January 16, 2024 • 68 mins
Adoptee Lisa Ann is the engaging host of Wandering Tree Podcast connecting with her guests on thought-provoking discussions focused on the adoption journey; and spoken with each person’s unique perspectives. Guests show their resilience, personal growth, and the power of positivity.
Known for her empathetic interview style, insightful questions, and the ability to authentically connect with her guests, Lisa Ann creates a welcoming space for constructive discussions on the lived experiences of adoption.
Her background in early childhood development, combined with decades of service in public safety, and a deep commitment to her local volunteer efforts, has garnished Lisa Ann with an insightful understanding of human development, community dynamics and the powerful flow of life.
Outside of her podcasting work, Lisa Ann devotes her professional expertise to helping others save lives and passionately believes in empowering the adoptee community to become builders of connections.
In her downtime, you'll find her spending time with family and friends, experimenting with new food concoctions, and immersing herself in books of all genres.
Links:
Website: wanderingtreeadoptee.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wanderingtreeadoptee
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wanderingtree_podcast_lisaann/
If you or someone you know would like to tell their adoption story on the podcast (anyone in the adoptee constellation), please send an email to mindyourownkarma@gmail.com, and your story will be considered for the podcast.
_________
Due to the LONG-LASTING EMOTIONAL FALLOUT that can be part of adoption, I highly support the GENTLE HEALING SUPPORT of SMGI: Somatic Mindful Guided Imagery. For more information on this groundbreaking and highly successful method, go to
https://www.somatichealingjourneys.com
Please seek professional help if you find yourself struggling with some of the realizations that you may experience during this episode.
This podcast's mission is on adoption education. If you have an
expertise that you think would be beneficial to anyone touched by
adoption and would like to be on the podcast, get in touch with me. I love to help fellow adoptees by helping to promote your latest project or expertise. It's time WE educate the world!!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey there, it's Melissa Brunetti, and welcome to the
Mind Your Own Karma podcast. Hey there, Karma crew.
Thanks for joining me for another episode of Mind Your Own
Karma, The Adoption Chronicles. Today I have a special guest.
(00:24):
She is an adoptee and you may have already heard about Lisa
Ann, as she is also an adoptee Podcaster.
Her podcast is called The Wandering Tree and she is my
guest today. Let me tell you a little bit
more about Lisa Ann Adoptee. Lisa Ann is the engaging host of
Wandering Tree Podcast, connecting with her guests on
(00:46):
thought provoking discussions, focused on the adoptee journey
and spoken with each person's unique perspective perspectives.
Guests show their resilience, personal growth, and the power
of positivity. Known for her empathetic
interview style, insightful questions, and the ability to
authentically connect with her guests, Lisa Ann creates A
welcoming space for constructivediscussions on the lived
(01:09):
experiences of adoption. Her background and early
childhood development, combined with decades of service and
public safety and a deep commitment to her local
volunteer efforts, has garnishedLisa Ann with an insightful
understanding of human development, community dynamics,
and the powerful flow of life outside of her podcasting work.
Lisa Ann devotes her professional expertise to
(01:31):
helping others save lives and passionately believes in
empowering the adopted communityto become builders of
connections. In her downtime, you'll find her
spending time with family and friends, experimenting with new
food concoctions, and immersing herself in books of all genres.
Here is my interview with Lisa Ann.
(01:52):
We are welcoming Lisa Ann to theshow today.
Hi, Lisa Ann. Hello.
The pleasure to have you on the show.
So Lisa Ann is the host of the Wandering Tree Podcast, which is
also an adoptee focused platform, and I'm excited to
have a fellow adoptee podcaster on the show.
Lisa Ann, I want to start by youtelling us a little bit about
(02:13):
your adoption journey. But because you're also an
interviewer and I've interviewedmany adoptees for your podcast,
I'm curious about some of the themes that you've been seeing
in the community as well. So we'll talk about that at the
end, but let's get to know you and your adoption story first.
So what do you know about the circumstances of your adoption?
Well, first thank you for havingme.
(02:34):
It is a pleasure and I share your sentiment.
It is always nice to be with an adoptee, but also with a
podcaster who is pushing forth and elevating our voices as part
of a a growing community. So thank you for that and I'll
dig right into my own story. I am what is considered a closed
(02:57):
domestic adoption. I was born during the very, very
latter edge of the Baby Scoop era.
I was actually birthed in Iowa and relinquished immediately
from the date of birth, and I was then adopted.
I have a period of time. I call it my life gap,
(03:20):
officially in July of that same year, so about six months or so.
And I was raised by my adoptive family in South Dakota.
Over the course of growing up, Ialways knew from a very, very
early age that I was adopted. But the reality is my first
(03:42):
recollection of knowing is the time period right before I
entered into school. So kindergarten for myself and I
distinctly remember my parents sitting myself down, explaining
to me that I was adopted and then sharing that there were
other adoptees in my, you know, particular grade and also within
(04:06):
my general neighborhood. So there was some type of
connective community that my parents knew other adopted
children and and were able to make that connection.
Now in hindsight on that little piece, I don't know if it was
relevant or not, but that was the time period that I believe
they were coached to expose the secret, if that's, you know,
(04:28):
kind of how we want to look at it.
With that said, similar to otheradoptees, as I went through all
of the life milestones and goal setting activities, I I always
wondered who I was. I had many of the fantasies of
where I came from or how I was conceived or how my biological
(04:51):
parents were living post relinquishing me.
And, you know, it was just something that was deep in my
core for as long as I can remember.
And so just needing to get to that prompted me to go on a
search and finally feel comfortable with that.
(05:12):
And we will be able to maybe diginto this a little bit more as
we proceed forward with the conversation.
But it is no surprise, I suspectto you that I waited until my
parents were deceased, meaning my adoptive parents, who I do
call my parents. I believe they've earned that
right to be called my parents. But waiting till they were
(05:34):
deceased to actually begin the the official search, I asked for
adna kit in 2016. For Christmas, I received one.
I then systematically put it up in a closet in a cupboard on the
top shelf out of fear it it sat there for almost nine months.
(05:59):
I finally went ahead and took the leap of faith.
My husband and I call it come on, I want a Pakalugi, right?
And so submitted the DNA in 2017officially and had a few weeks
(06:20):
after that matched up with a bunch of people.
I I ended up having around that time 10,000 hits and was
unbelievably overwhelmed. Yeah, and sat on it and then sat
on it and sat on it. Waited quite a bit of time for
(06:40):
something to maybe rise up that had a a closer DNA connection
than third, 4th, 5th cousins. Had a couple of hips latter part
of 2018, first part of 2019 and then started some dialogue with
a couple of those hits to kind of further along my my personal
(07:02):
journey. The pandemic hit, we all have a
little bit of a pandemic story Ibelieve and mine is that while
we were you know as a global community and a global set of
society in lockdown, I was considered and and am still to
(07:23):
this day considered an essentialworker.
I work from home, so the only impact that the pandemic had for
me was not having a plethora of activities to do outside of the
home with teenage kids, which afforded opportunity to then
begin this biological search in earnest.
(07:45):
And then I became a fantastic detective and broke the code.
Eventually, in the 2020-2021 time frame, each layer of it was
a little bit differently handled.
I think that if it had not been for the pandemic, I might still
(08:06):
be trying to figure it out, justmostly from it would have become
more of a hobby than an earnest activity like, oh, I have a
couple of hours, let me go see what's on Ancestry, you know,
matches and let me send a message.
So. Was it kind of difficult?
You know, what was that like, going through that process?
(08:27):
Because I hadn't done that. I had somebody do it for me.
But was it difficult? Or was it more like a obsession,
like you just wanted to keep finding out more?
What was that like? For myself and a part of my
journey, it had some complexity.Yes, it was very much a an
(08:48):
activity of obsession. And so just to give your
listeners a little bit of a visual from from what I was
going through during that searchI mentioned 10K.
Well it kind of grew during thattime period.
I ended up I think around the time I broke the code I was just
(09:09):
about 15 K connections. To date I'm almost at 22 K, just
under 22K and that is a result of of two very large families
and then how that just, you know, exponentially grows.
But obsessive is a really good word.
I was constantly every night looking on Ancestry.
(09:32):
I would then look at a name. I would then Google a name.
I would write that name down either on a 3 by 5 card or a
sticky. I would then dig, dig a hole, if
that's a a good analogy, just onone person.
And then I'd come up for air andI'd be exhausted because I I'd
find all of this information, but I still couldn't tie it
(09:54):
together. I didn't know these people.
I didn't know what I was finding.
And that continued for quite some time.
And then one particular pandemicSaturday.
I was tired of that type of workand I had a a boatload of
(10:16):
different colored stickies. I had made finally a connection
with a cousin, first cousin on my maternal side, and that
person kind of gave me a a placeto start looking.
So every time I found a name, I determined who their grandparent
(10:38):
was and they got a color sticky to match a grandparent.
So I started the Dana Lee's method.
If you've heard of that where you can color code, I believe
it's up to like your 8th grand great grandparent to help you
find lineage. I used that in sticky format to
distill down which set of grandparents maternally did I
(11:02):
belong to? And I'm focusing on the maternal
cracking the code because it washarder than the paternal.
It had a different twist. But as the time went on, I
narrowed it down to four females, as my potential
biological mother called up thatsame first cousin who had an
(11:24):
inkling but didn't want to, didn't want to be the one didn't
want to in case she was wrong. And I said, I think I figured it
out. It's one of these four.
It's 'cause I think you're right.
So this is your aunt. So and so this is the one you
call. She is considered the matriarch
and she will help if you figure it out.
(11:46):
So those are just the highlights.
But during all of that, Melissa,I would share with the
listeners. There were things I could have
never prepared for. There were behaviors I just
never anticipated from people, and I didn't realize how
(12:07):
exhausting mentally, just from all the brainpower you'd have to
have emotionally. How you would feel about what
people would say to you or handle you or not say anything
to you, then what? That you know the impacts of
both of those items to your physical health?
(12:28):
No clue. Wow.
That's like the beginning of thereunion before the reunion, you
know? That's yeah, And it is.
You know, we we spent, my husband and I, we spent a good
amount of time prior to the breaking the code event that
day. It was 8 hours of research and
(12:50):
detective work. But we we talked about all of
the what if scenarios or so we thought he, you know he went
through what if you find out this, how do you think you want
to react? What if they believe you to be
this? How do you think you want to
react? That was all of our preparation
(13:13):
pre reunion. Absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah.
So it was a roller coaster, eventhough you tried to prepare as
best you could. Yeah, you know and and as we're
searching and if you don't have your information, which you and
I know is very common through conversations with other
(13:34):
adoptees around the availabilityof their information and the
right to their information. And I would say it's more
prevalent in the closed adoptionscenario for sure.
Doesn't mean it doesn't happen in other areas, just a lot of
prominence there. And so I was one of those.
(13:55):
During that time period, Iowa had not approved and passed
their law allowing for their original birth certificate.
So my only option at the time was Scientific dnaancestry.com
or 23andMe or Heritage or you know any of the numbers that are
(14:18):
out there. That was my only option.
Right. So did you call this person that
you were told to call? I did.
