading and I love it. It's called The Heart of Trauma by Dr. Bonnie Badenoch, and that'll be one of my recommended resources.

But she said “the quality of our relationships both past and present impacts our ability to take in nourishment.” Isn't that interesting?

Like our ability to take in nourishment, not that we need nourishment. But how is our relationship with our caregiver? How is our relationship with food? Do we eat it because we're hungry and we’re nervous or anxious or bored or whatever the reasons, or do we eat it to really nourish our bodies? What's the purpose of the food that we're putting in our mouths that's going into our stomachs?

Haley Radke: That is interesting. Wow. Okay. So at the beginning you were kind of sharing that this has impacted your life and you've shared with me privately that this is something that you are working on.

Can you talk a little bit about that, about your personal journey and what led you to reading this book and looking more into this food insecurity idea?

Janet Nordine: On a personal level, I've always wanted to kind of get my eating under control. I'm an overeater and I am seeing a therapist and her name is Wendy Dingee and she is an integrative body practitioner, a psychotherapy practitioner.

And amazingly enough, she was someone in Las Vegas that does this type of therapy who's also adopted. So to me, finding this unicorn of somebody I didn't already know and that also has this shared experience has been huge for me. So one thing, I chose this particular therapist because I really wanted to work on body stuff, not just food intake but how I feel in my body.

One thing in one of our very first sessions, we were talking about the process of adoption. And for me, I started out as a problem. The person that was carrying me, she couldn't keep me. So that became a problem. I was placed for adoption. So that was another problem. And for a lot of years I felt like I shouldn't even have a body.

Like I couldn't feel my body; sensation was weird. Sometimes when I eat, I don't really notice that I'm full so I'll keep eating. So we talked about that and she uses the phrase: “of course, of course, you feel that way.” “Of course, that's your response.” And just the more that I heard the “of course,” the more I was able to recognize like, oh, I've been doing all these things, of course, because of how I started out in life.

What's amazing is the more I accept the “of course,” the more I'm able to make changes and make some space between the trauma of some of those things and the ability to make change and heal. And now I'm starting to feel like I deserve to have a body and I deserve to do things. And I don’t have to hide and live small anymore.

And it's really feeling the sensation of my body. We do a lot of breathing work in our sessions, which has been amazing. And connecting. And the more I'm able to take in a deep breath, I can feel like my lungs filling and I can feel like the cells in my body moving. So it's really been a life-changing, life-altering experience to do this type of work.

And I think as an adopted person, if we don't feel like we deserve or have a body or can do anything with our body, then finding a therapist or somebody that can do some body work is just an exceptional way of trying to get back in, live your full life and live the life you deserve.

Haley Radke: Don't we practice so often just ignoring all those cues? Like we're so disconnected. And not just adoptees, but you know, I think a lot of people are just completely disconnected.

Janet Nordine: Yes. Then you don't feel like you should exist at all. Of course, you're going to disconnect from your body because you shouldn't have been here in the first place. Of course.

Haley Radke: Of course. Wow.

Janet Nordine: And then that “I don't deserve” is such a theme for adoptees. We don't deserve whatever good comes into our life because, of course, we don't deserve. Our very first person that brought us into the world couldn't keep us, didn't want us. Of course, we feel that way.

Haley Radke: And I guess I'm going to say now that we're having this discussion and it's not “let's eat less to go on a diet” or something. It's literally not about that whatsoever.

Janet Nordine: For me, it's about noticing: Oh, I notice I'm kind of full. I don't have to finish this huge plate of mashed potatoes on my plate. I just notice it. There's no shame in it whatsoever.

There's no I'm going to go on a keto diet or I'm going to take something away from me because that's what my body's had all this time. I was taken away and so I took away the deserving. So now I'm just noticing. This is the first phase of this change for me. I'm just noticing when I'm full or I'm noticing when I think I need to go eat.

What is the emotion I'm having? Generally it's anxiety. Or boredom. I don't have anything else to do, let me go have a bowl of cereal. But as I'm noticing those emotions, I can work with them differently. I can do some different exercises. I can take a walk, I can pet my dog, I can do some polyvagal exercises that I've learned and that's so helpful to help me balance things that are happening within my body.

I'm not really hungry. I'm just whatever the emotion is.

Haley Radke: That’s rebuilding the connection, right? Wow.

Janet Nordine: Yep. Neurons that fire together wire together, and that's the relationship with food.

Haley Radke: You're a science nerd. I love that you have a little rhyme for that. Can you talk about this a little more, about the brain science? What's happening when we're eating? I mean, period.

Janet Nordine: I mentioned the belly brain, right? So the belly brain has about 40 trillion neurons, give or take a few. So there's a chapter in Dr. Badenoch’s book called “The Belly Brain,” and she talks about the neurons and she talks about the science, and I love the way that she explains it and it's really deep, but then she has little parts in it where she'll stop and say, let's pause for reflection, and I enjoy that.

But what happens when we're eating is we're trying to satiate our hunger, of course, but also it's telling our belly brain ways that we are interacting with our environment. It's telling us about our relationships. It's really helped me understand how I function as a human being. Like, everything that's happening within our body with the stimulus of needing to eat and the response of being full is exactly how it's supposed to happen.

So the more I notice, the more I'm able to pay attention, the more I'm learning about how to not feel that shame about eating or the shame about overeating. So I'm just noticing those things, like I said.

And “the greater intensity that we listen without judgment or intention is how we can make change and have a healing practice around food.” And that's a quote from her book as well.

Recently I listened to a webinar by Robyn Gobbel, who's a social worker that I've done training with, and she's a great friend to adoptees. She works with adopting families and children and she recently had a webinar on how we love food and how food will nourish us.

“Loving and feeding a child with a history of trauma” was the name of the webinar. And I love that she talked about how digestion is suppressed in the fight or flight. And this may tell us we are not full or we don't have an appetite.

So those of us that have learned to pay attention to that trauma response, a fight, flight, or freeze. I'm a freezer. It affects our digestion. And when I learned that my freezing, when I'm feeling anxious or my anger level is up and I'm fighting, that my digestion is suppressed and that I don't feel that I'm full, that was a game changer. Like I can think about or I can feel in my body, what is that emotion I'm having?

And then my belly brain will kick in and it'll be able to say, you don't really need to eat right now because it's suppressing your digestion. It's suppressing that need to eat. So everything's all connected, which is amazing. Both our brains are connected. Our bodies are connected, everything is working exactly how it's supposed to for our situation.

And when we can recognize that and give some space for acceptance, we're able to make changes and heal. The plasticity that I've spoken about on your show before, how we're plastic. Not only is our brain and our head plastic, but our body is too. So it can change and grow.

Haley Radke: And what's happening in your brain when you're walking through the grocery store and there's the empty shelves of things that you were hoping for or actually needed?

Janet Nordine: Well, isn't that disappointment and a little bit of fear too, right? Like we're afraid of what's really happening in our community. We don't know what's going to happen next. So if we're able to calm our nervous system, we're able to do some of those, like I'm going to do this butterfly hug thing where you just cross your arms and pat your left hand, right hand opposite on your shoulders. That's a polyvagal exercise that you can do that's calming.

It might look weird in a grocery store aisle when you can't find the pasta but, you know, who cares? We're all wearing masks and gloves anyways, so we're all looking weird in the first place. But that's something I do with my clients. We do butterfly hugs and I know other therapists that do those as well. And it's helpful. I mean, I just did that and I feel a little calmer. That settles me.

Haley Radke: That's something that my psychologist has recommended for one of my sons when he is anxious before bed. Because you can do it to yourself.

Janet Nordine: Sure. There's lots of little things you can do with your body. The whole key is feeling your body. Where in your body are you feeling that? What's your body feel like? Like right now, I'm sitting in a chair with a cushion. I can feel the cushion under me. I'm touching my knees. I can feel my knees with my fingers. I can see this wall in front of me. I can see you with your beautiful goldenrod blouse on and just naming things and it helps to settle that down.

Haley Radke: That's pretty good info, Janet. What else do we need to know?

Janet Nordine: I was going to share with you a sensory grounding activity that I like to do with kids, and adults can do it too, if that's okay.

Haley Radke: I love it. I'm always your guinea pig. So let's go.

Janet Nordine: So, Haley, name five things you can see right now.

Haley Radke: A mug, a whiteboard, audio foam. My microphone, kleenex.

Janet Nordine: Okay. Name four things you can hear.

Haley Radke: My furnace hum. Which is very irritating.

Janet Nordine: Mostly cuz it's April and the furnace is on.

Haley Radke: Yeah. When we're recording I have a heating pad on as well. Just I can't hear it but I hear my dog breathing because she's sleeping next to me. I can hear the rustling from my headphones touching my head.

Janet Nordine: That’s really good awareness. Good. What's the fourth thing you can hear? Maybe my voice when I'm talking to you.

Haley Radke: Thank you. I'm like, I don't hear anything else. I'm listening because I'm like, are my kids still upstairs? Quiet. They're being quiet. That's good. I can't hear them.

Janet Nordine: Can you name three things you can touch?

Haley Radke: My desk, my laptop, my water bottle.

Janet Nordine: Perfect. Name two things you can smell. That might be a little harder right now.

Haley Radke: I can smell the foam around my microphone. I grabbed my lip gloss. I can smell that.

Janet Nordine: What scent is it? Can you name it?

Haley Radke: It smells like vanilla.

Janet Nordine: Perfect. And the last thing, number one, the one thing you can taste, maybe you don't taste anything right now, but what's something you look forward to tasting?

Haley Radke: Ginger snap. Gluten-free.

Janet Nordine: And that's just a grounding activity. You're using all your senses. You use psych, you're hearing, your touch, your smell, your taste. And what that does is it allows your brain to go into the senses and it gets you into your body. So it's a grounding activity you can do when you're feeling stressed.

Haley Radke: Okay, so before I came down, I was hungry. I grabbed a cookie, sat down. My stomach was kind of unsettled. I always kind of get nervous. Even if I'm talking to a friend when I'm recording, I'm like, oh my gosh, please let the technology work right. I have all those things going on, and when I finish that my stomach is calm and fine. I don't feel like it's upset.

Janet Nordine: Yeah. You know, what's interesting about our physical response you just explained, we can either think it's anxiety or excitement, they feel the same. So which do you think it was?

Haley Radke: Oh, for me it's both.

Janet Nordine: Okay, and they're one and the same. The label doesn't matter. It's just you're noticing in your body how you're feeling. You described it perfectly.

Haley Radke: That's so interesting because in adoption we talk about having this “holding the joy and grief at the same time.” And so excitement and anxiety at the same time.

That's totally true. I love that you said that for me. Because I am concerned about tech failure during recording or me screwing up in some way, being so unfocused I can't ask the right questions or whatever. But I am also excited. I'm excited to engage with you.

Janet Nordine: Yeah. And if I can quote my therapist, Wendy, one more time, she says, being human is messy. And I love that. It doesn't matter if you messed up. It doesn't matter if I misquote or if something happens. It's just being human and it's okay.

That's given me such permission. Just that one phrase has given me permission not to be perfect in everything I do. Because don't we all, as many of us have as adoptees, have that “I have to do it just right.” I have to be compliant. I have to do things in a certain way. I can mess up now and I don't shame myself into eating all the toast.

Haley Radke: You're like, this is just a human thing.

Janet Nordine: Yeah. And I can be a therapist that works with people and I can have flaws. That's another thing that's amazing that that has given me permission to do.

Haley Radke: I love that. That's such a good thought. And, I mean, people have big feelings about food anyway.

Janet Nordine: Food is amazing. I mean, Anne (Heffron) turned me on to Chef's Table. I can turn on Chef's Table on Netflix and completely lose myself in the music and the process of cooking. And that's something I love too.

I love to cook and I love to nourish people and I love to make cinnamon rolls and share them with my friends and family because it gives me this great pleasure, but it also really tastes good.

Haley Radke: Yeah. And that's one thing about my views, I'm in the Health At Every Size camp and have learned a lot about intuitive eating and those kinds of things which are nothing to do with losing weight or body shaming or any of those kinds of things. And it's so good to just talk about what those adjacent issues are that some of us struggle with, without coming to it from a shaming sort of lens.

