October 22, 2024 • 54 mins
Lorah Gerald is a Baby Scoop Era, same-race domestic, pre-Roe adoptee. She posts as The Adopted Chameleon on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. She is a certified Trauma Informed Kundalini yoga instructor and Reiki Master.
Along with her work as a yoga instructor, she is an adoptee advocate. She leads the Adoptee Connect Tulsa group, started the adoptee private group The Adopted Chameleons, where she leads an art therapy group and body doubling group monthly, and works on the steering and implementation committee in Oklahoma for those affected by adoption and foster care. She works with people leading those agencies to get better mental health care to adoptees and former foster youth in her state.
She works to help us all be the best version of ourselves. When we heal ourselves, we heal the world.
Website: https://lorahgerald.com/
Adoptees Connect Tulsa: https://www.facebook.com/adopteesconnecttulsa
Adopted Chameleons Private Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/z1QXeiFhW7bhWEr6/
Connect With Melissa:
-Email Melissa here: mindyourownkarma@gmail.com
-Click here for the Mind Your Own Karma Website
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-Find Mind Your Own Karma on Facebook
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-Find Mind Your Own Karma on YouTube
-Click here for a comprehensive list of adoptee/adoptee trauma-informed practitioners.
Dial 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
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Mind Your Own Karma – The Adoption Chronicles Podcast educates listeners on the realities of adoption through the stories of adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents. We delve into their journeys, exploring identity, the emotional impacts of adoption, and the complexities that are involved when a child is removed from their biology.
We also tackle tough topics like transracial adoption and adoption ethics, featuring experts and advocates. By sharing these diverse perspectives we hope to not only educate the world, but also give hope and healing to those deeply affected by adoption trauma.
*** 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.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
They don't even search. They don't even look.
His rights were completely ignored.
He was serving his country and his rights were absolutely
ignored, which is still legal today.
Yeah. Can you believe that?
I mean, that's I. Unfortunately, I Yeah.
We can. We can believe that we can.
(00:21):
We're just going to go ahead andhave a little chuckle.
Hey there, it's Melissa Brunetti, and welcome to the
Mind Your Own Karma podcast. Hey there, Karma crew, thanks
for joining me for this episode of Mind Your Own Karma, The
(00:42):
Adoption Chronicles. Today I have.
Lorraine Gerald on the show. She is a passionate advocate for
adoptees and a certified trauma informed Kundalini Yoga
instructor and Reiki Master. As a baby scoop era, same race,
domestic pre ro adoptee, Larae draws from her lived experiences
(01:03):
to support others on their journeys.
She leads the Adoptees Connect Tulsa Group and founded the
Adopted Chameleons, a private community on Facebook for
adoptees and those with similar experiences.
There, she facilitates monthly art therapy and body doubling
sessions. Larae is actively involved in
Oklahoma's Steering and Implementation Committee for
(01:25):
Adoption and Foster Care, collaborating with agencies,
adoptive parents, social workers, and therapists to
improve mental health care for adoptees and former foster
youth. She shares her insights and
personal story through podcasts,blogs, and social media as the
adopted chameleon, reaching a wider audience to foster
(01:46):
understanding and healing. With a commitment to personal
and collective growth, Lorraine believes that when we heal
ourselves, we heal the world. Connect with her on Facebook,
Instagram, Tiktok, and Twitter to join the conversation.
Here is my conversation with Lorraine Gerald.
So we are welcoming Lorraine back to the show.
(02:07):
She's been on the show before, AKA adopted Chameleon.
Welcome, welcome. Thanks for having me again.
Yeah. So you know, there the the
reason I do the show is for education and there's some
things that people don't think about.
I didn't even think about as an adoptee and something that you
had to go through recently. And it just really made me think
(02:29):
about how to navigate that in the future.
So I'm hoping that you have someinsight on that and, and just
thank you for sharing your story.
So I just want to want to touch on your adoption story a little
bit. So if you can just kind of in a
nutshell, take us back to that. I know you've been on the show
before and you went into it a little bit deeper then, but
(02:51):
let's kind of touch back on it now.
OK, my name is Lorraine Gerald. I'm the adopted chameleon on
social media. I became, well, I was in reunion
with my first biological family member five years ago.
And those are my biological siblings, my two sisters by my
mother. And then I met my father three
(03:14):
years ago. So that's how, that's how I am
in reunion. I'm a domestic same race,
adoptee, baby scoop era. And what else would you like to
know? Ellis, how the dynamic was when
you met your biological parents,obviously your biological mother
(03:37):
knew that you were adopted, but your biological father did not.
So just kind of tell us about that.
All right, my mother ignored me my whole life, so I never got to
meet my mother and she didn't name the father on the birth
certificate and to get once I found him, I found out that he
(03:58):
never knew. So I was a complete secret to
one side of my family. I during reunion also, I just
wanted to, I wanted to jump ahead just for a second because
he told me that he wouldn't, he would have kept me.
And this baby scoop era, a lot of that happened.
(04:23):
So yeah, it, a lot of people didn't know and families were
separated that maybe not necessarily needed to be
separated because that's something that people instantly
assume with adoptees, you know, they'll sit there and think that
we were abused or with people that couldn't take care of us.
(04:46):
And it was quite the opposite inmy case.
My, my parents were in college. You know, it's that story.
They were in college and he got sent off to a war.
And then nine months later, I came along.
And that's a lot of the baby scoop, Eric, especially in the
60s. Yeah.
So he didn't know anything aboutyou.
(05:08):
Was he listed on your birth certificate or was somebody else
on your birth? Certificate.
No, no, no one was. They didn't.
They don't even search. They don't even look.
His rights were completely ignored.
He was serving his country and his rights were absolutely
ignored, which is still legal today.
Yeah. Can you believe that?
(05:30):
I mean, that's I. Unfortunately.
I yeah, we can. We can believe that we can.
We're just going to go ahead andhave a little chuckle.
Right, all you can do is laugh. Yeah.
So how did you contact him, how did you end up finding him, and
how did he react when he found out about you?
(05:50):
OK, this is a little bit of a ofa tale.
I'm going to take us on a story,a little journey here, so.
Once Upon a time. Once Upon a time in adoption
land, yes, After I met my sisters, I had already done DNA
and I couldn't find anybody. So that's how what was going on.
(06:11):
It is back in, I want to say 2016 maybe.
I started doing DNA and I didn'tfind anybody but a cousin.
And this cousin, she told me allabout the family.
She was like a third cousin. She sent me this cute little
message on 23andMe. Hi cousin.
Because of my bio. I said I'm adopted.
(06:32):
I'm trying to find my family. And she was like, let me tell
you about the family. And she starts telling me about
the family. And I was all excited.
And the more I read I was like, wow, this doesn't sound anything
like me. You know, I was looking for
answers. Where was I in there?
Who was the true me? Nothing like me.
So it was a huge let down anyway.
(06:53):
I just felt drawn to this woman though obviously we had the same
DNA so there was something there.
So it was like, I don't know, a year or so of.
We chatted through Messenger on 23andMe a few times.
Well one day she messaged me andshe goes, you have to go do
Ancestry. Guess what?
(07:14):
I'm adopted. She didn't know she was adopted,
but we had the right DNA. So that family she told me about
wasn't my family, wasn't even her family.
They were the people that lied to her for 50 years.
So upon her DNA discovery and ancestry, she found her father
(07:37):
and her brother. So I did the DNA and there they
were, her brother, her father, her.
I found another cousin and it was strong match.
So especially her father, I was matched stronger with her
father. So we realized that this was my
(07:58):
dad's side, not my mom's side. Yeah.
So I at that point I had some people to ask questions to like
because I had non identifying information.
You know that lovely non identifying information.
Did you get yours? Did you get non identifying or
identifying? No I I had no information.
(08:18):
Is the non identifying. OK, so non identifying.
So yeah, I was like, do y'all know a guy that would have been
born this year, you know, would have gone to college maybe in
this state, you know, had maybe this blonde hair and blue eyes?
Yeah. So they're just kind of like,
wow, that's, you know, really vague.
But luckily since I was related to them, they narrowed it down.
(08:41):
That's how I found out. Like I said, I'm getting to the
story. Yeah, yeah.
Come to find out, her dad and mydad hung out.
So this was the right information because I wrote a
letter. I did one of those little, you
know, find a person things and look the name up in the state
(09:03):
that I thought he was in. And sure enough, there was a
hit. So I was like, that's got to be
him. So I sent a letter.
Didn't hear anything. And then I went and got some
information from Search Angels. They gave me some free advice
that, you know, they were like, you know, send it certified, you
know, so that you'll know somebody picked it up.
Send it to APO Box if you got it.
(09:23):
And I just happened to have APO Box, so that's what I did.
And I noticed someone picked it up.
So I was hopeful. Yeah, someone's going to contact
me since my mother didn't. And a year went by and I was
like, oh, well, neither of my parents wanted to know me, you
know, wow. You know, therapy, therapy.
(09:44):
Who can I talk to? You know, all of those things
that adoptees go through and we have double rejection.
And but it wasn't. I got an e-mail one night.
I'm sitting on the couch just checking emails, and there's an
e-mail from someone asking me ifI'm still looking for the man
that I had sent the letter to. And I said yeah.
(10:07):
And I just, I was like, you knowwhat?
I'm just going to jump right on in here.
And I explained why I think he might be my dad.
I'm trying to find him. I'm adopted.
I was like, ain't got nothing tolose at this point, right?
He's dive on in. And luckily, this beautiful,
kind soul on the other end said,Oh my God, yes, let me help you
(10:27):
get in touch with him. He had.
Well, they found him on the floor and he had had multiple
strokes and he was pretty much agoner.
And that had been two months before I had mailed that letter.
Yeah. So two months before he could
have passed. But luckily life saving measures
(10:49):
were brought into place and he lived.
They were like, we don't know how they, we really don't.
This one was like, they thought he was going to be completely
brain dead if he was brought back.