I did call this aunt. I took a lot of courage.
I called. She did not answer.
I did not leave a message. I just couldn't do it right.
(14:40):
What? What?
What? Like I couldn't wrap my brain
around. What am I supposed to say?
I also had found a a few resources during that time
period that indicated you shouldsend a certified letter and I'm
like, I'm not going to do that. That's too much time for me.
I don't have the patience. My anxiety would probably go
(15:01):
through the roof that that's notfor me.
I've got, I've got a call I I called back right after.
I called before a weekend and I called right after the weekend
and the right after the weekend.She picked up the phone, and her
response to me was, I didn't know who you were, but I figured
if you called back again, I'd answer the phone.
(15:23):
Because caller ID, right? So she did answer the phone, and
I said, hi, My name is Lisa, andI I might need your help.
I have a first cousin. Her name is, You know Henrietta.
I'll go with Henrietta. To save, to save the innocent.
(15:45):
Her name is Henrietta, and I believe I'm part of your family
and I need your help. And so let me explain to you who
I am. And and I did.
And she was a little caught off guard and she goes, well, you
know I'm not your mother, I said, which is why I'm calling
you. We I already know it's not you.
(16:06):
I I do know it's not you. I believe it's one of your four
sisters. I really think it's one of
three. Because if it's the fourth one,
I'm not sure having to handle that news.
She's she wouldn't be too, way too young, right?
Just, I think I need to go call my, my sister, my other sister,
one of my other sisters, I said.OK, keep in mind she's one of
(16:28):
the potential for. Yeah.
Right. So she called, she called that
sister. She called me back two days.
And Melissa, it was the first ofone of the types of things I
didn't anticipate. It was my first mark of what I
didn't anticipate, which was consistently consoling other
(16:49):
people for walking in the earth.I don't know if you've had that
yet, but it is, it is one of themost interesting aspects of some
of the stories we hear. And so she called back and she
said, I I know who your mother is.
I am your aunt. She was crying uncontrollably,
(17:09):
she says. I had no idea you walked the
Earth. It's got the chills.
Yeah, and she goes. I need you to know the majority
of the family that knew about you.
They believe you 2 have died. Oh, that was the story she told.
Yeah. That was the story the
grandmother told. Oh, and, and and then she even
(17:33):
broke down more. And I said to this particular
aunt and I said, you need to collect yourself.
I'm OK. So what we're going to do is
we're going to hang up. I'm going to give you a couple
days when you're able to hold a conversation, give me a call
back. And she right.
And she goes, OK And it took heranother three days to call me
(17:57):
back. And she was still crying, but
not as not as distraught. And she goes, this is such a
mess. And I go, well, I'm not going
anywhere. And so how are we going to work
through this together? And she goes, I need to tell you
a little bit about your birth mom.
And she did. And I said, well, I didn't see
(18:19):
that coming. And she goes, my other sister
that I called, she's struggling right now.
She's been carrying that secret for the entirety of your life.
I said what a burden, what a burden.
Yeah. Eventually we got through it all
(18:40):
and I did meet my biological birth mother and there were a
lot of complexities around that as well.
She has since passed away, so I don't have the many of the other
opportunities to, you know, interface with her.
I'm still very welcomed into themajority of that family.
Excuse me, I'm still very welcomed.
(19:04):
I've attended events, I attendeda family reunion, and when I'm
in the geographic location wherethey live, I make a an effort to
try to connect with as many of them as I can.
I just want to go back a second because, you know, you said that
(19:26):
when you were talking to your aunt on the phone and she was
distraught that you had the wherewithal to be like, you
know, let's, let's end this conversation and let's give you
a few days. Like to me that's huge.
Like, I don't know if I would have the wherewithal to do that
in that moment when all that's happening.
And that's just amazing that youare able to like kind of take
(19:47):
control of everything going on and be able to to do that.
I think that for myself the reason I did that.
Was maybe self preservation. I don't know how many people
want to hear someone wailing that they are walking the earth.
(20:10):
I just, I don't know if there would have been anything anyone
could have said to me to prepareme for that.
And so if I can say anything to another adoptee who might have a
similar type of an experience, then I would encourage a moment
(20:32):
where you say let's stop. Because I don't know what else
to tell you to do right. I don't know what else to share.
I certainly for myself didn't want to sit and listen to
another human just come apart after they've just told me,
(20:52):
well, the majority of the family, they believe you to be
dead, right? I mean, so there's there's some,
there's some self preservation in that step.
And that's what I attribute thatto is.
Yeah, I think like most adopteeswould feel like, you know, like
we usually do. Like this is all my fault.
I need to fix this. Like, I need to make her feel
(21:13):
better. Like you were saying earlier,
like how you, you know, you became the person that had to
make everybody feel better abouteverything.
It's in that moment. I think I would have jumped to
that and been like, Oh my gosh, this is all my fault.
Let me help you. You know what I mean?
But I love that you said that because really that's what you
should do is, you know, just saylet's have a time out here for
everybody to just take a second,have, take a breath and then
(21:35):
let's come back together, you know?
Well, I also attribute that Melissa to the concept of fog.
And so we can we can dive there a little bit if you'd like to
prior to the maternal side whichhas the most complexity about my
story. I had already engaged on the
(21:55):
paternal side and was was met with a lot of resistance in that
time period because it was the first engagement which is not
typical from the people that I interview.
It's usually from those that I talk to.
They find the maternal and then they figure out the paternal.
(22:17):
I figured out the paternal and then went and had to, you know,
detected the maternal. The paternal came easier because
of the DNA submission. Around 2018 my half sister, one
of three, also asked for Ancestry DNA for Christmas and
(22:44):
she submitted hers. The first half of 2019 and we
connected and it immediately said your siblings.
Wow. She has, and this is her story,
not my story, but I'll just get us a snippet.
She is the oldest of the four females and she was also
(23:07):
relinquished. Wow.
The difference in our story is, you know, her maternal
biological mother hired a private detective in the 90s to
find her. So she had all of the dad,
(23:29):
father, sperm donor, whichever of those you want to use,
whichever language works for you.
She had all that information andwas able to share it with me.
Oh, OK. Has she been in contact with
him? She had.
They had met. It was her experience with that
(23:50):
was fictional, felt fictional. You can't make some of this
stuff up. You just cannot make stuff up.
The stuff that people say and doto adoptees is just astounding.
And her story, It's her story again.
But she and I have a shared thread.
Her mother, her biological mother, also played that she had
(24:15):
died in childbirth and went to the next level, which my, my
maternal grouping did not do, went to the next level and
mourned her on her birthday every year to include her new
kids. And so when my half sister came
(24:36):
back on the scene, because she went and looked for her, she
came equally from the dead. And it was a it was a colossal
disaster. And it's her story and I promise
you, you cannot make it up. And she doesn't talk about it
publicly. But you can't make it up.
(24:56):
Oh my God. Yeah.
I can't imagine that's crazy. Yeah, So she had that
opportunity. She had met him.
He shared. You know, he knew he had
fathered four children at minimum.
He was very aware that he had four daughters.
He was also aware that she had been relinquished.
Clearly because he was part of the private investigation to
find her. I was next.
(25:19):
He knew that I was relinquished.She was never going to.
He was never going to be part oflooking for me under the
conditions under which I was conceived.
It was not going to happen. He would have had to admit to
what he had done, and he had then another daughter after
that, and then a fourth one, andthe 4th one was raised by him.
So why it connects to my capability of telling my aunt on
(25:44):
the maternal side, let's take a break, is I'd had all kinds of
connection conversations. It had gone on for a calendar
year with those three women. And in that there was the fog.
And then the what I do referenceas my coming out of the fog.
And I speak openly about this moment.
(26:05):
It was on a telephone. I was on a a telephone
conversation with one of the siblings on the paternal side
and she kept really questioning why I would want a relationship
with her, who I was. And we weren't raised together.
And that had been going on for many, many months just
(26:27):
repetitively, you know, I don't know what kind of relationship
we're gonna have. We weren't raised together.
I don't know what kind of, you know, we don't have anything in
common. We weren't raised together.
You know, I just don't. I just don't know.
You know, we weren't raised together.
And I I probably, I know it maybe seems like I exaggerate
how often she said it. But I I promise you, it was so
(26:49):
often that by the time we got toDecember of that year, I was
like, I'm, I'm done. I can't do this anymore.
I can't hand up one more conversation with you.
I can't do it anymore. I can't be questioned.
I can't be questioned about my motives.
They can't be questioned about why I was given up for adoption.
(27:10):
And I can't be questioned about why we weren't raised together,
because all of those decisions had nothing to do with me making
them. They had to do with someone at
the adult level making them and I I've repeated this a few
times, so I will repeat it here as well.
I think the most profound statement any adoptee can make
(27:33):
in the context of being met withadversity or resistance or
justification for walking the earth is this one statement I
want to remind you I was a baby.And if the person receiving that
can't resonate with that and andjust take like a a moment ago,
(27:55):
oh and reset how they approach it.
Walk on, walk on, brothers and sisters.
Walk on. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
So do you have any relationship with any of the sisters on that
side? My oldest sister and I are still
very much connected and we do have a relationship.
(28:17):
And then the other two and myself.
We're done. Yeah.
When you met any of your family,did you see any resemblance on
either side, like either physical or even just in the way
you walk and talk in the world? Yeah, so the first time I had a
(28:39):
zoom call with one of my paternal sisters, it was very
obvious we're related. Our facial structure is is
pretty much the same. There's no doubt we're sisters.
And then on my maternal side, there are a lot of the same
characteristics. One of my cousins, she and I, if
(29:00):
you pull our hair back, we definitely look a lot alike as
well. So that was interesting to see
where my, you know, my curly hair comes from.
I have curly hair and to see my nose shape and to see the shape
of my eyes and I've I've got a what people call a round face.
(29:21):
Not I don't have the long you know, skinny face.
I have the nice round face. So to see that it was, it was
nice. Yeah.
And then how about on your mom'sside?
Do you have any relationships still ongoing on that side?
I do. I just actually spent the latter
part of August visiting my my family up there.
(29:47):
I have my adopted family in South Dakota and my biological
family in South Dakota. I was actually raised 90 miles
from the entirety of my very large biological family.
My adopted maternal grandfather was a farmer and in South Dakota
(30:10):
and the county that he farmed inand his partner, which they had
a large amount of farming land, was adjacent to the county in
which the entirety of my maternal and paternal family was
(30:30):
living. So wow, yeah, there's there is
no doubt in my mind that my families probably crossed each
other's paths on very numerous occasions in my adoptee family.
On my maternal side, my mother was one of six on my biological
(30:52):
family. On the maternal side, my mother
was one of 13 and family #2 in family #2, and there were five
others prior to that. So that gives you an idea of of
how large those two families were.
On my biological paternal side, it was also an equally large
(31:14):
family. So yeah, there is no doubt in
my. Mind a lot of sticky notes.
You had a lot of sticky notes when you were searching.
I'm doing your DNA. Yeah, so here's the visual of
that. Right, so.
I know, right? That connection, So it was on
our center island, and our center island is 13 feet long
and it was covered. I bet.
(31:36):
Yeah, I bet. They're, yeah.
