November 8, 2023 • 40 mins
Imagine being 41 years old and discovering at a family gathering that you were adopted. That's exactly what happened with our guest, author and adoptee, Fred Nicora. A unintentional disclosure sparked a massive transformation in Fred's understanding of his identity and started him on an ongoing journey of self-discovery and healing. He offers an incredibly honest view into the life of a late discovery adoptee, revealing the intense struggle to reconcile a new identity and learn to trust again.
Fred doesn't just share his own story, but also his strong advocacy for change in regard to adoptee birth certificate access. He talks candidly about his personal experience with current legislation and how it perpetuates the shame and stigma tied to adoption. With a firm belief in a system of truth and transparency, Fred discusses his support for bills which aim to grant adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates and adoption records. His story is a powerful testament to the importance of honesty and openness when it comes to adoption.
While the journey has been far from easy, Fred also shares how he found strength and coping mechanisms in his spiritual journey and his battle with alcohol. He encourages fellow adoptees and listeners alike to seek out tools that can aid their journey towards healing. His story is a testament to resilience and the power of self-discovery. Join us for this honest and captivating episode that touches on the human journey towards self-understanding, the complexities of adoption, and the importance of identity.
When it comes to the amplification of male adoptee voices, it is crucial to recognize the unique experiences and perspectives they bring to the table. Each male adoptees has a valuable role to play in helping to shape the narrative around adoption by providing insights into their own personal journeys. This six-episode series will take us on a spectacular journey of meaningful conversations, were male adoptees have been empowered to share their stories, break down stereotypes, and contribute to a greater understanding of the adoption experience as a whole.
Find your people, cherish your people and love your people.
#adoptee #adoptees #adopteevoices #adopteestories #adopteestrong #adoptionreality #adopteejourney #adoption #wanderingtreeadoptee
Website: www.frednicora.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/frednicora.fitness/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/fred.nicora
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast.
I am your host, Lisa Am.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
She wanted to spend time with them.
She wanted to know who theywere.
She was torn about how do Ihave them know who I am, but yet
nobody can know who we are?
You know?
I mean the whole thing.
She was stuck and it was hardon her.
It was very hard on her Evenwhen she died.
I wasn't allowed to go to her.
She was petrified Somebodywould find out that she had a
(00:30):
baby out of wedlock.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Welcome to today's show.
I am excited to have with me anauthor, an adoptee and just an
overall good human, and I reallywant to allow this person an
opportunity to introducethemselves With us.
Today is Fred Nakora.
Welcome, fred, to the show, hi.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Lisa, thanks for having me here.
I really appreciate it.
I can't tell you how excited Iam that you've allowed me to
voice my story on your podcast.
I think it's great.
I've listened to quite a few ofyour podcasts.
I think you do just aspectacular job at interviewing
and bring out really some goodpoints.
So today I'm very excited, meetyour audience and kind of
(01:16):
spread the word about you knowwhat's going on in my life and
how that's been impacted bybeing an adoptee.
We need discovery adoptee.
I'll even say at that whereI've gone, because it's you know
for myself.
My journey, while you could sayit started in 1959 when I was
born, which would be a very truestory, the conscious part of my
(01:37):
journey started in the year2000.
I went at the age of 41, slipof the tongue at a large family
gathering.
I suddenly found out that I wasadopted and I didn't know that
before.
So both my parents had passedaway at that point too.
So there was some digesting,some understanding, some
internalizing that had to reallytake place.
And I'll say the last 23 years.
(01:59):
I can't wait to talk about themhere because it's been
interesting.
You know, I can say I've beenout of the fog for 23 years and
I think I've seen things fairlyclearly.
Don't get me wrong my journeyis not complete and I am not
sailing.
I'm healed.
I am not.
I am continually a work inprogress, but at this point I do
(02:20):
have, I think, greater clarityon where I want to take it and
where I think it can go, andthat has something to do with
some advocacy that we'll talkabout later too Perfect.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Well, if you don't mind taking a couple more
minutes and just sharing alittle bit about the term late
discovery adoptee.
I know for a few of us it's acommon term, but there may be
new listeners that haven't heardthat before or really don't
understand its impacts as well.
So if you wouldn't mind justdoing a little bit of expansion
(02:50):
on that for everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Sure, I'd be happy to .
So you know the term latediscovery does get kind of
interesting because you know,when I first discovered I was
adopted immediately I found outI was an LDA.
I was a late discovery adopteeand I'll be honest, at the time
when I discovered I didn'treally see that I had a lot in
common with the adopteepopulation as a whole because of
(03:14):
my MPE experience about, youknow, in that whole part of it.
So it is kind of interesting intoday's world and I've seen so
much change in the whole, I'mgoing to say, arena of who we're
all talking about when we starttalking about biological roots,
when we start talking aboutgenetics, when we start talking
about identity and how that'sformulated, when that's
(03:36):
formulated.
So when I start looking at youknow what actually constitutes
what would be considered latediscovery adoptee.
I think pretty much.
At least most late discoveryadoptees I've talked to and many
people in the profession wouldagree that you know, anytime
that it occurs after you knowsome fundamental identity
(03:57):
establishment has occurred wouldbe considered late discovery.
You know, we, you know and I'mgoing to say I'm a retired
middle school and high schoolteacher.
I taught for 20 years.
I've had education training.
I've got lifetime teachinglicense, so I understand human
development and I understandwhat happens in that period, you
know, roughly between the onsetof puberty all the way through
early adulthood.
(04:17):
And it's interesting to seebecause for myself I would say,
you know, having worked withmiddle school kids and high
school kids, you can see wherethey really move away from that
point of being an adult focusedcreature to a peer focused
creature.
That is often they stoplistening to mom and dad and
start listening to what theirfriends are saying and that
(04:37):
crucial moment there I would saythat is a pretty solid defining
point of when it becomes late,because that foundation work has
now been laid, based on alltheir experiences, all what
they've learned, you know.
So I would say you know, latediscovery can occur as early as
maybe 10, 11, you know if, justdepending on where they are at
(05:00):
in developmental stages, youknow, for most people I think it
would be sometime, maybe intheir later teens, 17, 18, up
through 20s, you know, and anytime after that.
So for me, at 41, while I'm notgoing to say I'm the latest
discovery adoptee, I'm on thelater end of it, you know, I
would say a lot come out intheir fifties, some sixties, you
(05:22):
know.
So for myself, at 41, I guessyou could say I was a mid range.
That's how I would say.
That's where I would take latediscovery, adopte.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Now, because I don't sit in that space.
I'm a closed adoption.
I've known for, you know, sinceI was in kindergarten.
That's that's when I was toldright before I went into
kindergarten.
So, since I don't sit in thespace, my next thought as you
were talking was centered aroundhow you found out slip of the
tongue.
Is it common that it's throughthat type of you know, maybe an
(05:52):
event more like a surprise thanit is a coordinated, later in
life?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I think you're asking about, is it more common that
it's a surprise than it's anintentional act later in life?
And what I would say, you know,if I look at it.
You know I can really onlyspeak from my experience.
I have talked to other latediscovery adoptees, you know,
and as I have, it's always.
It's fascinating to me, youknow, just to see how we've
processed things.
Very similarly, you know onething I would say in my case in
(06:21):
particular, and I think it'spretty common you go back in
time and I was conceived in 1958, I was born in 1959, the times
were very different than theyare today.
You know, you look at what awoman went through If she came
home and told mom and dad shewas pregnant and she was unwed
in 1958.
What have you done to theentire family?
(06:43):
You've groomed us all.
We need to hide this.
It needs to be a secret.
You can never reveal it.
You're an awful creature fordoing this.
How dare you do this to us?
You know that was the theme,the whole shame all the way.
Go away for six months, haveyour baby.
Then you come home and youdon't dare mention this to
anybody because if you do, youwill destroy us all.
(07:05):
You know the message was soheavy and so late.
You know, I think the women ofthat time, really, you know,
struggled with that as theymoved forward.
So adoption is different today.
So when I look at my parents,you know who made that decision
and I'm saying my adoptiveparents back in the late 50s
really 1960s is when it wentinto fruition and my father was
(07:28):
the driver.
From what I understand, theyhad both passed away at the time
of my discovery.
From what I understand, myfather was the driver.
His parents went through adivorce in the 1930s.
As a result, him and hisbrothers ended up in the county
orphanage for a period of time,a number of years.
From what I understand, whatI've been told and I believe it
because, you know, I didn't knowhim fairly well His view of it
(07:50):
was he wanted to spare me fromthe stigma of being an orphan,
of having to live with thatshame and that burden.
I can understand what he'ssaying.
You know, I'm going to say,from my perspective, I wish he
would have told me, but at thesame time I'm going to say I can
respect that.
