252 Anne Elise
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/252
Haley Radke: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.
You're listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. I'm so excited to introduce you to today's guest. My friend Anna Elise. Anne lives abroad and we talk about some of the intersections she sees between living as an American expat and being an adopted person.
We also talk about our love of reading adoptee, authored work, rejection from our birth mothers, and what it's like growing up with an adopted brother who was keen to live out the defiant, quote unquote, acting out adoptee stereotype. Today's episode as brief mentions of suicide and traumatic death.
Before we get started, I want to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world. We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com.
Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Anne Elise Burlinger. Welcome in.
Anne Elise: Thank you, Haley.
Haley Radke: Okay, so I know you because you have been a patron of the show for such a long time. I should have looked it up when you started, but we've connected more and more in book club, so it's been really special to get to know you in that way, and I'm so excited to hear more of your personal story today.
Anne Elise: Oh, it's an honor to be here. Haley, your book club is the one and only book club I've ever been in, so. Me too.
Haley Radke: Oh my gosh. Anyway, why don't we start with your story.
Anne Elise: Okay. I am a domestic, same race adoptee. I was born in Alamosa in southern Colorado at the very tail end of the baby scoop era. And my birth parents were 20 and 21 years old. My birth mother was an out-of-state student at the college there, and my birth father was a young hippie.
They were a couple of sorts and they'd been together for. Well, over a year before I was born, but never with any intention of getting married. And my birth mother kept her pregnancy successfully under wraps. And once I was born, she told the social worker that she wanted to relinquish me and not have her parents or my birth father's parents find out about me.
Haley Radke: So did. So did your birth father know she was pregnant?
Anne Elise: Yes. He was the only one who knew she was pregnant. Okay. And I only know this from him. We are in Reunion and she wouldn't discuss the pregnancy with anyone and she did successfully hide it physically too. So I have to chuckle in my darker moments that the Alamosa District Court served as a bastard disposal machine.
Haley Radke: Oh, no.
Anne Elise: I was in, in fact, disappeared from my birth parents' lives. My birth father did inform his family later and he, to his credit, signed up with some of the registries during the eighties and nineties in an attempt to, to find me, reconnect with me. But I have to assume that my birth mother never told anyone. I experienced secondary rejection from her in 2000.
But as I said, I am in reunion with members of my paternal birth family. Cause Colorado opened its sealed records in 2016. I was able to get not only my original birth certificate, but the adoption file and it was other documents in that file that gave me his name. And identifying information.
Haley Radke: I've heard lately more and more about how, back then, some government organizations would refuse to have the birth father's name on birth certificates, which that's not news. But also if the mother insisted and wrote it out, I had a Canadian adoptee tell me that, that whoever was working in the office, they would literally cut out white strips and put it over wherever information was on the birth father section and photocopy all the papers. So some of them have these like shifted you know, I mean, I guess essentially white out sections just to hide it from us.
So you're saying that that information was in other places in that adoption file?
Anne Elise: Right. Colorado at that time, as far as I understood, if the birth parents weren't married, If the parents weren't married, the father was just left off. The mother's word about who the father was, just they just didn't they didn't record it on the birth certificate.
So my original birth certificate doesn't even have my name on it either. It has a date, a time, a sex. All of the fields, the boxes for my birth mother are filled out. Nothing is left out there, and then none is recorded for the birth father and my brother. I had a younger adopted brother from a different family of origin.
The situation was the same for him. Only we knew because he connected with her, that she named him. She named, she gave him her father's name because she naively thought he would be given that information and that would enable him to find her. But later, you know, she requested a copy of the original birth certificate and my brother too, and those, those were released then in the same condition mine was. Virtually empty except for the birth mother. Yeah. Now there is in the file, a report of adoption, and that's where everybody is listed. The adoptive parents are listed, the birth parents are listed, and then I was listed too. But that, no one, no one talks about that document.
Haley Radke: Certainly not.
Anne Elise: Yeah. Yeah. So my file tells me I was placed in foster care three days after my birth, and I stayed at that placement for three months and was given the name Valerie. After that I was placed with a prospective adoptive couple in Northern Colorado and they did adopt me. As I indicated, I have a younger brother, but I was the first child they adopted, and that went through when I was a toddler and my parents believed they adopted me as a baby. That was, you know, how we told that story inside the family. But the paperwork really shows a different story that I was indeed, like my brother, adopted from foster care.
Haley Radke: Interesting. Because as a toddler, so when you were like two?
Anne Elise: Well, the decree of adoption went through right around my first birthday.
Haley Radke: Oh.
Anne Elise: So, I mean, that is the cusp between infancy and toddlerhood. Mm-hmm. But I was walking. So.
Haley Radke: Right.
Anne Elise: The first full year of my life, my status was not clarified as to who I belonged to. And I don't think there was any real doubt in the minds of anyone, the social worker or my adoptive parents at that point.