Janet Nordine: Sure. You know, when you can embrace your curves, that's a game changer.

Haley Radke: Yeah, that's right. That's so good.

Thank you. Is there anything I didn't ask you about that you want to make sure we get to?

Janet Nordine: I think that one of the things that I wanted to share is nutrition and relational safety. This is from Robyn Gobbel again: When they were offered together in infancy, that's when we know that we're okay.

What we're still doing as grownups and as humans is we're seeking safety all the time. And sometimes that safety comes in food. And when we can recognize that we can be safe, even without the food, that's really big. We don't have to do the overeating or undereating or punishing ourselves with food.

But we can seek safety and we can be okay just because we know we're safe.

Haley Radke: I think there's something freeing about knowing that there are these underlying reasons for the way we are. That there's other people who are thinking about these things the same way. Just like you said at the beginning, I'm not alone.

Janet Nordine: Right. Any little baby that would've been taken immediately from their mother to go into the NICU has some of these same struggles. Not adopted, they're staying with their family, but they were taken right away and they didn't get that immediate nurture that they needed.

So, it's that phrase “any little baby who has these experiences” is helpful.

Haley Radke: Thank you so much. I think this was really valuable. Now, you mentioned the book, The Heart of Trauma

Janet Nordine: Yes. It’s by Bonnie Badenoch and she's in the Pacific Northwest, and I know she does trainings and consultations and things, but all of her books are just amazing.

Another one that she's written is called Being a Brain-Wise Therapist but, really, I think anybody that's interested in psychotherapy, that's a good book for them too.

Haley Radke: And the thing I mentioned about intuitive eating, one of my best friends is a dietician and she recommends this book, Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. Oh boy, my pronunciation, I'm so sorry. I do my best.

It's really well done, very informative and helpful and a lot of the things that you were talking about, Janet, about noticing and those are like in the first stages of intuitive eating and paying attention to feelings and those kinds of things.

It's a very step-by-step process to learn how to get to that point where you are eating in a way that is the most helpful for your body.

Janet Nordine: Yeah. It's more nourishing for yourself so you can have safety. And you know, Haley, I'm not there either. I'm still in the infancy stage of making change in my life, but what I do know is I want to live long.

I want to live as long as I can, and I want to be healthy, and I want to feel good. So these are the reasons I really want to make changes in the way my relationship with food is.

Haley Radke: Thank you. And thank you for sharing some of your personal story. I think a lot of people will identify with that and I think as soon as we think of our early days, it will bring up things for people, and this is just one of those factors.

Janet Nordine: Yeah, and when I think of that little baby Janet, I can send her love and I can support her and I can visualize what I might have looked like and I can provide some of that for her. I have this phrase that I'm using now and just in my brain and my life, like I'm looking for the full Janet-ness that is in me.

I'm really trying to find that and by nurturing that little baby me has been really helpful to be this grownup person that can live in all of my Janet-ness. I don't have to hide anymore. It's awesome.

Haley Radke: Once again, I'll say I love that.

Janet Nordine: Yeah, so you can live in your full Haley-ness.

Haley Radke: Full Haley-ness, yes. Wonderful. Thank you. Where can we connect with you online?

Janet Nordine: You can connect with me online on Facebook: Experience Courage Therapy & Consulting. Janet Nordine, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Registered Play Therapist Supervisor. I'm on Instagram as well, so just look for Experience Courage.

Haley Radke: And you are taking clients in your own practice now, aren't you?

Janet Nordine: I am. Smart me, the week before the quarantine, I opened a private practice. Isn't that awesome?

Haley Radke: It's great timing, but I know you do things online.

Janet Nordine: Yes. Also, in my infinite wisdom, I did keep a part-time clinic job, too, so I'm pretty busy in this world of teletherapy. It's been going well.

Haley Radke: I've shared a couple places, but I am doing my therapy online with my psychologist because my boys are home and I don't want to take them into the office. And it's been fine.

Janet Nordine: The greatest thing for me right now is my therapist, Wendy Dingee, is still seeing some clients in the office and I get to make a trek across town and have an adventure and go to therapy once a week. So it's been really good.

Haley Radke: That's so good. Thank you so much, Janet.

Okay. Confession time. I am struggling. Oh my gosh, I told my kids to be quiet and they're still making noise upstairs, like how do you record with little kids in the house? I don't even know.

Anyway, I'm struggling to keep to a weekly schedule and I already told you a couple weeks ago that has meant some interviews have been canceled because people are struggling and aren't able to record, not in a good mental space, which I totally respect. And then I am struggling to find quiet times where I can actually book someone and have that hour of focus.

Anyway, I think what I'm going to do during this time is go to an every other week schedule, which is not what I wanted to do, but that's where we are now. I don't think I have a choice at this point, so my apologies.

I am really doing the best I can. I have some other extenuating circumstances, which I will tell you about in a few weeks probably. But yeah, we are working on some things here and it's just woo, it's a whole juggle.

So if you are working from home, if you are sheltering in place, if you have little kids with you, if you are by yourself, whatever your circumstance, if you are feeling it like I am, I am sending my good thoughts toward you and solidarity. It's a whole thing.

And I never expected, none of us did, really, to be living this way. And I mean, frankly, I'm speaking from a place of privilege because I still know that we have groceries and a house and all of those things, and I feel safe where we are and I feel like there's lots of people that aren't able to say those things, so I understand the privilege I'm coming to. And yet this is still hard.

So anyway, I thank you for listening. I hope this episode was helpful for you in some way if you deal with food insecurity, and I'm going to keep putting up new episodes but, like I said, they'll be every other week.

And I also have a Patreon podcast that I put up every week. So if you really want to keep the show going and you want to hear me ramble on every week, for some reason, adopteeson.com/partner has details of how you can get the Adoptees Off Script podcast, and that is for monthly supporters as a thank you for helping the show continue.

And there are instructions on Patreon for how you can have that podcast drop right into your podcast app where you like to listen, just like you would play this show. So it's really simple and I'm updating Patreon. There's going to be some new things that are happening over there.

And one thing we've been doing during this time of sheltering in place or quarantine or whatever you're experiencing in this lockdown (I don't know what to call it even) is we've been having some Zoom calls with Patreon supporters and those have been really good and helpful and encouraging to me. So I'm going to continue to do that when I'm able.

And so that's another bonus as well. And there's a link for that in Patreon. Also when there's a new Zoom call, I put that in Patreon as well as in the secret Facebook group. Okay. Adopteeson.com/partner if you want to support the show. And we're going biweekly. Why did it take me so long to tell you that?

Sending you love. I hope that you're doing well and that you're keeping healthy and staying safe. Thank you if you are out there working as an essential employee in some fashion; thank you if you're staying home to keep everyone else healthy. Thanks so much for listening. Let's talk again and two Fridays from now.

137 [Healing Series] Hiddgen Dignity Part 2

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/137

---

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

You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and this is a special episode in our Healing Series where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee.

Today is Part Two of my conversation with Pam Cordano on Hidden Dignity. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Pam Cordano. Hi, Pam.

Pam Cordano: Hi, Haley.

Haley Radke: Oh my word, I'm just so excited to talk to you again. And last week you were talking to us all about grievances and some really foundational principles I think a lot of adoptees need to hear.

And we're talking about things that are found in your book, 10 Foundations for a Meaningful Life (No Matter What's Happened), to Viktor Frankl with love, and I want to continue that conversation. I think it's so important and I don't know how many times I can say valuable in the same breath, but truly, you're sharing some things with us that I think everybody needs to hear, adopted or not, but specifically adoptees.

Thank you. Thanks for writing this book. It's so good. I gushed last time, so I'll try and hold back today.

Pam Cordano: And thank you for reading the book. It means a lot to me, really.

Haley Radke: I don't know if you saw, I'm going to show her. I have these beautiful book darts that my friend Carrie gave me. So there's like all these places I've marked up because I don't like to write in books, but these precious book darts I did use on your book, so that is like priceless.

All right. You have this really interesting story about a horse moment. Should we start there?

Pam Cordano: Yeah. I love that story. My friend Cynthia and I went to a silent meditation retreat north of San Francisco at a place called Spirit Rock. And I don't really meditate and I'm not Buddhist, but I went on this thing.

I thought what would happen if I were just silent for an entire week? I didn't know what would happen. I thought it might really be nice for me or it might be Hell. So I was curious, a little frightened. But anyway, we get there and I was excited also because my job involves so much listening, mostly listening, but some talking. And I was excited to just be quiet and not have to listen to anything except nature, birds and quietness.

So we get there and I was really, really upset to find out that this was not a silent meditation retreat the way I expected. It was a meta retreat, which means we had to say a meta practice, which is if I said it to you, Haley, I would say (there are different versions):

May you be happy. May you be healthy and strong in your body. May you be safe and protected. May you have ease.

And for the course of an entire week, we were going to be doing that for hours and hours, dawn to dusk, or actually till 9:00 PM, with easy people all the way to difficult people. And I was just really annoyed I was going to have to work. I was going to have to work and not to just sit there and relax.

Haley Radke: Did you have an instinct to fake it? My first thought is they're not gonna know. They're not gonna know what I'm thinking about that.

Pam Cordano: I could have done that. I'm sure I did some of the time. Yeah, yeah.

But so, day two, we were supposed to do a walking meditation, which is just going back and forth across 10 feet and then various things very slowly and I didn't want to do that. So I did break the rule and I walked way down to the edge of the property where I found a horse. It was a whole day that I'd been eating really healthy food and been silent.

So I thought the horse would be really drawn to me, like equine therapy or you can tell how you're doing by what the horse is doing. And so I kind of called to get the horse over and he came right over and I was really happy and I felt, oh, it was sort of a spiritual moment and clearly that had something to do with how clear I was getting in my heart and all this.

Well, I went back the next day and called him over and he didn't come and he was just in the middle of his pen eating his food. And I was mad at him. I was offended, I was hurt, I was emotional. I was probably going through sugar detox because all the food was really healthy. But I took it personally that he wouldn't come to me and I felt rejected by the horse.

And so part of me was really triggered by the horse and part of me was just rolling my eyes at myself and how ridiculous I was being and just watching myself react and knowing that it was whatever, just my own BS.

So, because I had nothing else to do, I gave a lot of thought to how I was feeling about this horse's “rejection” of me, and I started realizing over the next two or three days where he kept rejecting me again, that I wasn't really being loving toward the horse. I wanted what I wanted: his attention. I wanted his compliance, his obedience to me. I wanted it to be the center of his life. I wanted it to be more important than his food.

And I think, in some ways, silent meditation retreats are like this, like we don't think in our normal ways. Things get very exaggerated because we're in our own heads and, well, there's just nothing else to do. I mean, people react about crazy things. I mean I am probably not as crazy as I might sound right now in the story, but yeah, so I go in and sit on the cushion and I'm imagining this horse and I'm doing the meditation with the horse.

So I'm thinking, may you be happy. And I felt like, I guess so. May you be healthy and strong in your body. Yes, of course. May you be safe and protected. Yes, of course. May you have ease. I guess so. And I was just watching myself struggle with it. And as I went, as I practiced that over and over, eventually I did start to feel those things.

I did want the horse to be happy. I did want the horse to have ease. It kind of cleared it up. So as the week went on, I made going to see this horse twice a day a part of my practice. And it was a symbol of what I do with other people in my life and with grievances from my life.

And so I started trying, from that place of getting more clear about loving the horse and wanting the horse, truly wanting the horse happy and to have at ease and all the other things, I started walking toward the horse wanting to just be present for whatever the horse was doing without any attachment to what the horse did or didn't do with me.

And so I became horse-centered instead of Pam-centered, and it felt really good. It felt like suddenly I was really truly loving the horse and not just wanting from the horse in a self-centered kind of way. And then that led to me thinking about my kids and my husband and friends.

And with these meditation retreats it gets very subtle but clear that it takes a lot to just love a person and to be willing to see them and what they're doing or not doing as valid in its own right and not about me. So this goes back to our discussion last week, or last recording, where we talked about the idea that grievances require us to put ourselves in the center of a situation.

