Why Adoption Still Hurts

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Dear listeners, you know, like one in five people you know is either adopted or loves someone who is. And most of us walk past that every single day without ever asking the question which is underneath it. Like, what does it actually feel like to grow up without not knowing your first story? Yes. And today we are going to sit with that question gently and with the real tools that is attached to it. Welcome back, dear listeners, to Healthy Mind, Healthy Life, the podcast where we take the big, heavy stuff of being human and turn it into something that you can actually use in your week. And today we are talking about adoption trauma, grief, or an identity that you never fully got to hold. And two practices that might surprise you writing and the body itself. And my guest today is please welcome Patricia Mayer. So welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Hi, Avic. Thank you for having me. So glad to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Thank you. Thank you so much, Patricia, for joining us today. And um, dear listeners, like before we get into the discussion, I'd quickly love to introduce you to Patricia. So she's the voice behind my adopted life, where she writes about identity, memory, and what it means to reconstruct a sense of self after adoption. So I did not want to take much of time, dear listeners.

Adoption As A Separation Wound

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Let's get started. Welcome to the show again. So Patricia, like I mean something I I I keep coming back to like how uh like how much people assume that adoption is a single end. It happened, it's done, and move forward. But that's not really how identity works, right? So I mean, what is the misconception here that you run into most I mean the people get wrong about because the real story is uh kind of quieter than that. So what do you say?

SPEAKER_02 2:27

That that's a great question. Um, a very common misconception is that adoption is a win-win situation for everyone involved. A lot of people believe that that a young woman has a child that she can't support, another family needs a child that they want to support. And so, um, and then the child finds a happy, loving family. And unfortunately, it's a little bit more complicated than that. Uh, adoption is a uh, at its core, uh a wound of separation. And you're you're immediately on in the very early days that you're of your life, um, torn away from everything that you know to be true about your, you know, you infants seek their mother's smell. They know they can pick out their birth mother's breast milk out of um like a blind taste testing, even in the first few weeks. So infants realize that the person that gave birth to them is suddenly gone. And that sits in the body um throughout your life. And then it also continues as you get older and begin to try to form an identity. You realize that there are people walking the earth who look like you, who most likely think like you, uh, but you have no idea who they are. And unfortunately, a lot of adoptees don't find that they have, you know, they don't look like the families that adopt them. They might not have the same interests or talents. So adoptees, we sort of grow up having a sixth sense that we're we're a little bit different than everyone else. And it it ends up where we try very hard to be accepted and to fit in, um, more so than the average person. So much so that most adoptees, there's a term for that. We call it the chameleon, that that we many of us behave like chameleons trying to fit in.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Yeah, I totally totally understand. I mean, yeah. I mean if I if I uh say it this way, it's like I mean the distinction between like an even than this ongoing relationship um the story like that's going to sit with a few people today. I think a lot of us we treat identity it's like kind of something we are kind of handed once when really it sounds like you're saying it's something you keep coming back to and rebuilding. So when people uh do finally get it, then what's usually the moment that shifted shifts for them? What do you think?