But no, he had a whole year and he was in a nursing home
talking. He still had some cognition
issues and a little paralysis onone side.
(11:10):
But yeah, he was there. And she got me in contact with
guess who, my biological sister.Yep, because she had his power
of attorney, you know, to see who could get to him and not.
And and I needed DNA evidence, even though I was pretty sure
now. So I contacted her and said,
(11:32):
hey, you know, we might be sisters.
Can I send you Adna kit? You know, nothing like
contacting a stranger going, I'mjust going to send you a little
DNA kit. Do you mind spitting in a tube?
Right. Oh yeah.
So luckily she was another kind soul and she did, she spit in
(11:56):
the tube and the other kind soulended up being my step sister.
And that kind soul ended up being my sister on my father's
side. And that's how I found out that
that was my father because him being in a nursing home, it
would have been next to impossible to get his DNA.
So I needed hers. And that's how we found each
(12:16):
other. I went to the state he was in,
went to the nursing home, met him, showed him a picture of my
mom. And the look on his face, I was
like, yeah, yeah, they, they were a couple.
And that's what he told me they dated in college for.
He was like, I don't remember, maybe a year.
He remembers going to her hometown, meeting her parents.
(12:38):
And. Yeah.
Wow. So can you share with us how
your relationship with him developed in the time that you
had together? Well, I got to see him.
I only knew him for three years.He passed this year, so most of
it was through video chat when the nursing home didn't forget
(13:01):
about me. Oh boy.
That seemed to happen a whole lot.
And I never once got to talk to him during Christmas because,
well, there were too many thingsgoing on and why, why would it
be important for someone to havea video chat with their family
members? So I got pushed to the side.
But they, I guess they were doing the best they can.
They were probably understaffed,you know, I just had to have
(13:24):
patience. But because he couldn't hold a
phone, that was the reason why the video chat was so important.
We tried the handheld phone device.
He couldn't because he couldn't hold it.
So he's trying to hold it with his shoulder and it would just,
it fell and it was over with because then he couldn't get it
so hard. And it ebbed and flowed because
(13:50):
sometimes I don't know if he knew who I was, especially when
he wrote me letters, it seemed like he might have been thinking
about somebody else. But when we were face to face,
he seemed to always fully know who I was.
And he would tell me he loved meand how beautiful I was.
And you know, that meant a lot. And he would tell me stories
(14:11):
about the family and that that whoo that meant.
Yeah. Did you ever feel the need or
desire to legally establish yourconnection with him at any time?
It would have been nice and had the relationship been able to
(14:33):
have maybe a little bit more time, I might have brought the
topic up again with the way he was at that point.
I just didn't know how much to push it.
But I'm sure that had we had a little bit more time, yeah.
(14:53):
Yeah, I just, I never have thought about having to do that
until hearing your story. So kind of walk us through what
happened there at the end when he really fell ill and just tell
us what happened there. Well, it it I still don't know
fully what happened. I got a message from the nursing
(15:14):
home and they needed to send himto the emergency room for a
scan. And I was like, I mean, I wanted
to just say yes, but I know if Ilegally did that and something
happened, I, I don't legally have the rights to say.
So I got in touch with my sisterand said, Hey, can you get in
(15:37):
touch with the nursing home likeimmediately?
You know, he needs to go have some kind of scan done, and he
did. He went and had the scan I heard
through her because now the nursing home would no longer
talk to me at all. So this is where it's really
important. If you don't have some kind of
(15:58):
legal aspect document that says that you can speak to your
biological family, go get it now.
Look into that, get an attorney,whatever you got to do, ask
somebody because I had no more contact with them from that
point on. They my sister contacted me and
said, hey, he's fine. He went back to the nursing
(16:21):
home. So that was the last thing I
heard that he was fine. He was back there and then I
want to say it was 24 hours after that.
I got a text from her early in the morning and I said, well,
this can't be good because she doesn't really talk to me.
I mean, not that she's rejectingme, but we just.
Yeah. She's busy.
(16:42):
She's busy. So sure enough, they found him
dead. So we don't know what happened.
He was, they said he was fine. That's what she told me, that he
was fine. He was talking the scan and
everything that they needed to do had been taken care of and
(17:03):
they just don't know what happened.
So did the nursing home think that you or his daughter and
like, legally you could say something and then you kind of
told them that's not the case? Or how'd they find out?
Well, they knew I was his biological daughter because when
I first went there, I kind of explained that, you know, I'm
(17:25):
his biological daughter. I, I've been put up for
adoption. I never got into the legalities
there. Honestly, I think they just
assume I, I, I don't think people understand that we don't
have the same rights. And it's not just something
we're saying on social media or,or on podcast and articles and
blogs, you know, on and on droning on and on about that.
(17:48):
I think people honestly believe that we have the same rights as
anyone else and we do not. So I think it was just lack of
information. And I didn't share all of it
because I, I had just flown there to see him.
So I didn't want to say, hey, legally I don't have any access
to him. Yeah.
(18:09):
You know, yeah. And it's a good thing because,
you know, I only had three years, so I.
Know how did you cope with the grief of of losing him,
especially knowing that you couldn't really play a part in
or a role in those final decisions and things?
I'm still dealing with it. It's, it's weird because I was
(18:37):
just getting to know him and to have him in my life and then to
lose him it, it's just like thisstrange void of it's almost
dreamlike, you know, it I, or maybe I just disassociated
'cause, you know, that's easy for an adoptee to do and just
tell myself, oh, I'll get to talk to him next month or
(18:59):
something. So there's a lot of back and
forth. The reality of him not being
here. You know, I'm not going to ever
see him again because I still haven't gone to where he's his
ashes are placed. He it took like two months for
him to even be interred into a military cemetery.
I mean, my sister had to literally battle the military
(19:24):
for the rights that he were. He was owed.
He was owed that. So it just it, it hurts so bad
that his rights were ignored so many times in his life.
And he came back from a war he didn't want to be in, didn't
know he had a kid, You know, another child had to fight for
(19:45):
his rights. I mean, we just kind of assume
that white men have all the rights.
But there are times there are sometimes when they don't.
And this is this is it. I found him.
I found him the hard way. Because he deserved those
(20:06):
rights. He's a human being with
feelings. And he showed me a few times by
breaking down and crying and being human.
And it's, it's still difficult to talk about because I haven't
made it there yet. And I'll find I, I, I found
(20:29):
peace with it in the way that I can, but I know that once I
actually get to go to his final resting place, it will be
another part of it. And then I'll have to work on
letting it go again because it will be, it'll seem more real.
Because right now, like I said, I can kind of disassociate and
(20:52):
take myself out of it. Right.
Yeah, that's the kind of the last thing I need to do too,
with my birth father is go see that.
And I keep saying I'm gonna do it next week.
I'm gonna do it next week. I just, I don't think I'm ready
to actually see that yet. So.
But I will. I think that'll be the closure,
the last little puzzle piece to that part of my puzzle.
(21:15):
But yeah, I need to do that too.And the other thing is I just.
I still can't understand how a legal document as a birth
certificate that we use for a lot of things just isn't that
important when it comes to adoptees.
And you could just not put a birth father's name on there.
You could put, you know, Jane Doe and Jack, you know, Smith
(21:38):
and that's, and that's it. And a a father can, it's OK for
him not to know that he fathereda child.
Like it just blows my mind, but that's OK.
Yeah, it's totally legal. Yeah, let's just ignore people's
human rights. But again, things that we talk
about all the time, you know, it's a human rights violation.
(22:01):
No matter. That's the thing that people
forget. It's not about being right,
wrong, good, bad. It's a human right to know, but
unless you're adopted, you know,or you know donor conceived or
something else that you don't legally have to tell anyone.
Or someone's written has signed your rights away.
(22:24):
Absolutely unbelievable in 2024 that adoptees just don't have
the same rights. I know, I know.
I think the same. How do you keep your birth
father's memory alive? I mean, I know you say you're
kind of disassociating, so, you know, maybe just kind of not
even totally accepting or realizing that he is, you know,
(22:48):
not here anymore. But what do you do for to keep
his memory alive? Well, he told me stories of the
family and these are the synchronicities and the things
that are in our nature that he told me about that were really
cool. And I know that you've probably
(23:09):
got some too. So I want you to share some
after I share some because this is this is important because
this goes against that blank slate theory that people think
adoptees are that it's a baby. You know, you can just do with
it whatever you want. We carry our ancestors in that
DNA with us. We know this through
epigenetics. You can carry the good and the
(23:31):
bad. So those traumas are passed down
and we are connected to our ancestors.
So nature plays a lot into US. Of course, nurture does help,
you know, but some of the synchronicities are, I knew my
(23:51):
mother owned a place called the Knitting Basket, and I always
thought that she, that's where Igot my creativity from.
Then when I met my father three years ago, I found out he was an
engineer. He was studying to be an
engineer in college before he got sent away.
(24:13):
And it was him that I got it allfrom because I used to work as
an interior designer before I was a marketing manager.
And one of the things that I could do is look at a pattern or
something and I can like reverseengineer it.
I can figure out how to create it from taking it apart.
And I just thought that was justsomething everybody could do
(24:39):
because I didn't know my, my adoptive parents couldn't do it.
But I just thought, well, you know, I didn't realize it.
It was an innate talent that I had through DNA.
I I didn't get it because, you know, I I didn't know who I was,
but it's just something I've always been able to do.
And he told me he could do the same exact thing.
(25:00):
He made clothing that way. He, he was telling me he made,
he built lamps and a staircase. He actually built the house that
he had that was taken away and sold because, you know, he was
in a nursing home. Another part of him losing
everything. Yeah.
Yeah, the house he built. But I realized this with him.
(25:25):
I was talking to him about it because if you all know anything
about me, you know I love Halloween and I have a 12 foot
skeleton. And you know, if you have a 12
foot skeleton, it goes from Halloween through Christmas
because that's just the way it is.
That's just the way it is. So I wanted to put a costume on
my 12 foot skeleton. This was before I knew other
(25:45):
people were doing it. I thought I was the first, but I
wasn't. So I thought what would be the
best Christmas costume for an adoptee?