They were a product of theirtime and they bought into the
philosophy.
Now, when you get into thesecond part of your question,
(08:12):
which was do you think it was aplanned reveal, I think what I
saw happen around me inretrospect, after I discovered
and looked back throughout thatperiod of time when I think they
should have told me and theyjust didn't I think the train
was on the track, it was going900 miles an hour, they didn't
know how to turn it around andso then it became almost how do
(08:35):
you pass the hot potato withoutgetting caught?
The other thing that I wouldsay fortunate for them and their
desire to hold the secret.
I once I turned 18, I basicallymoved away from home and I
moved everywhere and anywherefor a long time and didn't
really return home till I was 40.
(08:55):
So from 18 to 40, I was away.
You know I'd come home forperiodic visits and stuff and
more.
My parents would come out andsee me or I'd maybe join up, you
know, some gathering orsomething, but really I wasn't
around.
So those slipped clues that Icould have caught, they just
weren't occurring as muchbecause there just wasn't a
presence there.
(09:15):
So I think the vast majority ofthe surprises not.
I don't.
I don't think anybody comes outlater and says man, let's tell
them now that he's 30,.
You know, at that point it'slike oh my God, we do not want
to be caught.
Let's pretend this neverhappened.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah, I think it's.
It's definitely core to whypeople are late discovery.
Just, you know the little bitof knowledge I have through
conversations and reading, bythe time you get to a certain
point, I think that that thatreal sense of well, how are we
going to explain this 30 yearslater?
And then you know again, allthe shame and all the very key
(09:51):
points that you just brought outare part of that element as
well.
With that said, I kind of wantto move us into a little bit
about not necessarily yourjourney.
You wrote about your journeyand so can you tell us a little
bit about your, your book,because I want to give you that
opportunity to one plug it.
I've read it, great story andyeah, let's just go, let's go a
(10:13):
little bit into.
You know the your journeywasn't all roses, and do we want
to say rainbows and unicornsand yeah, I'll hop in here.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, and I'm going to intertwine this a little bit
with you know, a bit of thediscovery itself.
So for me, you know it reallyhappened.
I went to a twin uncle'sbirthday party in the year 2000.
Both my parents had passed away.
We had moved back to theMilwaukee Metro, had been back
here roughly, I'd say, a year.
You know, it was kind of funnybecause I couldn't figure out
why I wasn't getting invited tolike family gatherings.
(10:44):
The whole reason I wanted tomove back was to get my kids
back to where I grew up so theycould be around family.
We lived in the Twin Citiesarea.
We, you know, we enjoyed livingup there, but all holidays were
spent traveling and or lonely.
That was the only optionsreally.
So you know, we got back hereand it was like all of a sudden,
you know, my parents had passedand all my relatives were kind
(11:04):
of like Fred, who, you know, I,I don't know, I guess we just
forgot to, you know, invite themto this or that or whatever you
know.
So that was kind of a shocker.
But I did get invited to thisbirthday party because I was
pretty close to one uncle inparticular.
It was my uncle Bob.
He and his twin brother turned60.
While there there was anelderly aunt of theirs who I
(11:26):
knew quite well because I grewup around that family.
While I was off getting drinksat the bar, she said to my now
ex-wife I've known Freddie sincethe day they adopted him.
And so when I came back to thetable and my wife explained to
me what she said you know it'sinteresting, I'm going to say I
fractured, I fell apart, I wentinto shock.
I would say the overwhelmingfeeling immediately was
(11:49):
embarrassment.
And the reason I think peoplediscount the embarrassment when
you think about the interactionyou have with everybody around
you it's based on one commoncore belief that at the end of
the day, I know myself betterthan you know me.
And whether we agree, whetherwe disagree, I can stand solid
(12:09):
on that fact that I still knowme better than you know me.
And so for me, at that point Icame to terms with that's not
true.
These people all knew me betterthan I knew myself as a grown
man at 41.
That was really the eradicationof my foundation, because really
how you grow up and how youestablish your identity, at
(12:32):
least how I did and what I cansee in retrospect and discovered
through a lot of counseling anda lot of discussion.
You know it's based on the trueprinciples that you're learning
from your family.
Those are the things thatyou're accepting as true.
That's how you establish yourvalues and how you make those
connections to what you want todo, what you're interested in,
who you value, how you makefriendships and other types of
(12:53):
relationships.
And those were all the thingsthat really got washed away.
And what became very interestingthen is embarrassment turned to
anger.
That came within, I'd say, acouple of days.
It took a while, just took along time for it to settle in.
You know I'm still functioningas a father of three and trying
to navigate a family and a joband everything, and you know,
inside I'm just crumbling.
(13:14):
So the next week, when Icontacted the state of Wisconsin
to verify that I indeed wasadopted, really the second swing
of the wrecking ball camebecause, as a person who doesn't
know and is naive aboutadoption laws and record laws,
it never would have dawned on methat the state would have the
information and then just choosenot to give it to me.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Well, I'm going to have us pause there for just a
minute, because you saidsomething that I've never heard
anyone else say.
That is the embarrassment angle.
How prolific is that thought,though, fred.
I mean wow, I'm kind of sittingin this space of no one has
said they were embarrassed.
I've heard lots of anger, butthe embarrassment part I'm kind
(13:56):
of stuck there for a minute.
I'm stuck in okay, yourfoundation was shook.
You're now questioning who youare for sure, definitely
probably sitting in some trustissues, and then you have an
embarrassment layer before youeven got to anger, or you know,
in conjunction with that, that'swow, that is something.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
You know, and I'm going to say it even took me a
while to recognize thatembarrassment, recognize exactly
what that was, put a finger onthat feeling, Because I knew,
you know, at the time that Ifound out at that gathering, I
mean I kind of felt bad for alot of people there.
First of all, that poor auntwho was in her 80s.
You know, I gave her a shakedown when I wanted to find out
the information like I've neverseen before.
(14:36):
I was afraid I was going tothrow her into a coronary.
Really, this party, you know,at that moment in time I
hijacked the party.
It no longer was about inRich's 60th birthday.
It suddenly became about Fredjust came out of the closet as
being an adoptee.
You know, I mean, that's reallywhat that party turned into and
I immediately gathered myfamily and left.
(14:58):
I just needed to get out ofthere and that's why, when I
look back, that's that was theembarrassment.
That was like, oh my God, I'mtotally naked here, Everybody
can see me and I don't know whatthey see.
I don't know what they see Feltvery judged, you know.
I mean, there's there's so manylayers.
That was, that was the loss ofyou.
You know you just mentioned thetrust issues.
Well, that was the loss of alot of trust right there, and it
(15:21):
was the other thing that Ithink people don't understand is
it wasn't just that I losttrust in everybody else.
I lost trust in myself.
I lost trust in the ability forme to really believe that what
I was perceiving was reality,Because such a big piece that I
(15:43):
believed to be reality was nottrue.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Oh, that's so interesting.
One of the things that I sayabout myself is I can spot
things that are real versus notreal very quickly, and it's
because I spent a lifetimeconstantly watching a room and
reading people.
My foundation was verydifferent, and so just to hear
(16:06):
you say it in a differentcontext of not knowing reality
anymore, that's a well.
Now I'm thinking I'm at threewows, so in a short time period
in this conversation I've gotthree wows going.
We might have wanted to createa little bingo card for the
listeners so many times.
Well, I don't think I've heardyou say to our listeners what
(16:28):
the name of your book is yet, soI want to make sure we get that
in there.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, and what I do want to say is so, yeah, once
the state spent their timeeducating me that I had no
access to my records, thatlegally I had no right to find
out who I was, the social workeron the other end of the phone
line could read my entire file,take a black magic marker and
eradicate anything in it thatwould allow me to understand my
(16:53):
life in the context that she orhe understood it.
That was such a radical thoughtfor me at that time.
It was really the completefracturing of my understanding
that I'm on equal footing witheverybody else.
I suddenly came to terms withthat.
What I'll even say is, at thatpoint in time it took about a
(17:16):
year for me to reallyinternalize it I understood
discrimination at a wholedifferent level and I'll own
this, I'm not proud of it.
I'm a white male, I mean, eventhough I was a teacher, even
though I went throughsensitivity training, even
though I thought I was trying totreat everybody as equally as
possible for me, the reality was, wow.
(17:37):
I suddenly had to come frontand center with all those
preconceived notions I had ofwhat adoptees were.
As I grew up and found outsomebody was adopting and
attributed what parts of theirbehavior to that specific
characteristic, all those thingsthat became my own filter of
life, my experience filter.
All of a sudden I had to wearthose coats and that was pretty
(17:59):
radical in itself.