Genetic Mirroring And Reunion

SPEAKER_02 5:05

Well um, let me make sure I understand the question that when an adoptee, at what point in an adoptee's life do they finally find that strong sense of of self or identity in general? Um, you know, in my personal experience, I have been fortunate enough to be in reunion with both of my parents, my biological parents. And I was about 40 when I experienced those reunions. And up until that time, I had a very limited sense of self. I was always trying to figure out who in the world I looked like and who in the world I acted like, and who in the world I sounded like. Um, this is called genetic mirroring, mirroring. And uh adoptees miss it very much in their lives. And then once you have it, uh, and you also end up with like the story of your origin. What happened to create you? How did you come about? Why could you not be kept by the one person in the world who's supposed to love you the most? Um, when you get those sorts of answers, then you can begin to construct um a sense of self that is built on a solid foundation. Up until that time, I would describe myself as being poofed into the world. I had no first chapter, and it was a very disorienting experience. And I could see traits that I, you know, things about myself that I um obtained from being raised by the adoptive parents that raised me. I know that my adoptive mother nurtured whatever I uh demonstrated an interest in. She went out of her way to expose me to that. Because a lot of parents, well, when you're an adoptive parent, you don't know what your child's biology might be giving them, you know, that they might be predisposed to being um musically inclined or artistic or, you know, great at sports. In natural families, parents know, well, you know, his dad was, you know, football player, and so he's probably going to want to play football. But adoptive parents don't have a clue about that. And the ones that are educated, they will work very hard to help um elicit those natural talents out of their child and they'll pay attention and they'll nurture that. Uh, unfortunately, some adoptive parents don't understand that that's a thing. And instead, they they try to, if they're a family that loves to go out and hike and sp and be outdoorsy, they drag that adoptee along, expecting them to, you know, feel the same way about it. And uh that's where adoptees begin to get that feeling of, oh gosh, you know, like I really don't fit in my family. Not only am I the only one with dark hair, but I'm also the only one that really loves to read books, you know, and and that that dissonance, I think, is what creates a very um a fractured feeling of your place in the world. And once you begin to, once you find people who are like you, or even read stories of them and un and even if they passed away, just learn who they are, learn what they were into, then you begin to uh have a much stronger sense of self.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

I agree, I totally agree.

Everyday Triggers No One Sees

SPEAKER_01 8:16

So um also like if if you just think of it like bring it into kind of uh you know, or weekdays or kind of suppose it's an ordinary Tuesday. So how does this actually show up in someone's everyday life? Like the small moment where an adoptee might feel like this without even having language for it.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Um for me, it showed up in this feeling of not 100% belonging anywhere uh at work. It was this feeling of um being hesitant, wanting to fit in, but also being very hesitant to speak up or have my own opinion, uh, fearful of basically moving through the world with a fear of rejection. So a lot of adoptees will go along with, you know, whatever the popular kids are doing, uh, even if it goes against their value system, because they just want to be included so badly. But other small examples where it really shows up are things like going to the doctor's office and having to fill out medical information and having to tell the doctor you don't know anything about your medical history. Um, for me personally, it shows up every time someone asks me for my date of birth because um because my adoption was actually never legal, and I found out that I was actually sold on the black market. I grew up without a birth certificate or a legal adoption. And to this day, no one really knows what day I was born. And so I have a day that I use. And now since I reunited with my biological family, I was able to obtain a legal birth certificate. And we used that day that I grew up celebrating on that birth certificate, but we can't prove what day I was born. Um, and so for me personally, that's that right there is a trigger. But a lot of the times it has something to do with medical information um that that just people take for granted, you know?

SPEAKER_01 10:18

I agree. And when that happens in the real time, um, what do you think? What does it typically feel like in the body, like before the mind even catches up?

