“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.” - Bruce Lee Listen Here: https://shows.acast.com/two-lucky-bds/episodes/s1-e19-the-ways-of-water Released on October 10th, 2021 (run time 50m) this episode was the final episode of Season One as we drew to a conclusion our discussions of the book Tree of Strangers. Like every episode in the season, it went all over the place. It started with a discussion about Adoptee Awareness Month (the month of October) and the memes that Lance has been creating as a lead into the month. A new meme is loaded each day on our FaceBook page: www.facebook.com/twoluckybs Technically there is no such thing as Adoptee Awareness Month, but rather the idea for it sprung out of Adoption Awareness Month (which is largely the creation of the adoption industry in the United States to highlight adoption as a way of creating family). Many adopted people around the world decided to reclaim the month as a way of raising awareness of the impacts of adoption. If you are interested in supporting this idea, then you can purchase some great Adoptee Awareness merchandise here: www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/63789779 Or for specific 2021 themed products check them out here: www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/90769601
As the episode continued Sande also reflected on the way that reading the book has helped to change her views of adoption, and to consider some of the positive aspects of it in her life (a view that might be controversial to some). The conversation then moved to the controversial topic, the Adopted Child Syndrome. One academic article which explores this topic can be see here: smith.pdf What follows is a lengthy and robust conversation regards the efficacy of Adopted Child Syndrome, and also the changes that can occur in our personal views of adoption as we reflect on it, do work on it, or explore it in new ways. The episode, which also commemorates one year of the Two Lucky B*#%*@ds podcast, ended as we wrapped up Season One and explored what Season Two will look like. Season two will have a different feel, as we consider some of the big issues of adoption. So stay tuned. Story—sacred and profane—is perhaps the main cohering force in human life. A society is composed of fractious people with different personalities, goals, and agendas. What connects us beyond our kinship ties? Story. Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. Listen Here: https://shows.acast.com/two-lucky-bds/episodes/s1-e18-your-phantom-baby Released on September 24th, 2021 (run time 56m) this episode opened with Lance talking a little about the early stages of his PhD research. He talked about the notion of being an "insider researcher" - that is, someone with intimate knowledge of the subject matter because they are part of the subject community. Lance then shared a bit of his adoption story, as he remembers it and reflects on it all these years later. Sande and Lance then reflect on the differences between their stories, and how each story has helped to shape them and their place in the world. An interesting article on memories can be found here, and not only does it speak to how our subconscious can reshape traumatic memories, but also some ideas about what we can do with memories that might be troubling or unclear: www.psychalive.org/making-sense-of-implicit-memories/ Following on from this, Lance and Sande discuss a poem that Barbara mentions in Chapter 19 of Tree of Strangers, "My Phantom Child" by Emily Long. Lance talks about how he searched for the poem, discovering that it had been written by the author following the loss of a child (still born). The original poem can be found here: www.emilyrlong.com/blog/my-phantom-child Reflecting on the poem, Lance reads his own reimagined version, written from the perspective of an adopted person. His version is entitled "My Phantom Parent" (with thanks to Emily Long for inspiring this rewrite): My Phantom Parent I don’t know what she looks like, but I see her everywhere. I see her with the other mums dropping the kids off to school. I see her in the night time, sleeping in her bed. I see her beside me in the car – some days quiet, her mind a million miles away. Other days talking about her life and asking me about mine. I see her shoes by the door, her things in the bathroom making it her home, her home cooked meals, the aroma in the kitchen as she cooks. Everywhere I look, I see her, she is there. My birth mother. My family. My should be parent. My phantom mum that no one can see but me. She walks with me, every day, this mother of mine who never got to see me grow.. She lives instead in phantom time – the space where life and death combine in flashes and glimpses telling a story of what could have been. I and only I see her life unfold in the mists of phantom time. She is bright. She is beautiful. She is