So they're great people. I'm I'm thankful for.
I'm thankful for those that haveembraced that I exist.
I'm thankful that we've gotten past the why do you even walk
the earth part? And I am thankful that they
actually really want to be connected to me based off of my
(32:01):
experience on the paternal side.I was a little more ginger, if
that's the adjective, you know, or verb we want to use.
But yeah, they've been, they've been great.
The aunts, the aunts are very welcoming.
My uncles are very welcoming. I have one uncle, he's really
quiet, He's just a little bit older than I am.
(32:24):
And when I was back to visit them in the summertime, he
didn't know I was coming. And so then we were at a, a
location and they called him andsaid, hey, meet us down here.
You know, we're having a beer and he's like, OK, well, sure.
And he had recently retired and and he shows up and I'm sitting
(32:46):
there and he sits down next to me goes, So what are you doing
in town? Good to see ya call me once in a
while why don't ya, you know. And I was like, happened to be
local, thought I'd pop over having a beer, you know?
Do you feel that connection likewith, especially with your
(33:07):
siblings? I have a that hard time because
we didn't grow up together. I think that I just don't it's
so it it's kind of there's a disconnect somewhere and I don't
know maybe it's coming from me, I don't know.
But I don't feel that sibling like I did with the siblings
that I grew up with or the sibling that I grew up with.
(33:28):
Do you have, are you able to kind of bridge that?
Well, I want to approach this from.
I think sibling relationships are complicated to begin with.
And then I will also provide a little preface around.
Add in the adoptee narrative, and then who really knows while
(33:53):
you're growing up matters? So I have two siblings that I
grew up with. They are actually the biological
children of my adoptive parents.They came after I was adopted,
and they were both surprises. My my parents were the product
(34:14):
of infertility or, you know, they had been trying, and that's
why I was adopted, so to fill the infertility gap.
Then when my mother became pregnant with her, her first
child, my brother, four years afterwards, it was like this
massive fluke will never happen again in your lifetime.
And we were really happy for forsome family.
(34:35):
We had a lot of other things going on external to that, that
I didn't understand. I was way too young, like
alcoholism. Four more years later and my
mother became pregnant again andsurprised another.
You know, this is just an absolute fluke and and it was
very difficult, a very difficultpregnancy for her.
(34:56):
Both of them are. But that one was even more so.
And she struggled and she ultimately had it to, you know,
had to medically ensure she had no more surprises.
The tone for her was very different that the the tone from
my father. My father treated us all the
same. My mother started treating me as
(35:18):
if I didn't almost exist. I attribute that to she finally
had her own children and that was really her goal in the 1st
place and so. But that has taken Melissa.
I couldn't even tell you so manyconversations, so many things
for me to overthink, so many books for me to read, so many
(35:38):
conversations to be had, to be able to say that and to say that
with comfort. And that's really only happened
in the last couple of years. So I I really respect that she
existed. I understand her limitations and
and it is what it is why that matters is the is the context of
(36:01):
those sibling relationships. And to answer your question, my
younger brother and I who grew up together, we're very, very,
very close. He's one of my best friends, my
middle brother who was immediately after me.
We are not close. In fact we have we have decided
to to not be in each other's lives.
And so the the dynamics of that are because we were raised very
(36:28):
differently. My, my brother, my brother
that's immediately after me and myself, we actually were raised
in a very abusive alcoholic home.
We don't talk about it. It impacted him differently than
me and and therefore he has a lot of things going on in his
(36:48):
life and that's his trauma and Iwould, you know speculate he
doesn't deal with it. My younger brother actually came
at the end of that era of our childhood where my father and my
mother found Alcoholics Anonymous.
They traded their drinking addiction for that, for that
(37:11):
community addiction. And so his his life was
different than ours. So there's that.
The bond that my younger brotherand I have is that no matter
what, and I just haven't figuredout why he's this way.
He's just a fantastic human and he probably doesn't think I know
(37:32):
that or doesn't believe that I Ibelieve him to be one, but he
has never saw me as anything other than his sister.
Ever. Ever.
So now on the other side, my older sister and I I believe the
reason we bond is because we areadopted and we have a similar we
(37:58):
have a connection there. I don't know if we would have a
bond or a connection without that theme.
And then the other two sisters, it goes both ways.
And I just you're right. I think what makes it hard is
you're entering in someone's life and they're trying to
(38:18):
decide who you are. At the same time you're trying
to decide who they are and you know, would you be friends.
So if you can't even pick each other out of the crowd and say
we'd be friends, I'm not sure how you're going to be siblings
as an adult, right? It just it just doesn't happen
that way. And then on the maternal side, I
do have a brother. I he's not very connected to the
(38:39):
family though, period. So I don't, I think that that is
more of the reason than the two of us.
And we don't have anything in common.
So I can kind of understand the yeah, right, same context.
Would we pick each other out of the crowd to be friends?
Probably, yeah. Yeah.
How about you? Oh, how about me?
(39:01):
Well, I grew up with a brother and he my whole entire family.
Never. I don't feel adopted in my
adoptive family at all. Never have.
It's almost like they forget that I'm even.
Whatever. Talked and they're like.
Why are you even saying that? Why are you bringing that up?
I don't care, you know, So that's just the way it's been,
(39:24):
you know, the whole, the whole my whole life.
But my biological siblings, I have two brothers on my maternal
side, two sisters on my dad's side, and I know all of them.
I'm in contact with one brother.The other one, I haven't had
contact with him in years. Again, like you said, not a lot
(39:45):
in common. And and he was 7 when I kind of
came into the picture and I think he was just all around
kind of confused about the wholething and how to feel about it,
you know? And then my two sisters, they
live close to me, like I could drive right now and see them,
you know, within an hour. And and we talk, you know,
(40:05):
holidays, Merry Christmas. And once in a while we'll start
having normal conversations if something's, you know, going on
in one of their lives or something like that.
But there's just some kind of disconnect there.
Like, you know, it feels not forced, but it just feels kind
of obligate, like an obligation almost that we have that, you
(40:26):
know, that we try to have that connection.
So it feels different than definitely then I felt growing
up with my adoptive brother. But yeah, so just again, kind of
complicated and you know. I have been exploring for myself
a little bit of thought process I guess around this mantra that
(40:55):
we hear in society, family is the most important thing and
then the breakdown of that sentence when you are an adoptee
trying to connect to family. So I haven't resolved it for my
own thought process and which makes it hard for me to talk
(41:19):
about it with any type of resolution right associated with
that. But there there's just a really
a, a split between that that mantra and adoptee is trying to
connect to the family. And I bring it up because I
(41:40):
think that's what exactly what you and I might be talking about
as it relates to this sibling relationship connection, but
also the connection with our, you know, extended families now
that are biologically identifiedas as our families.
I don't know how to overcome that mentality because my
(42:01):
struggle is when I hear, when I hear someone say I'm all about
family, family is the most important thing to me.
You know, I, I I would know whatI would do without my family.
And then I'm over here and by science, I'm your family.
(42:24):
And yet I don't fit what you've just said at all Right.
Yeah. It's a it's a very interesting
kind of topic to really try to wrap your brain around and
psychologically come to some conclusion that allows you to
move forward as the adoptee. I don't know.
(42:45):
I really can't speak for any of the buddy but myself.
But my mind goes to, I don't know how the biological sibling
or aunt or uncle or parent on the other side of that
conversation, how they rationalethat this person isn't family,
right? And yet say I'm all about
family. I just, I haven't gotten there
(43:07):
yet. So complex.
So, so, so complex. But you were talking about
coming out of the fog when you were talking to your sister.
So by her repeating that line over and over and over again,
what did that look like at that point?
I mean, what were you feeling? What do you mean by you were
starting to come out of the fog,or realizing that you were in
(43:27):
the fog at that point? Well, I am a believer.
That fog, for me stood for fear,obligation, gratitude.
And I recognize all of the burdens that adoptees carry
(43:57):
throughout life. And I know it's not malice or
intentional by society or those that aren't adopted.
They don't understand. They just really, honestly don't
understand. But when you get to a point in
any type of a conversation whereyou are repetitively justifying
(44:19):
your existence, justifying that you're on the phone and you have
to repetitively tell someone, it's science, I don't know how
to explain it to you any any more plainly.
When you get to that and you recognize there's a, there's
(44:42):
like a a fatigue, right? That's a mental fatigue.
I believe something like that pushes you to a break point that
says enough is enough, like enough is enough.
(45:02):
I am a human. I am walking the earth.
I don't owe you any explanation.I I am not the one that owes you
the explanation. And as soon as you get there I
think that your your mindset changes around fear and
obligation and gratitude or you know, whatever the fog means to
(45:27):
you. I know some people put grief on
the GI. Do think it has a little bit of
a definition for. Yeah, based off of their
experience. But for myself, that was really
what it was. It was like, you know what?
I'm done. I'm done trying to explain to
you I was a baby. I I don't owe you anything.
I really don't. And yeah.
(45:50):
That was so where you kind of just yanked out of the fog and
that was it. Like you at that moment, you
were like, it wasn't like a process that kind of seemed like
it was just a moment. Yeah, I was just like I'm, I'm
never gonna. I'm never going to sit another
moment in any conversation, Doesn't matter who it is and
explain to them how I got here. Well, we all know how the birds
(46:10):
and the bees work, so I don't have to explain that to you.
And we all understand that people in society have an
opportunity, right, wrong or indifferent.
Because I don't want to go in that debate right now, but they
walk away from a human that happens worldwide.
So if you need me to explain anything more to you, we
(46:30):
probably don't have a lot to talk about because I'm going to
be frustrated and angry and verypointed and you're going to hear
it in my tone just like you're doing right now.
And we're not going to get very far because you've pushed me to
my edge and everybody has a break point of something and and
I think that's really what it isfor me.
And so yeah, it was like in thatmoment and I'm done.
(46:51):
I'm never ever going to justify me.
Not gonna happen. Yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah. I love it.
And everybody has the different experience right When we know.
We know that from from conversations with other
adoptees and you know my, my personalities a little bit more
(47:12):
sometimes black and white, and that's part of my my
personality. That would maybe be the nature
part, I don't know, maybe the nurture part.
We could debate that. We could debate that too.
Little bit of both. So you have a podcast.
Why did you decide to do and adopt the focused podcast?
(47:35):
What made you decide to? Yeah, my, why, My why.
We just covered a lot of ground today on the experience and the
journey of just a few years and I I was sitting in my kitchen
(47:57):
and my husband and I had been talking about all of the things
that were happening and how to get help and resources.
We work. We work in a segment of the
United States that is associatedwith fire, police and EMS, and
(48:19):
we are very aware of the toll ittakes on those humans that are
constantly, day after day, dealing with the turmoil of
someone's worst day. The majority of response to
(48:41):
emergencies are not happy and right and so you regardless of
how you feel about any of those disciplines I just named, the
reality is they are humans on someone's worst day.
And so by kind of by proxy over here, knowing that and knowing
(49:08):
the type of long term trauma that that segment of society
deals with, we started drawing and arcing over to long term
trauma for abandonment and trustissues and a few other things.