So here was me taking myself out of the center and really putting the horse back in the center because the horse's life is the horse's life. And I felt better. So, I mean, that's not to say the whole week was like that because I was on the cushion doing this meta with my biological family who I'm estranged from. I was doing it with my adoptive parents who died and we didn't have a good relationship. And I was doing it with hard people, too. Political figures, all kinds of people.

Haley Radke: Well, even when you start talking about it in the book, you talk about doing it with your daughter's dog.

Pam Cordano: He was my first one.

Haley Radke: This was the easy one and I thought, wow, okay. I mean, it's so true though. It's easier to put an animal in that place at first because no matter what person you're interacting with, there's always like a little something.

Pam Cordano: That's right.

Haley Radke: How did you feel at the end of that week? Five days feels like such a long time to be doing that.

Pam Cordano: It was seven. Seven full days.

Haley Radke: Oh my gosh!

Pam Cordano: Yeah, seven full days.

Haley Radke: Okay. Seven full days of doing this over and over and over with all kinds of different people.

Pam Cordano: I felt really good because the thing was, there wasn't a lot of input. There wasn't a lot of input. I mean, I would see birds, I would see people out of the corner of my eye but we weren't really supposed to pay attention to each other.

So because I wasn't having interactions that might have typically set off my own grievances or triggers, it was like I had a break from all of that and, really, the worst problem I had of things that were there was me with this horse.

That was the hardest, my hardest relationship that week was with the horse. And it was hard. I mean, it was hard for a couple days in a very exaggerated kind of way.

Haley Radke: But even as you're just going through this world, right? You're always interacting with people and there's always little things that come up here and there that you're like, oh, really? That's what you're choosing to say? Like, there's all these little things, little tiny grievances we collect along the way.

Pam Cordano: Yeah, but luckily there we're all kind of our own worlds.

Haley Radke: The horse is the only one to give you…

Pam Cordano: Grief.

Haley Radke: Oh, I was gonna say it. And then I was like, oh, this is that. I'm glad you said it.

Last time we talked, you mentioned to me that you don't really like the word “forgiveness.” Can you talk more about that?

Pam Cordano: Yeah. I grew up in a non-religious family, so I didn't understand forgiveness from a religious or spiritual point of view. And every time I heard it, it just sounded like the cherry on top, as if we're supposed to know how to do that.

It felt like bypassing, spiritual bypassing. Grievances are full body experiences. So we can think we want to “forgive” somebody, but first of all, why? We would need a reason why to forgive somebody. And our bodies sometimes take longer to come along for the ride.

Like, I could think to myself, oh, I just wanna let that go. But yet my body could still react in a patterned way of threat and of anger and grievance. So I just don't understand the word forgive as a verb because it feels like it's just the top, like the head but it's not the whole system.

I think of forgiveness sometimes as more of a consequence. Like meaning: Okay, if I reconnect with my own sense of my dignity, if I get the things I need from other places, if I maybe unwrap some of my grievance stories, then eventually forgiveness might happen.

But it's just more of a consequence to these other efforts. I don't know if that's true, but that's sort of how I think of it.

Haley Radke: So when you are saying this meta prayer or mantra, you're kind of releasing things, right, over time about someone. How does that contrast for you with forgiveness? Is that linked in some way?

I do come from a religious background and so a lot of times people will talk about, oh, you're forgiving someone, you're taking them off your hook and you're putting them on God’s, and there's a real sense of there's going to be justice at some point, but I'm not going to be the one to give it to them.

Pam Cordano: And that's why I can let go of it because someone's gonna do it, right?

Haley Radke: Someone's gonna get 'em in the end. Which doesn't necessarily have a nice connotation to it either. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, though.

Pam Cordano: I think the value for me wasn't in feeling everything I was saying. Like, when I would put my biological family in my mind, I really didn't want them to have any kind of danger or illness.

Those were the easier ones for me. I could pretty much across the board not want people to be sick or in danger or unsafe, but it was more the happy and ease. The first one and the fourth one. May you be happy. May you have ease. That I would struggle with because what does it mean if my biological family is happy and has ease with me not in the picture?

What does that mean? And my old way of thinking would be what does that mean about me? And I could even start doing that right now. It's not that I'm over that. It’s like if they're happy and they have ease, maybe I'm just so inconsequential and it hurts, you know. So it wasn't that I was saying these things to pretend I felt that way.

It was more like I would wish it, and then I would see what happened. And you're right, it was a process. Like, I would have body tension. I would say “F that” in my head afterwards. I would have these phrases I would say after in my own mind.

But with the repetitive aspect of all this, it just started to ease a little bit. And the weird thing was I started to feel more free rather than like I was in an even more unfair situation. Because that had always been my thought before. If I give up my grievances, I'm really ripping myself off.

So the opposite happened.

Haley Radke: Did you keep up this practice after your seven-day retreat? If you had somebody that you were like, I'm collecting some things against this person. Maybe I need to do this a little bit.

Pam Cordano: I probably did it more for maybe the next two or three weeks. But then I stopped.

But now when I would do it would be if I were really suffering in a grievance. If it was the kind of thing where it was keeping me up at night, like being so mad at somebody or feeling so hateful towards somebody, I would do it to save myself. That's why I would do it. I would do it to remind myself, I was going to say, of who I am and I feel that way because who I am is I want to be better to myself than that. I don't want my night eaten up by an experience of hatred that's alive in my brain and in my body, and I don't want to go through that. I don't want it.

Haley Radke: What's that saying? There's this saying it's about unforgiveness, right? It's about, like, you're drinking poison and hoping the other guy dies.

Pam Cordano: Right, right. Yeah.

Haley Radke: It's not that exactly, but it's along those lines. So I kind of feel like that's what you're saying there, it's for you.

Pam Cordano: Yeah, because, like we talked about last conversation, the link for me and it was a link I had to try on, observe, play with over time that the grievances were hurting me more than they could possibly be hurting anybody else on the planet, and I didn't want it anymore.

Haley Radke: Well, I don't know, this might feel broad because there's so many things you talk about in the book, different practices that you've done, different things you've learned and it's great. There's so many valuable practices and examples in here.

Can you talk about that in maybe a more broad way of how you have taken this concrete base of grievances about adoption that we talked about last week, and added these practices in over time and in order to find that sense of freedom and actually enjoy your life and not have this cement block on you.

Pam Cordano: Well, what comes to mind when you ask that question is just, it is almost like I want to keep saying this because I don't imagine that anybody would believe me, although I know who I'm talking to and I'm talking to you and people who are adopted or care about adoption and the impact of adoption.

So probably the people listening to this care more than almost anybody. But the thing that really comes to mind is I really did not want to be alive. I never attempted suicide, but not attempting suicide doesn't mean you want to be here. So as soon as things would go wrong, I was on such a slippery slope of falling into a very overwhelming, tight trap that I couldn't easily get out of.

And also, I've had a lot of addiction and I had such a desperation to find a way to stay here. If I was going to stay here, I had to find a way. So I had this therapist in college, I write about that in one of the chapters, and I saw her for 11 years and she came to my 40th birthday party and she wrote me a card and she said, I’m going to start to cry if I say this.

She said: Has anybody worked so hard? She said, has anybody worked so hard? And I felt so seen by that because I've worked really hard. But the point is it's less about, like, my life feels so much better now. It does. And I believe in the things I'm teaching in the book. I believe in them. I believe they work.

But the thing that I was really dreading and avoiding by doing such hard work in so many different ways was I didn't really want to die, I guess, and not just die by suicide, but die by just never finding a way to be here comfortably. And kind of the agony of that, like the purgatory, the agony of that.

So that's what's behind all this effort and still is. I mean, I still have grievances. I could probably name five off the top of my head.

Haley Radke: Do you need to find a pasture somewhere and hang out with the horse for a bit?

Pam Cordano: I feel like it's a relief to name that because I think so many of us live with that underneath somewhere, and clearly the statistics tell the truth about how hard it is for us. And I do think it's a miracle for so many of us with our histories and with bonding trouble that we're here at all. Really, it's a miracle and we all should have the superhero logos on us.

Haley Radke: Well, I think it comes back to something that we talked about last week again and saying that expressing these feelings and, you know, there's that deeper meaning below: Okay, we actually are valuable even though we feel like we're just thrown away, rejected, unworthy, all the words, we know all that language. So discovering that you're meaningful and what does a life look like then?

Pam Cordano: That's right. That's right. Something I also realized, like sort of an Aha! moment for me was, well, no wonder we're mad because we actually deep down believe we're worth something and that we didn't deserve this. That's the basis of it all. It's this hidden dignity that we have. The other thing I realized is that a meaningful life is available to all of us.

Like a meaningful life isn't just for the people who had intact lives and minimal trauma. It's for us too. So how do we get there and how do we tap into that so that we're not just feeding our minds and our hearts with the grievances, but we're also, again, subversively and powerfully taking what's our birthright, which is life. If I'm going to be here, I want as much as I can have.

Haley Radke: Can I read a short paragraph from your book? Okay. So here's a paragraph from one of your chapters. I think this is chapter nine. And you've already shared with us before that your adoptive parents have passed away but you didn't have a very good relationship with them, and you were estranged from your biological family.

Okay, so here's the paragraph:

“I don't think about my adoptive parents or my biological families much anymore. When I do tension and heat don't accompany the thoughts. I don't need my past to be different. I don't need my family members to be different. What happened is I've become far more interested in something else. How can I serve the most people in my life now that I'm finally invested in being here? This is my new primary question.”

I read that and I thought, wow, isn't that exceedingly powerful? And I'm not like, oh, so everybody should be estranged. It's not about that, right? It's about what is your purpose? Can you talk about that?

Pam Cordano: Yeah. I thought that my biological family was going to be the golden ticket. I thought I got a bum deal and I was going to suffer until I was about 18 years old. And then I was going to go on the hunt and find them all, and it was going to be a beautiful reunion.

And to meet them again and connect with them was going to be like going back through the birth canal and being born as a real person. And I needed them to do that. And with that, they were everything to me in my mind. So when that didn't go well over a period of 10 to 15 years on both sides, I was disillusioned and I was full of despair.

So again, what am I going to do? Am I going to say, well then, I've lost my access point, forget it, or am I going to find another access point? And so part of the hard work has been how do I find another access point?

And when things really failed, I think I said this to you before, when things really failed with the last connection I had with my father's family, and when things failed there, I started doing pushups every day to counteract the weakness I felt inside. I felt so weak from the failure I felt weakened in my whole system, and part of me just wanted to lay down and give up. So I started doing push-ups to counteract it and to just fight.

To fight. Staying in the ring, staying with the push-ups and staying, fighting for myself, which is what dignity does, that's where the heat and attention calm down. And it's kinda like with the horse, like it does feel better to me now to give than to take. And when I'm in a bad mood, one of the first questions I try to get back to is, what's something nice I could do for somebody?

Because I know that's not how I grew up. I grew up thinking about number one, and self-preservation was everything to me. Self-protection, self-preservation, and the world was dangerous. So for me to think that way it's almost like I'm this angry adoptee that's become, God, I don't want to say the G word, but that's become, ah, connected. Connected.

Haley Radke: I'm like, wait, what G word? I know it. I know it.

Pam Cordano: Okay, but there's another G word, which is generosity. I'm interested in generosity because it feels good and it feels better than grievances. We've got two new G words. One is grievance and one is generosity.

And also, I know Victor Frankl, who I've talked about before, he did it and his story helped me. And so I think I'm out of the woods. I know I'm out of the woods and I hope my story can help other people.

Haley Radke: I love that you said that.

Pam Cordano: I’m not trying to compare myself to him, by the way. He's a hero to me. I'm just saying we all need each other. We all need each other's stories.

Haley Radke: Yeah. I haven't shared too much, but I went through extremely challenging year last year, and I don't talk about it publicly, and I don't know if that'll happen or not yet, but on my worst days, I would go out of my way to write a note to someone just telling them how much they meant to me and how important their work is.

And yeah, there's nothing like that, right? Because it's not out of a selfish place like I genuinely want to give them this gift of my words and encouragement, but man, I probably feel the best out of anybody.

