September 12, 2025 • 49 mins
307 | [Healing Series] The Nothing Place with Pam Cordano, MFT
I’m so glad to be back with you after our summer break! Today’s episode is a special episode in our Healing Series that truthfully I’ve been scared to do and I’ve intentionally been waiting to do because of this fear. This concept has been on my show topic list for several years, ever since I heard the words, “The Nothing Place”, for the first time. I believe that naming and describing this idea to you could be so deeply helpful for adoptees that we just have to go there today. This could potentially break open a block we’ve had in describing the true complexities and impact adoption separation has on us. Pam Cordano, MFT, one of our favourite adoptee therapists is here to tell us about The Nothing Place, the glaring gaps in attachment theory that don’t address adoptees’ very real separation trauma, and how examining this part of us can unlock a new sense of grounding and belonging that we haven’t been able to access before.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Haley Radke (00:00):
This podcast is for educational and
entertainment purposes only.
Nothing stated on it either by its hostsor any guests, is to be construed as
psychological, medical, or legal advice.
You are listening to adoptees on.
The podcast where adopteesdiscuss the adoption experience.
(00:23):
I'm Haley Radke.
I am so glad to be back withyou after our summer break.
Today's episode is a special episode inour healing series that, truthfully, I've
been scared to do and I've intentionallybeen waiting to do because of this fear.
This concept has been on my showtopic list for several years,
(00:47):
ever since I heard the words TheNothing Place for the first time.
I believe that naming and describingthis idea to you could be so
deeply helpful for adoptees thatwe just have to go there today.
This could potentially break opena block we've had in describing
the true complexities and impactadoption separation has had on us.
(01:11):
Pam Cordano, one of our favorite adopteetherapists, is here to tell us about
The Nothing Place, the glaring gaps inattachment theory that don't address
adoptees very real separation trauma, andhow examining this part of us can unlock a
new sense of grounding and belonging thatwe haven't been able to access before.
(01:35):
Before we get started, I wannapersonally invite you to join our
Patreon adoptee community today overon adopteeson.com/community, which
helps support you and also the show tosupport more adoptees around the world.
Links to everything we'll be talking abouttoday are on the website, adopteeson.com.
Let's listen in.
(01:58):
I'm so pleased to welcome backto Adoptees On Pam Cordano.
Hi Pam.
Pam Cordano, MFT (02:04):
Hi Haley.
Hi everybody.
Haley Radke (02:07):
Okay behind the curtain.
It is my birthday today.
We are recording.
This is gonna be the firstepisode back from summer break.
I'm feeling a little rusty.
You've been on the show so many timesand the last time you were on you,
this is back on episode 285 okay.
(02:27):
It was transformational.
Many people have listened tothis episode multiple times.
It's one of our top listened episodes.
It's called The Seven Insights intoAdoptee Attachment, and we talked about
this thing called The Nothing Place.
And I told you, I said, Pam, I've hadthis written on my whiteboard for a long
(02:48):
time, like we should do a show about it.
But it's so bleak and depressing.
How would anybody wanna listen to this?
And yet, here we are, me feelingrusty and it's my birthday.
So many feelings and we're gonnatalk about The Nothing Place today.
Pam Cordano, MFT (03:08):
We're crazy.
Haley Radke (03:09):
Yeah.
You know what?
I love it.
It's good.
It's good.
It's good for us totalk about hard things.
We're gonna have trouble putting languageto this, but I think it's been really
transformational for a lot of adopteesto hear about this, to wrap their minds
around this idea and give language to it.
(03:30):
So that's what we'regonna help you do today.
So let's start here.
Pam, what is The Nothing Place?
Pam Cordano, MFT (03:36):
Oh gosh.
The nothing place is what happenswhen attachment is severed.
Before a baby candifferentiate self from other.
Remember, babies are in symbiosis forthe first six months of their lives.
They don't know that they're a separateself, so the nothing place is what
happens when attachment is severedbefore a baby can differentiate self
(04:00):
from other, it feels like non-existence.
For adoptees, it's oftendescribed as floating blankness
and sometimes sheer terror.
Haley Radke (04:11):
A nice slight topic.
Pam Cordano, MFT (04:12):
Yeah.
On your birthday?
Haley Radke (04:14):
Sheer terror.
Pam Cordano, MFT (04:16):
Sheer terror.
Haley Radke (04:18):
Oh, do you wanna talk about my birthday?
About August 22nd.
What's special about today besidesthe fact that I came into this world?
Pam Cordano, MFT (04:28):
That's the most special thing.
You're 42 today.
Is that okay to say out loud?
Haley Radke (04:31):
It's okay.
Yes.
Pam Cordano, MFT (04:33):
And you're crushing it.
And we all love you andwe're so grateful for you.
And so it's your birthday.
That's the big thing.
You could ask me to talk about any topicon your birthday, and I would likely
say yes 'cause you're so special to me.
The other thing that's interesting abouttoday is it's a new moon and it's called
a black moon because a black moon isthe second new moon of a given month.
(04:54):
And so today's a black moon.
And I was just thinking abouthow the black moon, the new moon
represents darkness and hiddenness andbeginnings that come out of the void.
And there was a point where youare a beginning that came out
of the void and now you're here.
And for those of us who are lucky enoughor tenacious enough or have enough
(05:17):
support, that we keep trying so hardto heal and to feel comfortable in our
skin and in our lives, there's a waywe can keep especially together coming
out of this void of the nothing place.
Haley Radke (05:31):
Do you wanna tell us about the origins of this named thing?
Pam Cordano, MFT (05:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think I was there when it started.
I was in a joint, verydeep psychotherapy session.
By joint there was me and then there was anon adopted attachment therapist, and the
two of us were working with an adoptee.
And the adoptee went into this really,I don't even know how to describe it.
(06:02):
This is where words fail, but likea horrific looking place where I
could see, and his eyes and in hiswhole being like, like a dorsal
vagal, like a collapsed state where.
He was just not with us, but itdidn't look quite like dissociation.
It looked like something else.
And so the attachment therapist saidsomething like, hey, we're right here.
(06:24):
Haven't you done this enough?
Can't you come out?
We're right here.
Can you come out and find us here?
And he just, the client just lookedhe looked like he was actually
somewhere not nowhere, he wassomewhere but somewhere awful.
And then as I kept looking athim, I said, no, we can't ask
him to come to where we are.
(06:45):
We have to go where he is.
And the client said really calmly,this is a place where there is nothing.
Nothing at all.
And in that moment, I recognize,I feel like I started crying.
It was really a big moment,but I recognized it.
(07:05):
I could see him and he was, he describedit where there's nothing at all.
My whole body remembered somehowthat place more consciously
than I ever had before.
And then we started callingit the nothing place.
And what was super interesting isthat once that happened and we,
I went to him, I felt it, I thinkI started crying in that moment.
(07:27):
The other therapist, the attachmenttherapist suddenly realized
that attachment theory does notaccount for what was happening.
That attachment theory explainsbonds that are insecure or disrupted,
but they're still present ina continuous way for a human.
But attachment theory does notexplain what happens when attachment
is completely severed before a babyhas a sense of self, and other.
(07:51):
And that gap, the nothing placegap is where we adoptees, live in
some deep part of ourselves andthat we've built a life on top of.
Haley Radke (08:02):
So can we go to, like most people call it
the fourth trimester, right?
Baby is born and what'ssupposed to happen is.
You as a baby, you learn from your mother.
The mother is your nervous system.
(08:23):
The mother is your source for life, food,all the things, emotional regulation,
all of those things come from the mother.
And you said thathappens up to six months?
Pam Cordano, MFT (08:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll lay it out.
So from zero to six months, theinfant lives in symbiosis with a
mother or the primary caregiver.
The infant has no clear sense ofself or other, and the only way they
regulate is inside of a shared system.
So funny that I'm crying.
This is so sad, but I'musually not the crier, but
Haley Radke (08:59):
Oh, I a hundred percent am.
Pam Cordano, MFT (09:01):
This is you were the one dreading this conversation and I'm
the one who it is like it's hitting me.
It's crazy.
Anyway, so regulation comes, the baby'sactual nervous system regulation comes
from inside of a shared nervous system,not from their own nervous system.
And then from six months to 18 months,there's this gradual differentiation
(09:22):
where the baby starts realizing I'mseparate, but I'm also connected.
This is built through thousandsof micro moments where the mother
leaves, the mother, comes back.
The frustration inside thebaby's system is soothed.
The baby's hunger is met, and sothese thousands of micro moments
build from six months to 18 months.
(09:43):
This gradual differentiationof I'm a separate self in
relation to my caregiver mother.
Haley Radke (09:49):
Is this what you've called call response before.
Pam Cordano, MFT (09:52):
Yes.
Haley Radke (09:53):
Okay.
Pam Cordano, MFT (09:54):
Yeah.
And call and response starts fromthe moment a baby's born, but for
the first six months, even withcall and response, the baby does
not know that it's a separate self.
But then starting around six months,they start to learn that gradually for
the next up until they're 18 months old.
And then from 18 months to 36 months,the emergence of stable object constancy
(10:16):
develops where my mom's not here.
But I still know she exists.
And this anchors a sense of the baby'sself as continuous and not an annihilated.
Haley Radke (10:28):
Wait, remember playing peekaboo?
Pam Cordano, MFT (10:32):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (10:32):
And like it's only funny and nice to do when the
baby knows you're gonna come back.
Pam Cordano, MFT (10:41):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (10:42):
There's a point where we don't have object permanence
and so peekaboo was just like,oh my God, where did she go?
Pam Cordano, MFT (10:49):
It's like a torture chamber,
Haley Radke (10:51):
right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I didn't like playingthat with children.