(49:30):
At that time I probably could have been more red around the
concepts of the primal wound andthe concepts of pre verbal
trauma and I could have mapped back multiple decades of
behavior and understanding to tothose those things and he go my
(49:57):
husband said you're gonna explode if you don't start
talking about it. So let's figure it out and if
this is how you feel and you're struggling to find outlets then
there's probably Someone Like You that needs an outlet and
maybe can just be comforted in your experience or learn one or
(50:18):
two things. That said you know you're right.
I want to do a podcast and if I touch one person, if I just get
one listener and something I don't even I don't know I don't
even care what it is. But one thing helps them through
one event because it's always a series of events.
I I'll be OK and I'll be happy and I don't even know.
(50:40):
I don't even need to know who itis.
I really don't. So that that's my why I never
wanted someone to be sitting in a kitchen at a table going why?
Why does she care if I if I'm didn't grow up with her?
Or, you know, why did that person decide that I'm not good
(51:01):
enough to call back? Or, you know, why did I have two
women, adult women playing some kind of high school triangle
game? Like what?
Really. All of that stuff and no outlet.
So that's my why I want to I want to just share my life
experience and I hope that otheradoptees as they start getting
(51:25):
older, young and old, 'cause we all come to this, this journey
at a different spot. But wouldn't it be nice if there
was a generation of humans who are adopted?
Because I I know that's not going away in my lifetime.
So I'm not going to pretend. I'm not going to pretend that
(51:53):
that benefit the benefit from everything that you and I have
gone through and other adoptees have gone through where it's not
until you're in your multiple decades later of life you're
experiencing all the major health problems as a result of
that Just you know just all that.
It just is better managed. Yeah the whole the holistic
(52:14):
approach to that. So that's my why.
And so we we literally pulled out some stuff, sat at the
kitchen table and just started talking and.
Did you talk on the podcast or were you just this was like pre
podcast? Nope.
This was this was our very firstepisode and it was ad hoc.
(52:37):
It wasn't pre planned at all andwe said let's just let's just
start doing it because if we don't start it'll never happen
#1 and my why will not be fulfilled and and it goes on and
on and on. So for the first season it was
he, I and every once in a while like a friend of ours.
And we really dug into how I wasfeeling about myself and yeah,
(53:03):
how I was really feeling about myself.
And it wasn't healthy. I wasn't healthy.
I, you know, if you really listen, you really listen to
that first season, season one. And you're an adoptee that's a
little further down on your journey.
You'll be like, wow, she was shewas sharing with us as she was
(53:24):
living every moment. So what did help you kind of
along the way then deal with adoption, trauma or whatever
lingo you use for that? Well, it's a process.
I don't know if I'm all the way through it.
I don't know if I will ever get all the way through it.
(53:47):
That's a little bit hard to to rationalize.
I want to. I want to, you know, have an end
point like, oh, I'm healed or, you know, I'm over it or, you
know, I never have anxiety or, you know what I mean?
I'd love to have a a FINI. Yeah, but.
(54:07):
That is not going to happen. And so the the real pivotal
point for myself came in 20/23/2023 was a really, pardon
my French crap year and I never want to have to live it quite
like that again. A lot of contributing factors,
but what I will, I will say is the driving factor was my mind
(54:33):
shift of how I felt about me, me, Lisa, Anne as a person in
the world as a result of search and reunion.
Prior to that event, Melissa, I I often think of myself as on
top of the mountain, on top of the world.
(54:54):
I I felt as if I was thriving and highly accomplished and very
intelligent and very successful by multiple definitions.
Personal, professional. I lived and loved a life I had.
(55:15):
You know, no different than mosthumans.
A bucket list. Most of my bucket list has been
checked in all honesty and I just, you know I was extremely
vibrant as a human. My aura it was yellow if that
makes sense to you and and I just I really loved me.
(55:40):
I loved me. And the search and reunion part
shifted me because I learned, I learned that my biological
mother was emotionally and mentally impaired.
(56:01):
So her capacity is very different than what I had
fantasized about or was very different than what I had
fantasized about. But also that immediately that
means I'm part of her. And so she is struggling with
her intelligence, intellect, andemotional capabilities.
(56:24):
Then I must be an absolute fake for all of those many years of
my life. And so that was the that was the
start of the down to the basement, literally basement and
beyond. I kept digging a hole.
I I kept wondering you know how how can if I'm that, if I'm part
(56:48):
of that and this isn't anything to be discriminatory against
her, right? This isn't condemning her as a
person. It's about me.
But if I'm if I'm biologically connected to that, how can I
possibly be this? How can I possibly be this?
(57:14):
And so my mindset about who I was in life was changing, which
started impacting my relationships professionally.
I was moving. I was moving up again.
(57:35):
I was accelerating, but struggling with I'm
accelerating, but I'm I'm. I must be a fake.
I can't be possibly that smart. I must be a fake.
I can't be that smart and from her I can't be that smart.
So you see the self doubt, the self talk and it starts taking
over and then that's a challenge.
(57:57):
The higher you go, the skill gapcloses and then the more stress
it is and the harder it is to tofind the levels of success you
want in the corporate world, it really is.
So that started taking a toll and I had a health, a health
scare in 2023 front end and it was literally at the at that
(58:22):
time period several things were going on and I received a text
message and the text message basically was putting putting an
instance at my feet and I read the text message.
I sat there similar to coming out of the fog.
(58:43):
I like this. Isn't this isn't right?
OK, I've been feeling off for a while and so I need to do
something about it. And I started with figuring out
how to become a me. That matched how I was feeling
about who I was and where I camefrom, to how I was showing up in
(59:08):
my personal life, my professional life and society.
And that would allow me to move forward without being in in the,
you know, the abyss. So.
Yeah. Yeah, I focused.
A powerful story. Yeah, I focused a lot.
I I hope that listeners could take a little nugget therapy.
Therapy wasn't an option just bywhere I live.
(59:31):
I know the therapists as personal friends and I'm in a
small community so I pretty muchlike.
Right, right. But there are other things,
depending on your internal drive, that you can do to also
help yourself until you can get to a therapist or get to some
(59:52):
type of a online source. Because now those are available
too. And I love that.
I'm like, oh, finally, finally we've broken through.
But yeah, it was. It was having a pivotal moment
and then saying I need to educate myself on what it means
to be me. So I need to understand the
(01:00:12):
difference between what is my. My identity and my personality.
My behaviors and how I and how Iview myself.
And so I focused on that for a calendar year.
Wow, had. Had some great guests on the
podcast, which also continue to push forward.
My Why? Because each of my seasons I'm
(01:00:35):
probably going through somethingand I map it back to my guests,
right? I go, I agree.
So people, if people reach out, I'll be like, OK, let me think
about it, or I'll go seek peopleout because they have an element
of what I think might help someone else.
And yeah, I think that's very key.
(01:00:58):
Yeah. So in closing, I would like to
ask what would you like struggling adoptees to know?
There is community, there is an adoptee community.
There are all different layers of that community.
(01:01:21):
So I strongly encourage go find a way to connect.
There are podcasts like yours and like mine, and I could list
I think five more and and lift them up.
And we should be doing that because each time we hear
(01:01:41):
someone talk, we learn somethingnew.
And even if you've heard me speak 56 times or you know, 100
times or 200 times, my story andmy journey's going to change and
my perspective's going to change.
So that means the nugget might change.
So podcasting is growing, and I love that.
(01:02:03):
It means we're feeling more comfortable vocalizing what we
have felt and seen and experienced.
For others, I strongly encourageconnection to if you like to
read blogs and books, it might feel like there's a lot of
(01:02:25):
memoirs coming out and it's on overload.
I've heard people say that to me.
I've also heard and had some people send me messages that say
sometimes I think your podcast is all about the book.
Well, actually it's the book just happens to be an outcome
for someone's story. It's still their story.
(01:02:47):
But when we look at the volume of adoptees, I don't think
there's going to be enough memoirs or podcast or blogs or
adoption competent therapist to cover each one of us in in any
lifetime. So lots of space.
That's really what I I would want listeners to take away from
(01:03:08):
any discussion, find a connection, find a way to to to
express yourself, hold space foreach other because we're all in
different spots. Some of them, our experiences
have been really tragic and I wouldn't wish that on anybody.
Some of us have been in the middle of the ground.
(01:03:29):
I'm probably middle ground. Some people have had a, you
know, a fantastic, I guess if you want to say adoption
experience not unlike anything else in the world.
It's the same in this community.But most importantly, I I do
have two favorite things. I have a favorite quote that
helps me with my adoptee identity and it is the be
(01:03:52):
yourself. Everyone else is taken.
Oscar Wilde and I also have a mantra that I I've been using
quite a bit in the latter part of 2023 and the first part here
of 2024, and that is to tell my adoptive brain to calm down and
to live happily. Nice.
(01:04:15):
Just say it over and over. Calm down brain.
Live happily. That's simple, right?
Yes, but definitely. I think finding your tribe in
this adoptee community is huge. And there's, like you said,
there's so many outlets that youwill find it.
Just don't give up, you know? And if anyone is struggling
(01:04:36):
finding an adoptee, that is a therapist.
I have resources that there's a whole page on Beth Syverson,
adoptive parent, but it's it's also adoptees, birth mothers,
anybody you can search on this web page that she has for
adoptee therapists or, you know,and there's even holistic stuff
(01:04:57):
on there. So if you are struggling and for
looking for somebody, get in touch with me, 'cause I can, I
can direct you in that direction.
So, Lisa Ann, where can we find you and your podcast and all
those things? Well, thank you again for having
me on the show. I I absolutely feel it's an
honor to have this opportunity and I also want to say I
(01:05:21):
appreciate you adoptee for putting yourself in a position
that allows us to do that. So to find me, the name of the
podcast is Wandering Tree and weare on all of the normal
podcasting platforms, the top probably two or three I would
push out or Spotify, Apple and Google, also in the Amazon realm
(01:05:46):
as well, but I just Google it ifthat's what works.
And we'd love to have people on the show.
We look forward to conversation.It's not scripted very much like
our Your Platform Here Conversation's so much easier to
connect to than than anything else.
There is a As I stated before, each season usually represents
(01:06:10):
something I may or may not be going through and wanting to
share out with and finding others who I know have gone
through it or are going through it and can and can add to the
topic. A great example just to plug for
a minute, the last six episodes of season 3/20/23 focused on the
male adoptive voice. I had 6 male guests.
(01:06:33):
Come on. Fantastic conversations.
I wish that I could do more to get those six men elevated and
get their voices out there so other gentlemen feel comfortable
talking about themselves and their experience.
That is an untapped voice. So if that's another thing, come
(01:06:55):
on. Come on to these shows.
Come, come see myself. Come see.
Melissa. I'm here for you.
I know she is too. And several other of our
podcasting friends. So yeah, just any of those
things. We're on Instagram and Facebook
as well. Awesome.
I'll, I'll put all those links in the show notes so people can
find you. And again, honored to have you
(01:07:15):
on the show. Lisa Ann, thanks so much for
coming on. Thank you.
Wow, so much insight packed in to an hour interview and if you
want to connect more with Lisa Ann again, her podcast is
Wandering Tree and her links arein the show notes.