Like I just feel so good. After it's hit send and hopefully they'll feel good receiving it. But that was something that I just had to do because I just feel like nothing. And that was the best thing I could do for myself in those really horrible moments.

And the responses I got from people were always, oh my goodness, this is so nice. Like very kind things. And people were often surprised that I had written to them. But, I mean, truly I felt so good after, and I don't know I see a little piece of that in what you're seeing, like those acts of generosity.

Pam Cordano: And I think that when you did that, it's a part of you that is still intact, that isn't damaged or obliterated by the other stuff going on. It's a part of you that's still whole. And so to work at those parts of us that are whole is powerful.

Haley Radke: All right. Thank you, Pam. Your book is just so beautiful. There is so much we can learn from it, and I especially love the structure. Can you just tell us a little bit about what you have at the end of each chapter?

Pam Cordano: Yeah, so the book has my 10, my literally 10 favorite foundations for living a meaningful life, which is also a way of saying my 10 favorite ways I learned how to save myself from death. And I think it's a hopeful book, even though it's an honest book. And at the end of the chapters I have four questions for each chapter to just think about the material and try to integrate it and apply it to your own life.

And then I have two immediate actions to increase your life force, like right now. Because I'm a practical person and I like the idea of what can I do right now to get this or to try it on or to see how this might work for me? So I tried to come up with two of those for each chapter.

Haley Radke: They’re so good, there's so many good things in there. You guys, you have to grab this book. Let's end on that practical note. Can you tell us the meta mantra again, because I think that would be a nice call to action for people to maybe practice that today, maybe for your dog, for a start. Or the most neutral person or your pet. A pet of some sort that you have neutral or good feelings toward.

Pam Cordano: Yeah. So you just sit somewhere comfortably. You don't have to sit on a meditation cushion. You can just sit on a couch or anywhere you're comfortable. You can even do this in bed before you go to sleep or when you wake up in the morning and you just quietly say to yourself, you think of a person or an animal, like Haley said, and you just say:

May you be happy. May you be safe and protected. May you be strong and healthy in your body. May you have ease.

And you don't have to fake it or pretend you feel it more than you do. You just try saying those words and try on that intention, and then you just see what comes up. And if you do it with something that's easier, like my daughter Sarah's dog Joey, he's so easy for me.

I want all of those things for him forever. And so it was really easy, and we did that. We did the easy thing for two whole days before we even got to somebody mildly complicated. So, and it feels good. And you can even do it for yourself and I do it for myself. Sometimes you could put your hand on your heart and you can close your eyes and just say it to yourself.

May I be happy. May I be safe and protected from danger. May I be healthy and safe in my body. May I have ease. Something like that. And you wish that for yourself. And then that helps. Now we're coming full circle. That helps reconnect with our lost dignity.

Haley Radke: Thank you so, so much. I want you to share where people can connect with you online.

Pam Cordano: You can find me online, I'm on Facebook. My website is yourmeaningful.life, or pamcordano.com. Same thing, same website, or my email is pcordano@comcast.net.

Haley Radke: And where can people find your book? 10 Foundations for Meaningful Life, (No Matter What's Happened)

Pam Cordano: You can find my book on Amazon or through Balboa Press.

Haley Radke: Wonderful. Thank you so much. And I hope you'll remember us all after you’re rich and famous and it was so fun to see my name in your book that was like, oh my gosh. Insane.

Pam Cordano: Oh yeah, you're in chapter 10, right?

Haley Radke: Yes.

Pam Cordano: We didn't even talk about that in this, but yeah. How was that for you?

Haley Radke: Well, I don't know if Anne told you. So Anne Heffron and Pam do healing retreats together. They're very good friends and she writes about their friendship in the book. And I had Anne on an episode for my Patreon podcast. So if you're a monthly supporter of the show, I have a weekly podcast called Adoptees Off Script.

So Anne was a guest, she's a frequent guest on there. And I had ordered your book and it came and while I was recording with Anne, cause you guys are like besties, I grabbed my package and I was like, Anne, I wonder if you can guess what's in this. And so we opened it together while we were recording, which was so fun.

And I flipped through and then I was talking to her like, oh, you're in the acknowledgements and everything. And so that was really special. And then once we had hung up, I mean officially like the Patreon recording was all done and we were still kind of chit-chatting. I was just kind of flipping through and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm in here! Which is so funny.

Pam Cordano: Of course, you're in here. Yeah. I mean, the last chapter's on spectacular community and really defining what that is and why I think that's important and without the work you do and what you give us, I just wouldn't know chapter 10. It would be nine foundations for meaningful life, seriously.

Like, you were the link to put all of this together and also for the adoptee retreat, people who are still in touch and rely on each other and travel together, and it's just amazing what's come out of all of this.

Haley Radke: Thank you.

I feel like Pam has this magical combo of wisdom and experience, and especially because of all the clients she's served over the years who've had a myriad of life experiences, right? She's worked with people who are dying, who've been diagnosed with very challenging illnesses, and adoptees, and her experience with grief and meaning, and is just so valuable.

So I'm so grateful she shared with us, and I hope that you take something really great away from this conversation. Maybe your next action step is you pick up Pam's book and you find more insights in it. I think there's something really valuable for you to take away from today's conversation and I hope that you come back and let us know what that is.

Maybe you send Pam a note on social media. Maybe you comment on the Adoptees On Instagram post of this episode and just share what you've learned, what your takeaways are. I'd love to see what you're learning from Pam and maybe something you'll share will trigger something else for someone who's thinking, oh yeah, I needed to remember that, too.

Another thank you I need to make is to my monthly supporters. Thank you so much. Without you guys, there would just not be a podcast. It just would disappear. And so if you think Adoptees On is important, if you want to keep hearing from other adoptee therapists on a Healing Series, if you want to hear from adoptees sharing their stories, if you want to reach other adoptees around the world to know they're not alone and feeling this way about adoption and the impact it's had on their life.

Consider going to adopteeson.com/partner and joining us. There's so many fun bonuses. I have a whole other podcast every week that we talk about some really interesting things that we might not talk about on the main feed here. And I have a Facebook group for adoptees only. And there's just so many wonderful things that are happening in the community, and I'm so grateful to be a part of it, and I wouldn't be able to do this without your support.

So thank you. I'm so grateful for you if you're supporting the show in that way. And if that's just not on your radar, what about sharing this episode with another adoptee? Maybe there's an adoptee that you know that could use a little encouragement, a little bit of wisdom, and this would be a great episode to introduce them to the show and to Pam.

Yeah, I would encourage you to do that, and sometimes people just would love to listen to a podcast, but they don't know how. So just grab their phone, subscribe to the podcast for them, show them how to play it in their app and download it so they can have it with them on their walk with their dog or driving in the car.

That's the best way to introduce someone to a podcast, so thank you for doing that. I appreciate that. It also means a lot to me when you share the show. Okay. Thanks so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.

136 [Healing Series] Hidden Dignity Part 1

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/136

---

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

You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke. And this is a special episode in our Healing Series, where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves, so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee. Today is part one of my conversation with Pam Cordano on Hidden Dignity. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Pam Cordano. Hi, Pam.

Pam Cordano: Hi, Haley.

Haley Radke: I am gonna start crying. Oh my gosh. Okay. We got on the call and I was like, I'm not talking about your book. We're not talking about it until we start recording because I didn't— I wanted to save every second of this.

Oh my gosh. Your book is just, it's so beautiful. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna cry. Oh my gosh. Okay.

Pam Cordano: No, I'm gonna start crying.

Haley Radke: Get it together. Okay. So, Pam has been on the show so many times. You guys know her and love her just like I do. And she has this gorgeous offering for us in the world, and it's called Ten Foundations for Meaningful Life (No Matter What's Happened): to Viktor Frankl, with love.

And I was reading through it and just crying, and having all these light bulb moments. And just being like, Okay, what if you just read us the whole book on the show? That would be, that would just be so delightful. It's such a gift to read your words and just to know the heart you have for adopted people, and the freedom you want them to have. And the things you've learned in your lifetime, many of which you've shared with us on the show before.

And I don't know what to say. Just thank you and I'm so proud of you and I just… Oh my gosh. I'm hugging your book because you're far away. But…

Pam Cordano: Thank you, Haley. It means a lot to me. I mean, yeah, it's a big deal for any of us to put our hearts on the line, and our stories on the line, and our opinions on the line. It's hard and vulnerable. It's a big deal.

Haley Radke: And you share some very personal parts of your story that are like, I wonder if people know that about you. You have really some painful snippets of your life that have impacted you so deeply. And yeah, talk about vulnerable. I mean, incredible. Okay. I'm gonna stop gushing. Yikes. Okay.

One thing you and I have talked about sort of off-air in between our conversations over the years is how many adoptees we see kind of get stuck. And we look back at our circumstances, and we've emerged from the fog, and we're like, Man, adoption sucks. It really screwed up my life. And then we kind of get stuck there. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Pam Cordano: I’ve lived…I'm 55 (almost). I'm 54 and a little bit, and or I'm almost 55 and I know what that's like, because I lived there most of my entire life, in that place of being really angry and being full of grievance. And so aware of the injustice of it all, and I know that place really, really well. In fact, I mean, I know the place and I know what it's like to believe that's the only place, and to not see an exit door. And to not think that an exit door makes any sense at all. And to even think that–to not think, to believe that to leave my grievance would be to leave my soul.

That it's the truest thing about me. That if someone doesn't understand what happened to me, and how unfair it was, and no matter what things look like on the surface, what a bad deal I got... Not just with my early life, and then not just with my adoptive family, but also with my whole reunion with both parents and their families, then they don't know me.

And so to know me is to know my grievance. And without that, I'm not known. That's how I used to feel. I–

Haley Radke: The line in the book that you have is, you say, “Until later in life, I didn't want to abandon my grievances. I thought they were my deepest truths.”

Pam Cordano: Totally. Period. They were the truths that had been with me from the very beginning and even in conception, all the way until the present. And they felt like the ground floor of my life, the foundation of my life.

Haley Radke: And I'm assuming that you have seen other adoptees act like that.

Pam Cordano: Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And when they do, I completely understand. I feel a kinship with them. I understand. I could jump right in and join the party of how awful it's been, and what a miracle it is that we've even stayed alive.

Haley Radke: Right. So what's the next thing? When did you realize Oh, I might be stuck in thinking this? and Is there more than this?

Pam Cordano: I think it has been a really gradual process. I've always been a person that's been going to therapy and things like that, that I've talked about before on the show. One part was (and it was through writing the book that I really got clear about this), that the only reason I could work with cancer patients even before I had cancer.

And the only reason that cancer patients were really the only people I wanted to work with was because they were living in a life that was half-alive and half-dead. And they had their own grievance. Why me? Why my body, why this disease? My kids are toddlers. I don't wanna leave them. I haven't had my fair shake. I haven't had kids yet, and now my uterus is gone. And they had their own version of grievance.

And of course, I– My bias is that adoption is the hardest thing because it happened from the beginning, so we… Our brains were so not ready to deal with all that we had to deal with. So I, in my heart, feel like that was worse.

I'd rather have ordered a whole different family situation and not have been adopted than even if I got Stage IV cancer when I was 30. And maybe that's not fair for me to say. It gets complicated comparing pain; it gets really complicated. And it feels a little bit dangerous to even say that.

But my point is just how hard it is when you're adopted and also when you don't connect with your adoptive family. And when reunion doesn't go well, and all those things that we talk about together (all of us). But to work with people with cancer, the thing that surprised me was how much they loved life (the people I was working with).

They were (many of them were) dying; most of them back when I was an intern, were dying. And they didn't want to go. They didn't want to leave behind life. And it wasn't just their family and their kids and their dreams, but it was also the little mundane things. Like in the book, I talk about this guy Mike, with a squirrel. And there were lots of stories. A woman, the day before she died in a hailstorm, who was in love with the hail–and I use the word rapture. She felt rapture from this hailstorm. And so I was seeing how much people that were not me loved life, and it was just a bit of a– I could see it through their eyes a bit, because death was on the table.