Elf, right? Of course it's elf.
So I looked at the costume and came up with how I could make
that for a 12 foot skeleton and I did it.
(26:07):
There's videos of me with a 12 foot skeleton.
Then the following year they came up with a little mini 3
foot skeleton and then I did it again.
So I have a 12 foot and a three foot elf costume for my
skeletons and yes, they go up atChristmas time, but I during
that time it was like discovery with him.
So that's why I, I wanted to share that because it's near and
(26:27):
dear to my heart. That's a way that I do hold him
because I after Halloween, I'll be putting that costume back on
the skeletons and I will be thinking about him when I do
that. Yeah.
Yeah, and oh, when I was an interior designer and all the
years I worked as interior designer and I still use this
skill, I can touch fabric and pretty much know the content in
(26:49):
it. So I can tell a good quality
fabric through my fingertips. Through tactile touch,
especially if you're going thrifting or something, I can
just touch because there's a lotof stuff to look through, so I
can't look at everything. I just kind of go through and
touch. When I hit something I like, I
pull it out and see if it's right.
But he was telling me that I have an uncle, great uncle.
(27:13):
Oh, now I can't remember. Anyway, it's an uncle.
And he was a vice president of atextile company in New York
City. And he could do that because my
dad knew. When he got married, he said my
uncle came and like, you know, touched his collar and
straightened him. And he was like, oh, this is
(27:33):
good fabric. And was telling him what the
content was. I.
Missed. Of his tuxedo.
And I said, are you kidding me? I said that was another thing I
just assumed people could do because I didn't know any
different. But no, it was a trade I got
from my dad's side of the family.
I can touch fabric and know whatit is.
So every time I'm shopping now, I know where I got that because
(27:57):
he told me that story. Yeah, well, it's just like a
baby chick knows how to pick itsway out of an egg.
You know, when it comes time, that's DNA that's carried in
that chick from generations and generations.
And, you know, they didn't learnthat.
They just have it in their DNA. Yeah, that's cool.
Did you have, did you, did you look back and think, God, I
(28:22):
should have had this kind of conversation or I should have
asked, you know, something or did you have any?
Look at that. Yeah.
The regret part, yeah. Yeah.
I try not to think about it too much because I have so much
regret with my birth mother and it just brings it up.
(28:43):
So there's nothing I can do about it at this point.
And if I didn't ask in the threeyears, you know, that's kind of,
I guess my fault, right? Do you feel him ever around you
or you sense him? It's funny to ask that because
there I have a window right hereout of my office that I look out
(29:04):
of. There's trees and birds, my
Hummingbird feeders out there and stuff.
And I'm on the 2nd floor, so I'mlooking at kind of the tops of
the trees. There was a red cardinal out
there right before I started thevideo with you.
And I said, hey, Dad. Yeah, that question is not on my
(29:25):
list, but I just felt like I needed it.
You listened to your intuition. Didn't you?
No. I my synchronicity.
Question. Yeah, go ahead.
I I want to hear, do you have a synchronicity story?
OK, good. I, I, I love these.
I love these. That is my synchronicity
stories. You know, I grew up being very
(29:48):
sensitive to spirit and grew up kind of, you know, was kind of
scared and nervous because I didn't know what it was.
And then, you know, I met my birth mother or sit at the
dinner table with her two young sons and her husband at the
time. And I just said, do you ever
have, you know, do you ever sense things, you know?
(30:10):
And she just kind of looked at me.
And she's like, we'll talk later.
And so, yeah, we had a lot of wesensed the same way.
And then when I met my sister's on my birth father's side,
they're also sensitive, too. But we've all kind of got
different sensitivities. And I was thought that'd be such
(30:31):
a cool show if the three of us got together, you know, the
three of us, because we're all kind of different and we all
have different moms. Same dad.
But yeah, I have that sensitivity on both sides.
And then just, you know, the wayI laugh and some of the way I
move and stuff like that, definitely on the maternal side.
(30:52):
Was weird to see that mirroring.I was like that's so weird, so
weird. And me and my birth mother went
and look at looked at some houses because at one point we
were thinking about moving thereand the realtor opened the door
to this two-story house and there was a flight of stairs
right in front of me. And I saw a spirit of a man.
(31:13):
I could see the guy standing on the stairs and she could see my
reaction the the realtor and shewas like now she's scared to go
in. I didn't tell her what I saw,
but so anyway, so we walked through the house and on the way
back we were driving, it's dark now and I was telling my birth
mother, you know, I saw that this guy, this is what he look
like. And she ended up sending me a
(31:34):
paper clipping of the man that lived there.
And it was the guy that I saw onthe stairs.
But as we were driving back to her house, we're driving under
streetlights. And as we drove under the
streetlights, they would go out one by one as we went underneath
under them. And that happens to me all the
time, electricity. And I freaked.
My birth mother asked, she was freaking out and I was laughing
(31:56):
hysterically, 'cause I mean, I'mused to this, right?
She was like, Oh my God, what's happening?
She was like freaking out. We were giggling and laughing
and like having the best time with just, you know, sharing
that part of you 'cause there's not a lot of people you can talk
to about that, right, that understands or doesn't get
freaked out about it. And so that was just fun.
(32:17):
We, we had a good time. So yeah, that was those are my
synchronicities. I love that.
Yeah, I found out that I had it on my father's side and mother's
side, and my adoptive mother wasvery.
So she was the one that allowed me to grow and develop it from
(32:39):
little kid. She was just like, that's
completely normal. That's completely normal.
Awesome. So that was one thing she did
very well. I like to give her credit for
that. She did make me feel comfortable
with it. Now, she also said don't talk
about that. Yeah.
Just keep your mouth quiet, little girl.
(33:00):
Yeah, social mouth, because I asked a lot of questions as a
kid to be like. There was a time when we knew
how to heal ourselves. Western medicine has its place,
(33:20):
but they've made us forget our own power.
With somatic, mindful, guided imagery, you can discover how to
reconnect, restore and heal fromwithin.
Take control of your healing journey.
The power is already inside of you.
Somatic Healing journeys.com. So have you found any ways to
(33:50):
heal a little bit? What's what's helped you kind of
get through this with your dad? Well, knowing that I'm not alone
because the adoptee community, we have similar pains and woes,
losses and griefs, same traumas.And that's always helpful being
(34:15):
in community with people that understand because you don't
have to start at the beginning and explain and yeah, well,
you're adopted and everything wonderful.
What makes you think that we don't have normal lives like
everyone else, you know, And plus, you know, all of the
secrecy and lies, you know, to begin with.
And then you have to find your authentic self.
(34:37):
You're not born knowing your authentic self.
So that's where you have to start is once you come out of
the fog, you have to go find your authentic self.
And finding your authentic self,you have to know that you're not
alone. So once you know you're not
alone, then the authenticity comes.
And the authenticity is difficult because you realize
(35:01):
you were lied to a lot and then you start not trusting yourself.
You know your own mind because you believed a lie for so long
that you think, well, how can I trust anything?
And then you got to learn to trust your intuition again.
There's levels after levels. And it takes a daily practice.
(35:22):
It really does. It takes something just like
eating and sleeping, which is something we're all supposed to
do to be healthy and whole. We should do that every day.
So if you're not doing that, tryto do that every day and somatic
exercises, people think that they can talk their way out of
(35:42):
things. You can't take a you can't
logically think your way out of the feeling.
It just doesn't happen that way.And I am not poo pooing on
therapy. No, find yourself someone that
you can talk to and you talk andtalk and talk and talk.
Make sure it's someone that you feel safe with.
So yes, absolutely cognitive therapy, coaching, things like
(36:04):
this, so good. But but you got to move too.
So daily good mental health practices are going to come into
play here. And me, I teach Kundalini yoga.
So I like yoga, meditation, I love dancing, I love walking my
dog, things like that. Because you will be doing it
(36:26):
every day. So find things to do every day
that are going to bring you thatjoy and that movement that's
going to help your nervous system relax.
And the more you relax that nervous system, the more that
you're going to grow. And when the uncomfortable time
comes, because that's where we grow, that's where we grow,
(36:48):
isn't that? Unfortunately is yes as.
I know unfortunately yes. And our brains going to want to
be comfortable whether it's goodfor us or not.
So learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable and, and allow
yourself to grow. You know, if you got to cry,
that's fine. That's your body naturally
releasing. That's why people cry in yoga.
(37:10):
Everybody's like it's, you're not standing on a mountaintop,
you know, with the breeze blowing and everything's
beautiful. No, you release on there.
Sometimes you got to cry. Sometimes it is that beautiful
breeze, but sometimes it's crying.
And both are beautiful because those are moments that you need,
you need so bad anger too. Yeah, guess what?
(37:31):
You definitely can get angry during meditation and yoga
because that's what you need. Anger is protecting a part of
you that is hidden. It's saying there's something
still down here. So again, having those somatic
experiences like what you do, you can get people down to those
places. Yeah.
(37:53):
Yeah. I want to hear a little bit
about that too 'cause I this is leading into what you do too.
Yeah, yeah, the, the somatic mindful, gutted imagery.
It's kind of like what you were saying.
I always feel like, you know, cognitive therapy definitely has
its place. I have somebody if I need to go,
I, you know, have somebody to goto.
And that kind of helps bring some things to the surface
(38:13):
sometimes. But I always find that it's not
getting to the root of the problem.
You know, cognitive therapies, more left brain thinking, you
know, trying to think through something and somatic is right
brain, you know, feeling into the body, getting to the root of
what's really going on, of thosethings that are hidden.
(38:33):
And somatic therapy, I've been hearing it over and over and
over that it is great for pre verbal trauma because we don't
remember it. So there's implicit memories
that will get to those implicit memories.