(01:07:36):
We are doing a swap, so I will be on her podcast soon and I
will advertise the link to that when the episode airs.
Now I want to switch gears and ask you a question.
Did you make a New Year's resolution and already break it?
Well let me tell you, you are not alone, but do you ever
wonder why you keep self sabotaging yourself and breaking
(01:07:58):
that resolution? If you are serious about finding
out what is blocking you from creating the life that you want
to create, somatic mindful, guided imagery just might be
that key to unlocking the life that you love.
To find out more, go to somatichealingjourneys.com and
there you will find out more information about me as a
practitioner and SMGI as a quick, easy and gentle somatic
(01:08:23):
therapy. If you are any part of the triad
and want to come tell your storyon mind Your own karma, please
contact me at mindyourownkarma@gmail.com.
I also have a website, mindyourownkarma.com.
Get in touch with me and let's get your story on the podcast.
As always, take what you need and leave what you don't.
(01:08:47):
And always remember to mind yourown karma.
I'll see you next time.
Hey there, it's Melissa Brunetti, and welcome to the
Mind Your Own Karma podcast. Hey there, Karma crew.
Thanks for joining me for another episode of Mind Your Own
Karma, The Adoption Chronicles. Today I have a special guest.
(00:24):
She is an adoptee and you may have already heard about Lisa
Ann, as she is also an adoptee Podcaster.
Her podcast is called The Wandering Tree and she is my
guest today. Let me tell you a little bit
more about Lisa Ann Adoptee. Lisa Ann is the engaging host of
Wandering Tree Podcast, connecting with her guests on
(00:46):
thought provoking discussions, focused on the adoptee journey
and spoken with each person's unique perspective perspectives.
Guests show their resilience, personal growth, and the power
of positivity. Known for her empathetic
interview style, insightful questions, and the ability to
authentically connect with her guests, Lisa Ann creates A
welcoming space for constructivediscussions on the lived
(01:09):
experiences of adoption. Her background and early
childhood development, combined with decades of service and
public safety and a deep commitment to her local
volunteer efforts, has garnishedLisa Ann with an insightful
understanding of human development, community dynamics,
and the powerful flow of life outside of her podcasting work.
Lisa Ann devotes her professional expertise to
(01:31):
helping others save lives and passionately believes in
empowering the adopted communityto become builders of
connections. In her downtime, you'll find her
spending time with family and friends, experimenting with new
food concoctions, and immersing herself in books of all genres.
Here is my interview with Lisa Ann.
(01:52):
We are welcoming Lisa Ann to theshow today.
Hi, Lisa Ann. Hello.
The pleasure to have you on the show.
So Lisa Ann is the host of the Wandering Tree Podcast, which is
also an adoptee focused platform, and I'm excited to
have a fellow adoptee podcaster on the show.
Lisa Ann, I want to start by youtelling us a little bit about
(02:13):
your adoption journey. But because you're also an
interviewer and I've interviewedmany adoptees for your podcast,
I'm curious about some of the themes that you've been seeing
in the community as well. So we'll talk about that at the
end, but let's get to know you and your adoption story first.
So what do you know about the circumstances of your adoption?
Well, first thank you for havingme.
(02:34):
It is a pleasure and I share your sentiment.
It is always nice to be with an adoptee, but also with a
podcaster who is pushing forth and elevating our voices as part
of a a growing community. So thank you for that and I'll
dig right into my own story. I am what is considered a closed
(02:57):
domestic adoption. I was born during the very, very
latter edge of the Baby Scoop era.
I was actually birthed in Iowa and relinquished immediately
from the date of birth, and I was then adopted.
I have a period of time. I call it my life gap,
(03:20):
officially in July of that same year, so about six months or so.
And I was raised by my adoptive family in South Dakota.
Over the course of growing up, Ialways knew from a very, very
early age that I was adopted. But the reality is my first
(03:42):
recollection of knowing is the time period right before I
entered into school. So kindergarten for myself and I
distinctly remember my parents sitting myself down, explaining
to me that I was adopted and then sharing that there were
other adoptees in my, you know, particular grade and also within
(04:06):
my general neighborhood. So there was some type of
connective community that my parents knew other adopted
children and and were able to make that connection.
Now in hindsight on that little piece, I don't know if it was
relevant or not, but that was the time period that I believe
they were coached to expose the secret, if that's, you know,
(04:28):
kind of how we want to look at it.
With that said, similar to otheradoptees, as I went through all
of the life milestones and goal setting activities, I I always
wondered who I was. I had many of the fantasies of
where I came from or how I was conceived or how my biological
(04:51):
parents were living post relinquishing me.
And, you know, it was just something that was deep in my
core for as long as I can remember.
And so just needing to get to that prompted me to go on a
search and finally feel comfortable with that.
(05:12):
And we will be able to maybe diginto this a little bit more as
we proceed forward with the conversation.
But it is no surprise, I suspectto you that I waited until my
parents were deceased, meaning my adoptive parents, who I do
call my parents. I believe they've earned that
right to be called my parents. But waiting till they were
(05:34):
deceased to actually begin the the official search, I asked for
adna kit in 2016. For Christmas, I received one.
I then systematically put it up in a closet in a cupboard on the
top shelf out of fear it it sat there for almost nine months.
(05:59):
I finally went ahead and took the leap of faith.
My husband and I call it come on, I want a Pakalugi, right?
And so submitted the DNA in 2017officially and had a few weeks
(06:20):
after that matched up with a bunch of people.
I I ended up having around that time 10,000 hits and was
unbelievably overwhelmed. Yeah, and sat on it and then sat
on it and sat on it. Waited quite a bit of time for
(06:40):
something to maybe rise up that had a a closer DNA connection
than third, 4th, 5th cousins. Had a couple of hips latter part
of 2018, first part of 2019 and then started some dialogue with
a couple of those hits to kind of further along my my personal
(07:02):
journey. The pandemic hit, we all have a
little bit of a pandemic story Ibelieve and mine is that while
we were you know as a global community and a global set of
society in lockdown, I was considered and and am still to
(07:23):
this day considered an essentialworker.
I work from home, so the only impact that the pandemic had for
me was not having a plethora of activities to do outside of the
home with teenage kids, which afforded opportunity to then
begin this biological search in earnest.
(07:45):
And then I became a fantastic detective and broke the code.
Eventually, in the 2020-2021 time frame, each layer of it was
a little bit differently handled.
I think that if it had not been for the pandemic, I might still
(08:06):
be trying to figure it out, justmostly from it would have become
more of a hobby than an earnest activity like, oh, I have a
couple of hours, let me go see what's on Ancestry, you know,
matches and let me send a message.
So. Was it kind of difficult?
You know, what was that like, going through that process?
(08:27):
Because I hadn't done that. I had somebody do it for me.
But was it difficult? Or was it more like a obsession,
like you just wanted to keep finding out more?
What was that like? For myself and a part of my
journey, it had some complexity.Yes, it was very much a an
(08:48):
activity of obsession. And so just to give your
listeners a little bit of a visual from from what I was
going through during that searchI mentioned 10K.
Well it kind of grew during thattime period.
I ended up I think around the time I broke the code I was just
(09:09):
about 15 K connections. To date I'm almost at 22 K, just
under 22K and that is a result of of two very large families
and then how that just, you know, exponentially grows.
But obsessive is a really good word.
I was constantly every night looking on Ancestry.
(09:32):
I would then look at a name. I would then Google a name.
I would write that name down either on a 3 by 5 card or a
sticky. I would then dig, dig a hole, if
that's a a good analogy, just onone person.
And then I'd come up for air andI'd be exhausted because I I'd
find all of this information, but I still couldn't tie it
(09:54):
together. I didn't know these people.
I didn't know what I was finding.
And that continued for quite some time.
And then one particular pandemicSaturday.
I was tired of that type of workand I had a a boatload of
(10:16):
different colored stickies. I had made finally a connection
with a cousin, first cousin on my maternal side, and that
person kind of gave me a a placeto start looking.
So every time I found a name, I determined who their grandparent
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was and they got a color sticky to match a grandparent.
So I started the Dana Lee's method.
If you've heard of that where you can color code, I believe
it's up to like your 8th grand great grandparent to help you
find lineage. I used that in sticky format to
distill down which set of grandparents maternally did I
(11:02):
belong to? And I'm focusing on the maternal
cracking the code because it washarder than the paternal.
It had a different twist. But as the time went on, I
narrowed it down to four females, as my potential
biological mother called up thatsame first cousin who had an
(11:24):
inkling but didn't want to, didn't want to be the one didn't
want to in case she was wrong. And I said, I think I figured it
out. It's one of these four.
It's 'cause I think you're right.
So this is your aunt. So and so this is the one you
call. She is considered the matriarch
and she will help if you figure it out.
(11:46):
So those are just the highlights.
But during all of that, Melissa,I would share with the
listeners. There were things I could have
never prepared for. There were behaviors I just
never anticipated from people, and I didn't realize how
(12:07):
exhausting mentally, just from all the brainpower you'd have to
have emotionally. How you would feel about what
people would say to you or handle you or not say anything
to you, then what? That you know the impacts of
both of those items to your physical health?
(12:28):
No clue. Wow.
That's like the beginning of thereunion before the reunion, you
know? That's yeah, And it is.
You know, we we spent, my husband and I, we spent a good
amount of time prior to the breaking the code event that
day. It was 8 hours of research and
(12:50):
detective work. But we we talked about all of
the what if scenarios or so we thought he, you know he went
through what if you find out this, how do you think you want
to react? What if they believe you to be
this? How do you think you want to
react? That was all of our preparation
(13:13):
pre reunion. Absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah.
So it was a roller coaster, eventhough you tried to prepare as
best you could. Yeah, you know and and as we're
searching and if you don't have your information, which you and
I know is very common through conversations with other
(13:34):
adoptees around the availabilityof their information and the
right to their information. And I would say it's more
prevalent in the closed adoptionscenario for sure.
Doesn't mean it doesn't happen in other areas, just a lot of
prominence there. And so I was one of those.
(13:55):
During that time period, Iowa had not approved and passed
their law allowing for their original birth certificate.
So my only option at the time was Scientific dnaancestry.com
or 23andMe or Heritage or you know any of the numbers that are
(14:18):
out there. That was my only option.
Right. So did you call this person that
you were told to call? I did.
I did call this aunt. I took a lot of courage.
I called. She did not answer.
I did not leave a message. I just couldn't do it right.
(14:40):
What? What?
What? Like I couldn't wrap my brain
around. What am I supposed to say?
I also had found a a few resources during that time
period that indicated you shouldsend a certified letter and I'm
like, I'm not going to do that. That's too much time for me.
I don't have the patience. My anxiety would probably go
(15:01):
through the roof that that's notfor me.
I've got, I've got a call I I called back right after.
I called before a weekend and I called right after the weekend
and the right after the weekend.She picked up the phone, and her
response to me was, I didn't know who you were, but I figured
if you called back again, I'd answer the phone.
(15:23):
Because caller ID, right? So she did answer the phone, and
I said, hi, My name is Lisa, andI I might need your help.
I have a first cousin. Her name is, You know Henrietta.