So at that time and I'm gettingto your question, which is
what's the name of your book Iknow I'm off on a date so when I
did start to dive into thetrying to find out who I am,
after the state eradicated myunderstanding of who I am and
after the family that I trustedhad kind of pulled that rug out
(18:22):
from me, I started reading.
I started this was 2000,.
There was stuff on the internet.
By no means were groupsavailable like they are today.
Today it's great to see Overthe last 23 years, I'm going to
say, there's been such anincrease in dialogue and a lot
of it's really positive dialogue.
Back in 2000, when I dove intoit, there was just anger in
(18:44):
these email chains and it wasnot a pretty place to be.
It's just a lot of anger, a lotof empty, and I still see some,
I'm going to say, facebookgroups, some other social media
groups in my term.
They're stuck in the muck, theycan't quite get out of that
phase of it and it's a horriblephase to be stuck in.
And I'm going to say for myself, I ended up going through a
(19:04):
recovery program because of thelack of available information on
late discovery adoptees, onmales that are adopted, and
really an overall just lack ofplace to turn.
You know, if you find yourselfin this position, didn't make me
want to write my book, you know, and that's what started me to
(19:25):
drive down that path, which wasin about 2006, 2007.
And the more I did it, the moreI found it really was something
that was very cathartic innature and the thing I wanted
the reader to really understandis that you know this happens to
you and when it happens to you,it unsettles you, you lose who
you are and as an adult,especially when you're trying to
(19:47):
manage a family and managebeing part of a family and
everything and all that goes onwith that, you're lost.
You're just completely lost andyou don't have time to just
take.
You know, stop everything else.
It's going on.
So in the book, the book doescarry you through other things
that are going on in my life,but I do try and then give the
spin of how, now that I foundout I'm adopted.
How does that play into thiswhole?
(20:08):
And I think there's also atremendous message within there
that eventually I did come toterms as I started to research
my, my relatives and find outwhere my roots came from.
You know, my passion thenbecame how do I help change the
system so that other people inmy situation, or the adopted
(20:29):
population as a whole, don'thave a separate set of laws,
don't have a separate set ofcircumstances, don't have to
feel special, because I'm goingto say special is not a good
feeling in this context, it'snot as good as that's what
special means in the context,you know.
So the book I started writing Iwrote most of it in the two
(20:52):
years then, 2006, 2007, goinginto 2008,.
It's when I really kind ofbrought some conclusion to the
whole.
Initial, I'm going to say blastand search and then really kind
of started to except so itdidn't become a 24-7, I'm out of
control.
It did take that long.
Name of the book is ForbiddenRoots.
It reflects the roots that Iwas forbidden to access.
(21:14):
I still to this day, eventhough I do have my original
birth certificate.
I went through the process.
I did reunite with my birthmother.
I've been through union I'vemet siblings and everything else
.
I also know that I wassomewhere between three days and
three months until I wasbrought into my adoptive home.
State knows they won't tell me.
They don't tell me.
(21:35):
I'm not allowed to know where Iwas.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
I don't know if I've ever shared with you, fred, that
I actually reference that as mylife gap, that's my term, life
gap, and that is an element ofour journeys and those of us
that have been in that spacethat it's hard for people to
understand why it's unsettling.
So what I really like about thetitle of your book, fred, is
(21:58):
the Forbidden Roots and how thatresonates with you in terms of
not only you didn't know, buthow you are blocked from access
of the birds, and we justmentioned I call it life gap and
you have a period of time aswell, so it just resonates so
well with people.
I think this is a good spot forus to kind of talk about what
(22:21):
you're doing in your state tohelp overcome some of that.
You have some advocacy going.
Yeah, I'd love to do that.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
But that really became at the end of it as I
boiled through the many, I'mgoing to say, phases.
And there's a whole chapter inthere too that maybe I'd like to
touch on a little later, andthat has to do with coming to
terms with alcoholism and howthat impacted kind of where I
went with the book, where I wentwith myself and where I went
with my journey, and I can addthat in later.
(22:51):
But today, and today becomesvery important because in
Wisconsin right now there'sactually two bills that are in
Perk I guess I would say they'reon the back burner.
They're at the state Right now,they're working through some
other issues, they're about togo on recess, but they'll
probably kick up in committee inthe fall and that's Wisconsin
(23:13):
SB 15, which is the Senate bill,and the corresponding Assembly
Bill, which is Wisconsin AB 13.
Both those bills are looking toprovide access for adult
adoptees to gain their originalbirth certificate.
So it's really about looking atthe ability for us to have the
(23:35):
same right to access ouroriginal birth documentation as
other individuals.
And it's kind of interestingbecause, as this plays out in
Wisconsin, minnesota just passedlegislation that is allowing
basically it's turning their oldlaws away because Wisconsin
actually patterned their currentlaws after Minnesota's laws.
(23:57):
So now I mean a great talkingpoint in what I'm going to say.
A reality is, minnesotadiscovered it didn't work the
way they were doing it.
Wisconsin has the state actingas an intermediary where
currently and this is a system Iwent through 23 years ago and
it's still the one in place isoriginally, I can get a copy of
my redacted information.
(24:18):
That, of course, takes moneyand time.
Once I have that, then I canapply to my birth mother.
I can write a letter to herindicating who I am and why I
want to know who I am, which isjust ludicrous to begin with,
but that's what I have to do andthen that is turned over to the
state of Wisconsin, who andthen in turn will find her, call
(24:40):
her, read the letter to her,educate her in terms of her
response.
You know her responses andrights.
You know she has a right toanonymity.
She has a right to decline myrequest to find out who I am.
If she declines, for whateverreason, I have to wait five
years.
That time I can attempt asecond letter and if she
(25:00):
declines the second letter, it'sterminal.
I'm not allowed to pursueanymore until she's deceased.
But they won't tell you thatshe's deceased.
You just have to keep checkingit out, you know, can you find a
body somewhere?
You know, let me check theobits, you know.
I mean I don't know what we'resupposed to do.
So you know, it's a system that, and I'm gonna say, as I went
into reunion with my motherbecause she did allow me to find
(25:23):
out who I was on that firstswipe and I'm very grateful for
that it came with a cost.
In my letter I swore that youknow I'm willing to do it at
whatever level you need.
And you know, when you startthinking about this whole
process that she went throughwhere the state contacts her,
basically says you know, we'rehere to let you know that that
baby that you told everybodydidn't exist and denied all your
(25:45):
life, and that you know youwent through that shameful
experience.
If you wanna keep that in theyou know that shame away, here
you go, you can turn it down,you know.
And so it reinforced the shame.
The whole process to me reallyhurt her more than it helped her
, even though she allowed me tofind out, because even as we
went through reunion I had threekids of my own, which are her
(26:07):
grandkids.
She loved finding out if shewanted to spend time with them.
She wanted to know who theywere.
She was torn about how do Ihave them know who I am but yet
nobody can know who we are.
You know, I mean the wholething.
She was stuck and it was hardon her.
It was very hard on her Evenwhen she died.
I wasn't allowed to go to herfuneral.
She was petrified Somebodywould find out that she had a
(26:30):
baby out of wedlock and shecouldn't live with that.
She couldn't live with thatshame, you know.
But it all worked out, you know.
I mean, in the long run, evenin the book I've masked her name
, I've masked her hometown.
You can't really figure out whoshe is.
You know, I've kept that at bay.
You know what I'm passionateabout is trying to get rid of
that shame for everybody.
I think you know we wentthrough the period when for some
(26:51):
reason, we thought our onlybirth control method was shame
and secrecy and trying to guiltwomen out of having babies.
I don't know if that was theactual conscious thought about
it, but I think everybodyfigured out that didn't work
very well, you know, and, as aresult, I wanna see us move to
truth and transparency.
Let's just let it be what it is.
(27:11):
It's, you know, it's a form oflife.
It's how we operate as people,as mammals, as creatures, as
part of, you know, the entireglobal population that we are.
It doesn't have to have theshame on it, and really getting
rid of it at the legal level isyou know.
Some people will say, does itreally matter?
I mean, can't you find thisstuff out anyway?
Oh, yes, a lot of people arefinding it out, and it's a very
(27:34):
it's messy.
It brings into play so manypeople that it's really none of
their business.
And my reality is, if shedoesn't want a relationship with
me, I don't necessarily want arelationship with her.
I'm at that point where I canaccept that I didn't need to
have a restraining order placedon me to keep me from harassing
her.
You know, I don't know of anyother person that, based on a
(27:58):
birth status or straining orderis placed on them, that they are
prohibited from finding outinformation about their own
being.
So others might be sparedhumility.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, and there was a key point in there that you had
, which is information versusrelationship.
And let's blend it a little bittogether with coping mechanisms
, because when you're in theposition that you've been in,
where you had your foundationshook, you had the embarrassment
, the anger, inability to accessyour records, making promises
(28:33):
that you've upheld in order toget information and try to
figure this all out.