But there has to have been some angst, you know, some undercurrent of nervousness before the court issued the final decree that, you know, transacted the baby. I just, You know, Jan Beatty and her, her recent and stunning memoir, American Bastard, just notes that, you know, these baby transactions take time.
And I think that's, that's the reason I was in foster care. And the reason that if we wanna be very accurate in describing how it all happened that I, I was in, I was adopted from foster care. Not as an in infant. And I think that is a feature of the adoptions that are handled by the state and the state welfare departments. That there's just more vetting going on.
It's not a private adoption through an attorney or just, you know, a handoff in the delivering room where the doctor brokers the baby, basically.
Haley Radke: Mm-hmm. I, you know, I appreciate you kind of diving into this part. Because I also was adopted through the province, and my adoption wasn't finalized till, I think it was nine months. And so that's what my paperwork indicates too.
Anne Elise: Mm-hmm. Very typical. Yeah.
Haley Radke: Yep.
Anne Elise: So my adoptive parents, they were both university teachers. They had me and they adopted me. And, and my younger brother, he was two years younger, so we were close in age, but very, very different in personality, temperament.
And as Nancy very points out, we did exactly what was expected. I was compliant in acting in, and my brother was defiant and acting out. And I think having a non-genetic younger sibling who was really impacted by the trauma of his relinquishment and adoption, kept any kind of rosiness from coloring my view of adoption or even parenting in general.
I think from a very young age, I had a front row seat too what tragically unfolded as a failed adoption. It took 45 years, but I think in the end, that's the correct description of what happened. I should probably mention at this point that my adoptive parents and my adoptive brother are deceased and that I'm the only one left now to tell the stories.
Haley Radke: I'm sorry.
Anne Elise: And so as a young child, I had a very real desire to know who my parents were and where they were. Then at that point when I was asking the questions, but my, my adoptive parents were just not equipped for the situation. And both my brother and I were conditioned not to talk about it and to stop questioning and my brother and I, strangely enough, never talked about adoption among ourselves.
Not once, never nothing. And I regard this now as one of the central tragedies of our childhood.
Haley Radke: So even in adulthood, you didn't necessarily talk about it?
Anne Elise: Not the adoption experience. He did go into reunion well before I did, but I didn't talk to him about it. We didn't compare our families of origin or anything like that. The conditioning to be silent about it, to, to push it underground was really strong. And again I think our family dynamic was such that my brother and I weren't natural allies.
Haley Radke: It feels like such such an intimate conversation to have with someone. Right?
Anne Elise: Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think we have the language for it.
Haley Radke: Yeah. And if you're al not already, like deeply close and sharing these, whatever my hopes and dreams, to go from whatever level you are to go talking about adoption stuff, it's so deeply personal. It feels like a huge leap.
Anne Elise: Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't even start talking about adoption in these kinds of ways until very recently.
You know, I need to I, I find myself reflecting often on the observation that many adoptees wait until their adoptive parents have passed before really looking closely at their adoption and their a childhood and where they're at with it. And I think that really kind of, describes my case because I noticed once my parents passed as, as much as I missed them, as much as I grieved that, that I suddenly, not suddenly, with time I found myself feeling things and thinking things that I don't think I had permission to feel or think before.
And so I think there was a, it was just off limits. It was a no-go area.
Haley Radke: Right. Appreciate you saying that and referring to it as like conditioning and things. Cuz I think sometimes when people hear us talk about it, like, oh, it wasn't safe to talk about that in my house or whatever. It's like people think, we brought it up one time and we got yelled at or something. But that's really not it. Maybe we did at some point when we were younger, ask some question and then you can just tell. Right? You can tell what's a safe topic and what's not, and what makes your parents uncomfortable and, okay, well gotta keep the peace. Like we can't go there. Right?
Anne Elise: Absolutely. And I, I was really inquisitive. I think I was pretty relentless as a young child. So under 10. And I remember when I was in fourth grade, we had done the Anasazi, the Four Corners, area in Colorado. As part of, you know, elementary history. And my parents took that opportunity in spring break to go and visit the Four Corners and Mesa Verde, and that's not all that far from Alamosa.
So they took me to Alamosa too, to show me where I was born. But what they showed me in effect was, this is an absolutely cold trail. We don't know anything. That's the hospital you were born in. That's it. That's what you get. And that's when I just realized that if there was information out there, it was out there, but it wasn't with my adoptive parents.
And so, you know, I go underground for 30, 40 years.
Haley Radke: Well, no shame, right? That is Well, that's true for most of us. I think just for mental safety.
Anne Elise: Right. You just have to get on with it somehow. Yeah. The rest of life, you've gotta, you've gotta grow up, you've gotta, you know, you have things to do. You, and, but it never, it, it's always there. It's, it's always there in the background.
Haley Radke: Well, I'm really sorry for the loss of your brother.
Anne Elise: Thank you. Thank you. It, it's been a complicated, complicated thing to process. It was a untimely death. It was a, a sudden accident. It was not suicide, it wasn't drug related. But, you know, it was a, was a really misfortunate event. And I remember going back and forth with the coroner because they did need to make a call between suicide or natural death. Natural cause. And I think in the end, I think she made the right decision because she was looking at the time in which he died, the place in which he died, in the circumstances under which he died, he froze to death.
