Out Of The Fog & Beyond With Becca Wellington

I need it.

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Adoptees Podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Becca, Becca Wellington, all the way from Seattle. So we're, we're 6,000 miles away, or about 18 inches away from on the show on the screen. That's spooky, isn't it?

Yes.

Yes. So, um, fellow adoptee Becca, um, we were talking about what we're going to talk about And most adoptee podcasts are about stories, whereas Thriving Adoptees try to make it about insights or epiphanies. And Becca said, ah, I've got a very clear idea about epiphanies. So tell us more.

Um, okay, I will just get right into it. So, um, can I start with sort of some backstory that leads up to the epiphany?

You, you can, by all means. Yeah.

Yeah. So I was adopted, um, at 2 days old in the state of California, United States, in 1975, which is kind of like right at the precipice of, uh, domestic adoptions in the United States. And at a time when adoptions were super closed, um, sealed, like the, the policy was to seal records and falsify birth certificates and then just move the baby from one, you know, community to another and pretend like it never happened and just move on.

Yeah.

Uh, and so that's what happened to me. Um, And I grew up knowing I was adopted, but also, you know, living in this paradigm that this was the best thing that happened. I heard again and again, you should be grateful. And I was grateful. I was given a lot of opportunities. My parents were loving people and had a lot of resources, which opened a lot of doors for me. Um, but I, uh, just went through my life until I was about 40, 41. Let's see, uh, 2017. So about 41, uh, believing that it really wasn't a big deal. Being adopted is not a big deal. I won the lottery. Everything's great. Don't overthink it. Like, these are not the droids you're looking for, right?

Right.

That's what I always go to. And I really have come to sort of see that whole time, there were a lot of joys, a lot of struggles in my family. where nobody was connected biologically. Um, I, I think of that time as sort of like living in the Matrix. I guess people call it red-pilling a bit. Um, and then my epiphany happened in 2017, so I was about 41 years old. Um, my older sister, who's also adopted, And who was adopted pretty much at birth, also in the state of California, and who struggled with addiction throughout her life. She gave a child up for adoption. She lost custody of a child that she was raising. So she had enormous trauma in her life. And In 2017, she died of a drug overdose. And that was— I just keep thinking of that scene in The Matrix. I love The Matrix, where Keanu Reeves' character literally gets the cord pulled out of his head, right? falls out of the Matrix, right, into the real world. And that was me.

Yeah.

I mean, it didn't happen that immediately. It was through the next, I would say, year of doing really intensive grief counseling as a result of my sister's really brutal death, um, really, really hard traumatic death. That my— the cord kind of slowly got pulled out. But even a year compared to having lived in it for 40 years, it felt incredibly jarring.

Yeah.

And I'm still coming out of it, right? I'm still recovering from that. So, so that was my epiphany moment. Was her death.

Was her death.

And the fallout.

And coming, coming out of the fog, but in a bit more brutal way than most of us do.

Yes. And I'm just, I, I have, as a result of that, um, I shared with you in a previous conversation, you know, part of my therapy, not the epiphany, but the recovery space after that epiphany involved doing a lot of writing that my grief counselor encouraged me to do. And that evolved into a book that I have coming out in the spring of 2024 called Who Is a Worthy Mother? An Intimate History of Adoption. And so the, the, yeah, the recovery was was writing and trying to understand the fog, I guess. And, and on a kind of macro level, how did I grow up in this fog? Where did this fog come from? We've all been living in it, you know? And then in the process of kind of recovering, I've been communicating more with adoption communities and learning like that there's this thing called the fog. And I'm like, oh yeah. That, that makes a lot of sense.

So, um, first off, when you shared me— shared the story of, of your sister last time we spoke back in May, uh, it, it, it, it, it floored me. And I'm, I'm just about listening to, to the story 6 years after it. So what, what the hell it did to you at the time, I can't even imagine to Believe so. My heart goes out to you.