And I always say, you know, I kind of want to know what you
think about adoptees who are afraid to open Pandora's box,
(38:55):
afraid to take the lid off because they are keeping the lid
on right now, barely, but they're able to get through a
day. But what happens when I take
that lid off? And I want to look at this stuff
or you know, and it I just want to say that it's so worth it
going through the healing process and having short term
(39:16):
pain to alleviate the long term suffering that you've been
suffering all this time. It's totally worth it.
And if something comes up in your awareness, you're ready to
deal with it. Just trust the process.
You don't have to. You have a, you know, you don't
have to. But I am telling you that that's
what I've learned. That's what I've seen in my
(39:37):
clients when it comes up, it's ready to be looked at.
It's not going to go away. It is not going to go away.
You can turn the volume up on your TV and pretend like you
don't hear that part of you yelling and screaming, trying to
get your attention, but it's still yelling and screaming.
And pretty soon it's going to get louder.
It's going to make you sick either physically, mentally,
(39:59):
both. It's not going to go away.
And so, yeah, you just, you needto look at it.
So what do you think about people that are afraid?
What would you say to people that are afraid to look at the
pain and try the healing process?
Yeah, you said it. Our mind is going to allow us
(40:20):
to, to go through the memories and the feelings that we can and
we're not going to be sent something that we can't handle.
People ask me all the time, you know, afraid of kundalini yoga
because they've heard of kundalini energy or kundalini
awakening or whatever. And there is, there can be a
(40:45):
huge rush, just like emotions, just like energy, but you're
ready for it. Can it be scary?
Yes. But it is a normal process.
And if you remember normal, whenyou're scared, this is normal.
Just don't resist because there's only one way.
(41:05):
There's only one way and that isthrough.
You've got to go through it. If you're trying to go around
and you're resisting, you're just going to keep coming back
to that same path and you're going to face it again over and
over or you're going to start getting disease.
You know, you're going to start having unhealthy coping
mechanisms. That's what happens.
(41:27):
That's how we get depression, anxiety, addictions, things that
we we think we're fine, but we're actually not.
We're not dealing with it. We're good at that though.
Because we want to be comfortable.
That's what our brains are meantto do, keep us comfortable
whether it's good for us or not.So when those things start
(41:51):
coming, and it will sometimes feel like a lot, you have people
to talk to, be surrounded by people that you feel safe to
talk to, go to the somatic experiences.
It's going to help to be grounded.
Grounding is going to make you feel safe and secure.
(42:12):
It's going to affect that first chakra.
Your root shocker is your safetyand security.
So you're going to want to start, just like Maslow's
Hierarchy of need, you're going to want to start square 1.
So get grounded, feel safe, feelsecure.
Your nervous system will instantly start regulating.
Once you feel safe and secure, then just like everything else,
(42:32):
you're going to work your way right on up in there.
Adoptees, specifically when I'm working with them with energy or
with yoga, it seems like the root and the solar plexus, which
is our third, it's yellow. It's our core, that's our
personal power. Those are the two that we
usually need to work with. The first we got to start at the
(42:53):
grounding, and then we're going to start making you fearless,
pushing the fear out, working the core, building your personal
fire. If you can get these two going,
it's going to be so much easier than if you're just completely
not grounded and have a weak core.
(43:16):
It's things can just go in spiraling motions.
So do the exercises, sleep well,eat well, nourish your body.
If you need to rest, this one's something that people don't say
naps, naps. You're going to you're going to
need some naps when your nervoussystem is regulating.
So. Make some time if you need to
(43:37):
take some time off work or go somewhere if you can just to be
alone with your thoughts, but make sure you have a support
system close by too. Don't go completely off the
grid. If you're in a spiral or
anything, don't do that. But do give yourself the space
and talk honestly with people how you're feeling at that
(44:00):
moment. If there are suicidal ality
feelings, make sure you talk to somebody that knows about this
because they will probably have the same feelings and you'll be
able to bond over that feeling knowing that you're not alone in
the situation. Don't feel shame because there
are people that have felt that. That's where you you can
(44:24):
definitely go off into a deep end.
If you if you don't talk about the shame, guilt can come up
too. And those two are the ones that
it's better to work through witha support group, I would think.
Yeah, if you follow all those and get an adoptee community, or
(44:45):
if even if you're not an adoptee, say you're a biological
mother, father, there are groupsfor those two adopted parents.
Anybody, anybody with trauma. Find people that know what
you're talking about while you're going through it.
Yeah, it's funny you were talking about the it's solar
plexus because when I am journeying, doing my somatic
(45:07):
work, that's where I'm always, Ialways feel it like in my solar
plexus and I always follow whatever that is.
And but yeah, I always feel likea tightness, like a pulling.
I don't know how to explain it, but I can feel it right there in
my solar plexus. Yeah, well, in your stomach is a
(45:28):
bigger brain than our brain. So our feelings go through our
stomach. That's why it's there it.
But in our brain thinks we are our feelings even though we're
not. We're not our feelings.
That's not our authentic self. That's not what we're going to
find a thing, right when we get to our authentic self.
That's not it. So.
(45:49):
Yeah, those are just indicators of maybe something you need to
look at. I mean, they're helpful, but
definitely, yeah, not your, not who you part of who you are.
Exactly. So what advice would you give
other adoptees that might face this same the same thing that
you had with your dad? What advice would you give them?
(46:11):
Yeah, well, we kind of touched on it.
Find out your legal rights. Seriously.
I that one I can't stress enough.
Yeah, or lack of. Yeah, yes, yes.
Thank you. Thank you.
You're right. Yes, your lack of rights is what
I said. Yeah.
(46:32):
And especially for the older adoptees, you might want to act
like every day could be the lastday because you don't know.
And I don't say that to stoke fear.
I say that to to bring up in youthe curiosity and the openness
(46:53):
to ask maybe questions that you're afraid to ask.
If it's something that you're going to regret, ask the
question. Don't, don't let the moments
pass and then you go, I wish I would have done that.
I I should have done that or whatever.
Don't let that be what you thinkabout after they're gone.
And do try to spend the time that you want because again, it
(47:17):
is a process. Do what you're comfortable with.
But again, think about what could be because sometimes it's
fear and we just need to get through it.
And then sometimes we do need space.
So if that that is, you truly need space, you need that
resting point. Do that for yourself.
(47:39):
Pictures, take pictures. If you can visit, go visit, ask
God the DNA questions. You know the family.
Ask those stories about the family about them.
He told me, I forgot to tell youthis earlier.
He told me a story about he had a monkey when he was in the
military and he sent me a picture of it, him and the
(47:59):
monkey. I, I was like, I can't remember
how I even got it. I was like going what, how did
he get a monkey in the military anyway?
But he said it was like their little mascot and it would take,
it would take people cigarettes.Oh my God.
(48:21):
So he was a character and I wantto remember him, you know, like
maybe he was a little bit beforeI knew him, like being a
character. Yeah.
So I want to close because this podcast is all about education
and I'm hoping that, you know, I'm always hoping that people
that aren't adopted are listening as well.
(48:43):
So what would you like people toknow about your experience?
And it could be anything about your adoption experience that
you just want the average personto know that they might not
know. Well, I'm going to kind of recap
because I want people to know that adoptees do not have the
same rights as anyone else. Like we were talking about we,
(49:04):
there are things that we're justnot allowed to do.
And then if we do them, it's at great expense to us, like
finding, reaching out to family.Not everyone can do that.
We have to go through the DNA hoops and things like that.
So when we're saying, you know, that we're angry, that is
(49:28):
righteous anger because we don'thave the same rights.
And that anger is the absolute normal feeling for what we have.
So give us a little grace, and hopefully that we will have
grace in our response to you also in that moment.
And hopefully, eventually, adoptees will have legal rights
(49:51):
just like everyone else in all 50 states because, yeah, there's
still closed adoption and restrictions allowed in what,
like 19 states? 17 states?
No, I can't remember. I don't mind one of them.
Yeah, Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Think about that. That's what if you couldn't do
that, You can never find your own family.
(50:11):
Just put yourself in our place. It's not like a lot of the
movies, you know? Well, the baby gets adopted and
all of a sudden everything's fine.
Yeah. So just a little love and
compassion goes a long way. Yeah, definitely.
Well, thank you for coming on today and bringing up this
(50:33):
subject. Like I said, I had never even
thought about it before it happened to you.
And I was just, my heart was going out to you because you had
1000 things going on at the timethat you were doing and trying
to do and then going through that.
And just, yeah, it was, it was hard to watch you go through
that. And I just like I said, I'd
never thought about the legalitypart.
(50:56):
And so just thanks for bringing that to the surface for us and
and sharing that openly with with us, your audience, the
adopted chameleon. So thank you so much.
For having me and anyone else isgoing through the same thing.
I'm sorry number one for your loss and we can all chat and
(51:19):
talk and we can get through the loss and grief.
Together. Yeah.
So tell us about your social media pages and where people can
find you. Yeah, as we were saying, I'm the
adopted chameleon on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.
(51:40):
I also run the adopted Chameleons private Facebook
group that's for adoptees and all MP ES, which is
misattributed parental event. So if you're a former foster
youth or donor conceived something like that, someone
that wasn't raised by your biological family, you can get
in there. Oh, and I do the adoptees
connect Tulsa group and I have aPatreon because like we
(52:04):
mentioned earlier, I'm a Kundalini yoga instructor and
Reiki master. You can find all of this
information larae gerald.com, including this podcast.
I will add this to my website and adoptees and people that
love adoptees are allies on my page.
I have adoptee resources and there are groups in there for
(52:25):
first families, adopted families, adoptees and if you
want me to add something let me know all.
Right. Great.
Thank you so much for coming on.Thank you, Melissa.
Thank you so much, Larae, for giving us some food for thought,
maybe something that some of us need to start thinking about if
(52:46):
we want to be able to advocate for our biological family.
And I just want to thank Larae for everything she does for the
community. And I cannot talk about the
Adopted chameleon page on Facebook enough.
It really is a safe place where you are able to express yourself
at the same time. And it's my favorite page.
(53:09):
It's my favorite page on Facebook.
So thanks Larae for having that space for us.