Pam Cordano, MFT (10:55):
Like nothing places like a peekaboo that never had a second partner
to come back and show back up again.
I'm serious.
Haley Radke (11:03):
Yeah, I know.
It's so bleak.
You have to laugh or we will cry.
Pam Cordano, MFT (11:10):
I know.
Traditional classical attachmenttheory presumes some form
of continuous caregiving.
It does not build into it attachmentrupture that adoptees go through, and
this therapist was just shocked realizingthat everything he had come to understand
(11:34):
about attachment was missing a really corepiece for some people in the population.
Haley Radke (11:41):
Devil's advocate.
It's okay, most of us were placedpretty soon to where we were born.
If you were adopted as aninfant, and so there was another
adult doing those things.
So what's the difference?
Pam Cordano, MFT (11:55):
It's not about interchangeable adults for anybody.
It's about the one the baby isbonded to, and we get bonded
in utero for nine months.
And so whether a baby is relinquished atbirth or a week later, or six months later
or two years later, the mother is for thebaby, is not an interchangeable figure.
(12:19):
I think we adoptees know this, those ofus who are outta the fog, we know this.
I don't knowthat t he widerculture doesn't know this.
And that's part of the illusion.
Haley Radke (12:27):
That we're interchange, that the parents are interchangeable.
Pam Cordano, MFT (12:29):
That parents are interchangeable.
Haley Radke (12:31):
Yeah.
With no consequence.
So the attachment therapistis like, what the heck?
I had no clue this was missingfrom attachment theory.
Pam Cordano, MFT (12:42):
Yeah.
He saw it like once, once he realizedthat he, that what was happening was
outside of his framework, and it becamereally evident in the room and with the
clients where the client went, and thenhow I responded with this recognition.
Like it was very overwhelmingfor this attachment therapist.
Haley Radke (13:02):
Did they get emotional too?
Pam Cordano, MFT (13:04):
Oh yeah.
Haley Radke (13:05):
Oh.
Pam Cordano, MFT (13:05):
They had to take a break.
They realized they had that a hugething had been missing around a
whole segment of the population,meaning us, that it's not the same.
And that therapists and people try toprematurely pull, let's say the adoptee
or the relinquished person out of wherethe ground is that they're trying to,
(13:27):
to heal from if they can get thereand again asking the adoptee, I'll
say to, to adapt rather than peopleknowing how to go and be where somebody
is in the nothing place with them.
Haley Radke (13:43):
I'm trying to picture studying this,
because babies are nonverbal.
There's no, there's nothing that's been.
There's nobody, no wordsput to this before.
It's not even an attachment theory.
And then so how do you evencome to describe something like,
(14:05):
it's just, yeah, this is what'sreally hard to put words to.
Pam Cordano, MFT (14:11):
Yeah.
The cool thing is that how thisclient could get here was, in
my opinion, like extremely rare.
He was able, even able to do this to goin there and then that there was this
perfect configuration of an adopteetherapist and a non adoptee attachment
specialist all in this at the same time.
It was this perfect moment where I feellike the value, one of the values is that
(14:35):
moment started something that is, I think,and has been adding value to adoptees
with trying to understand what makesthis all so hard in healing and getting
comfortable and grounded because it ispreverbal and there's no cultural mirror.
So without having models, it's just,we're just, it is just this kind
of chaos of confusion and trauma.
(14:58):
But this is starting to put order inlike order and structure to what's
underneath in this deepest place.
Haley Radke (15:06):
Do you consider the nothing place the there's the act of
obliteration, of connection betweenbaby and mom, and then there's also the
time period gap of when you should havethis connection and be able to realize,
(15:30):
come to a realization that you are anindependent creature aside from a, the
person you came from, is it all of that?
Is it the one thing like, I'mtrying to wrap my head around,
what do you think about that?
Pam Cordano, MFT (15:46):
I think it's a combination of the baby being in that
symbiotic for most of us who are adoptedunder, at, under six months or at least
had some kind of trauma or inconsistency,foster homes, whatever in the first
six months that, that before the baby,when the baby is still in symbiosis
with a specific person who's theirbirth mother, even, from the moment
(16:09):
they're born, it's the birth mother.
That's who they've been with as aco-regulator, as one system the baby
knows when that gets severed it'sthe breaking of that relationship
during the time of symbiosis.
That, that it, that'swhat we're talking about.
Haley Radke (16:25):
Think about a NICU baby who
Pam Cordano, MFT (16:28):
Yep.
Haley Radke (16:28):
Can't come out for six weeks.
And then can, would theyhave some version of this?
Pam Cordano, MFT (16:35):
Yes.
And that's when Nancy Verrier, in ThePrimal Wound included NICU babies.
And like my adoptive mother was apreemie in, I think two months in
the NICU back in the thirties, 1930s.
And she had a lot of similar kinds ofissues in her nervous system as I did.
(16:56):
Who knows, maybe that's even somethingthat I don't know, made adoption amenable
somehow or appealing to her somehow.
I don't know, but that'sa weird thing to say.
But yeah.
Haley Radke (17:06):
Okay.
And this is, sorry, anotherslight rabbit trail.
Thinking of children born by surrogate.
So it's, that is something I'm socurious about when they start studying
that because you can go to your geneticparents, but your tie is severed from the
(17:27):
person who carried you to gestationally.
Pam Cordano, MFT (17:32):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (17:32):
Very confusing.
Pam Cordano, MFT (17:33):
I think a lot of adoptees think about that.
The surrogacy.
The other thing I wanna say aboutthe NICU babies, and maybe this goes
with surrogacy, depending on thesituation and the organization of
the structure of the families, but.
With a NICU situation, if the parentsare intact the lineage is intact.
Even if the baby can't be held,particularly in the past, it's better now.
(17:55):
There, there's more holding and moreawareness of bonding and what the baby's
actually need, but there's still like apsychological, I could even say spiritual
holding of that baby in an intact lineage.
If that baby's being kept while they'rein the NICU, it's a different kind.
There's a holding kind of.
I can only imagine that the babywould have similar kinds of biological
(18:16):
trauma and this nothing place kindof experience, but there is some kind
of a holding that is still intact.
In that situation.
Haley Radke (18:25):
Even if mom dies in labor and dad is waiting
and ready to take care of baby.
Pam Cordano, MFT (18:29):
Right, because if mom dies in labor and dad's ready, then dad's
gonna be grieving and in the same soupin a way as the baby around that loss.
And there's gonna be a kind of mirror ororientation point in that shared grief
versus just cut ties cut and baby'snow in a totally foreign environment.
Haley Radke (18:52):
I just don't understand why Muggles, this is the term that Pam uses
for non adopted people for kept people.
Why Muggles don't get thatparents are not interchangeable.
Pam Cordano, MFT (19:10):
It's like issues of privilege.
It's like anything that is so normalto a person that it's not questioned.
It's usually pain.
Pain becomes the questioner, and thenthe people who are invisible or harmed
by that invisibility start speaking up.
And in a way that's what we're doingin this conversation is making space
(19:31):
for something that is invisible.
Haley Radke (19:33):
Right.
Pam Cordano, MFT (19:33):
On a cultural level, which is super painful.
Haley Radke (19:35):
Yeah.
Pam Cordano, MFT (19:37):
So if in that state of symbiosis, relinquishment
happens, the baby has no wayto hold inside their system.
I exist.
You exist because that hasn't beenformed yet before the rupture.
And so what then happens is the nervoussystem encodes this experience of
(20:01):
void and terror because that rupturecreates that in the baby's body.
And that's the place of the nothing place,no self, no other, no continuity, no
me, annihilation that, all that stuff.
And then later on as we getolder with our adoptive families,
let's say our developmentoverlays the ability to function.
(20:24):
We go to school, we do what we do,we learn how to be a person that's
functioning, but there's still thissplit consciousness inside of us
where there's this more adult kind ofcompetence or child kind of competence.
Adult and there's still the body memoryof non-existence deep inside of us.
So we live with that split.
Haley Radke (20:46):
I'm trying to take it in.
I think just literally tryingto understand that a baby
doesn't know it exists, right?
That's a hard thing to get, butliterally they can't know that yet.
(21:08):
Because the, because of the developmentalstate, lack of development, yet
it's very hard to understand thata baby wouldn't know they exist.
And I know you said developmentally.
Pam Cordano, MFT (21:26):
And that, that, that feels like death.
That's a fear of annihilation.
If I, am I dying?
I'm dying.
And not even am I dying, like it'slike a, not the thought I'm dying, but
the experience for the organism of I'mdying 'cause I just got chopped apart.
Haley Radke (21:43):
And there's not the ability yet to say, oh, they went
somewhere, they're coming back.
It's just gone.
Pam Cordano, MFT (21:54):
That doesn't even start being a biological possibility
until they're at least six months old,the beginning of being able to do that.
So we just have to develop on top ofthis experience of being chopped apart
and it feeling like death, and then webuild coping on top of that to survive.
(22:14):
And then we become the people we becomeon top of all of that, and then we
don't know why we're so anxious, or wehave so much trouble in relationships,
or we're terrified of being alone inthe dark or throwing up or we get sick
from all this stress in our bodies.
We don't know what is going on that weare so screwed up and we think that it's
(22:35):
like our, it's our fault or something'swrong with us and feel shame about it.
But this talking about the nothingplace and describing the rupture
during the time of symbiosis and whatthat does, which I could have known
intellectually, but to see it on thisclient's face and then, and to experience
it in my own system, all at once itlanded and now we can talk about it.
(22:56):
I, those of us who it's landingfor, we can talk about it.
Haley Radke (22:59):
Isn't this the same as so many friends I've had, or even
interviews we've mentioned likeI feel like I fell outta the sky.
Like feeling like you come from nowhere.