Thank you. Yeah, yeah, it's hard. It's really hard to lose somebody in that way. Uh, there's— I think there can be good death. I've had people die in my life who are older, and it's peaceful and it's beautiful, right? And it can be a time to celebrate and remember. This was This was brutal, and there was no celebration afterwards. It was the, the way I described it in my book is my sister and I were both born in silence, right? Because adoption, particularly historically, was all about silencing, right? Just closing it off, silencing it happened, shaming, you know. And then she died in silence as well. There was so much shame. And hurt around her death that it was just shut down by my family. So it was hard. It was not a good way for somebody to— for somebody's life to end. But because it was so painful, it really was a catalyst for a very strong epiphany. I think it took that level of jarring to kind of wake me up out of the fog to say, to realize, uh, no, being adopted is significant and impactful, and there's always trauma around it. And to deny that and to think it— you can just transfer a baby from one person to another and close it and silence it and shut it down. That, that's not gonna have residual impact. It's insane. Now looking back, I'm like, this is insane. But, um, I really was like swimming in that fog for a very long time, believing those narratives that this was a good thing. It was done in the best interest for everybody. Just be quiet and move on.

So I, I've heard the coming out of the fog as the subconscious becoming conscious. How does, how does that stack for you?

That totally stacks. You know, one of the things that I've really kind of been doing a lot of work— I've done a lot of work on myself since coming out of the fog, kind of like we're— you were just making this distinction between the epiphany and then the sort of the healing that comes after the epiphany. And one of the strategies or things that I have leaned into since coming out of the fog, the subconscious rising to the conscious, is really looking at, uh, Gabor Maté's work, you know, how trauma impacts the body. And I have lived with Crohn's most of my adult life, which is a genetic disease. So it's kind of interesting, right? I inherited that from my, you know, my biological ancestors, whoever they are. And I lived with a lot of pain and a lot of, like, physical pain and discomfort. For a lot of my life. And now I'm realizing I'm, I'm doing better now physically because I think the subconscious, everything that had been suppressed, is coming out, right? There's an awareness, and, and that allows for healing, like, in, in my head, but also literally physically.

I mean, I think of that word a lot as well, that suppression, suppress word. Do you think there is a suppressor?

A suppressor, like a, like a, like an energy or, um, an element?

Like, there's, uh, I might be being a bit uh, too complicated here. So if I am, just tell me to ask a different, different question. I'm quite happy. I'm, I'm at my edge here, right? So suppression has happened.

Mm-hmm.

Or, or has it happened? You know, who knows? The conscious has been— the subconscious has become conscious. Is there a suppressor? You know, is there, you know, like a ghost in the machine? saying, no, Becca can't handle this. No, Simon can't handle this. Let's keep it, let's keep it damp down. Let's keep it suppressed.

Like— I, I see it more from a sort of policy perspective. I think, I think, and this is kind of something I get to in my book, is I believe that it's really rooted around the commodification of fertility and sort of levels of power in— and I focus on American society, right? So I think this is happening in many different societies. I've read quite a bit about adoption, assimilation and adoption in Australia. But so in the United States, there's just been this history of taking babies from women who are deemed unworthy for different reasons, largely connected to race, class, access, and privilege, and moving them to women who are deemed as worthy mothers. And so I think You know, on a deep level, there is a system of commodifying babies so that those who, again, around trauma of fertility, who cannot have their own children, can get access to children to create an image that society tells particularly women they need to create. create this family, right? And, and the— at the root of that again is this transaction of a baby from one to another. And so I think there's— in order to, to make it palatable for companies and organizations, adoption organizations, to actually commodify the adoption of babies and earn money in doing that, there has to be a level of suppression in society. or a silencing around the trauma of adoption to, to make it palatable for people to buy into it, right? To say, yeah, oh, this is great, right?

Yeah.

It's okay to do this. There's nothing wrong with doing this. This is great for the baby. Everybody wins. The suppression has to exist for that to happen.

So can I, can I take— I, I— can I take you back to the micro picture?

Yes.

Yeah, is that okay?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because I'm, I'm thinking how that— I, I'm, I'm thinking about what you and I did and what other adoptees did and, or, or, or the suppression that happened within us.

Yes.

You know, that's this— so the subconscious has become conscious in, uh, with a shattering impact. So what, what, what do you think comes after the fog? There's, there's an appreciation of the trauma.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and what else? What, what comes next? What, what, what has come next for you in, in your healing journey?