Anxiety In The Body And Trust

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Yeah. Uh for me and for many adopt adoptees I know, um a lot of it is a sense of um low, low, low level, constantly a low level of anxiety, just a an undercurrent of anxiousness and anxiety. And um, you know, it used to be really bad before I understood why I was feeling the way I was feeling. So if I had to go speak in front of a large crowd, or if I had to give a presentation at work, um, or even be on a podcast like this, I would have so much fear and anxiety that my breath would get short, my mouth would get dry, I could barely speak, I had to take anti-anxiety medicine. But then, because at the time, before I reunited and started getting involved in the adoption community and started learning about adoption trauma, I didn't understand why I felt that way. I just thought, oh, I'm just a nervous speaker. But once I was able to name it and say, okay, so this is tied to my feelings about not being good enough, my feelings about being rejected, uh, which all stem from the core adoption wound, then I'm able to logically know that in my mind and say, this is why that's happening. And silly Patricia, this is, you know, you don't have to worry about that. This is just, this is happening to you because you had this past trauma in your body. Take a few more deep breaths and I learn to manage it. I learned to deep breathe. I learned to think positive thoughts. And but before I knew why I was feeling that way, um, that's when I think those symptoms caused me the most trouble. And similarly, in relationships, adoptees struggle to trust other people. You know, we were abandoned by the one person who's supposed to never abandon you. And so intimacy and love and trust in a romantic relationship or even in friendships can feel very scary and threatening. And so adoptees will often, you know, have one foot in and one foot out and never be really, really committed because they're just sort of waiting for that other person to leave. And then sometimes they'll just push away and withdraw uh to sort of beat them to the chase because they think, well, it's going to happen anyway. And once again, once I learned more about adoption trauma and understood that a lot of my relationship problems stemmed from this fear of abandonment and this uh very scary feeling of full vulnerability, um, that's when things started to get better. And also I put into practice authenticity because anytime we're being inauthentic, we are we're doing that out of fear of rejection. Oh, if I show my true self, it won't be good enough. So I have to pretend to be something I'm not. Um, and if you just anytime that you're moving through the world as an adoptee, if you just ask yourself, am I truly showing up as authentic as I possibly can be? Am I saying I don't like that? I disagree with that. Um, am I not afraid to share what's on my heart and just speak my truth? Once I got to the point where I said, I don't care what happens, I'm just going to show up authentically in the world, all kinds of great things started happening for me. And that was part of writing the book, right? Is telling my truth and not staying quiet. And um, it's a very vulnerable thing to write a memoir. And um, and I the reviews have started the early reviews have started coming in, and that's been a real lesson. Uh, because I can get like 15 amazing reviews, and then like one bad one comes in and it's just like a knife to the gut. And I think, why does that bother me so much? I just read 15 great ones.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Yeah. I mean, yeah, it it happens, like one mistake, and then all the good work gone. So I don't think, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

So I know it's a little bit of human nature too, and I do want to explain that. Like a lot of what I'm saying can be true of anyone, uh, not just adoptees. I think though, that for the adoptee, the volume is turned up a little bit louder than for those who are not.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Exactly. Exactly. And this happens. This happens quite a time. I have also faced the situation, yes. So yeah, it's kind of a human thing, so it happens. Yeah. And yeah, and and there's something like in what uh you just said that uh definitely I want to kind of hold for it. Like the word you did use it, like it stays with you. So it's it's a good reminder that this is not a kind of abstract, it's a living in ordinary rooms and ordinary moments, and people who might not even have a name for what just happened to them.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

So yes, that's true.

Adoption Themes In Movies

SPEAKER_02 15:42

The other thing that you talk about everyday moments, you wouldn't believe how often adoption shows up in television shows, movies, especially children's themed movies. Uh, lately, the creators of these are beginning to recruit uh adopted people to come in and consult to make sure that they are telling our experiences correctly. Um, but many, I mean, you go down the list of especially the the movies that were that I watched coming up as a child. It was like um, you know, 101 Dalmatians and Bambi loses his mother, um, uh the ugly duckling uh was, you know, this this swan that was being raised by, you know, these ducks. Um, so many of these stories just really tore my heart out uh as a child because they all sat on this, uh had these adoption themes where children were were being uh not fitting in or losing their mothers. Like we just there's one that just came out called The Robot. Um it's a fantastic one. Yeah, it it really um it's a little goose that I don't know, this this robot somehow lands on this island, and this little goose identifies that this robot is its mother. Um and it's it's it's one of the movies that does it really well.

unknown 17:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Okay. Got it.

Vagus Nerve Tools That Calm

SPEAKER_01 17:13

And this might be a strange one, but um I'm kind of uh I'd say and I'm generally curious, is like uh you work with both writing and somatic practice as ways through it. So uh what what what's an actual approach that someone could start with this week, even if they are I mean they have never uh thought about their body as a part of the healing before. So uh what is it?