But of course, I knew the full arc of his life. And for me, one could also have argued that it was the results of a very long suicide attempt.
Haley Radke: Yeah. There's deep, deep pain. We can see deep pain, right? Yeah. I'm sorry.
Anne Elise: Yeah. Thank you, Haley.
Haley Radke: So at what point did you start looking into what adoption meant to you? Was it really after the death of your adoptive parents?
Anne Elise: No, that's a good question. I, I remember when I was in my undergraduate years, Rickie Solinger's exhibit, Wake Up Little Susie, came to my campus and I, I wandered into it one day. It was in the student center and it blew my head off. Because of course, you know, I knew that other adopted people were out there.
My, there was my brother and there was also like half a dozen other kids in my school that I knew of. We never spoke about it with each other, of course. But I knew that adopted people, adopted children, were out there. What I had never really given any thought to was that there were just as many birth mothers out there.
And what I hadn't realized is that, this was part of a larger social phenomenon, the Baby Scoop era, and that it was news to me that many of these women hadn't wanted to give up their babies. And it was also news to me that most of these women had even less information than I did. I mean, I knew the height of my birth mother, her eye color, her hair color, but she didn't know anything like that about me.
And so it, it, it really hit home to me. What I think I had felt all along was that I was someone's missing child. You know? I had parents, I had a family, but I was also at the same time, some somebody's missing child.
Haley Radke: It hit that hits differently, right? It's like, oh my gosh. That's literally the difference when a child is either apprehended or relinquished and you're, there's a permanent, permanent severance. You're out there somewhere and who knows, who knows where you are.
Anne Elise: Yeah. And that, that showed me for the first time, cognitively, that that was a dimension of this experience.
Haley Radke: When did you decide to look into it further? I know you said Colorado opened records in 2016, but prior to that, did you try and search?
Did you like, what were the things that you did in the late 1990s?
Anne Elise: So yeah, it must have been about 1998, 99. There was internet, but there wasn't any DNA and information on the internet hadn't been heavily monetized yet, that you could just go on and find out someone's birth date or where they lived and that sort of thing.
That, that was much more, there was less out there, but there weren't any of the barriers where you have to pay to get stuff that, that came slowly. Later, there was a group in Colorado, it was run by an adoptive mother, but she, she was quite an ally. She was pro adoptee. Very feisty. Very. Very informed as much as one could be, or, or she was up. She was very informed with the state of things in the, at that point in time. And she did everything she could to help us searching.
Colorado was buttoned down tight. I think that if you were lucky enough to have a full name and a birth date for a birth parent, there was some sort of network that would connect with the D M V, the division of motor Vehicles to get you that information.
But that was all contingent on the birth parent also living in Colorado. So, you know, there were stories in, in the, it wasn't, it was like before Facebook when you'd have like these email lists. And people, it was just, it was great. It, it was these long email almost correspondence relationships where, you know, people, a person would write a message and then everyone else would take a day or two to craft their responses.
I mean, it was much slower than the Facebook exchanges of today, but they were also much deeper. It was kind of like playing chess at a distance. I mean, real effort was put in to these discussions that took place online. I even have some of them archived still. The support that what we have today, I think in, you know, our adoptee communities that existed then as well.
And so I dived into that. I basically became a little private detective. Yeah. And, and as it was all paper-based, we would comb through the non-identifying information to just sort of, what's fact and what can be speculated and based on that, what's likely, what's probable, what's possible. And in 2000, you know, I, I actually returned to Alamosa with my fiance now husband, and we went to the Alamosa High School and paged through yearbooks looking for pictures of men who had similar faces to mine.
My gut instinct was just that I looked more like my father than my mother. It was just my gut instinct. And we went to the college there and went through those yearbooks too. And that's where I found out not just what my birth mother looked like in a very grainy black and white photograph, but that I also found out the state she was from that had been withheld.
That was another, another thing we were told, she was an out-of-state student, but never told which state she came from, and then just no information was given about where my father was from or where his family was from. In the end, he was from an Alamosa family or other prominent Alamosa family, but that was never given.
So I grew up in Colorado. My adoptive parents were transplants to Colorado. My mother's from Minnesota, my father from Chicago, so they weren't coloradoans. And so I never felt that I was necessarily a bonafide Coloradoan in either. So while I felt connected to Colorado, I never felt like I had deep roots there.
And so, yeah, that was strange. I would, I knew as American, but I ultimately didn't know which state I was from.
Haley Radke: Did that make it easier to move to a new continent?
Anne Elise: Yes. Yes. And the fact I had lived abroad as a child.
Haley Radke: Sure. Tell us about it. I think you've lived a unique unique life to someone who's lived in the same province their entire life. And you know, I lived in the same town for 14 years now. I live where I was born. It feels so strange to me to hear about people who have moved and live confidently in different states, countries abroad. It feels scary and I don't know that I would do that. I don't know if I would have it in me, but if you feel unrooted, perhaps it's easier. I don;t know.