Pam Cordano, MFT (23:09):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (23:10):
Like that terrible idea, that storks bring the
babies to the new parents.
It's no, like adoptees literally, alot of us literally feel like that,
like some random thing just droppedus outta the sky with the receipt.
Pam Cordano, MFT (23:25):
Yeah.
It's like we're, it's like we'rea tree that we have to grow.
We have to grow into abig tree with no roots.
Like somehow there's no root system andthen we don't know why we keep getting
blown over or we don't like when kidsare hanging on us and climbing us
'cause we're about to fall over anyway.
But yeah, it's that disoriented.
There's no continuity in thenervous system literally.
So the infant nervous system depends onco-regulation 'cause they're in symbiosis.
(23:49):
Without it neural circuits for safetyand orientation do not get laid down.
The nothing place feels likenon-existence because in brain
terms, there was never a scaffoldfor I exist in relationship to you.
And when I say there never was, even ifthe baby was kept by the birth mother for
(24:09):
two weeks, they were still in symbiosiswhen the relinquishment happened.
So they didn't, we have to keepthinking of the baby as being in
symbiosis when they're under six months.
And then, and what that, it doesn'tmatter in some way, if they got.
A day or a, or two a month it'sstill happening in that time.
And polyvagal theory is really interestingin a super nutshell our dorsal vagal
(24:32):
system, that's our collapse place.
That's where the nothing place lives.
It's in this dorsal collapse place.
It's not even equipped to dofight or flight 'cause babies
can't do fight or flight.
They're, they can't even move and theydon't even know that they're separate.
They're stuck having tojust go into collapse.
This is where the nothing place lives.
It's in the dorsal, vagal collapseplace in our nervous systems.
(24:54):
And then a stronger part that we candevelop later is fight or flight so we
can actually make decisions about what,when do I fight, when do I do flight,
but the happy place for all of us is inthe ventral vagal system that's higher
up and that's where we feel safe enough.
We feel socially connected.
We have our curiosityand creativity online.
That's the good lifetimes is in ventral vagal.
(25:17):
So with this rupture in our dorsal thatlands in our dorsal vagal system as
freeze and collapse, it's harder for usto get to a steady state of ventral vagal.
It takes a lot of work and probably alot of good fortune around, kind and
tuned in people being with us laterafter we've come through all of this.
(25:39):
Does that make sense?
Haley Radke (25:41):
Just to be able to function.
Pam Cordano, MFT (25:43):
Yeah.
And to feel and to becomfortable functioning.
Not shut down and then not innot dominated by fight or flight.
More times rather than less times.
That doesn't make sense.
But to be less involved withfight or flight and shut down.
And to have more of usavailable for ventral vagal,
where we actually feel good.
Haley Radke (26:01):
So this is an upsetting thing that many people have said.
They either report my casewas, oh, she's colic, right?
I cried nonstop all the time forno apparent reason, quote unquote.
And then others report, oh, I was sucha good baby because I never cried.
(26:25):
So there's like alwayscrying, never crying.
Pam Cordano, MFT (26:28):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (26:29):
That's either one.
This collapse.
Pam Cordano, MFT (26:32):
Yeah, the never crying is really collapse and the always crying.
There's still some energy to me.
I think of the always crying is stilltrying to stay alive and not go because
collapse the, like the freeze state.
The freeze state if we stay theretoo long it's like a preparation
for death kind of place.
Like freeze is a place that wantsto figure out what do I do I
(26:55):
fight or do I flee from danger?
Freeze is danger.
So if we can't find a way to,to fight or flight, we're just
sinking into this free state whereit's like preparation for death.
We can't, the parts of us tosay frozen too long are parts of
us that kind of just seem to godead or get buried or turned off.
They just stop being online.
(27:15):
The crying part, I feel goodabout thinking of you crying
like that in, in the sense thatyou're fighting for something.
Like what can a baby do ifthey're trying to engage, trying
to be known stay in the ring.
Crying is maybe better than,crying is better than no crying.
It's not great.
It's not good, but it's, it at leastit's, there's an action involved with it.
(27:37):
And who knows, maybe, I don't know.
You're such an action person.
You put things out in the world,you, you do that kind of thing.
And I don't know, I don't knowwhat I'm saying by saying that,
but I'd rather see a baby cryingthan a baby who gave up crying.
Haley Radke (27:51):
I just feel so like this.
This is so difficult becauseI know all my adoptee friends,
like this is what we experienced.
This is no one, nobody whowould subject a human to this.
Pam Cordano, MFT (28:06):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (28:06):
Torture.
This is torture.
Okay.
Should we go to iFS?
Pam Cordano, MFT (28:11):
Sure.
So in, in IFS theory, the exilesmost exiles hold feelings that
are not fully acceptable oracceptable at all in the family.
So it can be things like,shame or rage or pain, grief.
Sometimes exiles holdpositive feelings too.
(28:33):
Let's say there's a mother that's jealousof the child might wanna shut down their
joy or their how they can shine in theworld so the mother doesn't get jealous.
So that's, there's examples of exilescan hold good things too, like quote
good things too that are just notallowed in the family to maximize love.
The nothing place is a deeperexile than those kinds of exiles.
(28:53):
The nothing place is an exile that holdsan experience of non-existence itself.
So it's not just a part with feelings,it's the body memory of no self.
No other 'cause it broke apart.
And then what happens is protectors ourprotective systems, I'll say in adoptees
(29:15):
work over time to cover up this abyss.
And they do thing, overfunctioning, people pleasing,
addiction, anger problems, reactiveattachment disorder issues.
Like whatever it takes to try tostay alive, stay afloat, and cope.
All of that's on top of this deep exile.
And healing.
Healing this, helping, this exileheal is not about fixing it at all.
(29:40):
It's not asking it to come out and meetthe land of the living in muggle terms.
It's really us, and this is reallya hard thing I'm gonna say, but it's
us learning how to be just little bitby little bit with the terror and the
overwhelm of the nothing place itselfas a deep experience in our systems.
That's what that's where we werebefore the stork suddenly brought us
(30:02):
in, or we suddenly got, we arrivedon spaceship from another planet.
We were in this nothing place.
So it's in there and the best thingwe can do is start slowly to get to
know it and we can talk about that,but, and also to be around either
therapists or friends who have somecapacity to also hang out with that.
We don't want a therapist askingus to be somewhere else when.
(30:26):
That's really the ground ofwhere we need to bear in our own
systems to start to feel rooted.
Haley Radke (30:31):
Using that word rooted.
How many of us have gone totherapists or psychologists and
you wanna deal with this, whateverissue that's going on for you, and
they're always looking for the root.
And when you deal with that,then that issue resolves.
And so I get it.
I see why that would be so critical tolook at, but also because the terror
(30:53):
is so deep, you really would haveto be safe in order to look at that.
And I've, I know I've said this before,I don't know how accurate this is, but
I really think our brains only show uslike things that we're ready to look at.
Pam Cordano, MFT (31:08):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (31:09):
Just to keep us safe.
Pam Cordano, MFT (31:10):
Yeah.
And I've said before on your showthat this is one reason I'm a fan
of psychedelic therapy because itdoes allow for getting access to
places that our protective structureswill not allow us to go into.
And that's why talk therapy can take solong and be so frustrating because it's
just we can't, our system is saying,no way are we going in that place.
(31:31):
And that's why I'm a fan ofpsychedelic therapy and I hope
that it gets legalized soon.
Haley Radke (31:36):
There was so many episodes.
I remember like from the, I think fromthe first season even, we were talking
about how we have these boxes we storeaway in our closet and we just can't even
open them because it's just too much.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
The terror.
That's the word.
But yet people knowing about this, Iknow you've had a group of adoptees
(32:01):
talk about this together when youwere leading the flourish groups
and just even knowing that there wassomething to name, it can reduce that.
Pam Cordano, MFT (32:10):
Totally.
Haley Radke (32:11):
Yeah.
Pam Cordano, MFT (32:11):
There's an upside.
We're gonna talk about the upsideof us even talking about this topic.
Yes.
Before this ends for sure.
But yeah.
Haley Radke (32:17):
Don't worry.
Pam Cordano, MFT (32:18):
Don't worry.
Hang in there.
The nothing place exiledoesn't just sit there quietly.
It exerts a gravitationalpull on the whole system.
And that's why that when there'sstress or even intimacy in
relationships, there's thisgravitational pull that's freaking out.
(32:39):
And this nothing place thingis a dynamic living part of us.
It's not just, it's not a concept.
It's not, symbolic.
It's really a real thingthat we have inside of us.
And I wouldn't have known thatuntil I saw this client get there
and then I felt like I got there.
So when we feel fatigued or we havea conflict or we're in an intimate
(33:00):
situation this nothing place exile pullsforward and the system feels like I'm
dissolving, I'm not here I'm gonna die.
Like this whole I'm gonna diething comes from this place.
'cause we did have that experience andthat is the experience in nothing place.
I'm gonna die.
I'm getting annihilated right now.
Haley Radke (33:17):
Is that equivalent to many of us, myself included
having suicidal ideation.
Pam Cordano, MFT (33:24):
Yeah.
Totally.
Haley Radke (33:27):
Great.
Pam Cordano, MFT (33:29):
It's also babies that are in orphanages who
die even though they're, theirphysical needs are being met.
They're, they are.
They are.
They go further.
Those of us who have survived this, wedidn't go as far into death as they,
but I think it's a continuum of death.
This nothing place place.
Haley Radke (33:47):
So people who have this need met their whole life and identity
is built on this strong structureand we just have this gaping hole
where the foundation should be.
Pam Cordano, MFT (34:02):
Yeah.