[Ad] EMPOWERED Voices: Recovery to Resiliency

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Well, for me, one of the practices that I wake up with, and I don't know if it's as somatic as it is psychological, but I wake up and always the first thing

(Cont.) Vagus Nerve Tools That Calm

SPEAKER_02 18:31

I do before my feet hit the ground is I take five to ten deep breaths and name things that I'm truly, truly grateful for. Um that sort of gratitude puts me in a really wonderful mindset for the day, even if lots of other things are getting stressful. Um, but for the actual body and and toning the vagus nerve, which is the nerve that truly ties our head to our heart and our gut, um their humming, uh, meditation, um, any sort of uh mantra that you can, especially humming, it lights that vagus nerve up and and the rhythmic, very long rhythmic, deep breathing um tied to that humming and sitting in meditation for me uh truly uh lowers, you know, gets rid of all of that tension. I also have a visualization that I do where I imagine almost like a spiraling cone of white light uh spiraling down into the crown of my head, flushing through my body, and then spiraling out into the earth uh in a like a dark color, uh like a black or a brown, taking all of the negativity and the stress and everything with it. So in my mind, I am beating the positive energy into my body and I'm flushing out all of the stress and all of the fear and all of the anxiety. But, you know, also yoga is fantastic. I, you know, I people who know me know it when I when and when I haven't been doing my yoga practice. Um when I was married, my husband would say, You haven't been to yoga lately, have you? And I'm like, No, I have not. Um but I think that it's important before you sit down to for me, healing the most is from writing. But also you do have to get your body in a very relaxed state when you before you begin to write. Um, at least for me, that's what really helps get those words onto the page. Because being able to clear your mind of all of the distractions and the daily drama. Um, it's important, you know, for me, I can't, I can't just sit down and write if I just got done, you know, with work or, you know, dealing with school schedules or something like that. I have to focus on uh, I have to find a way to pull my energy back, remind myself where I am, feel my feel my feet on the floor, feel my bottom in my seat, feel the breath in my chest, um, and foc and get get very focused inside, and then I can begin to become creative.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Amazing. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Also, when someone's writing about this for the first time, uh, what do you think usually surprises them about

Writing Through Anger And Grief

SPEAKER_01 21:27

what comes out?

SPEAKER_02 21:30

I would guess, and of course I can only speak to my own experience and the people that I have helped with their own writing practices that are adoptees or first mothers. And I think that it's it's initially a lot of two things, a lot of anger or a lot of grief, or a little bit of both. And really, anger is just another form of grief in disguise. So um I like to tell people that, you know, especially if you won't think that you're gonna be writing something for the public to read for a blog or for a book or a short story or whatever it is, that you can't censor yourself. You can't censor that stuff out of your writing. You have to write through it and you just tell yourself, this is this isn't gonna make it in in that book, this isn't gonna make it on the blog, but this is what my body wants, this is what my mind and heart need to say right now. And then eventually that will, that, that will settle down. And then you'll begin to start seeing what those feelings are, what those core wounds are that are related to that grief and that anger, and be able to put words around them. That you can share with other people that people will be able to relate to and say, wow, me too. But you do have to be very careful that you don't. I had a writing teacher one time tell me, don't vomit all over your reader. And don't include such horrible graphic detail about whatever it is that the person just can't stand to read the words on the page and wants to put your book down because they feel like they're being assaulted. Um so early writers will sometimes um not know how to find that that balance. But the key to that balance is just telling yourself, I'm gonna let all this out, but it's not going, it's just it's for me. It's for me and God. And we can burn these pages later if we want to, or delete, delete, delete. But for right now, this is the part that needs to come out. And it it's cleansing, it's healing. And then you put it down and come back two or three days later and read it again. And sometimes you might see um patterns or insights or revelations that you didn't even know were were in there. Um inversely, I found out when I was writing my story that I skipped over probably one of the most important parts of my book. Initially, I put what's a whole chapter today into a very small short paragraph. And my editor said, Why did you do this? This is like, this is the the crux of your book. And and the part that I reduced down to one paragraph was when my adoptive parents set me down when I was 12 and said they didn't know my birthday and didn't have my birth certificate and weren't sure how they were going to get me a social security card so I could be in this play that I needed, I needed a social security card for. So I I learned at 12 that my parents um never received a birth certificate, had been extorted by this attorney and um with the threat of taking back the baby, and that he never delivered the paperwork and my birthday was a guess. And I gave that one paragraph. And the reason I gave it a paragraph was because I didn't want to go back to that moment. I didn't want to sit in that scene and remember all of the heavy, heavy emotions and sadness and anger and tears, and um, how my identity that day really cracked, my trust in my parents, you know, also cracked. Um, it it was one of those turning points in life that sent my my sense of self and identity down a very different trajectory. Um and it opened the beginning of a mystery that would take me 20 years to solve. But in that moment when I was sitting there writing it, I was just like, okay, well, that's and then that happened. And I know now, uh, because when I did go back and write it after my editor said, you can't get away with this, uh, you have to write this as a full chapter. We have to be in the room with you when all this happens. Um, I sobbed. I mean, I sobbed, and I already thought I'd cried a lot. I mean, I I'd cried for years. And again, I just the the the grief and the pain and the sadness rose up. And once I got all of that that bad draft written and all the tears came out, then I was able to to really, you know, share the story properly. Got it. All right.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