So I kind of, I kind of lean into the, the journey that I went on. Well, because it kind of happened simultaneously, the death of my sister. You know, dovetailed with this coming out of the fog, right? So it's almost like I was grieving 2, 2 deaths. And so does that make sense?

It, it does.

Identity belief that everything's great, this is perfect, there's no problem, to, you know, what I experienced really was traumatic. and really problematic. And then the worst part is the silencing around it, that nobody talks about it. I think that sort of compounds the trauma, right? And that's part of the suppression. But so what has helped me is realizing that, you know, the way anybody goes through grief, it's like a cycle. It's a cycle. Like, you have to— You have to feel it and go through it. There's no way to avoid it, right? You kind of have to ride the wave of it.

This is the Kubler-Ross curve, right?

Yeah. And you can't, you just have to, you have hard days and then you have great days and it takes a lot of time.

And, and that Kubler-Ross curve. Um, it's, yeah, Kubler-Ross. I'll put a, uh, I'll put a link to a description in the show notes, uh, listeners, right? Um, so she's, she, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross came, that came up with this curve and it looks a bit like a horseshoe, right? With a big trough.

Okay. Um, and, and this is around grief healing, sort of. Recovering from grief. Is that—

That's— it's a grief curve. Yeah, it's a grief curve. Um, and she doesn't say anything about how long it takes, how long to skip the stages. So it's kind of useful to a certain point, but then, yeah, but it's not a timetable, right? It's not like a bus timetable that's gonna say—

No, it's different for everybody. And you can think you're doing great and then something Triggers you. Yeah. And you feel terrible and you, it's like you take 10 steps back and then you move ahead and then you take, yeah, it's, I mean, it's a maddening experience and you have to really feel what you're feeling and honor what you're feeling and, um, and, and ride that wave or that horseshoe roller coaster.

There's, um, I had an adoptive mum on the show called Beth Syverson, who runs Unraveling Adoption podcast, and she talked about, um, an adoptive mother coming out of the fog, which I thought was a very interesting one.

Yeah, because, well, we're all in the fog. That's the thing. That's part of the suppression. Everybody's in it to participate in it, you know. Yeah.

So what— so, uh, so it's, it's fog, it's awareness of the trauma, it's understanding this Kubler-Ross curve. It's one step forward, 10 steps back, one step forward, 3 steps back, uh, eternal snakes and ladders. Um, and, and what else? What else does it look like? What else has been your experience of this?

Um, well, what's been really important for me is to do— to tell stories. Like, I think it's just phenomenal that there are people out there like yourself and others who are— who have podcasts where people can share their experiences. Like, that in itself is just sort of like a macro level coming out of the fog. Does that make sense? Just in the storytelling, that is profoundly important that voices are heard. And kind of something that's really important to me is the truth-telling around it because The fog and the suppression, right, is totally dependent upon silencing. So how do you, how do you solve for that? Or how do you respond to that? Is you share story, you talk about it, you bring it to the surface, and you, you talk about your, your experiences. And, and you, you put, you amplify voices. So that there's no longer silencing around it. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think that's like the heart. That's where I'm at right now. That's like what is most healing to me.

So writing your own story down and sharing it with others and listening to other people's stories.

And listening to other people's stories. And realizing that so many people in the United States, around the world, right, are adopted and have experienced this or have adopted a child or have a partner who's adopted. Like, we are all connected to these stories. So, like, you're not alone in the experience. Right? That is huge.

That's huge. Have you had any? So we've had a huge yeah. Have any huge healing moments yet?

Um. I think I've had lots of little healing moments. I feel like in some ways I'm so new to coming out of the fog that I need a little more time to reflect back. I, I guess—

Tell us about the little ones then.