I'll go with Henrietta. To save, to save the innocent.
(15:45):
Her name is Henrietta, and I believe I'm part of your family
and I need your help. And so let me explain to you who
I am. And and I did.
And she was a little caught off guard and she goes, well, you
know I'm not your mother, I said, which is why I'm calling
you. We I already know it's not you.
(16:06):
I I do know it's not you. I believe it's one of your four
sisters. I really think it's one of
three. Because if it's the fourth one,
I'm not sure having to handle that news.
She's she wouldn't be too, way too young, right?
Just, I think I need to go call my, my sister, my other sister,
one of my other sisters, I said.OK, keep in mind she's one of
(16:28):
the potential for. Yeah.
Right. So she called, she called that
sister. She called me back two days.
And Melissa, it was the first ofone of the types of things I
didn't anticipate. It was my first mark of what I
didn't anticipate, which was consistently consoling other
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people for walking in the earth.I don't know if you've had that
yet, but it is, it is one of themost interesting aspects of some
of the stories we hear. And so she called back and she
said, I I know who your mother is.
I am your aunt. She was crying uncontrollably,
(17:09):
she says. I had no idea you walked the
Earth. It's got the chills.
Yeah, and she goes. I need you to know the majority
of the family that knew about you.
They believe you 2 have died. Oh, that was the story she told.
Yeah. That was the story the
grandmother told. Oh, and, and and then she even
(17:33):
broke down more. And I said to this particular
aunt and I said, you need to collect yourself.
I'm OK. So what we're going to do is
we're going to hang up. I'm going to give you a couple
days when you're able to hold a conversation, give me a call
back. And she right.
And she goes, OK And it took heranother three days to call me
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back. And she was still crying, but
not as not as distraught. And she goes, this is such a
mess. And I go, well, I'm not going
anywhere. And so how are we going to work
through this together? And she goes, I need to tell you
a little bit about your birth mom.
And she did. And I said, well, I didn't see
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that coming. And she goes, my other sister
that I called, she's struggling right now.
She's been carrying that secret for the entirety of your life.
I said what a burden, what a burden.
Yeah. Eventually we got through it all
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and I did meet my biological birth mother and there were a
lot of complexities around that as well.
She has since passed away, so I don't have the many of the other
opportunities to, you know, interface with her.
I'm still very welcomed into themajority of that family.
Excuse me, I'm still very welcomed.
(19:04):
I've attended events, I attendeda family reunion, and when I'm
in the geographic location wherethey live, I make a an effort to
try to connect with as many of them as I can.
I just want to go back a second because, you know, you said that
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when you were talking to your aunt on the phone and she was
distraught that you had the wherewithal to be like, you
know, let's, let's end this conversation and let's give you
a few days. Like to me that's huge.
Like, I don't know if I would have the wherewithal to do that
in that moment when all that's happening.
And that's just amazing that youare able to like kind of take
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control of everything going on and be able to to do that.
I think that for myself the reason I did that.
Was maybe self preservation. I don't know how many people
want to hear someone wailing that they are walking the earth.
(20:10):
I just, I don't know if there would have been anything anyone
could have said to me to prepareme for that.
And so if I can say anything to another adoptee who might have a
similar type of an experience, then I would encourage a moment
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where you say let's stop. Because I don't know what else
to tell you to do right. I don't know what else to share.
I certainly for myself didn't want to sit and listen to
another human just come apart after they've just told me,
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well, the majority of the family, they believe you to be
dead, right? I mean, so there's there's some,
there's some self preservation in that step.
And that's what I attribute thatto is.
Yeah, I think like most adopteeswould feel like, you know, like
we usually do. Like this is all my fault.
I need to fix this. Like, I need to make her feel
(21:13):
better. Like you were saying earlier,
like how you, you know, you became the person that had to
make everybody feel better abouteverything.
It's in that moment. I think I would have jumped to
that and been like, Oh my gosh, this is all my fault.
Let me help you. You know what I mean?
But I love that you said that because really that's what you
should do is, you know, just saylet's have a time out here for
everybody to just take a second,have, take a breath and then
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let's come back together, you know?
Well, I also attribute that Melissa to the concept of fog.
And so we can we can dive there a little bit if you'd like to
prior to the maternal side whichhas the most complexity about my
story. I had already engaged on the
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paternal side and was was met with a lot of resistance in that
time period because it was the first engagement which is not
typical from the people that I interview.
It's usually from those that I talk to.
They find the maternal and then they figure out the paternal.
(22:17):
I figured out the paternal and then went and had to, you know,
detected the maternal. The paternal came easier because
of the DNA submission. Around 2018 my half sister, one
of three, also asked for Ancestry DNA for Christmas and
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she submitted hers. The first half of 2019 and we
connected and it immediately said your siblings.
Wow. She has, and this is her story,
not my story, but I'll just get us a snippet.
She is the oldest of the four females and she was also
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relinquished. Wow.
The difference in our story is, you know, her maternal
biological mother hired a private detective in the 90s to
find her. So she had all of the dad,
(23:29):
father, sperm donor, whichever of those you want to use,
whichever language works for you.
She had all that information andwas able to share it with me.
Oh, OK. Has she been in contact with
him? She had.
They had met. It was her experience with that
(23:50):
was fictional, felt fictional. You can't make some of this
stuff up. You just cannot make stuff up.
The stuff that people say and doto adoptees is just astounding.
And her story, It's her story again.
But she and I have a shared thread.
Her mother, her biological mother, also played that she had
(24:15):
died in childbirth and went to the next level, which my, my
maternal grouping did not do, went to the next level and
mourned her on her birthday every year to include her new
kids. And so when my half sister came
(24:36):
back on the scene, because she went and looked for her, she
came equally from the dead. And it was a it was a colossal
disaster. And it's her story and I promise
you, you cannot make it up. And she doesn't talk about it
publicly. But you can't make it up.
(24:56):
Oh my God. Yeah.
I can't imagine that's crazy. Yeah, So she had that
opportunity. She had met him.
He shared. You know, he knew he had
fathered four children at minimum.
He was very aware that he had four daughters.
He was also aware that she had been relinquished.
Clearly because he was part of the private investigation to
find her. I was next.
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He knew that I was relinquished.She was never going to.
He was never going to be part oflooking for me under the
conditions under which I was conceived.
It was not going to happen. He would have had to admit to
what he had done, and he had then another daughter after
that, and then a fourth one, andthe 4th one was raised by him.
So why it connects to my capability of telling my aunt on
(25:44):
the maternal side, let's take a break, is I'd had all kinds of
connection conversations. It had gone on for a calendar
year with those three women. And in that there was the fog.
And then the what I do referenceas my coming out of the fog.
And I speak openly about this moment.
(26:05):
It was on a telephone. I was on a a telephone
conversation with one of the siblings on the paternal side
and she kept really questioning why I would want a relationship
with her, who I was. And we weren't raised together.
And that had been going on for many, many months just
(26:27):
repetitively, you know, I don't know what kind of relationship
we're gonna have. We weren't raised together.
I don't know what kind of, you know, we don't have anything in
common. We weren't raised together.
You know, I just don't. I just don't know.
You know, we weren't raised together.
And I I probably, I know it maybe seems like I exaggerate
how often she said it. But I I promise you, it was so
(26:49):
often that by the time we got toDecember of that year, I was
like, I'm, I'm done. I can't do this anymore.
I can't hand up one more conversation with you.
I can't do it anymore. I can't be questioned.
I can't be questioned about my motives.
They can't be questioned about why I was given up for adoption.
(27:10):
And I can't be questioned about why we weren't raised together,
because all of those decisions had nothing to do with me making
them. They had to do with someone at
the adult level making them and I I've repeated this a few
times, so I will repeat it here as well.
I think the most profound statement any adoptee can make
(27:33):
in the context of being met withadversity or resistance or
justification for walking the earth is this one statement I
want to remind you I was a baby.And if the person receiving that
can't resonate with that and andjust take like a a moment ago,
(27:55):
oh and reset how they approach it.
Walk on, walk on, brothers and sisters.
Walk on. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
So do you have any relationship with any of the sisters on that
side? My oldest sister and I are still
very much connected and we do have a relationship.
(28:17):
And then the other two and myself.
We're done. Yeah.
When you met any of your family,did you see any resemblance on
either side, like either physical or even just in the way
you walk and talk in the world? Yeah, so the first time I had a
(28:39):
zoom call with one of my paternal sisters, it was very
obvious we're related. Our facial structure is is
pretty much the same. There's no doubt we're sisters.
And then on my maternal side, there are a lot of the same
characteristics. One of my cousins, she and I, if
(29:00):
you pull our hair back, we definitely look a lot alike as
well. So that was interesting to see
where my, you know, my curly hair comes from.
I have curly hair and to see my nose shape and to see the shape
of my eyes and I've I've got a what people call a round face.
(29:21):
Not I don't have the long you know, skinny face.
I have the nice round face. So to see that it was, it was
nice. Yeah.
And then how about on your mom'sside?
Do you have any relationships still ongoing on that side?
I do. I just actually spent the latter
part of August visiting my my family up there.
(29:47):
I have my adopted family in South Dakota and my biological
family in South Dakota. I was actually raised 90 miles
from the entirety of my very large biological family.
My adopted maternal grandfather was a farmer and in South Dakota
(30:10):
and the county that he farmed inand his partner, which they had
a large amount of farming land, was adjacent to the county in
which the entirety of my maternal and paternal family was
(30:30):
living. So wow, yeah, there's there is
no doubt in my mind that my families probably crossed each
other's paths on very numerous occasions in my adoptee family.
On my maternal side, my mother was one of six on my biological
(30:52):
family. On the maternal side, my mother
was one of 13 and family #2 in family #2, and there were five
others prior to that. So that gives you an idea of of
how large those two families were.
On my biological paternal side, it was also an equally large
(31:14):
family. So yeah, there is no doubt in
my. Mind a lot of sticky notes.
You had a lot of sticky notes when you were searching.
I'm doing your DNA. Yeah, so here's the visual of
that. Right, so.
I know, right? That connection, So it was on
our center island, and our center island is 13 feet long
and it was covered. I bet.
(31:36):
Yeah, I bet. They're, yeah.
So they're great people. I'm I'm thankful for.
I'm thankful for those that haveembraced that I exist.
I'm thankful that we've gotten past the why do you even walk
the earth part? And I am thankful that they
actually really want to be connected to me based off of my
(32:01):
experience on the paternal side.I was a little more ginger, if
that's the adjective, you know, or verb we want to use.
But yeah, they've been, they've been great.
The aunts, the aunts are very welcoming.
My uncles are very welcoming. I have one uncle, he's really
quiet, He's just a little bit older than I am.
(32:24):
And when I was back to visit them in the summertime, he
didn't know I was coming. And so then we were at a, a
location and they called him andsaid, hey, meet us down here.
You know, we're having a beer and he's like, OK, well, sure.
And he had recently retired and and he shows up and I'm sitting
(32:46):
there and he sits down next to me goes, So what are you doing
in town? Good to see ya call me once in a
while why don't ya, you know. And I was like, happened to be
local, thought I'd pop over having a beer, you know?