Anne Elise: One very formative thing that my adoptive family gave me for which I am, I'm really grateful. I will always treasure this, was the opportunity to travel internationally from a very young age. When I was 12 years old, my dad, who was a history professor, did a Fulbright Exchange and we spent time in Genoa, Italy.
And my mom was a passionate francophone. She was a French teacher and she had strong ties to France. So we spent a fair amount of time there and elsewhere around the world in, in the years that followed. And I think this was a crucial aspect in my relationship with my adoptive mother because at age 12, right on the cusp of my teenage years, the time when you would expect a child to rebel, I witnessed her superpowers when we were in foreign countries where English was not spoken.
She took control, she spoke the languages, she figured out how things worked, she made phone calls. She networked with locals and other expats. She was very outgoing and savvy. And Continental Europe was the perfect setting for her. And I remember very consciously thinking to myself that there was a lot I could learn and absorb from this woman.
And so we became much closer during my adolescence than we had been during my earlier childhood. And that has served me well. That served me very well. But I think it was moving into a completely different sphere that made that possible. So I mean, also even putting adoption aside, I, I think it would be fair to say that I had been primed to seek a life far away.
And I stuck close to home. I really did. I stuck very close to home throughout my university years. I attended the university where my parents taught both for my bachelor's and my master's degree. But I knew, I knew when I made a move, it would be to a place very far away.
Haley Radke: That's really interesting. When we moved to this house, I thought, I'm never moving again. So they can take me outta here when I'm, when I'm elderly. But do you think, what is this connection with adoption and living an expat life? Do you feel like there's any, I don't know, through lines for you or things that you've compared for yourself? I know it's not most or a lot of us, we've not experienced that.
But you've lived, how long have you lived where you lived?
Anne Elise: I moved to Germany in 2000 in the fall. So, 23 years, 23 and a half years.
Haley Radke: So the year that your birth mother rejected you.
Anne Elise: She rejected. It was just one phone call that an intermediary made on my behalf. And that was in the beginning of September, and I moved at the end of October. So, yes, it was right on the heels of that.
Haley Radke: Okay. I want you to answer my question. I just asked you, but I need to pause. And I had a listener email me and ask me, oh, is there any service that essentially, she was asking what an intermediary was and if that was available. And I replied back and I was like, you gotta do it yourself. Don't let an intermediary do it. And if you're not ready, you're not ready and don't do it yet and get supports. That's essentially the gist of what I told them. What are your thoughts on that? Being someone who let someone else do that phone call for you and that was the result.
Anne Elise: That's interesting. In my case, and I'm speaking only for myself, I'm very grateful that I did not make that call. It was a devastating call. Even for the intermediary. She stopped doing that work shortly after.
Haley Radke: Oh my God.
Anne Elise: Yeah. I don't, I, I think I'm a little too discombobulated to... my birth mother was taken completely by, surprised by the phone call. Yeah. And she got triggered. She got sent out into orbit.
I think, now, reflecting upon it years later, that she didn't even understand the conversation. And my, I was seeing a counselor at the time who guided me through the searching for her and the contacting and he helped me in the aftermath of that. And his take on it was very interesting. He was a medical doctor who had become a psychologist and he, looking at the transcript that we got from the intermediary about of the call, he likened it to a person with a liver abscess. That life is fine, you have no indication of what you're carrying inside you, and then suddenly your liver ruptures. And the toxins flood your system. She just became overcome by the shame and guilt of it and wasn't able, wasn't able to respond in any coherent manner. She did not she, I mean, even from the outset of the call when the intermediary said, are you this person?
Her response was, well, what do you want? She never would, you know, it wasn't a yes, I am this person. Mm-hmm. It was already standoffish and things just went very, very south. From there, as I can gather, it was devastating to me like nothing else in my life. It took me years, years to process the rage and the un ari sadness.
Yes. Because I didn't know at the time I hadn't seen my file, but she had relinquished me wanting me at that time basically to disappear.
Haley Radke: I think that's something I've, I, I start cautioning people about Reunion and I think, I think if you listen to enough episodes of this podcast or other adoptees telling their story is like, we have to be in a place where no matter the outcome, cuz it could be anything no matter the outcome, we have supports in place and are still, you know, I'm just like picturing ourselves as like this pillar we can, we have the, the strength in ourselves to be okay no matter the outcome and, when you're like eager in doing your search and you don't necessarily picture ever having something like that be the outcome, it's easy to go fast and just get to the next, and you wanna get to know them and, and you just don't even picture that this could be some horrible outcome.
Anne Elise: Well, my instincts told me even at that time that, you know, I was the one pulling the brakes on everyone else.
Haley Radke: Interesting.
Anne Elise: Even the intermediary was, oh yeah, I think your birth mom is, you know, she had her theories and I was just like, no. We don't know anything until we know . I had feelings, I had, I had feelings of hesitation very definitively.