Well, I think one of the, one of the biggest ones, at least right now, that's sort of on a really conscious level that I'm thinking a lot about is that, um, that my, my book, which is a— it's a historical memoir, right, talking about my adoption journey. And the, the memoir part really is a lot about coming out of the fog on a very personal level. But I dovetail that with sort of the history and the policy that, that Explains the fog. It just blew me away that a publisher, an academic press, would want to publish this story. I mean, and that's how much I'm sort of in the fog still. I still, in the back of my mind, I'm like, this is not an important story. It's not legitimate. It's not it's not real, like my suffering isn't real, or that adoption is traumatic. There's still that old sort of mantra, these are not the droids you're looking for. This is not an— this is not a problem. And so it just blew my mind that the press, the University of Oklahoma Press, which is an amazing academic press, would say Yeah, this is, this is an important story to tell. That really was some— that was so much validation. Um, that was like really pulling the veil off my eyes, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I'm seeing, I'm seeing 2, 2 parts of the fog, the way, the way that you see the fog, the way that you're expressing the fog to me. I've only seen one type of fog, right? So I've seen psychological fog, right? So subconscious becomes conscious.

Yeah.

That's something that's going on within me, right?

Yeah.

I've, I've only seen A micro-level fog. Yeah. What, what you're talking about is a cultural fog.

Yes, yes.

Um, now I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm expressing those as 2 separate things, but it would seem to me that where you're saying— what is what you're saying, that they're intertwined?

Absolutely. What do you think influences our Micro-level personal experience with, with the way we see the world. So much of it is what we're told, right? And what we hear. You know, I think there is a really deep connection between the two because that sort of that macro level, the, the society, societal paradigms. Totally inform what we think about ourselves, how we see ourselves, how we think other people see us, what we think is good and what we think is bad, and what we think is right and wrong. And all the stories that we tell ourselves that either keep us in the fog or pull us out, it comes from external sources, right? It comes from the world around us. And so Uh, I'll go back to, I think, as more stories are told, like the stories on your podcast, right? And in, and in books and in, I mean, there's some amazing books that are coming out about adoption too. And, um, as those stories go out into the world, it will transform individual adoptees' experiences with coming out of the fog.

Yeah.

Does that make sense? Yeah, I really believe—

yeah, it does. Um, I'm, I'm— I was, as you were talking, I was thinking, yeah, this is, this is, uh, you know, like a belief shift for Simon. Yeah, I'm seeing 2 things and you're saying one thing. Yeah, yeah, Becca's right. I get this. And, and I was also thinking, I'm trying to think of a, a parallel. I was thinking of it like a, another kind of trauma thing, another trauma source, another source of trauma, um, and, and how that was. And, uh, yeah. Uh, so I spoke to, um, I spoke to a friend of a friend of a friend, all right? And I've known this guy a long time actually, but he's like, he's the son of a friend of a friend, but he's now like 40 and he's got kids and he's getting divorced. And he heard that we have a property that we rent out, right? So he was getting in touch to see whether you know, whether we could accommodate him, how much it was going to cost. And I know he's going through a divorce. And I asked him how the kids were. He was like, my kids are fine. And I just thought that was a very quick answer.

Yeah.

How much, you know, I don't know his kids. I don't know the story, but he was very quick, and and and and and the like the tone of how he said it was very dismissive. And I just thought, is that the truth? Is is is this guy throwing it off? Like it's not. I don't know the truth, but he didn't he didn't seem to take a break. You know, like. Yeah, I know a bit of— I know a bit about this lad, and I know a little bit about why the divorce probably happened. And I'm thinking, well, you know, like, hmm. But anyway, I was trying to come up with a— I was trying to come up with a similar, a similar thing. Can you think of a similar?

Sort of the, how the coming out of the fog happens on a societal level versus like a personal level?

Yeah. Um, so, all right, I've got one. Like, um, smoking. I've got one. Smoking, right? So for, for, uh, doctors used to advertise smoking.

Yeah. Yeah, it's good for you.

Yeah, you'll never be alone with a Strand, apparently. Yeah, right. It's good for you and it's going to help you win friends and influence people because you're never going to be alone.

That's quite a vibe.

You, you sad, miserable git, you need one of our cigarettes to get some friends. You know, this was the messaging going on in the '60s right here. So, but there was a, there was a time You know, when, when people— the shift in— the shift in coming out of the fog about lung cancer took a while.

Right. And also—

People still smoke, right? People still smoke.

The culture of smoking, how that manifests in a personal level, like in a house. Like when I was a kid, I had friends who we'd get in the car and there's a parent in the car smoking. And there's, you know, 3 8-year-olds in the back. That was great. There was no problem with that. That would not fly today, right? So that's a great parallel, right? So you have this societal story. This is good. This is okay. This is good parenting versus this is now harmful to your child.