And sure there's, of course there's peoplethat have all kinds of, they have drug
addicted parents or they have violencein the home from the time they're born or
they're getting really severely abused.
Of course those things are likehorrific for any human system, but
there is a continuity of attachmenteven if it's really poor attachment
(34:24):
and scary attachment or eventuallydisrupted attachment, there's a
continuity with versus an entirebreak of the organism of symbiosis.
It's different.
Haley Radke (34:34):
So the gravitational pull to come back to the abyss is there.
And if we're shaking or pushing some way.
That can get triggered.
Is that what I'm hearing?
Pam Cordano, MFT (34:48):
Yeah.
It does get and I thinkit does get triggered.
Haley Radke (34:53):
It just does get triggered and whether we're aware of it or not,
Pam Cordano, MFT (34:56):
yeah,
Haley Radke (34:57):
okay,
Pam Cordano, MFT (34:58):
We get triggered.
We get triggered and I can't imagine anytrigger that doesn't somehow harken back
to this nothing place for us in some way.
It feels like we're talking about theground floor of the adoptee system.
Haley Radke (35:12):
This, maybe we should talk about this at the end, but what it's
bringing to mind is how you've talkedabout adoptees as superheroes, right?
And it just makes me so thisis what gets me emotional.
It just makes me so much more impressedwith all of us who've made it and have,
in any fashion we've made it and thosethat are working on trying to improve our
(35:37):
lives and change things for our childrenand legacy and all of those things, like
it just makes it all the more impressive.
Pam Cordano, MFT (35:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that for us, justliving daily life requires a
kind of strength and capacity.
Even when life looks like a show, amI allowed to say show on your show?
Haley Radke (35:59):
We are.
We will beep bad, but yes, you can say it,
huh?
Yeah.
Okay.
So the value of naming thisis that we can work on it?
Pam Cordano, MFT (36:13):
Yeah.
Okay.
So here's what I see thevalue is it's validating.
Like when I brought this to the flourishgroups and there were, I don't know.
40 something people inthe flourish groups.
I think it was everyone, if notnearly everyone, really related
to this in some way or another.
And to have something named for us whenthe culture doesn't name it and how could
(36:36):
they is it can feel very validating.
So it's, and it's also a wayof saying you're not broken.
Like whatever you think you look likecompared to other people in life.
If we have a way of understanding whatwe actually went through and we start
all of us, carving out like language andunderstand shared understandings about it.
(36:58):
It just gives us another way to lookat our lives and what you just, when
you got tearful about the superpowerthing, it's, it is like that.
It gives a perspective so that wecan perhaps see ourselves with more
and each other with more compassionand awe really, and horror awe.
And also, it's so cool to findlanguage for things that happened
(37:22):
before language was built.
It's almost as if in the culture,if we can't language it, it's not,
it doesn't it, it isn't there.
It's not real.
But yet our nervous systems tella story and for us to find ways to
language it and find shared languagingit, it gives form to the formless.
And it also creates a sense of belonging.
There's a paradox because thisnothing place is literally a
(37:45):
place where there's nothing.
There's no you.
There's no me.
There's no up, there'sno down, there's nothing.
And yet, once we can find each otherin the nothing place, even just start
to find each other in the nothingplace paradoxically, it's grounding.
We find, oh, there's some groundthis the nothing place is a place.
(38:05):
It's not, it isn't really a no place,it's a place, it's just a horrific place.
But to be there together is different.
So when this client got there andthen I feel like I fell in, on
accident, but I'm grateful I did.
It was comforting to him.
It was comforting to me that we like,oh my gosh, we both, if we're both
here, it's not the same as if I'mjust alone there and hiding it from
(38:28):
myself and reacting to try and to stayout of the, out of this deeper place.
And then instead of being pathologizedoh, you're avoidant, you're angry, you're
resistant, you're ungrateful you're,you dissociate a lot, like all these
labels that, that we can be thought ofor called, or it's no we can witness.
(38:49):
In ourselves and in each other, thedeeper truth of what, what's actually
happening that isn't pathologicalat all and it has a chance to be
actually reparative in that way.
It's another story besidesthat we're screw ups,
defective.
No wonder they gave me away.
I'm such a, I'm aninherently defective person.
And then finally, I'll say this again,that the goal is not to erase this place.
(39:12):
The goal is to learn to be with itwithout the panic or annihilation terror.
To start chipping away at that so thatwe can actually just land here and feel
that root system that's actually there,but I don't know that we can do it alone.
I think we need each other to, that'swhy this shared language, I think
that's why we're doing this episodeis like we're trying to give language
so we can all do this together.
Haley Radke (39:34):
I don't know if you remember, if you've heard about this, we've
talked about this maybe before, but youeven said reactive attachment disorder
before, which I'm just like, it's bs.
It's like a, it's like thisstupid diagnosis for normal
reactions to abnormal situationsand this is what I'm thinking of.
(39:55):
I'm like, oh, this having a nothingplace as a part of our origins.
This is a normal reactionto an abnormal situation.
This is normal for adoptees to feelthis way because there is a gaping void
in what should have been this be beginnice symbiosis, nice beginning with our
(40:18):
mother and it's not available to us.
Pam Cordano, MFT (40:24):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (40:24):
I know you know this, but I'm going to link in the show notes.
We have many adoptees, including peoplefrom Flourish who wrote about the Nothing
Place, and there's some poetry and justmoments people have captured even about
when you brought this idea to them andthey write about it in The Flourish
Experience we'll link to that and someother folks have blogged about it.
(40:44):
So I'll have links to a fewdifferent folks in the show
notes talking about this.
Is there anything more you wanna tell us?
If someone wants to start looking atthis to possibly look in the scary
place to acknowledge it, what arefirst steps to do that in a safe way
?Pam Cordano, MFT: That if people are comfortable being in their own company
(41:08):
enough, they can just start trying it on.
They could go for a walk and just giveit a little thought like, what do I
think or feel about this nothing placething in flourish people recognized
it immediately and some people weremore sad or scared about it, and
other people were really relieved,like viscerally relieved about it.
So there might be a wholebunch of different types of
(41:29):
inter of reactions to it.
But also I think that if people arein therapy, bringing it to their
therapist or if they have friends whothey trust or friends that are adopted
that they trust, they could also starttalking about it a little bit there.
I think it's it's almost like it'slike soil and we can just start
digging a little bit in the soil,but the goal is not to overwhelm
'cause it's a tender place.
(41:51):
It's just to, it's just to startexploring whoever wants to.
And do you have anything to say to someone who might
listen to this and just be like,oh my gosh, this is just made up.
You guys are just feelingsorry for yourself.
Not that we get those emails ever.
Pam Cordano, MFT (42:10):
I don't really care about those people that much.
I don't even feel ruffle.
I feel like now that I know thisplace so much more it doesn't even.
If someone wants to negateit, I like whatever.
I just don't have any business with them.
Haley Radke (42:25):
That's such a healthy way to look at it.
And I think, truly, anytime I've talkedto someone about this that's adopted,
there's like an instant knowing.
And for people who are adopted,but perhaps haven't started really
deep diving it critically, thismight not resonate and that's okay.
(42:48):
Like
Pam Cordano, MFT (42:49):
totally
Haley Radke (42:49):
live your best life.
Don't dig if you don't want to dig.
Pam Cordano, MFT (42:52):
Absolutely.
Haley Radke (42:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you so much forsharing this with us, Pam.
Pam Cordano, MFT (42:58):
Yeah.
Haley, thanks so much for beingborn actually, and keeping yourself
alive, however you did that.
Haley Radke (43:05):
I did it.
I did.
We both did it.
And you are listening.
You did it too.
Way to go us.
Way to go us.
Pam Cordano, MFT (43:12):
That's right.
It's a big deal.
Haley Radke (43:14):
It is.
And I hope this naming ismore an encouragement to
feel like, oh, I'm not crazy.
There's nothing wrong with me.
This is a normal reaction toa very abnormal situation.
Pam Cordano, MFT (43:30):
Yeah, if we go back to the black the black moon that's
happening today and we go back to thedeep exile name, what deep exiles or any
exiles need is love and presence and sowe can start building presence and love
in for ourselves in this place and witheach other, and that's what it needs.
(43:51):
It doesn't need to do to get.
To get moving and be different.
It just needs love and presence togently, slowly start coming to it
and that's when the light comes back.
Haley Radke (44:02):
Beautiful.
Thank you so much.
You've been on the show so manytimes sharing your wisdom with us.
We so deeply appreciate it.
Truly, where can folksconnect with you online?
Pam Cordano, MFT (44:13):
By email pcordano@comcast.net.
Haley Radke (44:18):
Lovely.
Thank you.
Thanks for celebratingmy birthday with me.
Pam Cordano, MFT (44:22):
I'm so excited.
You asked me what an honor.
Haley Radke (44:28):
I know I've said this before.
I love Pam so much.
She has helped me personally and somany of us by bringing language to
the ethereal, the intangible of it allwhen we are trying to help ourselves
(44:52):
understand what happened to us inthe context of adoption separation.
And our loved ones and trying to explainto them like how it feels to be an
adopted person existing in this world.
So I'm so deeply grateful to Pam.
I'm also so gratefulfor all of my patrons.
(45:14):
If you have felt value from AdopteesOn, you can join our Patreon.
You can search Patreon and quote AdopteesOn, or go to adopteeson.com/community
and folks can pledge monthly amountsor you can pay for a year and you get
so many so many episodes of me and myfriends talking about adoptee things.
(45:39):
We also have the Ask an AdopteeTherapist events, which Pam
is a part of occasionally.
We also have Adoptees Off Scriptparties with Pam, and this fall we're
starting a series of Adoptees OffScript parties where we are focusing
in on the fight flight, fawn or freezethemes, and so I know we're gonna be
(46:01):
learning a ton more from her about those.