So because death was on the table, and suffering and injustice, then I could hear them when they talked about life. But the happy people that just want to talk about the happy things, I couldn't hear them. All that came up for me was the grievance and thought, Yeah, try being in my shoes and then talk about how nice your Thanksgiving was, or whatever I might think to myself.

Haley Radke: It seems like such a big shift, though, to go from the victimhood mentality, (which I think is what it is) to being like, Okay, so then what? What's the next thing?

Pam Cordano: Another thing is then (this is all throughout spiritual and religious literature), is the idea that a grievance hurts us more than it hurts the people we have a grievance against.

And on an intellectual level, I found that really interesting. It's like Okay, am I doing something that hurts me more than that person and those people? That's even more unfair if that's the case. But to think that, and to try that on intellectually is completely different than being able to feel it.

So I spent years not wanting to have grievances, and wanting to get the grievances out of my body and out of my mind. My mind would just go around and around and around with the same old grievances, and the triggers, and the storylines. And the intrusive thoughts of people in my birth family that I didn't want to be thinking about, or imagining what they were doing without me, or this and that and the other thing. It was like intrusive thoughts of the grievances. Does that make sense?

Haley Radke: Yeah. Absolutely.

Pam Cordano: So I would say that it took a really long time, because I wanted to be done with my grievances, because they were hurting me so much. I mean, my mind was tense, my brow was furrowed, my shoulders were tight…

I woke up angry, I was angry during the day—much more angry than I acted in the world. I would put on sort of a nice act (I'm a therapist after all), angry at night… I was just angry.

And like we talked before with my kids, and my kids would act entitled, or spoiled (or something), and I would just feel enraged. Like they have no idea how much they have compared to what I had, and they want this, or they want that. It's ridiculous, you know. So I hope you can see, I know this land of grievance. I know “Grievance Land.”

Haley Radke: And how does it feel to be the therapist and you're guiding someone through a challenging time? And you're giving them these tools, and you're listening to them. And yet on the inside (I don't know), what's your self-talk like? Really? Really? This is what we're talking about.

Pam Cordano: I tend to see people with really big problems. And that's who I really like to see. I see people who are suicidal. I see people who are paralyzed. I see people with very serious cancer and other illnesses. I see people who have had traumatic loss. And I see people who are adopted now more than I used to. And so usually who I have worked with–I don't have that thought, much.

And even if I did, I would kind of feel sorry for them. If somebody had a wonderfully sort of easy life, and they were complaining, I would kind of—I'd be curious, like on the human level. What's this? How strange! It’s like an alien to me.

Haley Radke: And like Is this really what we're talking about? Or is there something below that?

Pam Cordano: Exactly right. Yeah.

Haley Radke: Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm trying to get the therapist dirt, you know.

Pam Cordano: Yeah, we can do that!

Haley Radke: No, I'm joking. But yeah, so wow, you're seeing really challenging things happening. And also an understanding that you yourself have had this challenging thing happen.

And so moving from grievance to what? Forgiveness? Is that the next thing? Or is it– is there something in between there?

Pam Cordano: Okay. Step one was: I started to recognize the amount of pain the grievances were causing me physically, emotionally, mentally (in relationships). So I was–often they say the first step is awareness. I became aware of the cost to me of all my grievances. And so then I didn't know what to do about them.

And I used to hate the word forgiveness. I still kind of do, because it's not easy to forgive. And so actually I've studied grievances to try to understand What's the anatomy of a grievance? How do we create a g–? How do we literally create a grievance so that then I could uncreate my grievances?

So there's this guy, his name is Fred Luskin, and he has this project at Stanford called the–I think it's called the Stanford Forgiveness Projects (with an -s at the end).

And he has a book called Forgive for Good. And my favorite part of his work that I read was that (Oh my gosh. This is gonna be interesting to put out into words.). This is actually in my book. But there's a recipe for a grievance, and here's what we have to do. And I'll use myself as an example.

I had an intern who warned me she did not get along with women. So that's the most normal thing in the world. She's just warning… Here, we're gonna work together. And she's warning a woman that she doesn't get along with women. Okay. That's–nothing's happened yet that's out of the ordinary.

That's what–that's how she feels. That's what she does. So the second thing is we worked together for about two weeks and then she fired me. And I was so offended. But the second thing we have to do, then, is make ourselves the center of the story. Somehow, she was doing this thing to me.

I had generously opened my practice to her. I had done my best to take good care of her, and help her become a therapist, and she has the nerve to somehow decide that I wasn't good for her, and fire me. And I was just so offended. So I put myself now in the center of the story as if this is entirely about me. And then the third thing we have to do is just tell ourselves. Go over it, and over it in our minds again and again—like bazillions of times.

And I did that for probably three years. I just went over it, and over it. I was so offended. And I would see her in town and I would hear her name come up, and I would see her at events. And I was just full of grievance and just so mad at her. And then the next thing we have to do is we have to remove all other possibilities that this story means something different than we think it does.

My story is: She screwed me over. I opened my heart to her and she screwed me over. (And you can probably hear the adoptee in here, right?). There's a woman rejecting me. What does that feel like? It's–of course I'm super, super triggered by it. But nothing else is now possible.

It's not that she might have trauma from her past (with her mother), and she may just legitimately have trouble with women. And it may not be personal about me at all. And she might have wanted it to work, but it just didn't. And she might have felt awkward about changing supervisors, so she might have just done it awkwardly, or suddenly.

And maybe since then she's done more work on her relationship with women and her mother, and she's free of it now. And maybe it wouldn't turn out this way. It's just not so personal. So then we remove all other possibilities, and then that's how we have a grievance. So I started to try to imagine with some of my grievances (once I started learning this formula), how to back it all up.

And I used to laugh to myself about the part about making it self-centered. And it was a relief. It was like, Okay, if this story is so much about me, I–Then that feels better, because adoption felt so much like me. Like adoption. The fact that I was adopted felt entirely about my inherent lack of worthiness.

It was the proof that I wasn't worthy to be here in the world. So I might have said on the show to you before, but I felt full of humiliation and shame about being adopted. And I felt humiliated that this intern would fire me publicly. It was like everybody was gonna know. It's part of the story, the grievance story. Is this too convoluted or is it okay?

Haley Radke: No! It's so interesting, because you're giving this example of–I mean, I don't want to negate it in any way. It's this small example of something that happened to you, but it's had a big impact, right? You said you thought about it for years and it was this big thing, and then taking that back to the example of, “I'm adopted.” It's like your whole life structure revolves around that. It's not this two week interaction you had with this person.

Pam Cordano: No. Right. And I think what worried me about myself–it doesn't worry me now because I've gone I've… Something has shifted inside, which is why we're even talking about this. And you're asking about, “How did that shift happen?”

But before something shifted (I'm not sure if this is accurate), but what I felt like was my grievances were more intense, and more extreme, and upsetting, and agonizing than anybody else's I knew. My friends–none of my friends were adopted at that point. Now I have adopted friends, too, because of your show. But I just–when I compared my reactions to things compared to theirs, I felt like I was just really effed up.

Haley Radke: Is there something about that, though? This'll be like in generalized terms, but for someone that is kind of stuck in My story just sucks and there's nothing I can do about it, that we're just collecting evidence.

Pam Cordano: Totally right. We have a worldview, and then we collect evidence. And one of the things I wrote about in my book in Chapter two about dignity is I believe that we all (deep down) know that it's not true. That we're not worth nothing, that we're not worth giving away, that we're not worth being adopted, that we're not worth family-lessness, or all that we've been through. And so that is really the basis, in my opinion, the basis of our anger. We know it's not right, because we're worth more than that.

And the reason people have problems with the way adoption laws are and practices are, is that we know we're worth more than the way it's done. And we're worth more than being adopted at all. So getting mad is actually–we wouldn't even be if we… If I really believed I was worth being given away, I wouldn't have anything to be mad about.

I would just—I don't know. I'd just take my place in the corner or something. I mean, read a book. I wouldn't be all mad, but I was infu…I was furious. I was furious since I was four.

Haley Radke: Okay. So I'm having a major light bulb moment, right? Because that is so insightful, that just the very reason we’re mad, or upset, or that something is like— there's disconnect, something wrong happened… It means something.

Pam Cordano: It means something important. It means something about what we know. We know our value. We know it.

Haley Radke: And so it's like, Why can't anybody else see that? I don't…

Pam Cordano: Yeah. Why can't anybody else see that? And why is everybody being complicit in this? And why is no one talking about this horrific thing that was done to me? And don’t I ma—

I mean, I do matter. That's the thing, that it's not, Don't I matter? It's actually, I'm mad and I'm saying don't I matter? But deep down, at some level, I know I do matter and this is just wrong and I need more overt love and acknowledgement of what this has been.

Haley Radke: I'm thinking about all the people that write to me once they've heard a few episodes of the show, and usually when they do, the words that come are very much, Oh my gosh, I finally get it. I finally feel seen, or I finally feel understood.

There's the validation and I mean–holy smokes! How to have a moment that you're like, Oh my gosh, someone else gets it. Someone else sees that I am worthy. And why did this happen to me? What is that moment? Oh, me. Wow.

Pam Cordano: Yeah I think that and I did this (and I see this at the adoptee retreats that Anne and I have, too), that people are angry. And they're disconnected, and sometimes they're addicted, and they’re all kinds of things, railing against their experiences. But they don't yet have it put together that they–some part of them does think that they're worth something, or else they wouldn't even be… They wouldn't have a basis for being mad if they, you know what I mean?

The runt of the litter. When you think about Charlotte's Web–I don't know if, remember if there was a runt in that movie? But they're not off like setting the farm on fire. They're just like, they take their place. They're not arguing, but we who have a problem with it are… We're trying to value ourselves and we do value ourselves at some level.

It just may not be connected up. So I'm trying to flip–I'm trying to flip the script here. You know what I'm trying to do here?

Haley Radke: I have nothing to say, because I'm just like, Whoa. Whoa. And I read your book, and I read it very thoroughly. And I super did not understand that in Chapter two. It's just because I'm like, Oh, I guess. Right? You skim over things that you're like, Oh, she's not talking about me for that. I don't think I have worth, you know? There's something to that. Ewww, that feels yucky.

Pam Cordano: But maybe the yucky isn't 100% yucky.

Haley Radke: But I have–I've literally sat with people around a table who tell me that same thing, right? “I've always felt worthless. I've always, I've like…” That whole thing. And to know that you're only expressing that because deep down you actually think you're valuable?

Pam Cordano: Right. And you know what the most important reason I want to…? But I have so much passion about this piece of the conversation…is that what I care about is helping people save their lives. And not just their life from suicide, but their quality of life and their dreams for their futures that can become more about who they are, at some point. And less about what the dream is in terms of the grievance–a grievance-based dream. But just dreams that are free of, that are possibly different and possibly even coming from outside the wound (if that's even possible). I didn't used to think that was possible.

The point of my book was I had to find a way to save my life. This book to me is about saving my life. And so then when I share that thing about dignity, or some belief that we do know we have value underneath it all, I'm not saying that to be positive or make people think it's not as bad as it is. I'm saying that to help people see– Like if they can connect to that, then they've got the basis to start turning something around a little bit. Do you know what I mean? Like dignity is power. And we have it.

Haley Radke: But even just that thought of saving your life, it's so profound. And as I said before, so many of us get stuck in the black hole of, Adoption sucks, and, Why did this happen to me?

And you see the anger, you see the anger in what they write online. You see the anger in person, the impact it's had, constantly pushing people away... We all know people that are like that, or you recognize in yourself, probably. If I'm talking about that, am I talking about you?

Pam Cordano: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, hating the world, hating people, hating me... Yeah.

Haley Radke: Yeah! But a call to, “What could life be if you can process some of that? And find this meaning?”

Pam Cordano: Okay, so having a grievance is an active thing. It requires our minds, our emotions, and our whole bodies. It's a very–it's a full-on experience, having a grievance. And so, if we start to notice how uncomfortable it is when we're in a grievance (which I did).

I mean, like I said, I had muscle tension. I got headaches a lot. I had jaw tension. I had stomach aches from holding everything so tightly, had rage at people. I had a feeling of overwhelm, like I could barely take one more thing. And I started to not want my body–I guess, because I started to care about myself. I wanted–I didn't want my body to feel so bad, so often. So I started to try to practice having a softer body (even though that was counterintuitive), because when you're trying to save your life and protect yourself from humiliation and bad things, it's hard to let that defense structure down.