Adoptees, if you would like to come on the podcast, please get
in touch with me. You can go to my website,
mindyourownkarma.com or you can e-mail me directly at Mind Your
Own karma@gmail.com. If you are struggling with
(53:30):
stress, anxiety, the primal wound, anything that's keeping
you from living life to the fullest, you can go to my
Somatic mindful guided imagery page.
It is Somatic Healing journeys dot com or you can e-mail me
directly Somatic Healing journeyssmgi@gmail.com but on my
(53:50):
website you will find more aboutme and Somatic Mindful guided
imagery and what it's all about.You can also schedule a free 15
to 20 minute consultation with me if you want to know more.
As always, take what you need and leave what you don't.
And always remember to mind yourown karma and I will see you all
(54:12):
next time. This podcast is created for
educational purposes by the telling of adoption experiences.
The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the
host or Mind Your Own Karma.
They don't even search. They don't even look.
His rights were completely ignored.
He was serving his country and his rights were absolutely
ignored, which is still legal today.
Yeah. Can you believe that?
I mean, that's I. Unfortunately, I Yeah.
We can. We can believe that we can.
(00:21):
We're just going to go ahead andhave a little chuckle.
Hey there, it's Melissa Brunetti, and welcome to the
Mind Your Own Karma podcast. Hey there, Karma crew, thanks
for joining me for this episode of Mind Your Own Karma, The
(00:42):
Adoption Chronicles. Today I have.
Lorraine Gerald on the show. She is a passionate advocate for
adoptees and a certified trauma informed Kundalini Yoga
instructor and Reiki Master. As a baby scoop era, same race,
domestic pre ro adoptee, Larae draws from her lived experiences
(01:03):
to support others on their journeys.
She leads the Adoptees Connect Tulsa Group and founded the
Adopted Chameleons, a private community on Facebook for
adoptees and those with similar experiences.
There, she facilitates monthly art therapy and body doubling
sessions. Larae is actively involved in
Oklahoma's Steering and Implementation Committee for
(01:25):
Adoption and Foster Care, collaborating with agencies,
adoptive parents, social workers, and therapists to
improve mental health care for adoptees and former foster
youth. She shares her insights and
personal story through podcasts,blogs, and social media as the
adopted chameleon, reaching a wider audience to foster
(01:46):
understanding and healing. With a commitment to personal
and collective growth, Lorraine believes that when we heal
ourselves, we heal the world. Connect with her on Facebook,
Instagram, Tiktok, and Twitter to join the conversation.
Here is my conversation with Lorraine Gerald.
So we are welcoming Lorraine back to the show.
(02:07):
She's been on the show before, AKA adopted Chameleon.
Welcome, welcome. Thanks for having me again.
Yeah. So you know, there the the
reason I do the show is for education and there's some
things that people don't think about.
I didn't even think about as an adoptee and something that you
had to go through recently. And it just really made me think
(02:29):
about how to navigate that in the future.
So I'm hoping that you have someinsight on that and, and just
thank you for sharing your story.
So I just want to want to touch on your adoption story a little
bit. So if you can just kind of in a
nutshell, take us back to that. I know you've been on the show
before and you went into it a little bit deeper then, but
(02:51):
let's kind of touch back on it now.
OK, my name is Lorraine Gerald. I'm the adopted chameleon on
social media. I became, well, I was in reunion
with my first biological family member five years ago.
And those are my biological siblings, my two sisters by my
mother. And then I met my father three
(03:14):
years ago. So that's how, that's how I am
in reunion. I'm a domestic same race,
adoptee, baby scoop era. And what else would you like to
know? Ellis, how the dynamic was when
you met your biological parents,obviously your biological mother
(03:37):
knew that you were adopted, but your biological father did not.
So just kind of tell us about that.
All right, my mother ignored me my whole life, so I never got to
meet my mother and she didn't name the father on the birth
certificate and to get once I found him, I found out that he
(03:58):
never knew. So I was a complete secret to
one side of my family. I during reunion also, I just
wanted to, I wanted to jump ahead just for a second because
he told me that he wouldn't, he would have kept me.
And this baby scoop era, a lot of that happened.
(04:23):
So yeah, it, a lot of people didn't know and families were
separated that maybe not necessarily needed to be
separated because that's something that people instantly
assume with adoptees, you know, they'll sit there and think that
we were abused or with people that couldn't take care of us.
(04:46):
And it was quite the opposite inmy case.
My, my parents were in college. You know, it's that story.
They were in college and he got sent off to a war.
And then nine months later, I came along.
And that's a lot of the baby scoop, Eric, especially in the
60s. Yeah.
So he didn't know anything aboutyou.
(05:08):
Was he listed on your birth certificate or was somebody else
on your birth? Certificate.
No, no, no one was. They didn't.
They don't even search. They don't even look.
His rights were completely ignored.
He was serving his country and his rights were absolutely
ignored, which is still legal today.
Yeah. Can you believe that?
(05:30):
I mean, that's I. Unfortunately.
I yeah, we can. We can believe that we can.
We're just going to go ahead andhave a little chuckle.
Right, all you can do is laugh. Yeah.
So how did you contact him, how did you end up finding him, and
how did he react when he found out about you?
(05:50):
OK, this is a little bit of a ofa tale.
I'm going to take us on a story,a little journey here, so.
Once Upon a time. Once Upon a time in adoption
land, yes, After I met my sisters, I had already done DNA
and I couldn't find anybody. So that's how what was going on.
(06:11):
It is back in, I want to say 2016 maybe.
I started doing DNA and I didn'tfind anybody but a cousin.
And this cousin, she told me allabout the family.
She was like a third cousin. She sent me this cute little
message on 23andMe. Hi cousin.
Because of my bio. I said I'm adopted.
(06:32):
I'm trying to find my family. And she was like, let me tell
you about the family. And she starts telling me about
the family. And I was all excited.
And the more I read I was like, wow, this doesn't sound anything
like me. You know, I was looking for
answers. Where was I in there?
Who was the true me? Nothing like me.
So it was a huge let down anyway.
(06:53):
I just felt drawn to this woman though obviously we had the same
DNA so there was something there.
So it was like, I don't know, a year or so of.
We chatted through Messenger on 23andMe a few times.
Well one day she messaged me andshe goes, you have to go do
Ancestry. Guess what?
(07:14):
I'm adopted. She didn't know she was adopted,
but we had the right DNA. So that family she told me about
wasn't my family, wasn't even her family.
They were the people that lied to her for 50 years.
So upon her DNA discovery and ancestry, she found her father
(07:37):
and her brother. So I did the DNA and there they
were, her brother, her father, her.
I found another cousin and it was strong match.
So especially her father, I was matched stronger with her
father. So we realized that this was my
(07:58):
dad's side, not my mom's side. Yeah.
So I at that point I had some people to ask questions to like
because I had non identifying information.
You know that lovely non identifying information.
Did you get yours? Did you get non identifying or
identifying? No I I had no information.
(08:18):
Is the non identifying. OK, so non identifying.
So yeah, I was like, do y'all know a guy that would have been
born this year, you know, would have gone to college maybe in
this state, you know, had maybe this blonde hair and blue eyes?
Yeah. So they're just kind of like,
wow, that's, you know, really vague.
But luckily since I was related to them, they narrowed it down.
(08:41):
That's how I found out. Like I said, I'm getting to the
story. Yeah, yeah.
Come to find out, her dad and mydad hung out.
So this was the right information because I wrote a
letter. I did one of those little, you
know, find a person things and look the name up in the state
(09:03):
that I thought he was in. And sure enough, there was a
hit. So I was like, that's got to be
him. So I sent a letter.
Didn't hear anything. And then I went and got some
information from Search Angels. They gave me some free advice
that, you know, they were like, you know, send it certified, you
know, so that you'll know somebody picked it up.
Send it to APO Box if you got it.
(09:23):
And I just happened to have APO Box, so that's what I did.
And I noticed someone picked it up.
So I was hopeful. Yeah, someone's going to contact
me since my mother didn't. And a year went by and I was
like, oh, well, neither of my parents wanted to know me, you
know, wow. You know, therapy, therapy.
(09:44):
Who can I talk to? You know, all of those things
that adoptees go through and we have double rejection.
And but it wasn't. I got an e-mail one night.
I'm sitting on the couch just checking emails, and there's an
e-mail from someone asking me ifI'm still looking for the man
that I had sent the letter to. And I said yeah.
(10:07):
And I just, I was like, you knowwhat?
I'm just going to jump right on in here.
And I explained why I think he might be my dad.
I'm trying to find him. I'm adopted.
I was like, ain't got nothing tolose at this point, right?
He's dive on in. And luckily, this beautiful,
kind soul on the other end said,Oh my God, yes, let me help you
(10:27):
get in touch with him. He had.
Well, they found him on the floor and he had had multiple
strokes and he was pretty much agoner.
And that had been two months before I had mailed that letter.
Yeah. So two months before he could
have passed. But luckily life saving measures
(10:49):
were brought into place and he lived.
They were like, we don't know how they, we really don't.
This one was like, they thought he was going to be completely
brain dead if he was brought back.
But no, he had a whole year and he was in a nursing home
talking. He still had some cognition
issues and a little paralysis onone side.
(11:10):
But yeah, he was there. And she got me in contact with
guess who, my biological sister.Yep, because she had his power
of attorney, you know, to see who could get to him and not.
And and I needed DNA evidence, even though I was pretty sure
now. So I contacted her and said,
(11:32):
hey, you know, we might be sisters.
Can I send you Adna kit? You know, nothing like
contacting a stranger going, I'mjust going to send you a little
DNA kit. Do you mind spitting in a tube?
Right. Oh yeah.
So luckily she was another kind soul and she did, she spit in
(11:56):
the tube and the other kind soulended up being my step sister.
And that kind soul ended up being my sister on my father's
side. And that's how I found out that
that was my father because him being in a nursing home, it
would have been next to impossible to get his DNA.