Yeah.

In your sort of private world, you don't do this. You know, we've had a huge, yeah, huge shift in how we see it.

We can see it. And, um, you know, it took him—

I want to say one other thing because the smoking one, that's such a great— I mean, the, the story around the whistleblowing with the top tobacco companies in the States, it's just a Phenomenal story. And the kind of the narrative behind all of that, that shift was how much I think gaslighting was happening. Gaslighting, which is kind of a big word now, but I think that gaslighting is a huge piece of that, of, of maintaining the fog, right? Is literally saying what you're experiencing or what you're thinking is not true. I feel sick when I'm in the car and 4 people are smoking. That's not a problem. What's wrong with you? Smoking is good for you. And now it's like, whoa, okay, this is why I feel terrible when I'm in the car and 4 people are smoking.

So back to the adoption stuff. Uh, where's the hope?

Well, so I just realized something when you were talking about your friend. You asked me the biggest parts of healing.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Have I had big moments of healing? And I feel really embarrassed that I did not share this, but the biggest thing that put me on this journey of healing, and it happened right before my sister died, actually. So it was kind of like leading up to the big unplugging was I had 2 of my own children, biological children. And, and having those 2 children and, and meeting somebody that I'm biologically related to for the first time in my life just was profound. And I, in listening to Stories, podcasts, and, you know, reading stories. I know that, that a lot of people have had a similar— adoptees have had a similar transformative experience when they have their own biological children. It really shifts how they thought about the world and sort of their experiences. And for me, that was a massive Shift.

And how did that affect your beliefs around adoption?

So the biggest thing— I, the first night I came home after my first daughter was born, I had like a crazy out-of-body experience. And I had just had a very long labor and a very Very traumatic emergency C-section where her heart was— heart rate was plummeting. And, you know, I was wheeled briskly, wheeled into the emergency room and like they cut me open. It's crazy. I mean, they cut me open and I could still feel like they had to do it so fast. And this was after 38 hours of labor. Wow. So my body was just trashed. literally had— that was the most physical trauma I've ever experienced, like real physical trauma. Um, and, and 2 nights later we came home and I'm holding my baby and I had this like unbelievable awareness. And it wasn't even like cognitive, it was more like physical awareness. That, and maybe this sounds crazy, Simon, but I knew unconditionally as a fact that when I was born and my birth mother gave me up, she gave birth to me and then handed me off. It was phenomenally traumatic for her. It was probably one of the hardest things that's ever happened to her. I don't know her. I've never talked to her, but I was just like, how could it not? And and I had been told my whole life that she didn't want me. She like kicked me at the curb and drove drove away and continued on with her life, and everything was wonderful. And I'm like, there's no way. So it was like. That fog, like, just gone. I can't believe that anymore because it's just not true.

And how did that impact your view of yourself?

Wow, that's a really good question that I've never— my view of myself. Yeah. I think it was for the first time I, I really understood that, that there's a, that I experienced a lot of trauma and was part of a pretty traumatic event at birth that is still impacting me. And I, and I gotta do some work and figure this out. And then, and then especially as I was this brand new mom, and I'm like, and then it was like, oh my God, I'm a mom and my birth mom couldn't mother me for whatever, whatever reasons. Like, can I do this? She couldn't do it. Can I do it? It was like this huge wake-up call. Like, I've gotta, I've gotta figure this out or else I'm gonna this will, this will tear me down, you know. And I wanted to really be a really present mother, and I knew I had to really look at this stuff and do some healing. So that I could really enjoy being a mother because there was so much trauma around it for me, I realized. So yeah, that was— I can't believe I didn't think of that originally. But yeah.

Yeah. Are you seeing any gap between you and your trauma?

I think, I think probably there are times where I, you know, I have big feelings and I kind of have to take a break and, you know, I lean into work or I, you know, distract myself. And then there are times where I look at things. You know, I think it's kind of like the, the horseshoe. I forget the name. The, the, the—

Kubler-Ross.