So thank you so much for all of you whohave supported the show in the past and
those who will continue to do so andkeep Adoptees On alive in this world.
The other thing I know folks have beenasking me about, and you will hear this
fall more about my brand new podcastthat I've been working on and you will.
(46:26):
We'll be sharing more, I promise.
So stay tuned for that.
Thank you so much for listening,and let's talk again very soon.
This podcast is for educational and
entertainment purposes only.
Nothing stated on it either by its hostsor any guests, is to be construed as
psychological, medical, or legal advice.
You are listening to adoptees on.
The podcast where adopteesdiscuss the adoption experience.
(00:23):
I'm Haley Radke.
I am so glad to be back withyou after our summer break.
Today's episode is a special episode inour healing series that, truthfully, I've
been scared to do and I've intentionallybeen waiting to do because of this fear.
This concept has been on my showtopic list for several years,
(00:47):
ever since I heard the words TheNothing Place for the first time.
I believe that naming and describingthis idea to you could be so
deeply helpful for adoptees thatwe just have to go there today.
This could potentially break opena block we've had in describing
the true complexities and impactadoption separation has had on us.
(01:11):
Pam Cordano, one of our favorite adopteetherapists, is here to tell us about
The Nothing Place, the glaring gaps inattachment theory that don't address
adoptees very real separation trauma, andhow examining this part of us can unlock a
new sense of grounding and belonging thatwe haven't been able to access before.
(01:35):
Before we get started, I wannapersonally invite you to join our
Patreon adoptee community today overon adopteeson.com/community, which
helps support you and also the show tosupport more adoptees around the world.
Links to everything we'll be talking abouttoday are on the website, adopteeson.com.
Let's listen in.
(01:58):
I'm so pleased to welcome backto Adoptees On Pam Cordano.
Hi Pam.
Pam Cordano, MFT (02:04):
Hi Haley.
Hi everybody.
Haley Radke (02:07):
Okay behind the curtain.
It is my birthday today.
We are recording.
This is gonna be the firstepisode back from summer break.
I'm feeling a little rusty.
You've been on the show so many timesand the last time you were on you,
this is back on episode 285 okay.
(02:27):
It was transformational.
Many people have listened tothis episode multiple times.
It's one of our top listened episodes.
It's called The Seven Insights intoAdoptee Attachment, and we talked about
this thing called The Nothing Place.
And I told you, I said, Pam, I've hadthis written on my whiteboard for a long
(02:48):
time, like we should do a show about it.
But it's so bleak and depressing.
How would anybody wanna listen to this?
And yet, here we are, me feelingrusty and it's my birthday.
So many feelings and we're gonnatalk about The Nothing Place today.
Pam Cordano, MFT (03:08):
We're crazy.
Haley Radke (03:09):
Yeah.
You know what?
I love it.
It's good.
It's good.
It's good for us totalk about hard things.
We're gonna have trouble putting languageto this, but I think it's been really
transformational for a lot of adopteesto hear about this, to wrap their minds
around this idea and give language to it.
(03:30):
So that's what we'regonna help you do today.
So let's start here.
Pam, what is The Nothing Place?
Pam Cordano, MFT (03:36):
Oh gosh.
The nothing place is what happenswhen attachment is severed.
Before a baby candifferentiate self from other.
Remember, babies are in symbiosis forthe first six months of their lives.
They don't know that they're a separateself, so the nothing place is what
happens when attachment is severedbefore a baby can differentiate self
(04:00):
from other, it feels like non-existence.
For adoptees, it's oftendescribed as floating blankness
and sometimes sheer terror.
Haley Radke (04:11):
A nice slight topic.
Pam Cordano, MFT (04:12):
Yeah.
On your birthday?
Haley Radke (04:14):
Sheer terror.
Pam Cordano, MFT (04:16):
Sheer terror.
Haley Radke (04:18):
Oh, do you wanna talk about my birthday?
About August 22nd.
What's special about today besidesthe fact that I came into this world?
Pam Cordano, MFT (04:28):
That's the most special thing.
You're 42 today.
Is that okay to say out loud?
Haley Radke (04:31):
It's okay.
Yes.
Pam Cordano, MFT (04:33):
And you're crushing it.
And we all love you andwe're so grateful for you.
And so it's your birthday.
That's the big thing.
You could ask me to talk about any topicon your birthday, and I would likely
say yes 'cause you're so special to me.
The other thing that's interesting abouttoday is it's a new moon and it's called
a black moon because a black moon isthe second new moon of a given month.
(04:54):
And so today's a black moon.
And I was just thinking abouthow the black moon, the new moon
represents darkness and hiddenness andbeginnings that come out of the void.
And there was a point where youare a beginning that came out
of the void and now you're here.
And for those of us who are lucky enoughor tenacious enough or have enough
(05:17):
support, that we keep trying so hardto heal and to feel comfortable in our
skin and in our lives, there's a waywe can keep especially together coming
out of this void of the nothing place.
Haley Radke (05:31):
Do you wanna tell us about the origins of this named thing?
Pam Cordano, MFT (05:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think I was there when it started.
I was in a joint, verydeep psychotherapy session.
By joint there was me and then there was anon adopted attachment therapist, and the
two of us were working with an adoptee.
And the adoptee went into this really,I don't even know how to describe it.
(06:02):
This is where words fail, but likea horrific looking place where I
could see, and his eyes and in hiswhole being like, like a dorsal
vagal, like a collapsed state where.
He was just not with us, but itdidn't look quite like dissociation.
It looked like something else.
And so the attachment therapist saidsomething like, hey, we're right here.
(06:24):
Haven't you done this enough?
Can't you come out?
We're right here.
Can you come out and find us here?
And he just, the client just lookedhe looked like he was actually
somewhere not nowhere, he wassomewhere but somewhere awful.
And then as I kept looking athim, I said, no, we can't ask
him to come to where we are.
(06:45):
We have to go where he is.
And the client said really calmly,this is a place where there is nothing.
Nothing at all.
And in that moment, I recognize,I feel like I started crying.
It was really a big moment,but I recognized it.
(07:05):
I could see him and he was, he describedit where there's nothing at all.
My whole body remembered somehowthat place more consciously
than I ever had before.
And then we started callingit the nothing place.
And what was super interesting isthat once that happened and we,
I went to him, I felt it, I thinkI started crying in that moment.
(07:27):
The other therapist, the attachmenttherapist suddenly realized
that attachment theory does notaccount for what was happening.
That attachment theory explainsbonds that are insecure or disrupted,
but they're still present ina continuous way for a human.
But attachment theory does notexplain what happens when attachment
is completely severed before a babyhas a sense of self, and other.
(07:51):
And that gap, the nothing placegap is where we adoptees, live in
some deep part of ourselves andthat we've built a life on top of.
Haley Radke (08:02):
So can we go to, like most people call it
the fourth trimester, right?
Baby is born and what'ssupposed to happen is.
You as a baby, you learn from your mother.
The mother is your nervous system.
(08:23):
The mother is your source for life, food,all the things, emotional regulation,
all of those things come from the mother.
And you said thathappens up to six months?
Pam Cordano, MFT (08:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll lay it out.
So from zero to six months, theinfant lives in symbiosis with a
mother or the primary caregiver.
The infant has no clear sense ofself or other, and the only way they
regulate is inside of a shared system.
So funny that I'm crying.
This is so sad, but I'musually not the crier, but
Haley Radke (08:59):
Oh, I a hundred percent am.
Pam Cordano, MFT (09:01):
This is you were the one dreading this conversation and I'm
the one who it is like it's hitting me.
It's crazy.
Anyway, so regulation comes, the baby'sactual nervous system regulation comes
from inside of a shared nervous system,not from their own nervous system.
And then from six months to 18 months,there's this gradual differentiation
(09:22):
where the baby starts realizing I'mseparate, but I'm also connected.
This is built through thousandsof micro moments where the mother
leaves, the mother, comes back.
The frustration inside thebaby's system is soothed.
The baby's hunger is met, and sothese thousands of micro moments
build from six months to 18 months.
(09:43):
This gradual differentiationof I'm a separate self in
relation to my caregiver mother.
Haley Radke (09:49):
Is this what you've called call response before.
Pam Cordano, MFT (09:52):
Yes.
Haley Radke (09:53):
Okay.
Pam Cordano, MFT (09:54):
Yeah.
And call and response starts fromthe moment a baby's born, but for
the first six months, even withcall and response, the baby does
not know that it's a separate self.
But then starting around six months,they start to learn that gradually for
the next up until they're 18 months old.
And then from 18 months to 36 months,the emergence of stable object constancy
(10:16):
develops where my mom's not here.
But I still know she exists.
And this anchors a sense of the baby'sself as continuous and not an annihilated.
Haley Radke (10:28):
Wait, remember playing peekaboo?
Pam Cordano, MFT (10:32):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (10:32):
And like it's only funny and nice to do when the
baby knows you're gonna come back.
Pam Cordano, MFT (10:41):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (10:42):
There's a point where we don't have object permanence
and so peekaboo was just like,oh my God, where did she go?
Pam Cordano, MFT (10:49):
It's like a torture chamber,
Haley Radke (10:51):
right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I didn't like playingthat with children.
Pam Cordano, MFT (10:55):
Like nothing places like a peekaboo that never had a second partner
to come back and show back up again.
I'm serious.
Haley Radke (11:03):
Yeah, I know.
It's so bleak.
You have to laugh or we will cry.
Pam Cordano, MFT (11:10):
I know.
Traditional classical attachmenttheory presumes some form
of continuous caregiving.