And I don't think I was flabbergasted. I wasn't, I wasn't blown away by it. I knew, I knew that could be an outcome. You know, I had done my homework. I had read, you know, the books and looked at the statistics . you know, you look at, I think at that time the thought was that less than 5% of birth mothers rejected contact.
But I mean, if I reach out to my birth mother and she rejects me, it's not like 5% is being rejected or 5%. It's, it's an all or nothing.
Haley Radke: It's a hundred. He's a hundred percent rejected.
Anne Elise: Right. So that's, I knew going in that, that statistic didn't mean anything. Yeah. In the individual case.
Haley Radke: Oh god. So it's like, More like trust your intuition and the people around you, they go, go, go. And you're like, I don't know guys. But it's, that's tough, right? Because if there it's, it's someone that's an intermediary. I've done lots of bees. Yeah. I get how it goes, you know? Oh my gosh. That makes it so much worse. Okay. Okay. Well, I don't know if I gave the right advice then. I still think I did.
Anne Elise: I think you did. Haley. I, I can only speak for myself.
Haley Radke: Yeah, yeah.
Anne Elise: You know, we hear many adoptees tell their stories about how they reach out and it's fine. I have this theory that it doesn't matter how you reach out. A cryptic postcard. Call out of the blue. Bleed your heart out onto 10 pages.
If the person you are contacting is open to contact, waiting for contact, it doesn't matter how you contact them. But if they're not open...
Haley Radke: then it also doesn't matter how you contact...
Anne Elise: it doesn't matter what you do. Right. It's not gonna work.
Haley Radke: Okay. All right. Well, thank you for you know, letting me go down that little trail. Let's go back to the expat experience and through lines to adoption.
Anne Elise: Okay. What I can say is that when you move, you take everything with you. And that life as an expat has a lot in common with the adoption experience because I think when you stay at home in you, in your, in the setting you grew up in, in the culture you grew up in, a lot of things just.
Stay dormant or a little bit under the surface, and not necessarily that you're not necessarily confronted by them, but when you go to live in a foreign place, in a foreign culture, even a place where the language is different, suddenly you really are a stranger among strangers. And that's not entirely a new feeling for the adopted person.
And the interesting thing is that no one has an invested interest in denying this or making a secret out of this. You're the outsider. It's so refreshing.
Haley Radke: You love it. Okay. Okay.
Anne Elise: Well, I'm not saying it, it's still lonely and has its very isolated moments. I. And you know, suddenly it's like, yeah, I don't belong, but it's all out in the open.
You have to confront it. You have to say, okay, what do I make of this? How okay am I in failing at the chameleon thing?
Haley Radke: Interesting.
Anne Elise: Because I'll never speak German the way a native born German speaks German. I'm going to always be an expat. I, I'm always going to be a foreigner here in some capacity, even after 23 years.
I mean, I, I can't say I'm German.
Haley Radke: So there's some sort of comfort in, it's recognized by all that I am not, I don't, I, I'm not from here. And in adoption, we don't get that.
Anne Elise: Right.
Haley Radke: We can't necessarily see, you're not from here. Even if we do, you should be there and you should be thankful for it.
Anne Elise: Right? Well, yeah. I mean, I don't wanna get too far into the, in immigrant experience cuz that, that, that really gets into the weeds, but, you know, it's just a fact. You're different and it, it goes beyond genetics or physical attributes or, you know, it's, it's just, you know, you're from somewhere else and it's interesting and people will ask you questions about it.
And although the question, the question, where are you from? That people are now starting to realize that that's not the way to open conversations with people who are obviously from somewhere else. Or like, how long have you been in Germany? Because every once in a while someone has been born there. I just came across this statistic the other day, but one in four Germans has a migratory background.
It's 25% of the population, not Germans, but people in Germany. So that includes me. So it's not a lonely experience either. I mean, if I go out onto the main street here, I will see women from the Middle East in head scarves. I will pass clusters of women with children speaking of a slavic language.
I'm not a freak. I'm not that exotic. You know, there, there are a lot of us out there who, you know, are wandering into the local library saying, okay, so how do we get a card?
But you know, the language barrier is very real. And I think that it can in one way make you feel very unseen. And when I was learning German in the early years, I remember wanting, often wanting to communicate more than I had the ability to verbalize. And I would find myself in a situation where I knew what I wanted to say, and it was quite nuanced and perhaps complex and informed by the whole set of experiences that formed me in my life.
And none of this could be discerned by the person I was talking to. And. I remember watching people German, the German people I, you know, I was trying to communicate with, think they understood enough of what I was saying of who I was to start forming judgements. While at the same time I was aware that they had only grasped a really narrow slice of what I was trying to say or who I was.
So, in being visibly foreign, it can practically also render you quite invisible to people. They just don't see who you are because you are not within the world as they understand it. You know, I've just said that, you know, you can feel invisible. But the other side of that coin is when you do master a new language, when you do become literate in a new culture that is so empowering.