Yeah, the Kubler-Ross. Sometimes you have to dive into it and sometimes you have to take a break, and sometimes you have to get close to it and sometimes you have to take a break. So I think it depends on where I'm at, you know, and what's happening in my world, what I'm, what I'm able in that moment to kind of look at and take on and feel. You know, because sometimes it's scary to have those big feelings.

Yeah, and that's why they were suppressed.

Yes, because it's— yeah, it's— and that's why, you know, also in this journey, as I've been reading a lot about adoption, and I actually just had a wonderful phone conversation with Laura Engel, who you connected me with. She's lovely. Amazing. A birth mother. Amazing, amazing story. I mean, listening to her story, that brought up a lot of feelings for me, Simon. That was— it was hard and good to listen to her story, um, from her side as a birth mother. But, um, my point in sharing about her was She, oh my gosh, I just had a total, like, it's gone. Yeah, it's, it's a journey. It's, I'll just say it's an emotional journey, you know, riding that wave of grief.

What, what do you think the opposite of suppressing is?

I think feeling it, right? Feeling your feelings and, and having, but doing it in a way that your feelings are legitimized. You're not crazy for feeling what you're feeling. It's okay to feel what you feel.

Yeah. Well, that's the point of the stories, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So one of the most profound before and after stories I've heard, as in coming out the fog on the healing journey, healing journey. One of the most profound things I've heard from, um, have you heard, have you heard, have you come across Pamela Karanova on your—

Yes, yeah, yeah, I've connected with her. I've, I listened to her interview with you Yeah, uh, I, I— maybe she's done a couple. I heard one of her interviews on your podcast. She's amazing.

Yeah, she's— yeah, she— we've just done one interview together, so, um, the one that you've heard too, and it comes from that. So did anything land for you? Because I'm gonna, I'm gonna point, I'm, I'm gonna point towards what she said that I think is the most significant thing for our conversation today.

Okay.

But I, before I do that, I want to ask you whether you spotted it first, because like, it's clear as mud to me. It's not clear as mud. It's clear as daylight to me. But you know, like, you're, you're not, you're not—

Help me, because I'm trying to remember her. I mean, I just remember her. I mean, she really like redefined her life. Like she recreated her life. I just remember that she moved. She, um, but you got to tell me. I'm not— I'm—

So, um, you tell me. She did the opposite of suppressing.

Yeah.

So she'd been numbing with booze.

Yes, I remember that.

She'd been numbing with booze. So it was, uh, conscious, intentional suppression.

Yes.

So I wasn't, I wasn't doing the suppression on purpose. You weren't doing the suppression on purpose. There was no suppressor, right?

Yeah.

She was doing it on purpose.

Yeah.

Her feelings were so bad, she was consciously numbing them, and she knew she was numbing them.

Yeah.

But then she stopped numbing them.

Yeah.

She stopped, she stopped numbing them because she had an insight, and the insight was I can, I can lean in. I can lean in to these feelings. Or maybe it was a post-rationalization. I'm, I may be out some, but the big thing, the big thing was she leant in to her feelings.

Yeah.

And, and, and the transformation happened. Healing transformation happened after that.

Yeah, yeah.

Because we live in a world where trauma is scary.

Yes.

So we try and push it away.

Yeah.

But if we bring it in, if we lean in, we bring into it.

Yeah.

We bring it in close.

Yeah.

And so I I have felt that trauma is gonna envelop me and drown me.

Yeah.

But then I've— but then I've gone out on the surfboard.

Yeah.

I couldn't do this really because I can't— I'm not very, um, good with my balance. That's why this metaphor and that, but I, I thought I was gonna drown in the trauma.

Yeah.

And then I didn't.

Yeah, because you— are you saying you didn't drown actually because you let it in?

You let yourself do it intentionally?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was my experience.

I saw something. I didn't do an affirmation, didn't write it in my mirror. You are not going to drown of your trauma, Simon. Yeah, actually what happened for me is, is a, uh, was a profound decoupling from my trauma.

Uh, and what was the catalyst for that? What, and what opened the door for that to happen?

Loads of them. There's been loads of them. Most of them don't make any sense to anybody. Apart from when I tell the story about reading the letter from my birth mother about the teddy bear. And I was kind of asking you a similar question earlier on, but you didn't— you didn't— you went a different route, right? So what happened for me, the teddy bear is this consolation prize. Mm-hmm. She didn't love me enough to. She didn't effing love me enough to effing keep me, but she gave me this effing teddy bear as an effing consolation prize. Okay.