It does not build into it attachmentrupture that adoptees go through, and
this therapist was just shocked realizingthat everything he had come to understand
(11:34):
about attachment was missing a really corepiece for some people in the population.
Haley Radke (11:41):
Devil's advocate.
It's okay, most of us were placedpretty soon to where we were born.
If you were adopted as aninfant, and so there was another
adult doing those things.
So what's the difference?
Pam Cordano, MFT (11:55):
It's not about interchangeable adults for anybody.
It's about the one the baby isbonded to, and we get bonded
in utero for nine months.
And so whether a baby is relinquished atbirth or a week later, or six months later
or two years later, the mother is for thebaby, is not an interchangeable figure.
(12:19):
I think we adoptees know this, those ofus who are outta the fog, we know this.
I don't knowthat t he widerculture doesn't know this.
And that's part of the illusion.
Haley Radke (12:27):
That we're interchange, that the parents are interchangeable.
Pam Cordano, MFT (12:29):
That parents are interchangeable.
Haley Radke (12:31):
Yeah.
With no consequence.
So the attachment therapistis like, what the heck?
I had no clue this was missingfrom attachment theory.
Pam Cordano, MFT (12:42):
Yeah.
He saw it like once, once he realizedthat he, that what was happening was
outside of his framework, and it becamereally evident in the room and with the
clients where the client went, and thenhow I responded with this recognition.
Like it was very overwhelmingfor this attachment therapist.
Haley Radke (13:02):
Did they get emotional too?
Pam Cordano, MFT (13:04):
Oh yeah.
Haley Radke (13:05):
Oh.
Pam Cordano, MFT (13:05):
They had to take a break.
They realized they had that a hugething had been missing around a
whole segment of the population,meaning us, that it's not the same.
And that therapists and people try toprematurely pull, let's say the adoptee
or the relinquished person out of wherethe ground is that they're trying to,
(13:27):
to heal from if they can get thereand again asking the adoptee, I'll
say to, to adapt rather than peopleknowing how to go and be where somebody
is in the nothing place with them.
Haley Radke (13:43):
I'm trying to picture studying this,
because babies are nonverbal.
There's no, there's nothing that's been.
There's nobody, no wordsput to this before.
It's not even an attachment theory.
And then so how do you evencome to describe something like,
(14:05):
it's just, yeah, this is what'sreally hard to put words to.
Pam Cordano, MFT (14:11):
Yeah.
The cool thing is that how thisclient could get here was, in
my opinion, like extremely rare.
He was able, even able to do this to goin there and then that there was this
perfect configuration of an adopteetherapist and a non adoptee attachment
specialist all in this at the same time.
It was this perfect moment where I feellike the value, one of the values is that
(14:35):
moment started something that is, I think,and has been adding value to adoptees
with trying to understand what makesthis all so hard in healing and getting
comfortable and grounded because it ispreverbal and there's no cultural mirror.
So without having models, it's just,we're just, it is just this kind
of chaos of confusion and trauma.
(14:58):
But this is starting to put order inlike order and structure to what's
underneath in this deepest place.
Haley Radke (15:06):
Do you consider the nothing place the there's the act of
obliteration, of connection betweenbaby and mom, and then there's also the
time period gap of when you should havethis connection and be able to realize,
(15:30):
come to a realization that you are anindependent creature aside from a, the
person you came from, is it all of that?
Is it the one thing like, I'mtrying to wrap my head around,
what do you think about that?
Pam Cordano, MFT (15:46):
I think it's a combination of the baby being in that
symbiotic for most of us who are adoptedunder, at, under six months or at least
had some kind of trauma or inconsistency,foster homes, whatever in the first
six months that, that before the baby,when the baby is still in symbiosis
with a specific person who's theirbirth mother, even, from the moment
(16:09):
they're born, it's the birth mother.
That's who they've been with as aco-regulator, as one system the baby
knows when that gets severed it'sthe breaking of that relationship
during the time of symbiosis.
That, that it, that'swhat we're talking about.
Haley Radke (16:25):
Think about a NICU baby who
Pam Cordano, MFT (16:28):
Yep.
Haley Radke (16:28):
Can't come out for six weeks.
And then can, would theyhave some version of this?
Pam Cordano, MFT (16:35):
Yes.
And that's when Nancy Verrier, in ThePrimal Wound included NICU babies.
And like my adoptive mother was apreemie in, I think two months in
the NICU back in the thirties, 1930s.
And she had a lot of similar kinds ofissues in her nervous system as I did.
(16:56):
Who knows, maybe that's even somethingthat I don't know, made adoption amenable
somehow or appealing to her somehow.
I don't know, but that'sa weird thing to say.
But yeah.
Haley Radke (17:06):
Okay.
And this is, sorry, anotherslight rabbit trail.
Thinking of children born by surrogate.
So it's, that is something I'm socurious about when they start studying
that because you can go to your geneticparents, but your tie is severed from the
(17:27):
person who carried you to gestationally.
Pam Cordano, MFT (17:32):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (17:32):
Very confusing.
Pam Cordano, MFT (17:33):
I think a lot of adoptees think about that.
The surrogacy.
The other thing I wanna say aboutthe NICU babies, and maybe this goes
with surrogacy, depending on thesituation and the organization of
the structure of the families, but.
With a NICU situation, if the parentsare intact the lineage is intact.
Even if the baby can't be held,particularly in the past, it's better now.
(17:55):
There, there's more holding and moreawareness of bonding and what the baby's
actually need, but there's still like apsychological, I could even say spiritual
holding of that baby in an intact lineage.
If that baby's being kept while they'rein the NICU, it's a different kind.
There's a holding kind of.
I can only imagine that the babywould have similar kinds of biological
(18:16):
trauma and this nothing place kindof experience, but there is some kind
of a holding that is still intact.
In that situation.
Haley Radke (18:25):
Even if mom dies in labor and dad is waiting
and ready to take care of baby.
Pam Cordano, MFT (18:29):
Right, because if mom dies in labor and dad's ready, then dad's
gonna be grieving and in the same soupin a way as the baby around that loss.
And there's gonna be a kind of mirror ororientation point in that shared grief
versus just cut ties cut and baby'snow in a totally foreign environment.
Haley Radke (18:52):
I just don't understand why Muggles, this is the term that Pam uses
for non adopted people for kept people.
Why Muggles don't get thatparents are not interchangeable.
Pam Cordano, MFT (19:10):
It's like issues of privilege.
It's like anything that is so normalto a person that it's not questioned.
It's usually pain.
Pain becomes the questioner, and thenthe people who are invisible or harmed
by that invisibility start speaking up.
And in a way that's what we're doingin this conversation is making space
(19:31):
for something that is invisible.
Haley Radke (19:33):
Right.
Pam Cordano, MFT (19:33):
On a cultural level, which is super painful.
Haley Radke (19:35):
Yeah.
Pam Cordano, MFT (19:37):
So if in that state of symbiosis, relinquishment
happens, the baby has no wayto hold inside their system.
I exist.
You exist because that hasn't beenformed yet before the rupture.
And so what then happens is the nervoussystem encodes this experience of
(20:01):
void and terror because that rupturecreates that in the baby's body.
And that's the place of the nothing place,no self, no other, no continuity, no
me, annihilation that, all that stuff.
And then later on as we getolder with our adoptive families,
let's say our developmentoverlays the ability to function.
(20:24):
We go to school, we do what we do,we learn how to be a person that's
functioning, but there's still thissplit consciousness inside of us
where there's this more adult kind ofcompetence or child kind of competence.
Adult and there's still the body memoryof non-existence deep inside of us.
So we live with that split.
Haley Radke (20:46):
I'm trying to take it in.
I think just literally tryingto understand that a baby
doesn't know it exists, right?
That's a hard thing to get, butliterally they can't know that yet.
(21:08):
Because the, because of the developmentalstate, lack of development, yet
it's very hard to understand thata baby wouldn't know they exist.
And I know you said developmentally.
Pam Cordano, MFT (21:26):
And that, that, that feels like death.
That's a fear of annihilation.
If I, am I dying?
I'm dying.
And not even am I dying, like it'slike a, not the thought I'm dying, but
the experience for the organism of I'mdying 'cause I just got chopped apart.
Haley Radke (21:43):
And there's not the ability yet to say, oh, they went
somewhere, they're coming back.
It's just gone.
Pam Cordano, MFT (21:54):
That doesn't even start being a biological possibility
until they're at least six months old,the beginning of being able to do that.
So we just have to develop on top ofthis experience of being chopped apart
and it feeling like death, and then webuild coping on top of that to survive.
(22:14):
And then we become the people we becomeon top of all of that, and then we
don't know why we're so anxious, or wehave so much trouble in relationships,
or we're terrified of being alone inthe dark or throwing up or we get sick
from all this stress in our bodies.
We don't know what is going on that weare so screwed up and we think that it's
(22:35):
like our, it's our fault or something'swrong with us and feel shame about it.
But this talking about the nothingplace and describing the rupture
during the time of symbiosis and whatthat does, which I could have known
intellectually, but to see it on thisclient's face and then, and to experience
it in my own system, all at once itlanded and now we can talk about it.
(22:56):
I, those of us who it's landingfor, we can talk about it.
Haley Radke (22:59):
Isn't this the same as so many friends I've had, or even
interviews we've mentioned likeI feel like I fell outta the sky.
Like feeling like you come from nowhere.
Pam Cordano, MFT (23:09):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (23:10):
Like that terrible idea, that storks bring the
babies to the new parents.
It's no, like adoptees literally, alot of us literally feel like that,
like some random thing just droppedus outta the sky with the receipt.
Pam Cordano, MFT (23:25):
Yeah.
It's like we're, it's like we'rea tree that we have to grow.
We have to grow into abig tree with no roots.