So um, Patricia, like, I mean, if you have to give one advice to the listeners today, what will you give?

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Well, I think

Authenticity And Therapy That Helps

SPEAKER_02 26:11

this is good advice for just about anybody, but it's especially good advice for adoptees. And that is show up authentically in the world. Don't afraid to be, don't be afraid to be yourself. Don't try to avoid rejection. And um take a good look in the mirror. Uh, therapy is not for broken people. It's it's it's a it's just like daily exercise, if you ask me. You know, we we don't, you know, we go and we run and we jog and we lift weights because it's good for ours ourselves. It's good for our body. It builds us up every day. If there are things that you feel that you're struggling with in the day-to-day world, don't be afraid to seek out therapy. Um, EMDR therapy, that's eye movement, uh desensitive desensitive, yeah. EMDR. Yeah, eye movement desensitization therapy, um, was really, really good for me. So I think that um a lot of people are afraid to get therapy, but I think it's something that um it is very healing and it's also just just a good practice and just like daily exercises to just check in with a therapist once or twice a month.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Yeah. Exactly. So if the listeners want to connect with you, how they can connect.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

Um, my website is myadoptedlife.com.

Where To Find Patricia And Her Book

SPEAKER_02 27:29

And I have a book coming out November the third, a memoir that tells my story about the things that I've shared with you here. It is called Wonderland Memoir of a Black Market Adoption. You can find information about that book on my website or by visiting Wonderlandthememoir.com. Uh, and it's also on pre-sale on Amazon uh between now and November 3rd, which is the day it releases.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Amazing, amazing. Great. So, dear listeners, what I'll do is I'll put all the links, details, everything into the show notes for your easy reference. And I'll I'll just say, like, um,

One Quiet Practice To Try

SPEAKER_01 28:08

like dear listeners, that there's one thing I I I want someone to carry out from this conversation is that uh you don't have to know your whole story to start feeling your relationship with it. Right, so um and I definitely love to thank Patricia for sharing her perspectives uh from her knowledge, experience, and um and also uh say that uh if you're listening, dear listeners right now, or maybe you'll be listening later as well. If any part of this touched something in you, adopt it, or not, maybe uh I mean today is the day you write down the one thing you have never said out loud. Right, so that'll be the great word I would say. So, with this, this is a whole servicing, and this is the many have the life. We'll see you in the next one. Thank you so much.