Right.

That's when I'm forty. Loads of other healings along that way between between the ages of forty. And 48, and loads more healing since. And I'm 56 and still healing moments now. But 48, when I'm 48, I read the letter. I read the letter from her to the social worker about the takeaway, and the tears cascade down my face and they wash away I had 20 seconds of anger towards my birth mother and 20 seconds of fear in a therapy room, probably another 4 years later. But that's— it was— it wasn't chronic. It was really confined to 20-second moments of the most intense fear and anger I've ever Wow. Washed away by, by reading the letter about the teddy bear, when it becomes clear to me that the teddy bear is a symbol of her love.

Yeah.

Not a consolation. When I realized that I was totally wrong in those 20 seconds of anger towards her and totally wrong In the belief that she did effing love me enough to effing keep me.

Yeah.

Totally and utterly effing wrong.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think there's a very strong parallel between that story and me sitting on the floor in my home with a 2-day-old baby in my arms and having this profound realization. Because part of that realization was she did love me. You can't birth a baby with, you know, carry a baby. She did love me and she didn't give me away because she hated me and she didn't, you know, she just wanted to live her life. So similar epiphany that was just profoundly powerful and hard to feel and just There's no coming back from that. You just— it's such a huge shift. And I didn't— I didn't— when I was pregnant and preparing to give birth, I had no idea that that was gonna happen. I didn't walk into it thinking I'm gonna have this experience. I, I had no idea. So it came outta like, you know, left field, hit me on the head.

Yeah. Yeah.

I do remember what I was gonna say about Laura, the great conversation I had with Laura Engel, who's a birth mother, wrote a beautiful book about her experiencing reconnecting with her son, her biological son, who then passed away. Um, she, she echoed Some of the research that I've been learning more about around addiction with adoptees. And she spoke about that because her son who was adopted, uh, died, um, of, uh, an, I believe, an overdose and, um, was a, an addict very similar to my sister. And I think, you know, talking about suppression. And, um, um, oh my goodness, I just spaced on her name. The amazing woman who was— Laura. Yeah, well, not Laura. No, the, uh, Pablo.

Yeah, yeah.

That's a very common theme for adoptees is to intentionally suppress with, with medication. You know, drugs or lots of things, you know, stress, work, other things too. There's lots of ways humans have learned to, you know, self-medicate, um, so that we don't have to feel what we're feeling.

Yeah.

And I think coming out of the fog is Finding ways to feel those things in a way where you're supported and you can feel them and, and not be shattered by them, you know, and move on.

Yeah. Can I share some? So I did another podcast, uh, recording yesterday and I released it already, um, released it this morning. But we came up with that— the adoptee and I were chatting about what comes after the fog, and we came— we extended the metaphor, like what actually happens. And I was— I came up with it on the spur of the moment, or we came up with a spur of the moment based on the sharing of experience and learnings and stuff like that. Uh, and I just thought, um, do you want it? Do you want me to run it, see what you think of it? Because I'm—

Sure.

Yeah, so we come out of the fog.

Yeah.

And, and we become aware, uh, of the storm clouds of trauma that were hidden by the fog, right? So the fog's underneath We're on, we're standing on the earth. The fog's hugging us and above us, but between us and these storm clouds. The fog lifts, the storm clouds are there. We can see the trauma. Yeah, we can see there, we can see the trauma. And there's a tiny, the black, there's a tiny blue window in the black clouds of trauma. We're drawn to that light, we're drawn to that little bit of blue. For some reason, it catches our eyes and we're drawn to it. And we, we have a leap of faith, a leap of consciousness. And we head towards that blue window. And then we— and we— so we travel through the trauma, uh, we travel through the trauma clouds, and we merge in with the blue sky above, and we look down and we can see that we're the— we're the sky. And our trauma is below us and behind us.

Hmm. I think that's a great metaphor. I think it's, I think one part of it that I really like is that you go towards the trauma. You have to go into, right, to get to that. I know you have to go into that. Those storm clouds, right? To get through them.