And so I, I can say that I feel like I crafted a major part of my adult identity by leaving where I grew up, going to somewhere completely new. I made me, me as much as anything else did. .
Haley Radke: So like this, the ownership over identity is very empowering. Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Anne Elise: Yeah. But I mean, you know, it, it's a, it's a complex life because oftentimes, you know, adoptees will mention feeling like an imposter or a chameleon. And, you know, those two things certainly come up. I think when anybody goes to a new place, finds themselves in a new culture, a new setting I can say in my experience that the feelings of being an imposter has rec, those they have receded.
My adoptive mother, she placed great view on when in Rome do as the Romans. And it was really important to her that when we were abroad, that we just not appear to be American. And that it was, it was highly desirable to appear, to be native wherever you were. You needed to not be foreign. So part of the accepting that you don't belong, that you're just, you're different from the people you live among the feelings that can come with adoption like.
Being an imposter or having to be a chameleon, those really kind of just recede because they're not useful. They, there's, you know, you can try to be a chameleon, but like I said, you're from somewhere else. It's no big deal. And past a certain point, the effort that goes into not being yourself, the returns just don't come in past a certain point.
So I found it very freeing to be in a place where I'm not expected to be like everyone else. You get cut some slack in a way to be different, to be a little eccentric or to be a little clueless. I mean, people will cut you some slack. And I don't think that adoptees are always given that grace. And I don't know that they always give it to themselves.
Haley Radke: Isn't that the truth?
Anne Elise: But, you know, I also have to say that, you know, I am guilty of perfectionism and that always does sometimes creep in and the desire to get every detail right. And, you know, in all my interactions, daily interactions in German, you know, not making any mistakes that that's there too. But it relaxes with time because you just realize you can't, you can't beat yourself up about that.
Haley Radke: You have a very, a job that requires precision though. Correct?
Anne Elise: Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's something else. I think that that would tie into the hypervigilance, and I think that is what goes into overdrive. When you find yourself in a foreign setting, you know, getting the lay of the land, figuring out how things work, where to go to get certain things, how to avoid problems, what's important, how to fit in, what not to do, what not to say, where things are, how the system works. It goes on and on. I mean, it's a, it's an information, it's information collection in overtime in the beginning.
And I would think it would be really exhausting for people to live abroad if their baseline for taking in analyzing and remembering information isn't already high. And I was a very hyper-vigilant child and young adult. And so in a way I was very suited for the kind of adaptation that needs to happen when a person immigrates to a new country.
Adopted people definitely have an edge here and. That might be my superpower as an immigrant.
Haley Radke: Okay. That's great. I love that you have this thing you can have a claim over and be proud of yourself in, and, and I think that's amazing.
Anne Elise: Yeah. Yeah. When I, when I think about it you know, I don't have a glamorous career. I don't. Like I said, I mean, you Googled me prior to the interview and came up empty handed. But I do, within the life that I live, I have accomplished something amazing when I just step back and think about it. But I had to let everything go. I had to, I, I left the place I had, I left Colorado, the only place I had lived in the United States.
I left my parents behind. I wasn't there for the most part. I visited certainly, but I left friends. It has come at a price, certainly, but I think this price is something we might all pay, because what I've noticed, you know, when I travel back, it's that I can't go back to the place I left because 23 years is a long time and that place just isn't there anymore.
And so I think that in some ways, you know, we move around in the world, but time moves around, it moves past us, and so even if we stay in one place, our whole life in a way we migrate through time. And the place where we were born and grew up and had our own family and grew old, even if that is geographically the same space, it will be radically different over time.
So in that way, I think we might all be migrants and the big challenge then in life would be to keep oneself anchored somehow.
Haley Radke: I think that's a piece of knowing ourselves. Right?
Anne Elise: Absolutely.
Haley Radke: Yeah. Having a, this strength in our identity and who we're becoming because we're different people from 20 years ago.
Anne Elise: Right. The self-reflection or the self-knowledge or, yeah. Yeah.
Haley Radke: Well that's fascinating to think about and not to discount a, like using the word migrant and I think, oh my goodness. We're white women with privilege talking about this and there are people who have extremely different experiences.
Anne Elise: Yeah, no, I don't. From the very, very first days in Germany I was never under the illusion that had I been an African American, that I could have done what I did. No, it's absolutely contingent on my blonde hair, blue eyes, German last name, white skin. Yeah, no question.
Haley Radke: Okay. Acknowledge that. And let's talk about before we do recommended resources, I desperately wanna talk reading with you because.
Anne Elise: Oh yeah, let's do that. Let's do that.
Haley Radke: Anne, you are such a. I don't know. I always think, oh my gosh, she is so intelligent. She picks up on all these little things here and there that I.
Anne Elise: It's hypervigilance.
Haley Radke: My God. See, hypervigilant is a great, it's a great, great quality. Anyway,
Anne Elise: Sold on it. That and compartmentalization, I think, I think compartmentalization is, is super. I don't know what psychologists have against it. I mean, this storage. It solves so many problems.