So I needed hers. And that's how we found each
(12:16):
other. I went to the state he was in,
went to the nursing home, met him, showed him a picture of my
mom. And the look on his face, I was
like, yeah, yeah, they, they were a couple.
And that's what he told me they dated in college for.
He was like, I don't remember, maybe a year.
He remembers going to her hometown, meeting her parents.
(12:38):
And. Yeah.
Wow. So can you share with us how
your relationship with him developed in the time that you
had together? Well, I got to see him.
I only knew him for three years.He passed this year, so most of
it was through video chat when the nursing home didn't forget
(13:01):
about me. Oh boy.
That seemed to happen a whole lot.
And I never once got to talk to him during Christmas because,
well, there were too many thingsgoing on and why, why would it
be important for someone to havea video chat with their family
members? So I got pushed to the side.
But they, I guess they were doing the best they can.
They were probably understaffed,you know, I just had to have
(13:24):
patience. But because he couldn't hold a
phone, that was the reason why the video chat was so important.
We tried the handheld phone device.
He couldn't because he couldn't hold it.
So he's trying to hold it with his shoulder and it would just,
it fell and it was over with because then he couldn't get it
so hard. And it ebbed and flowed because
(13:50):
sometimes I don't know if he knew who I was, especially when
he wrote me letters, it seemed like he might have been thinking
about somebody else. But when we were face to face,
he seemed to always fully know who I was.
And he would tell me he loved meand how beautiful I was.
And you know, that meant a lot. And he would tell me stories
(14:11):
about the family and that that whoo that meant.
Yeah. Did you ever feel the need or
desire to legally establish yourconnection with him at any time?
It would have been nice and had the relationship been able to
(14:33):
have maybe a little bit more time, I might have brought the
topic up again with the way he was at that point.
I just didn't know how much to push it.
But I'm sure that had we had a little bit more time, yeah.
(14:53):
Yeah, I just, I never have thought about having to do that
until hearing your story. So kind of walk us through what
happened there at the end when he really fell ill and just tell
us what happened there. Well, it it I still don't know
fully what happened. I got a message from the nursing
(15:14):
home and they needed to send himto the emergency room for a
scan. And I was like, I mean, I wanted
to just say yes, but I know if Ilegally did that and something
happened, I, I don't legally have the rights to say.
So I got in touch with my sisterand said, Hey, can you get in
(15:37):
touch with the nursing home likeimmediately?
You know, he needs to go have some kind of scan done, and he
did. He went and had the scan I heard
through her because now the nursing home would no longer
talk to me at all. So this is where it's really
important. If you don't have some kind of
(15:58):
legal aspect document that says that you can speak to your
biological family, go get it now.
Look into that, get an attorney,whatever you got to do, ask
somebody because I had no more contact with them from that
point on. They my sister contacted me and
said, hey, he's fine. He went back to the nursing
(16:21):
home. So that was the last thing I
heard that he was fine. He was back there and then I
want to say it was 24 hours after that.
I got a text from her early in the morning and I said, well,
this can't be good because she doesn't really talk to me.
I mean, not that she's rejectingme, but we just.
Yeah. She's busy.
(16:42):
She's busy. So sure enough, they found him
dead. So we don't know what happened.
He was, they said he was fine. That's what she told me, that he
was fine. He was talking the scan and
everything that they needed to do had been taken care of and
(17:03):
they just don't know what happened.
So did the nursing home think that you or his daughter and
like, legally you could say something and then you kind of
told them that's not the case? Or how'd they find out?
Well, they knew I was his biological daughter because when
I first went there, I kind of explained that, you know, I'm
(17:25):
his biological daughter. I, I've been put up for
adoption. I never got into the legalities
there. Honestly, I think they just
assume I, I, I don't think people understand that we don't
have the same rights. And it's not just something
we're saying on social media or,or on podcast and articles and
blogs, you know, on and on droning on and on about that.
(17:48):
I think people honestly believe that we have the same rights as
anyone else and we do not. So I think it was just lack of
information. And I didn't share all of it
because I, I had just flown there to see him.
So I didn't want to say, hey, legally I don't have any access
to him. Yeah.
(18:09):
You know, yeah. And it's a good thing because,
you know, I only had three years, so I.
Know how did you cope with the grief of of losing him,
especially knowing that you couldn't really play a part in
or a role in those final decisions and things?
I'm still dealing with it. It's, it's weird because I was
(18:37):
just getting to know him and to have him in my life and then to
lose him it, it's just like thisstrange void of it's almost
dreamlike, you know, it I, or maybe I just disassociated
'cause, you know, that's easy for an adoptee to do and just
tell myself, oh, I'll get to talk to him next month or
(18:59):
something. So there's a lot of back and
forth. The reality of him not being
here. You know, I'm not going to ever
see him again because I still haven't gone to where he's his
ashes are placed. He it took like two months for
him to even be interred into a military cemetery.
I mean, my sister had to literally battle the military
(19:24):
for the rights that he were. He was owed.
He was owed that. So it just it, it hurts so bad
that his rights were ignored so many times in his life.
And he came back from a war he didn't want to be in, didn't
know he had a kid, You know, another child had to fight for
(19:45):
his rights. I mean, we just kind of assume
that white men have all the rights.
But there are times there are sometimes when they don't.
And this is this is it. I found him.
I found him the hard way. Because he deserved those
(20:06):
rights. He's a human being with
feelings. And he showed me a few times by
breaking down and crying and being human.
And it's, it's still difficult to talk about because I haven't
made it there yet. And I'll find I, I, I found
(20:29):
peace with it in the way that I can, but I know that once I
actually get to go to his final resting place, it will be
another part of it. And then I'll have to work on
letting it go again because it will be, it'll seem more real.
Because right now, like I said, I can kind of disassociate and
(20:52):
take myself out of it. Right.
Yeah, that's the kind of the last thing I need to do too,
with my birth father is go see that.
And I keep saying I'm gonna do it next week.
I'm gonna do it next week. I just, I don't think I'm ready
to actually see that yet. So.
But I will. I think that'll be the closure,
the last little puzzle piece to that part of my puzzle.
(21:15):
But yeah, I need to do that too.And the other thing is I just.
I still can't understand how a legal document as a birth
certificate that we use for a lot of things just isn't that
important when it comes to adoptees.
And you could just not put a birth father's name on there.
You could put, you know, Jane Doe and Jack, you know, Smith
(21:38):
and that's, and that's it. And a a father can, it's OK for
him not to know that he fathereda child.
Like it just blows my mind, but that's OK.
Yeah, it's totally legal. Yeah, let's just ignore people's
human rights. But again, things that we talk
about all the time, you know, it's a human rights violation.
(22:01):
No matter. That's the thing that people
forget. It's not about being right,
wrong, good, bad. It's a human right to know, but
unless you're adopted, you know,or you know donor conceived or
something else that you don't legally have to tell anyone.
Or someone's written has signed your rights away.
(22:24):
Absolutely unbelievable in 2024 that adoptees just don't have
the same rights. I know, I know.
I think the same. How do you keep your birth
father's memory alive? I mean, I know you say you're
kind of disassociating, so, you know, maybe just kind of not
even totally accepting or realizing that he is, you know,
(22:48):
not here anymore. But what do you do for to keep
his memory alive? Well, he told me stories of the
family and these are the synchronicities and the things
that are in our nature that he told me about that were really
cool. And I know that you've probably
(23:09):
got some too. So I want you to share some
after I share some because this is this is important because
this goes against that blank slate theory that people think
adoptees are that it's a baby. You know, you can just do with
it whatever you want. We carry our ancestors in that
DNA with us. We know this through
epigenetics. You can carry the good and the
(23:31):
bad. So those traumas are passed down
and we are connected to our ancestors.
So nature plays a lot into US. Of course, nurture does help,
you know, but some of the synchronicities are, I knew my
(23:51):
mother owned a place called the Knitting Basket, and I always
thought that she, that's where Igot my creativity from.
Then when I met my father three years ago, I found out he was an
engineer. He was studying to be an
engineer in college before he got sent away.
(24:13):
And it was him that I got it allfrom because I used to work as
an interior designer before I was a marketing manager.
And one of the things that I could do is look at a pattern or
something and I can like reverseengineer it.
I can figure out how to create it from taking it apart.
And I just thought that was justsomething everybody could do
(24:39):
because I didn't know my, my adoptive parents couldn't do it.
But I just thought, well, you know, I didn't realize it.
It was an innate talent that I had through DNA.
I I didn't get it because, you know, I I didn't know who I was,
but it's just something I've always been able to do.
And he told me he could do the same exact thing.
(25:00):
He made clothing that way. He, he was telling me he made,
he built lamps and a staircase. He actually built the house that
he had that was taken away and sold because, you know, he was
in a nursing home. Another part of him losing
everything. Yeah.
Yeah, the house he built. But I realized this with him.
(25:25):
I was talking to him about it because if you all know anything
about me, you know I love Halloween and I have a 12 foot
skeleton. And you know, if you have a 12
foot skeleton, it goes from Halloween through Christmas
because that's just the way it is.
That's just the way it is. So I wanted to put a costume on
my 12 foot skeleton. This was before I knew other
(25:45):
people were doing it. I thought I was the first, but I
wasn't. So I thought what would be the
best Christmas costume for an adoptee?
Elf, right? Of course it's elf.
So I looked at the costume and came up with how I could make
that for a 12 foot skeleton and I did it.
(26:07):
There's videos of me with a 12 foot skeleton.
Then the following year they came up with a little mini 3
foot skeleton and then I did it again.
So I have a 12 foot and a three foot elf costume for my
skeletons and yes, they go up atChristmas time, but I during
that time it was like discovery with him.
So that's why I, I wanted to share that because it's near and
(26:27):
dear to my heart. That's a way that I do hold him
because I after Halloween, I'll be putting that costume back on
the skeletons and I will be thinking about him when I do
that. Yeah.