Haley Radke: So what does that mean, “having a softer body”?

Pam Cordano: I actually started with my kids. I was raising my kids and I would feel mad at them a lot. And I mean, I'm soft-pedaling this. I felt mad all the time, honestly. At them and everything else. So I remember hearing somewhere, maybe it was at a retreat or something... I heard something about trying to parent with a soft body, and that was really like a revolutionary idea to me. So I remember, I would walk in the front door from work or somewhere and I would try to soften my belly.

I would just try to soften my sh–drop my shoulder, soften my belly, and try to walk in the house. And my intention was: whatever they were doing, whatever they said, whatever they did or didn't do, I was going to try to communicate with them while keeping my belly soft at the same time. To not get into the pattern of reactivity and anger that was beyond what they were responsible for, obviously. You know?

And so I think my kids were important enough to me to be worth practicing, that I had a dial on my body. I wasn't just trapped in grievances. I had a say about what I did with my softening it, or not softening it. Or trying to soften it, and then failing (or whatever).

Haley Radke: It's so interesting that you say that, right? Because it's–Of course, tension is like this tight thing, but I don't know that the opposite of that would be like, Oh, soft. But telling that to your body…Oh, that's interesting! That's a good one.

So how does that go to unwrapping this grievance? Of that fact that I'm adopted?

Pam Cordano: So then I started going into public, practicing having a soft body. And I thought, Okay, if I'm in a meeting or with a client and somebody does or says something that triggers me or threatens me or anything, I'm gonna see what happens if I keep my body soft.

I even went on rollercoaster rides at Disneyland, trying to–the entire ride, keep my body soft. Just start just…I wanted to master, like I get to decide. I get to decide when my body's soft. And the weird thing is, it's not weird at all, actually! When our shoulders are dropped, and our bodies are more soft, we don't feel as triggered.

And so we can start with our brains and try to think our way out of a problem, or we can start with our bodies and try to let our bodies unwind. And it goes much faster with the body involved, I promise.

Haley Radke: I'm just thinking about the story you told in your book about your body deciding not to vomit anymore?

Pam Cordano: Yeah.

Haley Radke: Which you don't have to share! People will have to read the book to get that one, but wow! I cannot picture being soft on a rollercoaster. That's amazing. That's amazing.

Pam Cordano: Yeah. And actually, after my father (this is not in the book), after my father died… My dad scared me, so I stopped vomiting when I was four. And after he died seven years ago, I got norovirus and I vomited. I'm not kidding. I vomited 88 times and I was terrified, because I have a terror of vomiting. And I've met a lot of other adoptees who do, also. Something about losing control? And so what I did was, I actually went to the ER, because it was really extreme.

But as I was vomiting I imagined my dad putting his hand on my back (which in real life, I would never want his hand anywhere near me)-- But he had his hand on my back and just saying, “I'm sorry. Just go; just let it out.” And I tried relaxing my body, even then. Because I felt like, That's my power. So much about being adopted is not having power, but what we do with our bodies is something that is in our power.

Haley Radke: I don't know how you make me cry every time. I don't understand.

Pam Cordano: What are you crying about? What is it?

Haley Radke: Wow. I'm just picturing you in that moment, and picturing your dad having his hand on your back. And I just–that's so moving. Being able to recapture something that you should have had: you should have had a compassionate parent that could take care of you when you were sick.

Pam Cordano: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, and imagery is really powerful, because our bodies really don't know the difference between what we imagine and what actually happens. So that's why (we've talked about this on your show before)... But if we imagine eating a lemon, our mouth will water anticipating the sour lemon juice.

And in the same way, sometimes there are ways to imagine pieces of the world that we didn't get. And again, that goes together with dignity, because we do deserve those things. And so even though they may not be “true” in our lived experience (and that does matter), it's also true that we deserve them.

So if me giving myself my father's support, when he was the source of my terror, was kind to myself. And I felt like it was honoring myself, somehow.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. Okay. We are gonna start wrapping up this part one of our two-part conversation with Pam. Do you have any final thoughts on grievances before we say goodbye for today?

Pam Cordano: The final thought is: there's something really radical and subversive about questioning our grievances. And we can have a death grip on them and think that we'd rather die than give up a single grievance or give up an important grievance. But it's smart for us to look at the possibility that some of our grievances, or the magnitude of our grievances, or how much space they take up in our lives could actually be imprisoning us more than they're helping us stay intact.

Haley Radke: That's a big thought to end on. Okay, thank you. So we want to make sure everybody is able to grab a copy of your book. It's called 10 Foundations for a Meaningful Life, (No Matter What's Happened). So why don't you let us know where we can grab it, where we can connect with you online and…yeah!

Pam Cordano: Yeah, okay. So you can get the book on Amazon or with Balboa Press (if you don't want to go through Amazon). And just, my name is under Pam Cordano, MFT. And my website is Your Meaningful Life. Your Meaningful (dot) Life, or pamcordano.com (Same website). And my email is pcordano@comcast.net.

Haley Radke: And one thing that we didn't mention, but your book is (obviously) 10 Foundations, so you're talking about all these different foundations. And at the end of every chapter, you have all of these questions for us to answer and actual exercises. So I love that. I love that. So good.

Pam Cordano: Thanks. Thanks.

Haley Radke: Alright. Thank you so much for sharing with us.

Pam Cordano: Thank you, Haley.

Haley Radke: I hope you took away as much as I did from that conversation. I can't wait to share next week's with you. It's so good. Please make sure you're subscribed in whatever podcast app you like to listen to. My favorite is Overcast; I love Overcast. It's so easy to use. I have curated playlists for myself. If I'm going to be listening to adoptee shows, or if I'm going to listen to true crime–I have different playlists for different moods. There's more than just those two, but those are two examples I can think of.

Anyway, I love listening in Overcast. If you want to make sure you get notified every single week, that's a great way to do it. Subscribe in your podcast app, and then it'll just pop up as soon as there's a new episode.

Friday morning is when I release and it will just download automatically and it's just such a dream. So easy to use the Overcast app. If you're on Android, there's lots of free podcast apps you can download, and if you have an iPhone, you have a built-in podcast player. So, go ahead and hit subscribe and you will be notified next week when the part two of our two-part series with Pam Cordano on Hidden Dignity is ready for download.

I am just so grateful for Pam for coming on the show. I'm also grateful for my monthly supporters who faithfully just want the show to continue, and they actually do that by going to adopteeson.com/partner and signing up for Patreon (which is a monthly subscription service). So you get access to some bonuses, like a totally separate Adoptees Off Script podcast that is up every Monday, and there is an adoptees-only Facebook group. And there's some new things coming very soon, so you can watch for that.

I'm just–Ooh. Lots of cool things in the works. Anyway, I'm so thankful for my monthly supporters. If you want Adoptees On to continue to exist in this world, if you think healing episodes are important, if you wanna hear more adoptee stories and this is the place for it, then please consider joining my other monthly partners. Adopteeson.com/partner has those details for you. Thank you, my friend, for listening. Let's talk again, next Friday.

135 [Healing Series] How Trauma Affects Reunion

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/135

---

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

You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and this is a special episode in our healing series where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves, so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee.

Last week, we addressed cross-cultural intergenerational trauma, and we are continuing that theme today with Marta Sierra Drachenberg. She is back and, oh my goodness, this is so good. I can't wait to get to it. I just wanna mention before we get started, though, that we do mention sexual assault. So please keep that in mind when you're deciding whether or not now is the best time for you to listen. And if you do have little ones around, please do put your earbuds in, because this is an adult conversation.

Okay, let's listen in. I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Marta Sierra Drachenberg. Hi, Marta!

Marta Isabella Sierra: Hi, Haley.

Haley Radke: I can't wait to talk to you, again, today. I am so excited and I just, I forgot to do this last time, but you are a therapist, but you specialize in internal family systems. And can you just give us a quick snippet of what that means?

Because it's a little different from some of the therapists that we've had on the show before and I think it's so valuable. It's such a valuable way, especially of looking at adoptee things. So please tell us a little bit about what IFS is before we get into what we're gonna talk about today?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Sure. So, IFS is an experiential therapy, which means that it's an experience; it's not just talking. And it's a way to access all the different parts of yourself, meaning that we all are really multiple—we have lots of different parts of ourselves that feel lots of different ways, and have lots of different beliefs, and lots of different reactions to things. And then when you add trauma in the mix, that have been affected in different ways, and then parts that are protecting the parts of us that have been traumatized…And it's just a whole world in there. And the goal of IFS therapy is to get yourself (your authentic self, or your heart–however you wanna think about that) in a really solid relationship with all of your parts, so that you can facilitate healing. And feel more connected, and less dysregulated, and ideally move through triggers in a different way. Experiential therapy can also help build new neural pathways in the brain, which is really what's so hard about healing preverbal trauma in the first place.

Haley Radke: When you were first on the podcast and you taught us about it, it was so, so interesting. So, if any of what Marta just talked about is interesting to you, go back and listen to her episodes 69 and 71. And she really gives us a deep dive into IFS there. Thank you.

Okay, so we left off and we were talking about how different reunion can be when it's international and really cross-culturally… We talked about a lot of different things last time and I wanna continue that conversation.

You mentioned that just even the nation of Colombia has trauma that has been going on for generations and that there's not really access in a regular…What am I just trying to say? There's not really access to mental healthcare as a regular practice and that shows. So can you talk a little bit about that in your reunion, and especially with your mother?

Marta Isabella Sierra: So, yeah. The first thing I'll say is that I had talked in the last episode about a second language barrier being a cultural language barrier. And I had said there were three. So the third one that we're gonna talk more about today is this mental health language as its own language.

So, even as my language skills got stronger, I really found myself without the words for all of this mental health speak, right? Like this “therapist talk” that I use so casually in English, I was really struggling to even—What words should I use? And then more importantly than that, Does that still even make sense? Does it register? Do you know what I mean?

Like you had said, “boundaries” in our last episode, and I didn't stop you because I knew I wanted to talk about it today. But that's nothing. That means nothing that may as well be Chinese, right? No one knows what a healthy boundary is. No one's ever experienced a healthy boundary. It's this totally foreign concept that I'm introducing. So, that's really hard.

I have worked my whole life, not only on teaching other people how to implement healthy boundaries, but trying to walk the walk, implement what I'm asking my clients to implement. And I found myself really without the ability to do that, because it's just not even understood. I couldn't even explain it if I wanted to.

Haley Radke: That's blowing my mind. I'm just like—my mouth is wide open because I'm like, Wow, that's not even translatable. So, what do you do then? How do you explain a choice that you might define as Okay, I've got a boundary with this specific thing. How do you explain that choice, then? They're–they don't understand that.

Marta Isabella Sierra: I think sometimes you just don't (similar to in English). If someone's not respecting your boundary, you don't keep explaining to them, right? You just say, “I'm not gonna do that.” So a lot of times it would end up just being like that: “I'm not gonna do that.” And not even bothering, really, to go into the “why.”

There's already so much miscommunication that can happen in these relationships. And certainly there were a lot of assumptions about why I was doing what I was doing all the time, which of course I was making, too. We're all just trying to figure each other out. I just learned that they're gonna make their assumptions about my behavior anyways, whether or not I try to explain it. So ultimately, in those high moments of stress, I'm gonna just have to do what's best for me and I'm gonna have to release control over what everybody thinks about that.

Haley Radke: That's so great. You sound like you have it together. I'm like, Oh, how do I do that?

Marta Isabella Sierra: And, so, the other thing is just that, we need each other. I know we talk about this all the time in your podcast. We talk about community all the time, but I just–I can't emphasize that enough–that what got me through the hardest parts of that year was the people in my life that have gone before me.

I have an amazing friend from Oregon who is older than me, has been in reunion longer, is from Colombia, and knows the culture. And I would have—I had maybe four video calls with her over the course of a year, but they were so essential. And she's a clinician. She's not a therapist, but she's been working in adoption for years and years and years. So she speaks that language with me, as well. And we would get into these really interesting discussions about, “Is it even ethical? To hold our Colombian families to American mental health standards, when they haven't had access to the education that we've had? When they haven't had access to the resources that we have?”