Haley Radke: Okay. That's good. That's good. Okay. So, I'm curious how reading about other adopted people's experiences or I know you read a wide variety of things about adoption. How has that impacted your journey as an adopted person sort of exploring what adoption's impact has had on you.
Anne Elise: Oh, wow. Okay. I was reading other adoptees talk about their adopted experiences was for me, like discovering what's referred to as an occluded narrative.
Haley Radke: I don't know what that means. Please tell us.
Anne Elise: Yeah. The occluded narrative is the story that just isn't told. It's just not told. It's like there isn't a voice that can or will tell it, and there may not necessarily be any ears that can or he will hear it. It's just a story that's not told.
I mean, this is, I don't know if this is the best example, but it's what comes to my mind. So we'll just go with it. When I was doing my masters in Shakespeare, I was working with Measure from Measure, and this a doesn't have a whole lot of characters. There's a Duke and a nun by the name of Isabella and they're the main characters. And at some point during the play, the Duke is moving through a doorway and this doorway is to a convent and it is manned by a nun, as you know, serving as the gatekeeper, the porter. And she has a name, I believe, if my memory serves.
Her name is Francesca, and he comes along and she lets him through. They, I think they might have in exchange. I'm not sure. That's it. We don't know anything about Francesca other than she's a nun in this convent and she serves as gatekeeper. We don't know how she became a nun. We don't know what she thinks about it.
We don't know anything about her life. That is a story inside the story that just is not told. And so for me, finding a body of literature written by adoptees, it was like finding these narratives. They aren't told.
Haley Radke: Do you see you when you read?
Anne Elise: Yeah, A lot of times. A lot of times. Or I'll read a sentence or a paragraph that resonates so deeply, it'll feel like it's, you know, it could have come from my own experience that, you know, this person had verbalized something that I am so in sync with. That I recognize immediately what they're saying and why they feel moved to say it. Yeah, it's really deepened my understanding of the adoption experience. It's certainly cut down on the feelings of isolation or confusion. It's been very normalizing to read others what they have to say and what their journeys.
It's been really, really validating and valuable and it's really heartened me to look more closely at myself and my own life. And with courageous honesty, they can stay open and soft and not turn bitter or hateful or spiteful. But yeah, it's been really useful in keeping the human aspect of it. At the forefront because you know, one of the first things anyone will say about adoption is that it brings out the best and the worst in people.
And at least I think adoptees reading other adoptees in my experience has so far brought out the best in us.
Haley Radke: I get to talk to so many adopted people, as you know. And one thing I really appreciate that's different for me is when I'm reading a memoir by an adopted person, I can really like pause and you know, sort of think about it longer. And I don't, I mean, I don't write in my books, but I can add a note in some fashion. Listen, we don't dog ear here. I know some of you write in your books, so. No, no, not you, not you Ann, but other people could. Anyway.
Anne Elise: No, I didn't even break the spines on my books. Oh, my books are, are so special to me.
Haley Radke: That's right. That's right. I wish you could see my bookshelf. I know you've seen it before, but I've seen it. You can.
Anne Elise: It's color coordinated. I love that.
Haley Radke: Which is useless when I'm trying to find a book, I just have to say, do not recommend. It's pretty, but it's useless. Anyway, I, I don't know. I think that timing piece is what helps me yeah. Think more deeply about what someone said, and I can't just like, move on to the next thing until it's sort of sunk in.
Anne Elise: So, yeah. What I notice when I read Adoptee Voices or read read the writings of adopted people is that I really, I, I, I can sometimes respond physically. Cold, sweaty, hands shaking and shivering, get very restless. I know when I read, you know, just, you know, reading passages from Sarah -Jayne King's Killing Caroline, for instance.
You know, I still think back, I, I have markers in that book because her situation is not the same as mine. But her parents disappeared her from their lives too. I mean once you start reading, you, you see some of the you see that other people have very similar experiences. When someone is able to speak insightfully and honestly about it, it's, it just, it gives a sense, a sense of connection.
I mean, it's, it's me reading words on the page, but I. But they are, they, they resonate so deeply. They, I mean, you know, I, as I just said, the reaction can be physical. It can be, it can be very, very magical.
Haley Radke: There are so many great adoptee othered books. People have no idea. We've read a lot of them in book club.
I'm really glad we've preserved a lot of those conversations and audio too. But being there in person is like, so fun. Yeah. Anyway, with fellow readers. Okay. Okay. I love talking about reading. Let's move to recommended resources. Mine is a long form piece that came out in the New Yorker at the beginning of April, 2023.
It's called Living in Adoption's Emotional Aftermath. It was written by Larissa MacFarquhar and the byline is adoptees Reckon with corruption in orphanages, hidden birth certificates, and the urge to search for their birth parents. And this article features three prominent adopted people in our community.