Yeah, and oh, when I was an interior designer and all the
years I worked as interior designer and I still use this
skill, I can touch fabric and pretty much know the content in
(26:49):
it. So I can tell a good quality
fabric through my fingertips. Through tactile touch,
especially if you're going thrifting or something, I can
just touch because there's a lotof stuff to look through, so I
can't look at everything. I just kind of go through and
touch. When I hit something I like, I
pull it out and see if it's right.
But he was telling me that I have an uncle, great uncle.
(27:13):
Oh, now I can't remember. Anyway, it's an uncle.
And he was a vice president of atextile company in New York
City. And he could do that because my
dad knew. When he got married, he said my
uncle came and like, you know, touched his collar and
straightened him. And he was like, oh, this is
(27:33):
good fabric. And was telling him what the
content was. I.
Missed. Of his tuxedo.
And I said, are you kidding me? I said that was another thing I
just assumed people could do because I didn't know any
different. But no, it was a trade I got
from my dad's side of the family.
I can touch fabric and know whatit is.
So every time I'm shopping now, I know where I got that because
(27:57):
he told me that story. Yeah, well, it's just like a
baby chick knows how to pick itsway out of an egg.
You know, when it comes time, that's DNA that's carried in
that chick from generations and generations.
And, you know, they didn't learnthat.
They just have it in their DNA. Yeah, that's cool.
Did you have, did you, did you look back and think, God, I
(28:22):
should have had this kind of conversation or I should have
asked, you know, something or did you have any?
Look at that. Yeah.
The regret part, yeah. Yeah.
I try not to think about it too much because I have so much
regret with my birth mother and it just brings it up.
(28:43):
So there's nothing I can do about it at this point.
And if I didn't ask in the threeyears, you know, that's kind of,
I guess my fault, right? Do you feel him ever around you
or you sense him? It's funny to ask that because
there I have a window right hereout of my office that I look out
(29:04):
of. There's trees and birds, my
Hummingbird feeders out there and stuff.
And I'm on the 2nd floor, so I'mlooking at kind of the tops of
the trees. There was a red cardinal out
there right before I started thevideo with you.
And I said, hey, Dad. Yeah, that question is not on my
(29:25):
list, but I just felt like I needed it.
You listened to your intuition. Didn't you?
No. I my synchronicity.
Question. Yeah, go ahead.
I I want to hear, do you have a synchronicity story?
OK, good. I, I, I love these.
I love these. That is my synchronicity
stories. You know, I grew up being very
(29:48):
sensitive to spirit and grew up kind of, you know, was kind of
scared and nervous because I didn't know what it was.
And then, you know, I met my birth mother or sit at the
dinner table with her two young sons and her husband at the
time. And I just said, do you ever
have, you know, do you ever sense things, you know?
(30:10):
And she just kind of looked at me.
And she's like, we'll talk later.
And so, yeah, we had a lot of wesensed the same way.
And then when I met my sister's on my birth father's side,
they're also sensitive, too. But we've all kind of got
different sensitivities. And I was thought that'd be such
(30:31):
a cool show if the three of us got together, you know, the
three of us, because we're all kind of different and we all
have different moms. Same dad.
But yeah, I have that sensitivity on both sides.
And then just, you know, the wayI laugh and some of the way I
move and stuff like that, definitely on the maternal side.
(30:52):
Was weird to see that mirroring.I was like that's so weird, so
weird. And me and my birth mother went
and look at looked at some houses because at one point we
were thinking about moving thereand the realtor opened the door
to this two-story house and there was a flight of stairs
right in front of me. And I saw a spirit of a man.
(31:13):
I could see the guy standing on the stairs and she could see my
reaction the the realtor and shewas like now she's scared to go
in. I didn't tell her what I saw,
but so anyway, so we walked through the house and on the way
back we were driving, it's dark now and I was telling my birth
mother, you know, I saw that this guy, this is what he look
like. And she ended up sending me a
(31:34):
paper clipping of the man that lived there.
And it was the guy that I saw onthe stairs.
But as we were driving back to her house, we're driving under
streetlights. And as we drove under the
streetlights, they would go out one by one as we went underneath
under them. And that happens to me all the
time, electricity. And I freaked.
My birth mother asked, she was freaking out and I was laughing
(31:56):
hysterically, 'cause I mean, I'mused to this, right?
She was like, Oh my God, what's happening?
She was like freaking out. We were giggling and laughing
and like having the best time with just, you know, sharing
that part of you 'cause there's not a lot of people you can talk
to about that, right, that understands or doesn't get
freaked out about it. And so that was just fun.
(32:17):
We, we had a good time. So yeah, that was those are my
synchronicities. I love that.
Yeah, I found out that I had it on my father's side and mother's
side, and my adoptive mother wasvery.
So she was the one that allowed me to grow and develop it from
(32:39):
little kid. She was just like, that's
completely normal. That's completely normal.
Awesome. So that was one thing she did
very well. I like to give her credit for
that. She did make me feel comfortable
with it. Now, she also said don't talk
about that. Yeah.
Just keep your mouth quiet, little girl.
(33:00):
Yeah, social mouth, because I asked a lot of questions as a
kid to be like. There was a time when we knew
how to heal ourselves. Western medicine has its place,
(33:20):
but they've made us forget our own power.
With somatic, mindful, guided imagery, you can discover how to
reconnect, restore and heal fromwithin.
Take control of your healing journey.
The power is already inside of you.
Somatic Healing journeys.com. So have you found any ways to
(33:50):
heal a little bit? What's what's helped you kind of
get through this with your dad? Well, knowing that I'm not alone
because the adoptee community, we have similar pains and woes,
losses and griefs, same traumas.And that's always helpful being
(34:15):
in community with people that understand because you don't
have to start at the beginning and explain and yeah, well,
you're adopted and everything wonderful.
What makes you think that we don't have normal lives like
everyone else, you know, And plus, you know, all of the
secrecy and lies, you know, to begin with.
And then you have to find your authentic self.
(34:37):
You're not born knowing your authentic self.
So that's where you have to start is once you come out of
the fog, you have to go find your authentic self.
And finding your authentic self,you have to know that you're not
alone. So once you know you're not
alone, then the authenticity comes.
And the authenticity is difficult because you realize
(35:01):
you were lied to a lot and then you start not trusting yourself.
You know your own mind because you believed a lie for so long
that you think, well, how can I trust anything?
And then you got to learn to trust your intuition again.
There's levels after levels. And it takes a daily practice.
(35:22):
It really does. It takes something just like
eating and sleeping, which is something we're all supposed to
do to be healthy and whole. We should do that every day.
So if you're not doing that, tryto do that every day and somatic
exercises, people think that they can talk their way out of
(35:42):
things. You can't take a you can't
logically think your way out of the feeling.
It just doesn't happen that way.And I am not poo pooing on
therapy. No, find yourself someone that
you can talk to and you talk andtalk and talk and talk.
Make sure it's someone that you feel safe with.
So yes, absolutely cognitive therapy, coaching, things like
(36:04):
this, so good. But but you got to move too.
So daily good mental health practices are going to come into
play here. And me, I teach Kundalini yoga.
So I like yoga, meditation, I love dancing, I love walking my
dog, things like that. Because you will be doing it
(36:26):
every day. So find things to do every day
that are going to bring you thatjoy and that movement that's
going to help your nervous system relax.
And the more you relax that nervous system, the more that
you're going to grow. And when the uncomfortable time
comes, because that's where we grow, that's where we grow,
(36:48):
isn't that? Unfortunately is yes as.
I know unfortunately yes. And our brains going to want to
be comfortable whether it's goodfor us or not.
So learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable and, and allow
yourself to grow. You know, if you got to cry,
that's fine. That's your body naturally
releasing. That's why people cry in yoga.
(37:10):
Everybody's like it's, you're not standing on a mountaintop,
you know, with the breeze blowing and everything's
beautiful. No, you release on there.
Sometimes you got to cry. Sometimes it is that beautiful
breeze, but sometimes it's crying.
And both are beautiful because those are moments that you need,
you need so bad anger too. Yeah, guess what?
(37:31):
You definitely can get angry during meditation and yoga
because that's what you need. Anger is protecting a part of
you that is hidden. It's saying there's something
still down here. So again, having those somatic
experiences like what you do, you can get people down to those
places. Yeah.
(37:53):
Yeah. I want to hear a little bit
about that too 'cause I this is leading into what you do too.
Yeah, yeah, the, the somatic mindful, gutted imagery.
It's kind of like what you were saying.
I always feel like, you know, cognitive therapy definitely has
its place. I have somebody if I need to go,
I, you know, have somebody to goto.
And that kind of helps bring some things to the surface
(38:13):
sometimes. But I always find that it's not
getting to the root of the problem.
You know, cognitive therapies, more left brain thinking, you
know, trying to think through something and somatic is right
brain, you know, feeling into the body, getting to the root of
what's really going on, of thosethings that are hidden.
(38:33):
And somatic therapy, I've been hearing it over and over and
over that it is great for pre verbal trauma because we don't
remember it. So there's implicit memories
that will get to those implicit memories.
And I always say, you know, I kind of want to know what you
think about adoptees who are afraid to open Pandora's box,
(38:55):
afraid to take the lid off because they are keeping the lid
on right now, barely, but they're able to get through a
day. But what happens when I take
that lid off? And I want to look at this stuff
or you know, and it I just want to say that it's so worth it
going through the healing process and having short term
(39:16):
pain to alleviate the long term suffering that you've been
suffering all this time. It's totally worth it.
And if something comes up in your awareness, you're ready to
deal with it. Just trust the process.
You don't have to. You have a, you know, you don't
have to. But I am telling you that that's
what I've learned. That's what I've seen in my
(39:37):
clients when it comes up, it's ready to be looked at.
It's not going to go away. It is not going to go away.
You can turn the volume up on your TV and pretend like you
don't hear that part of you yelling and screaming, trying to
get your attention, but it's still yelling and screaming.
And pretty soon it's going to get louder.
It's going to make you sick either physically, mentally,
(39:59):
both. It's not going to go away.
And so, yeah, you just, you needto look at it.