vibrant. Living. Breathing. Laughing. Crying. Existing. In the phantom time. I am the child she did not see but I walk with my mum every day. My phantom mum. As real to me as any other mum. As loved as anyone could ever be. She is mine and I am hers, walking together until we meet again, whenever and wherever that might be, in this life or the next. As the discussion continues, Lance and Sande reflect on reunion. Lance talks about the upcoming TV series by a Russian-born New Zealand adoptee, Alex Gilbert called Reunited (due for release in 2022) www.reunited.co.nz/ In Tree of Strangers Barbara references a UK study into adoption reunions and the varying success-rates for these encounters. Published as Adoption, Search & Reunion : The Long Term Experience of Adopted Adults by David Howe, Julia Feast and Denise Coster (Children's Society (Great Britain) London : Children's Society 2000), the study outlines how many reunion stories end badly. This is detailed in this 2004 Guardian article: www.theguardian.com/society/2004/aug/29/adoptionandfostering.adoption Sande then reflected on her own reunion story and how it eventually broke-down as well. The discussion then turned to inter-country adoptions, and the recent release of a controversial movie called Blue Bayou which has received considerable negative press from the adoption community in the United States for exploiting the adoptive experience for entertainment: www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/justin-chon-s-blue-bayou-faces-backlash-after-accusations-exploiting-n1280255 From there it takes another left-turn as Lance reflects on his adult rereading of P.D. Eastman's book "Are You My Mother," which is, arguably, a reunion story: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRz7srE2K70 and then some discussions about things that can trigger us as adopted people. Lance talks about a Jack Whitehall comedy special and a teeshirt that triggered Lance: "Dave Was Adopted" (shown here in an episode of Coronation Street. The following article, written by an adopting mother, talks about some useful things to do when we are triggered adoption.com/how-to-handle-adoption-triggers
So here's the thing, rejection is a major issue for many people who were adopted. I know that it is something that I battle with most days, and yet I wonder how much of the impact of this ever-present feeling is actually driven by my own insecurities? Let me explain. Two years ago I submitted a poem to the website Dear Adoption dearadoption.com/ which went like this:
Dear Adoption, you suck! You promised to make things better and yet all you do is make them worse. You made me feel worthless. You told me that I am a “complication”. You told me that I was not wanted, that I was a mistake. You have taken so much from me, and you just keep taking. You suck, and I hate you. You make me so angry, because of all that you have robbed from me. You have polluted your life. Your tentacles spread through every part of my life, strangling me. But you won’t win, because I won’t let you. You think you can control me, but you can’t. You think that you can tell me that I am worthless, and yet I am full of worth. You have robbed me of connection and love, and yet I know that I am loved by those who choose to connect with me. You stole who I was, and yet you cannot steal who I have become. I have become strong. I have become fierce. I have become more. And you cannot take that from me. Adoption you suck, but you will never define me. Because I choose hope. But here's the thing, my submission was never acknowledged. I didn't get an email saying "thanks for your submission", or even "thanks but, no thanks." Nothing. Silence. And it hit me hard. I felt those same old feelings of "not being good enough." Worse though, I felt like I had been rejected by the one group who ought to get it - others who were adopted. A year after I submitted the poem I tried again. Another year of silence. Another year of feeling totally rejected. A year of telling myself that I wasn't good enough. Then today I received an email telling me that there had been a major glitch with the email system, and how sorry they were. So, for two years I felt like a reject for no reason. Two years of pain, for no reason at all. As my poem says...Dear Adoption, you suck...because these feelings of rejection and worthlessness are just two of the gifts that you keep giving to me. I freely admit that this is a fairly controversial meme. When we were adopted in the 1950s and 1960s in Aotearoa/New Zealand there was no financial component to the adoption process (other than lawyers fees). The average cost of adoption in New Zealand today is between $10,000-$25,000, and whereas families who choose surrogacy (often called 'rent-a-womb babies') the fees/costs can range between $15,000-$100,000. Both are further examples of the commoditisation of children through these processes.