Now we move all the way forward.
We can talk a little bit aboutthe difference between what
you're stating today and thelegal available information
versus a relationship.
That chasm is prettysignificant.
If you could get to that in anyconversation with anyone, just
(28:55):
say it is about equality, that'sabout information.
I'm not necessarily jumpingright to relationship, would you
agree?
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yes, and I think that's that's been a hindrance
of progress in the past that Ithink too many people have tried
to address or state theirbelief that they believe they
have a right to a relationshipwith their birth family.
I, in the 23 years I've beenchewing on this puzzle and
really kind of look at it, Idon't necessarily think that's
(29:26):
true, and I don't think that'strue for the general population,
and I think even those thatweren't privileged at birth.
Many struggle in theirrelationships with their parents
and are estranged from theirchildren, and so we're not
different in that regard, andrelationships shouldn't and
can't be guaranteed, but accessto factual information should be
(29:51):
.
And why is that important?
Because if you're going to godown that trail, if you're going
to try to find out who you are,and you need an anchoring piece
in the DNA databases, becauseif you're free floating, it's
very, very difficult to figureout where you land, unless you
luck, you luck out, somebodypops up as a parent or as a
(30:11):
sibling.
Otherwise you're kind of freefloating in a, in a turbulent
current, you know, until you cananchor it in some family.
That's what you have to be ableto do.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
So tell us a little bit about anchoring yourself, or
the lack of an anchor, and whatdid you do to, you know, kind
of move yourself through thisjourney to recovery?
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, and so for myself, what I'm going to say is
going into the whole thing.
You know, back in 2000, I wasnot in a good place with good
coping mechanisms to deal withthe blow that hit me.
And I'm going to say, the piecethat I was missing, I'm going
to say, is my spiritual health.
And because of that lack ofspiritual health and what I mean
(30:55):
by that is my ability to usespiritual tools and techniques
to help me cope, as opposed tolooking for numbing techniques
such as alcohol and drugs toavoid.
I felt heavy on the alcohol,drugs and want to avoid side of
it.
I was putting on a good face, Iwas putting on like this is all
(31:16):
just on one big adventure.
But you know, inside I wasgetting pretty chewed up and
struggling quite a bit with itand had a hard time with it and
I was shutting people out.
So, from that standpoint, as Iwent, what I saw for myself,
once I discovered, once Istarted going through the
identification, through some ofthe reunion pieces, through the
(31:39):
assembly of a new identity,trying to figure out how to put
pieces together in a puzzle,that now at least I was looking
at pieces that belonged in thatpuzzle and I wasn't trying to
fit pieces that didn't belong inthat puzzle.
What I can say is in retrospect, I was continually increasing
my alcohol use significantly andshortly after I finished the
(32:02):
first complete swipe on the book, I came to terms with the fact
that I did not have control overmy drinking and I needed to go
through a treatment program.
And I did so.
I went through an out initiallyan outpatient treatment program
.
I went through an AA programand it really helped me develop
and find those additional copingmechanisms and tools that
(32:25):
helped me manage my day-to-dayliving.
And that becomes importantbecause I think sometimes, as I
start talking about spiritualtools and yeah, I'm talking
about maybe faith, maybe faithis a tool that you use, maybe a
gratitude list is a tool thatyou use and I'm saying all these
are tools, I'm not saying thatthey're gospel, I'm saying
they're tools.
And so when I bring it up,sometimes people will counter
(32:49):
with you know you're justavoiding trying to heal.
You know you're running awayfrom it, you're not facing the
pain that you have and lettingthe pain, you know, become
internalized and healed.
No, I'm trying to deal with thepain.
I don't need to be submerged inthe pain 24-7.
As a matter of fact, I don'twant to be submerged in the pain
(33:11):
24-7.
I want to have the bestpossible life I can.
So at times in between myhealing, when I'm ready to heal,
I work on healing.
When, psychologically, I'm justnot there, I just don't, and
maybe that's when I'm using someof those spiritual tools to
help me cope.
So my number one recommendationin hindsight if to anybody, if
(33:35):
you're pulling out of the fog,if you discover you're suddenly
adopted, if you have an MPE,assess your coping mechanisms,
because you're going to be infor a rough ride.
You're going to be in for abumpy ride.
You're going to have to havesomething that's going to hold
you together, not pull you apart.
So I'd really encourage anybodyto check that out.
If you find your firstinclination to, you wouldn't
(33:57):
believe what I heard pour us adrink.
That's probably not a good sign, you know.
And what I'm going to say isget that under control first,
because there's a good shot.
You'll mess a lot of things upas you go through it.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Well, it'll become your go-to right, and I loved
the way that you position thatas, instead of coping on the
numbing experience and there's alot of ways to do that there's,
you know, as you said, for youalcohol, there's drugs and
there's, you know, other vices,I would say as well.
I think it's just a really goodlived experience to share out
(34:35):
that in the early stages ofwhatever journey you're on, or
whatever stage of the journeythat you're on, know what they
are.
I don't know, even for myself,if I know what all of my good
tools are.
I would say every day that Ineed a new tool anyway.
Just for me.
There's, you know, there's alot of things that I wish I
(34:56):
could do differently or behavedifferently, so you have to be
very pragmatic about that.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah, and I'm the first to admit that I my initial
reaction and I would say I'velearned a lot more about myself
and I can see that many timesI'm reacting out of old wounds
that just didn't heal upproperly and it will create
responses that maybe could behandled better if maybe some of
(35:24):
those other tools were in place.
Some of those.
You know one of the things Iremember, you know, going
through AA, pause you, justbefore you react, you just stop,
think about it, put it on theback burner, decide you're not
going to decide till tomorrow,let it stew, let the emotion
work through itself.
You know, I mean that's justanother tool, a gratitude list.
(35:47):
I'm feeling down, I'mfrustrated, I can't get anywhere
.
Just start thinking about youknow what is good.
Well, so far, at least now I'mdealing with reality, at least
now I know I'm adopted, now Ihave a birth mother.
You know I do have my own.
You know you can start to buildthat.
And you know one of the thingsthat a counselor told me and he
(36:08):
would say Fred, where's yourgratitude list?
I was like I took it as anegative thing Like, are you
trying to punish me?
No, he wasn't trying to punishme.
He was trying to help me learnhow to redirect my emotional
well-being, how to get out of ahole and then come at it later
from a different angle, but notbe stuck in it, not be ruled by
it, and that's what I think somany of the tools from recovery
(36:31):
as I went through the I'm goingto say, the healing process in
adoption, coming to terms withwho I was, what I was, where I
came from and how that impactedme, those tools came in very
handy and they were lifesavers.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Yeah, I could see some great value to some of
those.
And I wonder, in the context ofthe gratitude list, you're not
insinuating gratitude for beingadopted or right?
That is an entirely differenttopic.
I would never want ourlisteners to pull that together.
As you know, I'm trying to begrateful for the situation, it's
(37:07):
just grateful for life.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah, yeah, at the end of the day, I am not the
adoption.
The adoption is an experiencethat has affected me.
So from that standpoint, youknow when I talk about a
gratitude list, there's manyother aspects in my life and
what I try to do on those timeswhen sometimes it just gets
overwhelming, I reach into thoseother areas of my life.
(37:32):
I have children of my own.
I can start thinking about that.
I can look at other aspects.
I live out in a rural area.
I love being rural, I lovewalking my dog, I love being by
Lake Michigan, I love walking onthe beach.
I can think of those otheraspects in my life that aren't
where I'm stuck right now.
I mean because that's whathappens, I think and that's why
(37:52):
I call it stuck in the muck is Isaw within myself I would just
get stuck there for so long Ididn't have the tools to help
get me unstuck.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
I like that.
So I always ask this questionand I never tell my guests I'm
going to ask it and if you'velistened, you might not already
know what I'm going to say.
But if there was one thing,fred, in this conversation today
which has been fantastic thatyou would have liked me to ask
you or you would have liked usto have touched upon, what would
that be?
Speaker 2 (38:23):
You know, I'd say, if there's anything else, respect
your own journey, for whateverit is.
You know, I think too manytimes it's easy and comfortable
to fall into I'm going to saythe trap of like well, they did
it this way, or I don't want tohurt these people, or whatever.
(38:46):
I mean.
I think your journey is goingto be your journey and it's time
to push your push.
When it's time to back off,back off, I would say the one
little asterisk I'm going to puton that is never forget.
People die and people changetheir minds.
So if you have access tosomething, there is that
(39:06):
pressure on there.
But at the same time I'm goingto say you need to balance that
against yourself.
And if you're not ready to moveinto a new corner, maybe you're
not ready to meet yourbiological mother, maybe you
don't want to really meet yoursiblings, Maybe you don't want
to go to the graveyards of yourancestors.