Do you feel that connection likewith, especially with your
(33:07):
siblings? I have a that hard time because
we didn't grow up together. I think that I just don't it's
so it it's kind of there's a disconnect somewhere and I don't
know maybe it's coming from me, I don't know.
But I don't feel that sibling like I did with the siblings
that I grew up with or the sibling that I grew up with.
(33:28):
Do you have, are you able to kind of bridge that?
Well, I want to approach this from.
I think sibling relationships are complicated to begin with.
And then I will also provide a little preface around.
Add in the adoptee narrative, and then who really knows while
(33:53):
you're growing up matters? So I have two siblings that I
grew up with. They are actually the biological
children of my adoptive parents.They came after I was adopted,
and they were both surprises. My my parents were the product
(34:14):
of infertility or, you know, they had been trying, and that's
why I was adopted, so to fill the infertility gap.
Then when my mother became pregnant with her, her first
child, my brother, four years afterwards, it was like this
massive fluke will never happen again in your lifetime.
And we were really happy for forsome family.
(34:35):
We had a lot of other things going on external to that, that
I didn't understand. I was way too young, like
alcoholism. Four more years later and my
mother became pregnant again andsurprised another.
You know, this is just an absolute fluke and and it was
very difficult, a very difficultpregnancy for her.
(34:56):
Both of them are. But that one was even more so.
And she struggled and she ultimately had it to, you know,
had to medically ensure she had no more surprises.
The tone for her was very different that the the tone from
my father. My father treated us all the
same. My mother started treating me as
(35:18):
if I didn't almost exist. I attribute that to she finally
had her own children and that was really her goal in the 1st
place and so. But that has taken Melissa.
I couldn't even tell you so manyconversations, so many things
for me to overthink, so many books for me to read, so many
(35:38):
conversations to be had, to be able to say that and to say that
with comfort. And that's really only happened
in the last couple of years. So I I really respect that she
existed. I understand her limitations and
and it is what it is why that matters is the is the context of
(36:01):
those sibling relationships. And to answer your question, my
younger brother and I who grew up together, we're very, very,
very close. He's one of my best friends, my
middle brother who was immediately after me.
We are not close. In fact we have we have decided
to to not be in each other's lives.
And so the the dynamics of that are because we were raised very
(36:28):
differently. My, my brother, my brother
that's immediately after me and myself, we actually were raised
in a very abusive alcoholic home.
We don't talk about it. It impacted him differently than
me and and therefore he has a lot of things going on in his
(36:48):
life and that's his trauma and Iwould, you know speculate he
doesn't deal with it. My younger brother actually came
at the end of that era of our childhood where my father and my
mother found Alcoholics Anonymous.
They traded their drinking addiction for that, for that
(37:11):
community addiction. And so his his life was
different than ours. So there's that.
The bond that my younger brotherand I have is that no matter
what, and I just haven't figuredout why he's this way.
He's just a fantastic human and he probably doesn't think I know
(37:32):
that or doesn't believe that I Ibelieve him to be one, but he
has never saw me as anything other than his sister.
Ever. Ever.
So now on the other side, my older sister and I I believe the
reason we bond is because we areadopted and we have a similar we
(37:58):
have a connection there. I don't know if we would have a
bond or a connection without that theme.
And then the other two sisters, it goes both ways.
And I just you're right. I think what makes it hard is
you're entering in someone's life and they're trying to
(38:18):
decide who you are. At the same time you're trying
to decide who they are and you know, would you be friends.
So if you can't even pick each other out of the crowd and say
we'd be friends, I'm not sure how you're going to be siblings
as an adult, right? It just it just doesn't happen
that way. And then on the maternal side, I
do have a brother. I he's not very connected to the
(38:39):
family though, period. So I don't, I think that that is
more of the reason than the two of us.
And we don't have anything in common.
So I can kind of understand the yeah, right, same context.
Would we pick each other out of the crowd to be friends?
Probably, yeah. Yeah.
How about you? Oh, how about me?
(39:01):
Well, I grew up with a brother and he my whole entire family.
Never. I don't feel adopted in my
adoptive family at all. Never have.
It's almost like they forget that I'm even.
Whatever. Talked and they're like.
Why are you even saying that? Why are you bringing that up?
I don't care, you know, So that's just the way it's been,
(39:24):
you know, the whole, the whole my whole life.
But my biological siblings, I have two brothers on my maternal
side, two sisters on my dad's side, and I know all of them.
I'm in contact with one brother.The other one, I haven't had
contact with him in years. Again, like you said, not a lot
(39:45):
in common. And and he was 7 when I kind of
came into the picture and I think he was just all around
kind of confused about the wholething and how to feel about it,
you know? And then my two sisters, they
live close to me, like I could drive right now and see them,
you know, within an hour. And and we talk, you know,
(40:05):
holidays, Merry Christmas. And once in a while we'll start
having normal conversations if something's, you know, going on
in one of their lives or something like that.
But there's just some kind of disconnect there.
Like, you know, it feels not forced, but it just feels kind
of obligate, like an obligation almost that we have that, you
(40:26):
know, that we try to have that connection.
So it feels different than definitely then I felt growing
up with my adoptive brother. But yeah, so just again, kind of
complicated and you know. I have been exploring for myself
a little bit of thought process I guess around this mantra that
(40:55):
we hear in society, family is the most important thing and
then the breakdown of that sentence when you are an adoptee
trying to connect to family. So I haven't resolved it for my
own thought process and which makes it hard for me to talk
(41:19):
about it with any type of resolution right associated with
that. But there there's just a really
a, a split between that that mantra and adoptee is trying to
connect to the family. And I bring it up because I
(41:40):
think that's what exactly what you and I might be talking about
as it relates to this sibling relationship connection, but
also the connection with our, you know, extended families now
that are biologically identifiedas as our families.
I don't know how to overcome that mentality because my
(42:01):
struggle is when I hear, when I hear someone say I'm all about
family, family is the most important thing to me.
You know, I, I I would know whatI would do without my family.
And then I'm over here and by science, I'm your family.
(42:24):
And yet I don't fit what you've just said at all Right.
Yeah. It's a it's a very interesting
kind of topic to really try to wrap your brain around and
psychologically come to some conclusion that allows you to
move forward as the adoptee. I don't know.
(42:45):
I really can't speak for any of the buddy but myself.
But my mind goes to, I don't know how the biological sibling
or aunt or uncle or parent on the other side of that
conversation, how they rationalethat this person isn't family,
right? And yet say I'm all about
family. I just, I haven't gotten there
(43:07):
yet. So complex.
So, so, so complex. But you were talking about
coming out of the fog when you were talking to your sister.
So by her repeating that line over and over and over again,
what did that look like at that point?
I mean, what were you feeling? What do you mean by you were
starting to come out of the fog,or realizing that you were in
(43:27):
the fog at that point? Well, I am a believer.
That fog, for me stood for fear,obligation, gratitude.
And I recognize all of the burdens that adoptees carry
(43:57):
throughout life. And I know it's not malice or
intentional by society or those that aren't adopted.
They don't understand. They just really, honestly don't
understand. But when you get to a point in
any type of a conversation whereyou are repetitively justifying
(44:19):
your existence, justifying that you're on the phone and you have
to repetitively tell someone, it's science, I don't know how
to explain it to you any any more plainly.
When you get to that and you recognize there's a, there's
(44:42):
like a a fatigue, right? That's a mental fatigue.
I believe something like that pushes you to a break point that
says enough is enough, like enough is enough.
(45:02):
I am a human. I am walking the earth.
I don't owe you any explanation.I I am not the one that owes you
the explanation. And as soon as you get there I
think that your your mindset changes around fear and
obligation and gratitude or you know, whatever the fog means to
(45:27):
you. I know some people put grief on
the GI. Do think it has a little bit of
a definition for. Yeah, based off of their
experience. But for myself, that was really
what it was. It was like, you know what?
I'm done. I'm done trying to explain to
you I was a baby. I I don't owe you anything.
I really don't. And yeah.
(45:50):
That was so where you kind of just yanked out of the fog and
that was it. Like you at that moment, you
were like, it wasn't like a process that kind of seemed like
it was just a moment. Yeah, I was just like I'm, I'm
never gonna. I'm never going to sit another
moment in any conversation, Doesn't matter who it is and
explain to them how I got here. Well, we all know how the birds
(46:10):
and the bees work, so I don't have to explain that to you.
And we all understand that people in society have an
opportunity, right, wrong or indifferent.
Because I don't want to go in that debate right now, but they
walk away from a human that happens worldwide.
So if you need me to explain anything more to you, we
(46:30):
probably don't have a lot to talk about because I'm going to
be frustrated and angry and verypointed and you're going to hear
it in my tone just like you're doing right now.
And we're not going to get very far because you've pushed me to
my edge and everybody has a break point of something and and
I think that's really what it isfor me.
And so yeah, it was like in thatmoment and I'm done.
(46:51):
I'm never ever going to justify me.
Not gonna happen. Yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah. I love it.
And everybody has the different experience right When we know.
We know that from from conversations with other
adoptees and you know my, my personalities a little bit more
(47:12):
sometimes black and white, and that's part of my my
personality. That would maybe be the nature
part, I don't know, maybe the nurture part.
We could debate that. We could debate that too.
Little bit of both. So you have a podcast.
Why did you decide to do and adopt the focused podcast?
(47:35):
What made you decide to? Yeah, my, why, My why.
We just covered a lot of ground today on the experience and the
journey of just a few years and I I was sitting in my kitchen
(47:57):
and my husband and I had been talking about all of the things
that were happening and how to get help and resources.
We work. We work in a segment of the
United States that is associatedwith fire, police and EMS, and
(48:19):
we are very aware of the toll ittakes on those humans that are
constantly, day after day, dealing with the turmoil of
someone's worst day. The majority of response to
(48:41):
emergencies are not happy and right and so you regardless of
how you feel about any of those disciplines I just named, the
reality is they are humans on someone's worst day.
And so by kind of by proxy over here, knowing that and knowing
(49:08):
the type of long term trauma that that segment of society
deals with, we started drawing and arcing over to long term
trauma for abandonment and trustissues and a few other things.
(49:30):
At that time I probably could have been more red around the
concepts of the primal wound andthe concepts of pre verbal
trauma and I could have mapped back multiple decades of
behavior and understanding to tothose those things and he go my
(49:57):
husband said you're gonna explode if you don't start
talking about it. So let's figure it out and if
this is how you feel and you're struggling to find outlets then
there's probably Someone Like You that needs an outlet and
maybe can just be comforted in your experience or learn one or
(50:18):
two things. That said you know you're right.
I want to do a podcast and if I touch one person, if I just get
one listener and something I don't even I don't know I don't
even care what it is. But one thing helps them through
one event because it's always a series of events.
I I'll be OK and I'll be happy and I don't even know.
(50:40):
I don't even need to know who itis.
I really don't. So that that's my why I never
wanted someone to be sitting in a kitchen at a table going why?
Why does she care if I if I'm didn't grow up with her?
Or, you know, why did that person decide that I'm not good
(51:01):
enough to call back? Or, you know, why did I have two
women, adult women playing some kind of high school triangle
game? Like what?