"When relinquishment is your first experience, your brain wiring changes to accomodate it. This alters how you might handle stress. How you might process the world. It changes you." Barbara Sumner, Tree of Strangers, p 144. Listen Here:
play.acast.com/s/two-lucky-bds/s1-e17-your-limbic-brain-on-relinquishment Released on September 12th, 2021 (run time 1h 2m) this episode considers what arose for each of us as we read and reflected on Chapter 17 "Your Limbic Brain on Relinquishment" and Chapter 18 "Sort of an Orphan." The episode opens with a break-down of the week that has been. Sande reflects on life in lock-down and what it means to live "on-line" and the Lance and Sande reflected on the process of making a submission to the New Zealand Adoption Law Reform. The Social Fabric of the Baby Scoop Era in New Zealand Spring-boarding off the opening of Chapter 17, and the story Barbara tells about what happened when her birth mother's pregnancy was discovered by her maternal grand-parents (and how she was disowned), Sande reflected on the social fabric of the 1950s and 60s and the attitudes towards unwed mothers in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This was a time when things were not spoken about openly (such as infertility or teenage pregnancy). This was well before the introduction of solo-mother benefits, or readily available contraception, or safe abortion practices. It was a time where stigma, shame and secrecy prevailed, particularly when considering sex, fertility and pregnancy outside of marriage. A very different culture to that of today. Sande reflected on the authoritarian nature of society during this time, and the objectification of women that occurred. Rehoming Dax Lance then talked about a story he read about a teenager named Dax in the United States who featured in the news during the week, because after living with their adopted family for seven years the family disowned them for coming out as gay kfor.com/news/a-place-to-call-home/give-me-a-chance-oklahoma-teen-hoping-to-find-a-forever-family-after-seven-year-adoption-ended/ Jean Paton & the Story of Sisyphus In considering how little society has changed, in many ways, Sande considered the story of Sisyphus who was doomed to push a boulder up a hill for eternity. In many ways this is what it is like for society, in that we think we have become more humane - only to find that the focus of hurt and pain pops up elsewhere. Lance then talked about a biography he had been reading about a pioneer US Adoption Reform Advocate, Jean Paton (known as the Mother of Adoption Reform) www.amazon.com/Paton-Struggle-Reform-American-Adoption-ebook/dp/B00ZYLD8OU. Jean Paton believed that adopted people have a choice to make, when considering the adoptive experience; the choice to wallow in the adoptive experience or to reconcile it and to ask 'how do we make sense of this for ourselves?' Lance reflected on the fact that some days the 'boulder' of the adoptive reality is heavy, as he tries to push it up the hill, and other days it isn't. This then led onto a discussion of how some adopted people cannot seem to see beyond the pain of adoption and can feel trapped, and even angry towards those who may have done some of the essential work of reconciling their experience. Catastrophic Thinking In Chapter 17 Barbara touches on the self-destructive behaviour that many adopted people can participate in, (citing the work of Psychologist Paul Sunderland) describing it as 'catastrophic thinking' (p144). More on this, can be found here: www.icaad.com/blog/relinquishment-and-adoption-understanding-the-impact-of-an-early-psychological-wound Paul Sunderland's lecture can be found here: www.icaad.com/videos/relinquishment-and-adoption-understanding-the-impact-of-an-early-psychological-wound The Triad of Loss (actually Four kinds of loss) Sande then reflects on the four kinds of loss that Barbara suggests permeates the adoptive experience. She says "in adoption we talk about the triad of loss. The mother loses her child. The child loses her mother, and the adopters lose the child they might have had. But there is a fourth loss, a different kind that no one speaks of. It is the loss of who I might have been. As a daughter, a mother, a wife, a write. As a women. As myself. A whole life spent attempting and mostly failing to create a coherent self", (p144-145). This then resulted in some lively conversations about how we might respond to the adoptive experience. Baby Moana The conversation then turned to a story in the local media about calls to have a young Maori girl in New Zealand removed from a foster care placement because the foster parents were European www.stuff.co.nz/national/126334548/judge-dismisses-oranga-tamarikis-bid-to-remove-mori-girl-from-pkeh-couple and the anger that has resulted. The argument by members of the tribe related to what happens when Moana tries to reconnect with her culture. Th head of the tribe said that the connections could never be healed. Sande then reflected on what this meant in the adoptive story, and another lively debate about being separated from our culture through adoption. Which led Lance to having a considerable "aha" moment for his own experience. Social (and other) Orphans The last part of the episode focussed on material from Chapter 18, and started with some consideration of the meaning of the word "orphan". The technical definition of an orphan is that one or both parents has to have died. Jean Paton came up with the term "the social orphan" in that adopted people are made orphans through a legal process - in that when we were separated from our first parents we became "social orphans". This is a great example of reconstructing the narrative around adoption. The discussion then continues to consider some of Jean Paton's other beliefs around adoption, including the search for self. The episode concluded with another discussion around the place and role of rituals in our lives. This is another of the memes we created in preparation for Adoptee Awareness Month. In reality all human beings, at some stage of their life asks the question "who am I?" For most people they have a very clear starting point, but for adopted people it isn't that easy. When your past has been erased, it makes finding out "who we are" so much more difficult.