You know, maybe you don't needto see your original birth
(39:26):
certificate today.
If it doesn't feel right, don'tdo it.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
That is a great perspective.
I love that and I love to therespect your journey.
I might steal that sometime.
I got this great level ofinformation from this great
guest friend and you know somuch to take away, but a nugget
just respect your journey.
Well, I want to thank you forbeing with us today.
(39:51):
One more plug for your book.
It'll be in the show notes.
It is Forbidden Roots.
It was released in October of2022.
I have read it.
It's a great read and I lovethat.
That.
It is the perspective of a malewhich we need more of that to
come out in our community.
Forbidden Roots, fred Nicora.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Thank you, lisa, I really appreciate it and thank
your listenership.
I appreciate the opportunity totell my story.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Thank you for listening to today's episode.
Make sure to rate, review andshare.
Want to join the conversation?
Contact us atwanderingtreeadoptdcom.
Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast.
I am your host, Lisa Am.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
She wanted to spend time with them.
She wanted to know who theywere.
She was torn about how do Ihave them know who I am, but yet
nobody can know who we are?
You know?
I mean the whole thing.
She was stuck and it was hardon her.
It was very hard on her Evenwhen she died.
I wasn't allowed to go to her.
She was petrified Somebodywould find out that she had a
(00:30):
baby out of wedlock.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Welcome to today's show.
I am excited to have with me anauthor, an adoptee and just an
overall good human, and I reallywant to allow this person an
opportunity to introducethemselves With us.
Today is Fred Nakora.
Welcome, fred, to the show, hi.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Lisa, thanks for having me here.
I really appreciate it.
I can't tell you how excited Iam that you've allowed me to
voice my story on your podcast.
I think it's great.
I've listened to quite a few ofyour podcasts.
I think you do just aspectacular job at interviewing
and bring out really some goodpoints.
So today I'm very excited, meetyour audience and kind of
(01:16):
spread the word about you knowwhat's going on in my life and
how that's been impacted bybeing an adoptee.
We need discovery adoptee.
I'll even say at that whereI've gone, because it's you know
for myself.
My journey, while you could sayit started in 1959 when I was
born, which would be a very truestory, the conscious part of my
(01:37):
journey started in the year2000.
I went at the age of 41, slipof the tongue at a large family
gathering.
I suddenly found out that I wasadopted and I didn't know that
before.
So both my parents had passedaway at that point too.
So there was some digesting,some understanding, some
internalizing that had to reallytake place.
And I'll say the last 23 years.
(01:59):
I can't wait to talk about themhere because it's been
interesting.
You know, I can say I've beenout of the fog for 23 years and
I think I've seen things fairlyclearly.
Don't get me wrong my journeyis not complete and I am not
sailing.
I'm healed.
I am not.
I am continually a work inprogress, but at this point I do
(02:20):
have, I think, greater clarityon where I want to take it and
where I think it can go, andthat has something to do with
some advocacy that we'll talkabout later too Perfect.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Well, if you don't mind taking a couple more
minutes and just sharing alittle bit about the term late
discovery adoptee.
I know for a few of us it's acommon term, but there may be
new listeners that haven't heardthat before or really don't
understand its impacts as well.
So if you wouldn't mind justdoing a little bit of expansion
(02:50):
on that for everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Sure, I'd be happy to .
So you know the term latediscovery does get kind of
interesting because you know,when I first discovered I was
adopted immediately I found outI was an LDA.
I was a late discovery adopteeand I'll be honest, at the time
when I discovered I didn'treally see that I had a lot in
common with the adopteepopulation as a whole because of
(03:14):
my MPE experience about, youknow, in that whole part of it.
So it is kind of interesting intoday's world and I've seen so
much change in the whole, I'mgoing to say, arena of who we're
all talking about when we starttalking about biological roots,
when we start talking aboutgenetics, when we start talking
about identity and how that'sformulated, when that's
(03:36):
formulated.
So when I start looking at youknow what actually constitutes
what would be considered latediscovery adoptee.
I think pretty much.
At least most late discoveryadoptees I've talked to and many
people in the profession wouldagree that you know, anytime
that it occurs after you knowsome fundamental identity
(03:57):
establishment has occurred wouldbe considered late discovery.
You know, we, you know and I'mgoing to say I'm a retired
middle school and high schoolteacher.
I taught for 20 years.
I've had education training.
I've got lifetime teachinglicense, so I understand human
development and I understandwhat happens in that period, you
know, roughly between the onsetof puberty all the way through
early adulthood.
(04:17):
And it's interesting to seebecause for myself I would say,
you know, having worked withmiddle school kids and high
school kids, you can see wherethey really move away from that
point of being an adult focusedcreature to a peer focused
creature.
That is often they stoplistening to mom and dad and
start listening to what theirfriends are saying and that
(04:37):
crucial moment there I would saythat is a pretty solid defining
point of when it becomes late,because that foundation work has
now been laid, based on alltheir experiences, all what
they've learned, you know.
So I would say you know, latediscovery can occur as early as
maybe 10, 11, you know if, justdepending on where they are at
(05:00):
in developmental stages, youknow, for most people I think it
would be sometime, maybe intheir later teens, 17, 18, up
through 20s, you know, and anytime after that.
So for me, at 41, while I'm notgoing to say I'm the latest
discovery adoptee, I'm on thelater end of it, you know, I
would say a lot come out intheir fifties, some sixties, you
(05:22):
know.
So for myself, at 41, I guessyou could say I was a mid range.
That's how I would say.
That's where I would take latediscovery, adopte.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Now, because I don't sit in that space.
I'm a closed adoption.
I've known for, you know, sinceI was in kindergarten.
That's that's when I was toldright before I went into
kindergarten.
So, since I don't sit in thespace, my next thought as you
were talking was centered aroundhow you found out slip of the
tongue.
Is it common that it's throughthat type of you know, maybe an
(05:52):
event more like a surprise thanit is a coordinated, later in
life?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I think you're asking about, is it more common that
it's a surprise than it's anintentional act later in life?
And what I would say, you know,if I look at it.
You know I can really onlyspeak from my experience.
I have talked to other latediscovery adoptees, you know,
and as I have, it's always.
It's fascinating to me, youknow, just to see how we've
processed things.
Very similarly, you know onething I would say in my case in
(06:21):
particular, and I think it'spretty common you go back in
time and I was conceived in 1958, I was born in 1959, the times
were very different than theyare today.
You know, you look at what awoman went through If she came
home and told mom and dad shewas pregnant and she was unwed
in 1958.
What have you done to theentire family?
(06:43):
You've groomed us all.
We need to hide this.
It needs to be a secret.
You can never reveal it.
You're an awful creature fordoing this.
How dare you do this to us?
You know that was the theme,the whole shame all the way.
Go away for six months, haveyour baby.
Then you come home and youdon't dare mention this to
anybody because if you do, youwill destroy us all.
(07:05):
You know the message was soheavy and so late.
You know, I think the women ofthat time, really, you know,
struggled with that as theymoved forward.
So adoption is different today.
So when I look at my parents,you know who made that decision
and I'm saying my adoptiveparents back in the late 50s
really 1960s is when it wentinto fruition and my father was
(07:28):
the driver.
From what I understand, theyhad both passed away at the time
of my discovery.
From what I understand, myfather was the driver.
His parents went through adivorce in the 1930s.
As a result, him and hisbrothers ended up in the county
orphanage for a period of time,a number of years.
From what I understand, whatI've been told and I believe it
because, you know, I didn't knowhim fairly well His view of it
(07:50):
was he wanted to spare me fromthe stigma of being an orphan,
of having to live with thatshame and that burden.
I can understand what he'ssaying.
You know, I'm going to say,from my perspective, I wish he
would have told me, but at thesame time I'm going to say I can
respect that.
They were a product of theirtime and they bought into the
philosophy.
Now, when you get into thesecond part of your question,
(08:12):
which was do you think it was aplanned reveal, I think what I
saw happen around me inretrospect, after I discovered
and looked back throughout thatperiod of time when I think they
should have told me and theyjust didn't I think the train
was on the track, it was going900 miles an hour, they didn't
know how to turn it around andso then it became almost how do
(08:35):
you pass the hot potato withoutgetting caught?
The other thing that I wouldsay fortunate for them and their
desire to hold the secret.
I once I turned 18, I basicallymoved away from home and I
moved everywhere and anywherefor a long time and didn't
really return home till I was 40.
(08:55):
So from 18 to 40, I was away.
You know I'd come home forperiodic visits and stuff and
more.
My parents would come out andsee me or I'd maybe join up, you
know, some gathering orsomething, but really I wasn't
around.
So those slipped clues that Icould have caught, they just
weren't occurring as muchbecause there just wasn't a
presence there.