Can I even say, “You know, you're not respecting my boundaries. You're—it’s disrespectful and hurtful to me. I'm out.” Is that really ethical? And I don't have a concrete answer. All I can say is that having those discussions with her definitely allowed me a lot more compassion. I do, still ultimately, I do what I need to do for me, including the painful decision I made about my relationship with my brother. But it does help me in moments to remember that there's just so much history in my family, and in my country that I'm never gonna ever understand. And I have to remember that I don't have all the puzzle pieces, that there's so much going on that I can't see. And I need to honor that the same way I want it honored for me. When I do something that's not understood, I don't want it to—the assumption to be negative or for someone to assume they understand completely why I'm doing that. I want them to be curious. So if I'm wanting curiosity on their end, then I have to be willing to also be curious.

Haley Radke: Well, that's a huge question. That is really intriguing, and I'm not gonna go too far off track here, but just a rabbit trail from that statement, the ethics of holding my Colombian family to the same standards as Americans, because they don't have access to mental health supports or even the same “therapy language” (in quotation marks). And I'm thinking about how so many of our reunions have broken down and we talk about, “Oh, well you have to work on your own stuff first.” And lots of adoptees, and lots of first parents both haven't had any sort of therapy to deal with those things. And so I'm just, Hmm…this is an interesting question to ponder. Thank you for bringing that up.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes. And given that, I wouldn't— I'm so glad for all the work that I've done. It still was a really difficult situation a lot of the time. It was still hard to navigate things, but I was so grateful for all of the work I had already done and having the language of IFS (especially in really difficult situations) saved me.

So I guess that's an easy place to jump into what happened with my mom. So, I'm really, really close with my mom. I always have been; I feel really, really lucky. We're very connected. I think we always have been, even before I knew about her, even before I found her. We're very similar in a lot of ways.

We have a couple really different parts of our personality. One of the big ones is that she's very religious. Again, it's a really Catholic country. I sort of felt, like, really scared in the beginning. I remember telling her that I wasn't religious. I remember shaking and being nervous. We were just texting over WhatsApp, but I didn't know how she was gonna take it.

Overall, she's pretty good with it, but it comes up in these ways, because my mom's concept around her personal trauma is that she didn't have any trauma. And anything that happened to her, she's given up to God. And so, that's her defense mechanism around it, right? She's wrapped this thing around it and she won't touch it. She's very receptive to me talking about my trauma, and how our separation, and lots of things have affected me. She's fine with that, but there's just this block around what she's experienced.

And I'm not just talking about the trauma of my birth (which I'm a product of rape, so there’s a lot of trauma around me coming into the world). But she's experienced just so much more than that; I'm not gonna list it. It's—I try to walk that line of telling my story, versus telling her story. I feel fine disclosing the rape, because it's my origin story. She's experienced a lot of other trauma in her life, and this is how she survives it. And it's also how she's so loving and full of light anyways, despite it.

And so it's allowed us to be close and build this relationship that's very close. But I suppose, at some point, that was going to boil over. So, that happened in April on this big trip that I talked about in the last episode. It was a lot that I already talked about—two huge things. And so this is the last one, which is… So we had been staying in my aunt's house. I met a bunch of new family while we're there. So, as far as stressors on my mom's system, she's back where she grew up. She's back where she raised my brothers and sister. She's staying in the house of an ex-boyfriend who was (bleep) to her (and was kind of still being [bleep]). That's where some of my family was staying.

She's introducing me to a bunch of new family, which I can't imagine how vulnerable that was for her. And I think, more than she articulated out loud, she really wanted that to go a certain way. Of course, right? So obvious now, but I wasn't thinking about it then. Of course, I was in my own overwhelm of, I'm going to where my brothers and sister grew up. I'm going to meet all this new family. I was in my story while she was in her story.

And my relationship with my sister has always been very tense. She has a lot of stuff around me. I don't even want to talk about it a ton, honestly, but we have a very difficult relationship. And that was sort of moving towards a blowing point as well. And so because they were staying in a separate house together, they would often show up together and leave together. And so, my mom wasn't actually seeing how I was interacting with my new family, because when she would come around, my sister was with her.

And I would go away or I would shut down, or I would go hang out with the kids, or…there were a lot of animals there, too (I would go play with the animals). Because I was trying not to flip out. So, I was taking—this is like an example, right? I was doing my mental health self-care: taking space, using my skills, using connection. All of these things that I think are taking care of myself, that are viewed externally, culturally, as me being disconnected and antisocial.

I'm over here, like, I'm doing such a great job, right? And the perception of me is that I'm being disconnected and weird because the assumption is I'll spend every second with everyone all in the big group. And even just surface level, like every 10 people speaking Spanish at once for three hours–I can only take it for so long before I have to go lay down. It's just too much for me; I need a break. And so, that was like one light element that was going on, but it's like tension’s building throughout the week. Everyone's talking about everything we're doing, and everything that's happening.

It's just like that's very “Latin family,” like phone tree. I say something, and then I get a text from this cousin way over there that already heard about it, because it goes “tick, tick, tick,” down the line of whatever. It's nuts. Everyone tells everyone everything. There's a lot of that stuff going on.

So meanwhile, everyone's been talking about us all week. There's been so many things that could have been fixed with direct communication, early on… “Put your stuff in your suitcase every day” was an expectation that I didn't know was happening (that I would never do on my own), but would have adjusted easily.

So it's all festering, right? All week. Including my sister seeing that an opportunity has opened to really hurt me. So on the eighth day, we do this big family shoot (family photo shoot), which in Colombia is like, forever. It lasts forever. First, all the women, then all the men, then just the kids, then this family, then this family, then everybody, then now with the grandparents–it's crazy and it goes on forever. So that ends, and my sister calls me and my cousin and my little, my youngest brother over and starts just screaming at us.

It was the craziest thing I've ever experienced. About something that I'm not gonna even indulge the content, because honestly it didn't matter. She was upset about something that we did that had zero negative consequences. It was just the little snack that she needed to have her opportunity to flip out. This is also not out of the norm for her. And it's also not out of the norm culturally, bringing back in the cultural piece. You don't deal with your feelings, you don't deal with your feelings, you don't deal with your feelings; you explode, and then everything's–and then you just move forward. And then everyone just goes, “That was annoying.” And just carries on. It's just, it's so foreign to me.

So, first thing I do is physically back up, and then I'm texting one of my closest adoptee friends. And she's with me in the moment and I'm like, “My sister's screaming. Like, this is crazy.” And she's like, “Just take some space.” She's coaching me through it. (Thank you, Summer! I love you.). And so I'm sitting down now, but it's still going on. And it goes on forever, and it goes into this whole attack that is specifically–would be designed to make an adoptee go insane. Nobody wants me in this family, and if I'm not gonna be like the family, then I should get out. And just craziness, right?

And she's also screaming at me in Spanish, so I'm not even getting everything. I'm getting enough. All the kids are here. This is like a show, right? And she wants me to respond, and I'm not gonna take the bait. And I'm also choking back tears. I'm like, She will NOT see me cry. Right? I'm locked down. But I also froze, which is pretty rare, right? But we know trauma response is fight, flight or freeze. And that's not my usual go-to, but I was so overwhelmed that I froze. And I have a lot of regret about that, but I also have compassion that that's just what my amygdala decided I was gonna do in that moment.

So this goes on forever. My mom gets involved. It's like she whipped everyone up, right? It was just like this weird, crazy frenzy. So, eventually, it ended; things transpired over the night… It was just a really rough night. Of course, I broke down. I was crying all night. I’m talking to my friend. My partner's there. My partner was sleeping through this. He was upstairs, so then he wakes up to me sobbing and shaking in bed, and (poor thing) has to deal with me. And we don't feel welcome.

We wanted to leave, but it's the middle of the night, so we waited till morning. We go get breakfast; we go find a hotel to go to. We just had one more night there. It didn't make sense to move our flights or anything, so we just went to a hotel in town (which my brother helped us find). And so, meanwhile, my mom has been—my sister has still been stirring up my mom, which… It's an important moment to pause and say that my mom was 16 when she had my sister. My sister's older than me. They have an interesting kind of inverted relationship, which can often happen right when teenagers have babies. That there's a parentified child role with the child. So, my sister's kind of the matriarch of my family. She has a lot of…she takes care of everyone, like financially.

Most of my family (in the beginning of the year) lived in her house, which changed by the end of the year, which is interesting. But she's kind of the leader of the family, so she has this influence over my mom that's kind of maternal and interesting. So in certain cases, I think when my mom is a certain level of vulnerable, she can get under her skin and kind of whip her up a little bit. So she's whipped my mom up that like I've done something terrible and that I'm also acting terrible in response to it. So she's email—She's texting me, texting me, texting me. And I'm saying, “I don't want to talk. I'm too overwhelmed. I'm really, really, really, REALLY upset. Can you please just let me calm down?”

She shows up when we're taking our bags to go to the hotel, asked to talk to me. I said, “Fine. You have five minutes.” She just starts screaming, which (again) has never happened before. I've never seen this side of her, and she's just screaming at me and I'm like, “Nope, not today.” Right? I'm a little bit more with my faculties then I'm like, “Not today.”

I scream at my partner and I'm like, “Let's go.” We've got our bags and we leave. And she's yelling at me the whole time. So that was me really breaking a cultural norm. You stay and you take your verbal whipping. That's what you do as a child. “You take your punishment” is sort of how it's viewed. Like, “You be a good kid and take your punishment and sit here and deal with the shaming and the yelling.” And so by leaving–which I was doing to take care of myself, right? There's my healthy boundary, right? There's my self-regulation. It's seen as very rebellious. So she is now–if she was at an 11, she's now at a 19 and she is rapid texting me, just venom.

I never saw this side of her before. The cruelest things anyone's ever said to me in my entire life. She used so many things against me, attacked just everything about me. I'm not gonna even say the exact things, because I just… I still, now, even in the aftermath, I do feel protective of this side of her. That was just..it's a really cruel part of her. But I know it's a reaction to trauma, right? But she just went at me in a way that I couldn't deal with. I was laying on the ground in our hotel room, tremoring, sobbing, just trying to calm down my baby part. That was my only goal. I just kept saying, “You're okay. We're okay. You're okay. We're okay.” Just so dysregulated.

And I just couldn't believe it, and in those moments…I was really trying to just stay with what was happening for me and calm myself down. But of course there's other parts of me that are thinking and, I'm really feeling like I’ve lost her. I don't have my mom anymore. It really felt like, I don't know how I could ever trust her again, that she would say these things to me. Who even are you? It felt, Okay, if this is really you, then everything else was a lie. And then and I can't… okay.

And I have like my “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” parts that are like, We lived without a mom for 30 and a half years. We can do it again. We'll survive. We're not gonna give…, right? Like I'm already rallying the troops, right? I'm like, I will get through this. Which I know I could have, but I think that just goes to speak to how, and we're re-wounded or re-traumatized. How strong that impulse is to just shut the door.

Haley Radke: So your mom is texting you these horrible things?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Uh-huh. Eventually, she stopped. I never wrote back that day. I never responded at all. It just felt like she was out of her mind, which she was. She was completely out of her mind.

Haley Radke: So you're getting texts from your sister and from your mom?

Marta Isabella Sierra: No, my sister had given up at that point. The damage had been done that she wanted to inflict on me, which was to humiliate me in front of my whole family. And so I'm just…I'm, like, dying. It's really rough. And then we have this huge long journey back to Cali. We get back. At this point, I'm already having my usual things that I have when I have an extreme trauma response, which is like my digestive system is insane, wreaking havoc on my body.

Soon after that, I got really sick again, which was my fourth time in the hospital in Colombia. This time, it was different than the other times, though. And then ultimately we decided it was probably dengue fever, which is from the mosquitoes in Llanos. Which, if you grow up there, there's two strains of dengue fever. You get them each as a child and then you never get them again. But the emotional crisis, I think, perfectly set my body up to come down with something like this. So it's a days-long fever with a rash all over your body, and vomiting, and just all of it…It's super fun. I’m dealing with that as I'm dealing with all this emotional stuff and not talking to my mom, really, not being ready and really wondering, Is this it? Is this over?