Many of you will recognize their names. Of course, our friend Deanna Shrodes, Angela Tucker and Joy Lieberthal Roe are all featured in this article. Which Larissa was interviewing these folks for months and months and months and months. It has extensive reporting, fact checking, all of the things that the New Yorker is famous for, and it tells the perspective from three powerful adoptees.
It's really incredible to see this kind of coverage for adopted people. In mainstream media with like no caveats and no right, like no other voices chiming in. And I think the impact it's had in our community is profound To see, like someone like me is like in the New Yorker. It's so amazing. And if I, if you do read this article and you go looking for the other social media posts associated with it, y'all don't go in the comments.
Okay? Don't go. Because as much as a lot of us love this article telling the truth about adopted people some of the readers do not appreciate adopted people criticizing adoption, as you may imagine.
So anyway, if you haven't seen it yet, we'll link to it in the show notes, but I really appreciated the honesty in which, you know, Deanna Joy and Angela all like poured out to Larissa and I think she did a really wonderful job sharing their stories. So, did you see that article, Anne? What were your thoughts?
Anne Elise: I did, I did. And I, I read, I read it through and was really impressed. Really impressed. Yeah. I think it's a big step forward in journalism. That kind of, that that article got published.
Haley Radke: Yep. And when I say long form, okay. When I saved it as a pdf, so I, you know, eventually wouldn't get paywall out of it. It's 65 pages. So it's it is quite extensive. So, you know, set aside like a real long afternoon coffee break to, to read that if you'd like to. Okay. What do you wanna recommend to us?
Anne Elise: The first thing is for your entire listenership, and that is a a new bye way podcast called Adoptees Crossing Lines. It's 30 minute episodes in which three hosts all adult adoptees of similar and different backgrounds. Talk about various aspects of the adoption experience, and I haven't listened to all of them yet. I've listened to two, one on adoptees and grief. And adoptees as parents. And I found the discussions informed, insightful, articulate, honest and helpful.
Really helpful to me in understanding my own my own journey. So I'd like to highlight that.
Haley Radke: Can I read the description for folks? It says, we are three people with three very different experiences of being adopted. In this podcast, we deconstruct the romanticism, holding up the adoption industry and expose the lies, abuse and pain that gets silenced.
We are here to unwrap the shiny bow around adoption and speak our truths as adoptees. In doing so, we explain what it means and what it feels like to come under the fog. This isn't your feel good podcast. We are angry, healing, and honest adoptees. So I think for a lot of us that is. Our kind of show. I love that you brought that to us. Thank you.
Anne Elise: Right. Yeah. And second, my second recommended resource is for a specific subset of adoptees, namely those who grew up with an acting out sibling, biological, or adoptive. I want to mention a book titled The Normal One, Life With a Difficult or Damaged Sibling. It's written by Jean Safer there's very little in the literature about siblings in general, let alone non-genetic siblings.
But this book, even though it has nothing to do with adoption, gave me a framework, gave me a way in which to better understand the family dynamics I grew up in and how they affected me and continue to affect me and what I can do to acknowledge that. Not accept it, but acknowledge it. Because looking back, a lot of my life decisions can be traced to my sibling relationships.
Haley Radke: Thank you. I really appreciate your candor in sharing about your brother with us, and I think this will be helpful for a lot of folks.
Anne Elise: Yeah. My hope is that what I have been able to share here will help others to know that they're not alone. If you felt it, we've felt it too.
Haley Radke: Yes. Yes. Okay. Where can we connect with you online un Googleable one.
Anne Elise: Yeah, Facebook.
Haley Radke: Okay.
Anne Elise: And find me on Facebook.
Haley Radke: All right. We'll link your profile in Facebook, so if people wanna send you a note, they are able to. Thank you so much. Anne. You don't know this probably, but you are very dear to me. I always think of you when I think of book club and we haven't talked that frequently, but you're, I always carry you around with me.
Anne Elise: So just so you know, Haley, let me take the opportunity to thank you from the bottom of my heart for creating this space that is so safe for adoptees. It's been an honor to, to join it, to have found it, and to have found such a warm place here. And thank you too for this conversation.
Haley Radke: Thank you so much. That's very kind.
You know what, Anne comes to almost every single book club we have had on Patreon for supporters of the show, and she figures out the time zone change. She is there. She is, is truly, truly an avid reader and it's such a delight to hear her takes on whatever we're reading together. If you are interested in getting a little bit more into adoptee authored reading, I would love to have you join us.
AdopteesOn.com/bookclub has the list of the books we're reading this year and we have some really excellent titles coming up, so I hope you will consider joining us. And if you have read some of the adoptee authored work that guests of the show have written we have a bunch of recordings of past book clubs that are available on Patreon as well.
So that back catalog is becoming extensive, just like this main feat is. So I'm really proud of all that work we've collected together for you. Adopteeson.com/bookclub has details for that. If you'd like to help with our transcription project, you can go to AdopteesOn.com/donate to find out more details.
And I'm so thankful for each of my guests for sharing their stories with us and being so vulnerable. It is truly an honor to get to share these with you our listeners. Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.