(09:15):
So I think the vast majority ofthe surprises not.
I don't.
I don't think anybody comes outlater and says man, let's tell
them now that he's 30,.
You know, at that point it'slike oh my God, we do not want
to be caught.
Let's pretend this neverhappened.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah, I think it's.
It's definitely core to whypeople are late discovery.
Just, you know the little bitof knowledge I have through
conversations and reading, bythe time you get to a certain
point, I think that that thatreal sense of well, how are we
going to explain this 30 yearslater?
And then you know again, allthe shame and all the very key
(09:51):
points that you just brought outare part of that element as
well.
With that said, I kind of wantto move us into a little bit
about not necessarily yourjourney.
You wrote about your journeyand so can you tell us a little
bit about your, your book,because I want to give you that
opportunity to one plug it.
I've read it, great story andyeah, let's just go, let's go a
(10:13):
little bit into.
You know the your journeywasn't all roses, and do we want
to say rainbows and unicornsand yeah, I'll hop in here.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, and I'm going to intertwine this a little bit
with you know, a bit of thediscovery itself.
So for me, you know it reallyhappened.
I went to a twin uncle'sbirthday party in the year 2000.
Both my parents had passed away.
We had moved back to theMilwaukee Metro, had been back
here roughly, I'd say, a year.
You know, it was kind of funnybecause I couldn't figure out
why I wasn't getting invited tolike family gatherings.
(10:44):
The whole reason I wanted tomove back was to get my kids
back to where I grew up so theycould be around family.
We lived in the Twin Citiesarea.
We, you know, we enjoyed livingup there, but all holidays were
spent traveling and or lonely.
That was the only optionsreally.
So you know, we got back hereand it was like all of a sudden,
you know, my parents had passedand all my relatives were kind
(11:04):
of like Fred, who, you know, I,I don't know, I guess we just
forgot to, you know, invite themto this or that or whatever you
know.
So that was kind of a shocker.
But I did get invited to thisbirthday party because I was
pretty close to one uncle inparticular.
It was my uncle Bob.
He and his twin brother turned60.
While there there was anelderly aunt of theirs who I
(11:26):
knew quite well because I grewup around that family.
While I was off getting drinksat the bar, she said to my now
ex-wife I've known Freddie sincethe day they adopted him.
And so when I came back to thetable and my wife explained to
me what she said you know it'sinteresting, I'm going to say I
fractured, I fell apart, I wentinto shock.
I would say the overwhelmingfeeling immediately was
(11:49):
embarrassment.
And the reason I think peoplediscount the embarrassment when
you think about the interactionyou have with everybody around
you it's based on one commoncore belief that at the end of
the day, I know myself betterthan you know me.
And whether we agree, whetherwe disagree, I can stand solid
(12:09):
on that fact that I still knowme better than you know me.
And so for me, at that point Icame to terms with that's not
true.
These people all knew me betterthan I knew myself as a grown
man at 41.
That was really the eradicationof my foundation, because really
how you grow up and how youestablish your identity, at
(12:32):
least how I did and what I cansee in retrospect and discovered
through a lot of counseling anda lot of discussion.
You know it's based on the trueprinciples that you're learning
from your family.
Those are the things thatyou're accepting as true.
That's how you establish yourvalues and how you make those
connections to what you want todo, what you're interested in,
who you value, how you makefriendships and other types of
(12:53):
relationships.
And those were all the thingsthat really got washed away.
And what became very interestingthen is embarrassment turned to
anger.
That came within, I'd say, acouple of days.
It took a while, just took along time for it to settle in.
You know I'm still functioningas a father of three and trying
to navigate a family and a joband everything, and you know,
inside I'm just crumbling.
(13:14):
So the next week, when Icontacted the state of Wisconsin
to verify that I indeed wasadopted, really the second swing
of the wrecking ball camebecause, as a person who doesn't
know and is naive aboutadoption laws and record laws,
it never would have dawned on methat the state would have the
information and then just choosenot to give it to me.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Well, I'm going to have us pause there for just a
minute, because you saidsomething that I've never heard
anyone else say.
That is the embarrassment angle.
How prolific is that thought,though, fred.
I mean wow, I'm kind of sittingin this space of no one has
said they were embarrassed.
I've heard lots of anger, butthe embarrassment part I'm kind
(13:56):
of stuck there for a minute.
I'm stuck in okay, yourfoundation was shook.
You're now questioning who youare for sure, definitely
probably sitting in some trustissues, and then you have an
embarrassment layer before youeven got to anger, or you know,
in conjunction with that, that'swow, that is something.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
You know, and I'm going to say it even took me a
while to recognize thatembarrassment, recognize exactly
what that was, put a finger onthat feeling, Because I knew,
you know, at the time that Ifound out at that gathering, I
mean I kind of felt bad for alot of people there.
First of all, that poor auntwho was in her 80s.
You know, I gave her a shakedown when I wanted to find out
the information like I've neverseen before.
(14:36):
I was afraid I was going tothrow her into a coronary.
Really, this party, you know,at that moment in time I
hijacked the party.
It no longer was about inRich's 60th birthday.
It suddenly became about Fredjust came out of the closet as
being an adoptee.
You know, I mean, that's reallywhat that party turned into and
I immediately gathered myfamily and left.
(14:58):
I just needed to get out ofthere and that's why, when I
look back, that's that was theembarrassment.
That was like, oh my God, I'mtotally naked here, Everybody
can see me and I don't know whatthey see.
I don't know what they see Feltvery judged, you know.
I mean, there's there's so manylayers.
That was, that was the loss ofyou.
You know you just mentioned thetrust issues.
Well, that was the loss of alot of trust right there, and it
(15:21):
was the other thing that Ithink people don't understand is
it wasn't just that I losttrust in everybody else.
I lost trust in myself.
I lost trust in the ability forme to really believe that what
I was perceiving was reality,Because such a big piece that I
(15:43):
believed to be reality was nottrue.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Oh, that's so interesting.
One of the things that I sayabout myself is I can spot
things that are real versus notreal very quickly, and it's
because I spent a lifetimeconstantly watching a room and
reading people.
My foundation was verydifferent, and so just to hear
(16:06):
you say it in a differentcontext of not knowing reality
anymore, that's a well.
Now I'm thinking I'm at threewows, so in a short time period
in this conversation I've gotthree wows going.
We might have wanted to createa little bingo card for the
listeners so many times.
Well, I don't think I've heardyou say to our listeners what
(16:28):
the name of your book is yet, soI want to make sure we get that
in there.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, and what I do want to say is so, yeah, once
the state spent their timeeducating me that I had no
access to my records, thatlegally I had no right to find
out who I was, the social workeron the other end of the phone
line could read my entire file,take a black magic marker and
eradicate anything in it thatwould allow me to understand my
(16:53):
life in the context that she orhe understood it.
That was such a radical thoughtfor me at that time.
It was really the completefracturing of my understanding
that I'm on equal footing witheverybody else.
I suddenly came to terms withthat.
What I'll even say is, at thatpoint in time it took about a
(17:16):
year for me to reallyinternalize it I understood
discrimination at a wholedifferent level and I'll own
this, I'm not proud of it.
I'm a white male, I mean, eventhough I was a teacher, even
though I went throughsensitivity training, even
though I thought I was trying totreat everybody as equally as
possible for me, the reality was, wow.
(17:37):
I suddenly had to come frontand center with all those
preconceived notions I had ofwhat adoptees were.
As I grew up and found outsomebody was adopting and
attributed what parts of theirbehavior to that specific
characteristic, all those thingsthat became my own filter of
life, my experience filter.
All of a sudden I had to wearthose coats and that was pretty
(17:59):
radical in itself.
So at that time and I'm gettingto your question, which is
what's the name of your book Iknow I'm off on a date so when I
did start to dive into thetrying to find out who I am,
after the state eradicated myunderstanding of who I am and
after the family that I trustedhad kind of pulled that rug out
(18:22):
from me, I started reading.
I started this was 2000,.
There was stuff on the internet.
By no means were groupsavailable like they are today.
Today it's great to see Overthe last 23 years, I'm going to
say, there's been such anincrease in dialogue and a lot
of it's really positive dialogue.
Back in 2000, when I dove intoit, there was just anger in
(18:44):
these email chains and it wasnot a pretty place to be.
It's just a lot of anger, a lotof empty, and I still see some,
I'm going to say, facebookgroups, some other social media
groups in my term.
They're stuck in the muck, theycan't quite get out of that
phase of it and it's a horriblephase to be stuck in.
And I'm going to say for myself, I ended up going through a
(19:04):
recovery program because of thelack of available information on
late discovery adoptees, onmales that are adopted, and
really an overall just lack ofplace to turn.