So what do you think about people that are afraid?
What would you say to people that are afraid to look at the
pain and try the healing process?
Yeah, you said it. Our mind is going to allow us
(40:20):
to, to go through the memories and the feelings that we can and
we're not going to be sent something that we can't handle.
People ask me all the time, you know, afraid of kundalini yoga
because they've heard of kundalini energy or kundalini
awakening or whatever. And there is, there can be a
(40:45):
huge rush, just like emotions, just like energy, but you're
ready for it. Can it be scary?
Yes. But it is a normal process.
And if you remember normal, whenyou're scared, this is normal.
Just don't resist because there's only one way.
(41:05):
There's only one way and that isthrough.
You've got to go through it. If you're trying to go around
and you're resisting, you're just going to keep coming back
to that same path and you're going to face it again over and
over or you're going to start getting disease.
You know, you're going to start having unhealthy coping
mechanisms. That's what happens.
(41:27):
That's how we get depression, anxiety, addictions, things that
we we think we're fine, but we're actually not.
We're not dealing with it. We're good at that though.
Because we want to be comfortable.
That's what our brains are meantto do, keep us comfortable
whether it's good for us or not.So when those things start
(41:51):
coming, and it will sometimes feel like a lot, you have people
to talk to, be surrounded by people that you feel safe to
talk to, go to the somatic experiences.
It's going to help to be grounded.
Grounding is going to make you feel safe and secure.
(42:12):
It's going to affect that first chakra.
Your root shocker is your safetyand security.
So you're going to want to start, just like Maslow's
Hierarchy of need, you're going to want to start square 1.
So get grounded, feel safe, feelsecure.
Your nervous system will instantly start regulating.
Once you feel safe and secure, then just like everything else,
(42:32):
you're going to work your way right on up in there.
Adoptees, specifically when I'm working with them with energy or
with yoga, it seems like the root and the solar plexus, which
is our third, it's yellow. It's our core, that's our
personal power. Those are the two that we
usually need to work with. The first we got to start at the
(42:53):
grounding, and then we're going to start making you fearless,
pushing the fear out, working the core, building your personal
fire. If you can get these two going,
it's going to be so much easier than if you're just completely
not grounded and have a weak core.
(43:16):
It's things can just go in spiraling motions.
So do the exercises, sleep well,eat well, nourish your body.
If you need to rest, this one's something that people don't say
naps, naps. You're going to you're going to
need some naps when your nervoussystem is regulating.
So. Make some time if you need to
(43:37):
take some time off work or go somewhere if you can just to be
alone with your thoughts, but make sure you have a support
system close by too. Don't go completely off the
grid. If you're in a spiral or
anything, don't do that. But do give yourself the space
and talk honestly with people how you're feeling at that
(44:00):
moment. If there are suicidal ality
feelings, make sure you talk to somebody that knows about this
because they will probably have the same feelings and you'll be
able to bond over that feeling knowing that you're not alone in
the situation. Don't feel shame because there
are people that have felt that. That's where you you can
(44:24):
definitely go off into a deep end.
If you if you don't talk about the shame, guilt can come up
too. And those two are the ones that
it's better to work through witha support group, I would think.
Yeah, if you follow all those and get an adoptee community, or
(44:45):
if even if you're not an adoptee, say you're a biological
mother, father, there are groupsfor those two adopted parents.
Anybody, anybody with trauma. Find people that know what
you're talking about while you're going through it.
Yeah, it's funny you were talking about the it's solar
plexus because when I am journeying, doing my somatic
(45:07):
work, that's where I'm always, Ialways feel it like in my solar
plexus and I always follow whatever that is.
And but yeah, I always feel likea tightness, like a pulling.
I don't know how to explain it, but I can feel it right there in
my solar plexus. Yeah, well, in your stomach is a
(45:28):
bigger brain than our brain. So our feelings go through our
stomach. That's why it's there it.
But in our brain thinks we are our feelings even though we're
not. We're not our feelings.
That's not our authentic self. That's not what we're going to
find a thing, right when we get to our authentic self.
That's not it. So.
(45:49):
Yeah, those are just indicators of maybe something you need to
look at. I mean, they're helpful, but
definitely, yeah, not your, not who you part of who you are.
Exactly. So what advice would you give
other adoptees that might face this same the same thing that
you had with your dad? What advice would you give them?
(46:11):
Yeah, well, we kind of touched on it.
Find out your legal rights. Seriously.
I that one I can't stress enough.
Yeah, or lack of. Yeah, yes, yes.
Thank you. Thank you.
You're right. Yes, your lack of rights is what
I said. Yeah.
(46:32):
And especially for the older adoptees, you might want to act
like every day could be the lastday because you don't know.
And I don't say that to stoke fear.
I say that to to bring up in youthe curiosity and the openness
(46:53):
to ask maybe questions that you're afraid to ask.
If it's something that you're going to regret, ask the
question. Don't, don't let the moments
pass and then you go, I wish I would have done that.
I I should have done that or whatever.
Don't let that be what you thinkabout after they're gone.
And do try to spend the time that you want because again, it
(47:17):
is a process. Do what you're comfortable with.
But again, think about what could be because sometimes it's
fear and we just need to get through it.
And then sometimes we do need space.
So if that that is, you truly need space, you need that
resting point. Do that for yourself.
(47:39):
Pictures, take pictures. If you can visit, go visit, ask
God the DNA questions. You know the family.
Ask those stories about the family about them.
He told me, I forgot to tell youthis earlier.
He told me a story about he had a monkey when he was in the
military and he sent me a picture of it, him and the
(47:59):
monkey. I, I was like, I can't remember
how I even got it. I was like going what, how did
he get a monkey in the military anyway?
But he said it was like their little mascot and it would take,
it would take people cigarettes.Oh my God.
(48:21):
So he was a character and I wantto remember him, you know, like
maybe he was a little bit beforeI knew him, like being a
character. Yeah.
So I want to close because this podcast is all about education
and I'm hoping that, you know, I'm always hoping that people
that aren't adopted are listening as well.
(48:43):
So what would you like people toknow about your experience?
And it could be anything about your adoption experience that
you just want the average personto know that they might not
know. Well, I'm going to kind of recap
because I want people to know that adoptees do not have the
same rights as anyone else. Like we were talking about we,
(49:04):
there are things that we're justnot allowed to do.
And then if we do them, it's at great expense to us, like
finding, reaching out to family.Not everyone can do that.
We have to go through the DNA hoops and things like that.
So when we're saying, you know, that we're angry, that is
(49:28):
righteous anger because we don'thave the same rights.
And that anger is the absolute normal feeling for what we have.
So give us a little grace, and hopefully that we will have
grace in our response to you also in that moment.
And hopefully, eventually, adoptees will have legal rights
(49:51):
just like everyone else in all 50 states because, yeah, there's
still closed adoption and restrictions allowed in what,
like 19 states? 17 states?
No, I can't remember. I don't mind one of them.
Yeah, Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Think about that. That's what if you couldn't do
that, You can never find your own family.
(50:11):
Just put yourself in our place. It's not like a lot of the
movies, you know? Well, the baby gets adopted and
all of a sudden everything's fine.
Yeah. So just a little love and
compassion goes a long way. Yeah, definitely.
Well, thank you for coming on today and bringing up this
(50:33):
subject. Like I said, I had never even
thought about it before it happened to you.
And I was just, my heart was going out to you because you had
1000 things going on at the timethat you were doing and trying
to do and then going through that.
And just, yeah, it was, it was hard to watch you go through
that. And I just like I said, I'd
never thought about the legalitypart.
(50:56):
And so just thanks for bringing that to the surface for us and
and sharing that openly with with us, your audience, the
adopted chameleon. So thank you so much.
For having me and anyone else isgoing through the same thing.
I'm sorry number one for your loss and we can all chat and
(51:19):
talk and we can get through the loss and grief.
Together. Yeah.
So tell us about your social media pages and where people can
find you. Yeah, as we were saying, I'm the
adopted chameleon on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.
(51:40):
I also run the adopted Chameleons private Facebook
group that's for adoptees and all MP ES, which is
misattributed parental event. So if you're a former foster
youth or donor conceived something like that, someone
that wasn't raised by your biological family, you can get
in there. Oh, and I do the adoptees
connect Tulsa group and I have aPatreon because like we
(52:04):
mentioned earlier, I'm a Kundalini yoga instructor and
Reiki master. You can find all of this
information larae gerald.com, including this podcast.
I will add this to my website and adoptees and people that
love adoptees are allies on my page.
I have adoptee resources and there are groups in there for
(52:25):
first families, adopted families, adoptees and if you
want me to add something let me know all.
Right. Great.
Thank you so much for coming on.Thank you, Melissa.
Thank you so much, Larae, for giving us some food for thought,
maybe something that some of us need to start thinking about if
(52:46):
we want to be able to advocate for our biological family.
And I just want to thank Larae for everything she does for the
community. And I cannot talk about the
Adopted chameleon page on Facebook enough.
It really is a safe place where you are able to express yourself
at the same time. And it's my favorite page.
(53:09):
It's my favorite page on Facebook.
So thanks Larae for having that space for us.
Adoptees, if you would like to come on the podcast, please get
in touch with me. You can go to my website,
mindyourownkarma.com or you can e-mail me directly at Mind Your
Own karma@gmail.com. If you are struggling with
(53:30):
stress, anxiety, the primal wound, anything that's keeping
you from living life to the fullest, you can go to my
Somatic mindful guided imagery page.
It is Somatic Healing journeys dot com or you can e-mail me
directly Somatic Healing journeyssmgi@gmail.com but on my
(53:50):
website you will find more aboutme and Somatic Mindful guided
imagery and what it's all about.You can also schedule a free 15
to 20 minute consultation with me if you want to know more.
As always, take what you need and leave what you don't.
And always remember to mind yourown karma and I will see you all
(54:12):
next time. This podcast is created for
educational purposes by the telling of adoption experiences.
The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the
host or Mind Your Own Karma.
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