And we still had three months left. What am I even doing here anymore? It just–it was really, really crushing. The interesting piece of aftermath was also that my little brother (my youngest brother), as a result of all of this, decided he didn't want to live with my sister anymore. So he had asked if he could stay with us for a couple weeks while he looked for a place (when we got back from that trip), and so of course we said yes. And so two weeks was actually three-and-a-half months. He moved out a week before we left in July. But that was a whole other element.

Haley Radke: This must feel like choosing sides, then. Like he's choosing your side?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes. Yeah. So, I was worried about that—and so just the whole system reconfigures, right? And I have my great uncle, who’s my abuelo's brother, was one of the few people that I reached out to. He's this really grounded voice of wisdom in my family. I know that my mom will listen to him. And we talked and even he, though… He's not wrong. I love him so much, but he (I wasn't ready for any of it, either)... His view was, “You know better, Marta, more about all of this. You understand trauma better. You have to be the one to forgive. You have to be the one to open your hand up.”

And I just wasn't ready at that point. So I did. I took care of myself the way that I know how to, in the face of no one really understanding that. I did it anyways. I took a lot of space. I told her I needed time, that I did not know when I was gonna be able to talk, that I felt really unsafe around her. I did articulate a lot about how violated I felt, and how dysregulated my… I talked to her about parts anyways. Even though she doesn't understand IFS, I told her, “My traumatized baby is feeling really unsafe. I can't be around you right now. I don't know when I'll be ready.”

Talking to my supports at this point was huge, of course, but ultimately it was about me having IFS in my life. About me having this language. Because what I had to sit with (what I'm still sitting with), is that part of my mom hates me. Part of my mom maybe even wishes that I didn't exist. I'm a physical reminder of her rape.

Even though I look way more like my mom than–I mean (I haven't even seen a photo), but I look… People call us twins. I mean, it's—there's not a lot of pictures of her when she was younger, but people that knew her when she was younger say that we're identical. So, I don't have that piece that some children who are products of rape have of looking like that person.

But that doesn't change the fact that I'm the physical evidence of what happened to her. And some of the cruelest things she said to me that day were specifically about how I came into this world and this piece that I've been secretly feeling so vulnerable about, right? That we had never processed, to weaponize it against me in a moment of vulnerability, I just—it feels so heartless. But then if I back up and put my clinical hat on, I know she was really triggered being there, right?

All of those stressors that I said before. Being in that environment, I know she felt really exposed, too. And it was just the perfect storm of triggers. And she lashed out, because there's so much pain inside of her that she hasn't healed, that she hasn't let out, and it— she unleashed on me. And while I don't think that that's okay, obviously I do understand why it happened.

And there came a point–I just missed her. Even though she hurt me so much worse than anyone's ever hurt me, I just—day after day, I was starting to miss her. And I was starting to wonder, Is this really how I wanna leave here? Am I not gonna–am I really not gonna make this repair? Am I really gonna give up on this? Am I really ready?

I do have those parts. I know I could survive it, but the same way that my lens on her parts and her trauma helps me with compassion, I also still strongly feel like my responsibility is to my parts. And my job is to take care of my traumatized little girl.

And the question is, “Do…?” (Many. I say one, like my baby, but really like I feel very fond towards my five-year-old and my adolescent part, too). So all these little girls that I'm responsible for. What's gonna serve their healing? Is it to lose her again or is it my job to make sure that they have their mom so that they can heal and they can feel safe?

So we met with my translator (my friend, that’s my translator) and called and after some, a lot of texting, and we met in person and we just, we talked a lot about some of the things that— There was a lot said in the aftermath that I was really upset about, too. And so just healing up some of those wounds. And really, I think ultimately what it was, I saw her fear, too. And I don't know if she could have survived losing me, again. I don't know if I could have survived losing her again. At some point, somehow that all became clear to me: that it wasn't necessarily about what happened that day, but it was about moving forward together, because to lose each other again, I think would've just been so detrimental to both of us.

And actually, my mom has a lot of heart problems, and (unsurprisingly) she had a lot of symptoms after this trip. Her heart was literally breaking. So I'm really protective, obviously, of her health and ultimately we moved through it. And by the time I left, a couple months later, we were pretty much back where we had started and now we're–I mean, we talk every day.

She texted me, “Good luck!” before I signed on with you. And yeah, I can't imagine my life without her. And I know that so many reunions break because there's unhealed trauma and things that happen that just feel too painful to survive. And we feel like we have to walk away. And I'm absolutely not saying, “Whatever, just deal with whatever happens to you in these relationships.” Take care of yourself.

Again, I'm telling this story in 10 minutes, but it really evolved over two entire months and there's a lot that I'm not speaking to, of course. And it was complicated, but I still (at the end of the day) I'm so grateful. And without IFS, I don't know how I could hold that truth: that this woman that loves me, would move heaven and earth for me, is so loving, also has a part of her that hates me.

But that's just true. That's just being a human that's experienced trauma. It's not black and white. It's not like she loves me or she doesn't. I know that she loves me, and there's a part of her that hates me because I'm the reminder. I'm the proof. And I have to do my own work around that, around accepting that.

Haley Radke: Can you say how long, thinking about things and processing, before you guys all met with the translator–how much space did you give yourself?

Marta Isabella Sierra: I think probably six weeks at least, maybe more? I can't remember exactly, but…

Haley Radke: That's the thing. I don't want to gloss over that. Because, it wasn't like, “Oh!,” and then the next day, “Okay, we met up.” No, this is a big process.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes. And I worked part-time when I was down there, but I really didn't have a lot going on. I said it–I mean, everything shifted. If I gave you what a week looked like before that trip and a week after–I also was grieving the loss of my brother that I talked about in the last episode.

So suddenly, I wasn't hanging out with him most of the time. Suddenly, my youngest (my baby brother) is living with us and I'm all messed up, right? And I don't really want him to see me like that. So I'm hiding in my room. But then he's like, “Where are you?” ” He's worried; he's so worried about me. I mean, he's never seen anyone... It's funny when I step back. He's never seen someone feel something and move through it, like in the moment, the way that I sob when I'm moving through something, I think it really jostles him like, “Are you gonna die?” And I'm like, “No, I'm just feeling my feelings. This is so normal.”

And Tyson (my partner), Tyson's just like sitting there, right? While I'm like (emotional crying), because he's just used to me. And my brother’s like, “Oh my God, are you okay?” And I'm like, “Yeah! I’m, you know, feeling all my feels.” So I didn't have a lot going on. I just–this was what I was dealing with. This was what I was talking about. This was what I was writing about. This was what I was feeling. And in and out of it, like we are in our process, I was also doing numbing stuff, and staring at Netflix. You can't be with it all the time, every second. But yeah, it was a while.

Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. And I think it's really helpful for us to see, really, a point where reunion could have just broken down for good. And then what you did–what you chose to do, instead of walking away. I think, so many of us, it's easier to just be like, “Hey, that’s it!” And just shut that box, because it's so painful to look at and… Yeah. Thank you for your wisdom in there. Is there anything else you wanna say to us about that processing? Anything else in this area before we wrap up?

Marta Isabella Sierra: I think, just that–and of course (I can't speak for everybody), I only know my mom. But I would say, trust the things that you do know, if you have done some of your work. I know that people can't hear things in an activated state, right? So it was weeks later before I even started having more conversations about it with her, and ultimately she did open up to my point of view. She did want to hear things. And even if her beliefs don't change, she was willing to listen. We still had difficult, important conversations. And so I think, and again–that's with that language barrier I was talking about, that's with the cultural barrier and the mental health barrier.

It's complicated. And you have to be tenacious about it. I think that to know that we may have to have the same conversation five times in five different ways, because there's so much that could be possibly getting lost in translation here. And I think, when we're raw, that's so hard, right? She sends me something and I don't know those words. And I put it through Google Translate and it hits me in the gut, right? I have to be willing to take a breath in that moment and say, “Can you say that another way? Is that really what you meant?” Instead of flipping out, which is so hard to do. I'm not, all of this is so effing hard. It's so hard, but I think it's ultimately worth it.

Haley Radke: I think one of the most insightful things that you shared with us today was just that line, that (we glossed over it), but you said, “I was in my story and she was in her story.”

And just how powerful that is to think about that, we’re sort of looking at everyone else thinking, “Oh, well, they know what’s going on for me.” But they don’t. People are in their own story.

I think that’s so valuable to pin that away in the back of your head so that you can come back and be like, Oh, they’re in their story and I’m in my story.

Thank you so much, Marta. I mean, truly, for inviting us into some very intimate and vulnerable moments in your story and going back to painful things—that comes at a cost. And so I'm very grateful that you're willing to share that with us, and I know it's gonna be so helpful to so many of us.

So, thank you. And where can we connect with you online?

Marta Isabella Sierra: My website for my practice is (old website link removed) and you can find an email for me on there (martasierralmhc [at] gmail [dot] com).

I did also want to say, since we were talking about IFS at the beginning, I wasn't thinking of doing any recommended resources. But I will put in a tiny plug for Jonathan Van Ness’ book Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love. His memoir came out (for anyone who watches “Queer Eye,” he is the hairstylist on “Queer Eye”). He has survived a tremendous amount of trauma. He has been in IFS therapy for years, and his memoir hugely integrates IFS and it's awesome. I listened to it on audiobook.

Haley Radke: Wow. That is so interesting. I had no idea. I think he has a podcast, too.

Marta Isabella Sierra: He has a podcast called Getting Curious. There's also an episode with Rick (Richard) Schwartz, the creator of IFS. It's so amazing to watch Dick interact with Jonathan's parts.

Haley Radke: Okay. Thank you for those recommendations. That is excellent. And I think– I love hearing you talk about IFS, because it's so unique. I mean, in my perspective it's so unique and I don't know. I haven't told you this I don't think, but I've heard from several listeners that they have started IFS since hearing your episodes.

Marta Isabella Sierra:Oh, that's so great.

Haley Radke:And not just that. I know of one who is a mental health professional and she started training in IFS, cuz she found it so interesting and helpful.

So you're making–Look at that! Marta: the Adoptees On IFS influencer.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Oh my God. I love it. I also have started working in adoption for the first time, since the last time I saw you. So since I've been back in Boston, I've been working at Boston Post-Adoption Resources, which is in Brookline, and we're doing really awesome work.

So if you're in the area, or in Massachusetts and you need resources, call us.

Haley Radke: Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Don't you just feel so thankful when someone opens up and shares like that on the show? I truly am so grateful and I wouldn't be able to do the show without people being vulnerable, and teaching through their experiences. And also therapists who have this wealth of knowledge, and then actually applying it in real life.

This is a pretty valuable show. I'm just–I'm really grateful. Thank you so much again, Marta, for sharing with us. I truly—It's hard to know the impact of the podcast sometimes, because I only hear from a very small percentage of listeners (but I know there's thousands of you listening). But it's episodes like this and last week's that you just know, this will have an impact on someone else's reunion and helping them navigate. So, such an impact.

And if you want the show to continue and keep having an impact like this and hopefully helping save some reunions through understanding Marta's experience, and how you can learn from it, and you can look at, Ergh, what's wrong with mine? And how can we heal it? And work together to a new understanding of each other?

I mean, if you want that kind of value in the world, please consider partnering with my podcast and go to adopteeson.com/partner to support the show. It is so meaningful to me when you sign up. You're saying, “I want this show to exist in the world. I want other adoptees to have access to this information. Other family members, members of the constellation to be able to hear about the adoptee experience and hopefully get us on the same page.”

I just—I can't do the show without your help. If you have had that experience and have learned something from the podcast, please go to adopteeson.com/partner and check out all the ways you can support the show.

And right now, as I have been telling you for the last few weeks, we are doing an Adoptees On(ly) Reading Challenge. It's been so, so fun, and you can access that when you go to adopteeson.com/partner. Okay, thanks so much for listening. Let's talk again, next Friday.