You know, if you find yourselfin this position, didn't make me
want to write my book, you know, and that's what started me to
(19:25):
drive down that path, which wasin about 2006, 2007.
And the more I did it, the moreI found it really was something
that was very cathartic innature and the thing I wanted
the reader to really understandis that you know this happens to
you and when it happens to you,it unsettles you, you lose who
you are and as an adult,especially when you're trying to
(19:47):
manage a family and managebeing part of a family and
everything and all that goes onwith that, you're lost.
You're just completely lost andyou don't have time to just
take.
You know, stop everything else.
It's going on.
So in the book, the book doescarry you through other things
that are going on in my life,but I do try and then give the
spin of how, now that I foundout I'm adopted.
How does that play into thiswhole?
(20:08):
And I think there's also atremendous message within there
that eventually I did come toterms as I started to research
my, my relatives and find outwhere my roots came from.
You know, my passion thenbecame how do I help change the
system so that other people inmy situation, or the adopted
(20:29):
population as a whole, don'thave a separate set of laws,
don't have a separate set ofcircumstances, don't have to
feel special, because I'm goingto say special is not a good
feeling in this context, it'snot as good as that's what
special means in the context,you know.
So the book I started writing Iwrote most of it in the two
(20:52):
years then, 2006, 2007, goinginto 2008,.
It's when I really kind ofbrought some conclusion to the
whole.
Initial, I'm going to say blastand search and then really kind
of started to except so itdidn't become a 24-7, I'm out of
control.
It did take that long.
Name of the book is ForbiddenRoots.
It reflects the roots that Iwas forbidden to access.
(21:14):
I still to this day, eventhough I do have my original
birth certificate.
I went through the process.
I did reunite with my birthmother.
I've been through union I'vemet siblings and everything else
.
I also know that I wassomewhere between three days and
three months until I wasbrought into my adoptive home.
State knows they won't tell me.
They don't tell me.
(21:35):
I'm not allowed to know where Iwas.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
I don't know if I've ever shared with you, fred, that
I actually reference that as mylife gap, that's my term, life
gap, and that is an element ofour journeys and those of us
that have been in that spacethat it's hard for people to
understand why it's unsettling.
So what I really like about thetitle of your book, fred, is
(21:58):
the Forbidden Roots and how thatresonates with you in terms of
not only you didn't know, buthow you are blocked from access
of the birds, and we justmentioned I call it life gap and
you have a period of time aswell, so it just resonates so
well with people.
I think this is a good spot forus to kind of talk about what
(22:21):
you're doing in your state tohelp overcome some of that.
You have some advocacy going.
Yeah, I'd love to do that.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
But that really became at the end of it as I
boiled through the many, I'mgoing to say, phases.
And there's a whole chapter inthere too that maybe I'd like to
touch on a little later, andthat has to do with coming to
terms with alcoholism and howthat impacted kind of where I
went with the book, where I wentwith myself and where I went
with my journey, and I can addthat in later.
(22:51):
But today, and today becomesvery important because in
Wisconsin right now there'sactually two bills that are in
Perk I guess I would say they'reon the back burner.
They're at the state Right now,they're working through some
other issues, they're about togo on recess, but they'll
probably kick up in committee inthe fall and that's Wisconsin
(23:13):
SB 15, which is the Senate bill,and the corresponding Assembly
Bill, which is Wisconsin AB 13.
Both those bills are looking toprovide access for adult
adoptees to gain their originalbirth certificate.
So it's really about looking atthe ability for us to have the
(23:35):
same right to access ouroriginal birth documentation as
other individuals.
And it's kind of interestingbecause, as this plays out in
Wisconsin, minnesota just passedlegislation that is allowing
basically it's turning their oldlaws away because Wisconsin
actually patterned their currentlaws after Minnesota's laws.
(23:57):
So now I mean a great talkingpoint in what I'm going to say.
A reality is, minnesotadiscovered it didn't work the
way they were doing it.
Wisconsin has the state actingas an intermediary where
currently and this is a system Iwent through 23 years ago and
it's still the one in place isoriginally, I can get a copy of
my redacted information.
(24:18):
That, of course, takes moneyand time.
Once I have that, then I canapply to my birth mother.
I can write a letter to herindicating who I am and why I
want to know who I am, which isjust ludicrous to begin with,
but that's what I have to do andthen that is turned over to the
state of Wisconsin, who andthen in turn will find her, call
(24:40):
her, read the letter to her,educate her in terms of her
response.
You know her responses andrights.
You know she has a right toanonymity.
She has a right to decline myrequest to find out who I am.
If she declines, for whateverreason, I have to wait five
years.
That time I can attempt asecond letter and if she
(25:00):
declines the second letter, it'sterminal.
I'm not allowed to pursueanymore until she's deceased.
But they won't tell you thatshe's deceased.
You just have to keep checkingit out, you know, can you find a
body somewhere?
You know, let me check theobits, you know.
I mean I don't know what we'resupposed to do.
So you know, it's a system that, and I'm gonna say, as I went
into reunion with my motherbecause she did allow me to find
(25:23):
out who I was on that firstswipe and I'm very grateful for
that it came with a cost.
In my letter I swore that youknow I'm willing to do it at
whatever level you need.
And you know, when you startthinking about this whole
process that she went throughwhere the state contacts her,
basically says you know, we'rehere to let you know that that
baby that you told everybodydidn't exist and denied all your
(25:45):
life, and that you know youwent through that shameful
experience.
If you wanna keep that in theyou know that shame away, here
you go, you can turn it down,you know.
And so it reinforced the shame.
The whole process to me reallyhurt her more than it helped her
, even though she allowed me tofind out, because even as we
went through reunion I had threekids of my own, which are her
(26:07):
grandkids.
She loved finding out if shewanted to spend time with them.
She wanted to know who theywere.
She was torn about how do Ihave them know who I am but yet
nobody can know who we are.
You know, I mean the wholething.
She was stuck and it was hardon her.
It was very hard on her Evenwhen she died.
I wasn't allowed to go to herfuneral.
She was petrified Somebodywould find out that she had a
(26:30):
baby out of wedlock and shecouldn't live with that.
She couldn't live with thatshame, you know.
But it all worked out, you know.
I mean, in the long run, evenin the book I've masked her name
, I've masked her hometown.
You can't really figure out whoshe is.
You know, I've kept that at bay.
You know what I'm passionateabout is trying to get rid of
that shame for everybody.
I think you know we wentthrough the period when for some
(26:51):
reason, we thought our onlybirth control method was shame
and secrecy and trying to guiltwomen out of having babies.
I don't know if that was theactual conscious thought about
it, but I think everybodyfigured out that didn't work
very well, you know, and, as aresult, I wanna see us move to
truth and transparency.
Let's just let it be what it is.
(27:11):
It's, you know, it's a form oflife.
It's how we operate as people,as mammals, as creatures, as
part of, you know, the entireglobal population that we are.
It doesn't have to have theshame on it, and really getting
rid of it at the legal level isyou know.
Some people will say, does itreally matter?
I mean, can't you find thisstuff out anyway?
Oh, yes, a lot of people arefinding it out, and it's a very
(27:34):
it's messy.
It brings into play so manypeople that it's really none of
their business.
And my reality is, if shedoesn't want a relationship with
me, I don't necessarily want arelationship with her.
I'm at that point where I canaccept that I didn't need to
have a restraining order placedon me to keep me from harassing
her.
You know, I don't know of anyother person that, based on a
(27:58):
birth status or straining orderis placed on them, that they are
prohibited from finding outinformation about their own
being.
So others might be sparedhumility.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, and there was a key point in there that you had
, which is information versusrelationship.
And let's blend it a little bittogether with coping mechanisms
, because when you're in theposition that you've been in,
where you had your foundationshook, you had the embarrassment
, the anger, inability to accessyour records, making promises
(28:33):
that you've upheld in order toget information and try to
figure this all out.
Now we move all the way forward.
We can talk a little bit aboutthe difference between what
you're stating today and thelegal available information
versus a relationship.
That chasm is prettysignificant.
If you could get to that in anyconversation with anyone, just
(28:55):
say it is about equality, that'sabout information.
I'm not necessarily jumpingright to relationship, would you
agree?
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yes, and I think that's that's been a hindrance
of progress in the past that Ithink too many people have tried
to address or state theirbelief that they believe they
have a right to a relationshipwith their birth family.
I, in the 23 years I've beenchewing on this puzzle and
really kind of look at it, Idon't necessarily think that's
(29:26):
true, and I don't think that'strue for the general population,
and I think even those thatweren't privileged at birth.
Many struggle in theirrelationships with their parents
and are estranged from theirchildren, and so we're not
different in that regard, andrelationships shouldn't and
can't be guaranteed, but accessto factual information should be
(29:51):
.