Really. All of that stuff and no outlet.
So that's my why I want to I want to just share my life
experience and I hope that otheradoptees as they start getting
(51:25):
older, young and old, 'cause we all come to this, this journey
at a different spot. But wouldn't it be nice if there
was a generation of humans who are adopted?
Because I I know that's not going away in my lifetime.
So I'm not going to pretend. I'm not going to pretend that
(51:53):
that benefit the benefit from everything that you and I have
gone through and other adoptees have gone through where it's not
until you're in your multiple decades later of life you're
experiencing all the major health problems as a result of
that Just you know just all that.
It just is better managed. Yeah the whole the holistic
(52:14):
approach to that. So that's my why.
And so we we literally pulled out some stuff, sat at the
kitchen table and just started talking and.
Did you talk on the podcast or were you just this was like pre
podcast? Nope.
This was this was our very firstepisode and it was ad hoc.
(52:37):
It wasn't pre planned at all andwe said let's just let's just
start doing it because if we don't start it'll never happen
#1 and my why will not be fulfilled and and it goes on and
on and on. So for the first season it was
he, I and every once in a while like a friend of ours.
And we really dug into how I wasfeeling about myself and yeah,
(53:03):
how I was really feeling about myself.
And it wasn't healthy. I wasn't healthy.
I, you know, if you really listen, you really listen to
that first season, season one. And you're an adoptee that's a
little further down on your journey.
You'll be like, wow, she was shewas sharing with us as she was
(53:24):
living every moment. So what did help you kind of
along the way then deal with adoption, trauma or whatever
lingo you use for that? Well, it's a process.
I don't know if I'm all the way through it.
I don't know if I will ever get all the way through it.
(53:47):
That's a little bit hard to to rationalize.
I want to. I want to, you know, have an end
point like, oh, I'm healed or, you know, I'm over it or, you
know, I never have anxiety or, you know what I mean?
I'd love to have a a FINI. Yeah, but.
(54:07):
That is not going to happen. And so the the real pivotal
point for myself came in 20/23/2023 was a really, pardon
my French crap year and I never want to have to live it quite
like that again. A lot of contributing factors,
but what I will, I will say is the driving factor was my mind
(54:33):
shift of how I felt about me, me, Lisa, Anne as a person in
the world as a result of search and reunion.
Prior to that event, Melissa, I I often think of myself as on
top of the mountain, on top of the world.
(54:54):
I I felt as if I was thriving and highly accomplished and very
intelligent and very successful by multiple definitions.
Personal, professional. I lived and loved a life I had.
(55:15):
You know, no different than mosthumans.
A bucket list. Most of my bucket list has been
checked in all honesty and I just, you know I was extremely
vibrant as a human. My aura it was yellow if that
makes sense to you and and I just I really loved me.
(55:40):
I loved me. And the search and reunion part
shifted me because I learned, I learned that my biological
mother was emotionally and mentally impaired.
(56:01):
So her capacity is very different than what I had
fantasized about or was very different than what I had
fantasized about. But also that immediately that
means I'm part of her. And so she is struggling with
her intelligence, intellect, andemotional capabilities.
(56:24):
Then I must be an absolute fake for all of those many years of
my life. And so that was the that was the
start of the down to the basement, literally basement and
beyond. I kept digging a hole.
I I kept wondering you know how how can if I'm that, if I'm part
(56:48):
of that and this isn't anything to be discriminatory against
her, right? This isn't condemning her as a
person. It's about me.
But if I'm if I'm biologically connected to that, how can I
possibly be this? How can I possibly be this?
(57:14):
And so my mindset about who I was in life was changing, which
started impacting my relationships professionally.
I was moving. I was moving up again.
(57:35):
I was accelerating, but struggling with I'm
accelerating, but I'm I'm. I must be a fake.
I can't be possibly that smart. I must be a fake.
I can't be that smart and from her I can't be that smart.
So you see the self doubt, the self talk and it starts taking
over and then that's a challenge.
(57:57):
The higher you go, the skill gapcloses and then the more stress
it is and the harder it is to tofind the levels of success you
want in the corporate world, it really is.
So that started taking a toll and I had a health, a health
scare in 2023 front end and it was literally at the at that
(58:22):
time period several things were going on and I received a text
message and the text message basically was putting putting an
instance at my feet and I read the text message.
I sat there similar to coming out of the fog.
(58:43):
I like this. Isn't this isn't right?
OK, I've been feeling off for a while and so I need to do
something about it. And I started with figuring out
how to become a me. That matched how I was feeling
about who I was and where I camefrom, to how I was showing up in
(59:08):
my personal life, my professional life and society.
And that would allow me to move forward without being in in the,
you know, the abyss. So.
Yeah. Yeah, I focused.
A powerful story. Yeah, I focused a lot.
I I hope that listeners could take a little nugget therapy.
Therapy wasn't an option just bywhere I live.
(59:31):
I know the therapists as personal friends and I'm in a
small community so I pretty muchlike.
Right, right. But there are other things,
depending on your internal drive, that you can do to also
help yourself until you can get to a therapist or get to some
(59:52):
type of a online source. Because now those are available
too. And I love that.
I'm like, oh, finally, finally we've broken through.
But yeah, it was. It was having a pivotal moment
and then saying I need to educate myself on what it means
to be me. So I need to understand the
(01:00:12):
difference between what is my. My identity and my personality.
My behaviors and how I and how Iview myself.
And so I focused on that for a calendar year.
Wow, had. Had some great guests on the
podcast, which also continue to push forward.
My Why? Because each of my seasons I'm
(01:00:35):
probably going through somethingand I map it back to my guests,
right? I go, I agree.
So people, if people reach out, I'll be like, OK, let me think
about it, or I'll go seek peopleout because they have an element
of what I think might help someone else.
And yeah, I think that's very key.
(01:00:58):
Yeah. So in closing, I would like to
ask what would you like struggling adoptees to know?
There is community, there is an adoptee community.
There are all different layers of that community.
(01:01:21):
So I strongly encourage go find a way to connect.
There are podcasts like yours and like mine, and I could list
I think five more and and lift them up.
And we should be doing that because each time we hear
(01:01:41):
someone talk, we learn somethingnew.
And even if you've heard me speak 56 times or you know, 100
times or 200 times, my story andmy journey's going to change and
my perspective's going to change.
So that means the nugget might change.
So podcasting is growing, and I love that.
(01:02:03):
It means we're feeling more comfortable vocalizing what we
have felt and seen and experienced.
For others, I strongly encourageconnection to if you like to
read blogs and books, it might feel like there's a lot of
(01:02:25):
memoirs coming out and it's on overload.
I've heard people say that to me.
I've also heard and had some people send me messages that say
sometimes I think your podcast is all about the book.
Well, actually it's the book just happens to be an outcome
for someone's story. It's still their story.
(01:02:47):
But when we look at the volume of adoptees, I don't think
there's going to be enough memoirs or podcast or blogs or
adoption competent therapist to cover each one of us in in any
lifetime. So lots of space.
That's really what I I would want listeners to take away from
(01:03:08):
any discussion, find a connection, find a way to to to
express yourself, hold space foreach other because we're all in
different spots. Some of them, our experiences
have been really tragic and I wouldn't wish that on anybody.
Some of us have been in the middle of the ground.
(01:03:29):
I'm probably middle ground. Some people have had a, you
know, a fantastic, I guess if you want to say adoption
experience not unlike anything else in the world.
It's the same in this community.But most importantly, I I do
have two favorite things. I have a favorite quote that
helps me with my adoptee identity and it is the be
(01:03:52):
yourself. Everyone else is taken.
Oscar Wilde and I also have a mantra that I I've been using
quite a bit in the latter part of 2023 and the first part here
of 2024, and that is to tell my adoptive brain to calm down and
to live happily. Nice.
(01:04:15):
Just say it over and over. Calm down brain.
Live happily. That's simple, right?
Yes, but definitely. I think finding your tribe in
this adoptee community is huge. And there's, like you said,
there's so many outlets that youwill find it.
Just don't give up, you know? And if anyone is struggling
(01:04:36):
finding an adoptee, that is a therapist.
I have resources that there's a whole page on Beth Syverson,
adoptive parent, but it's it's also adoptees, birth mothers,
anybody you can search on this web page that she has for
adoptee therapists or, you know,and there's even holistic stuff
(01:04:57):
on there. So if you are struggling and for
looking for somebody, get in touch with me, 'cause I can, I
can direct you in that direction.
So, Lisa Ann, where can we find you and your podcast and all
those things? Well, thank you again for having
me on the show. I I absolutely feel it's an
honor to have this opportunity and I also want to say I
(01:05:21):
appreciate you adoptee for putting yourself in a position
that allows us to do that. So to find me, the name of the
podcast is Wandering Tree and weare on all of the normal
podcasting platforms, the top probably two or three I would
push out or Spotify, Apple and Google, also in the Amazon realm
(01:05:46):
as well, but I just Google it ifthat's what works.
And we'd love to have people on the show.
We look forward to conversation.It's not scripted very much like
our Your Platform Here Conversation's so much easier to
connect to than than anything else.
There is a As I stated before, each season usually represents
(01:06:10):
something I may or may not be going through and wanting to
share out with and finding others who I know have gone
through it or are going through it and can and can add to the
topic. A great example just to plug for
a minute, the last six episodes of season 3/20/23 focused on the
male adoptive voice. I had 6 male guests.
(01:06:33):
Come on. Fantastic conversations.
I wish that I could do more to get those six men elevated and
get their voices out there so other gentlemen feel comfortable
talking about themselves and their experience.
That is an untapped voice. So if that's another thing, come
(01:06:55):
on. Come on to these shows.
Come, come see myself. Come see.
Melissa. I'm here for you.
I know she is too. And several other of our
podcasting friends. So yeah, just any of those
things. We're on Instagram and Facebook
as well. Awesome.
I'll, I'll put all those links in the show notes so people can
find you. And again, honored to have you
(01:07:15):
on the show. Lisa Ann, thanks so much for
coming on. Thank you.
Wow, so much insight packed in to an hour interview and if you
want to connect more with Lisa Ann again, her podcast is
Wandering Tree and her links arein the show notes.
(01:07:36):
We are doing a swap, so I will be on her podcast soon and I
will advertise the link to that when the episode airs.
Now I want to switch gears and ask you a question.
Did you make a New Year's resolution and already break it?
Well let me tell you, you are not alone, but do you ever
wonder why you keep self sabotaging yourself and breaking
(01:07:58):
that resolution? If you are serious about finding
out what is blocking you from creating the life that you want
to create, somatic mindful, guided imagery just might be
that key to unlocking the life that you love.
To find out more, go to somatichealingjourneys.com and
there you will find out more information about me as a
practitioner and SMGI as a quick, easy and gentle somatic
(01:08:23):
therapy. If you are any part of the triad
and want to come tell your storyon mind Your own karma, please
contact me at mindyourownkarma@gmail.com.
I also have a website, mindyourownkarma.com.
Get in touch with me and let's get your story on the podcast.
As always, take what you need and leave what you don't.
(01:08:47):
And always remember to mind yourown karma.
I'll see you next time.
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