This one has received a lot of positive feedback. Superman has been described as "the greatest adoption story ever told," but then that tag-line was probably created by someone who wasn't adopted. An interesting read around the adoption story of Superman can be found here:
www.damemagazine.com/2015/11/23/superman-greatest-adoption-story-all-time-01/ "From the time of Oedipus, adopted children have wandered through strange lands trying to recover that legendary place other people call Home - the place they started out from" Betty Jean Lifton - "Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness" p127. Listen Here:
https://shows.acast.com/two-lucky-bds/episodes/s1-e16-hear-the-cry-for-home Released on August 29th, 2021 (run time 59m) this episode considered two chapters of Barbara Sumner's amazing book Tree of Strangers - chapter 15 "Hear the Cry for Home" and chapter 16 "Oh so Lucky". Here are some of the things that came out of these chapters for us: Where Home Is Sande started by considering some definitions of home, including "a place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or a household", "a secure place of refuge or sustenance, for moving out from, and returning to." Sande then did some thinking about the 'homing instinct' that animals have, in returning home," because (as Lance points out) animals instinctively 'know where home is.' We then discussed the complicated notion of 'home' for adopted people. Sande talked about the British television series "Location, Location, Location" (which first aired in May 2000), and the fascination people have with the concept of "home" - a concept that is hard for many adopted people to connect with, because often home is linked with 'who we are' and 'where we belong in the world'. From here Sande considered the work of the British author and commentator Karen Armstrong who described how she felt when she felt disconnected from a place to call home. In reflecting on how this was for her she said that in many ways it felt like being a refugee, cut off from a sense of belonging. Sande quotes from one of Karen's books, The Spiral Staircase, where Karen reflects the following: "Looking back, I can see that, during those first few months, I was experiencing something akin to the culture shock of those who, for one reason or another, have been forced to leave homes in Pakistan, Palestine or Zimbabwe; and migrate to a Western country….Exile, is of course, not simply a change of address. It is also a spiritual dislocation. Anthropologists and psychologists tell us that displaced people feel lost in a universe that has suddenly become alien. Once the fixed point of ‘home’ is gone, there is a fundamental lack of orientation that makes everything seem relative and aimless. Cut off from the roots of their culture and identity, migrants and refugees can feel that they are somehow withering away, and becoming insubstantial. their ‘world’ – inextricably linked with their unique place in the cosmos – has literally come to an end." Adopted people, those who are placed for adoption at birth (or in the early years of life), have been removed (without consent) from their 'source of being' in the world. As such we can feel disconnected and cut-off, in the same way that refugees can feel cut off from their place of being in the world - their homeland. This led on to some consideration about how we (as adopted people) can make a "home" for ourselves through internal practices or by developing rituals that can ground us in our place in the world. Because, as Sande says, "home is connected to self." Sande reinforced the need to develop a 'spiritual' connection to home, rather than a reliance on a 'physical' place. The Source of Suffering From here the conversation turned to the 'source of suffering.' Sande talked about the idea that, every so often in life, we need to "throw the book at the wall" and consider things in new ways - including why we suffer. As adopted people it is easy to feel that being adopted is proof that there is something wrong with us. It is easy to feel that it reinforces our lack of worth. None of which is true, because in the process of adoption, the person who is adopted rarely has a say. Adoption is something that is done to us, rather than something that we willingly participate in. Risky Behaviours In the second half of the episode Lance considered the potential of harm that might befall adopted people from others who show us attention and acceptance (which we desire) and then potentially leads to harm when they let us down or prey on our vulnerability. As such adopted people can experience hyper-vigilance, which is a state of heightened alertness accompanied by behaviour that aims to prevent danger (check out this article about that www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319289). We might constantly question others motives, or be on the lookout for signs that others will let us down. This can become taxing and exhausting, and can result in relationships being marred or sabotaged. The conversation then turned to the impact of 'adoption issues' in relationships, and how these issues can negatively impact other areas of our life. Being Lucky The episode concluded with a discussion around the "L" word - the word "lucky," and the very real sense that many adopted people have in feeling that they need to be grateful for their adoptive experience. The flip side of this, of course, is when adopted people do things that other perceive as being ungrateful - such as searching for birth families - and how this can often be viewed by others as showing a lack of gratitude. "We are but a speck in the Universe. Oh, but what a lucky speck to be" Kehinde Sonola Listen Here:
https://shows.acast.com/two-lucky-bds/episodes/s1-e15-the-cosmology-of-adoption Released on August 15th 2021 (run time 47m) this episode opened with Sande and Lance reflecting on the weeks that have passed since episode 14 went live. Sande talked about the loss of Kali, her amazing Labrador companion - and they reflected on the place pets can play in healing trauma. Lance mentioned that lots has been written about the positive impact of pets. Here are two examples: A book entitled Transforming trauma : resilience and healing through our connections with animals docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1045&context=purduepress_ebooks An article Spotlight on the psychological basis of childhood pet attachment and its implications www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6610550/ [Note: the opinions in the article and/or the book may differ from our views or yours. Read them with care and see where they sit with you]. Following on from this Sande and Lance dived into the following topics: What is Cosmology Sande dove into some discussion around the title of the chapter "A Cosmological View of Time" and what that might mean. In the purest form the study of cosmology is "is a branch of astronomy concerned with the study of the chronology of the universe." It deals with the origin stories of the universe. We then had some discussions around our own origin stories as adoptees, and even the language that we use. The Narrative & Language of Adoption This led onto some discussions around "the language of adoption," its origins and where some of the key words and phrases in the adoptive experience come from. Lance referred to an article written by a leading adoption social worker in 1979 which helped to shape the language of adoption that we use today. The article can be viewed here: spencer_the_terminology_of_adoption.pdf. Many of the terms that are used today, e.g., "birth parent" comes from the work of Spencer, who wanted to differentiate between that mother who 'relinquished the child' and the real mother. Three different forms of language have arisen over the years, with their own corresponding adoption terms: positive (or respectful) adoption language [developed largely by the adoption industry], honest adoption language [developed by those who are opposed to the adoption industry], and inclusive adoption language [developed as an alternative to the two former sets of terms]. The Importance of Our Own Myth Making After thinking about the language of adoption, Sande considered the impact of language and our own myth making. Which led onto a discussion fo the work of Sharon Blackie, Weaving the threads of our personal myths sharonblackie.net/weaving-the-threads-of-our-personal-myths/ and James Hollis (quoted in Sharon's blogpost). Sande talked about how, as adopted people, it is important to find language that we can use to describe our own reality. Another term was then introduced: linguistic reappropriation. This is where a previously negative term (or a term of derision) is turned into a word of empowerment by the group for whom it was a slur. The name of our podcast is a great example of this - taking the term "bastard" and owning it rather than being labelled by it. A useful article around the concept of linguistic reappropriation can be found here: www8.gsb.columbia.edu/cbs-directory/sites/cbs-directory/files/publications/Reappropriation%20Psych%20Science.pdf Back to Kali Which brought the conversation back to the role of pets in our lives, and the way that (for adopted people) pets can play significant roles as healers from the separation trauma that has occurred for us. Sande also spoke of the role of reflecting on the loss of her dog, and the way this reminder her of other losses in her life, including the loss of her mother. She then referenced another helpful resource from Jung and Play Rewriting your myth by Mary Alice Long www.goodtherapy.org/blog/jung-writing-personal-myth/ How we Project ourselves into the World The episode ended with some discussion about how we project ourselves into the world, and how often our adoption issues impact the way we engage with others, or how we respond to them. Sometimes we are more sensitive than we might need to be, or are more guarded, or push people away in order to "not get hurt". And yet many of these behaviours are unhelpful to us. Another link that may be helpful Following the death of Kali the Labrador Sande wrote blog entitled In Praise of Kali, which is Sande’s reflection on how Kali the Labrador’s life, disability and death has helped heal her primal wound. You can check it out here: spiritedcrone.co.nz/in-praise-of-kali/ |
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