And why is that important?
Because if you're going to godown that trail, if you're going
to try to find out who you are,and you need an anchoring piece
in the DNA databases, becauseif you're free floating, it's
very, very difficult to figureout where you land, unless you
luck, you luck out, somebodypops up as a parent or as a
(30:11):
sibling.
Otherwise you're kind of freefloating in a, in a turbulent
current, you know, until you cananchor it in some family.
That's what you have to be ableto do.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
So tell us a little bit about anchoring yourself, or
the lack of an anchor, and whatdid you do to, you know, kind
of move yourself through thisjourney to recovery?
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, and so for myself, what I'm going to say is
going into the whole thing.
You know, back in 2000, I wasnot in a good place with good
coping mechanisms to deal withthe blow that hit me.
And I'm going to say, the piecethat I was missing, I'm going
to say, is my spiritual health.
And because of that lack ofspiritual health and what I mean
(30:55):
by that is my ability to usespiritual tools and techniques
to help me cope, as opposed tolooking for numbing techniques
such as alcohol and drugs toavoid.
I felt heavy on the alcohol,drugs and want to avoid side of
it.
I was putting on a good face, Iwas putting on like this is all
(31:16):
just on one big adventure.
But you know, inside I wasgetting pretty chewed up and
struggling quite a bit with itand had a hard time with it and
I was shutting people out.
So, from that standpoint, as Iwent, what I saw for myself,
once I discovered, once Istarted going through the
identification, through some ofthe reunion pieces, through the
(31:39):
assembly of a new identity,trying to figure out how to put
pieces together in a puzzle,that now at least I was looking
at pieces that belonged in thatpuzzle and I wasn't trying to
fit pieces that didn't belong inthat puzzle.
What I can say is in retrospect, I was continually increasing
my alcohol use significantly andshortly after I finished the
(32:02):
first complete swipe on the book, I came to terms with the fact
that I did not have control overmy drinking and I needed to go
through a treatment program.
And I did so.
I went through an out initiallyan outpatient treatment program
.
I went through an AA programand it really helped me develop
and find those additional copingmechanisms and tools that
(32:25):
helped me manage my day-to-dayliving.
And that becomes importantbecause I think sometimes, as I
start talking about spiritualtools and yeah, I'm talking
about maybe faith, maybe faithis a tool that you use, maybe a
gratitude list is a tool thatyou use and I'm saying all these
are tools, I'm not saying thatthey're gospel, I'm saying
they're tools.
And so when I bring it up,sometimes people will counter
(32:49):
with you know you're justavoiding trying to heal.
You know you're running awayfrom it, you're not facing the
pain that you have and lettingthe pain, you know, become
internalized and healed.
No, I'm trying to deal with thepain.
I don't need to be submerged inthe pain 24-7.
As a matter of fact, I don'twant to be submerged in the pain
(33:11):
24-7.
I want to have the bestpossible life I can.
So at times in between myhealing, when I'm ready to heal,
I work on healing.
When, psychologically, I'm justnot there, I just don't, and
maybe that's when I'm using someof those spiritual tools to
help me cope.
So my number one recommendationin hindsight if to anybody, if
(33:35):
you're pulling out of the fog,if you discover you're suddenly
adopted, if you have an MPE,assess your coping mechanisms,
because you're going to be infor a rough ride.
You're going to be in for abumpy ride.
You're going to have to havesomething that's going to hold
you together, not pull you apart.
So I'd really encourage anybodyto check that out.
If you find your firstinclination to, you wouldn't
(33:57):
believe what I heard pour us adrink.
That's probably not a good sign, you know.
And what I'm going to say isget that under control first,
because there's a good shot.
You'll mess a lot of things upas you go through it.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Well, it'll become your go-to right, and I loved
the way that you position thatas, instead of coping on the
numbing experience and there's alot of ways to do that there's,
you know, as you said, for youalcohol, there's drugs and
there's, you know, other vices,I would say as well.
I think it's just a really goodlived experience to share out
(34:35):
that in the early stages ofwhatever journey you're on, or
whatever stage of the journeythat you're on, know what they
are.
I don't know, even for myself,if I know what all of my good
tools are.
I would say every day that Ineed a new tool anyway.
Just for me.
There's, you know, there's alot of things that I wish I
(34:56):
could do differently or behavedifferently, so you have to be
very pragmatic about that.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah, and I'm the first to admit that I my initial
reaction and I would say I'velearned a lot more about myself
and I can see that many timesI'm reacting out of old wounds
that just didn't heal upproperly and it will create
responses that maybe could behandled better if maybe some of
(35:24):
those other tools were in place.
Some of those.
You know one of the things Iremember, you know, going
through AA, pause you, justbefore you react, you just stop,
think about it, put it on theback burner, decide you're not
going to decide till tomorrow,let it stew, let the emotion
work through itself.
You know, I mean that's justanother tool, a gratitude list.
(35:47):
I'm feeling down, I'mfrustrated, I can't get anywhere
.
Just start thinking about youknow what is good.
Well, so far, at least now I'mdealing with reality, at least
now I know I'm adopted, now Ihave a birth mother.
You know I do have my own.
You know you can start to buildthat.
And you know one of the thingsthat a counselor told me and he
(36:08):
would say Fred, where's yourgratitude list?
I was like I took it as anegative thing Like, are you
trying to punish me?
No, he wasn't trying to punishme.
He was trying to help me learnhow to redirect my emotional
well-being, how to get out of ahole and then come at it later
from a different angle, but notbe stuck in it, not be ruled by
it, and that's what I think somany of the tools from recovery
(36:31):
as I went through the I'm goingto say, the healing process in
adoption, coming to terms withwho I was, what I was, where I
came from and how that impactedme, those tools came in very
handy and they were lifesavers.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Yeah, I could see some great value to some of
those.
And I wonder, in the context ofthe gratitude list, you're not
insinuating gratitude for beingadopted or right?
That is an entirely differenttopic.
I would never want ourlisteners to pull that together.
As you know, I'm trying to begrateful for the situation, it's
(37:07):
just grateful for life.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah, yeah, at the end of the day, I am not the
adoption.
The adoption is an experiencethat has affected me.
So from that standpoint, youknow when I talk about a
gratitude list, there's manyother aspects in my life and
what I try to do on those timeswhen sometimes it just gets
overwhelming, I reach into thoseother areas of my life.
(37:32):
I have children of my own.
I can start thinking about that.
I can look at other aspects.
I live out in a rural area.
I love being rural, I lovewalking my dog, I love being by
Lake Michigan, I love walking onthe beach.
I can think of those otheraspects in my life that aren't
where I'm stuck right now.
I mean because that's whathappens, I think and that's why
(37:52):
I call it stuck in the muck is Isaw within myself I would just
get stuck there for so long Ididn't have the tools to help
get me unstuck.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
I like that.
So I always ask this questionand I never tell my guests I'm
going to ask it and if you'velistened, you might not already
know what I'm going to say.
But if there was one thing,fred, in this conversation today
which has been fantastic thatyou would have liked me to ask
you or you would have liked usto have touched upon, what would
that be?
Speaker 2 (38:23):
You know, I'd say, if there's anything else, respect
your own journey, for whateverit is.
You know, I think too manytimes it's easy and comfortable
to fall into I'm going to saythe trap of like well, they did
it this way, or I don't want tohurt these people, or whatever.
(38:46):
I mean.
I think your journey is goingto be your journey and it's time
to push your push.
When it's time to back off,back off, I would say the one
little asterisk I'm going to puton that is never forget.
People die and people changetheir minds.
So if you have access tosomething, there is that
(39:06):
pressure on there.
But at the same time I'm goingto say you need to balance that
against yourself.
And if you're not ready to moveinto a new corner, maybe you're
not ready to meet yourbiological mother, maybe you
don't want to really meet yoursiblings, Maybe you don't want
to go to the graveyards of yourancestors.
You know, maybe you don't needto see your original birth
(39:26):
certificate today.
If it doesn't feel right, don'tdo it.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
That is a great perspective.
I love that and I love to therespect your journey.
I might steal that sometime.
I got this great level ofinformation from this great
guest friend and you know somuch to take away, but a nugget
just respect your journey.
Well, I want to thank you forbeing with us today.
(39:51):
One more plug for your book.
It'll be in the show notes.
It is Forbidden Roots.
It was released in October of2022.
I have read it.
It's a great read and I lovethat.
That.
It is the perspective of a malewhich we need more of that to
come out in our community.
Forbidden Roots, fred Nicora.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Thank you, lisa, I really appreciate it and thank
your listenership.
I appreciate the opportunity totell my story.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Thank you for listening to today's episode.
Make sure to rate, review andshare.
Want to join the conversation?
Contact us atwanderingtreeadoptdcom.
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.