Yeah. You know, um, I like the way you extended that. Yeah.

Yeah. And I also think, and I don't know, I again feel like I'm really new on this journey. I don't even think I'm remotely like through the window yet. I don't know, maybe I'm heading towards the window But I don't know if we ever just leave those storm clouds in the past. I think we might be on the other side of them, but they're—

Okay.

One thing I'm thinking is they're always part of us, right? That's always gonna be part of our story. And, and then—

And are we actually—

Huh?

Are we our story?

Are we our story? Well, yeah, I mean, that's a good question. But I have to, I have to say, from my perspective, I will always be an adoptee. Like, I can't change that. What I can do is sort of change how I see it or change my perspective on it. and my relationship to it. But I will always be an adoptee, and I did experience trauma around that. Um, so it's not like I want to get rid of it. I guess I'm— there's a part of me that's sort of holding on to it in that it's, it's kind of helping me step into redefining myself in a really good way. And it's an important part of, of who I am. I, for the first time in my life, I'm saying I'm an adoptee and, and, and I'm okay identifying as an adoptee, right? It's not something I'm ashamed of. Seriously, Simon, most of my life I didn't tell people.

Mm-hmm.

Because I was so— I bought part of the fog was I really was ashamed and I worked so hard to just fit into my adopted family, to look like them, to act like them, so nobody would ask. And I did. I was able to pass because I looked enough like them, same, same race.

And, um, yeah, can I go back to my metaphor to finish the story then? Based on— well, not finish it, but add another layer to the story on, um, because you're right. So we've, I, I, I, we've gone towards, and we've done what Pamela did, right? We've, we've gone straight into it and, and we've gone straight into it and we've, we've come through this little blue window and we've merged with the sky and we're looking down and we can see that we are not our trauma. That's quite a big thing, right?

Yeah.

This is, yeah, we are not our trauma. And, and then eventually those clouds pass, right? And, and then another weather front moves in.

Yeah.

From the west. Okay.

Right.

And, and it's not as scary.

No, exactly.

It, it looks, it looks exactly the same, but it feels differently. It feels different. We're not As scared by it. And then he goes, and then they— and then another, another, and then it goes blue sky again, and then another trauma kind of comes in and it's worse. Yeah, somehow it's worse. Yeah, but then—

We've got— but I think the act of going through that journey is what allows us to experience those next layer of clouds in a different way because they're no longer on top of us. We're sort of on top of them.

Yeah, yeah. And, and it's a metaphor, right? But the, the big thing is, are we identifying with the sky Or the cloud?

You know, I think this is so— everybody has to sort of thread this needle or go through this investigation in their own way, right? All of our stories are so different. Um, I think for me, um, I can't be the sky without the clouds. Does that make sense? They are a part of my identity. The— my journey is a part of my identity. Um.

Do the clouds damage the sky?

No, no, I don't think so. I'd agree with you. Yeah, I think, I think the gift I'm seeing is that if I hadn't had those storm clouds, I would never have gone up through— I wouldn't be on my path of walking through that window. And that walking through that window is really profound and one of the greatest gifts of my life. Right? So it's an important part of it.

Because that's when, um, I don't know if this is on the Kübler-Ross curve or somebody else's. There's a guy called Robert Dilts who has a level of consciousness pyramid, a bit like, um, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but at the top of it is meaning.

Mm-hmm.

So what you're doing there is you're, you're, you're seeing the meaning. You're seeing, seeing the, the, um, yeah, you're seeing the manure that's helped you grow rather than complaining about Sh1T.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's great. Yeah. That fits.

Yeah. Cool. Brilliant conversation. Anything else you'd like to share?

Uh, just I hope people get a chance to read my book when it comes out. Yeah, spring 2024. Who Is a Worthy Mother? An Intimate History of Adoption.

So we'll put some links to your socials, uh, Today or whenever I publish the podcast and then let us know when the book's out and I'll add another link into it. It's taken me about 30 seconds. Nice.

Okay. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for this opportunity and thank you again for creating platform for voices. It's so important.

You're welcome, Becca. I love it. Lots of love. Lots of love, listeners. Love to you, Becca. See you soon. Bye-bye.