Like somehow there's no root system andthen we don't know why we keep getting
blown over or we don't like when kidsare hanging on us and climbing us
'cause we're about to fall over anyway.
But yeah, it's that disoriented.
There's no continuity in thenervous system literally.
So the infant nervous system depends onco-regulation 'cause they're in symbiosis.
(23:49):
Without it neural circuits for safetyand orientation do not get laid down.
The nothing place feels likenon-existence because in brain
terms, there was never a scaffoldfor I exist in relationship to you.
And when I say there never was, even ifthe baby was kept by the birth mother for
(24:09):
two weeks, they were still in symbiosiswhen the relinquishment happened.
So they didn't, we have to keepthinking of the baby as being in
symbiosis when they're under six months.
And then, and what that, it doesn'tmatter in some way, if they got.
A day or a, or two a month it'sstill happening in that time.
And polyvagal theory is really interestingin a super nutshell our dorsal vagal
(24:32):
system, that's our collapse place.
That's where the nothing place lives.
It's in this dorsal collapse place.
It's not even equipped to dofight or flight 'cause babies
can't do fight or flight.
They're, they can't even move and theydon't even know that they're separate.
They're stuck having tojust go into collapse.
This is where the nothing place lives.
It's in the dorsal, vagal collapseplace in our nervous systems.
(24:54):
And then a stronger part that we candevelop later is fight or flight so we
can actually make decisions about what,when do I fight, when do I do flight,
but the happy place for all of us is inthe ventral vagal system that's higher
up and that's where we feel safe enough.
We feel socially connected.
We have our curiosityand creativity online.
That's the good lifetimes is in ventral vagal.
(25:17):
So with this rupture in our dorsal thatlands in our dorsal vagal system as
freeze and collapse, it's harder for usto get to a steady state of ventral vagal.
It takes a lot of work and probably alot of good fortune around, kind and
tuned in people being with us laterafter we've come through all of this.
(25:39):
Does that make sense?
Haley Radke (25:41):
Just to be able to function.
Pam Cordano, MFT (25:43):
Yeah.
And to feel and to becomfortable functioning.
Not shut down and then not innot dominated by fight or flight.
More times rather than less times.
That doesn't make sense.
But to be less involved withfight or flight and shut down.
And to have more of usavailable for ventral vagal,
where we actually feel good.
Haley Radke (26:01):
So this is an upsetting thing that many people have said.
They either report my casewas, oh, she's colic, right?
I cried nonstop all the time forno apparent reason, quote unquote.
And then others report, oh, I was sucha good baby because I never cried.
(26:25):
So there's like alwayscrying, never crying.
Pam Cordano, MFT (26:28):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (26:29):
That's either one.
This collapse.
Pam Cordano, MFT (26:32):
Yeah, the never crying is really collapse and the always crying.
There's still some energy to me.
I think of the always crying is stilltrying to stay alive and not go because
collapse the, like the freeze state.
The freeze state if we stay theretoo long it's like a preparation
for death kind of place.
Like freeze is a place that wantsto figure out what do I do I
(26:55):
fight or do I flee from danger?
Freeze is danger.
So if we can't find a way to,to fight or flight, we're just
sinking into this free state whereit's like preparation for death.
We can't, the parts of us tosay frozen too long are parts of
us that kind of just seem to godead or get buried or turned off.
They just stop being online.
(27:15):
The crying part, I feel goodabout thinking of you crying
like that in, in the sense thatyou're fighting for something.
Like what can a baby do ifthey're trying to engage, trying
to be known stay in the ring.
Crying is maybe better than,crying is better than no crying.
It's not great.
It's not good, but it's, it at leastit's, there's an action involved with it.
(27:37):
And who knows, maybe, I don't know.
You're such an action person.
You put things out in the world,you, you do that kind of thing.
And I don't know, I don't knowwhat I'm saying by saying that,
but I'd rather see a baby cryingthan a baby who gave up crying.
Haley Radke (27:51):
I just feel so like this.
This is so difficult becauseI know all my adoptee friends,
like this is what we experienced.
This is no one, nobody whowould subject a human to this.
Pam Cordano, MFT (28:06):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (28:06):
Torture.
This is torture.
Okay.
Should we go to iFS?
Pam Cordano, MFT (28:11):
Sure.
So in, in IFS theory, the exilesmost exiles hold feelings that
are not fully acceptable oracceptable at all in the family.
So it can be things like,shame or rage or pain, grief.
Sometimes exiles holdpositive feelings too.
(28:33):
Let's say there's a mother that's jealousof the child might wanna shut down their
joy or their how they can shine in theworld so the mother doesn't get jealous.
So that's, there's examples of exilescan hold good things too, like quote
good things too that are just notallowed in the family to maximize love.
The nothing place is a deeperexile than those kinds of exiles.
(28:53):
The nothing place is an exile that holdsan experience of non-existence itself.
So it's not just a part with feelings,it's the body memory of no self.
No other 'cause it broke apart.
And then what happens is protectors ourprotective systems, I'll say in adoptees
(29:15):
work over time to cover up this abyss.
And they do thing, overfunctioning, people pleasing,
addiction, anger problems, reactiveattachment disorder issues.
Like whatever it takes to try tostay alive, stay afloat, and cope.
All of that's on top of this deep exile.
And healing.
Healing this, helping, this exileheal is not about fixing it at all.
(29:40):
It's not asking it to come out and meetthe land of the living in muggle terms.
It's really us, and this is reallya hard thing I'm gonna say, but it's
us learning how to be just little bitby little bit with the terror and the
overwhelm of the nothing place itselfas a deep experience in our systems.
That's what that's where we werebefore the stork suddenly brought us
(30:02):
in, or we suddenly got, we arrivedon spaceship from another planet.
We were in this nothing place.
So it's in there and the best thingwe can do is start slowly to get to
know it and we can talk about that,but, and also to be around either
therapists or friends who have somecapacity to also hang out with that.
We don't want a therapist askingus to be somewhere else when.
(30:26):
That's really the ground ofwhere we need to bear in our own
systems to start to feel rooted.
Haley Radke (30:31):
Using that word rooted.
How many of us have gone totherapists or psychologists and
you wanna deal with this, whateverissue that's going on for you, and
they're always looking for the root.
And when you deal with that,then that issue resolves.
And so I get it.
I see why that would be so critical tolook at, but also because the terror
(30:53):
is so deep, you really would haveto be safe in order to look at that.
And I've, I know I've said this before,I don't know how accurate this is, but
I really think our brains only show uslike things that we're ready to look at.
Pam Cordano, MFT (31:08):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (31:09):
Just to keep us safe.
Pam Cordano, MFT (31:10):
Yeah.
And I've said before on your showthat this is one reason I'm a fan
of psychedelic therapy because itdoes allow for getting access to
places that our protective structureswill not allow us to go into.
And that's why talk therapy can take solong and be so frustrating because it's
just we can't, our system is saying,no way are we going in that place.
(31:31):
And that's why I'm a fan ofpsychedelic therapy and I hope
that it gets legalized soon.
Haley Radke (31:36):
There was so many episodes.
I remember like from the, I think fromthe first season even, we were talking
about how we have these boxes we storeaway in our closet and we just can't even
open them because it's just too much.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
The terror.
That's the word.
But yet people knowing about this, Iknow you've had a group of adoptees
(32:01):
talk about this together when youwere leading the flourish groups
and just even knowing that there wassomething to name, it can reduce that.
Pam Cordano, MFT (32:10):
Totally.
Haley Radke (32:11):
Yeah.
Pam Cordano, MFT (32:11):
There's an upside.
We're gonna talk about the upsideof us even talking about this topic.
Yes.
Before this ends for sure.
But yeah.
Haley Radke (32:17):
Don't worry.
Pam Cordano, MFT (32:18):
Don't worry.
Hang in there.
The nothing place exiledoesn't just sit there quietly.
It exerts a gravitationalpull on the whole system.
And that's why that when there'sstress or even intimacy in
relationships, there's thisgravitational pull that's freaking out.
(32:39):
And this nothing place thingis a dynamic living part of us.
It's not just, it's not a concept.
It's not, symbolic.
It's really a real thingthat we have inside of us.
And I wouldn't have known thatuntil I saw this client get there
and then I felt like I got there.
So when we feel fatigued or we havea conflict or we're in an intimate
(33:00):
situation this nothing place exile pullsforward and the system feels like I'm
dissolving, I'm not here I'm gonna die.
Like this whole I'm gonna diething comes from this place.
'cause we did have that experience andthat is the experience in nothing place.
I'm gonna die.
I'm getting annihilated right now.
Haley Radke (33:17):
Is that equivalent to many of us, myself included
having suicidal ideation.
Pam Cordano, MFT (33:24):
Yeah.
Totally.
Haley Radke (33:27):
Great.
Pam Cordano, MFT (33:29):
It's also babies that are in orphanages who
die even though they're, theirphysical needs are being met.
They're, they are.
They are.
They go further.
Those of us who have survived this, wedidn't go as far into death as they,
but I think it's a continuum of death.
This nothing place place.
Haley Radke (33:47):
So people who have this need met their whole life and identity
is built on this strong structureand we just have this gaping hole
where the foundation should be.
Pam Cordano, MFT (34:02):
Yeah.
And sure there's, of course there's peoplethat have all kinds of, they have drug
addicted parents or they have violencein the home from the time they're born or
they're getting really severely abused.
Of course those things are likehorrific for any human system, but
there is a continuity of attachmenteven if it's really poor attachment
(34:24):
and scary attachment or eventuallydisrupted attachment, there's a
continuity with versus an entirebreak of the organism of symbiosis.
It's different.
Haley Radke (34:34):
So the gravitational pull to come back to the abyss is there.
And if we're shaking or pushing some way.
That can get triggered.
Is that what I'm hearing?
Pam Cordano, MFT (34:48):
Yeah.
It does get and I thinkit does get triggered.
Haley Radke (34:53):
It just does get triggered and whether we're aware of it or not,
Pam Cordano, MFT (34:56):
yeah,
Haley Radke (34:57):
okay,
Pam Cordano, MFT (34:58):
We get triggered.
We get triggered and I can't imagine anytrigger that doesn't somehow harken back
to this nothing place for us in some way.
It feels like we're talking about theground floor of the adoptee system.
Haley Radke (35:12):
This, maybe we should talk about this at the end, but what it's
bringing to mind is how you've talkedabout adoptees as superheroes, right?
And it just makes me so thisis what gets me emotional.
It just makes me so much more impressedwith all of us who've made it and have,
in any fashion we've made it and thosethat are working on trying to improve our
(35:37):
lives and change things for our childrenand legacy and all of those things, like
it just makes it all the more impressive.
Pam Cordano, MFT (35:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that for us, justliving daily life requires a
kind of strength and capacity.
Even when life looks like a show, amI allowed to say show on your show?
Haley Radke (35:59):
We are.
We will beep bad, but yes, you can say it,
huh?
Yeah.
Okay.
So the value of naming thisis that we can work on it?
Pam Cordano, MFT (36:13):
Yeah.
Okay.
So here's what I see thevalue is it's validating.
Like when I brought this to the flourishgroups and there were, I don't know.
40 something people inthe flourish groups.
I think it was everyone, if notnearly everyone, really related
to this in some way or another.
And to have something named for us whenthe culture doesn't name it and how could
(36:36):
they is it can feel very validating.
So it's, and it's also a wayof saying you're not broken.
Like whatever you think you look likecompared to other people in life.
If we have a way of understanding whatwe actually went through and we start
all of us, carving out like language andunderstand shared understandings about it.
(36:58):
It just gives us another way to lookat our lives and what you just, when
you got tearful about the superpowerthing, it's, it is like that.
It gives a perspective so that wecan perhaps see ourselves with more
and each other with more compassionand awe really, and horror awe.
And also, it's so cool to findlanguage for things that happened
(37:22):
before language was built.
It's almost as if in the culture,if we can't language it, it's not,
it doesn't it, it isn't there.
It's not real.
But yet our nervous systems tella story and for us to find ways to
language it and find shared languagingit, it gives form to the formless.
And it also creates a sense of belonging.
There's a paradox because thisnothing place is literally a
(37:45):
place where there's nothing.
There's no you.
There's no me.
There's no up, there'sno down, there's nothing.
And yet, once we can find each otherin the nothing place, even just start
to find each other in the nothingplace paradoxically, it's grounding.
We find, oh, there's some groundthis the nothing place is a place.
(38:05):
It's not, it isn't really a no place,it's a place, it's just a horrific place.
But to be there together is different.
So when this client got there andthen I feel like I fell in, on
accident, but I'm grateful I did.
It was comforting to him.
It was comforting to me that we like,oh my gosh, we both, if we're both
here, it's not the same as if I'mjust alone there and hiding it from
(38:28):
myself and reacting to try and to stayout of the, out of this deeper place.
And then instead of being pathologizedoh, you're avoidant, you're angry, you're
resistant, you're ungrateful you're,you dissociate a lot, like all these
labels that, that we can be thought ofor called, or it's no we can witness.
(38:49):
In ourselves and in each other, thedeeper truth of what, what's actually
happening that isn't pathologicalat all and it has a chance to be
actually reparative in that way.
It's another story besidesthat we're screw ups,
defective.
No wonder they gave me away.
I'm such a, I'm aninherently defective person.
And then finally, I'll say this again,that the goal is not to erase this place.
(39:12):
The goal is to learn to be with itwithout the panic or annihilation terror.
To start chipping away at that so thatwe can actually just land here and feel
that root system that's actually there,but I don't know that we can do it alone.
I think we need each other to, that'swhy this shared language, I think
that's why we're doing this episodeis like we're trying to give language
so we can all do this together.
Haley Radke (39:34):
I don't know if you remember, if you've heard about this, we've
talked about this maybe before, but youeven said reactive attachment disorder
before, which I'm just like, it's bs.
It's like a, it's like thisstupid diagnosis for normal
reactions to abnormal situationsand this is what I'm thinking of.
(39:55):
I'm like, oh, this having a nothingplace as a part of our origins.
This is a normal reactionto an abnormal situation.
This is normal for adoptees to feelthis way because there is a gaping void
in what should have been this be beginnice symbiosis, nice beginning with our
(40:18):
mother and it's not available to us.
Pam Cordano, MFT (40:24):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (40:24):
I know you know this, but I'm going to link in the show notes.
We have many adoptees, including peoplefrom Flourish who wrote about the Nothing
Place, and there's some poetry and justmoments people have captured even about
when you brought this idea to them andthey write about it in The Flourish
Experience we'll link to that and someother folks have blogged about it.
(40:44):
So I'll have links to a fewdifferent folks in the show
notes talking about this.
Is there anything more you wanna tell us?
If someone wants to start looking atthis to possibly look in the scary
place to acknowledge it, what arefirst steps to do that in a safe way
?Pam Cordano, MFT: That if people are comfortable being in their own company
(41:08):
enough, they can just start trying it on.
They could go for a walk and just giveit a little thought like, what do I
think or feel about this nothing placething in flourish people recognized
it immediately and some people weremore sad or scared about it, and
other people were really relieved,like viscerally relieved about it.
So there might be a wholebunch of different types of
(41:29):
inter of reactions to it.
But also I think that if people arein therapy, bringing it to their
therapist or if they have friends whothey trust or friends that are adopted
that they trust, they could also starttalking about it a little bit there.
I think it's it's almost like it'slike soil and we can just start
digging a little bit in the soil,but the goal is not to overwhelm
'cause it's a tender place.
(41:51):
It's just to, it's just to startexploring whoever wants to.
And do you have anything to say to someone who might
listen to this and just be like,oh my gosh, this is just made up.
You guys are just feelingsorry for yourself.
Not that we get those emails ever.
Pam Cordano, MFT (42:10):
I don't really care about those people that much.
I don't even feel ruffle.
I feel like now that I know thisplace so much more it doesn't even.
If someone wants to negateit, I like whatever.
I just don't have any business with them.
Haley Radke (42:25):
That's such a healthy way to look at it.
And I think, truly, anytime I've talkedto someone about this that's adopted,
there's like an instant knowing.
And for people who are adopted,but perhaps haven't started really
deep diving it critically, thismight not resonate and that's okay.
(42:48):
Like
Pam Cordano, MFT (42:49):
totally
Haley Radke (42:49):
live your best life.
Don't dig if you don't want to dig.
Pam Cordano, MFT (42:52):
Absolutely.
Haley Radke (42:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you so much forsharing this with us, Pam.
Pam Cordano, MFT (42:58):
Yeah.
Haley, thanks so much for beingborn actually, and keeping yourself
alive, however you did that.
Haley Radke (43:05):
I did it.
I did.
We both did it.
And you are listening.
You did it too.
Way to go us.
Way to go us.
Pam Cordano, MFT (43:12):
That's right.
It's a big deal.
Haley Radke (43:14):
It is.
And I hope this naming ismore an encouragement to
feel like, oh, I'm not crazy.
There's nothing wrong with me.
This is a normal reaction toa very abnormal situation.
Pam Cordano, MFT (43:30):
Yeah, if we go back to the black the black moon that's
happening today and we go back to thedeep exile name, what deep exiles or any
exiles need is love and presence and sowe can start building presence and love
in for ourselves in this place and witheach other, and that's what it needs.
(43:51):
It doesn't need to do to get.
To get moving and be different.
It just needs love and presence togently, slowly start coming to it
and that's when the light comes back.
Haley Radke (44:02):
Beautiful.
Thank you so much.
You've been on the show so manytimes sharing your wisdom with us.
We so deeply appreciate it.
Truly, where can folksconnect with you online?
Pam Cordano, MFT (44:13):
By email pcordano@comcast.net.
Haley Radke (44:18):
Lovely.
Thank you.
Thanks for celebratingmy birthday with me.
Pam Cordano, MFT (44:22):
I'm so excited.
You asked me what an honor.
Haley Radke (44:28):
I know I've said this before.
I love Pam so much.
She has helped me personally and somany of us by bringing language to
the ethereal, the intangible of it allwhen we are trying to help ourselves
(44:52):
understand what happened to us inthe context of adoption separation.
And our loved ones and trying to explainto them like how it feels to be an
adopted person existing in this world.
So I'm so deeply grateful to Pam.
I'm also so gratefulfor all of my patrons.
(45:14):
If you have felt value from AdopteesOn, you can join our Patreon.
You can search Patreon and quote AdopteesOn, or go to adopteeson.com/community
and folks can pledge monthly amountsor you can pay for a year and you get
so many so many episodes of me and myfriends talking about adoptee things.
(45:39):
We also have the Ask an AdopteeTherapist events, which Pam
is a part of occasionally.
We also have Adoptees Off Scriptparties with Pam, and this fall we're
starting a series of Adoptees OffScript parties where we are focusing
in on the fight flight, fawn or freezethemes, and so I know we're gonna be
(46:01):
learning a ton more from her about those.
So thank you so much for all of you whohave supported the show in the past and
those who will continue to do so andkeep Adoptees On alive in this world.
The other thing I know folks have beenasking me about, and you will hear this
fall more about my brand new podcastthat I've been working on and you will.
(46:26):
We'll be sharing more, I promise.
So stay tuned for that.
Thank you so much for listening,and let's talk again very soon.
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